“You? Financial stuff? I don’t believe it,” she said smiling.
“Hey. It’s a shock to me too,” he told her.
They spent the next hour going over figures and what she had in mind to keep them plodding along. She had to explain several items more than once. Finally he had a vague picture and sent her on her way. He knew that he was going to have to have it out with Terry at some point. Now was not the time, however. It wouldn’t take much to set him off again. He had too much to do to get them ready to roll out the world’s fastest and most powerful computer chip. It would take computers to the next generation and they were almost there. He called Bob Spitzer, their head technician.
“Bob. What’s happening with the beta test results?”
“We just finished a batch last night. I sent them over to Terry. He has them on his desk as we speak.”
“I want copies sent up to me as well. I know that’s unusual but I need to know more about our progress and make plans for our roll out date,” he told Bob.
“Ah. Well then, you should by all means look at the latest results. I think we may have a problem that could set us back some,” he said.
The words hung in the air like thick fog. Jim was stunned. Everything he had heard was totally positive.
“A problem. What kind of problem?” he asked.
“The results were not as good as we had hoped for. We are having a problem in the higher math area. Some calculations are not coming out right. Several users have reported a decimal problem. We are trying to track it down,” he told Jim.
“Forget what I just said. I want you to get the beta test results back from Terry and I want a full staff meeting in one hour,” Jim said.
“We are pretty deep into this right now. It would be hard to break off at this point,” Bob told him.
“I don’t want to hear it. I want a meeting, with the results, in one hour. I want everyone involved at level 3 in attendance,” Jim said sternly.
“Yes sir. One hour. The large conference room?”
“Where else,” Jim said, hanging up the phone. He quickly opened the door and saw Terry heading back to his office. There was no avoiding the situation.
“Terry,” he called, “Could you come over to my office for a minute?”
Terry didn’t say anything but headed over. Jim ushered him in and decided not to sit behind his desk. Instead he took a seat next to Terry.
“Terry I know you are upset but I am just as exercised as you are. Several things are bothering me. This may not be the best time to talk about it but something is going on and I want to know about it. I have just called a full technical staff meeting in one hour,” he told him.
“What? Do you realize they are in the middle of very detailed test procedures? We will lose a lot of money if we have them all quit and come to some spur of the moment meeting,” Terry said, getting up out of his chair. “I want you to call it off. We don’t have time for that indulgence just now.”
“Well, I think we do. Something isn’t right here. The offer from Aikimoto is far too high for our financial picture...”
“I noticed you didn’t waste any time getting to Joan,” Terry interrupted.
“No I didn’t. I wanted to know where we stood as of this minute. You seem to think we need to sell today. I wanted to find out if we could keep going until the Millimum3 is ready,” he told him.
“Since when do you concern yourself with those details?” Terry demanded.
“Since today. I want to know why we were offered two to three times what we are worth on paper. On top of that I just talked to Bob and he indicates some sort of decimal problem has reared its ugly head. The latest beta test reports on your desk confirm this, I suspect.”
“So out of the clear blue, you not only call in Joan and grill her, but Bob too. You seem to be doing my job as well. What are you up to?” Terry challenged.
“Me? All I am trying to do is find out what is going on around here. Suddenly we are being made an offer that’s too good to be true and on top of that, something is jeopardizing the entire future of this company. If we have a problem with the Millennium3, I need to know about it, and now, not later. I have detailed plans that depend on certain events taking place on schedule. If we are way off base I have to know. What’s gotten into you?” Jim asked.
“Into me? Look at what you’re implying. You are as good as saying that I am involved in some sort of conspiracy to keep you uninformed. All the information you want is at your disposal. All you have to do is ask,” Terry shot back.
“Then, consider me asking. I intend to have the technical staff in the conference room in one hour, along with Joan. You are more than welcome to attend,” Jim said.
“Oh, thank you so much,” Terry said storming out of his office.
He headed straight for his office and slammed the door. Martha, the executive secretary they shared, gave Jim one of her ‘now what’s going on?’ looks. He just shrugged his shoulders and went back to his desk. He spent the next hour getting ready for the meeting. He called Joan and told her to be there as well. She didn’t ask ‘why?’ but acknowledged that she would be on time.
CHAPTER THREE
Everyone stopped talking the minute Jim walked into the room. Terry was already there and had been talking to the technicians when he entered. They all found someplace else to look except directly at him.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I know the cost in manpower and frustration but this is urgent. I talked to Bob today and he indicated that a problem has developed in the Millennium3 processor. I want a full report as to what the problem is and what we are doing about it,” he said.
No one spoke, waiting for Terry to take over. He didn’t say a thing but continued to doodle on a pad of paper.
“Alright. Bob. Let’s have it. Your silence speaks volumes,” Jim said.
