"Yeah. Well, don't."
Ahead they saw Pioneer Square, with windows in the buildings still brightly lit. Many of the companies here had business with Japan, and stayed open to overlap with the first hours of the day in Tokyo.
"You know," Fernandez said, "watching her with those men, I noticed how cool she was."
"Yes. Meredith is cool."
"Very controlled."
"Yes. She is."
"So why did she approach you so overtly-and on her first day? What was the rush?"
What is the problem she is trying to solve? Max had said. Now Fernandez was asking the same thing. Everyone seemed to understand except Sanders.
You're not a victim.
So, solve it, he thought.
Get to work.
He remembered the conversation when Meredith and Blackburn were leaving the conference room.
It should be quite smooth and impersonal. After all, you have the facts on your side. He's clearly incompetent.
He still can't get into the database?
No. He 's locked out of the system.
And there's no way he can get into Conley -Whiter system?
No way in hell, Meredith.
They were right, of course. He couldn't get into the system. But what difference would it make if he could?
Solve the problem, Max had said. Do what you do best.
Solve the problem.
"Hell," Sanders said.
"It'll come," Fernandez said.
It was nine-thirty. On the fourth floor, cleaning crews worked in the central partition area. Sanders went into his office with Fernandez. He didn't really know why they were going there. There wasn't anything he could think to do, now.
Fernandez said, "Let me talk to Alan. He might have something." She sat down and began to dial.
Sanders sat behind his desk, and stared at the monitor. On the screen, his email message read:
YOU'RE STILL CHECKING THE WRONG COMPANY.
AFRIEND
"I don't see how," he said, looking at the screen. He felt irritable, playing with a puzzle that everyone could solve except him.
Fernandez said, "Alan? Louise. What have you got? Uh-huh. Uhhuh. Is that . . . Well, that's very disappointing, Alan. No, I don't know, now. If you can, yes. When would you be seeing her? All right. Whatever you can." She hung up. "No luck tonight."
"But we've only got tonight."
"Yes."
Sanders stared at the message on the computer screen. Somebody inside the company was trying to help him. Telling him he was checking the wrong company. The message seemed to imply that there was a way for him to check the other company. And presumably, whoever knew enough to send this message also knew that Sanders had been cut out of the DigiCom system, his privileges revoked.
What could he do?
Nothing.
Fernandez said, "Who do you think this `Afriend' is?"
"I don't know."
"Suppose you had to guess."
"I don't know."
"What comes into your mind?" she said.
He considered the possibility that `Afriend' was Mary Anne Hunter. But Mary Anne wasn't really a technical person; her strength was marketing. She wasn't likely to be sending routed messages over the Internet. She probably didn't know what the Internet was. So: not Mary Anne.
And not Mark Lewyn. Lewyn was furious at him.
Don Cherry? Sanders paused, considering that. In a way, this was just like Cherry. But the only time that Sanders had seen him since this began, Cherry had been distinctly unfriendly.
Not Cherry.
Then who else could it be? Those were the only people with executive sysop access in Seattle. Hunter, Lewyn, Cherry. A short list.
Stephanie Kaplan? Unlikely. At heart, Kaplan was plodding and unimaginative. And she didn't know enough about computers to do this.
Was it somebody outside the company? It could be Gary Bosak, he thought. Gary probably felt guilty about having turned his back on Sanders. And Gary had a hacker's devious instincts-and a hacker's sense of humor.
It might very well be Gary.
But it still didn't do Sanders any good.
You were always good at technical problems. That was always your strength.
He pulled out the Twinkle CD-ROM drive, still in plastic. Why would they want it wrapped that way?
Never mind, he thought. Stay focused.
There was something wrong with the drive. If he knew what, he would have the answer. Who would know?
Wrapped in plastic.
It was something to do with the production line. It must be. He fumbled with the material on his desk and found the DAT cartridge. He inserted it into the machine.
It came up, showing his conversation with Arthur Kahn. Kahn was on one side of the screen, Sanders on the other.
Behind Arthur, the brightly lit assembly line beneath banks of fluorescent lights. Kahn coughed, and rubbed his chin. "Hello, Tom. How are you?"
"I'm fine, Arthur," he said.
"Well, good. I'm sorry about the new organization."
But Sanders wasn't listening to the conversation. He was looking at Kahn. He noticed now that Kahn was standing very close to the camera, so close that his features were slightly blurred, out of focus. His face was large, and blocked any clear view of the production line behind him. "You know how I feel personally," Kahn was saying, on the screen.
His face was blocking the line.
Sanders watched a moment more, and then switched the tape off. "Let's go downstairs," he said.
"You have an idea?"
"Call it a last-ditch hope," he said.
The lights clicked on, harsh lights shining on the tables of the Diagnostic team. Fernandez said, "What is this place?"
"This is where they check the drives."
"The drives that don't work?"