The Thunder of Engines

by Laurence Dahners

  The phone’s AI dinged to announce she’d hung up.

  Another stupid joke fallen flat, he thought miserably. Why can’t I stop?

  Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Kaem buried his head in his hands and wept.

  When he had nothing left to cry, Kaem decided to take a shower. He was all wound up and showers relaxed him.

  Standing under the hot spray, his thoughts drifted back to the time his dad taught him to fight. An event that had meant a great deal to him for the way it left him feeling loved.

  Then to a time in grade school. A time after his brushes with Rob Sanders—the bully who’d never bothered Kaem after Kaem gave him the bloody nose. Kaem had been left alone for a year or so after the Sanders incident, likely because the class bullies were worried about what’d happened to Rob. One kid had even asked Kaem whether it was true he held a black belt in some martial art.

  But then two other boys had taken Kaem on together. First, it’d been a swath of ugly words uttered on the playground. Kaem had ignored them as he’d ignored others. The next day it happened again, this time with some shoving. The day after that they crowded even closer, Kaem took his position, left side toward them, knees a little bent, right fist down at his side—and wondered which boy he was going to hit if it came down to it.

  One of them shoved him again. Kaem staggered back, caught himself, and resumed the stance. When the boys crowded close once again, he decided he had to act before it was too late. He unleashed his punch, throwing it at the boy closest to the line of strike Kaem was set up for. Kaem missed the boy’s nose but hit his right cheekbone a solid thump.

  A blow hard enough it hurt his fist.

  That boy staggered back, bawling, but his more aggressive friend tackled Kaem, driving him to the ground.

  Knowing he wouldn’t have the endurance to win this fight, Kaem turtled up, curling in a ball, arms around his legs, face between his knees.

  The boy on top of him flailed somewhat ineffectually at his back and legs. It wasn’t hurting a lot, so Kaem settled down to ride it out.

  He heard a scream and suddenly the boy was no longer on top of Kaem. When he peeked out from between his knees to see what’d happened, Kaem saw the boy on the ground with Bana kicking him vigorously. She was shouting. “He’s sick! Can’t you see that?! Why would you pick on someone smaller than you? Someone who’s too sick to fight back?!”

  Kaem smiled at the memory. The little sister that protected me. When I go home to see Dad, I really should swap Bana my phone.

  He started worrying about his dad again. If it’s not AIDS, what could it be? He started his phone searching for his dad’s symptoms.

  There were quite a few diseases that could produce those complaints.

