Rod Barney looked like he'd be just about anywhere else in the universe rather than standing in Henry Worthington's office. He'd been working at TransDem for 5 years, mostly doing OS installation and update transmissions. He had worked on just about every operating system known to man, and often joked that it was good Transdem went with the ultra secret Vorion OS (an early military offshoot of Linex) rather than Windows, or the Chronivac would surely have transformed all of them into assholes and they'd all be farting gasses for eternity. He held his hands together behind his back to try to stop them from shaking. No one ever liked bringing bad news to Worthington... there were rumors that the doctor didn't handle failure too well, and that there was a secret lab of Chronivac experiments where he retired 'failures'. Barney hoped it was just that - a rumor.
Worthington swiveled his leather chair to face Barney, his voice a low timbre that warned of imminent danger. "So let me get this straight... the new batch of Chronivacs have corrupted code due to improper CMD formatting?" Henry picked up the Chronivac on his desk, turning it slowly in his hands, examining it without too much interest, as Barney responded in the affirmative. "So we can't remotely update them, and the code errors are manifesting in transformation awareness time-lags?"
"Y-yes," Barney stammered, feeling 10 degrees colder looking at the expression on Doctor Worthington's face. "We would need to physically replace all 20 of the current batch - effecting test subjects 095 through 115." Rod gulped, then added consolingly, "I have 20 new ones ready to go, triple checked and certified 100%. Even updated them with the new preview and emergency architechture."
"I see." Wellington grew quiet, and stopped turning the Chronivac in his hands. Barney noticed the emitter was pointed directly at him, and gulped again. "So... who do I have to thank for this blunder?"
"Uh... that would be me, sir," Barney said reluctantly. Now there was no hiding his hands were shaking. He started gushing, "It was just one slip-up, and I've added protocols so that it will never happen again, I promise you that -"
Worthington grimaced as the emitter sent a signal to Barney.
Five minutes later, Worthington bumped into Marium Gupta outside a heavy door with various warnings marked all over it. She smiled. "Just the man I was looking for. You weren't in your office or in the lab - you're a hard man to find Henry."
"Yes," Worthington was unreadable as he so often was. "Just disposing of some toxic waste."
"Well, I got your requisition of funds to send personnel out into the field," Mariam continued. "Everything is in order. But this has got to be a first."
"Yes." Worthington showed a hint of irritation. "Some fool botched the last batch of Chronivacs. They can't receive updates, so we have to replace them, and speed is of the essence."
"Well, I'd hate to be the poor sucker who screwed that up."
Worthington almost grinned. "Indeed."