For a moment he thought to brazen his way through. Then he looked back over his shoulder to assess his chance of running. The two LAPD cops that had been chatting outside were heading toward the door, eyes focused on Stitt through the big glass windows.
Shit… Stitt thought as panic turned to despair. Yet, when the security guards arrived, he put on a puzzled expression and calmly asked, “Yes?”
The first guard said, “Let me have your ID, Mr. Stitt. We’re to turn you over to these policemen.”
“What’s this about?!” he asked, dredging up indignancy.
The second guard held up a tablet with Stitt’s image, undoubtedly taken by the camera in that damned laptop.
I should’ve driven to Mexico last night, Stitt thought.
~~~
The next morning when Kaem arrived at work after his class, Arya flashed him a grin. He went over, “What’s up?”
“I hear you’re still up to your tricks?” she asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Just like when your second stazer was stolen, Space-Gen’s stolen stazer told them where it was and gave them, not just audio, but video too?”
Kaem grinned back at her, “I’m a sneaky devil, eh?”
She nodded. “You know they caught them?”
“No, I hadn’t heard. Were they in some criminal database?”
“No, but Stitt seems to have been the mastermind and the one who mailed the Stazer out of Space-Gen Texas.”
“Oh, somebody there recognized him?”
She shook her head. “You don’t remember him?”
A little embarrassed, Kaem shook his head, “Has he been here?”
Arya nodded. “Jerome Stitt. He was a jerk.”
“Oh,” Kaem said uncertainly, thinking the guy might’ve looked a little familiar.
“Lee worked with him at Space-Gen and she hates him, though she says he’s so smart she still selected him for her team when they were trying to figure Stade out. She says she was trying not to let her emotions influence her because she thought engineers were supposed to be ‘dispassionate.’” Arya frowned, “Do you think men can keep their feelings from influencing them?”
“Um,” Kaem said, worried he might be about to step on a land mine. “I don’t think men like working with jerks either.”
“Well, she says she’s not going to make that mistake again.”
“You’re not mad?” he asked.
She frowned suspiciously, “Why would I be?”
“Well, I’m thinking we need to give Space-Gen their $100k back, don’t we?”
She laughed, “Not all of it. It’s spelled out in their contract. Remember? We wanted companies incentivized to protect our property.”
As he walked away, Kaem wondered whether Arya was softening her stance toward him.
Probably not, he thought sadly. She’s just in a good mood today.
***
Ryan’s assistant—nowadays Staze had too many phone calls, emails, and job applicants for him to handle everything himself—said, “Ryan, I’ve got a call for Mr. X from the CEO of the shipyards at Newport News. Should I put him through to Kaem?”
Ryan bit his lip and considered. Nobody got direct access to Kaem anymore. If they did, he’d do nothing but answer calls. “I’ll take it,” he said.
Once the call had been transferred to his headset, Ryan said, “Hello, how may I help you?”
“Mr. X, one moment for Mr. Mills.”
“Um, I’m not X,” Ryan said. “I’m Ryan Taggart. How can I help you?” After a moment of silence, he realized he’d been put on hold.
The silence ended with a click, “Bob Mills here, CEO of Hunting Industries in Newport News. I’d like to—”
“Sorry, Mr. Mills. As I tried to tell your secretary; this is Ryan Taggart. Mr. X lives a secluded life and isn’t ever accessible. He communicates with the company on an entirely electronic basis. No one here’s ever even seen him. May I inquire as to what you are hoping to speak to him about?”
Mills produced an irritated sigh. “I want to talk to him. Put me through electronically.”
“Sorry. I wouldn’t even know how. If you tell me your interest, I could try to find someone else to help you.”
Mills spoke slowly, “You understand that I’m CEO of the nation’s largest military shipbuilder? I’d like to invite him to come down and tell us what your new product, Stade, could offer to the construction of warships. From what I’ve heard about its properties, this could be very lucrative for your company.”
“I’m sorry. I could offer you an appointment to come up here and talk to some of our folks about our technology. We don’t have any naval engineers though.”
Sounding even more irritated, Mills said, “Who’s your second in command?”
“That’d be Mahesh Prakant. He’s our CTO and an aerospace engineer.”
Mills sighed, “Let me talk to him.”
“I’ll see if he’s available,” Ryan said, getting up and heading into the big room. Prakant wasn’t at his usual desk, but Ryan saw him out talking to some young engineers. Ryan approached and touched his shoulder. Prakant looked up and Ryan quickly summarized the issue.
