Delirious (2 page)

“What?” Charlie asked.

“Well, I’m guessing that you’re single, or you’d be here with somebody making this decision. And if you’re single, you’re probably working, maybe a lot. And I can see that you keep in shape, so I’m guessing you take good care of yourself and that takes time. Perhaps you’re not really a puppy guy, after all. I mean, they are loads of extra work.”

Charlie nodded as he took it all in. He wore his sandy brown hair in nearly a military crop, and his ice blue eyes were framed by oval, matte silver wire-rimmed glasses. Nothing about Charlie’s appearance suggested he had the easygoing personality of a puppy man.

“Perhaps,” was all he said.

“And if you’re single and busy,” the breeder continued, “an older dog might actually be best. He’s only three, but that’s a good age for a beagle, long past pup. Look, if you want that dog, he’s yours. In fact, you’d be doing me a favor. He’s a good boy, just a bit unruly is all.”

Charlie glanced over at Monte, who, as if knowing their destinies were somehow linked, rose, walked over to him, and lay quietly at Charlie’s feet. Charlie bent down to pet his new dog.

“Seems gentle enough to me,” Charlie offered. Fifteen minutes, a modest fee, and a few signed papers later, Charlie and the soon-to-be-named
Monte went outside for their first walk as guy and dog. Gwen would have been proud, impressed even, at Charlie’s capacity to love and care for something other than Charlie. Monte’s shedding turned out to be more endearing than it was annoying. It was a gentle reminder that he was sharing his life with another living being.

If anything, Monte taught Charlie that his capacity to love was far deeper than he had known, and if Gwen were at all interested in trying again, she might find a very different and a far more fulfilling relationship. But she had moved on, and Charlie had yet to find another woman who compared.

In the three years since adopting him, the only consistent part of Charlie’s life had been Monte. His start-up electronics company had continued to grow at a frenetic pace until, after much courting, it was finally acquired by electronics giant SoluCent. As part of the acquisition deal, Charlie became a senior director at SoluCent and was then forced to shutter his office and move all operations east.

Both Charlie and Monte had grown accustomed to spending the workday together. As a result, Charlie was the only employee at Solu-Cent allowed to bring a dog to the office. As pets, per company policy, were prohibited on campus, those who had been vocal to HR about Charlie’s special treatment had been told only that it was part of the acquisition deal and that a special provision had been worked into Charlie’s employment contract, approved by SoluCent CEO Leon Yardley himself.

Since it was a widely held belief that Charlie’s product and new department would be a significant boon to SoluCent’s bottom line, and would fatten an already healthy stock price, that explanation proved satisfactory for most. Charlie, who stood six foot two, and Monte, who was all of fourteen inches high, were now as much a part of SoluCent as the carpeting upon which they walked. But as familiar a pair as they were, Monte was also a symbol to others that Charlie was not really one of them. He was special. And he was treated that way.

Eager for his morning walk, Monte let out a quiet, but excited yip a mere ten seconds before Charlie’s Tag Heuer watch alarm and meeting reminder sounded. Apparently Monte’s internal clock, Charlie marveled, had the same precision as a high-end timepiece. Charlie fixed the leash to Monte’s collar and made his way along the
carpeted corridors through a maze of quiet cubicles, on his way to the front entrance of the SoluCent Omni 2 building. His team would be waiting for him there, on time as always—just as he insisted.

Charlie had once prided himself on the anxiety and dread his Monday morning meetings inspired, mistaking fear for efficiency. Now there was not a member of his team who would deny that bringing Monte into the picture had lessened the intensity and anxiety of the Monday meetings. Lessened, though not eliminated. Not in the least. “What’s good for the heart is good for the mind and that means good for business,” Charlie had often explained to those curious about his team’s ritual Monday morning group walk. But today business wasn’t so good. No, it wasn’t good at all.

