by Bob Blanton
The twins gasped as they realized they would get to do the deed. After Dr. Scheele started the torch up, they both took hold of the control handle. They guided the torch over the crutches, moving it slowly as they giggled. The aluminum would burst into flames and disappear. They kept moving it to the right as they gradually vaporized both crutches completely. The plastic and rubber parts of the crutches continued to burn for a while, but the aluminum was utterly vaporized.
“That was so cool,” they said together.
“I’m glad you liked it,” Dr. Scheele said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
The twins shook their heads.
“Thank you, Dr. Scheele,” Catie said. “It is a big event for them.”
“I could tell. Someday you can explain it to me better, but now you should go and celebrate.”
“Celebrate!” the twins squealed.
“How about ice cream,” Liz suggested.
“Yeah!”
◆ ◆ ◆
Both Blake and Kal had managed four dates that week, neither of them cared that they’d each lost the bet. They were just having a great time. On Saturday, Blake was heading out for another date when Marc snagged him before he could leave the house.
“Blake, ADI tells me you have a new girlfriend.”
“Oh yeah, and man is she hot,” Blake said.
“She also told me she tried to access your comm last night.”
“Yeah, she tried, she didn’t get anywhere.”
“Why do you think she tried to get into your comm?”
“I suspect it’s because she’s a Chinese spy.”
“If you think she’s a spy, why are you going out with her?”
“What part of HOT did you not understand,” Blake said. “Besides, what was she going to find out? You can’t hack our comms.”
“Well, she could find that out!”
“What’s going on?” Kal asked as he came down the stairs.
“We’re talking about how Blake has been letting a Chinese spy lead him around by the nose,” Marc snorted.
“Oh, yours is a spy too!” Kal laughed.
“What do you mean by ‘yours is a spy too’?” Marc asked.
“Well, I’m pretty sure the blond Blake thought wouldn’t go out with me is a Russian spy,” Kal said. “Who outed you?” he asked Blake.
“ADI had to tell the Captain that Ying Yue tried to open my comm,” Blake said. “If the Russian’s a spy too, why haven’t you been outed yet?”
“Oh, I’m playing hard to get,” Kal said. “She hasn’t had a chance to get to my comm yet.”
“Is she as hot as she looked in the bar?”
“Smoking.”
“Wait! Are you two nuts?” Mark shouted.
“What’s your problem?” Kal asked. “You had to know that spies would start nosing around. The best way to put them off the scent is to play dumb.”
“What are you guys yelling about?” Liz asked as she walked into the dining room where Marc had been working.
“Yeah,” Catie echoed.
“Spies,” Blake said.
“Oh, I’m hoping for a French one,” Liz said. “Or at least a British one.”
“So far, we have a Chinese and a Russian,” Blake said. “Both are women.”
“Hot?”
“Smoking!”
“I’m still hoping,” Liz said. “Maybe they’ll send two, assault from both directions.”
Blake gaped at Liz, “What?”
Liz blushed, “I meant a male and female,” she stammered. “Try to ply the women in the crew as well as you men.”
Catie was giggling uncontrollably.
“They have to know we just keep you two around for your muscles,” Liz said. “They’re going to have to send someone to get to the brains here.”
“Catie’s too young,” Blake said. “Besides, she’s always got a bodyguard with her.”
Liz threw a cushion at Blake, “That was mean.”
Catie was rolling on the floor by now. “Poor Daddy, he’s always got a bodyguard too, that or Samantha.”
“Alright,” Marc laughed. “I can’t believe this. ADI, as captain, am I allowed to order summary executions?”
“Only in extreme situations,” ADI replied.
“ADI has a sense of humor,” Catie squealed.
Marc put his head in his hands and groaned. “What did I do to deserve this,” he said as he tried to stifle his laugh.
“I don’t know, but you must have been a pretty bad boy,” Liz said. “When did the spies show up?”
“Last week,” Kal replied; he was struggling to control his laughter. “Blake and I made a bet about who could get a second date with a woman picked by the other. We both selected a spy. Can you believe that?”
“Then, the French and British can’t be far behind.”
“Enough! Enough!” Marc barked. “As funny as this is, it is serious. Can I at least get you three overgrown teenagers to give reports on any spy activity? That way, we can have ADI track them, and we can correlate notes among everyone.”
“I’ve had ADI tracking my girl,” Kal said.
“ADI?” Marc asked.
“Captain, I detected the unusual interest in MacKenzie business by the Russian woman when Cer Kal started dating her. I notified him of it and have been tracking her since. The same is true for the Chinese woman.”
“Has there been any unusual activity?” Marc asked.
“Besides their interest in Cer Blake and Cer Kal, none,” ADI said.
Liz and Catie started laughing uncontrollably again.
“ADI, you wound me,” Blake said.
“I could not have,” ADI said. “I didn’t use any weapons.”
Catie squealed. “ADI has wit even.”
“Dry wit,” ADI replied.
“There must be an American spy here,” Marc said.
“Oh yes, he’s been here quite a long time,” ADI said.
“Who is it?” Marc asked.
“He is the man who is usually sitting in the Surf’s Up bar,” ADI said.
