by Mark Joseph
“And you? How are you?” Doc asked.
“It ain’t the end of the world, y’know,” Judd said. “Just the end of a lot of software that was already dead but didn’t know it.”
“You got that right, pal.”
On television the same reporter from Berlin was still standing in Freidrichstrasse in a pool of light generated by the network truck. The hiss and boom of fireworks peppered his commentary as he breathlessly described the bedlam around him.
“People just don’t know what to do. Berlin is always rowdy on New Year’s Eve. People fire off illegal fireworks and illegal firearms, but I think just now everyone who was hoarding firecrackers has set them off. The noise is deafening. People are running—I don’t know to or from what—and I have no idea of the situation beyond what I can actually see, which isn’t much. I understand the phones are working in some places and not in others. Apparently, the power outage occurred because the old power plants in the sector that was once East Berlin went down only a few seconds after midnight. I’ve been told the software in the computers in those old plants was pirated American software, but I can’t verify that. Communications are very, very bad right now. This is Alexis Kosigian, reporting for CNN from Berlin.”
The network went to a commercial for United Airlines, which Doc thought ironic since not a single United plane was in the air. Judd flipped to CBS, and a shot of the vast plaza in front of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome filled the screen. Hundreds of thousands held candles in a moment of silent prayer. A light rain was falling on Vatican City, and the people were bundled up against the cold. A tremendous feeling of deep spirituality welled up from the television, and for once the commentator was quiet. After the chaos of Berlin, the silence was sobering.
The camera slowly panned up the façade of Saint Peter’s to the balcony. Pope John Paul II, adorned in white vestments and surrounded by cardinals in red, approached the rostrum. Swiss Guards stood hard by, pikes in hand, ready to protect His Holiness from harm.
The director cut to a close-up as the Pope raised his arms to deliver a benediction in Italian with a disembodied voiceover in English.
“As we enter the Third Millennium of the Christian era…”
John Paul II suddenly dropped his arms with a quizzical look on his face. Behind him, one of the cardinals fell backward, clutching his throat. Shouts tumbled from the balcony and the voice of the commentator burst from the speakers.
“There’s a sudden commotion on the balcony of Saint Peter’s, ladies and gentlemen, and I don’t know exactly what happened. Just a moment, I’m hearing from the pool reporter on the balcony that Cardinal De Lignière of France has been shot. He was standing just behind John Paul and slightly to the right. I’m assuming that someone has tried to assassinate the Pope and missed. I didn’t hear a shot. I don’t think anyone heard a shot. This is a terrible, terrible thing that’s happened here in Rome. Now medical people are bending over the cardinal and His Holiness is administering the last rites. This has all happened in a matter of seconds. From the pool reporter I’m hearing the cardinal is dead. Cardinal De Lignière of Lyons is dead. The front of the balcony is obscured by a line of Swiss Guards…”
“Holy shit,” Judd exclaimed. “I can’t fucking believe it.”
Carolyn and Ronnie came running from across the room. “What happened? What happened?”
“Somebody took a shot at the Pope,” Judd said.
“Jesus,” Carolyn said, shaking her head in horrified wonder.
“They missed. They killed somebody else.”
“Change the channel,” Doc suggested. “Maybe somebody else knows more.”
Judd flipped through the channels, almost all of which had instantly gone to Rome.
“Over a billion people have seen this on television…”
“One of the tightest security systems in the world seems to have been penetrated…”
“Of all the unexpected things on a momentous day…”
“The Pope is struggling with the Swiss Guards…”
“People are looking up at the roofs of the buildings on the far side of the square…”
Bo walked in, looked at the TV for a few seconds, shook his head, and went back to his screens.
Doc’s cellphone rang and he answered.
“Doc? This is Jody Maxwell. Where are you? I need to talk to you.”
“Where are you, Jody?”
“I’m standing outside your office.”
“I’ll be right there.”
