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Once I find the lines of code that give the parameters for scoring the data, I compare it to what the criteria should be.
“No wonder they are having issues,” I mumble to myself. Every line of this code has the program scoring the data inaccurately.
I call Eliza immediately. She was our last line of defense, and if she saw the errors, she never would have let it go through.
“Hey, Carter.”
“Hey, sorry to interrupt your day without any notice, but I just found some discrepancies with the database.”
“Really? I thought we got all of it fixed.”
“I thought so, too. When you were entering dummy data, were you checking to make sure it was scoring it accurately?”
“Of course. I went through every program, and it was working perfectly. Is it not anymore?”
“No, it doesn’t seem to be. It’s skewing the results higher than it should be.”
“Are you serious? How is that possible? I swear I dotted all my I’s. It was perfect when I handed it off.”
“And it went live the next day, which means the code has been altered since then.”
“But by who? I know I didn’t change anything. After I got it from William, it was perfect.”
“Could Paul or Inez have changed it?” I reject the idea almost immediately.
“There’s no way. What would even be the point? It would just make us look bad.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I sigh. “Thanks for your help, Eliza.”
“No problem. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this.”
I click off the call and begin the painstaking process of updating the code. In any other circumstance, it would be a quick update. Instead, I spend an exorbitant amount of time ensuring that each line is correct.
Once I have it updated, I put in some dummy data to ensure it’s running how it should. Each test produces the expected numbers, and I feel like I can finally take a deep breath.
I call Inez’s cell since I haven’t back from her yet, and she answers as if she’s out of breath.
“Something weird is going on, Carter.”
I frown. “Yeah, I know. I just got the database updated. The osteoporosis teams should be good?—”
“No.” She cuts me off. “When I was up there with the research assistants, something happened.”
“Are you okay?” Worry starts to seep into my gut.
“I think so? I mean, yes. Physically, I’m fine. But I just got a weird vibe.”
“From the osteo assistants?”
“No, from Dr. Hutton in the lymphoma lab.”
“Back up a step. Start from the beginning because I’m not seeing the connection.”
“Hang on.” All I can hear is her breathing for a minute while I wait. “Okay, I’m back in the office. I did not feel comfortable talking out in the hallway.”
What is happening? How many times can that thought cross my mind before it loses all meaning?
“Right, so I go up to the osteo office to have them enter the data into the original scoring program. Apparently, they’ve been down a couple of assistants and had a backlog of data to enter. When the news about the database came out, they decided to wait until it went live to enter it. That’s why we didn’t know this problem existed before now.”