  None of them were good.

  ~~~

  Kaem exited the bathroom as quietly as he could and started trying to find his clothes in the dim lighting.

  Metz rolled over and snarled, “Goddammit, what’re you doing banging around at this hour?”

  Kaem stopped stock-still in the dark, staring down loathingly at the shadows of his despised roommate. After a moment he turned to sit at his desk and open his laptop.

  When the laptop’s screen lit, Metz groaned. “For God’s sake! Go down to the lounge with that damned thing!”

  Kaem ignored Metz as he picked his way through menus.

  Metz said, “Did you hear me?!”

  Kaem said, “Ron, there’s something I need to show you.”

  Metz pulled the covers up over his head.

  Kaem rolled his chair over next to Metz’s bed, angled the laptop’s screen at Metz’s face, then ripped the covers off the bed. “Watch!” he commanded.

  Even in the dim lighting, Kaem could see Metz’s eyes widen as he saw himself on his knees, taking Kaem’s electronic gear out of the under-bed drawer and stuffing it in his backpack.

  “Kaem, uh, I can explain.”

  “Oh, this I’ve gotta hear,” Kaem said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

  “This guy came… He, uh, threatened me.”

  “Which, no doubt, you reported to the police.”

  “No, uh, he said if I went to the police, he’d… he’d—”

  “Having trouble thinking of a suitable threat he might’ve used?”

  “He said you’d stolen that stuff from his company, and, and you’d taken some programs or designs or something.”

  “Uh-huh. And, of course, you believed some stranger over your roommate, did you?”

  “Well, you and I haven’t exactly been getting along, you know?”

  “And who’s the asshole there?” Kaem shook his head, “Never mind, I already know the answer to that question. This guy or his company have a name?”

  “Screw you, Seba!” Metz turned his face away sullenly.

  “Okay, I’ll just send this file to—”

  “No…!” He turned back resignedly, “What do you want?”

  “The guy’s name?”

  “Kim. Wouldn’t give me a last name.”

  “The company he worked for?”

  “Wouldn’t tell me.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “He didn’t. I did it because he convinced me you’d stolen that stuff.”

  “Sure you did. Ron Metz the saint. You even stole your own laptop and sound system to set things right with the world, didn’t you?”

  “Well, he paid me for my stuff. That was only fair.”

  “Show me the deposits.”

  “What?!”

  “Show me the deposits from when he paid you.”

  “No!”

  “Okay, Ron. I’m sure, with a warrant, the police can—”

  “Arggh! Okay! Damnit!” Metz got out of bed and stumped over to his laptop. It took him a moment to bring up his bank account, then he pointed out a deposit.

  He’d pulled the window partly off the screen. Kaem said, “Move the window so I can see the date.”

  Metz scoffed, but did move the window.

  “So, that forty-five hundred is the payment they made on the day you stole my stuff.”

  “I thought I was returning their stolen property!”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Ron. Show me their initial payment.”

  Putting on a puzzled look, Metz asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I know you wouldn’t have done the dirty work without getting a prepayment. I’m thinking half before you took anything and half on delivery. Show me that first payment.”

  “No, just the one payment,” Metz said, scrolling back a few days without showing any deposits.

  “Go back further.”

  Metz scrolled back a few more days.

  “Come on Metz. Scroll back until I can see the other deposit.”

  “There’s another deposit, but it’s some money from my grandmother.”

  “And I’m sure she’ll know what I’m talking about if I call her and ask if she’ll vouch for you?”

  A few lines farther another forty-five hundred-dollar deposit became visible.

  “You really should’ve just kept the cash for a while, Ron.”

  “Okay, smart-ass. I’m not a criminal genius like you.”

  “I’m not a criminal at all, Ron. Transfer the money to my account.”

  “What?!”

  “I don’t think you should get to keep your ill-gotten gains. Transfer them to me. Oh, and I’ll need a picture of this ‘Kim’ guy.”

  “No!”

  “Okay, we’ll see what the police have—”

  “I’ll tell them you’re blackmailing me!”

  “Ron,” Kaem lied calmly, “I looked this up last night. It isn’t blackmail to insist on getting the money you were paid for stealing my stuff.”

  Metz stared at Kaem, his face working. Finally, he said, “Four-thousand of that was for my laptop and sound system.”

  “Okay then. What models were they?”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because there’s no w
ay they were worth four thousand dollars.”

  “They were! And I don’t know what their model numbers were!”

