by Ward Wagher
With that, she turned and marched out of the room. He listened as she made her way through the living room and out the front door of the little house. Okay, there were two things he needed to take care of regardless of how he felt. He shoved himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He stood up and reached out to steady himself on the dresser while the room swung drunkenly around him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, things seemed to have settled down. He staggered into the living room to lock the front door, but found it was already locked.
“Now, how did the old biddy get in here?” he muttered.
Other needs protruded into his consciousness, and he staggered back to the bathroom. A little later, when back in the bedroom, he began the regimen of sipping on the ginger ale and taking small bites of a cracker. He decided maybe the old lady was correct; the ginger ale tasted pretty good. He was not so sure about the crackers.
He lay back down and breathed deeply again, as that seemed to help things along. He sighed and then closed his eyes. He hated to waste the afternoon lying in bed. His computer was on the kitchen table. Perhaps, he could get a few things done on this summer afternoon. When he opened his eyes again, Maggie was sitting next to the bed.
“How are you feeling?”
He tried to shake off the heavy feeling that comes from being deeply asleep.
“Like a truck ran over me.”
She glanced at the side table. “You’ve been getting liquids; good.”
“The old lady next door brought that over. I was worried she had come to finish the job.”
She giggled, her eyes dancing. “By now, you should realize you had a stomach bug. Mrs. Willow was just looking out for you. Just relax. I will make some soup for you.”
A half hour later, he shambled into the kitchen and slumped into one of the chairs. He watched Maggie as she bustled around the kitchen in her wheelchair. She was an effective planner and seemed to waste none of her motion.
“I almost forgot,” she exclaimed.
“What did you almost forget?”
“Guess who showed up today?”
“It wasn’t our neighbor since she was over here.”
“Hush, Larry. No, Seb Sylvester knocked on my office door.”
“Seb’s in town? When did he get here?” Larry asked excitedly.
“Just got in last night. He said he drove all the way from Cambridge.”
“In that old wreck of his? He’s a braver man than I.”
“I guess he talked Fluffy and Wrathful into giving him his degree,” she commented. “Fitcher wasted no time in giving him his class assignment. When I left this afternoon, he was already buried in course prep.”
“We need to have him over,” he said. “Maybe in a few days.”
“Let’s wait until the weekend,” Maggie replied. “I would have time to prepare a meal.”
“I’ll go looking for him tomorrow, then,” Larry said, rubbing his hands together.
“Do you think you’ll be able to get back to work tomorrow?”
“Sure. I feel a lot better, tonight,” he said. “I just need some food in me.”
“Just take it easy. You’re not as improved as you think you are.”
“Actually, Mags, I feel pretty good.”
They chatted as she finished preparing the light supper. She had found a long cutting board in one of the cabinets, and discovered it fit almost perfectly across the arms of her wheelchair. She used that to carry the soup bowls and the tureen to the table. In another trip, she brought the glasses and silverware.
She ladled some soup into his bowl. He looked down and inhaled the steam from the hot broth. And he felt the color drain out of his face.
“Are you all right?” she asked, quickly.
“Um… ulp.” And, he jumped up and quickly retreated to the bathroom.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The lab building came together faster than Larry expected. Winkleman had directed the contractors to make sure the lab proper and Larry’s offices were completed first. The provost had designs on other space in the building, and Arthur’s deliberate procrastination ensured the building would remain available should Larry’s work expand.
Larry had been concerned about the amount of time it would take to set up the lab. His careful documentation of the work in Cambridge had paid off. He followed his notes and much of the equipment was the same, so he quickly configured the tools. This enabled his focus on the unfamiliar equipment, and with Maggie’s help, he soon had a functioning lab.
Freed from the constraints of the research in Cambridge, Larry was now working on what he considered to be the fun stuff. While he was careful to get home for Maggie at dinner time, he tended to skip his lunches to gain another hour during the days. He was content to work by himself and was mostly alone in the building.
“I decided you needed a lunch,” Maggie said as she rolled into the lab, carrying a tray in her lap.
Larry straightened up from the workbench. “Oh, hi, Mags. I guess it is lunchtime, isn’t it?”
“Of course, Mister Oblivious. Come on over to your office where you can eat, and we can talk.”
“Let me shut some things down. I don’t want to leave this running unattended.”
“What are you working on?” she asked.
“Just starting to test grav-lev. If I let something shoot through the ceiling, Arthur might have something to say about it.”
“Are you that far along?”
“Getting close, Mags. Right now, I am applying varying degrees of power to the test apparatus and measuring the reduction of apparent weight. So far everything is nominal.”
He followed her into his office, where she slid the tray on to his desk. He lifted up the cloth cover when he sat down.
“This looks good. Thanks for coming over. It was a long way to carry the tray, though.”
“I’m getting better with the wheelchair,” she replied. “And my arms are getting stronger. It really wasn’t a big deal to bring this over to you. I just worried about it sliding out of my lap.”
