The I.T. Girl by Fiona Pearse

was
looking at memory. Looking for complex logic errors. I
took for granted the most used piece of code was doing what it should. I moved the
fix onto the live server for the next start-up: twelve a.m.; the Asian market.
    The rest of the day was a blur of answering complaints about
the crisis and recovering the missed data. As I updated each complaint with the
same explanation, over and over again, I knew this was going to look really bad.
I had made a junior programming error – and worse, I hadn’t caught it.
    Sam came over, carrying his coat and rucksack, ready to leave.
‘I hope you learned your lesson, young lady?’
    ‘That’s harsh. At least the worst is over.’
    ‘The shit hasn’t hit the fan yet,’ he warned.
    Felix was behind us. ‘Is everything in place for tonight?’
    ‘Yes. I’ve uploaded a fix.’
    ‘Why didn’t you catch this before it was rolled out?’
    ‘As I said before, without a high volume of data, the problem
simply didn’t appear. I couldn’t reproduce it in a test environment.’
    ‘Then how do you know it’s fixed?’
    ‘Because I can see the processing speed is faster with the fix
in.’
    ‘Have you done a code review?’ Felix looked at Sam.
    ‘Yeah, I found the bug with Orla . It’s
a simple fix.’
    ‘Okay,’ Felix said and walked away.
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sam said again, looking at my crumpling
face.
    With the familiar feeling of drained tiredness mixed with hyper
brain activity I slowly made my way off the R&D floor, no longer impressed by
the ceiling-high display of market activity and bold company slogans for CouperDaye . All of which were there to remind me; this wasn’t
just a job, this was a way of life.
    A tube beneath the city took me home. Where the shiny jagged
edges ended and the old markets began, I disappeared down winding streets towards
my one-bed lux, cut in to an old building.
    When I opened the front door I realised I had remembered to get
my broadband line set up for work but had forgotten to get the heating switched
on. The open-plan living room was empty apart from a mound of boxes in the middle
of the floor. I opened a few to find my fleece and a rug. With my back against a
box, I settled on the floor and picked up my laptop to prepare for the 12 a.m. market.
    Once everything was in place I went over to the bay window. It
was the first thing I had noticed when I’d walked in to the flat three months before.
I had instantly known that I had to live here. The frames were white and chipped
and they rattled when I shook them. I cupped my face against the glass and squinted
down at the communal garden. Street lights curled like crooked hands over picnic
tables. I felt a little cold air coming in. ‘Now what happens?’ I asked, leaving
my breath on the glass.

 

 
 
    Chapter Four

 
    Boris leaned against my desk while I tidied around him, preparing
for the weekend.
    ‘ But that’s your job , ’ I imitated Felix’s gruff voice.
      ‘Ooh, that’s harsh,’ he
said, keeping an eye on the end of our wing for anyone from management coming around
the corner. ‘Look, he’s going to get some heat from the US boys over this. You’ll
probably get a bit of a bollocking.’
    ‘Stern is going to need to isolate the blame,’ Sam warned, leaning
over the wall of my cube. He occasionally raised his head, keeping an eye on the
opposite end of the floor.
    ‘Meeting’s been scheduled for next week,’ I said.
    ‘No one should be surprised there were issues. Fucking idiots,’
Sam continued.
    ‘It's your turn next,’ Boris said to Sam.
    ‘I think you'll find that it's not,’ Sam snapped. ‘Look, if they
want me to do it, give me six months training and some sort of handover process
and, well, even then, I probably wouldn’t do it.’
      ‘Look, mate,’ Boris said.
‘They’re convinced this is the way forward and Stern expects everyone to be on board.
Either give a hundred per cent to the company or leave.’
    ‘It's not the