Herbert Brown sat in front of the computer trying to hide the look of disbelief on his face from his co-workers.

They were all gathered around his desk watching anxiously as he deftly clicked computer keys and scrolled down seemingly endless rolls of what looked like meaningless scribble only to click another key to make another window pop up.

The office was silent except for the hum of his computer until finally one of his “Big Bosses” spoke up.

Yeah, a chief executive officer or something like that comma Herbert realized with an amused grin on his face. He was actually paying attention to HIM, one of the lowly computer programmers in the company. It was the same head honcho who told him only a few days ago that he would never be able to head the computer department because his skills weren’t quite up to their standards. Ignoring the hurt look on his chubby face, he’d added insult to injury by callously adding that the company wanted a department head with a better personality.

But now it seemed, he was the only one that knew how to master the latest program the company had recently installed in its gigantic computer base. It had begun acting strangely earlier this morning, shortly before he had arrived at work.

When he got there, the whole place had been in an uproar. Programmer after programmer had sat down before the computer and tried to figure out what was wrong only to throw up their hands in defeat and announce to the office that it was impossible to fix it.

By the time Herbert had finished a coffee and pastry, every programmer in the office had taken a stab at repairing the balky program. Now some were urging him to take his turn.

“You have to do it, Herbie,” his fellow workers were urging him. “You’re out last hope before we call in the experts from the people who designed the program and they say it may take several days before they can send someone over here.”

“Unacceptable, impossible to wait that long,” stated one of the company big wigs who had left the comfort of the executive offices upstairs to personally oversee the problem.

“We need that program up and running NOW before we have to shut down the entire accounting department.”

At first Herbert had been so reluctant to give it a try he’d been tempted to tell them to “shove it” but after several moments of them pleading with him, he had swallowed his anger.

“Okay,” said Herbert. He plopped his bulky just ‘bulk’ down in front of the computer, saying “I’ll do my best but I won’t guarantee anything.”

That had been several hours ago and since then the entire office including some more of the big shots from upstairs had witnessed Herbert slowly begin to bring the program under control. “How’s it going”?

One of the anxious executives was questioning Herbert. However, he didn’t use his usual authoritarian voice that brooked no nonsense. Instead his tone was one of respect and almost awe as he watched his employee’s fingers race over the key board to bring up new window after new window.

Herbert felt it was almost as if the executive was afraid to anger him and make stop what he was doing and abandon the company in it’s hour of need. He felt the sense of power he now held and only grunted an unintelligible reply.

Despite the intense concentration he needed to fight his way through the balky program he was enjoying his new and important role in the office.

“Now I have their attention,” he told himself. “Maybe I can finally convince these brain dead executives that I’m much better than they think. But let them sweat,” the free part of his brain was telling him. Let them keep on thinking there’s still a huge problem “which I have almost licked.”

Yes there it was, the whole solution to the programming problem right before the entire offices’ eyes and those idiots who thought they were so good, didn’t even realize it.

“Herbert,” the worried sounding voice of one of his bosses interrupted his thoughts.

“Can you fix it?” The executive again questioned him, but oh so cautiously. It was as if he hated to disturb him.

“Yuppers, almost there. Just a few more moments and we should start to see some results,” Herbert replied. He was suddenly feeling reluctant to let go of all the attention riveted on him. After all, this was his big chance to show them all what he could do. Now, maybe he would no longer be under-paid and under-appreciated.

Speaking of money, his mind slipped back for a few minutes to relive how his poor, dear mother had died much earlier than expected. He blamed her early death on the lack of proper drugs and care which he couldn’t afford on his meager salary.

The other reason for the delay was that during the time he had complete and total access to the company accounts, he had discovered a loop hole.

There it was, sitting there as plain as day but apparently nobody but him realized the significance of his discovery so he said nothing and kept his face as expressionless as possible lest he give his knowledge away.

It was a loop hole big enough to fly a 747 through or a worm hole large enough for the Star Ship Enterprise to enter. Yeah and once entered, one could siphon off huge sums of money without anyone being the wiser. Thanks to the antics of their new program which had never worked properly since it had been installed last month, the company didn’t even know how much they had.

Now Herbert always considered himself an honest man, at least as about as honest as anybody else. He was at first prompted to shut down the now perfectly functioning program and request a private meeting with the higher ups so he could explain what he had just discovered. However, a nagging in his brain kept telling him that since no one will ever know, why not take what one can take while the taking is good. He also felt rage and anger rise within him. Lately it had been there constantly, smoldering away like a sleeping volcano that was about to erupt.

Herbert thought for a brief instant about the feelings he’d had when he’d read news stories about somebody taking guns and grenades to work one day and blowing up a place of employment, killing half the staff in the process. It was scary. He could understand what had been going in their minds and felt a lot of sympathy for them. He had once briefly considered such an act of destruction but then realize it would never happen because despite all his rage and anger problems, he was not a violent person.

He was already thinking about giving into the temptation and taking some money immediately but decided some caution was needed. If he was going to do this, it had to be done right, he reasoned.

After all, he didn’t want to get caught stealing from the company. That would mean total shame and embarrassment in front of his co-workers as well as jail time and the subsequent criminal record that would follow him for the rest of his life.

Besides stealing was, well stealing, and that was morally wrong and Herbert knew his mother wouldn’t have approved of it. Yes it was, but Herbert rationalized that it wasn’t really stealing if nobody knew that you stole anything.

All this had been running through Herbert’s mind for some time, when with a final click of a key, he announced that the problem was solved.

Herbert hadn’t done anything yet but he was thinking he might do something later. After all, he now had the company passwords. He told himself he needed some time to think everything through first. Then he would make a decision.

His work on the program had taken up most of the day so for the rest of the afternoon he politely accepted the congratulations of the office staff and the praise from executives. But of course they never even mentioned the possibility of a promotion and the pay raise that would have went with it.

Later that evening, after a supper of Chinese food picked up from the Oriental Palace around the corner from his apartment, Herbert lay back in his Lazy Boy chair and began to think about what he should do.

He looked around his shabby, messy apartment and decided it badly needed renovations and some new furniture. Or maybe he should just buy a newer, bigger one with heated underground parking.

He thought about what he had found on the company computers that would make acquiring such things relatively easy. All it would take was a couple of strokes on some computer keys and presto, just like that he could be putting thousands and thousands of dollars into his bank account.

“Wait, hold everything,” he suddenly yelled out to his silent apartment. Transferring that amount of into a personal account is just asking for trouble because soon people would be asking all kinds of questions about his sudden wealth.

Herbert mused, “If I do this I have to be smarter than that. I would have to create a bank account under an assumed name that nobody can ever know about.”

He pondered the problem for a few minutes and came to the conclusion it could be done through the internet. He pushed himself out of his comfortable chair and walked over to his computer.