Once his mug was full, I thought it best to give him some advice.
"Look, Patrick, sometimes it can get quite hectic in there, especially during morning shift. After roughly twenty minutes, you should get out of there. Take a coffee break, a cigarette break, whatever, but get out for five minutes. Staying in front of those screens for eight hours is a good way to catch an ulcer, square eyes and brain strain."
Sometimes, it seems to me that we work a bit like football players. They sprint for a short while until they pass the ball on, then rest before they receive the ball and sprint again.
Problems we cannot handle ourselves, we passed onto more qualified personnel, then we waited for more to occur. It was a stop-start kind of job, and some days nothing happened. Other days, everything broke down, and we had our hands full. During the lulls, we cannot do anything else; we have to be ready, immediately, to get into gear. Well, that was not strictly true. At night and during the weekends, with a lesser traffic density, problems tend not to elicit the importance of rush hour traffic. At those times, a book, or a hobby were essential to keep away waves of fatigue, innate to our changing schedules. That was another reason for the ubiquitous coffee machines. Without them, the only response to phone calls at night would be loud snores.
The TMC was often called the asylum because of our antics. However, it was more usually known as the aquarium. It was a closed room with large panels of glass on one side, going onto the Support area. The other side of that area's desks were real windows, overlooking the sunken parking lot. In the distance, the view of a luscious dark green forest helped to dispel the self-induced portrait we had of ourselves: nocturnal rats occasionally let out for fresh air and exercise.
After a glass of water on Patrick's part, and a cigarette with a second coffee on my part, we got back to work. I quickly checked for new problems, but so far, it was a remarkably quiet morning. Unfortunately, that does not guarantee anything. Our job can easily be misleading. At times, we can have four hours devoid of any problems, then in the next five minutes we get eight calls. There is no way of knowing when the next problem will occur.
"Right. What were we talking about?"
Earlier I had discovered that Patrick had gone back to the army to finish his military service. After that, he had spent the last three months at various courses learning the different hardware and software he was going to be using here, like the UNIX operating system and Cisco routers, both of which are highly used on the internet. That meant that apart from the quick run-through with me, he had not yet been given any on-the-job training. I thought it best to pick up where I had left off.
Scratching the back of his neck, Patrick rifled through his notes, and muttered "Regulating traffic."
"So far, it's only been normal traffic regulation. What's next?"
"Emergency services?"
I blinked in surprise, then tried to remember just what I was going to say. If I could just ask him a question he did not have an answer for. It wasn't that the answers are hard, all you needed was a little common sense, but for all intents and purposes he had been here barely two days, and he had got them all right. Usually new trainees did not dare to think until the second week; they just took notes, assumed that any questions I asked were rhetorical, and stared at me blankly.
"Well, first we have to ensure that public transport keeps to the schedules. For example, buses get green lights as much as possible along their routes. All that, and the diverting of motorists on the roads, is done automatically, though, by the mainframe downstairs. It has fairly complex algorithms for that sort of thing; we just have to monitor communications and availability of the transport information to all concerned.
"Now, where we sometimes have to intervene is for the emergency services. If an accident occurs, the crash sensors aboard all vehicles involved relay messages to us, here. Our transport computer simultaneously re-transmits this information to the police, the fire brigade or the ambulance services, giving as much detail as possible about the type of emergency and possible consequences."
"Why the details?"
"Why not? It doesn't slow the message down. Well, let's see. In the case of an accident involving a bus, the crash sensor emits an alarm, indicating, among other things, the number of passengers. That message is then captured by the nearest signal waystation, and sent to our mainframe. It, in turn, informs the ambulance services how many passengers may require assistance. Without this vital information, they might send out just one ambulance.
"Where we really come into our own is in the case of a car with no crash sensors, or faulty ones. Sensors are only compulsory on new cars, and that only since last year. New cars make up about one-third of the total number of cars on the road, so we have to cater for the remainder. If one of these older cars is involved in an accident, we'll only know about it if we are given a call. Once that happens, it's the same as for the others, we inform the emergency services, and they take it from there."
Patrick reread his notes while I checked the overhead screen again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head bob up hesitantly, as if he were about to ask something.
"Hugh, isn't it possible to guess where an accident, errr---," he scratched his head doubtfully, "involving cars, errr, without crash sensors, has happened? And check it out with TV cameras?"
Raising my hand to interrupt him, I said, "To start with, we absolutely never guess anything here. You are right, though, in an ideal world that is what we should have. Installing cameras at each crossroad was proposed once, but apparently if we have them, it encroaches on civil liberties and privacy laws. The idea still appealed to someone, so they handed over video monitoring of the city roads to an independent government-approved security firm, Blue Eye security. They phone us, if need be.
"The result is, we only notice things that we can see." I waved at the screens around us. "If you cannot see anything wrong on any of these, and you've received no calls, then as far as we are concerned, all is well." Checking the time, I said, "Time for---"
Patrick grinned and finished for me, "---a coffee break."
