Chapter 2

Denver , Colorado.

“What is wrong with this thing”, Remy punched the keyboard in frustration. Her screen was glowing dim blue with the text in white that read :

*** Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
*** The system has halted ***

She tried rebooting the system but to no avail. With no other option she called up her supplier, Fastwire.

——————————————————————————

John Stenton was an expert hardware engineer and Fastwire’s most sought troubleshooter. But the past two weeks had stretched his skills to the limits. Four calls from four different customers from as many different engineers, all of them reporting the same hardware error. As he was thinking about this, his extension rang, informing him that another customer was facing a similar problem.

“Goddammit”, he muttered to himself. This was a problem that was beyond his present knowledge. Also similar problems from around the country meant that it could be more than an isolated hardware failure. He decided to report this to the Principal Systems Engineer.

He called Jenson on his phone.

“Jenson, I think we might have a little problem here.”

Jenson was Fastwire’s salvation. It was only after he joined the company 20 years ago that consumers began to take note of Fastwire. The products were cutting edge and innovative. The technology that he employed was so futuristic that Fastwire was soon the leading computer manufacturer in more than 15 countries. The United States government had awarded the contract to Fastwire to manufacture all its future computer demands, including classified equipments that will put the world’s fastest super computer to shame.

“I heard about it, John. Tell me what you have on this.”

“This is quite baffling Jenson. The systems that suffered a failure were all different models, sold over the last 2 years, the oldest having been sold 17 months back. All of them have suffered the same hardware fault, but we are unable to determine what exactly the fault is.”

“Could a power surge be the reason ? “

“Our people checked that out too. They replied in the negative. All of them had surge protection.”

Jenson leaned back. He was a veteran in the field of computer hardware and problems were something that he faced day in and day out. But this one was proving to be a real pain in the backside. Five computers have crashed in as many weeks leaving no hint of the source of the hardware failure. But this was only the bad news. The worst news was that data stored on the all the hard drives were wiped out. When the engineers brought them back to the facility, the disks were as good as new, with no trace of any data whatsoever. Libels were promised.

Jenson had a hunch that this was only the beginning and more system crashes will follow. It was imperative that the engineers find the cause of this disaster and frame a solution. Jenson was suddenly tired. He had realised lately that he had spent enough time at Fastwire and it was time he took a break and looked at other options. After all, he was fifty two and, although not young anymore, he wanted to look at other opportunities apart from computers as well. He mentally decided that he will quit from Fastwire once this storm blows over.

“John, ask all our engineers to treat this as an highly important issue. They can stop working in their present research for sometime. Divert all experienced engineers to troubleshoot this, and if it helps, ask them to go to the customer’s site to figure out the cause for this mayhem.”

“Yessir”, and Stenton walked out of the cube.

——————————————————————————

Somewhere in Ohio.

To anyone in that village, the house appeared to be just another building, with its simple and elegant appearance perfectly blending in with the surrounding. The villagers respected each other’s privacy , which perfectly suited the inmates of this particular house.

For if the neighbours had taken so much as a little curiosity to find out about the house, they would have found that it contained the most sophisticated gadgets that mankind ever invented. From the satellite phones to the multiple system terminals to the surveillance systems to the integrated house management equipment the house was a gadget’s freaks perfect dream come true.

“We have five systems down, Mr. Gartner. Perfect hits.”

Richard Gartner was in his late fifties. His face looked like he was in his early thirties. He had earned so much in his life that money now was a luxury rather than a necessity. And that he had put his money to good use showed in his persona. This house was another testimony.

He was wathcing a group of ants travelling in a perfect line from one corner of the room to another. He extended his finger and drew a line on the wall, cutting across the path of the ants. The result was instantaneous. The ants went helter skelter. There was utter pandemonium. What was once orderly, was now in a total disarray.

And then said Gartner, to no one in particular.

“Chaos. That is the only order in this world. “

And he continued to watch the ants.