Defiant

by Laurence Dahners

  Jacob barely had time to turn when Milton arrived, slightly red in the face and looking highly irritated. “How did you know?!” he said, loudly enough that several people turned their way.

  Blushing, Raquel quietly said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s a running joke between Shan and myself. I guess it wasn’t funny?”

  “Joke?” Agrits drew his head back. “What joke?”

  Shan had just stepped over and asked, “What’s happening?”

  Raquel took Shan’s arm and smiled up at him. “You know how, when you’re having trouble with one of your math problems, I always tell you to ‘try Egol’s marginal calculation?’” She smiled tentatively at Agrits. “Shan used Egol’s once and it worked, so I always tell him to try it again. It’s good for a laugh between us. I just said it without thinking and should have realized that it wouldn’t seem like a joke to you.”

  Agrits turned to stare at Shan, “This is true?”

  Shan had had a blank look, but then he glanced at Raquel who was staring earnestly up at him. Apparently recognizing something in her eyes, he turned to Agrits and nodded, looking just a bit poleaxed. “Yep, good old Egol’s, always good for a laugh.”

  Agrits said, “Well, it worked this time too. It condensed every one of the Delphine splays that I tried it on!”

  “Really?” Raquel said with a delighted clap of her hands. She leaned toward Agrits and said conspiratorially, “Are you going to list me as a co-author on the paper?”

  “But you don’t even understand it!” Agrits said, looking appalled.

  She touched him on the arm, “I was just kidding. Sorry, I make way too many jokes.”

  Jacob grinned, “I think you should put her in the acknowledgments at the end of the paper though.”

  Looking bemused, Agrits shrugged, “Well, that does seem fair.”

  The little group of people broke up then, but Jacob was just behind Kinrais when Shan leaned down to his wife and whispered, “Egol’s?”

  Raquel whispered back, “Later.”

  For a moment Jacob had the impression that Shan hadn’t heard of Egol’s calculation, which after all was pretty obscure. Jacob had heard of it, but didn’t really know anything about it. He shrugged, they must just be carrying on their little joke in some fashion.

  ***

  Shelly Williams’ eyebrows rose. Another purchase order for 400,000 gold balls, 3.67 mm in diameter. The order included another one of those waldoes and a scads of ports of all different sizes—all to be issued to Ell Donsaii for some hush-hush project of hers. Shelly wondered if anyone was overseeing Donsaii’s expenditures. The company’s backers might be pretty upset to find out it was issuing kilograms of gold to its CEO.

  After pondering it a bit, she decided that her job description didn’t include tattling on the CEO who, after all, she liked a lot.

  ***

  Enrique Fuentes trudged in the fifth position behind the coyote. Lucia had insisted he not leave for El Norte until after Christmas, but money had been running low so he had headed north as soon as the celebrations were winding down.

  The coyote had charged Enrique 27,000 pesos ($2,100) to guide him across the border into Texas, a fortune to the Fuentes family. At first Enrique had thought to refuse, but Enrique really had no idea how to cross the border by himself. He was glad that he hadn’t let Lucia talk him into staying home even longer; he wouldn’t have had enough money left to pay the fee. The western part of Texas north of Ojinaga was desert. The coyote, who wouldn’t give his name, had promised to guide Enrique and the others across the desert to a highway where the coyote’s American friend would pick them up in a truck and take them to Midland Texas.

  Before they left, the coyote had been full of promises. He’d teach them important phrases in English. He’d get them water and food. He’d get them backpacks to carry their things in. In the United States, his partner would help them get ID chips.

  Once he had amassed a group and collected their money, the coyote’s helpfulness had dropped off precipitously. Enrique had learned the English words for bathroom, water, food, and a few others but he had already known some of them. He thought that he’d need a lot more English than that, and resented time spent sitting around without the coyote teaching them anything. “Getting them backpacks, food and water,” turned out to mean that he would take them to a store where they could buy the items with their own money. Though infuriated, Enrique had to admit the coyote had never promised to pay for the items. He now worried that there would be costs associated with getting the ID chip.

