The Infinity Program

by Richard H Hardy

  The bell rang on Jon’s microwave, interrupting his thoughts. He got up and poured himself another coffee. When he left for work shortly after six-thirty a.m., Jon was wired from all the caffeine. Every time he came to a stoplight he drummed his fingers nervously on the wheel. His plans for the day had him more than a little uptight.

  At work Jon paced up and down in his office, rehearsing the speech he was preparing for Ted Blume. Even though the main points would be passed off as originating from Harry, he was nervous about coming across as too demanding. He had to make his points without giving Ted the impression he had an inflated sense of entitlement or that he was putting the squeeze on him.

  Shortly after eight a.m., Ted Blume knocked on the door and entered Jon’s office, his face full of hope.

  “How did it go with Harry last night?” he asked.

  Jon shrugged. “To use a tired out phrase, there’s good news and bad news.”

  “Tell me the bad news first,” said Ted quickly.

  “He doesn’t think the decryption project is doable with the current setup.”

  Ted’s features crumpled as he sank into the nearest available chair.

  “Not doable,” he echoed as he slouched down into the cushions, a picture of woe. “What’s the good news?”

  “He thinks it would be doable if there was a complete reorganization of the work flow.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He needs an assistant.”

  “An assistant?” Ted shouted and threw up his hands. “Harry can’t work with anyone. He hates everybody.”

  “He wants me to be his assistant,” said Jon.

  Ted sat up straighter in his chair but still looked puzzled.

  “Harry thinks I could do a lot of the preliminary work—research and organization, that sort of thing. But mostly he wants me to act as a go-between with the Pentagon’s IT staff. He says he absolutely cannot work with those people.”

  “Cannot or will not?” said Ted.

  “Well, it amounts to the same thing.”

  “True enough,” said Ted with a curt nod. “But if you work with Harry on the programming side, who’ll do documentation?”

  Jon swallowed nervously. This part of the plan was entirely his idea, but Harry had said he didn’t mind if Jon attributed it to him.

  “Harry wants Lettie to handle the documentation.”

  Ted put his hand to his chin and remained silent.

  “Putting Lettie back in charge of the documentation might make the Pentagon people happy. I get the feeling they don’t like the way I’m handling it,” Jon added.

  “This really changes things around,” said Ted, thinking aloud. “John Balis is the one who set up the current working arrangement. He can be kind of touchy sometimes.”

  Once again Ted sat in silence. Jon could almost see the wheels turning and decided it was a good time to broach the last piece of Harry’s reorganization plan.

  “There’s something else Harry says he needs. A different office.”

  “What? We offered him a bigger, better office just a little while ago and he turned us down cold. Is he nuts?”

  “It’s not just any office he’s interested in. He wants Doug Sanderson’s old office.”

  “Sanderson’s office?” Ted shouted. “That’s in the fucking basement.”

  “Harry said the office has been empty for years. They closed all the offices down there when Sanderson died.

  “It’s just a storage area now. Why would anyone in their right mind want an office down in the basement when they could get a prime office like we offered?”

  “Harry wants it because it’s out of the way,” Jon replied.

  “It certainly is,” Ted said, shaking his head and pursing his lips in a moue of disgust. “That guy has always been such a pain in the ass. One set of rules for him and another for everybody else.”

  “One more thing,” Jon said. “He wants my office down in the basement nearby. That would make it easier for us to collaborate.”

  Ted’s eyes seemed to bug out, almost as though he had a thyroid problem.

  “What do you think of that?” Ted asked. “You’ve got one of the nicest offices right now. It has a great view. How do you feel about moving down to a damp little basement room with no windows?”

  Jon had not anticipated the question. He paused before saying, in a flat, neutral voice, “I guess my attitude is, if it helps us get the job done, it’s okay with me. Lettie could have her old office back. I’m sure that would make her happy. Harry says we really need her onboard.”

  Ted sat in silence, twiddling his thumbs and mulling over what Jon had just told him.

