Working for Heat - Volume II

by Donovan Sotam

monitors.

  ‘Well, young James doesn’t like the rule that we have for separate computer stations, one for searching online and the other for work purposes.’

  ‘Well, that makes sense.’

  ‘Right! Doesn’t it?’ Mr Yamamoto was pleased that Felicia agreed with him, and Felicia was pleased that her future employer didn’t seem to possess any sarcasm skills. A faraway ‘silence’ was heard in the background, and they left the library.

  After some more sightseeing, Mr Yamamoto had to leave. Apparently something about his betta fish being angry if not fed on time, and there she was alone on the university campus. She bought a tuna sandwich and sat in the gardens enjoying her meal and thinking about the particularly weird morning.

  ‘Mind if I join?’ a voice interrupted her lunch. It was a familiar voice, a very recent familiar voice. James was holding two glasses of juice and looking at Felicia. Her mouth was full and shed had to chew hastily to respond.

  ‘Yes, please, sit down. Jessie, was it?’

  ‘Close, but I think you know my name is James.’ He gave her one of the glasses. They both smiled.

  ‘So, tell me Mr James, why did you do that?’ She took a gulp of the juice ‘hmm, quite weird, but good.’ She was talking about her juice.

  ‘Because this university needs to see how ridiculous and bad it is. People need to wake up.’

  Felicia didn’t say anything for a while, and took another bite of her sandwich. James took a sip of his drink, looking up at the sky. It was cloudy.

  ‘I like clouds,’ he added, absent-mindedly.

  ‘And why haven’t you been expelled? Or better yet, why haven’t you quit?’

  He laughed really hard.

  ‘My dear Professor…’ he made a deliberate pause.

  ‘Felicia, just Felicia.’

  ‘Felicia, first they can’t expel me, my father makes big donations every year so they don’t have the guts. And quitting? Never!’ he was now speaking passionately. ‘I can’t quit this war. It’s like quitting your rights.’ He continued, a bit more calm now, ‘not as if you would understand.’

  ‘Perhaps better than you think. I am a History Professor.’

  He smiled and took out his pocket watch again. ‘I’m not late yet. Come, I’ll show you the real university. What I’m fighting against.’ He took her hand and started running towards another building, one that Chancellor Yamamoto hadn’t shown her. They entered the building and started moving down a long corridor until they reached room 3.14. ‘This is the physics room, also known as the Pi room.’

  ‘Pie?’ Felicia looked inside and saw a blackboard full of equations and formulas and, all alone reading a notebook, was a very well-dressed gentleman, the physics professor.

  ‘Watch this. Professor Charles, why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe?’

  The physics professor took his eyes off his notebook and very plainly answered him, ‘that’s a very good question,’ and continued reading his notebook. Felicia and James stood by entrance of room in silence, waiting for something more. James winked at her before he started talking to the professor again.

  ‘Is that a mistake I see in that integral?’

  The professor jumped off his chair and started gazing at the blackboard.

  ‘Be ready to run, he really hates this,’ James said to Felicia.

  ‘What-’

  James turned the lights off and the professor started to glow a bright green. Felicia was in awe.

  Before she could do or say anything, James grabbed her by the hand. They ran only to be pursued by a ‘JAMES!’ shouted from the classroom.

  They stopped by another room, a very cold, low lit room. Felicia was trying to catch her breath. She left her home that morning for a teaching job and by lunch hour she was running from another teacher, like a little brat. However she didn’t feel bad, she felt excited. When she caught her breath she realized she was in a server farm, with lots of cardboard boxes on the floor.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s the faculty’s supercomputer. One-hundred million dollars and a couple of teachers fired, the good ones sadly, for that.’

  ‘I didn’t know we had a supercomputer!’

  ‘We?’ James asked worried, grabbing Felicia. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve already got you.’

  ‘No, just a matter of speaking,’ she said very coyly and embarrassed.

  ‘I guess you have a very large research group, then,’ said Felicia.

  James cackled, and in that cold dark room, Felicia felt a little fear.

  ‘A large research group? No, no, no… We don’t have any research group, or research individual for that matt-’

  ‘So, what’s this for?’ Felicia interrupted James.

  ‘Playing solitaire!’

  ‘Playing solitaire? A hundred million dollar supercomputer to play solitaire?’ Felicia was in shock. She had been brought up, mostly by her grandmother, saying that wasting anything was a sin.

  ‘And the occasional minesweeper,’ he laughed again.

