The Thunder of Engines

by Laurence Dahners

  There was a brief silence, then, sounding stiff, Arya said, “You offered her a job?”

  “Well, yeah. But then I realized I didn’t know anything about how to generate a contract, or how much we should pay, so I figured I’d better ask you for help.”

  “What’s her degree and where’d she get it?

  “Um, I don’t know,” Kaem said, feeling a little embarrassed

  “What kind of grades did she get?”

  “Don’t know, but I’m sure those things must be pretty good or she wouldn’t have been able to get a job with Space-Gen.”

  “Is she licensed as an engineer here in Virginia? Or even in California? And what kind of engineer is she?”

  “They license engineers?”

  “Each state does. I’m not sure you have to have a license if you’re working under a licensed supervising engineer, but if she’s going to be our only engineer for a while, it seems like we’d want her to be licensed here. Or, wherever you want to set Staze up as a business to begin with.”

  “Um, I was thinking here in Virginia.”

  “You didn’t talk to her about salary?”

  “No,” Kaem said, starting to feel badgered.

  “Benefits?”

  “Well, I said she’d probably want to know what the benefits would be before she signed on and that you’d get back to her on that.”

  “Do you know she offered to come to work for free?”

  “What?! How would she support herself?”

  “Not permanently. Just until we could pay her.”

  “She’s really interested in stade.”

  “Are you sure that’s all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think she’s interested in you, Kaem.”

  “What’s really funny is that she thinks you’re interested in me. I told her nothing could be further from the truth. That you push me away at every opportunity and that you hate my jokes.”

  After another brief silence, Arya cleared her throat, “That might be, but we shouldn’t be hiring you a girlfriend. Mixing business and romance is a bad idea.”

  Kaem snorted, “Girlfriend! That’s ridiculous! I like her, but not that way. And, and… I’m sure she’s not interested in me.” He gave a little laugh. “Though, she did say she likes my jokes, so there.”

  “We shouldn’t be hiring you an audience either Kaem.”

  “So you’re saying that if I get along with someone and they think I’m funny we can’t hire them? Does that apply to guys too, or just to women? It’s going to be hard to live up to your ideal of providing equal opportunities for women if we have to reject every woman I might get along with.”

  This time the silence went on for some time. Eventually, Kaem said, “Are you still there?”

  Sounding like she was gritting her teeth, Arya said, “Did you check this decision out with your partners in Staze?”

  Kaem’s thoughts stumbled, then he replied, “I’m doing that now, by talking to you.”

  Arya gave a long sigh, then said, “I’ll contact her and find out whether she’s qualified. But, personally, I think we need to hire someone with experience. We shouldn’t run this business with nothing but newbies like you and me.”

  “Gunnar’s not a noob.”

  “You’re still not funny Kaem,” Arya said, immediately disconnecting the call.

  Kaem wondered how they’d gotten on such a bad footing again.

  Chapter Seven

  After the last of his classes Monday, Kaem was anxious to get to a private corner so he could call his mother and ask how his dad’s marrow biopsy had gone. A little research had convinced him that the only reason they’d be doing a marrow biopsy would be if they suspected a blood cancer like leukemia or lymphoma—since those originated in the marrow. However, as he made his way to the front of the classroom, he realized Professor Turnberry’s eyes were on him. Kaem made to go on by, but Turnberry said, “Mr. Seba?”

  Kaem stopped. “Yes?” he asked, trying not to sound impatient.

  Turnberry hesitated, then said, “I was very impressed with the way you explained the WKB approximation when I called on you a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh,” Kaem said, glad to be complimented but anxious to move on. “Thank you.”

  “I wanted to ask what your plans are…? For after you graduate?”

  “I’ve… got an idea for a business,” Kaem said, uncomfortably, feeling like he shouldn’t talk about Staze until it was on solid footing.

  “Because I’ve been talking to several of the other faculty. They’re all just as impressed as I am,” Turnberry said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you ever thought about trying some research?”

  Kaem stared uncertainly. “Into what?”

  “Into anything. The best research is done by people who generate their own hypotheses. For instance, if you’ve ever wondered whether something worked differently than conventional knowledge proposes. Then if you also had some ideas about how you could test to see if your hypothesis was correct, you could do some research to find out.”

  Kaem was so surprised he didn’t answer immediately. His mind was racing trying to decide how to respond, but it wasn’t getting much traction.

  Finally, Turnberry said, “I and the other faculty have noticed that you frequently ask… unusual questions. As if you might have different thoughts about the way things work. None of us know what those beliefs might be, but…” Turnberry paused, then rushed ahead, “Have you ever considered going on to grad school and testing some of your notions?”

  “I…” have tested some of my ideas, Kaem thought. But I shouldn’t talk about that now. “Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll have to think about it.” It might be a good backup if, for some reason, everything with Staze goes to hell, he thought. So I definitely shouldn’t burn this bridge. “Um you might not know this, but I’m attending UVA on a Curtis scholarship. I couldn’t possibly afford to keep going to school without it. Is there such a thing as a scholarship to go to grad school?”

