House of Gold (2 page)

Keep Edwards regional? Ellie knew Sam could do better. He shortened
the name.

She might be a dead ringer for Grace Kelly, but she has a business mind like a steel trap.
(Buzz also believed she was the most excellent waltz partner in the world. Neither Sam nor Mel could waltz worth a prune.)

Yes, yes,
Ellie's
man was destined to go
national.

So after futzing around doing 'research' for a year, Sam took his company national, and like everything else in his life,
it just came to him, like water flowing down a giant, purple mountain.

His Opus Dei buddy, Bill White, who owned a large advertising agency in Cleveland, worked up a new logo. Against the seasoned advice of Ellie's father, Bucky James (who owned his own insurance company), Sam dumped the hardware division and went solely into
custom software solutions;
Johnny Traverse, Sam's longtime professional
sidekick and salesman extraordinaire, called on some giant manufacturers of
whatever
in California and Texas.

Hard work. Great leadership. Great plan. Great service. Great programmers. Great sales team. Great timing. Bingo bango bongo, two years later Edwards made the
Inc.
Five Hundred. It was now pushing one hundred handsomely paid employees.

And for every major strategic decision along the way,
Sam had been several moves ahead on the chessboard–in an industry known for rapid change. In certain circles–especially among his competitors, his ability to project into the future was legendary. The lanky exec pulled the trigger on these decisions with an eerie confidence, a detached nonchalance, a carefully measured repose. The future, which was a thick fog to most mortals–even other successful
computer entrepreneurs–was often crystal clear to Sam.

"I earn my living by thinking about things and making decisions," he often explained to Buzz in a sheepish tone.

Aside from requisite visits to the CEOs and CIOs of his clients, he spent most of his day in the office–reading online discussion groups and conducting email correspondence with programmers and other businessmen. Often he looked
out the window and...pondered. Sometimes he tinkered with code–but he claimed it was a form of procrastination and that his own programmers had surpassed him years ago.

He rarely talked about work at home, except for-"official" conversations with Ellie during working hours. At the time he founded the company, he had promised himself that he would work Saturday mornings for the first seven years,
which of course he did with plodding zeal. A few years ago, on the first Saturday after the first day of the eighth year, Buzz dropped by the Fisk house out of sheer curiosity. Ellie served flapjacks and maple syrup and Sam didn't bring up Edwards one single time.

That was Sam Fisk.

Edwards dominates its niche,
Ellie had mentioned to Buzz one time. Buzz had only a vague idea what that actually
meant. In confidence, Sam had estimated to Buzz that Edwards was worth around twelve million dollars.

All this effort so Ellie, the Super-Catholic-Chick, could give away over half what Sam made every year,
Buzz thought now.
They've got a regular system going, those two. To think she was barely going to Mass on Sundays when I met her.

None of the employees, not even Johnny Traverse, who owned four
percent of the company, knew that Edwards was on the block. Sam had explained to Buzz that brokers sold companies like his blind to the Merger and Acquisition departments of giant corporations all the time. High-tech companies were especially dear to the market.

All this swirled in Buzz's head as he sat in Sam's office. Sam was really, truly, actually selling his life's work. Everything had been
so normal when Sam first called Buzz one evening and asked him to look into something as harmless-sounding as a computer glitch.

"I want your take on it," Sam had told him with nary a hint of Armageddon in his voice, then rattled off a few websites. "I'm deeply concerned."

That had been three weeks ago.

Deeply
concerned. Hmmn.

That night Buzz started browsing the Net after the family Rosary–Markie
was just starting to join in, God love him–figuring he would spend a leisurely hour or two online.

He stayed up until four. He overslept the alarm the next morning. When Buzz stopped by Edwards a few days later, he was more than merely
deeply concerned.

Buzz had been sitting on this same couch in Sam's office...

+  +  +

"Can it really happen, Sam–the whole grid? No telephones. No food delivery.
What are the odds?"

