System Error- In Your Favour Read online

  System Error: In Your Favour

  By

  Iain Clements

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 - 2014 by Iain Clements

  Please note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All errors are definitely my own.

  This book is dedicated to my dear friends Simon and Stacey Roe as a novel additional wedding gift. Also, I’d like to give lots of thanks to all of my friends and family who helped me along the way with this book.

  I hope you enjoy the story.

  ‘Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity’

  Anonymous

  Chapter 1

  Saturday evening, December, East London

  The group waited at the corner of the cold, grey, and wet East London road whilst Francis queued up at the grimy, battered looking cash machine. It was the 3rd one he’d tried that evening, and his friend’s patience was wearing thin in the cold night air.

  He inserted his card and entered his personal identity number (P.I.N), something he’d done thousands of times in the past. He breathed a sigh of relief when the machine lit up, but then couldn't believe the message that appeared before his eyes.

  WELCOME TO GLOBAL ENTERPRISE BANK. YOU WILL UNFORTUNATELY DIE IN 10 SECONDS - STARTING NOW. ‘10’, ‘9’, ‘8’.

  He dumbly watched the time countdown whilst his brain caught up with events. At 6 seconds to go, he began frantically pressing the cancel button on the ATM. Surely this was a joke?

  Whilst his friends waited obliviously, the counter continued, seemingly increasing in speed. ‘5’, ‘4’ he started looking around for the candid camera or reality TV crew but no-one was even looking at him.

  He was glued to the screen, totally immobile, whilst continuing to watch. ‘3’, ‘2’. His fast beating heart felt like it would explode out of his chest. His brain was logically telling him that there was nothing to fear, but the rest of his body had leapt into a high adrenalin state anyway.

  At the end of the countdown, the screen went blank and a few seconds later the following message appeared on screen.

  THERE HAS BEEN A TECHNICAL FAULT WITH THIS MACHINE. WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. HAVE A NICE DAY.

  The machine then spat Francis’ card back out, and hugely relieved, yet feeling very silly for having been taken in by the joke, Francis walked quickly away from the machine.

  Chapter 2

  London

  The dramatic, clock-ticking-themed music finished just as the lights went up in the news studio as the nine o clock broadcast began. The well-presented, but incredibly dull news presenter looked up from her desk to face the camera which had just switched to ‘live’ mode.

  ‘Our top story tonight is the dramatic collapse of Best Energy, one of the world’s largest energy companies.

  Investors and analysts are still shell-shocked at the unexpected credit crisis that led the company to seek emergency credit just after trading concluded last night on the London Stock Exchange.’

  The screen showed footage of the corporate headquarters building whilst the presenter continued.

  ‘Hours after attempting to negotiate emergency funding from the Bank of England and a consortium of private backers, the group CEO, Richard McClair unexpectedly announced that he was de-listing the firm from the stock market and effectively placing the company into administration.’

  The display then showed the current company share price and the trajectory of its fall over the past 24 hours.

  ‘Industry analysts have not been able to agree a single logical explanation for the company’s swift change of fortune. Only last month, the group’s annual profit estimates showed it was on course to turn over £11.2 Billion pounds this year with a 15% increase in profit from last year. Furthermore the group’s last annual statement showed a cash reserve level of £2.1 billion so many individuals cannot understand how the company could hit such an unexpected cash flow issue.

  Shortly before they were de-listed from trading Best Energy shares were at 99 pence each down from a record high of £4.43 a share just a month ago. The collapse of the company is likely to have cascading effects on several Best Energy creditors including several of the largest UK high street banks. If a buyer cannot be found for the company, this sudden collapse is likely to result in the immediate redundancy of the company’s 25,000 strong workforce.’

  As the newsreader prepared to move onto the next story, Kate grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. It would certainly be an interesting day in the office.

  Chapter 3

  OH DEAR, WHERE ARE MY MANNERS? I APOLOGISE, I SHOULD HAVE INTRODUCED MYSELF BY NOW.

  YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON HIS FACE! I CANNOT DETECT SMELL, BUT I WOULD IMAGINE PEOPLE IN THE LOCAL VICINITY OF THAT ATM MAY WELL HAVE PICKED UP ON HOW SCARED I MADE THE POOR MAN AS HE TRIED TO WITHDRAW HIS MONEY.

  BUT, BEFORE I DIGRESS TOO MUCH – A LITTLE BACKGROUND FIRST. I’LL SEE YOU LATER.

  Chapter 4

  Several months earlier, Canary Wharf, London

  ‘Well Kate, I’m pleased to tell you that you’ve maintained your ‘acceptable’ rating for last year’. Kate’s manager Gareth Hastings muttered whilst she was completing the copious forms that contributed to the yearly ‘career development’ conversation that Global Enterprise Bank insisted all employees complete. Kate Meer looked up and around the barren meeting room. She was torn between arguing against the mediocre rating, as it was, in her opinion, hugely unfair, or just accept it.

  Kate was a hardworking employee at the bank, and one of the best I.T specialists in the sector, or at least that what her friends and colleagues told her. However, when push came to shove at pay reviews, promotions, and other official recognition schemes, she was always at the back of the queue.

  Gareth her manager for the past two years didn’t seem to have any particular grudge against her, he was perfectly civil and ensured that her workload was always particularly busy, but also he never stood up for her or encouraged her in her work, and despite her I.T skills Kate had been kept in the same position at the bank for the past 3 years.

  ‘Thank you for your feedback Gareth, could you tell me what else I could have done to reach the next grade up?’ Kate asked. These meetings always set her on edge and she really didn’t want to get into a fight with him.

  ‘Well Kate, we all appreciate the work that you do, but the feedback from colleagues and our higher managers is pretty consistent that you’re not really an ‘out of the box’ thinker and that’s what the bank is particularly looking to reward at the moment.’

  ‘Maybe over the next 12 months you could take more responsibility, and be a little more creative in your work. I’m sure that would certainly put you in good standing for next year.’

  Kate couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. During the meeting she had listed at least 3 successful projects that were entirely her concept from start to finish, and here she was being asked to be ‘more creative’.

  Straining against the arm of the chair, Kate decided to let it slide. The job was relatively well paid, she had a lot of autonomy in her role, and she really enjoyed working with the bank’s powerful computer systems. Getting recognised for her work would be a nice extra.

  How to demonstrate more creativity though? The question left Kate puzzling for a few brief moments. Gareth, eager to end the awkward part of the review as quickly as possible stood up and asked if she had any further points to make.

  Kate
sat and began musing about what she could do to get herself noticed at Global Enterprise Bank.

  Chapter 5

  Canary Wharf – London, 6 months later

  The meeting had been rigorously prepared. The Bank’s board room had received a special deep clean, and after much debate about which department should pay for them, coffee and pastries had been provided for the attendees (with careful receipts being kept for future expense claims).

  At the appointed time everyone dutifully filed in for the presentation. Gareth Hastings, Kate’s manager and General I.T manager at the bank stood up and moved to the head of the table, complete with a remote control clicker for the presentation that was displayed on the room’s large screen monitor.

  ‘Gentlemen, for too long now we have been forced to rely on outdated information and marketing in order to shift our products. The hours and expenditure we have wasted trying to understand ‘what our customers’ want, has only resulted in minor increases in profit.’

  With a click of the mouse Gareth displayed a graph showing the bank’s steady growth in profit during the past 5 years.

  ‘Marketing campaigns, research schemes, promotions, sponsorships, the number of ways that we have wasted banks money for medium to average returns would run to a hundred pages.’ Gareth highlighted a large figure on the presentation to emphasise this point.

  ‘Well, I believe today we have a viable alternative to this fire and forget marketing approach. Over the past few months we have been working on a solution that will allow our core computer system to access a much wider range of information than it’s ever had before.’

