Johnson swallowed, and tapped on the screens. A code snippet appeared, with a single line highlighted.
"That's the pheromone trigger," Sakib said, instantly recognizing the line.
He was the one who had introduced the concept of the pheromone spray. A fresh-faced new recruit, he had impressed Firoze instantly with the revolutionary idea that had worked wonders. Pheromones were tapped from both the mother and father and The Nanny was draped in a gentle halo of the mix. The rejection rate of The Nanny by babies had come down drastically, and consequently, the sales had boomed. It was now a core feature of The Nanny and all of its clones that had flooded the market.
"Yes," Johnson said, perspiration beading his upper lip. "The pheromone mix is the problem."
Javed's voice was cold with disbelief. "You do know that The Nanny goes through two dozen rounds of testing before it's released, right? Are you telling me that in all these rounds, this problem has remained undetected?"
"Sir, the tests are for the sprays - they check if they get triggered when near the baby. The actual efficacy of the pheromones are not really tested."
"Sakib," Javed's voice was grim. "Tell me this is not true."
"Yes, Javed, it's true, "Sakib replied in a clear but low voice. "We can't really test the pheromone mix itself. There's no way. The dummy babies will not respond. We've been working on it for quite some time now, but there's no cost-effective way to test every individual spray. The variations are too many for standardized operations."
Javed was silent.
"What data do you have to confirm this?" Sakib asked.
Johnson tapped on the screen. A series of graphs filled the room.
"I've managed to collate data from several sources. What we're looking at is the tabulation of the pheromone effectiveness over the last five decades." He paused, for this was his moment to impress his employer and plant the seeds of his ambitions for growth within the company.
"The trend shows a 63% degradation."
A chill reached into the room with long cold fingers.
"It's no longer strong enough to do its job. With growth always on our heels, we never looked at historical data. And now, we are at the brink of disaster", Sakib could not hide his frustration.
Javed interrupted, his eyes gleaming with a sudden excitement. "Very good, Johnson. Excellent work. I want a thorough check done to ensure that this is the only problem. Sakib, a word?"
