The Thunder of Engines

by Laurence Dahners

  “Yes, sir,” the kid said.

  “You want to come up here and take us through the WKB approximation?”

  That got the kid’s attention. His surprised eyes suddenly turned and focused on Turnberry. The professor fully expected the kid to beg off. Instead, Seba stood uncertainly. “Yes, sir,” he said, shuffling along the row of seats and making his forward way to Turnberry’s electronic whiteboard.

  The kid stood a moment, then turned, looking lost. Turnberry thought, Not such a wiseass now are you?

  Seba cleared his throat nervously, then said, “Um, how do you clear the board?”

  Turnberry blinked. He’d expected a declaration of surrender, not a confession of incompetence with the e-board of all things. He told Seba how to do it.

  Board cleared, Seba picked up the electronic marker and started writing equations, succinctly explaining what the different symbols and letters represented and how to derive the next equation from the one he was on.

  For a minute or two, Turnberry found the clarity of Seba’s explanation staggering, then suddenly suspected that he only found it so because he understood the principles already. He looked around the classroom. Most of the students seemed to be following Seba, but one had his hand up. He said, “Mr. Seba, you have a question back here.”

  Seba turned, looking surprised, though Turnberry wasn’t sure whether he was surprised that someone couldn’t follow his explanation, or so deep into the details that he was surprised to realize that there was still a class behind him. “Um, yes?”

  The student who’d had his hand up posed a question. Seba went back two equations and unerringly clarified. Getting a nod from the confused student, Seba resumed where he’d left off.

  Turnberry studied what Seba’d written. He isn’t just parroting what’s in the book! Turnberry thought. What Seba’s putting up is different. And it’s more… clear-cut! This kid may not look like he’s paying attention, but he knows this stuff backward and forward. A moment later Turnberry realized, He wouldn’t have to cheat to get the best scores on our tests. He could write the damned textbooks! Where the hell’d he come from?

  Turnberry resolved to talk to the other faculty. We should be trying to get this kid into our graduate program! He could make some real contributions to the world of physics. A sudden worry cropped up. What if he doesn’t have the kinds of original ideas we’d need in a professor? Turnberry shrugged, If so, he could sure as hell teach physics at a non-research University.

  ***

  Ricard Caron stared at Elgin Munger, CTO of Martin Aerospace. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t work’?”

  Munger looked irritated. “We built your ‘stazer’ from the diagrams you showed me, plugged it in, and flipped the switch. Nothing happens.”

  “You have to hook it up to some kind of cavity, right?”

  Munger nodded. “The cavity’s not well specified, but we did shine either the laser, or the microwave emitter, or both, into several cavities. Nothing happened.” He paused and stared at Ricard. “Or, maybe it did. Since I have no idea what’s supposed to happen, it’s pretty hard to be sure it didn’t.”

  Ricard frowned, “What kinds of cavities?”

  “Metal, ceramic, sintered carbon...”

  “No, I mean, what size and shape?”

  “Six-centimeter cubes.”

  Ricard sighed, thinking, I’m going to have to show him the test sample of stade we got from those idiots at Staze. He’d wanted his own people to make a completely different setup without seeing Seba’s sample. That way if they ever went to court, his science team would honestly be able to say they’d never seen stade before they made it themselves. Munger was the only one who’d seen the files that’d been hacked out of Seba’s computer and Munger was only told to build something that worked the same way, but was designed differently. Ricard didn’t want it to look like a copy of Seba’s stuff so he’d insisted Munger take handwritten notes from Seba’s files while they were displayed on Ricard’s computer.

  Ricard turned to Abe Goldman, “You’ve got the patent app submitted?”

  Abe rolled his eyes, “Yes. But I don’t like patenting something I don’t understand.” He glanced at Munger, then back at Ricard. “Now I think I’m hearing that I’m trying to patent something you don’t understand either? Something that doesn’t even work?”

