Level Nine (An original short story)

While on his way up to the forty-fourth floor where he worked, Russell absently looked at the little built-in monitor inside the elevator, contemplating the density of information that an average person is getting nowadays. Without it, he mused, we'd probably feel like a deep sea water fish brought to the surface.

He remembered the time when, back in his college days, he and two of his buddies spent three days on the lake, deliberately away from civilization. The first day went ok, but then they experienced such an informational hunger that they ended up reading the labels from the corned beef cans and matchboxes.

And now, instead of clearing his head, getting it ready for the daily "meat grinder," Russell was focusing on the monitor where weather, stock market, and highway patrol reports rotated on the screen with measured predictability.

***

At his desk, Russell checked his over-night jobs, responded to e-mails that piled up from the previous night and this morning, and returned to the problem he had been presented with yesterday. He'd been just too tired to deal with it, then - exhausted as if someone had syringed all the gray matter out of his cranium.

But he was rested, now, and ready to deal with it, even though it frightened him somewhat. Russell was afraid because he knew he would have to dig deep to brace himself for this mental effort. But, at the same time, he craved the experience - he knew, should he concentrate hard enough and give himself completely to it - the award would be oblivion.

Russell loved these moments of oblivion. The subject matter consumed him so much that he would lose awareness of who he was: an alive organism somewhere in the space-time continuum, an informational unit tracked by his social security number, bank account number, credit card number, employee number, FICO score, amount of money in his the bank account, amount on his paycheck, number of his dependents…. But, mostly, it afforded an escape from the realization that, despite all his efforts, his life didn't amount to anything special and he couldn't rise above being just a statistic, even in his own eyes.

The problem had been presented to him by Paula – the analyst, who worked with him on the in-house automated underwriting software.

"It's Loan 3595423. Bert Muller from the Louisiana branch worked on it. He had to send this loan to a second signer because it was above his authority level. So he sent it to Rich Hutchinson. But then, when Rich wanted to send it further.…"

"Wait. Why would Rich need to send it further? Isn't he a Senior Underwriter himself – Level Five?"

"He is, but this was the five hundred sixty-five grand loan, which requires signing off on by an Executive Vice President Level 7."

"So?

"Well. When Rich attempted to send it to Level Seven, his authority list box was empty."

"Got it."

"This is kind of urgent, you know."

"I said, I got it. Give me five minutes to myself organized, and I'll jump right on it."

So this was the problem. He ran the program and started tracing its execution, observing its jumps from statement to statement and periodically checking its intrinsic values. Everything seemed to be in place. His mind felt fresh and it seemed that the gears in the mechanism of his brain, those that kept slipping while rotating against each other yesterday, now were grabbing snugly.

After a while, Russell came to a query that was supposed to find the users with Level Seven access.

It was empty. He copied the statement and ran it separately in the Query Analyzer. The same result – empty.

'Wait a second … and who am I suppose to see there? Ray Merkin. He's an EPV of Underwriting. Didn't he just resign?'

"Hey, Paula…" He caught her as she was on her way back to her cubicle. "Didn't Ray Merkin resign?"

"Yeah."

"And did you deactivate him in the database?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then there's no surprise no one shows up. There isn't anybody in the company occupying Level Seven right now."

"True, but shouldn't the program, if it didn't find anybody on Seven, go to the next level?"

"Hm…So who's actually supposed to show up?"

"Jeff Spinnaker, he is Chief Credit Officer, Level Eight."

"I wonder why he's not showing?"

"Good question."

"Mmmm…yeah." Russell went back to the program and checked the code. Strangely, until Level Six, the program advanced to the next level if there was no one in the current one. But then… Russell just couldn't figure why it wouldn't advance to Eight. It made no sense.

Russell ran the query to see who was Level Eight in the database. As soon as he saw the results he understood what was the problem. Not only did the query return "Jeff Spinnaker," but also himself, Paula and Andrew, another programmer on this project. All sitting in there with the CCO - and the CCO's level of authorization. Programmers and analysts needed high-level access to be able to move freely within the program - but they weren't supposed to be able to approve five hundred sixty-five thousand dollar loans.