“You mean that scrudsy looking white man in the Hawaiian shirt?” Liz asked.
“If you mean by scrudsy, that he needs to shave and take a bath,” ADI said, “then that is him.”
“He’s never tried to talk to me,” Liz said.
“He has confined himself to taking photos and talking to the locals and any of the construction crew or the people working for MacKenzie Discoveries,” ADI said. “He seems to prefer to sit there and drink beer all day.”
“Oh, this is too much,” Marc said. “ADI, please track and advise me whenever you detect any suspicious persons who are likely to be a spy.”
“Yes, Captain,” ADI said. “Captain and Cer Liz, I must advise you that a British man landed on Rarotonga this afternoon. He has been behaving suspiciously, asking the locals questions about production on Manuae.”
“Yes,” Liz pumped her fist.
Chapter 27
Board Meeting – Feb 18th
“I call this meeting to order,” Marc said. “How is everybody doing?”
“Not as well as Uncle Blake and Kal,” Catie giggled.
Marc gave Catie a harsh look, while Kal, Blake, and Liz laughed. “What am I missing?” Samantha asked.
“Just some beach action,” Blake said.
“Catie, are you spying on your uncle?” Samantha admonished.
“Not me,” Catie giggled, looking all innocent.
“Enough,” Marc said. “Let’s get on with business. You five can go to the bar afterward to carry on your salacious giggling and gossiping. Blake, how are the construction crews coming along?”
“I’ve got them coming in as fast as I can put them to work,” Blake said.
“That does bring up an issue,” Sam said. “The government on Arutanga is not happy with their new guests. It seems they’re a bit overly boisterous for the small island. Is there any way we can put them on Rarotonga?”
“That’s a long commute,” Blake said. “But I can sympathize with the locals for not wanting them around.”
“Can we put them up here on Manuae in the dorms?”
“We can, and I have a few staying there, but you get the same problem.”
“Why don’t you put them on a ship?” Catie said. “Some old cruise ship, where they can have their own bars with entertainment and a cafeteria to eat at. Then they can go to Rarotonga on their days off.”
“I like that idea,” Samantha said. “I’m sure we can find one of the smaller cruise ships for sale. If we set it up right, we can make half their wages back by providing restaurants, bars, and entertainment.”
“I don’t care about the wages. Find someone on Rarotonga to run it; giving them a piece of the action will keep them happy. But I agree, let’s buy a ship. Next: Where are we with our discreet inquiries?”
“It is amazing how many wealthy people are hiding the fact that someone in their family has Alzheimer’s,” Samantha said. “Plus, the number of corporations where their CEO is coming down with symptoms. I hate to say it, but we should raise the price.”
“Sure, why not, more money is a good thing,” Marc said.
“We have fifteen patients coming in this month, and as many as we have open slots for next month,” Samantha said.
“What do you think we should raise the price to?”
“One million,” Samantha said. “We’ll see if that throttles the demand.”
“Okay, go forward with that.”
“Don’t forget, I’m holding you to fifty percent charity cases.”
“I won’t forget, do we have any?”
“Can I start looking now?” Samantha asked. “I thought we had to wait until we moved to the new clinic.”
“Hey, we’re not hurting for money that much. We can take whoever you find.”
“Is it okay if it’s friends or friends of friends?” Samantha asked.
“Of course,” Marc said. “That goes for everybody. If any of you have a relative or family friend who needs help, we’ll take care of them.”
“Now I remember why I like you so much,” Samantha said.
“Me too,” Catie giggled.
“Blake, how are we doing with production?”
“Isn’t this Fred’s problem?” Blake asked, hoping to avoid the grilling that he knew was coming.
“Hey, I manage the orders,” Fred shot back, “but it’s your job to figure out how to deliver them. Besides, this is just internal demand.”
Blake ran his hand over his face as he sighed. “I know you’d like better results. We have production of the polysteel up. As I estimated before, we’re over three months away from being able to start construction on Delphi City.”
“What’s the bottleneck?” Marc asked.
“Those damn beams and columns,” Blake said. “They take up a lot of space to manufacture, we need lots of them, and the process is kind of slow since we can only deposit a few millimeters of polysteel at a time.”
Catie sat forward in her seat with a jerk. “Why is that a problem?”
“We have to run the plasma head the entire two hundred meters of the beam,” Blake said. “Then we have to stop and add the foam to form the ‘I’ part of the beam, adding a layer of it every twenty passes.”
Catie shook her head, “I don’t understand. Why are you adding foam?”
“Because it’s an I-beam,” Blake said. “Once we finish the base, we have to mask off everything except the ‘I’ part until we get to the top plate. Why are you confused, would you do it a different way?”
“I assumed you would extrude it,” Catie said.
Blake tilted his head up and looked at the ceiling. He shook his head and leaned forward, extending his hands, forming a chokehold. “I’m going to throttle you!”
“No reason to be so extreme,” Marc said. “If she misunderstands the constraints, just explain it to her.”
“It’s not that,” Blake rasped, “she has just tripled, no probably quadrupled our capacity. What do you know about extrusions, anyway?”