When my boss, Jacques Nys came in, the trouble started. As much as the department head was excellent, my boss was incompetent and lacked even basic common sense. It was not always easy working for someone who made decisions he was not qualified to take, and gave orders he did not fully understand. Well, he tried to give them.
A tacit agreement had developed; he felt free to give us any orders he liked, and we felt free to ignore them. As long as he did not get too much flak from upstairs, from Senior Management, he played along.
You could always tell when someone was about to enter the TMC. The card reader emitted a sharp clicking sound. When it was the boss, though, the click had a distinct creak to it, as if the door were in pain. It was yanked open, and Nys darted in. He had a certain frantic energy to him, giving the impression of a man hurried off his feet. The way he hunched his shoulder made people wonder if he was not about to break into a run.
Nys was all show and no substance. His suits never quite seemed to fit him; neither too big, nor too small, yet strangely the wrong size. To add colour to his tarnished image, he had perfected the arcane art of choosing ties that clashed grotesquely with his red hair. Hair that, incidentally, he used gel on, giving it a disgusting, greasy glint.
He looked in a fouler mood than usual, if that was possible. I don't know what it was, but when he was early, he invariably had a bone to pick with someone. The telltale sign that we knew to watch out for, was that his freckles stood out when he was upset. Maybe his wife had been nagging him again. What was it they said?
'Behind every great man---'
Greeting us quickly, he informed me of a breakfast meeting I had to attend. Nys then made himself scarce. That was his most endearing quality. So as not to be forced to answer embarrassingly technical questions, he used any excuse to stay away from the TMC.
***
I arrived last at the meeting, having gi
ven Patrick instructions to call me if anything happened that he was not sure how to deal with. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have left a newcomer alone, but it's not as if I had been given any choice. Anyway, Support would arrive shortly, and they would be able to help him. Support was the team of five network engineers who sat just outside the TMC. They do the same job as us, but they could follow up problems in more depth, since they worked nine-to-five.
Scheduled so early in the morning, breakfast meetings included a continental breakfast and unlimited coffee, otherwise attendance might be more limited. I helped myself to a large coffee, and took my place.
The 'Eagle' began the meeting, wasting no time. Behind his back, we called him that because Schuster, from Audit, had a prominent jaw and was bald, except just above the ears.
New, more stringent, security procedures were to be introduced. According to him, the past few months had revealed a disturbing number of incidents where correct security procedures were ignored. Despite the new Clean Desk policy, he had, on one of his snooping rounds, discovered confidential documents lying about in the open and doors to secure areas blocked open. He went on at length, detailing all the instances of laxity that he was aware of.
"All of the above show a total disregard for security. Secure areas have card-activated doors expressly fitted so as to keep out unauthorised personnel." He flipped through his notes. "Ah, yes. The TMC." He looked around the conference room, and grinned wickedly. "Our most secure area."
Catching his eye, I glared back at him, expecting his next words.
"Yet the area where the largest number of security breaches were noted." He turned to the others, but failed to get any sort of reaction. He made all of us uneasy. The Bourgmestre gave him a free hand to increase security, and he seemed to want to make us all aware of it, even if it was the last thing he did.
He tried to make eye contact with some of the others, but there was no way they were going to get in the middle of a scrap between the TMC and Audit. They knew us too well, especially me.
Schuster continued, nonetheless, "Did you know they have the network password stored in a function key? Anyone can come into the TMC, and access any waystation in the city---"
I heard several sighs. They knew I was hardly likely to let that one pass. "Who would be able to get into the TMC? By your own admission, access is highly restricted. The only people who can get in are: us, Jacques Nys, and the guys from Support. Even our department head has to make a reservation."
I smiled at Schuster before continuing. The left side of his mouth began twitching violently, as it was wont to do when he was contradicted. Occasionally, he reminded me of the curse of the Russian army and navy: the political officer; the man, or in some cases woman, who had to keep an eye on the rest of the crew, to root out subversive elements and report unpatriotic acts. In a strange sort of way, it was comforting to think of the 'Eagle' like that, especially since it implied that the Bourgmestre was our answer to the KGB.
"Anyway, in case you've forgotten, we're a twenty-four hour, seven days a week, fifty-two-week a year service. That means one of us is in the TMC at any given time.
"Another thing. We're talking about passwords. Why do we, in a highly secure area, all twenty-four of us, have to have a different password for each system? You know how many passwords that makes? One hundred and forty-four. Don't you think that increases the likelihood of some outside hacker finding a password to get in? If all we had was one TMC password and Userid for each system, that would be only six passwords maximum. That's one hundred and thirty-eight less for a hacker to find. And---"
"Yes. Quite," Schuster interrupted me. "On to more pressing business." He glanced around the room as if the last few minutes hadn't happened. It must require a unique kind of skill to be able to do that.