  That evening a truck had picked up Enrique and the other eighteen people that the coyote had contracted to take across. They’d ridden south and east over kilometers of rough dirt roads to reach a spot a near the location of their proposed Rio Bravo crossing.

  After walking to the river, the coyote had told them all to take off their shoes and pants to wade the river. At first the three women in the group had refused, but the man had laughed at them, “It will be cold later tonight. Don’t complain to me when you’re wet and freezing cold.” Eventually the women had given in and all of them, even the coyote, had waded across the river in their underpants holding their belongings over their heads.

  Then had begun the long trek through the desert, almost all of it in the bottom of washes. In the Chihuahuan desert, the January day had been warm—in the 70s—but the nights were cold and this one hit 38. Enrique was very glad that his pants weren’t wet. His jacket, which he’d thought very warm back home, didn’t seem like enough. All the twists and turns in the dimly moonlit night had him thoroughly lost. He hoped the other migrants between himself and the coyote were keeping a close eye on the man. If the coyote deserted them out here in this wasteland they could easily die trying to find their way back to civilization, to say nothing of losing the money they’d given the man.

  When they stopped for a break with the wall of an arroyo blocking the chilly breeze the coyote squatted next to Rosa, the prettiest of the three girls with them. “Hey Rosita, how would you like some of your fee back?”

  Rosa swallowed and stared at the ground between her feet. She shook her head convulsively, but said nothing.

  Horrified, Enrique thought of stories he’d heard of girls being raped during the trek to El Norte. Was that about to happen here? Would he have the courage to say or do something, or would he just leave Rosa to her fate? How could he ask Lucia to try to cross the border with Elsa after this?

  However, the coyote just laughed and stood, saying, “Time to get moving again amigos.”

  The next morning, exhausted, they arrived within sight of a paved road. In the distance Enrique saw a sign by the road that said “Hwy169.”

  The coyote said, “You wait here until the truck comes for you. It’ll stop down there by those little trees.”

  Concerned Enrique turned, “You said you’d stay until they picked us up!” With relief he saw that the other migrants were upset as well. Many of them shouted something of the same nature.

  The coyote raised his hands, “OK, OK, it’s not part of the deal, but I’ll stay with you until Jorge picks you up.”

  “And you tell him about the ID chips too!”

  The coyote rolled his eyes but nodded.

  They all settled in to wait.

  Later in the day the temperatures rose and they sat in the shade of the small scrubby trees up the hill from the road. After a few hours the coyote got up, dusted his hands and walked away.

  Enrique got up and followed him.

  The coyote glanced back at him and shook his head, “Tengo que hacer pis (I have to piss).”

  Enrique shrugged but continued to follow him.

  “You like boys?” the coyote asked.

  “No, but I don’t want you to leave us.” Enrique glanced around and saw with some relief that one of the other men had also gotten up and followed from a little farther back.

  It was nearly dark before the truck arrived to pick them up. The man wouldn’t let
them on the truck until he received his money. The coyote tried to get the migrants to pay but finally acknowledged that he’d said that this part of the trip would be covered by the initial payment. As the coyote paid Jorge, Enrique felt great relief that they hadn’t let the coyote leave them.

  One of the other migrants insisted that the coyote discuss with Jorge the ID chips he’d promised. Sure enough, Jorge demanded more money for the chips. Once again the migrants turned as a group on the coyote and were able to insist that he give Jorge the money for the chips.

  ***

  At two in the morning, Ell slowly opened the door from the tunnels into Amy’s basement. She stepped inside with an old gallon can of paint and walked slowly over to where Amy had several other cans of paint on a shelf. She set it down where she’d gotten it several nights before. It weighed the same as it had before Ell took it away, but under a couple of inches of paint was false bottom and beneath that, a set of ports she hoped that she’d never need to ask Amy to use.

