Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Ashwin stared at the computer screen in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The code still stubbornly refused to make sense to him. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. He pushed his glasses up and the screen went blank.

A cold, mechanical voice in his ear asked him if he was taking one of his mandated ten minute breaks. Ashwin sighed and put the glasses back on and leaned forward again. He’d only been on shift for an hour. He didn’t want to take his first break so early in his shift.

His earpiece chimed again. “Ashwin, are you having problems with the code as well?” his coworker Maeve asked.

Ashwin brought his wrist up to his mouth. “Yes Maeve. I know there’s a break in the code. We’ve seen it in action. But nothing I’m seeing tells me where it is. Are you finding it at all in your segment?”

“No, and Xavier says he can’t find it in his segment either. I haven’t heard from Nevis or Seluna,” Maeve told him.

“Those two never talk to us. They don’t want to get their pay docked for excessive socialization,” Ashwin pointed out.

“We’ve only had that happen once,” Maeve protested.

“I know. Keep looking. It’s got to be here somewhere,” Ashwin told her.

“Right. I’ll tell Xavier.” The link fell silent.

Ashwin went back to scanning the code. He ran the data through the compiler and it crashed. The flaw was there. But where was it? The bug report didn’t give him much detail.

“Penalty clause, five percent penalty,” came the mechanical voice.

“Define penalty clause,” Ashwin said into his mouthpiece. What had he done this time to lose five percent of his pay?

“Unauthorized compiler use,” the mechanical voice told him.

“How am I supposed to find the error if I can’t use the compiler?” he demanded.

“Visual inspection is authorized. Compiler use is unauthorized,” he was told.

“Oh for the love of all the stars,” Ashwin muttered. “There are literally thousands of line of code. I am not going to find the error just by sight.” Ashwin sighed and began to inspect each separate line of code. This was not how he wanted to spend his day, but such was the life of a software engineer in this day and age.