The morning before Christmas was typically gray and gloomy Seattle winter weather, motorists giving thanks, as they drove off Interstates 5 and 90, that the snow forecast for the day had missed them on their morning commute. Downtown twinkled with white fairy lights and smelled of fir and pine from the many brightly decorated trees throughout town. Christmas flags hung from lampposts. Later in the day, horse-drawn carriages with drivers dressed in Victorian velvet and top hats would rattle and clop through city streets, carrying harried shoppers and high-spirited children. Store windows beckoned with every sort of luxurious gift and piles of beautifully wrapped boxes.
The street people’s cups clinked with extra coins and many said, “Merry Christmas,” as a thank-you, while bracing themselves for a snowy night. Wind pulled at hair and mufflers and turned umbrellas inside out. Vendors sold steaming espresso to shoppers sporting Santa Claus and Christmas tree lapel pins. Street musicians trotted out their Christmas carols and sang and played them on guitars, banjos, accordions, hammered dulcimers, and harmonicas.
But in one large corner of the city, no lights brightened the cement buildings except the bleak square moons of flourescent-lit office corridor windows. Within the mausoleum, stillness was broken only by the skeletal clickings of fingertips on plastic, while tiny dots of red, green, and yellow light flickered like the eyes of feral animals. Blue and green screens full of arcane symbols and letters held the occupants of the offices enthralled.
The spell was abruptly shattered by the tolling of an elevator bell followed by carpet-padded footsteps striding into the labyrinth of offices. A hand that might as well have been clawed lashed out, nails squealing against glass, and ripped paper. For a moment the office’s occupant was held in a threatening glare accented with Lancôme’s blue-black mascara from Nordstrom’s, and then released as the figure swooped into the next office.
From keyboard to keyboard the tiny e-mail window opened, and the word spread silently down the hall: “The Dragonlady is abroad—no sexism intended—beware!”
The footsteps stopped, a door creaked open, and a chair squealed as weight sank into it. Slowly, reluctantly, the moonglow screens were abandoned as the shuffling feet of the office occupants dragged into the conference room.
A woman whose ample curves could have bespoken jollity and generosity had they not settled into a puddle of rippling discontent sat in the power position behind a great desk. The white streaks in her hair could have meant she was wise, except that they corkscrewed like tortured snakes in all directions. Her face was well made-up, which might have meant that she cared about her appearance to others, but instead it had the appearance of a deceptively rosy, wide-eyed mask. And her neat black suit and crisp polyblend blouse could
have been demure and understated, but rather bore the aspect of full battle dress.
“Now then,” she said sweetly, when her employees, like feudal serfs, had filed into the office to stand around her desk. “Can anyone tell me what day this is?”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” someone muttered.
“Good.” She smiled. It did not transform her face in any significant way. “It’s Christmas Eve. Brilliant. I’m beginning to believe what I’ve been told about what high IQs you all have. Now for the toughie. If today is Christmas Eve, what does that make tomorrow?”
“Christmas, Ms. Banks,” the employees said like a kindergarten class. Ms. Banks’s eyes narrowed a bit as she searched their young faces for any overt signs of mockery. All she saw were the tops of dropped heads, blank expressions, or determinedly innocent eyes. They must practice when I’m not around, she thought. On company time.
“Wrong,” she said softly. “You’re wrong. As far as you’re concerned, tomorrow isn’t Christmas. Tomorrow is simply eight days until demo date. Unless, of course, the product is ready to demonstrate now. In which case, you may all take tomorrow off. Is it ready to demonstrate now?”
“There’s some real problems with it, Ms. Banks,” one of the braver among the team of managers began slowly and carefully, as if explaining to a child. Banks drummed her nails on the desk. Just because she knew nothing about programming or the mysteries that went into producing a product didn’t mean she was stupid. These people didn’t need to think they could slip anything past her. “On the one hand it’s supposed to be able to be accessed by government surveillance nets; on the other it’s supposed to appeal to the consumer and be able to be the one place they can basically park their life for further access . . . There’s a lot of security inconsistencies.”
“That’s concept,” she said. “The concept is developed. Your job is to make it work.”
A black woman somewhat senior to the others cleared her throat and said, “That’s the real problem, Ms. Banks. This thing won’t run. It’s a nonstarter. Haven’t you seen our memos?”
“Of course I have. But surely it’s nothing a team of geniuses such as yourselves can’t fix? You and those hundreds of people on my payroll you said it would take to actually make it work—by the way, why weren’t they put on twenty-four-hour status also? The other buildings are dark . . .”
“They’ve been on twenty-four-hour status, Ms. Banks,” said a young Asian man. “And so have we, and so have you. And it still won’t run. So we”—he looked around the room—“we told everybody to go home for the holidays while we let you know that we’re going to have to rethink this one completely—”
“What you are going to do is call all of those people back!” She spat the words one by one. “And work, as you were hired to do! This product is sold. If we don’t have it ready by demo date on New Year’s Day, this company stands to lose a major contract as well as congressional supporters of our status in the
industry. And we will no doubt be sued by the government. I can tell you with considerable authority that tangling with the United States of America is no laughing matter.”
“Of course not, Ms. Banks,” a pretty blonde said. “But that doesn’t make our program run, and we can’t call all those people back because most of them left town and the roads are supposed to be getting worse all day and the airports are socked in already. By the time we got the teams reassembled, it would be too late to finish by New Year’s Day anyway.”
“Besides,” a redheaded man said, “it wouldn’t matter if every geek in the country was working on this turkey; it still wouldn’t fly.”
“Oh, no? Nevertheless, Databanks has a contract for one flying turkey, and you have a contract to make sure that it flies. Therefore, as management staff, you will devote yourselves every hour of every day between now and the time your task is completed to accomplishing it. If you do, it had better be ready for that demo in some form or another. If not, I will be speaking to our attorneys about breach of contract suits. Clear? Good,” she said, and left without waiting for an answer...
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