  Ell left as quietly as she’d entered; then took the tunnel to one of the houses her security team stayed in.

  The team didn’t have any paint, but they did have a stack of emergency gear. Ell carefully lifted some big cans of Sterno out of their box. She picked up the Sterno can she’d brought. She’d cut the bottom out of it and put some ports under a false bottom. There was still some Sterno in the top of the can above the false bottom, so it would smell right and even burn for a little while should anyone attempt to use it. By hand she weighed the false can in comparison to the others and decided it felt the same, just like her scale had said. She put the can into the very bottom of the box and then patiently stacked the real Sterno cans back into the box on top of the fake one.

  ***

  Elsa came home from school to find her mother smiling and happy for a change. “Ha llamado Papa (Did Papa call)?” she asked excitedly.

  Lucia picked Elsa up and swung her joyfully around. “Yes, Papa called. His Uncle Tomas who lives in Texas got him a job building houses. Papa sent money!”

  Later, while they ate their supper Lucia said dreamily, “Someday, Elsa. Someday we’ll go to join your Papa in Texas.”

  “But, Mama, won’t it be dangerous?”

  Lucia got a sad look, “Yes… it will.” Then she looked up at Elsa longing evident in her eyes, “But we need to be with Papa, don’t we?”

  Elsa nodded, wide eyed. Just the thought of the trip frightened her. She’d never been away from this town, but… she loved her Papa, she could do it to be with him.

  ***

  Ell sat down with the D5R leadership meeting. “So what’s happening folks?” she asked glancing around. Fred looked like the proverbial cat with a canary so she pointed at him, “Fred?”

  Fred skimmed a large hockey puck shape down to her. It had Amazon’s familiar logo on top. “Want anything from Amazon?”

  Ell stared at it, “Nooo…” she breathed.

  “Yes!” He grinned, “Pick it up and hold it over your hand.”

  Ell did so.

  Fred said, “Deliver,” and a second later a cylinder labeled ‘Colgate’ dropped into her hand. Fred smiled, “Ahh, a tube of my favorite toothpaste.”

  Ell turned the puck over, “So this is what? A four inch port?”

  “Yup, they’ve determined that a huge chunk of their inventory will fit through a four inch port. The fulfillment guys at their warehouse stack your goods in a pipe with your port at the bottom of it. Once all your items are in it they send you a notification and you say to ‘deliver.’ The items pop them through one at a time. They’re pushing their manufacturers to package as many items as they can into canisters that’ll fit through that type of port. They’ll have a larger size eight inch port for people who expect to order big stuff.”

  “And the power to run the port, even though it’s high, has got to be less than delivering by truck.”

  “Yep. About twenty five kilowatts, but only for the second it takes for the product to drop through the port. That’s only about 0.007 kilowatt hours! The energy cost shipping by truck is way, way higher. You’d have to order huge quantities of stuff before it even compared to cost of the lights in your house. They figure in a few years trucks will only be delivering really big, oddly shaped stuff. Of course, you’d need to get the other end of the port delivered to you by truck before you could start accepting portal deliveries.” He skimmed another puck down to her, this one labeled Coca Cola.

  Ell picked it up. “Do they really think that people will want to have their Coke delivered separately?”

  “No, but, imagine if, instead of a big vending machine in our break room, we had one of these attached to the wall. You tell the puck you want a diet coke. Your AI gives it your payment info and once the puck senses your hand under it, bang, an ice cold Coke drops into your hand.”

  “Oh,” Ell put her fingers to her lips in mild consternation, “these going to kill local stores aren’t they?”

  Fred gave a sad little shrug, “Unless they can find a different way to compete, yeah. You might figure that they’d compete on products you’d want to hold in your hand and look at before you buy, but Amazon is setting up to be able to send you sample products to look at and return, then send you the ‘new in package’ version if you decide you do want it.” He made a little grimace, “That won’t work very well for grocery products like produce, but even there they plan to let you look at the actual product you want to buy on video before it goes out to you.”

