Dolores was paying for a turkey sandwich when the cashier said, “Oh, look, the President.” Dolores turned around and looked at the TV on the wall.
The President was at a desk with flags behind him. The captions ran a sentence behind the movement of his lips. AN ATTACK FROM OVERSEAS ON THE SYSTEMS THAT RUN THIS COUNTRY WAS DETECTED AND IT WAS STOPPED. Then the bottom of the screen went red and said CRISIS AVERTED.
A man from Dietary started clapping by the salad bar. Two residents at the window table joined in, and then most of the cafeteria did.
“Thank God,” the cashier said.
“Maybe now Corbin will call me back,” Dolores said.
The cashier looked at her blankly and gave her her change.
She ate the sandwich at her bench with the asset system up. She had forty-one Corbin cases open. The oldest was from the first pump that wouldn’t take the update, two weeks ago.
She dialed and put it on speaker.
The hold music was gone. In its place a woman’s voice said, “Thank you for calling Corbin Medical. If you are calling about today’s announcement and the Corbin 340 Infusion System, a customer notice has been sent to the email address on file for your facility. Please remain on the line for the next available representative.” Then the line was silent for forty seconds, and then the woman said it again.
Dolores opened her email. The notice was there. She was apparently the address on file.
CORBIN MEDICAL — CUSTOMER NOTICE Corbin 340 Infusion System · All Hardware Revisions
Corbin Medical is aware of today’s announcement by the Platform Root Transition Group.
Corbin 340 devices are not able to accept a trust store update. As stated in the announcement, devices that cannot accept a trust store update remain outside the scope of the remediation.
Customers should continue to follow current CISA guidance. Corbin 340 devices may remain in clinical service.
Corbin is evaluating options for affected devices, including hardware remediation, and will contact customers directly as information becomes available.
Thank you for your continued partnership.
Dolores had no idea what a trust store was. She had never ordered one and didn’t want one.
She understood outside the scope fine. This meant the crisis the President claimed to avert wasn’t the crisis she was having.
The woman on the speaker repeated the message. Dolores hung up on her.
She had swapped the main board on a 340 maybe a dozen times. It took her about forty minutes if nobody had stripped the screws. The building had three hundred and eighty-six 340s. She got a green tag out of the drawer and did the math in longhand on the back of it.
Then she called Barbara’s office. Barbara’s assistant said Barbara was upstairs getting ready for four, and could she take a message. Dolores said she’d try later.
She noticed that the computer by the parts bins had a message on it that it was restarting to install updates. It hadn’t done that in two weeks. It came back up eleven minutes later.
Kevin looked up from the monitor on his bench. “Good for it.”
At three-thirty Joe came down with a paper plate. On it was a square of sheet cake with a blue frosting rose.
“Did you see?” he said.
“I saw.”
“Barbara’s standing down incident command at four. There’s a whole sheet up there. It says THANK YOU TEAM.” He set the plate on her bench. He had frosting on his tie.
She turned the laptop around so he could read the notice. He leaned in with both hands on the bench.
“Okay,” he said. “They’ll contact us.”
“They’re evaluating options.”
“So they’re working on it.”
“Joe, they don’t have anything. It says hardware. That means opening every pump in the building.” She held up the green tag. “Two hundred and fifty-seven hours. That’s me and Kevin for more than three weeks doing nothing else, assuming they send us new boards.”
“They haven’t said they won’t.”
“They haven’t said anything. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Joe rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Tell Barbara not to stand down.”
“The President just went on TV and said it’s over.”
“He didn’t say anything about pumps.”
“Dolores, I’ve slept here four nights. Barbara’s slept here six. Everybody up there wants to go home.” He straightened up. “The cards stay up. Interim procedures stay in effect until further notice. She’s going to say that at four.”
“Further notice from who?”
Joe looked at the cake.
“Have a piece,” he said. “Humor me. Everything else in the building updated today. Brian says the whole network’s green.”
She pulled a pump off the rack, one she had closed out that morning, and plugged it into the laptop and pushed the package. Joe watched the bar. Dolores turned around on her stool and watched the clock over the door.
At eighty-five seconds she said, “Here it comes.”
UPDATE PACKAGE NOT VERIFIED.
“Okay,” Joe said finally. “I’ll tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
He was already in the doorway. “That the pumps still don’t work. She’s still going to stand down.”
After he left, Dolores put the pump back on the rack and wrote a green tag for it. She was scared.
“You going up for cake?” Kevin asked.
“I hate meetings.”
“It’s not a meeting. It’s cake.”
“There’ll be a speech.”
“Ok, I’ll bring you a piece.”
“I don’t need any. I have the one from Joe.”
He went up right at four and came back down in twenty minutes without any extra cake.
“They demolished the cake before Barbara started talking,” he said. “Barbara thanked everybody by department. She thanked us. Then she said we’re back to normal operations, and everybody clapped.”
“Did anybody say pumps?”
“Joe did.”
“And?”
“Barbara said, ‘Thank you, Joe.’”
A few minutes later Terri came down and sat on the stool by the door. She pulled one clog off and rubbed the bottom of her foot.
“I saw the President’s announcement at the nurses’ station,” she said. “Does this mean I get my library back?”
“No.”
“Why not? The President said everything is good now.”
“Corbin’s evaluating options.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means no.”
Terri leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “I’ve done eleven double checks today. I’m on a double. I’ve got six more hours.”
Dolores pushed the paper plate with the cake across the bench. Terri opened her eyes and looked at it, then picked up the cake and ate it with her fingers, sitting on the stool. She licked the frosting off her thumb.
“Thanks,” she said, and went back up.
At least Terri had gotten some cake.
Dolores got the book down and turned to the day’s page.
Corbin notice: 340 can’t take the fix, no date. Board swap if they send boards — 257 hrs. Tried 1 more, 90 sec, same msg. IC stood down 1600. Cards stay until further notice.
She put the book back.
At five-fifteen a suction regulator came down from 3. It whistled. She took the canister off and found the filter in upside down. She flipped it over. It stopped whistling.