  Turnberry nodded, “There are scholarships for grad school. You’d have a good shot with some recommendations from the faculty. Also, you might get a paid position as a research or teaching assistant. Personally, because I think you’re so bright, I hope you’re interested in research. But your brief stint in my class suggests you’d be an amazing teacher too. With a doctorate, you could pursue either career.”

  “I thought you had to do research to teach at a university.”

  “That’s true at most of the big research universities,” Turnberry said. He shrugged, “But there are a lot of smaller schools where all they want you to do is teach.”

  Kaem studied his professor. “What do you think of people who try to create things by working in industry?”

  Turnberry shrugged again. “There are jobs for people with undergrad degrees in physics. But they usually aren’t jobs where you’re encouraged to be creative. They’re more in the way of jobs for smart people who’re good team players.”

  “Ah,” Kaem said with a nod. “Thank you for your explanations and encouragement. I’ll have to give this a lot of thought.”

  People were trickling into the room for the next class, so he and Turnberry said their goodbyes.

  ***

  Kaem made his way into the atrium to wait for Arya—if she showed. She’d called this morning to say she couldn’t walk him to class like she’d been doing. He’d immediately wondered whether she was so pissed at him she’d decided he’d just have to take his chances without her services as a bodyguard.

  Normally he reviewed the lecture and his notes, but today the first thing on his to-do list was calling his mother.

  She answered the call, “Kaem! Where’d you get all that money?!”

  He’d been so focused on his dad’s illness that at first, he didn’t know what she was talking about. Realizing she was talking about the money he’d gotten from Metz and sent to her account, he said, “Someone… st
ole some of my stuff.” Hoping his mother would think the authorities had made Metz do it—rather than Kaem committing blackmail to get it—Kaem said, “He had to pay me for it and so I sent the money on to you.”

  “But Kaem, surely you need to use that money to replace whatever he stole, don’t you? Seventy-six hundred dollars! Whatever he stole must’ve been valuable. And important to you!”

  “Um, we-I already got it replaced,” and stolen again, Kaem thought. “I don’t need the money right now, and you guys do.”

  “But could you need it in the future?” his mother asked suspiciously.

  “Probably not,” Kaem said, then realized that if she thought there was any chance he’d need it, she’d do her very best not to spend it. “I mean, definitely not. Don’t worry about me. Use it however you need.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “we are probably going to run short. Make that very short, but I’ll do my best not to spend it if we don’t have to.”

  “No! Mom! Spend it. That’s why I sent it to you.”

  “I don’t want you going hungry, getting bad grades, and getting thrown out of school.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Mom. My grades are fine. I’ll bring you a copy when I come home to see Dad.” He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice as he said, “How is he?”

  “Sore. He said that even though they numbed him up for the biopsy, it still hurt pretty bad. And, now he feels bruised.”

  “Um, could they tell anything yet?”

  “No, it’ll be a couple of days before they get results. They sent his marrow off to the lab for analysis.”

  “How’re you holding up?”

  “Worried. Worried about your dad. Worried about my job if I have to take much more time off to be with him.” Her voice caught, then turned into a near whisper, “Worried about Bana.”

  “What’s wrong with Bana?!”

  “She hates the crappy, dead-end job she’s got here, but she won’t leave us to look for better jobs elsewhere.”

  “Mom, why haven’t you and Dad moved away from Valen? Things are a lot better in other places, you know? Places without drug problems. Then Bana could move away with you.”

  “I don’t know,” his mother said tiredly. “First it was because this’s where the Lutherans settled us and there were people here who were helping us figure out life in America. Then it was because I had a job and your dad was getting some work. Then it was because you and Bana were in school and we didn’t want to take you out and make you start over somewhere else. Meanwhile, the town slowly went to hell around us. Meth was destroying the people, crime was destroying the town. We were like the frogs in a pan of water heating toward a boil; it all happened so slowly we just didn’t realize everything was…” She cleared her throat, Kaem thought to cover the fact her voice had almost broken. “Maybe we should move as soon as your dad’s better. Then Bana wouldn’t have an excuse for staying in that terrible job. Dad could find a job somewhere, then once he had an apartment, I could follow him and look for a job of my own. Bana’d have to come then, right?”

  Throat aching, Kaem managed not to croak as he said, “I may be getting a job at a place near here that could hire one of you. Then you’d be able to move for sure.”

  “That’d be great Kaem… Um, most companies don’t want to hire more than one person from a family. They’re afraid they’ll do each other favors.”

  Kaem decided not to argue. He was already violating her rules by, in a sense, trying to count chickens that hadn’t hatched. He said, “We’ll just have to see. First thing’s to get Dad better, right?”

  “Right.”

  ***

  After his mother hung up, Kaem tried to study but his mind kept wandering back to his dad’s diagnosis, stimulating him to do more and more web searches. And he kept wondering whether Arya would come and pick him up or not. Whether he should just head back to the dorm on his own.

  He was still wondering about it when she appeared at his elbow, “You ready to go?”

  “Um, sure,” Kaem said, stuffing his laptop in his backpack. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna show.”

  She gave him an irritated look, “Why not?”