  “Okay. Show me the receipts for the new models you replaced them with. Replacement cost is probably fairer anyway.”

  Metz’s eyes flashed wide. He opened his mouth to object but then his shoulders slumped. He turned to his computer and he pulled up the charges for his new laptop and sound system. They totaled thirteen hundred and ninety-six-dollars.

  “You probably wish you hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry to buy those replacements, huh?” Kaem said. “Transfer seventy-six hundred and four dollars to my account.”

  Metz stared at him for a moment. “You’re an asshole, you know?”

  “Says the man who stole my electronics and computer.”

  Metz turned back to his laptop and made the transfer.

  “While you’ve got it open, send me your picture of Kim.”

  “I don’t think it’s his real name.”

  “Send me a picture, not his name.”

  “I don’t have a picture.”

  Kaem tilted his head and scoffed, “Ron, I know you would’ve snuck a picture of him. You’re a cover-your-ass kinda guy.”

  Metz turned back to his laptop and a moment later Kaem’s laptop notified him of an incoming message.

  “And,” Kaem said, “I need that old phone you keep as a spare.”

  “That’ll cost you a hundred dollars,” Metz said.

  Kaem stared at him until he sighed and got the phone out of his drawer. Kaem reached in the drawer and took the charger himself.

  Well, now I’ve got a little money to help out my parents, Kaem thought. But I need to keep a bit of the money to buy a burner SIM card for that phone. He asked his AI to try to find the guy in the picture of “Kim.” Then he opened his browser and started checking bus schedules to figure out how long it’d take to get home.

  Chapter Four

  In the afternoon, Kaem—not having heard from her—called Bana. “What’s the diagnosis?”

  “Hi to you too brother.”

  “Sorry. Hi Bana. I’m worried about Dad.”

  “They gave him some medicine and sent him home. It’s making him feel better.”

  “What’s the diagnosis?”

  “They don’t know,” Bana said in a flat tone. “They say they’ll call when they do. I’m betting I’m going to have to call them twenty times to get the results.”

  “Did they give you any ideas?”

  She sighed, “No.”

  “I had my phone’s AI look up his complaints. The… possibilities aren’t good.”

  “Must be nice to have a high-end phone,” Bana said bitterly.

  Thinking of his regrets, Kaem said, “I’ve decided to swap phones with you when I come home to see Dad.”

  “No.” Bana sighed, “You need it for your studies.”

  Kaem produced a chuckle, “Not as bad as you need it for your social life.”

  “Keep it,” Bana said bleakly. “I don’t have a social life anymore.”

  Oh, now that she’s out of high school, her social life’s probably dropped off. Kaem knew she’d taken a job doing clerical work in an office but didn’t like the other women that worked there. She still lived at home to save money. And now she’s probably expecting she’ll need to help take care of our dying father. Full of remorse, Kaem said, “I want you to have it. Maybe it’ll jazz up your social life.”

  Bana sighed, “Nothing’s gonna fix my social life. You keep it until Dad’s…” she cleared her throat, “till Dad’s better.”

  Kaem didn’t know how to respond to that. Instead, he tried a bit of good news. “I came into some money. I’ve transferred it into Mom’s account.”

  Bana said nothing, so after a moment, Kaem said, “Bana?”

  “I heard you. ‘Came into some money?’ Is that code for, ‘I’ve been keeping some aside’? That no matter how bad off things were up here, you’ve had a little fund you keep for when your social life needs a boost? When you’ve had a hot date?”

  No! Kaem thought. His mind flashed through several retorts including telling her the truth. Or even telling her about Staze and all its possibilities. He heard his mother’s voice, Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. He sighed, “Yeah. That’s what it is. My hot date money. Tell Mom to spend it however she needs. I don’t need it back since I’ve never had a hot date.” In a fit of resentment, he disconnected the call.

  Kaem regretted hanging up on Bana but couldn’t bring himself to call her back. He spoke to his phone again, telling it to call his mother.

  “Hello, Kaem,” she said. Despite the exhaustion and fear in her voice, she managed to sound delighted to hear from him.

  “Hi, Momma. I just got some extra money. I put it in your account.”

  “You’re sure you don’t need it?”

  “No Momma. And I know you do. How’s Dad?”

  “The medicine’s helping some, but you’re right, it’s very expensive.”

  “Did you ask about cheaper options?”

  Warmth suffused her voice. “Yes, Kaem. I learned that taking care of you. And, before you ask, I’ve already checked that website that tells you where to go for the best prices on the drugs. I bought enough to last a few days and mail-ordered the rest.”