“ADI explained it to me when I asked her how fiber-optic cables were made. I even wrote a paper on it for one of my classes.”
“I got stuck,” Blake explained. “I started with the plating and the pontoons. I was spraying them on a form, so I just extended that process to the beams and columns. It never occurred to me to wipe the slate clean and look at other processes. By extruding the beams and columns, we won’t have to worry about floor space since we can stack them. Plus, we’re not constrained by the two-millimeter limit; we can continuously deposit the polysteel while we pull the beam away from the die.”
“Yadda, yadda, yadda,” Samantha said. “What does it mean to the schedule?”
“I think it means we can start building the city in four or five weeks instead of two or three months,” Blake said.
“Now that is cause for celebration,” Marc said as he got up and opened the cabinet and brought out the Glenlivet.
“Wow, you must be happy if you’re pouring the scotch,” Blake said.
“Hey, you guys are usually giving me headaches, which, although that calls for scotch, it doesn’t call for a toast,” Marc said. He poured each of them a finger of scotch, he gave Catie just a splash. “To Delphi City!”
“To Delphi City!”
“Sam, how is your search going for a company to buy?” Marc asked after everyone had a chance to finish their scotch.
“I think I found just the company,” Samantha said. “They’re German. They make specialty scooters, which works well with Catie’s idea to start with scooters. They have a manufacturing facility in Malaysia, and they’re struggling with all the new competition from China.”
“What about the owner?”
“His name is Peter Johansson. He’s fifty; took over the company from his father; he’s been very employee conscious, even in Malaysia. He looks like a really smart guy. He’s struggling with how to compete against cheap Chinese labor and government subsidies that are designed to force him out of business.”
“Have you contacted him yet?”
“I’ve sent out a feeler. I’ll know more next week.”
“Okay. Catie, how is your scooter design going?”
“I’ve finished the first two models, the Vespa-type scooter and then the motorbike,” Catie said. “I think those will be the most popular. They’ve both got significantly more power than the competing models, and of course, they’re all-electric.”
“Wow, you are a wonder,” Samantha said.
Catie blushed, “As soon as we have the fuel cells ready, we’ll be able to add them to the bike. There’s lots of room where the engine was. I’ve left the fuel tank alone; it’s cosmetic on the all-electric model.”
“That’s great,” Samantha said. “We’ll see if Herr Johansson is interested. I suspect he’ll be excited to be able to stick it to the Chinese. I also found us a sales rep.”
“You have been busy,” Marc said.
“I have too much free time,” Samantha said. “Anyway, she’s an old roommate from college. She was a dynamo in sales before she got married and had kids. She’s looking to get back into it; but, she needs something where she’s not on the road all the time. A private jet flying her around would really make things work for her. She could take the kids and the nanny with her when they don’t have school, and when they have school, she can leave them with the nanny or teach those lessons herself. She was in technical sales, so she knows most of the players we’re interested in now. She used to set up tradeshow booths for a while after she had the first kid.”
“She sounds perfect. What do you need to close the deal?”
“The private jet.”
“Can we just have her charter one when she needs it?”
“That would work,” Samantha said.
“Then do it. Closing another deal on the batteries will make that cost look like small change.”
“Done,�
�� Samantha said. She’d obviously had an email ready to send and just pressed send on her specs with her eyes.
◆ ◆ ◆
The next day Kal took Marc and Catie on a tour of the dorms on Manuae, he wanted to see what the locals were complaining about. Liz came along to provide security for Catie.
“I can see why the locals aren’t happy with these guys,” Marc said. Looking around, he could see that the construction workers were dominating all the community space. The TV room was full of them, and they were watching some raucous game show. The café had several tables of construction workers sitting around drinking coffee, some of them telling stories. Their voices were loud, and the laughing even louder.
“Are the others the same?”
“Pretty much,” Kal said. “We try to separate them, but they make friends with some of the locals, and eventually, they’re occupying all the space again.”
“I see,” Marc said as they walked into the cafeteria.
“Hey, one of you want to play some poker, we need a fifth.” A group of four workers was sitting at one of the tables in the cafeteria playing cards.
“What happened to your fifth? You didn’t just show up hoping to find another player,” Kal asked.
“He opted for some overtime,” one of the men said. “He probably needs it to cover his losses.”
“Well, we’re on a tight schedule here,” Kal said. “Maybe some other time.”
“Bawk, Bawk,” the guy clucked. “Afraid of the competition?”
Marc, Liz, and Kal both rolled their eyes at the juvenile antics. “I’ll play,” Catie said.
“We play for money,” the guy said.
“So, do I,” Catie said.
“I don’t think it’d be legal for some kid to play.”
“I’m the mayor here,” Marc said. “I can assure you there’s no problem with her age.”
“Umm...”
“What’s the matter, you guys afraid of a little girl?” Kal asked.
“Of course not!”
“What’s the buy-in?” Catie asked.
“One thousand,” the guy said. He got some startled looks from his friends, but they didn’t say anything.
“Can I borrow some?” Catie asked her father. “I’ll have Betsy send some over, but that will take twenty or thirty minutes.”
