The Comstock Project

Part 13: Runtime Errors

As Carly leaves the CS quarters, she sees Ann coming out of the NOC elevator.

"Hey," Carly shouts. "I'm sorry I had to call you in so early, but the shit is hittin' the fan. Let's walk. I need to get a report from the NOC tech specialists."

Ann looks half asleep. "No problem...about calling me," she says.

Carly talks as they start to make their way through doors and down hallways. "So, apparently last night Ellie had a very emotional off-schedule visit with Wichita, Shayla's daughter. I've gone over the downloaded transcript of their meeting and it was pretty intense. In addition to the emotional impact of the meeting, Ellie shared some project findings with Wichita that I'm thinking may have brought up some internal logic conflicts for Ellie."

"Now, anything Ellie knows is okay for her to share with a family member, right?" Ann asks. "That's how I understood it."

"Oh yeah," Carly answers.

"Then why would the dissemination of information cause a logic conflict for Ellie?"

Carly walking and faces Ann. "Haven't you ever had the experience of possessing information that you know is totally true, but you've questioned whether the person you're talking to is prepared to hear that truth?"

"Yeah," Ann answers.

Carly and Ann continue on through the double doors of the NOC Tech Lab.

"Okay guys," Carly announces. "I need a number. How many runtime errors?"

"18," says Azhar, glancing down at his notebook.

"18—18—18," Carly repeats, trying not to cry. "There's nothing I can do with 18. I thought if it was 6, maybe 7...I could bend some rules, but 18 is an impossible number."

"Yeah," says Sunita. "It's the highest number of runtime errors we've ever seen in an operational CS. Ellie plugged her sleep cables in at 1:12am. The first 6 runtime errors happened within 45 minutes of her plug in. That's when the evening shift tech began escalation procedures. We were called in during that escalation protocol. By 4:28am we documented 18 runtime errors."

Carly gains her composure. "Ann, I'm sorry. I don't think you had the chance to meet Sunita and Azhar. They were offsite doing some training when you were here yesterday. They run the lab. I'm going to leave you here with them. They can explain where we go from here. I need to get to my office. I don't want to keep Ellie waiting." Turning to Sunita and Azhar, Carly asks, "I presume you guys have the White Manual documentation of everything that's happened?"

"We do," Sunita says.

Azhar hands Carly a white binder. "Here you go," he says. "All 227 pages."

Carly tucks the manual under her arm and heads up to her office.