"I believe there is a sixty percent chance for a complete, prolonged collapse of the infrastructure, and a thirty percent chance for a depression worse than the Great Depression–because the world economy is more global this time around. Those are rough numbers."

Sam wasn't kidding or smiling with those big teeth or anything. Dead serious.
Deeply concerned
again. He, Sam, computer
magnate. He cracked one bony knuckle against another.

"But Sam, that only leaves ten percent for nothing much happening. Whose projections are these?"

"These are my personal
conclusions.
They are not projections. No one can project the future accurately. I draw conclusions based on necessarily incomplete data. That's why I gave you percentages. These conclusions help me make decisions about what
action we can take
now,
before the future happens."

There was absolutely no hint of pride or arrogance in Sam's voice. He might as well have been describing the day's weather. Sam read the skepticism on Buzz's face.

"Look Buzz, I've been researching this for a long time. It all started when a client in Arizona asked me if Edwards was planning to go into millennium bug remediation. I have known
about the problem since I was programming punchcards back during my IBM days. Remember, I started out in mainframes. We all knew about it. None of us thought it was a big deal–we assumed that the boxes we were using would be replaced by now.

"I began calling some of the engineers who work for our top clients–guys who design and install micro-controllers–what we call black boxes in the industry.
These embedded chips are the real threat. They're in everything. Most can't be reprogrammed. Most can't be replaced–no matter what you'll read in the press when they catch on to this. The factories that made them are long gone.

"The layman does not have a grasp of the scope of the problem. The vast majority of the executives at the companies who hire Edwards are not technically sophisticated when
it comes to computers–that's why they hire Edwards.

"Thinking only about short term earnings and their effect on stock valuations, executives will continue to ignore meaningful remediation until it's too late. When they finally face the problem, the demand for consulting companies and programmers will far outstrip supply.

"Every company and government agency in every industry in every country
is going to have failures of millions of embedded chips, countless millions of computers, and billions of lines of code–
all at the same time.

"Oh yes, and the vast majority of PCs and their applications also need to be fixed. There is no way all these things can all be addressed on time. Did you know that a huge percentage of software projects are completed late, or are never completed?

"Our current
infrastructure has an expiration date, Buzz. Edwards will be worthless on January 1st, 2000. If I view this from a pure financial perspective, selling the company while it still has a perceived value is my only rational course of action."

He paused, then once more turned to his computer screen.

The intercom buzzed. He told Marcie to hold the call. Governor Taft could have been on the line, but
when Buzz was in the office, Sam had Marcie hold the calls. Sam turned back to Buzz.

"So I first looked into this problem strictly to find out if I should move Edwards in the direction of remediation–not to find out if the infrastructure was at risk. Although I was fairly certain we could make money on remediation, I wasn't sure if I was willing to tool up for a market that would disappear a few
months after all the code had been fixed–"

"But you found yourself staying up late, doing more research than you expected," Buzz interrupted.

"Just as you did for the last few nights, Buzz."

Sam shook his head.

"I began contacting the best programmers in the country. I speak their language. I compared notes with old-time hackers, elite RPG guys–" Sam paused, realizing that Buzz would have no idea
that RPG was, "and other computer languages my young geeks on the other side of that door have never heard of, much less studied."

Sam drew a deep breath. It was not often he spoke at such length.

"I now believe that five hundred years from now, when people recall our century, this computer problem will be the first thing they remember, followed by World War II, the Great Depression, and of course,
Pope John Paul II."

This last assertion had shaken Buzz. Sam making sweeping historical statements was like, well, Buzz
not
making them.

"I don't know what to say. How do you react to the end of...everything?" Buzz had asked.

Usually, there was a slight hint of humor in just about everything Buzz said. This time, he heard the edge–the edge of panic–in his own voice. The faces of Markie and Packy
quickly darted into his mind's eye.

"Get out of Dodge, Buzz."

