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Once lunch was over, Susan and Greg headed to the project room. After entering, they headed to the computer, sat down, and inserted the USB drive. Susan pulled up the menu and clicked on the icon. When prompted, she entered her new password and then opened the file explorer menu.
Susan’s shoulders slumped. “There’s an immense number of files on this drive. How are we ever going to comb through them all to find the one file that could be the backup?”
Greg eyed the computer screen and said, “I don’t know. I guess we just look at each one.”
“That could take forever, but I guess it’s a good place to start,” Susan replied as she began reviewing one file after another trying to find one that looked like a backup file of the code.
“Look here, Greg.” Susan poked the monitor showing Greg some files she found that she thought might be useful.
“Can you write this down, please?”
Greg grabbed a pen and paper and began the enormous task of writing each file Susan pointed to There were more than a thousand files on the drive, so they had to work together as a team. After she had gone through all the files, Greg had written several hundred file names, all of which would then have to be opened and reviewed.
Greg groaned while shaking the stiffness out of his fingers. “This will take forever, and we’re not even sure we picked the right files to look at, or if we can read them.”
“That’s true, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Yeah, but it seems like we are buck-shooting this and taking what it hits. I mean, we are guessing at this point.”
Aggravated at Greg’s whining, Susan blurted, “Yes, we are. Unless you’ve got a better idea or approach, I think you should just be quiet.”
“Fine, but it’s still frustrating.”
“Indeed, it is. I’ll copy these files onto two separate USB drives. Then you can look through one drive of files and I’ll look through the other one.”
“What a great idea.”
“I thought you would agree. Can you go to my office and grab two empty USB drives? Make sure they’re different colors so we don’t get them confused.”
Susan looked through the files again while Greg retrieved the drives. She heard the door open after just a couple of minutes.
“Here are those USB drives you wanted.”
“Thanks. I’ll copy the first half of the files we selected to your drive, which will be the green one. Then I’ll copy the rest onto the blue one for me. Each drive will have the same password but with a slight variation from the original. Once I’m finished, we can start digging through the files.”
“Sounds like a plan, though it could take us a while.”
“No doubt. We’ll have to view each file to see if it’s even relevant. If we think it is, then we’ll have to scan through it looking for anything that might possibly correct the error in the code. If we find something that looks promising, we’ll have to upload it and run simulations to determine if it works. If it doesn’t, then we’ll have to reload the current code to avoid causing more problems.”
“Right, that was a mouth full.”
Susan began the painful job of transferring the files. “Okay, Greg, this one is ready for you to start.” She handed him the drive and gave him the password. “You can sit at the computer right here next to me, in case you’ve got any questions,” Susan said.
“Sure, sounds good to me.”
Greg plopped down next to her, plugged in the USB drive and brought up the menu. When the menu popped up, it asked for the password. He entered it and went to the file explorer menu, where he selected his first file. The file turned out to be all gibberish, so he closed it and tried the next file. It looked better; at least he could read the code. He quickly scanned the file and found nothing useful. That process kept going for hours.
Susan finished downloading her selected files and began the audacious job of scanning each file for its importance. One thing she knew for certain was that scanning computer code was exhausting and mind-numbing. There were times the code seemed to bleed together, making it exceedingly difficult to understand; and the lines of math were sometimes incomprehensible. She could tell this would be a long, drawn-out task.
After working several hours, Susan decided to call it a day. Neither she nor Greg could see straight any longer, and they were due for a break. “Greg, we should quit for the day. My mind can’t take another line of code or math.”
“I agree. I think I lost it an hour ago and may have to re-examine the last few files I went through when we start again tomorrow.
“Did you find anything helpful yet?”
“No. I thought I had a few times, but after looking at it more carefully, it didn’t look like what we were looking for. How about you?”
“Same here. I didn’t find much, or I thought something might work but then looked again and realized it wouldn’t.”
“Well, dang it. How long do you think this will take?”
“It takes as long as it takes. Remember, we wouldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t done something as stupid, and immature as changing Paulette’s return code.”
“Hey, keep in mind it also might not have been something I did.”
“True, but unlikely, since all the tests she had run worked.”
“Fine. You’re probably right.”
“Well, let’s head out for the day. Need to check in with my lab, and then I’m heading home. What about you?”
“I’ll probably head back to the hotel. Need to call my apartment complex and see if they have the elevator fixed yet. If I didn’t have a few more days to recover, I’d risk walking up the ten flights of stairs.”
“Best you keep resting and wait to go back home till you’re ready or they fix the elevator, whichever comes first.”
“True. See you tomorrow then.”
“All right. Take care, Greg.”