If he didn't cap the logic at Level Seven, every programmer involved with this project would, ultimately, show up on Level Eight.

What he needed to do was add a Level Nine to the authority table, then grant all the programmers Level Nine and modify the logic of the stored procedure to let the Level Eight show in the list when there was no Level Seven around. A piece of cake technically, but administratively….

Time for a break. His best ideas usually came to him over coffee. Russell pushed his chair back and looked over at Andrew, oblivious at his monitor.

"Hey, Andrew - let's go get some coffee."

***

In the lunchroom, there were two signs posted by the brewing machine.

"If you take the last cup - be kind and make a new pot."

…and…

"Please do not brew a new pot of coffee until the pot is totally empty so the pot will not overflow."

Andrew cast a glance at them and sighed.

"You know, I have always wondered whether it is physically possible to comply with both of these requests simultaneously. Think about it. Certainly, if it would happen that your cup was the very last one in the pot, then the directive would be clear. But what are the chances? Most likely after you'd pour yourself a cup, the pot would still have some fractional amount left. Say half or a quarter of a cup. So which directive should be followed?"

Russell smirked just to show his participation, but then his face went back to his normal, grouchy "Don't bother me, can't you see I'm busy?" expression.

Andrew looked at him and grinned.

"Why do I feel you're about to give birth to an idea?"

"Idea? More like a complaint. I've got to go back there and talk to Denise."

"Oh…I feel your pain." None of the programmers enjoyed working with Denise and there was a valid reason for that.

"She's not a bad person" Russell noted, answering their shared, though unspoken, thoughts. "It's just...."

"Yep. Not bad - just obtuse."

They shook their heads in unison.

"It's not her fault of course." Russell wiped absent-mindedly at some spilled coffee on the table. "It's that stupid Sarbanes-Oxley shit."

"What's a 'Sarbanes-Oxley'?" Peggy Miercules from Accounting, who just entered the lunchroom, poured coffee in her mug.

"Not 'what' but 'who'," Andrew jumped in. "Two old farts from the Senate who, after 9/11, decided to display their patriotism and vigilance. They wrote a bill and named it after themselves."

"Oh, my… So how does that affect us?"

"In many detrimental ways. Once specifically is a division of power. One group develops the software, but another maintains it. Supposedly for better security."

"So what's wrong with that? Sounds reasonable."

"Sure. Looks good on paper. What happened in reality though is that people who know what they're doing in the production database are replaced with the people who don't know shit. So it's not only very dangerous to let them do anything in production, but also it's become practically impossible to fix a production problem. All these tons of papers you have to fill to fix one little puny bug. It actually takes, at least, twice as much time to describe the problem, get permission and all this crap, then just to fix the damned thing."

"But why don't the people who maintain the product know what they're doing?"

"Well... theoretically, they should. But all IT departments are normally small shops. They can afford only half a dozen people who know what they are doing. The rest are just sort of low-pay all-purpose clerks."

"Oh, boy. So, now what?"

"So, now we are in a very bad situation. Just recently, one buddy of mine told me lots of small businesses are closing their IT departments and are contracting their IT services to India."

"Wow, that sucks. OK, boys, I'd better be going. Have a nice day." Peggy waved to them on her way out.

Russell and Andrew watched her leave, then looked at each other and, simultaneously, shook their heads.

Accountants. What the fuck do they care?

***

"So, what do you want to do…add another authority level?" Denise's pale eyes looked at Russell through thick glasses as if they knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was guilty. Only they didn't know how to prove it yet. "I've never heard of this. Why can't you do this the usual way?"

"Because it's the current production issue. Listen, Denise, it's not a big deal. All I have to do is to add one more record to one table and change one line in the stored procedure."

"But you want to do it in the production database. Without testing?"