12
Jody was sitting on the corridor floor, a puddle of woe, blowing a defiant plume of menthol at the smoke detector.
“There she is,” Doc quipped. “Ms. Tough As Nails.”
“Hi, Doc.”
Her voice was small but vibrant, laden with emotions almost out of control. In the distance, barely audible, a clarinet solo from Battery Park cut through the night, echoing a mournful song of the city.
He squatted down beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You look like you could use a drink.”
“You know,” she said, lapsing into the nasal Long Island accent of her childhood, “I like my job. I wanted this job. This place is crazy, but I like it here. Donald is an asshole, but he’s our asshole, you know what I mean? I can tell him when he’s full of shit, which is every day. If I did that with any other boss in this town, I’d be fired. And you, you’re not like anybody I ever met. You’re—I don’t know what, but you make this place human.” She crushed her cigarette into the carpet, lit another and asked, “Am I going to have a job on Tuesday morning?”
“Sure. Why do you ask?”
“Will this company even exist? People are freezing in Warsaw. My grandfather came from Warsaw. What I’m trying to say is that the world may not exist.”
“Hey,” Doc said, “a fella just told me it’s not the end of the world, it just seems that way. Look on the bright side. It can only happen once, like bubonic plague. It either kills you, or you’re immune.”
“You’re such a joker, always with the smart remark.”
“That bother you?”
“No, I s’pose not.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” he said. “Folks are gonna need a few jokes tomorrow. People can be amazingly inventive during a crisis. That’s how computers got invented in the first place, during the Second World War, and what’s happening today is a war. Wars end. Even the Hundred Years War ended. France won. England lost.”
Doc wagged his eyebrows and grinned.
“I didn’t sign up for a war,” she said.
“Nobody did, but we got one anyway. Heard the latest?” Doc asked. “Someone tried to kill the Pope.”
She gasped. “No. Where? In Rome?”
“In Saint Peter’s Square with a million people assembled for a millennium service and half the world watching on TV. The half that still has TV.”
“Is he all right?”
“Yeah, but someone else was killed. A cardinal.”
“Oh, Christ, just what the world needs today. Why?”
“We’ll probably never know. C’mon.” He helped her to her feet, unlocked the door to his office, went directly to the liquor cabinet and poured her a vodka.
“Thanks.”
“Have a seat.”
“Thanks.”
“You said you needed to talk, Jody, so what’s on your mind? The big world crisis or something else?”
“Something else.”
“Yeah?”
“Donald. And you.”
Doc raised his eyebrows and waited. She sighed and fidgeted, biting her lip and swirling her drink, ritually enacting the physical clichés of one compelled to say something unpleasant. Finally she blurted. “Are you trying to rob Chase Manhattan?”
He cracked up, laughing long and loud, the hilarity giving him a moment of welcome relief.
“What makes you ask that?” he asked.
Jody recounted her adventures with Copeland in Brooklyn, and Doc li
stened with a twinkle in his eye. When she finished, he asked, “Do you really think I’d rob the bank?”
“No, but you’re kind of a mystery, Doc. You’ve got your secret room and those weird people—everybody knows about it, but nobody knows what you do in there. Donald thinks you’re robbing the bank, and this morning I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I swear.”
He liked her. It occurred to him that he might like her a lot, but he’d had no time for lust, let alone romance. She sipped her drink, and he hesitated before deciding not to have one with her.
“To answer your question, there is no robbery,” he said. “It was all a game I played with Donnie, only he took it seriously. I tricked him, and I’ve been doing it for years.” He told her how the idea of robbing the bank had evolved, and how Copeland had been fooled into believing the robbery was actually going to come off.
“So it’s only a game?” Jody said, wanting to believe him. “A mind fuck?”
“Correctamento. It’s payback for Donnie’s greed, that’s all. There is no robbery and never was.”
“You mean you set it up so His Donaldness would get his comeuppance?”
“Yep. It’s all in fun and harmless, a practical joke.”
