Disclosure

TOM

He pushed the SEND button. The message disappeared.

"You called?" Don Cherry walked into the room without knocking, and dropped into the chair. He put his hands behind his head. `Jesus, what a day. I’ve been putting out fires all afternoon."

"Tell me."

"I got some dweebs from Conley down there, asking my guys what the difference is between RAM and ROM. Like they have time for this. Pretty soon, one of the dweebs hears `flash memory’ and he goes, `How often does it flash?’ Like it was a flashlight or something. And my guys have to put up with this. I mean, this is high-priced talent. They shouldn’t be doing remedial classes for lawyers. Can’t you stop it?"

"Nobody can stop it," Sanders said.

"Maybe Meredith can stop it," Cherry said, grinning.

Sanders shrugged. "She’s the boss."

"Yeah. Sowhat’s on your mind?"

"Your Diagnostics group is working on the Twinkle drives."

"True. That is, we’re working on the bits and pieces that’re left after Lewyn’s nimble-fingered artistes tore the hell out of them. Why did they go to design first? Never, ever, let a designer near an actual piece of electronic equipment, Tom. Designers should only be allowed to draw pictures on pieces of paper. And only give them one piece of paper at a time."

"What have you found?" Sanders said. "About the drives."

"Nothing yet," Cherry said. "But we got a few ideas we’re kicking around."

"Is that why you asked Arthur Kahn to send you ten drives, heatsealed from the factory?"

"You bet your ass."

"Kahn was wondering about that."

"So?" Cherry said. "Let him wonder. It’ll do him good. Keep him from playing with himself."

"I’d like to know, too."

"Well look," Cherry said. "Maybe our ideas won’t amount to anything. At the moment, all we have is one suspicious chip. That’s all Lewyn’s clowns left us. It’s not very much to go on."

"The chip is bad?"

"No, the chip is fine."

"What’s suspicious about it?"

"Look," Cherry said. "We’ve got enough rumors flying around as it is. I can report that we’re working on it, and we don’t know yet. That’s alt. We’ll get the sealed drives tomorrow or Wednesday, and we should know within an hour. Okay?"

"You thinking big problem, or little problem? I’ve got to know," Sanders said. "It’s going to come up in the meetings tomorrow."

"Well, at the moment, the answer is we don’t know. It could be anything. We’re working on it."

"Arthur thinks it might be serious."

"Arthur might be right. But we’ll solve it. That’s all I can tell you."

"Don . . ."

"I understand you want an answer," Cherry said. "Do you understand that I don’t have one?"

Sanders stared at him. "You could have called. Why’d you come up in person?"

"Since you asked," Cherry said, "I’ve got a small problem. It’s delicate. Sexual harassment thing."

"Another one? It seems like that’s all we have around here."

"Us and everybody else," Cherry said. "I hear UniCom’s got fourteen suits going right now. Digital Graphics has even more. And MicroSym, look out. They’re all pigs over there, anyway. But I’d like your read on this."

Sanders sighed. "Okay."

"In one of my programming groups, the remote DB access group. The group’s all pretty old: twenty-five to twenty-nine years old. The supervisor for the fax modem team, a woman, has been asking one of the guys out. She thinks he’s cute. He keeps turning her down. Today she asks him again in the parking lot at lunch; he says no. She gets in her car, rams his car, drives off. Nobody hurt, and he doesn’t want to make a complaint. But he’s worried, thinks it’s a little out of hand. Comes to me for advice. What should I do?"

Sanders frowned. "You think that’s the whole story? She’s just mad at him because he turned her down? Or did he do something to provoke this?"

"He says no. He’s a pretty straight guy. A little geeky, not real sophisticated."

"And the woman?"

"She’s got a temper, no question. She blows at the team sometimes. I’ve had to talk to her about that."

"What does she say about the incident in the parking lot?"

"Don’t know. The guy’s asked me not to talk to her. Says he’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to make it worse."

Sanders shrugged. "What can you do? People are upset but nobody will talk . . . I don’t know, Don. If a woman rammed his car, I’d guess he must have done something. Chances are he slept with her once, and won’t see her again, and now she’s pissed. That’s my guess."

"That would be my guess, too," Cherry said, "but of course, maybe not.

"Damage to the car?"

"Nothing serious. Broken taillight. He just doesn’t want it to get any worse. So, do I drop it?"

"If he won’t file charges, I’d drop it."

"Do I speak to her informally?"

"I wouldn’t. You go accusing her of impropriety-even informally-and you’re asking for trouble. Nobody’s going to support you. Because the chances are, your guy did do something to provoke her."

"Even though he says he didn’t."

Sanders sighed. "Listen, Don, they always say they didn’t. I never heard of one who said, `You know, I deserve this.’ Never happens."

"So, drop it’,"

"Put a note in the file that he told you the story, be sure you characterize the story as alleged, and forget it."

Cherry nodded, turned to leave. At the door, he stopped and looked back. "So tell me this. How come we’re both so convinced this guy must have done something?"