  “It’s going to work,” Ricard growled. “We know it’s possible. Yes, you’ll have to submit a correction of some quote-unquote ‘errors’ before the final patent’s granted, but we’ve established priority, right?”

  “Right,” Goldman said with a frown. “How do you know it’s possible if you can’t get it to work?”

  “Just trust me. I do,” Ricard said to Goldman, waving him off. “You can get back to work. I need to talk to Munger some more.

  An uncomfortable silence stretched as Goldman got up, gathered his notes, and left the room. Ricard thought, I’m going to have to fire that SOB.

  Once Goldman was gone Ricard turned to Wang Chen. “Can you get us any better information?”

  The always inscrutable Chen spoke in a near monotone. “Very difficul’, jus’ breaking into Seba’s computer one time. Then need two day’ time on Martin Aero’ supercomputer wit’ access to quantum processor to break encryption. Make many people angry who mus’ wait to use computer. Got everything on device while we were there.” Chen shook his head, “Not recommend we try to do again.”

  “Goddammit Chen,” Ricard said, pounding a fist on the table, “you must’ve missed something! Munger can’t get it to work!”

  Chen’s expression didn’t change. “Sugges’ either mistake on plan, or Munger follow diagram wrong.”

  Sounding unhappy, Munger said, “Where did you get these plans?”

  Ricard didn’t answer that but posed a question of his own. “Did you read the description? Did you try to understand the principles involved so you could figure out whether the guy made a mistake drawing up his diagram?”

  “Whether who made a mistake?” Munger asked. “And, why aren’t we asking him how to build this damned thing?”

  Ricard stayed on the offensive. “You didn’t read the description, did you?”

  “Yes, I read the damned description! It doesn’t make sense. Keeps using equations that can’t be found with google searches. Then there are these constants I’ve never heard of. The description makes bizarre statements based on them. Are you sure this does whatever it’s supposed to do? I think it’s someone’s delusional fantasy.”

  Feeling incredibly frustrated, Ricard pulled out the envelope containing the sample of stade they’d received. He slid it to Munger, “This is what you should be able to make.”

  Looking puzzled, Munger took the envelope and opened the flap. He peered in, said, “A mirror?” He slid his index and long fingers into the envelope to pull it out.

  Ricard snickered when Munger’s fingers came back out without the sample. He said, “Coefficient of friction’s zero.”

  Munger looked up at Ricard with a startled expression, then reached in again.

  After Munger’s third try, Ricard snatched the envelope out of his hands and, grasping the end opposite the opening, jerked on it. This left the stade tumbling weightlessly in the air.

  Munger’s eyebrows went up.

  Ricard said, “Same density as air.”

  Munger tried to grab it, but it got away from him.

  Ricard trapped it, then held it out, caught by opposing corners.

  Munger took it by the other two corners. “What’s it good for?”

  Ricard said, “It’s stronger and more heat tolerant than any known material… Make a good rocket engine, eh?”

  Munger gave Ricard an uneasy look. “Better than our new tungsten alloys?”

  “Way better. So much better we don’t even have equipment that can measure it.”

  Munger’s eyes went back to the sample. “Shit…”

  “Yeah. There go the bonuses you were gonna get fo
r your role in developing the alloys.” Ricard leaned across the table and, speaking with great intensity, said, “I want you to drop everything else and make this work!” He glanced at Chen, “All our jobs depend on it.”

  Munger looked at Ricard, “Why aren’t you licensing it from whoever developed it? That’s what the company needs. I could chase my tail for years trying to figure this out and never get it.”

  “Munger, any tech guy who could find his own balls should be able to figure this out. We’ve given you the files on it straight outta the guy’s computer. Now you’ve got a sample. As to ‘why not license it,’ the son of a bitch wants two million dollars per engine.”

  “Dammit Ricard, if this stuff’s as good as you say, that’s cheap!”

  “Two million dollars is not cheap,” Ricard said dangerously. “Besides the dumb bastard hasn’t even applied for a patent.” Ricard smiled disturbingly. “We’re going to beat him to his own invention.”