  “Suppose we make all the changes Harry wants,” he said finally. “What does that buy us?”

  Jon handed him the Pentagon wish list with the time estimates Harry had written in. Ted studied the list carefully, moving his mouth as though chewing on something.

  “A twelve week turnaround time,” he said at last. “Pretty impressive, all things considered. I’ll have to run all this by John Balis, of course. I honestly can’t predict his reaction. I wouldn’t blame him if he was royally pissed off. He’ll probably have to run it by the old man. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  As soon as Ted Blume was gone, Jon sank back in his chair and took a deep breath. All things considered, the meeting hadn’t gone too badly. He’d been able to make all the main points. His one concern was his case for Lettie getting her old office back. He hoped he had presented it strongly enough.

  Jon replayed his meeting with Ted Blume throughout the day. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced his presentation was inadequate. Supposing it all fell through and Harry could not get the arrangements he wanted? Jon knew this kind of second-guessing was useless, but he couldn’t stop the various what-if scenarios from springing to mind, especially in relation to Lettie.

  Late in the afternoon someone knocked on his door with the strength of a battering ram. Before he could respond, it flew open with such force that it banged against the wall. Jon’s heart sank at the sight of Eric Meyers.

  Meyers stood, arms akimbo, in the doorway, posing like Superman about to defend truth, justice, and the American way. He brandished a sheaf of paper in his right hand. His eyes were lit up and there was a self-satisfied smile on his face.

  “Can I ask a question about your OS document?” he asked in a mocking, sing-song. Jon knew he was in for it. Before he could answer, Eric Meyers crossed the room and lay the OS document down on Jon’s desk. “On page fourteen,” he said, “there is a reference to a Josephson function. Could you be so kind as to explain exactly what a Josephson function is?”

  “That’s a typo,” said Jon. “It should read ‘Josephson junction.’ ”

  “A typo?” said Meyers in a deceptively soft voice. “Is that the same thing as a bone-headed mistake?”

  Jon did not reply and the tension between the two men escalated.

  “You may think it’s just a fucking typo,” he said, “but from where I’m sitting it destroys the whole integrity of the document. How many more typos are lurking in this confused mess you call an OS? It makes me wonder just how much you fudged it.”

  Jon could see past Eric into the hallway. Two women passing by had stopped to listen in on the tirade.

  “Lettie Olsen would never try to pass off a piece of shit like this,” Meyers shouted.

  Jon looked at him coldly. His fists were clutched so tightly his finger nails cut into the palms of his hands. “I’ve already corrected the typo. I’ll make substantive changes, too, if you have any concrete suggestions.”

  “Concrete suggestions?” Meyers repeated in a mocking voice. “The only concrete I can see around here is in your head!”

  Before Jon could even try to make a come-back, Eric Meyers did an about-face and stormed out of the office, nearly colliding with the two women in the hallway.

  Jon sat in stunned disbelief. When he saw that the women
were still looking in at him, he got up and closed his office door. He sat back in his chair and looked at the page Eric Meyers had placed on his desk. There was a big red circle around the typo and, next to that, three red exclamation marks. Jon picked it up and angrily wadded it into a ball before flinging it across the room.

  “That son-of-a-bitch,” he shouted.

  Jon could not put the incident out of his mind. Meyers had succeeded in getting under his skin. He circled his desk like a caged tiger, clenching and unclenching his fists and muttering profanities.

  There was a tap on the door. Ted Blume walked into the office and cocked his head.

  “Are you okay, Jon? Your face is beet red.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Eric Meyers just paid me a visit.”

  Jon gave him a brief summary of the encounter. Ted was extremely sympathetic and supportive.

  “No doubt about it, the guy’s a complete bastard. He seems to think you have to beat on someone just to get their attention. He almost came to real blows with Harry once. I had to step in to break it up.” Ted smiled and shook his head at the memory.

  “I’ll bet Harry took care of himself,” said Jon.