  “Oh man, that’ll be hard on the Mom and Pop stores!”

  Fred shrugged, “Or, it’ll be an opportunity. Remember, Mom and Pop stores are already in trouble, but they can sell through Amazon already. Also, FedEx and UPS plan to offer puck type delivery services so if you find a unique product offered by a Mom and Pop store that doesn’t want to work with Amazon, you can order it delivered by UPS.”

  “That’s assuming you have a UPS puck. But you’re right, soon your local Mom and Pop could soon be selling to someone in Turkey!”

  Rob laughed, “And everyone’s going to be making their products so they’ll fit through a 4” port!”

  Vivian grinned, “And we’re going to be selling a lot more ports.”

  When it came time for a report from ET Resources, the only really new item was that Hilton hotels had begun bidding to use one of the living modules at the Habitat as a space tourism facility. At least initially it would be quite expensive, but Hilton had sent up an exploratory team who’d decided that enough wealthy people would be willing to pay for a vacation up there to make it worthwhile. Hilton would want a stationary hub module with windows so people could look out at the view. They intended to eventually purchase a large weightless module as well so guests could enjoy some zero-G sports and games. “They also claim to have a billionaire with heart failure who wants to live up there more or less permanently. There’ll be less stress on his heart.”

  Roger lifted a hand. “He might want to check into some of our new medical tech then. One of the heart surgeons at UNC wants to install a ventricular booster around peoples’ hearts. One of the big problems with artificial hearts has been that there was no way to get power into the pump without the danger of infection traveling in along the power wires. Well, that’s solved by the ports and people are back to frantically working on port enabled artificial hearts. However, having your blood go through a mechanical device damages red blood cells and risks clots. It would be much better to just provide a booster squeeze to a weak heart, letting the blood circulate through the patient’s own natural tissue and valves. This doc has a design using a synthetic bag around the heart that contains a bladder. Fluid goes through several ports to expand the bladder. When the bladder expands inside the bag, it pushes against the heart, squeezing it to provide a boost. Maybe your billionaire could live down here after all?”

  ***

  Allan, Ell’s AI, said, “You have a call from Presidential Science Advisor Elton Costella.”

&
nbsp; Ell closed her eyes and sighed. Pressing her fingers over her eyes where a headache had suddenly appeared, she said, “Put him through… Dr. Costella?

  “Yes Ms. Donsaii. My predecessor, Kant Fladwami said I should talk to you every so often so as to be apprised of any new wrenches you may be throwing into the economic workings of our country?”

  Ell forced a chuckle. “That’s probably reasonable. For right now though, we don’t have any revolutionary new technology in the works. You may be aware though that some major e-tailers and shippers are planning to use ports to distribute products?”

  “Yes, I’d heard that, but shipping a few small items through ports isn’t going to have much effect on the economy.”

  Ell pondered explaining just how many things could be packaged to fit through a 4” port if they needed to be and how such shipments might affect retailing in the country. However, her read of Costella said that he would have already made up his mind and would be angered by any attempt to explain his error. After a moment she only said, “Perhaps.”

  Costella said, “I’d like to invite you up to the White House for a briefing with myself and the President regarding the future of your technology. When would you be able to come up?”

  “I’ll be available at the President’s convenience.”

  “Next Friday at 4 PM then.”

  “OK,” Ell said and sank back in her chair with a morbid sense of impending doom.

  ***

  Arriving at the White House, Ell presented her ID. The guard leaned down and looked at her, then looked up at his HUD. “Uh, Ms. Donsaii, it’s an honor… uh, but we don’t have you on the list for admission today?”

  Somehow, Ell didn’t feel surprised. “Would you be able to check with the Presidential Science Advisor, Elton Costella? He’s the one that issued me the invitation.”