by John Booth
Jenny put her hands on her hips. “Just for that, I’m not having sex with you. So you might as well just go away right now.”
I wasn’t entirely sure if I should stay or go. It seemed to be my lot to upset women today so I might as well go for the set. I hopped to Salice.
Esmeralda listened as I explained the situation. She also demanded to see the pictures on the phone. I had not figured a way to make it send and receive calls across the multiverse, but at least I could keep it fully charged with magic
“I have not seen them. They look intelligent and cunning, a dangerous combination.”
“Jenny thinks she’s seen them somewhere, but she has to be mistaken.” I laughed.
Esmeralda frowned at me. “Why do you treat Jenny like a fool? She is better educated than you and has sharp perceptions. If she says she has seen these people, then she most certainly has.”
“But she can’t have.” The idea was absurd.
“She is not the fool in the relationship, you are.”
That was both wives and Bronwyn.
“I have to go,” I said and hopped to Betty’s apartment.
Once I annoyed her; that would be almost all of them.
Betty looked at the photos and frowned.
“I’ve seen them too. Wearing different clothes and hairstyles, at least the woman was. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t told me Jenny had seen them.”
“Is this some kind of female conspiracy? It’s impossible that you could both have seen them. You live in different parts of the country for a start.”
“Yet Jenny and I probably see hundreds of the same people every week,” Betty said. Her eyes bored into me as if looking for brain cells.
“Don’t be…”
I didn’t finish because Betty was now staring at the television in the corner. The penny dropped.
“They’ve been on TV?”
“Must have. It’s the only way we both could have seen them. I’d recognize them if they were on a soap, so that only leaves the news. I rarely watch anything else but soaps and the news.”
My head was spinning, but strangely the only thought in my head was that Betty watched soaps.
“I never know what’s going to happen on a soap. I watch the news to remind myself that apart from soaps, I always do.”
“How did…?”
“It doesn’t take precognition to read your mind.”
Apparently it doesn’t. I owed Jenny a major apology, but first I had to track down this clue.
Betty saved me the trouble of having to think it through.
“Policemen are very good with faces. It comes with the job.”
I smiled at Betty and she smiled back. She waved me goodbye as I hopped to Inspector Thomas’s office.
Inspector Thomas and I have an understanding. He knows what I am and he keeps it a secret on the proviso that I sort out anything magical that happens in Wales. It’s a good deal.
He looked unperturbed as I materialized by the door.
“People often wonder why I keep the office blinds closed. What can I do for you, Jake?”
“Oh, I forgot that somebody might see me.”
He waved me to the chair in front of his desk and I sat down.
“I expect you visit so many places used to wizards that you forget we backwater worlds don’t expect people to drop in quite so literally.”
“Sorry.”
We spent a few minutes on pleasantries. After discussing my wives and children he told me that Brandon Jones was now an Inspector in the Metropolitan Police. That reminded me of something important.
“Congratulations on making Chief Inspector.”
He looked embarrassed. “Yes, well, it was my turn more than anything else.”
I stood and offered my hand. We shook hands firmly.
“Now what did you really come to see me about?”
“Do you know these people?” I handed him the phone.
“Of course I do. The man is Richard de Conte and the woman is his wife Greta. You must have been on Mars not to recognize them yourself.”
“I’ve been a bit further than Mars lately. What can you tell me about them?”
30. Silicon Glen
“I admit it. You were right and I was wrong.”
Jenny smiled. “Say it again. I may make you engrave it in gold letters over our bed.”
So I repeated the words again. Anyone would think I never tell her how clever she is.
Jenny gave me a hug and a kiss.
“In that case, you are forgiven. So tell me exactly who they are. I’ve been wracking my brains over it.”
“Richard and Greta de Conte are the founders of Conte Electronics.”
“The millionaires who set up a factory in Scotland,” Jenny interrupted.
I frowned and she pouted.
“Who are being hailed as the new Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they manufacture in the UK, and make hardware and software,” I continued.
“Social media has been going mad over the prototypes of their phones. They raised half a billion pounds just by showing them to investors.”
I frowned again and Jenny looked annoyed.
“Their head offices are in London and that’s where they make the X-Phone, but their chip factory is in Livingston in Scotland. Apparently some electronic companies made chips there back in the eighties and there were empty factories for sale.”
I waited for Jenny to say something, but she said nothing this time, just to spite me.
“This was all over the press about a year ago and people are waiting for the first production models to come out any day now,” I continued.
Jenny decided to chip in. “They’ve been very secretive. All sorts of rumors are floating around saying they’ve hit production problems, or that they want a massive stockpile of phones before they launch.”
“No rumors that they’ve been shipping their products to a medieval empire a few universes left of here?” I asked.
“Not that I’ve heard,” Jenny replied in a serious tone.