  ‘But who?’ James grabbed her hand and showed her. Behind the door was a sign-up sheet for the supercomputer, and every day, for every hour slot, there it was, his name, ‘Mr. AL.’ written in blue, and once or twice in red, marker.

  ‘Who’s Mr. Al?’

  ‘Well… for some, a myth, for others, a legend. For me? Just a bad employee. The root of all evil, the cause of our decadency.’ James was again speaking very passionately and Felicia giggled without realizing it.

  ‘Let us explore further his lair.’

  James started running again, down the long corridor that harboured the massive processor units. At the end of the corridor they saw a man wearing an all-white uniform. He was moving boxes from one position to another.

  ‘It’s said that he once did this for over forty-eight hours,’ James was whispering, ‘but that’s just a rumor. Also part of the myth is that he was a failed magician who specialized in fire tricks until one day his act went completely ablaze, if you get my drift.’

  ‘Oh, poor fellow.’

  ‘Don’t say that. As soon as we turn our backs, he magically disappears and immediately starts playing solitaire.’

  Seeing the seriousness in his face Felicia didn’t laugh. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes…,’ he paused, ‘and, of course, the occasional minesweeper, but rumors also say he isn’t that good at that one.

  ‘Ohh…’

  They stood there for quite some time, watching the man, going from left to right with his boxes.

  The silence was only broken by the tick-tock of James’ silvery watch.

  ‘What’s in the boxes?’ Felicia finally asked.

  ‘Empty!’ He looked at his watch and grabbed Felicia by the hand and started running away from the man known as Mr. Al. ‘Come, or we’ll be late.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For a very important au fait’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A class, a class. Come!’ and James hurried Felicia out of the supercomputer lab. The more they ran, the weirder the faculty looked, more somber and empty. Felicia felt at loss, she had gone through a maze of corridors, spiral stairs, both up and down. It seemed as if she had been running all day long, and this atmosphere was accentuated by the lack of windows which barred the sunlight from coming in and giving her a twisted notion of time.

  They reached a double door, it looked like an emergency door, but she had difficulty discerning it in the low light.

  ‘Wait here a couple of minutes,’ said James, handing her his flashlight.

  He disappeared into the dark. He wasn’t away for a long time, which Felicia felt weird.

  ‘Where did he get all of that?’ she thought. James was carrying a folding table, chairs and a picnic basket with cake, a kettle with hot tea and sugar lumps. He set up the table as quick as was humanly possible, and asked Felicia to join him.

  ‘We have to hurry, but there is always time for cake and tea.�
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  ‘Why do we have to hurry?’ asked Felicia, taking a small bite of the chocolate cake.

  James took out his pocket watch again and looked at it. ‘Well, we have to hurry if we want to catch the opening lesson.’ He fingered quoted the word ‘lesson’. ‘It’s taught by Professor Louis Mateo, head of the literature department,’ he paused and served some tea for himself and Felicia. ‘One or two?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Sugar lumps. One or two?’

  ‘Oh, two please,’ she smiled.

  As she was about to drink her tea, James stood up, grabbed her again and said, ‘It is time.’ He opened the door next to them. They were in the technical booth of the university’s main lecture room. Below them, were hundreds of students and teachers, the latter, all wearing red and black colored uniforms with large bizarre hats.

  ‘Hello J!’ said a voice from a dark corner. Felicia jumped, she hadn’t noticed the little man.

  ‘Hello Oscar Mike. This is Felicia.’

  ‘I know!’ he snickered, ‘and I’m not very fond of new people, you know that.’

  ‘Indeed I do, indeed I do, but she’s one of the intelligent ones,’ James replied. Felicia didn’t like that they were discussing her right in front of her, but she remained silent, looking at the small man with a black top hat, fingerless gloves and a two day old beard.

  ‘This is Profess-‘

  ‘Ex.’

  ‘Ex-professor Matthew Hart. He was sacked because he flunked students.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Felicia.

  ‘For us? Nothing! For the Chancellor and the students’ daddies, it’s almost a crime, and the bigger their donations, the bigger the crime.’

  ‘Look,’ James pointed to Professor Louis down below, ‘he’s about to start.’

  Professor Louis was the only teacher not wearing those silly uniforms. He was wearing a scarf and, although Felicia was faraway, she could tell that all the front rows were occupied, either by the red and yellow hats or by girls. He was that kind of university teacher that every girl had a crush on. He was elegant and always wore a scarf, no matter what the weather was outside. He started to talk and you could almost see the ‘ah’s’ and the girly sighs floating in the classroom, like cartoon speech balloons.

