Lloyd was sprinkling fish flakes into his fish tank when James knocked on the door frame to Lloyd’s office.

“Hey,” James said. “You didn’t stop by the simpler/gov demo.”

“No, I was on a call with Steve Rush, the CIO at the City. Poor guy.”

Lloyd sat down at his desk, and put away the fish food in the top drawer of his desk. James sat across from him, and crossed his foot over his knee. He set his foot back down when he saw his white socks.

“You’re excited about this product, simpler/gov?” Lloyd asked.

“Yeah, very excited.”

“And what about it excites you the most?”

James thought for a minute. “The technology. Implementation is fast. We could have a couple of subject areas up in weeks. Immediate payback, high reward for users. An hour of end-user training. It’s based on dynamic XML so we can include the functional people who have been marginalized, but who best understand the data.”

Lloyd had been nodding along, but disengaged as he tinkered with a ballpoint pen.

“You know what it really is?” James leaned forward, hoping he hadn’t lost Lloyd. “It’s as if, for the last twenty years, everyone has been so focused on figuring out how to store data, that they forgot about the problem of extracting it. And this is the first time I’ve seen an answer. It’s like we can finally read in a write world.”

“You do understand that the county will have to take a great leap of faith in following through with a system-wide switch.”

“But we don’t have to switch over every department at once. We can do it in stages—test it out by subject area, see what’s working and what’s not. We have to fix the hole in the boat, Lloyd. We’ve been bailing for too long now, and we’re going to sink if we don’t get to the heart of the problem.”

“Which is?”

“We need answers. We need to be able to get them fast. And we need them for the people that understand the data the best.”

Lloyd chuckled. “That was the problem when I started…when you started...and it will still be the problem when I leave and when you leave.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you hesitant to endorse this project because you were the one who implemented Gemstone and the data warehouse? Or because you’re retiring and just don’t want to take on another responsibility?”

“You presume it’s one or the other.”

“I’m sorry—”

“But yes,” Lloyd interrupted, “I am retiring and not particularly interested in implementing a new system.”

James looked beyond Lloyd, out the window, and wondered if this view of downtown would ever be his. He probably shouldn’t have spoken so boldly, but he couldn't help it.

“I want to support you,” Lloyd said, “I’m just not sure it’s the right time. Next year I’ll be gone, you’ll have a new budget and you’ll be in the position to make a change like this. But I want you to know I’ve noted your effort here and I’m impressed.”

It was almost seven when James finally left the County’s tall gray building for the night. He zipped up his jacket and watched a cluster of gold and red leaves tumble past him as he headed toward the parking lot. It wasn’t just the weather changing, the county was facing a budget crisis. James wanted to feel excited by the change and the challenge, instead he felt helpless. Alex and Caroline had been the only other attendees to the simpler/gov demo, and that wasn’t enough. And now he had blown his chance to get Lloyd’s support.