Prakant said, “Get his number. I’ll call him back as soon as I’m done with this meeting. Or, set him up an appointment to talk to me here sometime next week.” He started to turn back to his young engineers.
Ryan said, “He’s gonna be pissed.”
Prakant shrugged. “He needs our help. We don’t need his. He’ll live.”
As Ryan started back to the anteroom, he reconnected the call. “Sorry, Mr. Mills. He’s in a meeting. He said he’d call you back as soon as he’s done.”
“Son, that’s not how business gets done.”
“Sorry, sir. We’re a very new company. We probably just don’t understand what’s customary.”
“When were you founded?” Mills asked, a suddenly curious tone in his voice.
“About a year ago sir.”
“Okay, have… Prakant was it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have him call me when he’s done.”
After they disconnected, Ryan sent Prakant the message.
~~~
About fifteen minutes later, once Prakant had finished assigning the new engineers to teams and made sure they had tasks, he called Mills back. He wasn’t surprised to be put on hold by an assistant.
A hearty voice came on, “Prakant? Mills here, CEO of Hunting Industries down in Newport News. I’d like to invite you and your team to come down and brief us on your new material. Please pay special attention to how we might best use it in the construction of naval and commercial shipping.”
Taken aback, Prakant backpedaled, “Um, we’ve already got too much on our plate. We’re not looking to get into another industry right now.”
“Nonsense. I’m not suggesting you start building ships. I’m thinking you might license us to make your material ourselves, then we’d use it in our ongoing construction programs. We build better ships and you get another stream of income.”
Prakant thought a moment about how Staze could use additional sources of income at present. “Well, let me talk to our people about it. Perhaps we could set a meeting for you to come up and someone could give you a talk about how stasis technology works. Then you could consider whether it would be useful to you.” Which of course it will, he thought.
“Well now,” Mills said. “The way this kind of business is usually done is that the supplier comes and talks to the builder. We have a lot of engineers and naval officers that would like to hear your presentation so it’d be a lot better if you came down here for it.”
“Ah,” Prakant said, “but remember how we’ve got too much on our plate? We have no need to seek additional business at present. I’d suggest you watch Kaem Seba’s presentation on Stade and stasis.” He spelled Seba’s name. “It’s easily found on the internet. Then you can consider whether or not you might be able to use its proper
ties in your business. After that, you could call Ryan and set up a time for a virtual or in-person meeting to discuss what we could or could not do for you.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“Or,” Prakant broke in, “we could send a junior engineer down to give Seba’s talk to you and try to answer questions. Be advised, however, that all our truly knowledgeable people are swamped at present.”
Mills was not happy, but he agreed to look at the web presentation and get back to Prakant.
~~~
It was late that afternoon before Mills had time to watch Seba’s presentation. The man who’d asked Mills if Hunting was planning to start using Stade for their ship’s hulls had said it was stronger than steel and low friction. He’d thought it would make for a safer, stronger ship. He hadn’t said it was—at a minimum—fifty-thousand times stronger than steel. Or that nothing would stick to it. Or that it was completely frictionless. The numbers on its properties were simply unbelievable.
Mills stopped watching Seba’s presentation to do some searches to determine whether this could be some kind of scam. As usual, he found hundreds, if not thousands of proclamations that it wasn’t true. But none of them were made by respectable sources. Seba’s talk was given at UVA and no one there had repudiated it. He found a story that Stade was being used at the Surbury nuclear reactor not far from Newport News. Because Hunting Industries built nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers, Mills had once met Art Turpin, the head of the Surbury plant. Mills called Turpin and the man confirmed that Stade was stronger than their testing equipment could measure, telling tales of tiny one-millimeter-thick specimens that couldn’t be broken by the most massive testing equipment available. He also mentioned that it was being used to entomb radioactive waste because it completely blocked radiation.
Mills finished watching the talk, then sat, staring after the setting sun and considering ships with hulls so strong they couldn’t be sunk. Ships with hulls that never needed to be painted. That didn’t foul with barnacles—or anything else. That slid through the water so easily the fuel savings were significant. Ones in which nuclear reactors didn’t have a chance of releasing any excess radiation. Where, assuming Turpin was correct, if the reactor had a meltdown, nothing worse than loss of the reactor could happen.