“We can’t have you tossing my lunch,” he said with a grin.
“Uh huh, keep it up, Buster.” She said.
He began eating as Maggie described her morning in the faculty offices.
“Classes start in a week. I think I’m about ready, but I’m a little scared.”
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “I’ll bet you will have the students eating out of your hand.”
She blushed. “I think you are just trying to butter me up.”
“Of course,” he grinned.
“And Seb got Fitcher bent out of shape this morning. He completely rearranged one of the classrooms into a lab.”
“I thought that was what he was supposed to do.”
“Fitcher wasn’t ready for him to be this aggressive, I think,” Maggie commented. “I heard him get a little loud when he told Seb that they hadn’t talked about this yet.”
“So, the provost isn’t quite used to progress as Seb defines it,” Larry said. “I wonder who will win that one.”
“I hope Fitcher recognizes that before Seb gets frustrated,” she said. “I wonder if we ought to have a word with Arthur.”
“I don’t know, Maggie. I would view going to Arthur as a last resort. We ought to be able to solve our own problems. We need to save Arthur for when things get really serious.”
“I guess you’re right. But, you know how sneaky Fitcher can be. He’s got Seb teaching fifteen hours this semester. Seb didn’t know any better than to push back.”
“Then, we won’t see him until semester break,” Larry observed.
“Probably so. Is that such a bad thing?”
Larry laughed. “Probably not. It might reduce his Berthold dependency.”
“Exactly.” Now, Maggie laughed. “He’s over at our place almost every night.”
“Yes, but if you didn’t like him, you’d send him pac
king.”
“Honestly,” she said, “I don’t have the heart to send him packing. He doesn’t know anybody else in this town.”
Larry finished the lunch and leaned back in his office chair. “That was really good, Maggie. Thanks for bringing it. I can push you back to your office and drop the tray back at the cafeteria for you.”
“How about if I stay here, this afternoon, and help you with your project.”
Larry grinned. “How could I turn down an offer like that? If the tray doesn’t get back there today, nobody will notice.”
“Yes, but you get to take it back tomorrow.’
“Well… okay.”
He opened the door and let her roll into the lab. They spent the afternoon gradually increasing power to the apparatus and taking measurements. He was building a large body of collected data, which he was convinced would be valuable when he turned the experiment over to the engineers to develop practical applications.
When Larry looked at the clock, it was nearly 6 PM. He glanced over at Maggie.
“I suppose we need to wrap this up for the day. Would you like to try one last run?”
“I think we have time,” she said. “It looks like you are to the point where you could overcome the weight of the apparatus.”
“That’s what I was thinking. You know, Arthur really didn’t stint on this lab. This equipment is vastly better than the junk we had to work with at MIT. It makes things so much easier.”
“It’s a pity, really,” she commented. “I wonder what you might have accomplished there with proper tools.”
“I’m just as happy to be here, though.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “Let’s see what we can do, right now.”
Larry swiftly keyed the parameters of the test into the computer and waited for Maggie to double check him. He was anxious to have something he could demonstrate to Arthur and confirm the old man’s judgment in him.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Let’s go for it,” she said.
“Would you like to do the honors, Maggie?”
“I would love to.”
She flipped up the clear plastic cover over the green Execute button and firmly pressed it with her index finger. They both began watching the indicators as the equipment spun up. The characteristic blue haze enveloped the Osiris Cells as the power increased. The strain gauges showed decreasing positive numbers as the experiment progressed. As the power increased, the strain gauges smoothly swung over to negative numbers, and they could see the apparatus shift slightly on the bench as it pulled against the tethers connected to the strain gauges. The power peaked and held for thirty seconds, and then began winding down. With a pronounced click, everything shut down.
“Dump the data to storage, Mags.”
“Right.” She typed in the necessary commands to copy the collected data from the experiment to the lab storage.
“Should I go ahead and copy the day’s data up to the Global Net?” she asked.
“Yes, I think we should. Go ahead and do that. I’m going to send Arthur a note to tell him we had success with our first project.”
She pulled on his arm. “Come here, you.”
He bent over, and she gave him a deep kiss as she looked at him with glowing eyes.
“I knew you could do it, Larry. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mags. This feels really good.”
“Arthur will be pleased,” she said. “I can’t wait to see him, again.”
“Me, too. You know, once we got going on this, I cannot believe how easy it was to achieve. I wonder why somebody didn’t do this a century ago.”
“What and deprive my husband of the credit?” she said. “I’m just as happy it was you, Larry.”
§ § §
The next morning, the Paladin’s sleek aircraft touched down at the Urbana airport. Another aircraft landed fifteen minutes later. The second craft was chunkier looking but no less modern. Abby Creitzman had a van waiting, and drove a group of technicians to the lab, where Winkleman had already arrived.
The old man pulled Larry to the side. He handed him an envelope.
“What’s this?” Larry asked.
“This is your first bonus,” Arthur said with a smile. “You have exceeded everyone’s expectations and you deserve this.”