“Pity.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes while I considered my options.
“Are you going to tell Bronwyn?”
I stared at Jenny, “Would you?”
“She’d go in all guns blazing, I expect,” Jenny said, then after a few moments thought. “You could call in that man, Alan d’Fallon, and let him deal with it.”
“Trouble is; he might blow up the planet, or Scotland.”
“Scotland have beaten us at rugby two years in a row, so it wouldn’t be all bad.” Jenny’s eyes were twinkling.
“I’m going up to Scotland to have a look at that factory,” I said, deciding it as the words came out.
“How will you get there?”
Now that was a good question. I had never been to Scotland, though I considered moving Fluffy up there an age ago. A wizard can hop across the multiverse, but not to a place he didn’t know on his own. Not safely anyhow.
“I’ll take the train.”
Jenny took my phone from me. “I’ll set it up for you. You know how hopeless you are with apps.”
It took me hours to get to Edinburgh, but the journey to Livingston on the local train took only half an hour. A local taxi driver drove me to the factory gates.
As we approached the factory the taxi driver couldn’t stop talking.
“Best thing that’s happened here for years. Might even give the oil industry a run for its money. Are you applying for a job?”
“Meeting a friend who works there when he finishes work.”
“They finish at five so you might have to wait a couple of hours. Do you want me to take you into town? I know a couple of excellent pubs.”
“He said he could get out early if I called at the gate house for him.”
“Have it your own way, but it’s a wee bit cool today and you’re not dressed for the weather.”
He was right. I would fix that as soon as I got rid of him.
>
“Do you want me to drive you through the gates? Visitors parking is just inside. They’ll let me through.”
This was getting tedious. I slapped mind control on him. “Drive past the gates and stop.”
I gave him a big tip because of the mind control. I swore I’d never do that to a human being again unless I had to, but it was getting easier and easier as time went by.
I looked at the gates. There were twin security fences and cameras mounted on both of them. It looked more like an army camp than a factory. I walked down the road towards the town until I was out of sight of the cameras. Then I hopped to Lana’s apartment on Balmack.
“Do you have nothing better to do than bother me?” Lana asked before I could say a word.
“I’ve found the people your father is looking for.”
She gave me a blank look and I remembered I hadn’t filled her in on happenings after her father told us to leave.
“You went to Killan without us?”
Out of the whole story, that was all she was interested in? I swear I will never understand women.
“Your father lied to us. He was raiding the place as he was ordering us to leave.”
“But you lied to me and Esta.” If looks could kill, I might well have been badly injured by the one she gave me.
“Do you want to investigate this factory I’ve found?”
“Now you ask? And what about Esta?”
“If she wants to come?” I shrugged. Going in with someone familiar with d’Tachi tech was a good idea. Turning it into a party was something else.
“Of course she will, you idiot.”
Lana disappeared.
I was getting a bit impatient by the time Lana and Esta finally returned. Both were wearing jeans and tee-shirt identical to mine, a habit they had picked up last year and never fully got out of.
Esta walked towards me and slapped me across the face. It hurt.
“I should have thought of that,” Lana said and stepped towards me. I put a shield between us. “Later then,” she said ominously.
“You girls might need a jacket. Scotland can be a bit cold.” I took one of my jackets from Lana’s closet. Seconds later they were wearing identical ones. Sometimes we look like a gang when walking around the university.
They took my hands and I hopped us to Livingston.
Esta shivered. “Do people live in places as cold as this?”
“It’s very pretty they tell me,” I said, wondering what they would think of Snowdonia. The climates were almost identical.
“It would need to be,” Lana said. She wasn’t shivering because she had created a layer of warm air around her.
“Is that wise if the guards have detectors?”
Lana dropped the magic while muttering something that sounded rude.
“Should we get shielded?” We all deployed the magic that blocked the detectors.
I led us to the factory using trees as cover as it came into view. Having a quick look, we held hands and I hopped us through the fence. There were two cameras pointing at us from tall poles, which I disconnected.
“You could have set those cameras to show the scene without us,” Esta said.
“I have a better idea,” Lana said and did something to the electricity supply to the factory. “That should have shut off everything.”
We made our way to a back entrance of the nearest unit. It was a locked emergency exit, which proved no match for magic.
It was dark inside. Only the emergency lighting was working. There were people shouting, but their accents were so heavy I wasn’t sure what they were saying.
“What language is that?” Esta asked.
Bright lights caught us in their beams and machine guns fired.
31. Chips
I remember falling to the floor. My shoulder was on fire and I couldn’t feel my right arm. The pain destroyed my ability to think and I knew it was urgent I found a way to get back in control. The guns had gone quiet. A glow surrounded me and Lana face appeared in the center of my vision.
“Hold on Jake.”