  Munger stared at him a moment. “I think you’re gonna regret this.”

  Ricard narrowed his eyes. “Does that mean you’re not gonna play ball?”

  “I’ll do what I’m told, but I don’t like it.”

  Ricard waved him away, “Go. Figure it out. Save us all.”

  Munger looked back and forth from Ricard to Chen and back to Ricard. He got up and made his way out of the room.

  Ricard turned back to Chen. “We need Seba’s device… or whatever it is. The working model he made the samples with.”

  Chen gave him a basilisk stare, “If you have paten’ application made, send him letter saying he mus’ cease and desis’ making stade. Say you want his devices to be sure he not using them.”

  “We only have a patent application. We can’t forbid him making and using until the patent’s granted.”

  “So? He dumb college studen’. You tell him cease and desis’, he do it.”

  “I’d rather not generate anything in writing that could come back and bite us on the ass. You could call him and tell him to send it to you.”

  Chen blinked. “Okay.”

  “But, if he doesn’t give it to you, I want you to figure out how to get the device some other way.”

  “You mean steal?”

  “If you have to, yeah.”

  “If I do that, I steal computer too. Then we search hard drive whenever we want.”

  Ricard nodded, “Good idea.”

  ***

  Arya listened to Vinay, the young man across the table from her. There didn’t seem to be any danger he might want to hear anything she had to say, so she was saved from carrying any of the conversational burden.

  He and his parents had come to meet her and her parents at her parents’ house. Her parents were quite excited about him. He was twenty-five, handsome, well dressed, and had started his own business. His parents seemed successful, drove a nice car, and lived in southern Pennsylvania, not too far from her parents’ home in Hagerstown, Maryland.

  At least he isn’t constantly making stupid jokes the way Kaem does, she thought. Then she started thinking about how Kaem sent all the money he could to his family in West Virginia. Kaem may make stupid jokes, but he’s kind. And he damn well isn’t boring the way Vinay here is.

  That brought her thoughts back to Vinay. He was still talking about the business he was so proud of. “So, I told her that we had a business to run and that our customers couldn’t be distracted by her daughter.”

  Arya broke into his stream of consciousness, “But hadn’t you told her she had to come in to work because another employee was sick?”

  “Yes, that employee’s also a proble—”

  Arya interrupted, “Surely you didn’t want the first employee coming to work sick and giving her illness to your customers, did you?”

  “Well, no but—”

  “And you practically forced your second employee to come to work in place of the sick one. What was she supposed to do with her daughter?”

  He frowned as if it were obvious, “Leave her with her mother!”

  “And if her mother has a life?”

  “Has a life?” he said, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Yes. If her mother’s got something else she has to do besides babysit, then what?”

  “Well,” he said dismissively, “some other relative then. American Testing’s policy—”

  “American Testing?”

  “Yes, I’m their franchisee and—”

  “So, you didn’t start this business, you bought a franchise?”

  “Well, yes it’s a franchise, but I found the space and set up my own franchise.”

  “Ah,” Arya said. She thought, And a franchise is a business. Some people don’t want to take the risks of building something new if someone else has already figured out something that works.

  But, even if Vinay hadn’t been a conceited bore, she wouldn’t have wanted to marry someone who didn’t want to build his own business, rather than co-opting someone else’s plan. And she wouldn’t marry someone who fired an employee for bringing her daughter to work when she’d been pulled in on her day off.

  She settled back to pretend to be interested in what Vinay had to say. It’ll be good to get back to school and Staze, she thought. Kaem might have an annoying sense of humor, but he’s decent. He wouldn’t have fired that woman.

  And, he’s a genius, so there’s that too.

  ***

  Ron Metz was sitting in a campus coffee shop, pissed about the paper he’d been assigned. An Asian guy sat down across from him. The guy said, “You Ron Metz, right?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Ron asked.

  “I man want offer you good money for small job.”

