Prologue:
Sitting behind his grand mahogany desk, surrounded by shelves of volumes that constituted the rules and regulations which guided his career and, indeed, the bulk of his life to this point, Chief Administrator Richard Clarkson let out a deep, worrisome growl.
"This is... sub-optimal."
The young, dark skinned woman sitting before him fidgeted slightly, her hazel eyes looking more at the papers on his desk - the same papers that she had handed to him, that he had just finished reading - than at him.
"I know, sir, but the system simply won't allow the National Audit to complete until the area has been accounted for. There's no going around it."
It had taken Head National Assessor Michelle Henke three whole months to track down the cause of the fault. Literally every square inch of the country had been accounted for in the implementation of the newly upgraded national audit system. No longer would the administration need to request and wait for manual tabulations of property and asset values from every district; it would all occur automatically thanks to the thorough collaboration of the dozens of national departments. Every man, woman, and child was accounted for via the census, their incomes via the Bureau of Employment Affairs, the states handled reporting their own incomes and expenses, of course... all used to calculate every important fiscal metric pertaining to the entirety of the 3.4 million square miles of the country she called home. It was really quite remarkable.
Except.
Except that there was exactly 0.03 square miles that had NOT been accounted for and therein lied the problem.
Clarkson let out a sigh and slowly closed the beige file folder, "This outcropping: there are people living there?"
"Yes, sir."
"And their income?"
Henke referenced her own copy of the file, "According to the local assessor's office, they have none."
Clarkson relaxed, "Then they're vagrants. Just have the local authorities remove them and-"
"They're not vagrants, sir," Henke raised a finger in interjection, "as the report notes, there is a structure there and, while the structure itself is fairly recent, local governance claims they've been living there far longer than any records pertaining to the town."
Administrator Clarkson's eyes narrowed.
"That's preposterous. Even if that was the case, which I doubt is true, why has it not simply been valued by the local assessor's office? That's his damn job, isn't it?!" The administrator pounded the desk with his massive paw of a fist.
Unmoved, Henke flipped through her file, "According to the memorandum from their offices, the area in question does not fall within their jurisdiction because it's, technically, not within city limits."
"Then why hasn't the regional assessor's office dealt with it?"
"They claim it's not within state boundaries either, making it a federal issue."
"WHAT?!" The administrator lurched forward and pounded on the desk once more, this time with enough force that Michelle was certain that, if only slightly, the desk had become less structurally sound.
Clarkson scrunched up his face to regain his composure, then smoothed back his graying hairs.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry... but are you really saying that the entire financial forecasting for this country - the GDP, the housing forecasts, unemployment rates... all of it - is being held up by an area smaller than a football stadium?" he asked, eyes pleading.
"Not totally, sir. True, we can't generate any new reports, but the ones we generated on the old system for this quarter are still valid. We can submit those and remain on schedule. However," Michelle's voice dropped from it's usual crisp, professional tone to one more reflective of the situation, "We will be unable to generate the ones for next quarter until this issue is resolved. We have a little over three months, at maximum."
He let out a rough groan and leaned back in his plush seat, rubbing his temples. "Thank you for the report, Ms. Henke."
"Will there be anything else?" she asked, gathering her things.
"No, I just need time to think about how best to resolve this. Have a good weekend."
"You too, sir," he heard, but didn't see, her say as the door to his office closed, his eyes focused on the spot of the ceiling above his desk that he always seemed to look at when his patience was tested.
Loosening the tie that, moment by moment, seemed to strangle him even more, he thought back.
Richard had known this new system was a bad idea. To him the simple axiom "don't fix what isn't broken" was a good methodology to follow. And the fact that damnable Raoul Coursovier proposed it didn't make his opinion on the system any more favorable. But congress adored the idea: it was more efficient, more eco-friendly, cheaper to run over time, and, most importantly, very popular with the newest and soon-to-be largest voting demographic, the new technorati. The technorati (a designation made up by congress, not the people it described) consisted of the youth who had grown in the age of computers and the internet and were now convinced the whole world could be made better with more technology, and would thus vote for anything to do with it and did so in force. Coursovier paraded his new system with a level of pride only a mother would understand and the members of congress could hardly catch their breaths in the race to attach themselves to this "long overdue technological solution to a long outdated system".
But, he admitted to himself, the old system was broken. The fact that it worked didn't mean it worked well or even properly. And the new system was, in every measurable way, better. However, that admission did not quench the flame that burned in hatred towards Coursovier for coming up with this scheme in the first place and, worse, for retiring to Europe and leaving him responsible for this mess.
And the more he thought of it, the worse that fury grew. Someone would pay for the the massive headache he was nursing, for all the paperwork and letters he would have to write, and for every explanation he would have to give anyone on the congressional advisory committee that was assembled to oversee the deployment of this new system (but, he noted, not actually have any responsibility over it if it failed). He couldn't punish Coursovier, for he was more or less out of reach, but what about someone in his old region? One of the assessors he loved to dote on? Any one of them would do to satisfy this aimless anger, so long as they were qualified.
Chief Administrator Richard Clarkson opened up the listing of employees for Coursovier's former regional department and picked a name at random.