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9 0 JAGGEDEDGE
“Great,” said Tom, “let’s try something else.”
Most of the morning was filled with tests and more tests. Tom wanted to be sure of the final product, so he tested every aspect of the program he could, faxing, encryption, modem, Internet and retrieval. When the group broke for lunch, He told them that afterwards they would invent scenarios to test and stress the pro- gram. During lunch, everyone tweaked each other’s ears talking about how they used technology to accomplish all kinds of tasks and how they had planned to improve on others.
Now Tom knew Corin would call in just a few more days. He knew time was running out fast. It seemed he always had to be ready ahead of time. By the end of the day, the testing was 94 percent complete, so at dinner, the group made small talk. Even though each participant was proud of his efforts, all of them won- dered the same thing.
In a few days, when this is over, what next!”
Nobody fooled himself into thinking they were safe.
Tom felt very close to this team and searched his mind for
any way to make it right for them. He felt pretty sure that he could get away, but after considering the odds, he decided that he was in the boat with them. He swore to himself if anyone was going to get out it was going to be all or none.
That evening, he asked Paul if he had gotten a chance to make a copy of the software. He almost cried when Paul told him he had done so and had placed them in the neck lining of his coat.
“Are instructions included with them?” Tom asked.
“Yes, and they can override the ones we give your boss.” “Paul, I love you man. You are our savior.”
Paul smiled. He didn’t have a good feeling about the situa-
tion, but Tom had reinforced his sense of competence.
“I have to go to the post office and the computer store to get
more disks,” Tom told Nathan.
“Ready when you are, but the boss says from this point on,
wherever you go we will be your second skin.”