Our presence here ought not to be needed. When the twentieth century ends and the date changes, everything should just roll forward with no problems. Vortex hired the UK’s top contractors to spend months checking the code that runs their systems.

Unfortunately one of those contractors ran tests on the code, and didn’t notice a  failure in the results, until last night. That contractor is me.

Only Griffin knows. He ought to report the risk to our client, and our superiors. But he hasn’t, and neither have I. I’m not sure what’s stopping him; for me, it’s pure fear.  This contract was hard to win. To admit negligence now would end my career.  I need to find the cause, and fix it . Before midnight.

Of course, I might be worrying about nothing. Things might be fine. That’s the trouble — nobody knows what will happen tonight when all across the globe, 99 must change to 100.