"Let me remind you that today is a special day. This is the first day of the NATO conference on Arms Reduction. For security reasons, the heads of state of the major countries have taken up residence in hotels scattered across the city. The conference will begin at ten. The Bourgmestre has stressed the importance of ensuring that they get to the conference with the shortest delay possible. She wants to show off our Transport Management Centre in the afternoon."
The bell of my mobile phone saved me. I didn't want to find out what the problem was; most of all I needed a foolproof excuse to leave.
I had it.
***
Susan McCallum felt elated. Her husband had remembered their anniversary this year. We made the right decision. I much prefer him like this, she thought to herself happily.
She was Scottish, and had come to Belgium after passing the exams for entry to the European Commission. A year after having settled in, she had met her husband, an Irishman working in the same department. A year later, they were married.
At the birth of their baby girl, eight months earlier, they had decided on one of them giving up their job to bring her up properly. Day care centres and baby-sitters could not really replace the love of a parent. Susan's job was more lucrative, and that settled it for both of them; she became the breadwinner. That was why she was driving into town.
She couldn't help smiling. The thought of her loving husband always made her feel happy. Thinking about him was always a good way to start her day.
Susan pushed the button to activate the onboard transport computer. Embedded in the dashboard, it blended well with the light brown leather upholstery. The screen lit up. Initially, it displayed a small map of the city. Small, green circles at regular intervals around the outside of the city limits represented the P&R terminals. To the south of the city was a little red icon. An arrow appeared beside it, flashed once, then began moving alongside. Inside the arrow were the words 'You are here'.
A little box appeared at the bottom of the screen. It contained one word: 'DESTINATION?'
Susan placed her finger above the closest P&R to her present position, and gently tapped the screen. The view of the city grew larger, until all that remained was the P&R in the centre and a few surrounding roads. She tapped the P&R itself twice. The computer accepted this as her destination, and the box at the bottom of the screen vanished.
Still smiling, Susan turned her attention to the road. Once again she found herself thinking about her husband and the---
A shrill sound brought her out of her reverie. She looked at the transport computer again. The P&R was still in the centre of the screen, but overlaid on top of it was a one-way street sign, a red circle with a white dividing line through the middle.
She read the text in the box that had appeared to the side. 'Groot-Bijgaarden P&R is full, please proceed to another destination.'
"That's strange," she thought. For nearly eight months she had used that P&R. By the time she usually arrived, it was rarely more than half full. There must be some special event on in the city today.
"Of course," she laughed, "the NATO conference." She had watched the news yesterday. They had warned commuters about possible delays.
The box at the bottom of the screen reappeared: 'DESTINATION?'
Return to Contents
* * *
Chapter Four
7.45 a.m.
"OK, Patrick. What's up?"
Busy with a phone, he hadn't heard me enter. With his free hand, he pointed to the large screen overhead. One of the train lines from a P&R into the city had turned red. That meant that the length of train tracks from the P&R terminal to one of the train stations in the city was seriously damaged; trains would no longer be able to use it. In this particular case, through trains to Central Station, loaded with passengers would be stuck at the Groot-Bijgaarden P&R terminal.
Patrick hung up. "It started with two trains terminating at the P&R that didn't want to budge. They disgorged their passengers, then headed back to the suburbs and just stopped. Then three direct through trains were halted just past the P&R. They're investigating now. They think it may be an electrical fault on the rails, either side of the P&R terminal."
Not bad for a trainee. "Who called? Them or us?"
"I did."
"Well done." Patrick was astute, all right. He certainly had not seen me do this before, and I am pretty sure no one else had had a chance to train him. Without any help, he detected a problem and diagnosed it correctly, found the right number and called.
"Don't we need to redirect car traffic away from this P&R, Hugh?"
Shaking my head, I pulled myself closer to a console, and switched to the city-map application. It was basically an interactive copy of the map on the big overhead LCD screen. Areas of interest can, at the click of a button, be enlarged, and data on specific parts of the network can be requested. I zoomed in on the P&R in trouble. To the left of the screen lay the statistics; these were what interested me.
There are three levels of traffic: level 3 was the trains, level 2 was the metro and level 1 was car traffic. Car traffic was split into two; cars on their way in to the P&R and cars already parked there. Level 1 and level 2 were nominal, but level 3 was climbing steadily, since trains were piling up at, or just past, the P&R.
"As long as the metro, level 2, functions normally, there's nothing to worry about. The only difference is train passengers will have to change transport mode."
Patrick spent the next few minutes updating his notes, while I monitored the situation. Nature had a knack of calling at the most inconvenient times, and I had to slip out to relieve myself.
When I got back, Patrick frantically waved me over. Two other P&Rs had experienced the same kind of problem: all trains immobilised in or around them. News from the first troubled P&R was that they had found no fault on the trains themselves. The malfunctions appeared to come from the train tracks.
A trickle of sweat ran down Patrick's forehead. I was glad to see that he was not so cool anymore. Just like me, he could feel the day beginning in earnest.
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