doubleZero | Page 6

a look that was surgically precise, from the lapels of her blazer to the curled, red tips of her hairdo. She admired Julie's dedication to process and order. Lloyd was always charming with her, almost dangerously so, and his skills in coding COBOL, FORTRAN, and C++ spoke for themselves. Fix was something she tolerated, only because Julie insisted he was essential to the project. As Risk Director for the bank, she didn't quite understand what he did; it defied reduction to words on paper, so she resented his presence. And that was not fun to be around. Her office was not particularly fun, either, filled with art composed of geometries in dark tones and a giant black desk inhabited by dangerous-looking imported silver objects--a letter-opener, a stapler, a tape dispenser, each looking like it was borrowed from the set of a Cronenberg film. Fix was sure she'd never seen a Cronenberg film. A few nights before, he laughed out loud at a movie, drawing angry stares in the darkness: the woman with the torch in the Columbia Pictures credits looked exactly like Carol.
"I'll dispense with the pleasantries," she began. Pleasantries? Fix wondered, looking about with his eyebrows raised, but no one caught the sight-gag, being too concerned about the portent of the meeting. "I'm disappointed."
The team's mouths opened, but none of them breathed.
"You have carried out the description of the project, but only just. Your methodologies were haphazard and unreproduceable. This is unacceptable, and as a result the amount of your compensation will be duly adjusted."
"Ms. Martin," Julie protested, "we were working under an extreme time constraint, and managed to scrutinize and correct over 750,000 lines of code, many of which were inaccurately altered by our predecessors. We--Fix--also created a new method for harmonizing time codes between our systems and outside computers. This team has performed remarkably, and I don't think you're being fair."
"I'm not asking for your assessment here. And what others did before you is irrelevant. That doesn't compensate for the lack of any documentation about your project."
"That's what this is about? Documentation? I'm sorry, but we were too busy saving your institution to record everything we did!"
"Did you save us? I have no proof."
"We'll get it to you. And when we do, will you reconsider the matter of our fees?"
"Certainly. In the meantime, I see no need for the bank to be billed for the presence of the full complement of your team. You may stay, Ms. Baruzzo, to complete the documentation. And I have other duties for you, Mr. Hayes. But I am afraid, Mr. Lauzon, that you are no longer needed, if ever you were."
Fix seethed, "What rhymes with 'bitch', Carol? Ohh, gave it away."
"Get out of here!" Carol yelled, her composure breaking for a flash, then instantly settling back into place.
"I was just about to leave anyway," he replied, getting up from his gray swivel chair, "and you're welcome for rescuing the bank." As he left, Julie plopped her head onto her hand, knowing she now had to back-peddle twice as fast to undo this damage. Lloyd was dumbfounded. He'd never seen Fix get angry before. He mentally chided Fix for his tactics, though: playing Carol right had already gotten him another job.
"Don't worry," Julie said from her cell phone in the bank parking lot later that afternoon, "I'll get you what you're owed. I'm not going to let you go broke. Your work on this project was invaluable, and I'm not just saying that 'cause you're my best friend. The documentation will show that."
"How long do you think that'll take you?"
"God, at least a month. I don't know where to start. We were putting out so many fires. How's this: if you help me, we'll split what I make 'til it's done. That is, if you still want to be involved."
"Yeah, I wanna be involved," Fix admitted, "It was the biggest challenge of my life. Besides, I did it for you, not for them."
Fix leaned his bike against the corner of the bank wall, and ripped open the Velcro on his nylon wallet. He pulled out his bank card and pushed it into the little gray plastic slot in the bank machine. He'd managed to spend his small savings in the weeks since he'd been fired. Julie's documentation was still unfinished, so the bank was holding out on both of them. Lloyd had been moved to another department, dealing with the overseas switch to the Euro dollar.
He tapped his way through the screens, not even bothering to read them: password, withdraw cash, chequing, $40. Fix was relieved to hear the machine printing his transaction record, more when he saw the two twenties emerge from the black metal jaws of the machine. He grabbed the slip without looking at it, deciding to spare himself