Novel Excerpt, Chapter 11

From Too Lucky This Week, chapter 11. On Saturday night, the new couple and their friends go to a party at the science fiction convention.

The open door framed a picture of many people crowded into a small space. A sign hung on the door: CONSOLIDATED TERRAFORMING – GROUNDSIDE PARTY. The four friends edged past a knot of people and promptly got stuck as another group tried to leave. Cass got pulled behind a sort of counter, now set up as a bar. Someone handed her a small cup of thick, golden liquid. Draining his own, her sudden benefactor exclaimed, “Class one biosphere!” Cass had no idea what he meant, but decided to try her own drink. It tasted of honey, but sharp, not sweet. The man, seeing her puzzled look, explained, “Homebrew mead!” Cass realized she could barely hear him. All around, people spoke at the top of their voices in two- and three-word sentences, trying to punch through the general din.

Ryan pulled her back out to the entryway. As they squeezed farther into the room, a thin woman in a low-cut dress offered Cass and Ryan cups filled a quarter inch with some thinner, browner drink. Cass waved the offer away. The woman said, “Can’t waste good single malt.” She turned and offered one cup to the man next to her. Flirting, she told some short joke, then the two knocked back their Scotches in one gulp.

Cass saw a closed door to the left. To the right, the room was divided into an area with a couch and chairs, and farther back, a large dining table was covered with trays of party snacks. The view out the windows was of cars on the Tollway and of lights in the occasional shopping strip or office complex stretching out to the horizon. The whole room was full of people chatting, gesticulating, hugging, standing and moving around the room. Nearly every chair and flat surface was occupied.

Ryan said, “Like a drink!” He hesitated, then leaned in close to Cass’ ear. “Would you like something to drink?”

Cass nodded and turned to speak into his ear. It was an effort to speak in a normal, conversational voice. “Yes, please, something that’s not a cola.”

Ryan disappeared toward the back of the room. Turning, Cass saw June and Eric ten feet away, absorbed in conversation with a couple wearing costumes straight out of The Fifth Element. Cass realized she could not get their attention, so she started to move in the direction Ryan had gone. Around her, middle-aged men debated war tactics for space battles. Three women were giving a very pregnant fourth very bad advice on how to ignore her baby’s cries for attention. Cass hoped they were kidding. Two obese women were speculating whether Samwise Gamgee would find Harry Potter or Ron Weasley more attractive.

Feeling very out of place, Cass moved to the wall, where she stood with a neutral expression and crossed arms. A middle-aged, bearded man came over and said, “I’m taking an opinion poll. When was the last time Google was fully synchronized?”

Recognizing the joke, Cass said brightly, “In Sergey’s dorm room.”

The man said, “And we’ve got a live one!” He smiled. “Actually, your shirt gave you away.”

“This is just a souvenir,” Cass said, unable to guess the man’s intent. This was a strange way to get hit on.

“Ah. One hopes your souvenir has a war story or two behind it. I’m Jim Tennace. Did you meet the Smalltalk Tool & Die folks when they were small and loose, or when they were in their Smalltalk Power and Light stage?’’

Our company president brought in a couple of them to rescue an out-of-control project when they were…”

The man turned away in the middle of her sentence, grabbing a younger man wearing long, straggling hair and a neatly trimmed beard. “Xavier, we’ve got a live one!”

The other man smiled shyly, saying, “Hello, I’m Xavier Forbes, uh…”

Cass quickly supplied, “Cass Kostrzewa.” The shy man stuck out his hand to give her an uncertain handshake. Jim shook Cass' hand more enthusiastically.

Cass said, “Oh! You are the ‘Living the XP Life’ guys, no?”

Jim said, “Got it in one! And we’re here working, so we’d like to hear how you are living an XP life.” He said it so lightly Cass couldn’t tell whether he took the subject seriously or not.

Cass said, “Well, actually, I’m not. The ST&D people cut the project team in half, the one dealing with the permanent crisis, and sort of brainwashed us into doing full-out Extreme Programming. For me, it was like growing a set of wings on my back. We just flew through that project! Our president loved the way we were setting things right with a customer who could break us.” Cass was telling her favorite work story now. “But he almost got a heart attack when he saw our plans were a board full of three-by-five cards, and our documentation was a bunch of sheets copied off the blackboard. Our first XP project was too successful, so we had exactly one XP project.”

Jim looked disappointed. “So you just kept the shirt?”

“No,” Cass laughed, “we kept some of the good stuff, too. I got on a real jag for automated unit testing, so everything I’ve worked on since has about ninety percent test coverage, and I’m working on the holdouts. We pair program a lot, mostly when one of us wants to program to some subtle point of someone else’s interface. We have builds and regression testing at 3 P.M. daily, and on Friday, whatever doesn’t work, some programmer gets to stay late until it’s fixed.”

“But there’s more than testing to keep.”

“Well, we’ve done pretty good a training our customers. They say what’s important, and we tell ‘em how long it will take. Once a little trust is built up, it works pretty well. We get to go home at normal people’s hours most days.”

Jim said, “so you’re really doing XP but not calling it that.”

Cass retorted, “It’s more like keeping the spirit but not the letter of the XP religion.”

Xavier spoke up after five minutes of listening. “Like what happens after you get home from Mecca.”