"Huh?"

"We need to get out of Dodge," his friend repeated, more slowly this time. "Move away. The cities, the suburbs...are not going to be safe. Chris is going to be ten next year. I don't want him to have to see–the problem–first hand. It could become dangerous."

"Run? Run to the hills?" Buzz had asked, his voice sounding far away,
incredulous.

"I'm putting Edwards on the block. I met with the kind of business brokerage which sells my kind of company last week. I'm going to a seminar with them next week–"

"Is this Sam Fisk I'm talking to–"

But Sam, uncharacteristically, interrupted his friend, forcing himself to finish, and Buzz to listen.

"–and Ellie doesn't like it one bit. I'm selling Edwards against her wishes. I'm waiting
for her to make up her own mind. Pray God she comes around. No one can make that woman's mind up for her."

"But you love Edwards. Ellie loves it..."

Ever since the medical problems, when they were forced to accept that Christopher would be their only child, growing Edwards so they could give money away to charity had been like a...life preserver.

"My heart is not in Edwards. When you come to your
own conclusions–and I'll try to help you–your heart won't be in this paradigm either.

"Since we were born–since
everybody
was born, we've all flicked a switch on the wall and the light came on; turned the faucet and hot water came out...and ever since my father died, well..."

Sam Fisk was lost for words for a moment. He looked at the little bronze crucifix he kept on the modem next to his computer,
shaking his head. The crucifix was a reliquary containing a tiny piece of bone from the bodies of Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Francis Xavier.

"Buzz, it's vital to me that you're with me on this. You, me, Mel and Ellie. Our Lady brought us together. I still remember when you rammed into me on the Rocky River courts like it was yesterday. Do you remember that? Remember when we met? I didn't
know it then, but it was Our Lady bringing you into my life. I can't face this without you."

Sam's voice actually cracked at the end. Sam the former atheist. Sam, he of two emotions: calm and comatose. All these years later, it still jolted Buzz when Sam talked Catholic like that. Talking about the Blessed Mother. He was one of the most devout souls Buzz had ever known, leaving his friend in the
dust spiritually years ago–at least that's how Buzz felt about it–yet Sam rarely talked about his faith. He lived it.

And that was that. Oh, they discussed the matter for another two hours. Sam had Marcie put off seven important phone calls. Sam shot down every objection Buzz could conjure. They called baby-sitters and set up dinner at Nate's with Mel and Ellie that night, for more talk, talk,
talk. During the meal, Sam limited himself to explaining the problem to the two women–and steered well clear of his decision to move out of Cleveland.

The technical issues flowed right over Mel's head. Ellie came up with the same objections Buzz raised earlier that day, but was not convinced by Sam's counter-arguments.

For the rest of the world, hell on earth was a little over a year and a half
into the future. For Buzz and Sam, the gas burners, set temporarily to simmer, came on that day.

+  +  +

Buzz turned onto his back, and looked at the blank, gray ceiling. Mel's skin exuded an unseen afterglow. For a change, the baby had not woken up in the middle of the festivities. She now gently moved him to his crib, which was attached to the bed. She and Ellie had removed one side of a normal
crib and had somehow managed to velcro it to the bed. Mel pulled herself up to sit Indian-style next to her husband.

Other couples smoke cigarettes after,
he thought, his own inside joke, one he repeated to himself every time.
Mel gets a back rub.

He sat up, then quickly repositioned himself to a kneeling position behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and began the massage.

"I married
you for these," she whispered to him–repeating her own favorite phrase–then let slip a tiny groan as he felt for the tightness, then did his thing.

He had the gift. He had strong, disciplined fingers. Growing up, Buzz had been an unusually strong child and young man–a powerful, if limited, athlete. Then, before his career in masotherapy, his arms, hands, and fingers had been built up beyond reason
from handling tens of thousands of packages as a UPS driver. If he chose, he could bring a strong man to his knees with a handshake.