  “Oh, he did! He did!” Ted was laughing so hard that his enormous belly began to jiggle. “I’d never seen anyone get underneath Meyers skin like that, but Meyers was just about frothing at the mouth. It was one time I was definitely rooting for Harry.”

  Then Ted turned the conversation in another direction.

  “Speaking of getting your ass kicked, Balis really let me have it this morning and then again in the afternoon when I checked back with him. He was not a happy camper. But the bottom line is that they approved all of Harry’s requests … with one stipulation. Harry’s estimate is for twelve weeks. He says they need all the work done within ten weeks. Do you think that’s doable?”

  “Yes,” said Jon. “I know Harry was being a little cautious on the estimate. If we have to put in a lot of overtime, so be it.”

  “I guess we’re on a roll,” said Ted. “Balis has already given orders to the maintenance people to clean out Sanderson’s old basement office and the one next to it. The plan is to have everything ready by Monday morning.”

  Jon thanked Ted and apologized for putting him on the spot with John Balis.

  “No problem,” Ted said as he rose with some difficulty to his feet. “Good luck with the new arrangement.”

  After Ted left, Jon walked to Harry’s office and told him the good news. “They couldn’t turn you down,” Jon said, buoyed by his success.

  “Uh-huh,” Harry answered. He was turned toward his monitor, paging down through a maze of code.

  “How’s phase one coming?” Jon asked.

  Harry looked up. “That’s done,” he said. “I’ve already launched them. I’m working on phase two now. I should have that ready by late tonight.”

  “You’re not going to pull another all-nighter, are you?”

  Harry didn’t answer. His attention was back on the screen.

  “I’ll see you in the new offices on Monday,” said Jon.

  Harry was lost in the code.

  As Jon made his way toward the parking lot, he could drum up none of the usual exhilaration he felt at the beginning of a weekend. He could not help but wonder what had been set in motion. The title of a Huxley book kept running through his mind, Brave New World. What kind of brave new world would be created out of the ashes of the old?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The rogue whaling ship Mjollnir was almost exactly three hundred kilometers due west of Vancouver Island when the pint-sized sailor in the ship’s crow’s nest spotted the watery plume of a humpback whale. Grabbing the radio phone, he barked out the required course change to the helmsman. Seconds later the Mjollnir swung hard about, accelerating fast to intercept the unlucky humpback. A general alert was sounded and within four minutes the deck of the ship was swarming with sailors ready for action. A large bear of a man, with shoulders near a yard across, mounted the huge whaling gun on the bow of the ship and readied it for operation.

  The Pacific waters were as smooth as a mirror and the whaling ship skimmed across them at twenty-two knots. The sailor in the crow’s nest looked down with a smug smile lifting his sharp little features. His 5’4” form and crafty little face prematurely aged by sun and cigarettes had earned him the nickname “Elf.” Elf lit a cigarette and held the binoculars up to his eyes again. Fifteen minutes later, the humpback whale broke the still surface of the water. Elf smiled in satisfaction. The bearing he had called was dead-on. Once again, he spoke sharply into the radio-phone, updating the first mate with the course and heading. As the humpback slipped beneath the surface of the sea, Elf smiled. The next time the beast surfaced, they’d have him.

  Suddenly the whole ship lurched. It was as though Neptune himself had grabbed it from behind and was dragging it down into the depths. The men on the deck were scattered like bowling pins. Experienced seamen all, they grabbed onto whatever they could and held on for dear life.

  Whatever had grabbed onto them was not done yet. The twenty-ton whaling boat was spun out of its path and knocked onto a new course almost exactly perpendicular to the path it had been traveling. The captain of the ship stormed out of his quarters and made a bee-line to the helm.

  “What the hell is going on!” he screamed.

  The helmsman was slow to answer. He was too busy trying to right their course.

  “I said, what the hell is going on,” he screamed in the ear of the helmsman.