  “Have they said…?” Kaem found it hard to go on with the sentence, but girded himself and finished, “what might be wrong with Dad?”

  “No. They gave me a list of maybes. None of them were good. I’ll bet you’ve already found most of them online.”

  Kaem didn’t want to make her recite the terrible possibilities. “Yeah. I looked. When’re they going to tell you more?”

  “They have him scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy on Monday. We’ll know more a few days after that.”

  “If I catch the late bus I can be there in the morning.”

  “No! Kaem, you need to stay and keep working on your degree.”

  “But… I’ve got to talk to Dad. If he’s…” Don’t say “dying,” he thought. “If he’s sick… I want to talk to him.” He finished in a whisper, “I’d never forgive myself if I—"

  “Here, talk to him,” his mother interrupted.

  He heard his father’s voice, “Kaem? Is that you?”

  Trying not to sniffle, Kaem said, “Hi Dad. How’re you feeling?”

  “Much better. I don’t know what this is, but the doctors are gonna figure it out. I’ll be right as rain pretty soon.”

  He doesn’t know! Kaem thought. He thought back on how his dad always said you had to face up to your problems. Does he not know the possibilities? Or is he not facing up to them? Or is Mom hiding them from him? Or is he hiding them from me? “I’m gonna leave tonight. I’ll get home and see you in the morning.”

  “No, no! You need to stay there and study. I’m gonna lick this in a few more days and I’ll be pissed if you get bad grades because you took a couple of days away from your classes to come visit me. Come home on your break. That way I can see you without worrying about how you’re gonna pass your courses.”

  Kaem knew the university didn’t send his grades to his parents. He thought, I really should take my grades home with me when I go. Then he wouldn’t always be worrying about me failing out. “Okay Dad,” Kaem said resignedly, “It’s not long till the end of the semester. I’ll see you then.”

  “Yeah!” his dad said. “We’ll sit around and joke about how worried you were. ‘I’ll take the bus up here,’ we’ll say, imitating you. Then we’ll have a good laugh.”

  “Yeah, we will,” Kaem said, trying to sound sure of it.

  After he hung up, he thought. God, I hope Staze works out. Maybe I’ll be able to take Dad to a real medical center.

  ***

  Ricard exploded, “What the hell, Wang!” He waved a hand at the apparently random and cheap-looking electronic components in the box Chen had brought to the meeting. “This box of loose junk isn’t going to he
lp us make stade!” He turned hopefully to Elgin Munger, “Is it? Please tell me this stuff means something to you.”

  Munger was staring at the box of modules in dismay. He shook his head. “I guess, if these are the components they used to make that sample, then they tell us we don’t have to use high-quality stuff.” He looked up and sighed, “But without knowing how it was hooked up or what the settings were…” he lifted his hands despairingly.

  Ricard said, “Could you just have one of your minions hook them up in various configurations until something happens?”

  Munger snorted, “Just as well sit a monkey down in front of a keyboard and see if he accidentally types out the script for Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Come on. You have some idea how it works from the diagrams we got off Seba’s computer, don’t you?”

  Munger barked a derisive laugh, “Yeah, ideas like the power supply should supply power to the components. Obvious crap. The info you guys hacked off Seba’s computer was for a purpose-built device, not for a bunch of separate components Seba may have used to accomplish the same thing. Or,” he eyed the box askance, “components he might have been using for something else entirely.”

  Ricard narrowed his eyes, “Dammit Munger, this is important! Have one of your engineers try to match these components to what they might’ve done instead of some of the chips or other parts on the diagram for a purpose-built device. Tell him there’s a bonus in it if he can figure it out.”

  “If she can figure it out,” Munger said.

  “What’s that mean?” Ricard said irritatedly.

  “The best circuit person I’ve got’s a woman. I’ll ask her to work on it, but there’s still no chance we’re going to build a machine that makes stade if we don’t understand the theory behind it.”

  Ricard turned to Chen again, “This is all you got?”

  “Got desktop computer case. Some call “CPU’ because box contain central process unit, but also has hard drive an’ other components. IT guy trying to decrypt drive now.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “Not know. Last time took two days on supercomputer with quantum processor just decrypting one file. This Seba no joke with computers.”