T
he morning sun was high and bright in the cloudless sky. Monte made his trademark lunge for the bushes lining the front entrance walkway the moment they stepped outside. Charlie said a quick hello to his five senior managers waiting for him there. Before they were acquired, they were all VPs. But that was a smaller company. In the bloated corporate structure of SoluCent, Charlie was a director and they were senior managers. Sal, Barbara, and To m were checking e-mail on their mobiles; Harry Wessner and Steve Campbell were stretching in the front parking lot. Everybody wore sneakers; they had grown accustomed to Charlie’s athletic pace. Charlie’s executive assistant, Nancy Lord, was there, too, giving Monte some much appreciated petting.

There had been doubt at first, at least from some, that combining the Monday executive team meeting with Monte’s walk would be an effective use of time. To that Charlie had replied that a clear head from a brisk walk improved not only morale but decision making, too. Soon as Monte’s business in the bushes was done, the five members of Charlie’s Magellan Team set off at what Charlie believed to be about a fifteen-minute-mile pace. He’d keep accelerating that along the way. By the end of the walk they’d be closer to twelve-minute miles and they wouldn’t even know it.

As was routine, Charlie waited until they were on the bike path, which bordered the campus, before starting the agenda. Here they were far enough from the main road to speak at a normal volume without being drowned out by the incessant traffic flow.

“Good morning, team,” Charlie said. “I trust you all had a restful weekend and are ready for the week ahead.”

Nancy Lord was the only one to nod. The rest were bleary-eyed and sweating out their stress. Working for Charlie meant that weekends were nothing more than days of the week. To keep pace with Charlie’s demands and lofty expectations required sacrifices many would not be able to make—time being the most precious of all. The reward for those sacrifices, however, in bonuses alone, not counting stock, put all on the Magellan Team within an eyelash distance of what most would consider to be obscenely rich.

Monte kept the pace and walked a few yards ahead of the “pack.”

“So,” Charlie began. “Why don’t you tell me about the Arthur Bean situation, Harry?”

Harry quickened his stride until he was walking alongside Charlie. The others fell behind but remained within earshot. They knew what was coming and that it wasn’t going to be good for Harry. After all, Arthur Bean was his guy. He was a senior quality assurance engineer who posted source code on his blog as an invitation to his hacker friends to try and hack the InVision operating system, or OS—the “code” that made everything work. Bean remained convinced that several generations of the InVision product line had serious security loopholes that made the product susceptible to hackers. He had raised the issue to Harry, and Harry had brought it to Charlie’s attention.

Charlie felt confident that the code was up to standard. Bean wasn’t as convinced. When his pleas for greater attention had gone unanswered, he’d taken matters into his own hands. Charlie wasn’t against Bean’s commitment to quality. It was his methods he questioned. Authority on major rewrites of the OS was Charlie’s alone. The InVision source code was as precious to Charlie as the eleven secret herbs and spices recipe was to KFC. You just didn’t mess with it, no matter how good your intentions. Bean had done just that and, what was worse, had undermined Charlie’s chain of command in the process. Not acceptable at all.

“Charlie, I know you’re upset about what Bean did,” Harry began.

“Upset doesn’t really begin to cover it, Harry,” Charlie said.

Harry nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I’m just pointing out that Arthur Bean’s friends …”

“You mean his hacker buddies,” Charlie corrected.

The pace of their walk left Harry struggling for breath. The escalating tension only made it worse. “You could say that,” he managed to say.

Monte stopped to relieve himself. Charlie’s team stopped as well, forming a ragged semicircle behind Harry. Charlie’s face, they could now see, was red, and they knew it was from anger, not exertion.

“That’s what they are. They’re nothing more than a bunch of renegade hackers given access by our employee to parts of our source code by your man,” replied Charlie.

Monte started to trot along the bike path again; Charlie followed and the others fell into step behind him.

“Only after Arthur felt he had exhausted all available channels,” Harry offered, again having to quicken his step to keep pace.

“And what did Bean’s collective uncover?” Charlie asked, though he knew the answer.

“A major flaw that we’ve corrected in rev six-point-one.”

“Major flaw? As I understand it, that flaw at most could be used to change InVision’s outside temperature reading,” said Charlie. “Not really what I’d consider a serious shortcoming. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Harry nodded. “I realize that,” he said. “We made a change to the application code on account of Bean’s report. And I did talk with Arthur about his approach.”

