The Glitchers Sample #2

This is another test scene for a Glitchers series.

This one is less RPGish in nature and more of a modern spin.  It's much shorter than the first because it's just meant to be a quick introduction to the character and the setting, rather than conveying any emotion or plot.  I might pick this setting, the previous setting, or use something completely different.  I'm thinking of combining them into a fun chaotic mess.

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Summer got up from her chair and studied the code on the whiteboard, line by line.  Looking at the forest didn't show any problems, so it was time to look at the trees.

She took a marker off the ledge and tapped the board as she repeated the code out loud.  She read the complete code three times, her tone growing increasingly frustrated with each iteration.

Finally, she put the marker down, backed away, and rubbed her eyes.  Time to look at the forest again.

Colin wrote pseudocode in his notepad, considering other ways to write the function.  He couldn't see the logic error, and sometimes the only solution is to erase and start again with a new approach.

Colin didn't want to speak to ask a question; Summer hated being interrupted while concentrating on problem like this.  Despite her name, Summer could be a cold woman when she was working.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Summer suddenly burst, half an exclamation of joy at solving the problem, and half of aggravation for not solving it sooner.

She marched right up to the whiteboard again, wiped out two variables--one being subtracted from the other--grasped the marker, uncapped it, and quickly squiggled the reverse.

Colin facepalmed, and sighed.  "Wow.  Thanks, Summer."

"It's the simplest things that getcha," she said.

Colin couldn't tell whether she made the statement with a friendly 'we've all been there' concession or a mocking smirk.  She was impossible to read.  Most of the men and a couple of women in the office had once thought of her as a cute catch, but found her vexing personality didn't match her name and face.  Work was all business, and it seemed that work was her life.

"I feel like an idiot," Colin said.  "I've been confused for three hours on this."

"That's the way it is.  It's never something in the structure or the idea that's wrong; it's always a plus instead of a minus, a forgotten semicolon, a constant that should be a variable..."

Summer's attempted reassurance didn't reassure Colin, but he thanked her again, and left back to his cubicle.

Summer erased the whiteboard, thinking.  If someone making a small program down here could make a little error like that with such disastrous results, how perfect must the code of the universe be?  And what happens when there is an error?