“You dog.”
“Yep.”
“I love it.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I rather like it myself. Today I sent him on a wild goose chase just to keep him out of my hair. He should be home any time now.”
“You’re sure he’ll go there?”
“Oh, yes. No doubt.”
“Then where will you send him?”
“That’s a secret,” Doc answered with another chuckle, and she laughed with him.
He stopped laughing and decided to have one vodka after all. He poured himself a shot over ice and looked at her. Her fancy business suit was stained and wrinkled. The stress of living through a calamitous day showed all over her round and pretty face with the nose straightened by expensive cosmetic surgery and big eyes a little red. She was exhausted and running on adrenaline.
“Do you have somewhere to go tonight? A party?” he asked.
“I’m not going. My sister’s having a party, but I’m not in a party mood.”
“Where’s that?”
“Long Island. Garden City.”
“Hard to get there, anyway,” Doc said.
“I couldn’t even get through on the phone.”
He leaned closer to her and quietly asked, “Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. The world’s a mess and our turn is coming.”
“If you stay here, you’ll be safe. We have a generator in the basement.”
“I know. That’s why I came back here. Do you think we’ll need it?”
Doc shrugged. “Nobody can say. Good engineers always plan for failure, you know. Nobody knows more about electric power than the people who make it work. They’re doing the best they can.”
“Come off it, Doc. I know bullshit when I hear it.”
“It’s not bullshit, it’s true. They’re trying—people all over the world are trying, but no one has ever experienced anything like this. This is a unique event.”
“Donald said he knew this was coming.”
“He did, and since you work here and you’re smart, you did, too. You just didn’t want to believe it. The entire world has been living in a state of denial.”
“There just isn’t anything anyone can do about it. I feel so helpless and I hate that.”
Helpless. Doc could understand that. People often felt helpless when confronted with computers because the complexity was beyond their ken. The individual machines were complex and the way they were connected was more complex, and that made people feel impotent and defenseless.
Doc had established the Midnight Club in order to show the world that people were not helpless, that fighting even in a losing cause can raise the spirit and proclaim hope as a viable alternative to surrender. Sooner or later the world had to know about the attempt, win or lose. Someone had to know the truth. At least one person outside the Midnight Club had to see and believe that not everyone was helpless. Right there and then he elected Jody.
“Well,” he said, “maybe something can be done about it.”
“What? Wave a magic wand? I wish.”
“Suppose,” he said, “suppose I told you that a few minutes after midnight, New York was going to black out along with the rest of the Northeast grid. Everything from Virginia to Maine and east to Ohio was going down, without a doubt.”
“After everything else that’s happened today, I’d believe you.”
“It might happen, it might not, nobody really knows, but some of it is certain to happen. Now, suppose there was a way to keep the lights on in Manhattan no matter what happens anywhere else.”
“That would be a miracle.”
“No miracles, but people sometimes try to do the impossible just for the hell of it. How’d you like to visit the mysterious secret room?”
“No,” she said. “Really?”
“C’mon.”
He led her toward the rear of the building, through the conventional computer lab, and stopped between the two sets of security doors to call Bo on an intercom.
“I’m bringing in a visitor.”
“You’re what? Are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t get excited. We need a witness.”
“For what?”
“Posterity, Bo. Mere Posterity.”
“We have cameras and recorders all over the place. Who is this person?”
“A Copeland employee, Jody Maxwell. Relax. We’re coming in now.”
Doc unlocked the last door and ushered Jody into the lounge. With no idea what to expect, she stood inside the entrance, slack-jawed, wide-eyed and blinking at a 42-inch TV surrounded by comfortable chairs and sofas resting on Persian carpets. On one side, doors led to a bathroom, kitchen and bedroom, and low partitions separated the lounge from the work space. Clocks were everywhere, old clocks, new clocks, digital and analog, large and small. It was 6:30. High on one wall a series of 24 digital clocks displayed every time zone, and beneath them the IBM, air conditioner and telephone switching station were connected to the workstations by color-coded cables and conduit pipes suspended from the ceiling.
