Year 2038 Bug

As Gabrielle walked into the war room, she linked as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Computers filled the room, people watching and occasionally typing away. The overhead lights were turned down for this part of the shift since it would be late evening for the workers. When the next shift started, the lights would cycle brighter and gradually dim during the four hour shift.

Deidre rolled over, snuggling under the covers, only half-awake as she tucked the pillow under her head. She thought, “I should get up and fix coffee,” but only pulled the covers further up. The room was chilly and she wasn’t ready to brave the cold quite yet. Maybe if she waited long enough Roberto would get up to fix the coffee.

As the morning sun shone through the crack in the curtains, Jake groaned and pulled a pillow over his head to block the light. After a restless night, tossing and turning as he thought about the power outage, he wasn't ready to get up and go to work yet. He lay on the bed, trying to go back to sleep, but thoughts started circling in his brain while he remembered about the power outage and Year 2038 bug. He rolled over and tried counting backwards from 100 in order to try to get back to sleep.

The sun hadn’t set yet but the dark clouds brewing up on the western horizon had turned day into twilight. The curtains were waving in the wind and dust was flying through the screen when Deidre closed the window of her bedroom. She shivered when lightening flashed in those dark, towering clouds. Under her breath she counted '1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi', waiting for the thunder crack. As she reached '11 Mississippi', she heard a low rumble in the southwest. Not too close, she thought, but probably the storm was probably moving in their direction.

WHile publishing this book I am writing a series of articles, Notes on Writing that provide some background about my writing process. Here are links to all of those articles in the order they were published.

Notes on Writing: How I Built the Idea for the "Year 2038 Bug" Story

Notes on Writing: Character Development for the "Year 2038 Bug" Story

Notes on Writing: The Antagonist for the Story

Notes on Writing: Writing a Character I Don’t Like

The orange and purple of the sunset was slowly fading in the west over the Rockies. Jake took a puff of his e-cig, and then blew out the smoke. At least he didn’t have to worry about light from e-cig during blackout conditions. It also wasn’t dark enough to allow infrared vision to pick up the heat from the e-cig and the smoke. He inhaled again and regretfully put his e-cig away, it was time to get back to work. He took one more look at the sunset before heading back to the Shack.

Dallas, TX, Monday, October 25th 2027

It was a hot fall day and the sun shone through the car windows, heating up the interior. The air conditioning kept things from getting too hot and Brian felt a wave of nostalagia for cooler fall days when he was growing up in Texas. He was driving in for his first day on his job in the National Security Agency (NSA) office in Dallas.