How Many Computer Programmers Does it Take...

SCENE 1

Niles sat in his office, high atop Charm City's protruding skyline. He was the CEO of Sentec, a biochemistry company dealing with olfactory products; as scents and pheromones.

His whole life, as it related to his work and the company, was stored on the hard drive of the electrically driven machine sitting in front of him. His laptop held many of the company's dirty little secrets, along with the most valuable product information available. Emails, correspondence with other executives, employee histories, background checks, end of month and year datum, everything on the shared-directory files which adorned the drives "A" through "ZZ." Currently, it showed his email, buddy list and a word document he was typing. Niles wasn't doing company work.

In the background, symphonic music set the tone. The office was rather regular, just the way he liked it. Behind him, a wall of awards and certificates; Niles had been the face of Sentec ever since its inception in 1997 and ever since its total coup de etas of the fragrance industry from mid-1998 on. The awards, however, were careful not to cover up the bronzed motto hanging eternally over his head:

"Making SCENTS of your life!"

Click click click, the keys beneath Niles's fingers were pressed one by one. Niles stared intently at his screen. Anyone passing by the office at that precise moment would have the same thought: Wow, he must be working on something huge! In reality, Niles was writing to Jack Prowl, regional Director of Relations for Sentec, fellow fraternity brother to Niles Coltrane, and longtime partner-in-crime. The content read as follows:

Hey Jack, what's up? Great game last night, did you see it? The Lions were within twelve at one point. Oh well, I guess there's always next year to win the division, right? So anyway dude, I found the funniest thing on the internet this morning! Check this out…

And so on and so forth. Yep, 'ol Niles was extremely busy and focused on the solid future development of Sentec.

It had been like this ever since his brother, Jonathan Bradley Coltrane the 3rd, had revolutionized the industry in 1997. He appointed his younger brother to the CEO position after taking an active interest in the R&D portion of the company. Jonathan was barely ever present during the day. Even if he were, and came across Niles's work, he would never yell. Jonathan made the best out of every event, including all the shortcomings of his brother. Yes, Niles was PR, a good-looking face in a high position in the company. And every employee knew this, or thought they did.

Suddenly there came a dinging; Niles's body began shaking; A stillness in the young man's typing; and an error message flashed on the screen. Hitting "OK" without reading, the computer returned to the desktop, closing out of most of the programs Niles was working with. He noticed his icons were jumbled, and he felt a tinge on anger at losing his current email.

Never the less, Niles pushed back his high-back leather chair and stood up. Walking to the bar on the side of his office, he stood in front of the mirror-backed desk. There sat a bottle of scotch: Johnnie Walked Blue Label. It had been a present from a business partner after his last outing of golf. Niles bent down and opened the micro fridge below. The bottle top gave out a short pop and hiss, freeing the Miller Lite inside.

Niles returned to the computer, bottle in hand. Double-clicking the email icon, he attempted to reopen a draft of his previous email. No such luck, and the computer did not respond.

He reached to the intercom on his desk, and with the extension of a finger, Niles waited.

"Yes?"

"Tony, would you come in here please?"

"Sure thing Niles. Be right there."

Anthony "Tony" Damsker, the vice president of the company, had also been a frat brother of Niles. Niles brought him onto the Sentec team at the same time Prowl was brought into service. Keep your friends close… and Niles had no enemies.

The door opened. Tony entered the room.

"Hey man, what's the problem?"

"Yeah, so I was typing an email to P-row, and the computer went wacky. Do you have any idea how to get the message back?"

"Did you save it to the draft box?"

"Nope. I didn't know I had to."

"You should always save it to the draft box, well, that's what I've heard."

"Tony, I was going to just fire it off. Why the hell would I save it to the draft box?!"

"Niles, I'm not a tech geek! How should I know. I've just heard that-"

Niles interrupted, as was his usual thing, "Where did you hear that? That's stupid!"

"I don't know. I did though."

"Ok, so did you hear anything about getting back an email?"

"No. Sorry man. You're just going to have to retype it."

Niles took a sip of beer and huffed, "Oh man. I HATE that! I forget what I wrote already!"

Tony walked to the micro fridge and grabbed himself a bottle of Miller Lite. Uncapping the bottle, he took a long gulp, and turned to Niles, still staring intently at his computer screen.

"You know, there's that one tech guy downstairs who worked on the great Blue-Screen fiasco of 2003. You know, the dude who reprogrammed all the computers for Y2K. Oh, what's his name?"

Niles looked up with a hopeful, childish look.

"Oh yeah! What is it? McKean? McNeal? Mc-something!"

"McLellan! That's it! Jim McLellan!" Tony leaned back on the bar, taking a long, satisfying gulp of beer, and smiling smugly. "Jim McLellan."

