"Yes, but smaller and designed to only hurt computers."
"Oh, ya. We have wanted to build one, but it is beyond our means."
"Well," Scott said smugly, "someone is building them and setting them off."
"Your stock exchange. We thought that the American government did it to prove they could."
An hour of ensuing discussion taught Scott that the technology that the DoD and the NSA so desperately spent billions to keep secret and proprietary was in common use. To most engineers, and Scott could easily relate, every problem has an answer. The challenge is to accomplish the so-called impossible. The engi- neer's pride.
Jon, the Flying Dutchman finally rescued Scott's stomach from implosion. "How about lunch? A few of the guys want to meet you. Give you a heavy dose of propaganda," he threatened.
"Thank God! I'm famished and haven't touched the stuff all day. Love to, it's on me," Scott offered. He could see Doug having a cow. How could he explain a thousand dollar dinner for a hundred hungry hackers?
"Say that too loud," cautioned the bearded Dutchman, "and you'll have to buy the restaurant. Hacking isn't very high on the pay scale."
"Be easy on me, I gotta justify lunch for an army to my boss, or worse yet, the beancounters." Dutchman didn't catch the idiom. "Never mind, let's keep it to a small regiment, all right?"
He never figured out how it landed on his shoulders, but Scott ended up with the responsibility of picking a restaurant and successfully guiding the group there. And Dutchman had skipped out without notifying anyone. Damned awkward, thought Scott. He assumed control, limited though it was, and led them to the only restaurant he knew, the Sarang Mas. The group blindly and happi- ly followed. They even let him order the food, so he did his very best to impress them by ordering without looking at the menu. He succeeded, with his savant phonetic memory, to order exactly what he had the night prior, but this time he asked for vastly greater portions.