  “We’ve lost power, sir. I think we’ve got a bent rudder post and a broken prop.”

  A half hour later the ship’s crew confirmed the helmsman’s assessment. The most able swimmer had plunged into the waters behind the ship to check things out.

  “It’s like the rudder post and the prop were sheared off by a giant bolt cutter,” said the crewman, dripping wet and shivering from his swim.

  The captain’s normally handsome features were distorted by rage and frustration. Here they were, adrift, three hundred kilometers from land. He hoped they would be towed by one of their own ships before the American Coast Guard spotted him.

  ***

  José Lacerda parked his Jeep in a clearing and walked a short ways into the rainforest, followed by his crew of five men. Each of them carried a chain saw and a five gallon can of gasoline. If all went well, they would start a controlled burn on the four hundred acre corner of the Martinez estate, cleared for grass and cattle. José Lacerda held up his hand to stop his crew. He was a solid, middle-aged man with a thick head of black hair and eight children at home. One—the fifteen-year-old—was a member of his crew. He took off his wide-brimmed hat and wiped the sweat from his broad forehead.

  It was a perfect day for a burn. The humidity was high and there was virtually no wind. They would make their careful cuts to segregate the area to be burned from the deeper rainforest. Once they started the burn, the four hundred acres of rainforest that abutted the Martinez estate would be reduced to ashes and thus excellent grazing land. All the grazing land on the estate had been fashioned this way.

  Putting his hat back on, José lit a cigarette and carefully surveyed the path ahead. When he spotted a good place to begin, an area slightly less dense than the surrounding tropical rainforest, he barked out a terse set of orders to his crew.

  The five workers put down the gasoline cans and moved into the area José had indicated. They spread out in a line, each one approximately forty yards distant from his nearest neighbor. Almost in unison, they started up their chainsaws and approached the first trees to be cut.

  José watched his crew with casual interest. It was a familiar scene, and he expected the men, including his son, to do their usual first-rate job. After all, they were all lucky to be employed by a generous man like Señor Martinez.

  José blinked in disbelief at the sight of a swarm of black flies, appearing out of nowhere. Looking up and down the line of his crew, he saw that these
black flies surrounded each of the men. Within seconds, the high-pitched whine of the chainsaws died, one by one, before so much as a single tree trunk had been touched.

  José didn’t have to speak up. The men all knew their jobs and immediately knelt to restart the chain saws. He could hear them grunt and strain as they pulled the starter cords again and again. But the machines were dead, every damned one of them.

  He was completely baffled. How could five chainsaws all die at exactly the same time? He stood there gaping, at a complete loss.

  He was suddenly gripped by anxiety and apprehension. Señor Martinez could be very generous when things went his way, but he was not one to forgive failure. José sorted through his options and came to a decision. The chainsaws allowed the burn to be made surgically, from one designated point to another. If he just used the gasoline, perhaps a few hundred more acres would be burned, but they were all destined to burn sooner or later.

  In a harsh voice, he shouted orders to the men. They jumped quickly when they heard the edge in his voice. They too knew the price of failure.

  The men spilled the gasoline out on the ground just beyond the thinly wooded area where they had tried to cut a fire-break. Almost as a man, they turned toward José after the gasoline had been dumped.

  José brought his hand down in a sharp chopping motion as a signal to proceed. Matches in hand, the men ventured forth. Forty yards distant from them, José could see their matches flare. A grim smile of satisfaction came to his face, but it was quickly replaced by a frown when he saw that, once tossed to the ground, the matches had no effect.

  He ran forward to the nearest man and angrily pushed him aside. He reached into his pocket and took out a small stainless steel cigarette lighter. As he knelt to the ground, he saw that it was swarming with minute bugs he didn’t recognize. He paid no attention. The jungle was full of bugs, more kinds than he could name.

  When he spun the wheel on his lighter, nothing happened, not even a spark. He tried again and again but his lighter refused to do its job. This puzzled him, because he had used it to light a cigarette minutes before.