Michael Crichton - Disclosure

"I don't know," Sanders said. "I'll get into it. All I can think is that it's a full-court press around here. People really want to know why the hell those drives don't work."

"Hey, us too," Kahn said. "Believe me. It's making us crazy."

"When will you send the drives?"

"Well, I've got to get a heat-sealer first. I hope I can ship Wednesday, you can have them Thursday."

"Not good enough," Sanders said. "You should ship today, or tomorrow at the latest. You want me to run down a sealer for you? I can probably get one from Apple." Apple had a factory in Kuala Lumpur.

"No. That's a good idea. I'll call over there and see if Ron can loan me one.

"Fine. Now what about Jafar?"

"Hell of a thing," Kahn said. "I just talked to the hospital, and apparently he's got cramps and vomiting. Won't eat anything. The abo doctors say they can't figure out anything except, you know, a spell."

"They believe in spells?"

"Damn right," Kahn said. "They've got laws against sorcery here. You can take people to court."

"So you don't know when he'll be back?"

"Nobody's saying. Apparently he's really sick."

"Okay, Arthur. Anything else?"

"No. I'll get the sealer. And let me know what you find out."

"I will," Sanders said, and the transmission ended. Kahn gave a final wave, and the screen went blank.

SAVE THIS TRANSMISSION TO DISK OR DAT?

He clicked DAT, and it was saved to digital tape. He got up from the desk. Whatever all this was about, he'd better be informed before he had his meeting with Johnson at six. He went to the outer area, to Cindy's desk.

Cindy was turned away, laughing on the phone. She looked back and saw Sanders, and stopped laughing. "Listen, I got to go."

Sanders said, "Would you mind pulling the production reports on Twinkle for the last two months? Better yet, just pull everything since they opened the line."

"Sure."

"And call Don Cherry for me. I need to know what his Diagnostics group is doing with the drives."

He went back into his office. He noticed his e-mail cursor was blinking, and pushed the key to read them. While he waited, he looked at the three faxes on his desk. Two were from Ireland, routine weekly production reports. The third was a requisition for a roof repair at the Austin plant; it had been held up in Operations in Cupertino, and Eddie had forwarded it to Sanders to try and get action.

The screen blinked. He looked up at the first of his e-mail messages.

OUT OF NOWHERE WE GOT A BEAN COUNTER FROM OPERATIONS DOWN HERE IN AUSTIN. HE'S GOING OVER ALL THE BOOKS, DRIVING PEOPLE MAD. AND THE WORD IS WE GOT MORE COMING DOWN TOMORROW. WHAT GIVES? THE RUMORS ARE FLYING, AND SLOWING HELL OUT OF THE LINE. TELL ME WHAT TO SAY. IS THIS COMPANY FOR SALE OR NOT?

EDDIE

Sanders did not hesitate. He couldn't tell Eddie what was going on. Quickly, he typed his reply:

THE BEAN COUNTERS WERE IN IRELAND LAST WEEK, TOO.

GARVIN'S ORDERED A COMPANY-WIDE REVIEW, AND THEY'RE LOOKING AT EVERYTHING. TELL EVERYBODY DOWN THERE TO FORGET IT AND GO BACK TO WORK.

TOM

He pushed the SEND button. The message disappeared.

"You called?" Don Cherry walked into the room without knocking, and dropped into the chair. He put his hands behind his head. `Jesus, what a day. I've been putting out fires all afternoon."

"Tell me."

"I got some dweebs from Conley down there, asking my guys what the difference is between RAM and ROM .Like they have time for this. Pretty soon, one of the dweebs hears `flash memory' and he goes, `How often does it flash?' Like it was a flashlight or something. And my guys have to put up with this. I mean, this is high-priced talent. They shouldn't be doing remedial classes for lawyers. Can't you stop it?"

"Nobody can stop it," Sanders said.

"Maybe Meredith can stop it," Cherry said, grinning.

Sanders shrugged. "She's the boss."

"Yeah. Sowhat's on your mind?"

"Your Diagnostics group is working on the Twinkle drives."

"True. That is, we're working on the bits and pieces that're left after Lewyn's nimble-fingered artistes tore the hell out of them. Why did they go to design first? Never,ever,let a designer near an actual piece of electronic equipment, Tom. Designers should only be allowed to draw pictures on pieces of paper. And only give them one piece of paper at a time."

"What have you found?" Sanders said. "About the drives."

"Nothing yet," Cherry said. "But we got a few ideas we're kicking around."

"Is that why you asked Arthur Kahn to send you ten drives, heatsealed from the factory?"

"You bet your ass."

"Kahn was wondering about that."

"So?" Cherry said. "Let him wonder. It'll do him good. Keep him from playing with himself."

"I'd like to know, too."

"Well look," Cherry said. "Maybe our ideas won't amount to anything. At the moment, all we have is one suspicious chip. That's all Lewyn's clowns left us. It's not very much to go on."

"The chip is bad?"

"No, the chip is fine."

"What's suspicious about it?"

"Look," Cherry said. "We've got enough rumors flying around as it is. I can report that we're working on it, and we don't know yet. That's alt. We'll get the sealed drives tomorrow or Wednesday, and we should know within an hour. Okay?"

"You thinking big problem, or little problem? I've got to know," Sanders said. "It's going to come up in the meetings tomorrow."

"Well, at the moment, the answer is we don't know. It could be anything. We're working on it."

"Arthur thinks it might be serious."

"Arthur might be right. But we'll solve it. That's all I can tell you."

"Don…"

"I understand you want an answer," Cherry said. "Do you understand that I don't have one?"

Sanders stared at him. "You could have called. Why'd you come up in person?"

"Since you asked," Cherry said, "I've got a small problem. It's delicate. Sexual harassment thing."

"Anotherone? It seems like that's all we have around here."

"Us and everybody else," Cherry said. "I hear UniCom's got fourteen suits going right now. Digital Graphics has even more. And MicroSym, look out. They're all pigs over there, anyway. But I'd like your read on this."

Sanders sighed. "Okay."

"In one of my programming groups, the remote DB access group. The group's all pretty old: twenty-five to twenty-nine years old. The supervisor for the fax modem team, a woman, has been asking one of the guys out. She thinks he's cute. He keeps turning her down. Today she asks him again in the parking lot at lunch; he says no. She gets in her car, rams his car, drives off. Nobody hurt, and he doesn't want to make a complaint. But he's worried, thinks it's a little out of hand. Comes to me for advice. What should I do?"

Sanders frowned. "You think that's the whole story? She's just mad at him because he turned her down? Or did he do something to provoke this?"

"He says no. He's a pretty straight guy. A little geeky, not real sophisticated."

"And the woman?"

"She's got a temper, no question. She blows at the team sometimes. I've had to talk to her about that."

"What does she say about the incident in the parking lot?"

"Don't know. The guy's asked me not to talk to her. Says he's embarrassed and doesn't want to make it worse."

Sanders shrugged. "What can you do? People are upset but nobody will talk… I don't know, Don. If a woman rammed his car, I'd guess he must have done something. Chances are he slept with her once, and won't see her again, and now she's pissed. That's my guess."

"That would be my guess, too," Cherry said, "but of course, maybe not.

"Damage to the car?"

"Nothing serious. Broken taillight. He just doesn't want it to get any worse. So, do I drop it?"