The Midnight Club assembled nervously in the lounge, unused to strangers in their midst. Bo folded his arms across his chest in a posture of distaste, but the others didn’t appear upset, just surprised.
Doc provided the introductions. “This is Bo, this is Carolyn, that’s Ronnie in the hardhat, and Judd is the guy in the Midnight Club T-shirt. That’s Adrian over there in the motorman’s uniform. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jody Maxwell. I’m sure you’ve seen her around. Jody is going to operate the video cameras and record what happens here tonight. We’ll be too busy, and I thought we could use some help.”
“Hello,” Jody squeaked, trying to maintain her composure. “My God, I had no idea.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Doc said. “We’ve maintained tight security for a long time.”
An awkward silence persisted until Ronnie said, “We’ve never had a visitor before. It’s weird.”
Carolyn got over her shock at the intrusion and offered her hand. “Hi, Jody. I guess we’re as surprised as you are. Looks like you’ve had a hard day.”
Dazed, Jody shook Carolyn’s hand, her head swiveling as she tried to understand the meaning of dozens of screens, the big computer, and the industrial-strength pile of technology she recognized as a telephone installation.
“You’re the public relations director, aren’t you?” Bo asked.
“That’s right.”
“Oh, that’s just great. Real good, Doc. How the hell is she going to even understand what we’re going to do?”
“I can write COBOL,” Jody blurted. “I’m an ex-nerd.”
“You’re shitting me,” Bo sputtered.
>
“Do I have to prove it?”
Watching this exchange, Doc applauded silently as Jody held her own, and loudly clapped his hands when Bo shrugged and relented.
“You’re the chief geek, Doc,” Bo said, offering his hand to Jody. “Welcome to the Midnight Club.”
“Thanks.”
“I haven’t told her anything yet,” Doc explained. “What we’re going to try to do, Jody, is maintain Manhattan as a viable dwelling place, just in case a total breakdown threatens the city.”
“My God,” was all Jody could mumble.
“I must emphasize try,” Doc continued, “because we have no idea if our system is gonna work. All we’ve done is replace hardware and software with other hardware and software. We can’t replace embedded chips. At best, we have a bare-bones system to maintain a minimum of electric power, water, telephone service, and transport, but there are vulnerabilities and weaknesses beyond our control. In some cases, we’ve alerted the responsible authorities as to where the vulnerable systems are, and they’ve made the corrections without knowing the source of their information. On a few occasions, we broke into facilities and made the fixes ourselves, but we didn’t do too much of that. We didn’t want to get caught, as you can understand.”
Jody stared wide-eyed at him and at everything in the room. “This is incredible,” she stammered. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Carolyn, why don’t you give Jody a tour and make her feel comfortable?”
Jody shook hands with Ronnie and Judd, and then, awestruck, moved from cubicle to cubicle and listened to Carolyn’s description of the system.
Adrian grunted when introduced and kept his eyes on his screens.
“Adrian’s workstation is a replica of an operations control station at the MTA’s dispatch command center on Jay Street in Brooklyn,” Carolyn said. “The center is supposed to be certified Y2K compliant, but Adrian has his doubts. Don’t you, Adrian?”
Another grunt. Over the last couple of years Jody had caught glimpses of Adrian in the neighborhood and thought he was a bicycle messenger. His motorman’s cap covered his hair, which this week was bright red.
“We love Adrian,” Carolyn said, rolling her eyes and continuing her explanation. “Adrian is going to keep the subway running if the MTA can’t. It’s a very difficult situation to assess, you see. Railroads are leery of computers, with good reason, but events in Asia and Europe have proved they’re vulnerable. On the other hand, the MTA has been onto Y2K since early in the game. If any system anywhere has a chance of making it, it’s the New York City subway.”
