CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
On Sunday Claudia and Christoph explored the city. They visited most of the major tourist attractions, including a trip to Vaucluse House, the manor home that was once owned by the great Australian explorer, William Charles Wentworth. When they tired of poking through the memories of days gone by, they walked across the road to a tiny reserve called, Neilson Park, which is right on the harbour shore.
They found a secluded spot where they could be alone. Claudia had noticed a change in Christoph, but put it down to the fact he was very tired; he’d had a long flight from the States and they’d been on the go ever since he arrived. She stretched out on the grass and looked up at the sky, Christoph sat beside her; his brow was creased and he looked anxious. ‘Is something worrying you? You seem a little tense.’
He turned to her slowly. ‘There is something very important I must discuss with you.’
She sat up; concerned he was going to tell her something she didn’t want to hear. ‘What is it Christoph?’
‘It’s about Weather Scope and your software, AtmosFear.’
‘What about them?’
‘A few months ago I began to notice errors in the program reports. Not serious ones at first, but they became more so over time.’ He looked straight at her; his voice was grave. ‘I told Angus about it, and he said I was being hysterical. I gave him a copy of the data I’d printed out and showed him my calculations. He agreed there were serious discrepancies, but he just laughed and said the software must have just been having a bad day. I was shocked by his response and told him so. I reminded him we have a huge responsibility to make sure the data was flawless; that lives depended on it and the whole world would be affected if we got it wrong. I repeated that we would create a global disaster, greater than anything in human history, if our findings were not exact.
We argued for a while, but he finally promised that we would look into the matter and identify the cause. He said he would get back to me on it. I waited two days and when I still hadn’t heard from him I went to his office. He apologised for not contacting me; said he’d been busy and just forgot about it. I asked him about the data and he said he and two of our top people had studied it. He said someone had changed the logarithm tables and the trigonometric functions, which of course, caused all the data to scramble. He said Vincent had been doing some tests to see what would happen if the tables were tampered with. When he finished printing off the data he became so engrossed in the results that he simply forgot to change the tables back to their original format. Angus told me not to worry, that he’d made sure a similar thing couldn’t happen again. I asked him how he could be so sure and he said he had assigned Vincent and another of our best scientists. He said they would conduct regular audits of all the tables and the functions. Together they were to carry out a new quality assurance regime, and they would pick up any irregularities within an hour.
I continued to double check the output and I found a number of errors, even after Vincent had taken over the quality control. I spoke with Angus again and he made a feeble excuse. We had words again and I told him I was going to tell you the software was letting us down. He ranted like a crazy man and told me I was being an idiot. He said there was nothing wrong with AtmosFear and he’d have me demoted if I said anything to you. I yelled back and said he couldn’t sack me from the CEO’s job. Things became pretty nasty and he said he’d call an extraordinary shareholders meeting and tell everyone I had become mentally unstable and was no longer fit to hold my position. He said he had already spoken with Ursula and she is prepared to tell the shareholders I have been acting crazy and that’s why she threw me out.’ Christoph sighed deeply and then continued. ‘People would probably believe her. She’s still living in the apartment and no one knows where I am. I’ve played right into their hands, but I had to come. I had to see you; firstly to tell you I love you and want to be with you, and secondly to warn you about AtmosFear.'
Christoph studied Claudia intently. Her face had drained of colour, and she sat very still, trying to process every word he’d said. She stood up and walked to the water’s edge, bent down and picked up a handful of pebbles, and then one by one, she tossed them as far into the harbour as she could.
When she had thrown the last one she returned and sat down beside him again. ‘If there were problems with the logarithms we would have experienced problems too. I am certain all our calculations are correct. Remember we do things differently here. We still do manual calcs. We compare every AtmosFear result with Andrew’s manual ones, and we have never found any major variations. Ages ago there were a few small variations, but Andrew and his team always traced the source and then they carefully record the causes.’ She turned to look at him, ‘You’ve seen my reports. You know how much care I take explaining any deviations we pick up.’ Her voice rose a little. ‘You teased me a couple of times remember. You called me a compulsive obsessive. She paused, and then added, ‘Surely you remember the email I sent you telling you about my compulsive personality traits.’
‘The Elsie email. Of course I remember. I loved it, and I know I used to tease you about your attention to detail.’ She noticed his body relax a little, ‘and that my darling will be the very thing that saves us. If your calculations have no unexplained deviations, then the problem isn’t with AtmosFear. Someone is playing around with Weather Scope’s results.’ He frowned, ‘but why?’