“Perhaps talking isn’t enough,” Charlie said.

Harry fell behind Charlie at that one. The blog in itself had done little damage, and in fact a couple PR reports had highlighted the blog as an innovative user-community approach to coding. Charlie could have let it stand. But it meant allowing the Magellan Team’s authority to be undermined. That was something he couldn’t stand for. Process and authority had to be respected. If they weren’t, future digressions were almost certain. It set an unacceptable precedent.

“I’m taking appropriate action,” Harry said.

“Okay. Action, I like action. What kind of action are we talking about here?” Charlie asked.

“I’ve asked HR to reprimand him, and we’ve put him on program. That’s how we’re handling it.”

“Doesn’t feel like we’re really ‘handling it,’ Harry,” Charlie replied. “I agreed to sell our company to SoluCent so we could be better. A
start-up company might let that incident go. We’re the real deal now. And I’m sure Leon Yardley would back up that statement.”

“Yes, I understand,” Harry said. “But HR agreed it was negligent on Arthur’s part to use his blog and connections in such a way. They’re the ones who suggested I issue Mr. Bean a formal reprimand and put him on program.”

“A formal reprimand and program doesn’t send much of a message, does it? Every division of SoluCent needs to know how important our product is to the bottom line,” Charlie said. “If that means we take swift and immediate action to correct a problem, then that’s what it means.”

“It’s not that simple. There are some extenuating circumstances.”

Charlie gritted his teeth.

Harry continued, “He and his wife have been, how do I say it …”

“With words, Harry. Use words.”

“They’ve been having marital troubles. Financial stress, mostly, from some bad investments. At least that’s how he explained it to me.”

“And that’s my problem how?”

Charlie felt his stomach churn. How many times had people used family and personal issues as an excuse to overlook ineptitude and poor judgment? If he had used his schizophrenic brother and father and his absentee mother as crutches to justify his mistakes, he never would have graduated from high school, let alone earned an academic scholarship to MIT.

“Harry, I don’t care if the bank is ready to take his house tomorrow. He crossed the line, and once is more than enough. His job is to manage software quality. Period. If he felt the only way to do that job effectively was to use our software as a playground for his devious crew of computer hacks, so be it. He can do that for another company. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, Charlie, but I’m sure he thought—”

“I don’t care what he thought. I care what he did. He screwed up. As far as SoluCent is concerned, our product is basically out in the market, even though we’re still in the pilot phase. Does that register with anyone? Pilot means test. They’re testing production, testing distribution, testing select retail channels, testing consumer response. If this fails, if our resellers believe the product is severely deficient—which it isn’t—SoluCent
may lose some enthusiasm to bring InVision to market. Do you know what that means?”

Most now had drifted well behind Charlie and Harry and had to scamper to catch up. Charlie knew that his team respected him and hated to disappoint. Not to mention, they feared his wrath. But fear, Charlie had learned, also meant focus. Fear could be good. A tool even. And if Charlie sometimes had to use fear to inspire action, and that action brought them results, then so be it.

“It means InVision will be shelved. It means most of you will probably be let go. It means that if you want to go back to Silicon Valley, you’ll have to pay your own way to relocate,” he warned. “I was the one who convinced SoluCent that you were the key members of the Magellan Team, and if I was being relocated here, you’d have to come with me. If I’m gone, you’re gone. Who do you care more about, Harry? You and your family, or Mr. Bean and his bad debt?”

Charlie stopped walking. Sal and Harry had to put their hands on their knees to catch their breath. Monte absently poked his nose into the grass and walked behind a tree. No matter how much he paid these executives, Charlie knew they could never emulate the pride and passion he felt for InVision. After all, could a neighbor love a child as much as its parent did? And InVision was no ordinary child. It was his child—his golden child. It was the 4.0 student, varsity in three sports, with a long-ball arm capable of bringing college recruiters tears of joy. It was a prodigy violinist, the dazzling head cheerleader. Charlie was aware of the subtle jabs at his devotion from colleague and competitor alike, and he welcomed them. He knew the whispers were no different than those of envious parents, jealous of the accomplishments of the child next door.