Dave Zeltserman: Outsourced

“You beat off with those?” Dan asked, pointing at the magazines.

“Fuck you. Let’s get the game going.”

A backgammon board was set up on a small Formica table in the kitchen. Joel opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of Bud. “You want one?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“A buck,” Joel demanded, his hand held out.

“You’re gonna charge me for that?”

“Why not? That’s what it cost me. And you could’ve brought your own beer, asshole.”

Dan swallowed back a crack he wanted to make on what Joel could do with his beer, instead reminded himself what he was there for, handed Joel a dollar and took one of the bottles. They both sat at the table, each rolling a die to determine who would make the first move. Midway through the game Joel missed a roll he needed. He stared up at the ceiling and shook his fist. “Motherfucking cunt,” he swore. “You can’t give me one goddamn roll, can you?”

“Those are the breaks, Joel.”

“Fuck you and roll.”

Two rolls later, Joel hit a one in thirty-six shot that gave him an edge in the game. He leaned back in his chair, satisfied. “So what are we playing for, five bucks a point?”

“I don’t think so. A quarter as always. And if you’re feeling so goddamn confident give me the doubling cube, okay?”

“Maybe I will.” Joel’s hard smirk softened for a moment. “So level with me, how’s the job search going?”

“Not good.” Dan paused, his stare moving towards a corner of the room. When he looked back at Joel, he was grinning, but it was a lifeless grin. “My whole career there were always engineers older than me. Now when I interview there’s no one older than thirty-five. They spend their time grilling me over design patterns that didn’t even exist five years ago, and look at my twenty-six years’ experience as a joke because it was done in what they consider obsolete programming languages. These pricks are making me feel washed up at forty-eight. Who the fuck knows, maybe I am.”

“Defeatist talk, pal. Me, I’m halfway through my JAVA certification program, and I promise you when I’m done I’ll be working again.”

Dan started to say something, instead closed his mouth. They sat quietly and finished out the game. As they were setting up the board for the next one, Joel looked at his friend, a weariness in his eyes. “So how bad are things for you?” he asked.

“Bad,” Dan said. “I’ve already spent down my 401K, and what Carol’s bringing in just isn’t enough.”

“It’s your own fault! Who told you to buy a McMansion when you did? Chrissakes, I remember when you bought that house I asked you why the fuck anyone would need a thirty-eight hundred square foot home. Just sell the damn thing.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Then go back to school like I’m doing,” Joel said. “With all your project leadership experience, you get JAVA certified and you’ll be golden.”

Dan bit his tongue, almost telling him that it wouldn’t do any good, that by the time he finished any certification program he’d be blind. Instead he gave his friend a hard grin. “You’re living in a fantasy world, Joel,” he said. “You can have all the JAVA certificates you want, nobody’s going to hire you. Why hire a fifty-five-year-old guy when they can get a kid out of college who’s cheaper and who they’re more comfortable with?”

“Bullshit,” Joel looked away, his mouth weakening. “What the fuck else am I supposed to do? Just give up like you’re doing?”

“Who says I’m giving up? Maybe I’ve got something in the works. Could be something for you too.”

“Like what?”

“I might have a proposition for you.”

“You’re looking to start a company?”

“In a way.”

“Don’t be so fucking coy. Any investors lined up?”

“Joel, I’m not trying to be coy.”

“Okay, fine, speed it up, though, pal. Testing, coding, whatever you need I’ll do it for you.”

“It’s not like that.” Dan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I didn’t tell you this, but I had a three-month contract that finished a month ago.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you bring me in?”

“They farmed out the development to India. If I could’ve brought you in, I would’ve.”

“So what does this have to do with your proposition?”

“I’ll get to that. The contract was with a bank. They hired me to architect a new security system for them. When a silent alarm is hit, they want it to go through a computer system that will simultaneously call the local police, FBI, and a private security service that they’re using. It will also trigger-lock their vault and several other doors. Because of this system they got rid of their on-site security guards.”

“Okay, so?”

“Their old system had the silent alarm tied directly to the local police. Now you’ve got a computer in the middle.”

“So… if the computer goes down, the silent alarm doesn’t work.”

“That’s right.”

“Is there a backup?”

“Yeah, if the computer goes down the alarm signal switches over to a backup system. Both systems are on battery backup power supplies.”

“Pretty stupid if you ask me. They should’ve maintained the direct line.”

“No kidding. Now this is where it gets interesting. The Indian contract house they used did a shitty job. I inspected the code and it’s a mess. The system is supposed to go through a two-point-eight-second self-test at random intervals to verify everything’s working fine. They screwed up, and instead it goes through a twenty-eight-minute self-test.”

“So they wrote crappy code. So what? You want to point it out to the bank and have them hire us to fix it?”

“Not exactly. I modified the code a little myself. Now when it goes through its self-test the silent alarm signal is disabled.”

“Can that get back to you?”

“Why would it?”

“Why? Because you architected the system, putz!”

“So what? As far as the bank is concerned, I never even breathed near the software. I made my changes to look like bad code, just like all the other crap those Indian contractors delivered. And I left no fingerprints.”

“Again, so what?”

Dan paused for a moment, a sickish grin breaking over his face. “The algorithm the Indian contractors came up with to calculate random time intervals isn’t random,” he said. “It’s predictable. In fact, I can tell you exactly when in a week that bank’s alarm system is going to be disabled. For twenty-eight minutes.”

Joel’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Dan. “Don’t even say it,” he warned.

“I’ve got every detail worked out, Joel. This is something we can do.”

“Schmuck!” Joel exploded, showing teeth. “I told you not to say it! You’re going to be a bank robber now, is that it? Here’s some advice, forget your own little fantasy and let’s play some more ’gammon.”

“Joel, we can do this. And we fucking deserve to do this.” Dan wet his lips, edged closer to his friend. “You know how many years I worked eighty-hour weeks at startups trying to make some real money, only to see them all go out of business? I know you did the same. This is our chance to cash in.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Just hear me out.”

“Stand up.”

“What?”

“I said stand up.”

Dan held his hands up to signal what the fuck, pushed his chair back, and started to stand. He only made it halfway up when Joel popped out of his chair and hit him with a hard jab under his left eye. The punch stunned him. He staggered back a few steps before catching his balance. Grabbing his cheek, he could feel that it had already started to swell.