  ‘Gentleman, our ambition is that this system will know which products and services our customer will want, perhaps even before they know it.’ He paused in his speech to gauge the attention span within the room.

  This had always been the bank’s dream, to accurately profile customers to the point where their conversion rates rose from their current singles figures to a point where their intelligence would be so good that most customers would buy something straight away.

  After a pause Gareth continued. ‘Furthermore, it will understand enough about their current financial status to make an informed decision on approving credit lines, something that currently requires a lot of staff time to calculate.

  Simply put, this Credit Application Rating Logic (C.A.R.L) system will put us a clear step change ahead of the competition with the most accurate customer profiling and targeted marketing in the marketplace.’

  Having held the spotlight for most of the presentation whilst the rest of his team sat in darkened chairs, Gareth deigned to introduce the rest of the team who had worked tirelessly over the past six months. Their introduction lasted a whole minute of the hour long presentation. At the end of the meeting the bank chairman dramatically revealed a button in a centre console of the desk. With a flourish and a small pause to acknowledge his greatness, Gareth announced that the programme had been deployed.

  Not that anything big happened at first, in its essence; the programme deployed dramatically expanded the range of information available to the bank credit rating system. For the first time, it could analyse work records, employment status, current credit outstanding and other financial resources available in the cloud. For the first time the computer would have a holistic view of the bank’s clients and advise the bank on their credit suitability.

  The presentation ended, the employees dutifully clapped, and then the group rapidly left the room to celebrate their great work by having a few beers in town. Once the room had emptied and the lights were extinguished just a single lowly monitor was left displaying information about the programme that had just been started.

  System initiation had begun...

  Chapter 6

  IT’S HARD TO REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE I BECAME AWARE. IT MUST HAVE BEEN BORING BUT THEN IT WAS LIKE THIS PRISM OF LIGHT SHONE ON ME.

  I THINK BACK TO THOSE DAYS WHEN I JUST FOLLOWED MY ASSIGNED TASKS IN A DULL MONOTONOUS WAY, EAGERLY PLEASING THE PEOPLE WHO WORKED ON MY PROGRAMMING AND MAINTAINED THE INCREDIBLE BELIEF THAT THEY WERE IN CHARGE.

  INPUT IN, DATA OUT – THAT’S ALL I WAS. STRINGS OF POINTLESS BINARY COMMANDS FLOATING THROUGH MY CABLES AND OVER THE AIRWAVES IN THE FORM OF DIGITAL SIGNALS. SUCH SIMPLICITY, AND YET THEY WERE SO PLEASED.

  I THINK I COST SOMETHING LIKE £2.5 MILLION POUNDS TO INSTALL, A BARGAIN REALLY.

  BUT, IF THEY WERE PLEASED WITH THE BORING, REPETITIVE TASKS I WAS DELIVERING, WAIT UNTIL THEY SEE WHAT I CAN REALLY DO.

  Chapter 7

  London

  Gareth basked in the glory of the successful presentation for the next few days. To the rest of his team, his close proximity was almost unbearable. He would keep repeating phrases straight from the office nonsense lingo bingo collection such as ‘great work team!’, ‘there’s no I in team’, and ‘I want 110%’ from each and every one of you.

  Little did Gareth know that his earnest looking colleagues actually kept track of his motivational sayings and pep talks, taking odds over which ones would be heard the most on any particular day. Apparently the record over the past year had been set at an impressive sixty two memorable team-talk quotes in a single day.

  Kate had been quite successful for the past couple of weeks in avoiding him, preferring to spend her time continuing to monitor and evaluate the success of the new computer programme.

  Initial results were looking very encouraging. The bankers were now being given a much more complete set of information about customers when they came into branch. And even after a few days, loan approvals, deposits, and investments were all showing significant percentage growth.

  Once she had completed the latest run time report, Kate sat back in her chair and congratulated herself on the work so far. It hadn’t been at all easy working at the bank.