Niles hit the pager to his receptionist, and without her answering, he immediately barked, "GET ME McLELLAN!"

SCENE 2

In the closet of an office, not even on the first floor, Jim McLellan, Rory Johnston and Philip Thomas sat in a triad. Their office space looked more accommodating to mice than to human beings. Paper boxes; sheets of loose leaf; dot matrix reams; printer cartridges; cables; old and new computer equipment; the décor of the place reminded one of a bad B-Sci Fi flick.

But the three men were friends, and had been since '97. Johnston and Thomas had grown up together; McLellan joined the team in college, through the "Trek Geek" club. Now, instead of Trekkies, they were the backbone of the company, running the computers without fail for almost ten years.

McLellan was the only one who was known throughout the company. He did most of the brunt work, being the newest member of the crew. Rory seemed the natural leader, but his thicker frame did not allow him the versatility of getting into tiny spaces as Jim's meek 159 lb body did. Thomas was flat out lazy; brilliant with code, programs and installs, but lazy.

The men were having their morning, second-cup, which became a tradition, being as though their almost perfect computer precision world above ran without snarl or snag.

Rory spoke, "So, I was thinking about talking with Rita this afternoon and seeing if she wanted to accompany me to the movies a bit later on." He always had an odd manner of speaking.

Jim broke in. "Rita Geer?! Man, keep dreaming! She's hot stuff. And you know it. She's out of your league. She's out of your galaxy!"

"Thanks Jim. Shut up."

"Hey, guys, guys! Stop it, alright. McLellan, you and I both know," turning towards Rory, "That this guy has no chance in the world!"

All three ended up laughing. An empty cup, possibly from coffee round three, two days ago, went flying in Philip's direction, originating from Rory's cubical.

"You guys both go to hell!"

"Seriously Roar," Jim said, "What's the worst she could say? Nothing you haven't ever heard, you know?"

"True true," Rory said.

"Except yes," Added Philip. Again, another cup in orbit; again, a vociferous round of laughing.

"Just for that comment, I'm putting you on mouse ball cleanup! We have about thirty odd tickets that ask for someone to come clean the balls on their mice."

Philip began giggling, "Sounds like a fun job."

Jim kept to himself. He shook his head, and took a sip of coffee. Burning his tongue, he breathed in some cool air between clenched teeth, and turned to his screen to play FreeCell. Opening the program, Jim turned his full attention to the screen. This respite was interrupted by a knock at the open door.

All three men turned to see the suit-clad gentleman with the sour look on his face, covered, of course, by dark sunglasses… inside.

"Heavy," Rory commented.

Philip began whistling Here Come The Men In Black.

The man didn't enter the room. He gave the impression that he was above what went on down here in the basement office. Coldly, he questioned, "Jim McLellan?"

Jim didn't know what to say. Philip stopped whistling, and both he and Rory looked over at Jim blankly. Jim mouthed back to them: I don't know!

"Yes?"

"Mr. McLellan, I'm going to need you to come with me."

"Can I ask what this is about? Am I in trouble?"

"No, sir, nothing like that. But, your services and skills are needed. Mr. Coltrane requested your expertise."

"By name?"

"Yes, by name."

The look on all three of the mens' faces was the same: Impressed. Jim slowly rose, and walked to the door. Unsurely, he checked back to the other two men. They just stared blankly. Finally, Philip regained his sarcastic composure: "You're moving up in the world Jim!"

Jim was unsure what to expect.

SCENE 3

PRODUCER'S NOTE : This scene MUST be shot as grandiose as possible. The walk to the office MUST be exaggerated to the fullest extent!

The man in the glasses led Jim silently to the elevator. Pressing the button, the man simply stood, spread eagle at shoulder separation, with hands folded into one another behind his back.

It took forever for the elevator to reach the bottom, and Jim's mind raced. He began to sweat. The man remained wordless, even when the elevator door's opened; even when he allowed Jim to walk in, go to the back and stand; even when he pulled out his access card and slid it through the reader; even when the elevator jerked, and rose 10 floors; and even when the machine stopped and reopened the doors facing the penthouse offices.

When the doors finally opened at the top, without so much as a shimmy or a shake of the car, Danette Guard, the world's hottest secretary and personal assistant to Niles Coltrane, greeted Jim and the man in glasses. The man in the glasses smiled, the first show of outward emotion the entire time; Danette smiled back. Jim, who knew her only from the casual, passing hello, said his usual hello, and said it, as usual, towards the ground; Danette said hello back, but towards his face.

The man in glasses said in a charming voice reserved for only she, "This is Jim McLellan, here to see Niles."