  Ron’s eyes narrowed, “What?”

  “You roommate to Kaem Seba, right?”

  Ron nodded slowly, wondering where the guy got his info. And why’s he interested in a loser like Seba?

  “You friend of Seba?”

  Metz snorted, “Seba’s an asshole.”

  “That mean you no like him?”

  “Correct. I no like Seba. He’s a loser. In his junior year and still living in the dorms. It’s my serious misfortune to have him as my roommate.” In a sing-song voice, Metz imitated Kaem, “‘Turn down your music, Ron. I can’t study with you dancing around, Ron.’” Ron grumbled, “The guy’s got no life.”

  “We no like him either. He steal secret from my company.”

  That seems unlikely, Ron thought. Doesn’t sound like the straight-arrow I know. He lifted his chin interrogatively, “Who are you and who do you work for?”

  “Call me Kim. Company rather I not say its name. Embarrassed that simple college student cause them much trouble. Even worse now you tell me student a loser.”

  “Ah,” Ron said thoughtfully, I don’t like Seba anyway and I’ll bet there’s something in this mess for me. He asked, “What do you want?”

  “Wonder if you can get our secrets and equipment back from Seba. Save company going to police. Better for everyone: We have our secrets. Seba not go jail. Ron Metz get paid good money.”

  “How good?”

  “How good what?”

  “The money you’re going to pay me,” Ron asked with exaggerated patience. “How good’s that money going to be?”

  “Ah,” Kim said. “Two thousand dollars.”

  “And what exactly are you wanting me to do?”

  “Seba have some electric devices in room?”

  Thinking of the drawer under Seba’s bed that contained a bunch of electronic modules, Ron slowly nodded. Seba didn’t seem to use the modules much anymore. The guy had some newer electronics mounted in a rack. He’d gotten that stuff recently. “How long ago did your stuff go missing?”

  “One, maybe two months.”

  That’d be the stuff in the drawer. “I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about. There’s some stuff he got about four to six weeks ago. He keeps it in an under-bed drawer.”

  “Ah. Good. He also st
eal digital plans. He have computer?”

  Ron nodded, “He’s got a laptop, but he’s always got that with him. He’s also got a desktop he uses for his fancy physics projects.”

  “Desktop big?”

  “It’s got a huge monitor, but the CPU’s case is small.”

  “We only need CPU case so we can get hard drive. You get these items for us?”

  “Not for two thousand.”

  “How much?”

  “Four thousand,” Ron said, expecting to be negotiated down.

  Instead, Kim immediately said “Okay”—making Ron wish he’d driven a harder bargain. How can I…? he wondered.

  Slowly Ron said, “There’s a problem.”

  “What?”

  “When Seba’s stuff goes missing he’s gonna call the cops. They’re gonna wonder why someone broke into our room but only stole his stuff.”

  “That okay. We be far away by then.”

  “No, that’s not okay. They might suspect me. But they won’t suspect me if some of my stuff gets stolen too.”

  “Oh…” Kim said thoughtfully.

  “So, if my laptop and sound system gets stolen too, that’ll keep me safe. Understand?”

  Kim shrugged dismissively, “Okay.”

  “So, I need four thousand more to buy a new laptop and speakers.”

  Ron expected pushback since his laptop and sound system only cost about fifteen hundred. Kim just said “Okay” again.

  Should’ve asked for even more money! Ron thought irritatedly.

  He and Kim spent time working out a plan, Ron trying to think of ways to charge more. But by the time they broke up to go their separate ways, he’d only managed to up the price another thousand.

  ***

  Jerome Stitt looked up. April Lee was standing in front of his engineering station. “What?” he asked impatiently.

  “You’ve been assigned to my project.”

  “What?!”

  “I’m heading up a new high priority project. Mr. Prakant told me to requisition whoever and whatever I want. I told them I wanted you.”

  “But…” he shook his head abruptly as if to clear it, “Why, April? You hate me.”