The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) by Max Dane Page B

true.
    ‘I must try not to sound paranoid,’ he
thought, and laughed out loud.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The next morning was Friday, and Ryan
was back at work and excited to see Jeff’s sample treatment waiting for him in
the mail.
     
    With the language ready, he began
filling out the input form. The treatment was calling for a scan of a broken
limb, which would be handled by one technician, and an injection of something
called cod-L122 ‘for relief of pain’, that would be handled by another
technician. It was perfect, very short, and very simple.
     
    Ryan entered the data and hit ‘submit’.
    There were no complaints, everything
seemed to work, and he even got confirming messages indicating that the
treatment was submitted to Patient Services.
     
    Now he entered the information again,
but mistyped the name of the drug.
    The field with the misspelling was
immediately highlighted, and he could not submit the form.
    Ryan was startled when a voice emerged
from the monitor speakers.
    “Mr. Dane, you have mistyped an entry
in the highlighted field. The most commonly used pain relief medication for
such an injury is cod-L122. Is this what you intended?”
    “Yes, thank you SID,” said Ryan.
     
    The field was corrected, and the
highlighted portion returned to normal.
    After several more tries, he came to
believe it was as equally hard to break the manual input as it would be the
fully interactive SID version.
     
    He decided to take a break, and walked
over to see Jim and David
    “Hey guys, how’s it going?” he said.
    “Wow, you look like the local bully
just took your lunch money,” said Jim.
    “Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel. I
can’t catch a break on this ‘data collision’ project; and I think I’ve just run
out of leads.”
     
    David spoke up, “I’m guessing the manual
input program didn’t help you much.”
     
    “Well, it’s not over yet. But what it
proved to me is that the manual entry is not easy to break. The slightest
mistake is captured by SID, who intervenes and blocks the submission until it
gets corrected. It really is a very thorough, and very credible system,” said
Ryan.
     
    Jim stood up, and stretched.
    “SID’s pretty damn good,” said Jim,
“the SID program was written by a whole team of programmers, but the real work,
the really innovative stuff came from Dr. Steven Ranks a friend of Dr. Sid
Frances, the IntelliHealth founder. Ranks was only about twenty at the time.
He’s pretty much a hero to us.”
     
    “Only 20, and that was about 25 years
ago now, so he’s still alive isn’t he?” Ryan asked.
     
    David was interested now, “Yeah, but no
one ever hears from him anymore. The last project he worked on was the energy
source problem. He wrote the operating system for the first generation,
particle-smasher arrays. The ones that saved the planet. People talk a lot
about Dr. Frances, but because of Steven Ranks we’ve had clean power that is
strong and reliable ever since.” David was definitely a fan.
    Ryan said, “Well, I’ve explored every possibility I can think of for human
error. I’ve looked in detail at the initial stage where our research scientists
prescribe treatments. I’ve also explored the hospital side and learned how
their staff receive the prescribed treatments and then carry them out.”
     
    Letting out a short sigh, Ryan went on,
“I don’t believe I could break the system if I set out to try. The amount of
control on both sides is staggering.”
     
    David said, “I understand what you’re
saying, Ryan. The IntelliHealth networks are strong everywhere.”
”Everywhere?” said Ryan.
Jim leaned against the partition wall, putting his hands in his pockets.
    “That’s right Ryan, all of the
IntelliHealth facilities are set up in identical fashion. I learned that when I
first started here. Back then, this facility was one of the older ones, and we
were always asked for program templates to use at the new facilities. They said
that each