  “You seemed kinda pissed about Lee yesterday. Then you couldn’t come this morning.”

  “I told you, something came up. I do have a life that doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

  Kaem put his palms up in surrender. “Just saying I was worried, that’s all.” He shrugged, “And, besides, maybe now that Caron’s out of the picture, you don’t need to babysit me anymore?”

  “Yes, I do. Gotta protect my investment.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, have you sent us our shares of the three million yet?”

  “Should be there. Check your account.”

  Kaem asked his phone to check his bank account. The phone displayed a balance of $767,355. Kaem blinked at it, startled. He remembered checking his balance at $1,618 yesterday which would mean his deposit had only been $765,737! How can I be saying “only” when it’s two orders of magnitude more money than I’ve ever had before? Yet it wasn’t the one point two million he’d expected. He turned to Arya. “I thought you were dispensing half of the three million?”

  She nodded. “One and a half million.”

  “I only got $765,737. Do you think there’s been some kind of mistake?”

  Patiently, she said, “One and a half million, minus one percent to Gunnar and point one percent to Morales leaves…” she got out her phone to do the math.

  “It leaves $1,483,500,” Kaem said impatiently. “I can do the math.”

  Arya blinked at him, then said, “Take off my twenty percent.”

  “That still leaves $1,183,500.”

  “Take off your estimated US income tax of 30.5 percent and Virginia income tax of 5.75%, then take off another $9,500 for social security.”

  Kaem felt surprised, “You take that? Not the government?”

  She cocked her head, “Haven’t you ever worked a job with a paycheck?”

  “Oh…” Kaem quickly calculated that after those subtractions he should get the $765,737 he’d received. “Are those what they call ‘withholding’?”

  She nodded. “If employers didn’t withhold estimated taxes from employees’ paychecks, most people’d spend it all. Come April fifteenth, they wouldn’t be able to pay their income tax. Besides, the government wants that money to come in regularly throughout the year. If Staze doesn’t withhold taxes from your paycheck, come next April, the IRS will want it all at once, plus interest, and assess a penalty for not paying on time.”

  “Ah. Thanks. It should be plenty anyway. I don’t know why I’m worrying.”

  “It should be a lot more than plenty. You’ve been getting along on less than a hundredth of that much!”

  “Um, my dad’s sick,” Kaem said with a catch in his voice. “Probably cancer. It may not turn out to be treatable, but if it is, a lot of the treatments are hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  “Oh!” Arya gave him a horrified look, then gathered him into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  Kaem found her embrace far more comforting than he’d expected. “It’s okay,” he husked, thinking suddenly that it wasn’t okay at all.

  “It’s not!” Arya said with a catch in her voice. She squeezed him harder. “If it were my dad, I’d be a blubbering mess.”

  Feeling as if he were melting, Kaem whispered, “Thanks for being understanding. I-I hardly ever get to see my family, so, I’ve been feeling really alone.”

  “You’re not alone.” Arya squeezed him again. “I may not want to hire girlfriends for you, but I’ll always be here for you myself.”

  Feeling Arya making little jerking motions, Kaem wondered, Is she sobbing? It’s my dad that’s sick. He pulled back to look at her but she just came with him so he couldn’t see her face. Finally, he actually pushed her away and saw the tears running down her cheeks. They were pulling little trails of mascara with them. �
�Arya? What’s the matter?”

  She swiped at the tears, sniffed, and said abruptly, “I feel bad for you. Is that allowed?”

  Kaem pulled her back in. She resisted a moment, then folded into his arms, shoulders shaking. He said, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I care about you. We don’t have to hire Lee.”

  She sniffed again, “Shut up, Kaem.”

  He just held her.

  Eventually, she pulled away, wiped her face on her sleeves, and resumed walking toward his dorm.

  Kaem opened his mouth to say something, realized he wasn’t sure what to say, and closed it.

  “Thanks,” Arya said.

  “For what?”

  “For not saying whatever stupid thing you had on the tip of your tongue.”

  Kaem opened his mouth for a retort, then closed it again.

  In his dorm’s lobby, she waited until his elevator arrived, then turned to go.

  “Bye,” Kaem said.

  She gave a little backward wave and kept walking.

  When Kaem got to his room he threw himself face down on the bed, immensely gratified that his constantly annoying roommate was absent.

  After a few morose minutes, his phone chimed. It was Arya. Clearing his throat so he wouldn’t croak, he said, “What’s up?”

  “I checked. Insurance should pay for most cancer chemotherapy.”

  Embarrassed, Kaem said, “My family can’t afford health insurance.”

  “Their employers don’t provide it?”

  “Their jobs are part-time.”

  “Oh…” Arya said, her voice cracking again. “Sorry.”

  Sometimes she hates me, Kaem thought.

  Other times she cares… more than I can fathom.

  ***

  The parts for the new stazer had come in by Wednesday. Kaem called Gunnar and they agreed to meet in the afternoon at Staze’s rented building. There Gunnar could consult on and help with the build; he could especially assist with Kaem’s consideration of how to make the new device susceptible to Gunnar’s thermate.