“We are experiencing a floating decimal in some higher math computations. It doesn’t occur in any fixed pattern that we have found yet. One time you will do the calculation and it’s correct. The next time it is off fractionally. We have found no means of pinpointing what is causing it just yet,” Bob said, looking at the other technicians for support.
“When was this discovered?” Jim asked.
“That’s irrelevant,” Terry interjected, “The problem needs to be identified and corrected. When it was discovered has little to do with this.”
“When was it discovered?” Jim asked again, as if Terry had not spoken.
“Actually we started getting spotty reports with the first beta versions we sent out. Only one or two then but they were not to the extreme end users. It wasn’t, in all honesty, until we sent them to the astronomy and physics people that we started getting specific reports. The latest batch of beta test reports show 23 incidents of decimal errors,” he said.
“Twenty-six if you count the two NASA reports,” one of the technicians offered.
“That’s a different problem,” Bob shot back at the other technician.
Jim ran his fingers through his hair several times. It was a clear-cut indication to all those who worked with him that he was nearing the limit of his patience. None of them wanted to be in the room when he exploded.
“You’re now telling me that the very product that our future is based upon has a serious flaw for the high end users? In effect, that it is unreliable?” he asked as evenly as he could.
“Yes, it is flawed,” Terry finally spoke up.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?” Jim demanded.
“If we knew that Jim, we would have already made a patch to correct it. The problem is that we don't really know the problem yet. We are working on it but the elusive nature of the problem is making it difficult to locate and fix. We have performed every test we know, repeatedly, but it remains an inconsistent variable that we can’t routinely duplicate,” Fred McKinley, one of their brightest technicians, told him.
“And why am I just now finding out about this?” Jim asked.
No one said a thing. Several looked at Terry.
Finally Terry said, “Because we didn’t want to upset your precious timetable.”
“Terry, it is not my timetable. It’s our future that’s on the line here. You all know that we are under very tight financial restrictions. The Millennium3 is the ticket for all of us to realize the financial rewards we have all worked so hard for. This is not about me. It’s about all of us,” he said, pulling on his hair once more.
“Mr. Ashton, I honestly think we have somehow missed the target here. I have been directly involved with the testing program and I do not see a way to make a patch unless we find a means of determining why it is happening. So far every effort to correct it has failed.”
“I appreciate that Johnson, but we can’t just scrap this program. We could never recover. It would be the end of DigitCom. We simply have to find a way to obtain the desired results. Failure is not an option,” he told them.
“We don’t have a lot of time to do it in,” Joan interjected. “Mr. Ashton and I went over our financial position and it is not as strong as we would like.”
“Tell them. Just flat out tell them like it is,” Jim said to her.
She looked at him for a moment before continuing. It wasn’t the best thing to do. It could cause some of them to bail out and then they would really be in a pickle.
Finally she spoke up, “We have some short term notes receivable that we can call in and a few assets we can turn into cash but the bottom line is that we need to get the Millennium3 ready for market in a hundred and twenty days or less if DigitCom is going to stay in business. We might be able to hang on a little longer but by then we would be nothing more than a shell corporation.”
Only the clock ticking and the slow methodical breathing of Bob Spitzer broke the silence.
“Any questions?” Jim asked.
“What do you want us to do from here on?” Spitzer asked.
“I want you to find the problem, eliminate it, and get us back on track. We have no other option. You must drop all other projects and do nothing but concentrate on this CPU unit. The high end users are our main target. We have less than a hundred and twenty days to get this to market. Ladies and gentlemen, we all either reap the rewards together or go down together. I, for one, do not want to go down with the ship. That is for fools. Now let’s get out there and fix this....this floating decimal problem. I want weekly status reports. Not in writing, but verbally, each Friday. Fred you’ll be the point man on that,” Jim said.
Fred immediately looked over at Terry for his reaction. Terry just continued to doodle, not looking up. Bob Spitzer stiffened in his chair. He was the senior man, not Fred.
He should be making that determination, not Ashton.
“Yes sir, Mr. Ashton. Do you want me to brief Mr. Larkins as well?” he asked, indicating Terry.
“We will take the reports together. We both need to know what’s going on every step of the way so that we can plan wisely. Does anyone else have something constructive to offer, some suggestion you have been afraid to put forth? Now is the time. I do not intend to stand on protocol. I want results. How we get them is the furthest concern from my mind,” he told them, looking around the table. “Linda, you look like you have something to say,” he prompted.
“Well, I’m not really sure this is the place but I have been giving a lot of thought to why the problem only occurs randomly. I think one of us should go to the source and see what they are doing that is different from our lab setup. Maybe we could spot something that is causing it in the field,” she said.
“Excellent. Bob, can you spare Linda?”
“I don’t know. I would like to think that over first,” Spitzer said.
“Linda. Would you be willing to do the legwork on this?”
“I guess so. I would need Bob’s permission first,” she stammered.