‘Perhaps it’s in someone’s interest to manipulate the data to get the results they want.’ Claudia said, and reached over to take his hard. ‘Think hard Christoph, can you remember if the altered results were more positive or negative? Perhaps someone wants to make the sea level rise predictions appear less problematic than they actually are. Think really hard. It’s very important.’
Christoph stood up, pulled her to her feet and kissed her. He held her body tightly. ‘I don’t have to think hard. I know the results were very friendly. If the trend patterns continued it would be easy to convince people the sea rise predictions would have no real impact for another fifty to a hundred years; and even then it would be a gradual rise.’
He kissed her again and then gently released her, searching her face for signs of fear, but he found none. Instead he saw a new determination and he knew for certain that together they would have the courage to face whatever lay ahead.
‘Let’s go home shall we. I could do with a hot shower and some strong coffee. How about you?’ He smiled reassuringly, ‘Let’s put the whole thing aside for a few hours and then come back to it later.’
‘Coffee sounds great.’ She winked at him, ‘And because of the water restrictions, how about we make it a shower for two? She put her arm around his lower back and tucked her fingers into the waistband of his jeans. A casual observer would never know they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. They were just a young couple who were totally absorbed in each other; their faces radiating love that shone as brightly as the sun.
After coffee and a shower Christoph opened a bottle of wine and passed a glass to Claudia. ‘Now my friend, you sit your pretty butt on the sofa and I will prepare the best sushi you have ever tasted.’ He smiled broadly, ‘and for dessert I have a very special treat for you.’ Claudia sipped the wine and licked her lips slowly. Her eyes shone brightly, her hair, still slightly damp from the shower, framed her face giving her an elfin quality.
‘We could have dessert first, then have sushi’ she teased, understanding exactly what he had in mind to finish off the meal.
‘No dessert must always come last, especially tonight. And after you have had your fill, you will drift into the sweetest sleep you have ever known.’
She followed him into the kitchen, perched on a high stool, and watched him as he set up the items he needed to make sushi. ‘I can’t believe how easily you find things. It’s like you’ve been here before.’
He smiled, ‘It’s your kitchen my darling, and it is as organised as you are. Everything is in a logical place; finding things is easy.’ He noticed her frown.
‘What’s wrong? You look worried.’
‘Talking about being organised just brought back all the Angus stuff. We should talk about it Christoph. We need to work on a plan.’
He nodded, ‘As much as it pains me, I have to agree. We need to decide how to handle the New York problem and then develop a way to check all the EcoLogic results to make sure they are accurate.’
Claudia looked thoughtful then responded, ‘I will just talk with Thomas and Andrew. I can tell them you have picked up some serious discrepancies and you’re worried that someone close to you, or even close to us for that matter, may have interfered with data; compromising all our work. They will be shocked for about five minutes, and then they will quickly recover. I bet if they’re given a few facts, and a bit of time, they will come up with a sound theory about who, why, when. And then they’ll tell us how we can fix the problem.’
‘They will be very unhappy when they find out we have a possible traitor in our midst.’ Christoph said.
‘Sure. They’ll be angry, but they’ll get over it and then they will work like mad to find out who’s been tampering with the results and why.’ She studied his face to see how he was feeling. She thought she’d see anger, but there was none. Instead he looked perplexed. ‘Do you have any idea what the motive might be?’ she asked.
‘At a guess I’d put money on a developing country that’s already heavily into the World Bank.’
‘But why?’
‘Hypothetically, let’s imagine a country that is already swimming in debt, and let’s say they are also struggling to pay the monthly instalments on their World Bank loan. Their economies would be in serious trouble, but they couldn’t afford to panic. And they certainly could not afford a relocation plan. So what if they decide it is easier to sell off the last of their primary exports, raise a few million dollars and use the money to pay someone to change data. They get the predications they want; ones that don’t spell disaster. They can then tell the world that everything they have been told is rubbish. They say they have the proof that nothing significant is going to happen for at least one hundred and twenty five years. They package their manufactured outcomes with a highly credible argument, and remind everyone that nature always finds the right solutions to the problems it faces.’
Christoph shrugged, ‘Then the whole messy climate change thing just goes away and they get on with their lives. If people end up dying it’s no big deal. Life is cheap, and a few million less people would mean nothing to them. If anything they would see it as a good thing. An instant population reduction plan.’