doubleZero | Page 7

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 for now.
He stuffed his wallet in his pocket and pedalled off to Julie's apartment
to help her with the writing, to try and remember the thousands of
corrections they made over the past few months. The sky overhead was
the same washed-out gray as his socks. The milky clouds stayed low
enough to block out the sun and its memory, never giving up any snow.
Fix's face felt like it was turning to stone as he passed through street
after street on the way, his nostrils frosted inside with each intake of air.
This was definitely the coldest day this year. He tried to appreciate the
old wartime homes in Julie's neighbourhood, to look at the people,
anything to rouse himself from feeling like a zombie on a bike. It was
no use: February in the city just plain sucked. It was no place for the
living.
Was he living? Really, he wondered, how much longer could he go on
like this? Would he get another job? What would it be? Could he get a
job, after being fired like that? He felt desperate. Okay, he thought,
stopping, pulling his bike up onto the sidewalk, what can we do? He

reached around for his back pocket and ripped open his wallet, fishing
inside for his transaction record. He unfolded it and read it: WD-CHQ
$40.00 BALANCE: $15,894,331,708,547,853,540,132,913,152.00.
The bike fell to the sidewalk, twanging and rattling. Fix stumbled
backwards, tripping on his heel. His butt hit the sidewalk. He sat on the
cold concrete looking at the little slip of paper that fluttered in his hand.
"It's just a miscalculation. Or maybe you took someone else's receipt
instead," Julie said, examining the transaction record.
"Yeah, someone with fifteen bazillion dollars in their account? No, I
did this," said Fix, staring down at Julie's Iranian-print bedspread. They
sat cross-legged across from each other on her bed, just as they had for
the past few weeks while working on the documentation. Only this time
Fix had on a dog-like I did a bad thing face.
"Don't you think you're being a bit dramatic? If this is some system
error, then all three of us did it."
"No," Fix argued, "I did it. On New Year's Eve. I wrote a little program,
not even a program, earlier in the project, and on New Year's Eve I ran
it. I was drunk, and I didn't think it would do anything. It didn't look
like it did anything. Guess it did."
"But how would you have done this? Fix, if you stole money, tell me
now. You're my best friend, but if you did something like that on my
project, I want you to tell me right now," Julie said, screwing her head
forward to give him the most direct, piercing look she ever had. Fix
looked over her shoulder at the rock climbing holds that were screwed
to the wall, colourful little blobs of rough cement. Her body was all
sinew and muscle, and for a brief moment he wondered if she was
actually going to beat him up over this. Being beaten up by a girl would
be a new twist on an old theme.
"I didn't steal anything. It is my money... in a sense. It's the test account
I created. You know how they wouldn't let us test on any of the real
systems? Well, I created this account that existed out in the real system,

but in a kind of bubble. It's invisible to anyone inside the bank. And
now that I've been fired, the only way I could get in is with my bank
card. It never occurred to me to try until now, 'cause I didn't need to.
It's only a hundred and fifty bucks."
"Sorry, correction, it's 15 bazillion dollars."
"No, it's a hundred and fifty bucks. It's just--how do I explain this?--it's
just in another time." Fix shifted himself, getting comfortable, his
hands at the ready in front of him as he prepared to unravel it for Julie.
He loved turning techno-speak into English for people. When he could
do it, he knew that he really understood a thing at its core. "You know
the time code harmonization function we added to the system? How
does that work? Well, our bank system has its own