“I don’t know what to say, but thanks, Arthur.”
“It’s no more than you deserve, my boy,” he said, patting Larry on the shoulder.
The technicians had flown in from the Gateway Corporation in St. Louis. The business specialized in aerospace applications, and Arthur was the majority owner. Larry ran the machine through one cycle to demonstrate his findings. He then helped them to disconnect the apparatus from the test equipment. They packed the machine carefully in a cushioned box and sealed it. A few moments after that Maggie wheeled into the lab.
“Hi, Arthur. Guess who didn’t tell me you were coming this morning?” She shook her fist at Larry.
Arthur chuckled in his soft way. “Lawrence did not know I was coming this morning.”
“Oh. Well, it’s great to see you. And you’re taking Larry’s machine?”
“It’s going to St. Louis to start the development process. Your husband completed the research. Now, we have to work our way through the engineering. In a few years, we should see some remarkable things.”
The technicians left with the cargo and drove back to the airport. Abby remained behind with Arthur since the visitors now know the way back to the airport. Larry glanced over at the now empty bench.
“It looks kind of lonely, now doesn’t it?” he said.
“Yes,” Arthur replied, “but I am sure you will soon have another piece of history occupying that spot. I suspect that the people from Gateway will be taking quite a bit of your time as they work through their part of the job.”
“They have a lot of work ahead of them,” Larry replied. “I’m not sure I can even envision how the mechanism would be placed in a vehicle.”
“Will you be able to stay for lunch?” Maggie asked.
Arthur glanced at Abby and back to Maggie. “Unfortunately, not. I already have done violence to my schedule by coming out here this morning. But, this was something I could not miss. Thank you for the invitation, Maggie. Let’s definitely plan on it the next time.”
The lab seemed smaller and quieter after Arthur left. Larry studied the bench and wondered what he should do next. Then he nodded.
“Alright, Mags, let’s head for the cafeteria for some lunch. Then I have some studying to do this afternoon.”
“What will you be studying?”
“I promised Fitcher I would teach the introductory Physics course this fall. Classes start next week, and I haven’t cracked the textbook yet.”
“Larry!” she looked shocked. “You have a lot of work ahead of you.”
“Don’t I just know it? I’ll come back over here this afternoon and barricade myself in my office. I think I can get a lot done.”
“Then we’d better get going,” she said.
“Right.”
Larry pushed her wheelchair down the hall, and out onto the sidewalk. The late summer air was warm, but not overly hot. She looked up at the sky.
“A beautiful day, Larry; in so many ways.”
“Can’t disagree, Mags,” he said. “Maybe we can take a walk this evening.”
“I would like that.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Broken glass crunched under the wheels of Maggie’s wheelchair as she rolled into the lab two mornings later. Test equipment lay scattered across the room, some of it beaten into unrecognizable piles of metal and plastic. Larry stood in the center of the room clenching and unclenching his hands.
“Larry, what has happened here?” she asked.
“Well somebody has trashed my lab,” he replied. The disgust was evident in his voice. “Obviously.”
“Who would want to do that?”
“That should be clear, Mags
. Whoever put so much effort into playing games with us in Cambridge is still in the game, here. They got my stipend pulled, they killed Philip Guidard, and they probably caused your accident. I’ve got to call Arthur. This has got to stop.”
“Can Arthur do anything about it, though?” she asked.
“He has the resources to do something,” Larry said. “if anybody can figure out what is going on. Plus, I am probably going to have to ask him to fund a new lab. Again.”
They turned as they heard footsteps behind them.
“Oh my,” Seb Sylvester said. “Larry didn’t just trip over something, did he?”
“You got it,” Larry said. “Somebody doesn’t like me.”
“I don’t think I like this,” Seb commented.”
“No kidding,” Maggie added. She had a way of drenching her speech in sarcasm, and it was dripping all over the floor.
“What about the surveillance videos?” Seb asked.
“Disabled,” Larry said.
He had an evil grin on his face.
“What?” Maggie asked.
He walked over to the corner and peeled a small black cube from where it nestled in one of the structural beams.
“Fitcher got mad at me when I tried to tie into the system to watch some of the all-night runs. So, I put my own vid in.”
“And it was running, last night?” Seb asked quickly.
“Yep. I never turn it off.”
“What do we do now?” Maggie asked.
“I think the first thing is to call the Provost,” Larry said. “And, I assume there is a police department in this town.”
“Haven’t seen anybody that looked like a gendarme around here,” Seb commented.
“Let me call Fitcher,” Larry said. “And I probably need to get a note off to Arthur.”
The former Cantabridgians were accustomed to a culture where nobody cared very much about anything. An event like the trashing of Larry’s lab would have merited a shrug, if that. If an individual was not directly involved, they paid no attention. Larry had seen a reference in an old document about kicking over an ant hill, and he remembered that as he observed the reaction to the crime in Urbana.