  ‘It has begun,’ said Mathew solemnly, ‘and so shall we.’

  ‘What?’ asked Felicia.

  ‘We are going to serve revenge, my dear Felicia.’

  ‘Revenge?’

  The scruffy-looking short man stood up and yelled, ‘off with their heads!’

  Felicia panicked and looked at James with pleading eyes.

  James laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he finally managed to speak, ‘he’s just talking about the gummy bears. He always eats their heads first.’

  Felicia looked at Mathew. He was holding a small bag full of green, red, and yellow gummy bears, and he was chewing their heads and saving their bodies.

  ‘Just watch,’ James smiled, ‘hit it Matt.’

  Felicia was looking at Professor Louis, he was speaking and waving his hand, moving frenetically. Everyone was following his movements, always attentive, a true TED talker, when all of a sudden his speech went from ‘just like Shakespeare’s Hamlet…’ to a medley of operas: O Fortuna, The Ride of the Valkyries, amongst others.

  James and Mathew couldn’t stop laughing, Felicia was still confused, she didn’t know what had happened. James decided to help her out.

  ‘Professor Louis has a very girlish voice, which he is very embarrassed of. Every semester he tells,’ he coughed and corrected, ‘he plays a tape to his students saying that they should not interrupt him, any questions should be made over email or through his assistant.’

  ‘He playbacks his lessons?’ Felicia was speechless.

  ‘Indeed he does, indeed he does.’

  ‘Ahh, off with his head!’ howled Matthew while chewing off another head from a red gummy bear.

  The show carried on, from operas to Martin Luther speeches, even a whale song. Louis felt horrible and started screeching, ‘stop it, stop it!’ and that was it, the last drop, everybody exploded into a laughing spree.

  James took out his watch and, for the last time, he grabbed Felicia by the arm and ran. It was a short run, and there they were again on the exact same bench where James found Felicia having lunch. He left her there, no kisses, no goodbyes, he just left. Felicia didn’t seem to mind, she was thinking about what she had seen that day, thinking and thinking until Chancellor Yamamoto joined her.

  ‘Come Miss Felicia, we have your contract to discuss.’

  Shortly after they entered Yamamoto’s office, he was bidding her to have a seat, and so she did. The office looked exactly the same, with the exception of a battleship board game on the table and a dead fish.

  ‘What happened to the fish?’ Felicia asked pointing to the fish buoying upside down in the aquarium.

  ‘He died fighting… like a true warrior.’

  ‘But…’ she hesitated, ‘doesn’t he need another betta fish to fight against?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I fought him, and he valiantly lost.’

  This was one of those situations where Felicia was glad she wasn’t having a drink, otherwise, she would have made a Pollock masterpiece out of Yamamoto’s white suit with her beverage.

  ‘Sorry! You fought the fish?’

  ‘YES! It was an honorable battle, and the best man,’ he corrected himself, ‘the best chordate won.’

  ‘Here’s your contract, please do sign it, it would be a pleasure if you could work with us.’ The chancellor smiled and gave her a contract of biblical proportions, biblical in terms of size and the ten plagues, for there were worse points in that contract than there were plagues. Felicia went to the last page, grabbed a pen and wrote in a fancy handwriting:

  Alice Lindel

  She turned the contract over to the chancellor, excused herself, and went straight to the door, but was interrupted.

  ‘I’m sorry Felicia.’

  She froze.

  ‘I forgot one important thing before you leave.’

  She sighed of relief.

  ‘Give me a letter and a number.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A letter, A to L, and a number, 1 to 10.’

  ‘E3?’ she said, asking more than affirming.

  ‘Rats! You sank my battleship!’

  Felicia left the office and the campus, and never looked back, and to this day, there’s a girl named Alice Lindel on the university’s payroll.

  This is not an Epilogue

  Schrödinger was welcoming Oppenheimer. He had invited several colleagues of his, some close friends, others just acquaintances, to his home.

  ‘Hello Robert, come in.’

  ‘Hi, Schrödinger. So, what’s all the fuss about?’

  ‘I think I’ve made a huge breakthrough.’

  ‘Hope it’s legal, this time.’ They both laughed loudly.

  ‘I missed your humor Robert, do come in, the others have already arrived.’