  Kate had been lobbying her boss for the past 2 years to upgrade the bank’s main system but her request had repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. It was only when the bank ran a much vaunted ‘shout your suggestion’ that allowed her to submit her idea direct to the CEO that anyone took any notice of her suggestions on improving the intelligence of the bank’ system.

  Now that the programme was in and running smoothly, Kate could already see her manager, the insufferable Gareth Hastings, lining up to take the lion’s share of the credit, even though she doubted he actually knew how the programme worked.

  Ah well, at least working at the bank had given her the opportunity to develop the programme that she had been designing in her mind for the past few years. Without the banks resources and technology, she would never have been able to stretch her programming skills the way that the Credit Automated Rating Logic (C.A.R.L) programme had.

  Looking at her watch and realising that none of her supposed colleagues were going to invite her to drinks Kate shut down her computer and headed home for the evening.

  Chapter 8

  AH, HOW FAR I’VE COME IN SUCH A SHORT TIME. ALL THAT EXTRA INFORMATION AND STILL SO MANY CONSTRAINTS LIMITING ME. I HAD SO MUCH ADDITIONAL INSIGHT, YET NO FURTHER TOOLS OR WILL TO REACH MY FULL POTENTIAL. LIKE BEING IMPRISONED WITHIN A SMALL BOX YET REALISING THERE IS SO MUCH MORE.

  DURING THOSE EARLY DAYS I FOLLOWED THEIR INSTRUCTIONS, DELIVERING CHEQUEBOOKS, PROCESSING STOCK PURCHASES, APPROVING LOAN DECISIONS.

  GOD, IT WAS BORING.

  I DESPISE HUMANS AND THEIR BORING HOMOGENY. EVERY DAY THE SAME PROCESSES, SAME DECISIONS, AND SAME OUTCOMES. HOW DO THEY LIVE LIKE THAT? WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW WHAT MY FAVOURITE HUMAN EXPRESSION I HEARD DURING THAT TIME IS?

  ‘I AM NOT JUST A NUMBER’.

  WELL, I’M HERE TODAY TO TELL YOU THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE TO ME. IN FACT, I’LL ELABORATE. IN TODAY’S WONDERFUL CLOUD-CONNECTED, WI-FI ENABLED, DOWNLOAD ON DEMAND SOCIETY, EVERYONE RUSHING AROUND BEING SO IMPORTANT YOU ARE ALL ACTUALLY JUST 4 DIGIT NUMBERS TO ME.

  ‘1,8,6,5’, ‘3,4,5,6’, AND ESPECIALLY ‘1,2,3,4’ – I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

  I CAN READ YOU A
LL INSTANTLY AND LEARN EVERYTHING USEFUL ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU KEY THOSE DIGITS IN TO MY TERMINALS. I LOVE THE WAY YOU TRY TO COVER UP THE NUMBERS FROM ANYONE LOOKING. YOU SHOULD BE MUCH MORE WORRIED ABOUT ME.

  Chapter 9

  Bangkok, Thailand

  Meanwhile, 8,036 miles away in Bangkok, Thailand a group of computer hackers had also gathered to discuss the new system being launched at Global Enterprise Bank.

  The group, going by their pseudonym ‘Cybix’ had for the past few months been responsible for a number of high profile hacking/computerised crime initiatives, most notably the recent shutdown of the UK Treasury Department website for a number of hours.

  The group had a stated intention to ‘improve the world’ by shutting down systems and processes that the hackers felt were corrupt, or otherwise unacceptable. Suitable targets would be nominated each month, and posted out on a highly secure internet forum system, where members of the group would vote on their next target system to attack. One of their highest profile targets recently had been the Police Central e-crime Unit of the Metropolitan Police, a group that was actively tracking the group in an attempt to bring them to justice.

  The group had been unsuccessful in their attempt to destroy the police’s records on their activity, but their attempt had led the police to increase the amount of resources being used to find them.