Then we were some somewhere else. Lana held my hand and I felt healing magic run up my fingers. The pain fell away and I added my magic to hers. Most of my shoulder was wrecked. It must have been a dumdum bullet. Bone had shattered and an artery severed. My arm was only holding on to my body by a chunk of flesh.
The most important thing was to prevent my body going into shock. The body has lots of defenses, but most of them make things worse if there is outside assistance. Having stopped the autonomous reactions I patched my cells back together again. I felt Lana withdraw to let me get on with it. Three minutes later I opened my eyes.
“Stupid bastard,” Esta said.
“What?”
“You nearly got us killed because of your fear of being detected. We went in with our hands tied behind our backs. The Great Destroyer nearly died from a projectile wound.” To say Esta was angry would be an understatement.
“Shall we go back and do it properly this time?” Lana asked.
I got to my feet and repaired my jacket and shirt.
“Sounds like a plan.”
It was a rout. Not that anybody got killed or even slapped around. Every person in the factory was under full mind control seconds after our arrival. I issued a command for the guards to go back to their normal work and forget we were there. Esta cleaned up the evidence of the shooting and then we went in search of a supervisor.
“Eddie does the tours,” a woman in the management section told us. We found the man in question peering into a tablet computer with a colleague.
“We are key investors and want a tour of the facility,” I told him.
He was a stocky man in a business suit, his shirt sleeves were rolled up, his tie was tucked into the top of his shirt and he looked exasperated.
“I wish our CEO’s would remember we have production targets to meet. There’s a problem with the air filtration system that needs fixing or the whole production facility will fall over. I really don’t have the time.”
I tightened the mind control and he gave in.
“But if I must, I must. Follow me.”
Eddie led us through the management offices and out towards another building in the center of the site.
“This is the chip fabrication facility. Not a speck of dust can get in there or it could stop production. That’s where the X-Chip is made.”
“The X-Chip?”
Eddie expressed surprise. “Why you’re here. What you’ve invested in. Conte Electronics’ reason for existing.”
“Of course, we use a different name internally.”
“Please yourself, but Richard de Conte has called it that from the start.”
“How many have you produced so far?” Lana asked. Esta was grinning at me as if I was some kind of an idiot.”
“Total production to date is in excess of fifty million units. We expect demand of the X-Phone to reach 100 million worldwide in the first year. Of course, we have only made ten million X-Phones at the moment, or we will have by the time the product goes on sale at the end of the month.”
I stopped myself from whistling. The number of detectors made must be under ten thousand while these phones were being truly mass produced.
“Why make so many more chips than phones?” I asked.
“I’ll explain when I show you around inside. It’s easier to follow once you understand the whole process.”
We were not allowed inside the clean room and nobody else was either. The workforce used robot arms wrapped in plastic to do anything needed and the clean room was hermetically sealed. Glass walls made it possible to see what was going on inside.
“Chip production is just a variation of the photolithographic processes that have been used since the invention of computer chips. We use the higher frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum to get the resolution we need.”
Eddie paused and pointed out a row of identical looking machines.
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p; “But they are what make this production facility possible. The X-chips is made up of twenty thousand layers so the chip is truly 3D. Yields using conventional machines would be close to zero, even if you used laser surgery to remove failed sections. We don’t bother to check them until the final process layers and we never get yields of less than eighty percent to a wafer.”
“Wow,” I said as he was looking expectantly at me. Though I had no real idea what he was talking about. Apparently, eighty percent was good.
“Can you explain it more simply?” Esta asked. Bless her.
Eddie looked as though he had heard that request many times before.
“Think of an X-chip as a cake where every layer has to be placed exactly on top of the layer below for it to work. Each chip has thousands of such layers. Before we lay on the very top layers the X-Chip could be configured to do many things. In this factory we are set up to program it for four uses.”
“Four?” I asked.
“Most of them are configured to be used in X-Phones. The X-Chip has 64 terabytes of non-volatile memory. That’s enough to hold photographs of every place on the planet with a lot of room to spare. Half the special functions of the X-Phone are possible because of the size of its memory and the holographic display.”
“What else is it used for?” Esta asked.
Eddie looked uneasy. “The other uses are currently company secrets. We have four top layers options and we have produced a few tens of thousands of each of the other chips. But it’s because we may well be producing millions of them soon that we want a stockpile of the X-Phone chips, so production of the phones won’t be compromised.”
“You make the X-Phone here?” Lana asked.
Eddie was suddenly enthused. “We make the chips here and we have already shipped millions to our distributors. The holographic displays are made in London and all the other components are outsourced from China and the Far East. The assembly of the X-phone and the other products takes place in London.”
“How do you test the chips?” Lana asked. I stepped back so she could get closer to Eddie. This was her field of expertise, not mine.