“You have it,” Jim said, “Bob we will discuss this later but I am serious about protocol. It is out the window. I want results and nothing or no one is going to stand in the way. Linda when could you be ready to go?”
“I’ll need to make some arrangements for my dog and pack. I guess in a day or two,” she said, still looking at Bob for support.
“Do it. Joan you take care of the financial arrangements. I’ll have Martha take care of the details. Linda you make the list and give it to Martha and Joan.”
“Yes sir,” she replied meekly.
She wasn’t sure this would bode well for her working relationship with Bob. Judging by the irritated look on Spitzer’s face, she was guessing this had not been one of her better moves.
CHAPTER FOUR
After the meeting Terry came into Jim’s office.
“We need to talk,” Terry said, taking a seat.
“I would say that is a classic understatement,” Jim tried to joke.
“You think I have been keeping things from you. You feel I have somehow betrayed you, don’t you?” Terry said.
“I’m not sure I know exactly what I feel. Confused is closer to the truth. I have never known you to deliberately withhold important data from me. It seems out of character,” Jim said looking into the eyes of his old friend.
“Jim, I am not withholding information, at least not in the sense you think. I was aware of the potential problem the minute it flared up. I was not overly concerned. It was unsubstantiated at first. The reliability of the source was less than pristine. I wanted to make sure we didn’t go off on a wild goose chase until we had reliable confirmation that we truly had a problem. I know our financial position better than you and I did not want to waste time and money,” Terry told him.
“I understand all of that. Still, not to even mention it? Don’t you realize I have to know that kind of information? You know the schedule I have laid out for us. The trade expo is less than six weeks away and I have fifty-seven meetings, not counting the media, already set up and ready. Whispers are already starting to spread that we have something hot going on. Discreet inquiries are starting to filter in from the trade journals. You know the delicate line I have to walk to keep them interested without telling them a darn thing. If we are going to be set back it is vital information that I must have immediately,” he replied.
“I understand your position but you must understand mine as well. I did not want to cause a panic and have some of our people either blab or jump to another company. I fear the meeting you held today may have just caused such a reaction,” Terry said bluntly.
“We always have that risk. They aren’t stupid. They know what’s going on. Actually they knew more than I did. They won’t jump off the wagon until it comes to a screeching halt. They are not risk takers. They are engineers and technicians. They are nothing like you and I,” Jim said in defense.
“I sure hope you’re right,” Terry said.
“That brings me to the next point. Do we have someone reporting to Aikimoto? He had far too much fluff in that proposal. I have never known a Japanese firm to offer a penny more than what a company is worth. They have to know more than what’s on the balance sheet,” Jim said.
“You said yourself that whispers have started to circulate. Maybe they picked up on one of them. Let’s face it, knowing what is going on in the field is their main business. Is it that hard to believe that someone has started to target what we are up to? I hope you’re not saying you think I told them about the Millennium program,” Terry said.
“I didn’t say you did. I’m just thinking out loud. I have to believe that they know a great deal more than they let on. That parting remark about just starting down the road had an ominous sound to it,” Jim said, leaning back in his chair.
“Everything sounds ominous to you Jim. So what’s new?” Terry quipped.
“Suspicion is just my nature I guess. That brings me to the last question. What’s really going on with you? I have never seen you like this before. We have known each other for eight years now. I don’t know what it is but something is simmerin
g below the surface,” Jim said bluntly.
Terry didn’t answer at first as if wrestling with what to say.
Finally he said, “It’s more than one simple thing. I really meant what I said about not losing it all. We could live quite nicely on what we would realize from the sale of DigitCom. We would never have to work again if we didn’t want to,” Terry offered.
“And?”
“And it’s Carla too. We are having some problems at home. Things have gotten much worse this past year. Our marriage is going downhill quickly,” he confessed at last.
“You and Carla? I haven’t seen any change,” Jim said, shocked. He was usually very aware of people’s moods and changes. He went through them enough to recognize them in others.
“It started last year. Carla thought I was having an affair. She became obsessed with it. She started hounding me insistently. Finally I told her to give it up or get a divorce,” Terry told him.
Jim was stunned. He never suspected any problems between his friend and Carla.
“I can’t believe she didn’t talk to Stephanie about this. She tells her everything. They are like two peas in a pod,” Jim said.
“Not as much as you think. Carla is not as close to Stephanie as she once was. Not since this came up. She has become almost withdrawn,” Terry told him.
“Do you want me to have Stephanie talk to her?” Jim offered.
“Heavens no. That is the last thing I want. That is all she would need to set her off. If she thought I had even mentioned this to you she would go off the deep end again. I’ve just now got her back in some semblance of normalcy. She has been totally out of control,” he told Jim.
“And you thought the best thing to do was sell the company and go off and try to start over?”
Avarice or Innocence (JOHN LOGAN FILES Book 1) Page 2