"Try to understand Denise - the loan cannot be approved if I do this in 'Test.' Why is this such a hard thing to understand? It needs to be done in production."

"All I know is you didn't design your system properly if you need to be in production to approve the loan."

"What are you talking about? What do you know about designing a system? The design is a collective effort. You should know that it's not me who comes up with how many security levels a system is supposed to have. I've been requested to make eight levels... and I've made eight."

"So, why do you need Level Nine now?"

Russell sighed loudly, thinking how difficult it would be to explain this to her.

"Because we never have enough time to do what needs to be done. You know that. 'There's never enough time to do things right, but somehow there's always time to redo it,'" he quoted.

"Look," Denise was adamant, "I don't know what you're going to do and, honestly, I don't care. You say I don't let you do your job. Well, you can say this as much as you want. But the fact is - I'm doing MY job!"

Russell turned his head away, trying to calm himself – he was ready to choke Denise. Yes, he could do that... but what would it accomplish?

Now Denise's eyes looked as if Russell's guilt was proven and the jury had just come back with a First Degree Murder verdict. "Go test it, document the problem, and I'll be happy to sign it off. And don't roll your eyes at me. I told you - I'm just doing my job."

***

Russell sat at his desk and looked at his monitor without blinking. 'Stupid Denise! Stupid 'Sarbanes-Oxley'… "Protect production from developers" - how stupid is that? If I wanted to, I could get into 'production' just like this.' He snapped his fingers. 'All I need is the alphanumeric password generator that would attempt to open a database as a system administrator. Put it in the loop and save the password that worked. A piece of cake. "Protect production from developers" – Stupid fucks! I need their permission like a dog needs a fifth leg.'

***

It took Russell half an hour to write the program. And now it was running. He turned away to his second computer and now worked on documenting the problem for Denise, but periodically looked back to see if the system administrator password had been found.

It took the program an hour and forty minutes to crack the password. There it was – "AUDITOR911."

'Someone was also thinking of "Sarbanes-Oxley," I guess.' Russell grinned.

Carefully, he looked around and, seeing that no one was looking, logged into the production database as the system administrator, quickly inserted the level 9 authority level and made a change to the stored procedure and, just as quickly, logged out.

Russell wiped the sweat off his forehead, logged into the application as Rich Hutchinson and tested that Jeff Spinnaker popped out in his authorities list box. 'Thank fucking God!'

"Hey, Paula." Relaxed, now, Russell mosied over to her cubicle. "We're fine now with the whole thing on Loan 3595423. Take a look."

Paula quickly tested it. "Great! I'm going to call Rich. How did you do it?"

"Don't ask." Russell rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Don't ask."

***

An hour later, while Russell was still talking to her about the project, Paula received a phone call.

"It's Jeff Spinnaker," she whispered to Russell, shielding the receiver with her hand. She withdrew her hand.

"Yes, Jeff?"

"Sure. I'll be there in five minutes."

"What does he want?" Russell gestured at Paula, not being able to hear the conversation.

"No biggie. He never used the software before and didn't know which button to hit in order to approve the loan."

Russell laughed, but not joyfully. "Isn't that ironic?"

"What?" Paula was about to leave.

"Nothing. Everything. It's like the symbol of our life – they're so high on the security level list and yet doesn't know which button to press."

"Who? Jeff or Sarbanes-Oxley?"

"All of them."

***

It was time to go home. Russell pressed the "Lobby" button inside the elevator and rubbed his eyes.

The elevator stopped and Russell emerged, almost bumping into a woman who was moving in the opposite direction.

"Oh, shucks!" Russell realized it wasn't the Lobby, he'd walked out of the elevator too early. The doors were closing, but the woman heard Russell's comment and pressed the "Open" button just in time.

"Thanks." Russell smiled apologetically. "Sorry."

"It's OK," the woman smiled back. "Aren't we all getting off on the wrong floor?"

Russell smiled. 'Yep. Wrong floor and wrong security level.'