  Schrödinger led Oppenheimer to the dining room. Three gentlemen were already seated and drinking, and they were all so focused on what the grey-haired man was saying that they didn’t see the two men entering the room. Not until Oppenheimer said, ‘Hello, my good friends, I hope you haven’t emptied Schrödinger’s alcohol cabinet.’

  ‘Almost, almost, my friend Robert,’ said Fermi, still seated with his back towards Schrödinger and Oppenheimer. Einstein chuckled.

  ‘Vee vere just talkink about zat, Robert.’

  ‘Yes, vee were,’ said Bohr.

  ‘Don’t make fun of him Niels.’

  ‘I vasn’t,’ replied Bohrs, giving Einstein a pat on the back. All five men were now laughing. A woman came into the room.

  ‘Hello, my beautiful Annemarie, how are you?’ said Oppenheimer, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Very well, thank you. Let me take that for you,’ and she held out
her hand for his grey overcoat, which he was still wearing.

  ‘Zilly man, shtill vearing his coat,’ Einstein said while raising his glass for a toast with Fermi.

  The two men still standing sat down and Schrödinger asked his wife what was for dinner. She smiled and said it was a rabbit stew.

  ‘Most excellent, my dear.’

  ‘Vonderful,’ said Einstein.

  ‘Indeed, Albert, on this I can agree with you,’ replied Bohr.

  Annemarie left the room and Fermi quickly added, ‘Just hope it isn’t cat, for in a Schrödinger’s home, one can never know whether it is truly cooked or not. At least, not until one opens the pan.’ The remaining gentlemen in the room laughed and he continued. ‘But what was the urgency Schrödinger? What is so important we needed to get here so quickly?’

  ‘My dear friends and esteemed colleagues, I have proof of the wave collapse.’ A general gasp rippled around the room.

  ‘Oh, not this again,’ said Fermi, incredulous of his colleague’s statement.

  ‘Now, don’t be like that Fermi, old boy, let’s listen to what he has to say,’ said Bohr.

  ‘Thank you, Niels, for the vote of confidence.’

  ‘Well, not a vote of confidence per si, more like morbid curiosity.’

  ‘Ja, ja. Vee vant to see zis silly idea of yours.’

  After a very brief moment of pouting, Schrödinger continued, ‘I have found my cat, and it’s truly magnificent… I recently hired a personal assistant to deal with the minor tasks and he is remarkable.’

  ‘So, your assistant discovered it?’ interrupted Oppenheimer.

  ‘Shtealing is fery wrong my dear friend.’

  ‘No, no, no! On the contrary my personal assistant, Mr. Al, is quite an oaf, if there ever was one. He’s a very curious fellow. Always wears the same thing, a kind of uniform, white pants and a white shirt, and he has this nasty habit of rubbing himself in alcohol every time he finishes a chore. Almost caught fire once.’

  ‘So, you have a bad assistant, haven’t we all?’ asked Fermi, laughing.

  ‘Yes. Yes we have,’ said Bohr.

  ‘It was a rhetorical question, sir.’

  ‘I know and I just gave a rhetorical answer,’ said Bohr, sipping a bit of sherry.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m just excited with all of this and I digress, but the truth is that Mr. Al is so bad, wait… depending on the observer, he can be quite good…’

  ‘Schrödinger, don’t lose it again,’ cautioned Oppenheimer.

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry. He’s so bad at his job that at any given time he’s working and not working. It’s incredible!’

  ‘Sorry, vhat do you mean?’ asked Einstein.

  ‘If I give him a task he only does it when he’s being observed, honest to God.’

  Fermi and Bohr both laughed hard. Oppenheimer didn’t say a word, he thought his good friend was losing his marbles.

  ‘That’s just bad service, nothing more,’ added Fermi, after he stopped laughing, which was longer than one usually considers to be polite.

  ‘No, but it isn’t. It’s like he’s in two places at the same time. In the study playing solitaire with his deck of cards and in the lab tidying up, well, at least when he remembers to clean after me.’

  ‘I don’t believe zat,’ Einstein immediately replied.

  ‘Lest we see this for ourselves, I think I have to agree with Albert on this,’ said Bohr, ‘but just this once, old pal,’ and patted Einstein on the back, smiling.

  ‘Ja, vee vouldn’t vant zat, me and you agreeink on eferyzing.’

  ‘But of course, that’s why I asked Mr. Al to do some random things in my lab.’

  By the time Schrödinger