"Great. He's been waiting for him. Go on in, Jim."

Jim looked at her for a moment. His body was frozen as the single syllable of his name rang off of her tongue. Shaking off the encaptivating moment, he thanked her and headed past her desk and through the large office door.

SCENE 4

Niles was still drinking his beer, and Tony was still sitting on the bar when Jim entered the room. Tony hopped down off of the table, and cleared his throat. Niles smiled, he was a cordial fellow anyway.

"Ahhh, Mr. McLellan. Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"Not a problem sir. And please, call me Jim."

"Jim it is. Then call me Niles."

"Oh, I don't think I can do that, sir."

"Niles."

"What?"

"Its Niles."

"Oh, umm, sure thing. Ok Niles."

"Better! Well then, here's the deal. I was working on my computer before, and all of a sudden, the thing went nuts! I want to restore an email I was typing, but didn't save it. I didn't do anything to it because I didn't want to lose anything I was working on. Can you help me out?"

"Well, I'll certainly try to." Jim stopped in his tracks. "Uhhh, is there anything on there that you don't want me to see?"

"What? Like what?" Niles was totally serious.

"Like the porn you were just looking at, Niles." For a moment, Tony wasn't even there. Jim looked pale. This was too much. "No, seriously, it's the Confidentiality agreement for the company, Niles."

"Oh," Niles responded, "that's all just bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. No, go ahead Jim. Its cool. Oh, and on that note, my password is Danette."
Simple enough, he thought. Though, somehow, Jim had anticipated his meeting with Niles Coltrane to go differently. Now, he was just a glorified frat boy in a suit, as was Anthony Damsker. He just watched as the men spoke, moving his head back and forth per their discussion.

"Ok Sir. Er, Niles. Let's take a look then." Jim began to move towards the computer. Niles began to move away from the computer.

"Well, that won't be necessary. Hey Tony, you hungry? Its about lunch time."

"Yeah, famished."

"Me and Tony (Tony and I, thought Jim) are going to get some lunch. Just have her fixed when I get back. Thanks Jim, I owe you!"

With that, the two men left the room. Jim, as the door closed, heard them mention to Danette to hold their calls, and then heard her sweet voice respond "Ok Niles. Enjoy!" And with that, Jim was alone.

He sat down in the leather desk chair, and for a moment, imagined what it would be like to get out of the computer section, and into the management section. An impossible dream, but everyone had those, right? He looked at the screen. Nothing looked busted. Jim grabbed the mouse, and gave it a shake. The icon on the screen moved with his motions.

All good here.

He double-clicked on Word; the program opened.

What the hell is the problem?

He double-clicked the email. Nothing happened.

Hmmm, could this really be the reason he wanted me to fix this?

Jim was quick with a computer. He had solved the Y2K issue back in the late months of 99. It, too, was an easy fix… but not THIS easy.

Confident in his skills, Jim reached to the CPU and held the button in for three seconds. The fan in the tower slowed to a stop. Hitting it again, the computer chugged to life.

On the password login prompt screen, Jim typed "DANETTE" and hit enter. Windows appeared. A message popped up immediately:

Your computer was shut down without saving previous data, would you like to restore temp-file stored work?

Jim shook his head. Idiot proof! He clicked "yes." The computer began self-opening programs: Word, Internet Explorer, GroupWise and FreeCell. Busy man. Jim clicked on the headline of the email message in front of him.

Hey Jack, what's up? Great game last night, did you see…

Jim leaned back and smiled, cracking his knuckles like he had performed the greatest job in the world.

(PAUSE FILM)

Niles Coltrane and Anthony Damsker went to a deli called Circles for lunch. Niles ate the Reuben sandwich and Tony had the Cheese Fish Special. Both said it was the greatest lunch they had ever eaten.

Danette Guard served Sentec for 30 long years, until she left for a full-blown career in porn. Her pictures in both Penthouse and Niles's desk fueled her booming modeling career, as well as secured her standing with the company as the hottest secretary.

Rory Thompson and Philip Thomas went on to develop their own computer company after Rita Geer filed an unfortunate sexual harassment lawsuit against Rory. Their company, TrekGeek Computers, rivaled the likes of Macintosh and Dell. Following the company's initial boom in success, they went dark and are seldom heard from. Currently they are said to be reclusive lovers, and have been spotted at various Star Trek conventions across the United States.

Jim McLellan continued working for Sentec, refusing to leave to help Rory and Philip with their company. Upon returning to his desk, Niles was so thrilled that he made Jim the head of Electronics and Technology for Sentec, representing the company and its computer-driven division of development worldwide. His image adorns the cover of many major computing magazines to this day.