Holy shit! he thought, electricity running down his spine. Submarines that can go to any depth! I’m going to have to bring my people in to watch this and talk it over. Then we’ll schedule a separate meeting with the naval people. Then we can try to talk to the people at Staze.
***
The flight to Italy was Kaem’s first time on an airplane. He’d reserved his family four seats together. Only as they were getting on did he realize the seats were in the middle of the plane so he wouldn’t be able to see out the windows very well, something he’d been looking forward to.
The flight left at seven in the evening with a frightening roar and a shove into his seat from the acceleration. Kaem pretended to be blasé about it, though he saw Bana—on the other side of their parents—tightly gripping her armrests.
Soon after takeoff, the flight attendants served the dinner meal. It wasn’t long after that before a significant number of people, including the two next to him, started taking pills, wrapping themselves in blankets, donning sleeping masks, and reclining their seats. Are they trying to go to sleep already? he wondered, then decided they were. He checked his watch and saw it was only seven p.m. He wondered if he’d find it possible to go to sleep at all in the narrow, uncomfortable, upright, airline seats. Turning to his mother in the seat next to his, he asked, “Why are all these people going to sleep already?”
“Jet lag,” she said. “Seven hours from now, when we land in Rome, it’ll be seven in the morning there, but we’ll still feel like it's two in the morning. They’re trying to get in as much of a full night’s sleep as they can before then.” She started pulling out her blanket in preparation for doing the same herself. To Kaem’s surprise, she dug a sleep mask out of a complimentary packet in the pocket of the seat in front of her. She offered him a melatonin tablet to help him get to sleep, saying, “It’s a natural hormone released by the brain when you go to sleep.”
I’d never get to sleep this early in the evening, Kaem thought. He rejected the melatonin and got out his reader. He didn’t manage to get to sleep until after eleven.
~~~
At seven the next morning, they landed in Rome—two in the morning back home and less than three hours after Kaem had gone to sleep—he felt pretty bleary. By three in the afternoon, after a train to Florence and at the point they were finally able to check into their hotel, he felt exhausted and somehow… ill. Despite his mother’s warnings not to do so, he immediately climbed into bed and was out like a light.
Then he was awake in the middle of the night and felt terrible the next morning as well. Drinking a second cup of coffee (even though he didn’t like coffee at all) he grumpily promised his mother he’d take a melatonin that evening.
In the depths of his irritation, Kaem had an “aha” moment. He turned to his dad. “Stasis could solve jet lag, and the dangers of flight… Oh and those long security lines… and the discomfort of those terrible airline seats, all at once!”
Emmanuel frowned, “How so?”
Excitedly, Kaem said, “So, imagine we’d arrived at the airport in New York at six p.m. They have each person step into a little booth, barely big enough for one person and his luggage, and staze us at six-thirty. The luggage handlers pack people, still in their Stades, into the plane however they fit best. In Rome, they unload the Stades and set them aside. They don’t destaze us until six-thirty in the evening Rome time, the same time we were stazed in New York, so the time of day seems completely correct. We finish out our day and go to bed at what seems like our regular time, without any sensation of jet lag. If the plane crashes in the ocean, our Stades float to the surface, are found, and only destazed when they’re back to safety. There wouldn’t be any security lines, because once you’re stazed you can’t commit crimes or terrorism on the plane. No discomfort in the airline seat because you never sit in one!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bana said cheerfully. “Always looking for the easy way out. Between now and when you convince the world to staze everyone on airplanes, I’ll bet you start taking Mom’s advice.”
Kaem rolled his eyes. “Yes, I will listen more carefully to our mother’s most excellent advice in the future.”
***
Walking the streets of Florence, a gelato in his hand, Kaem was surprised when his mother turned into an open doorway in a huge building. Looking up, he saw it was a football stadium—what was called “soccer” back home. He glanced back and saw his dad rolling his eyes. Bana looked as puzzled as Kaem felt.
He followed his mother inside and saw they were in the voluminous area beneath the seats of the stadium. There were food service areas but his mother was heading toward what looked like a big memorabilia room. A security guard made his father, his sister, and Kaem finish their gelatos before entering. When they went in, he saw his mother, partway down the major aisle, standing as if transfixed.
When they reached her, Kaem looked up to see what she was studying. It was a constantly running large-frame highlights video of what appeared to be an astonishingly fit black player, outfitted in the team’s colors, and kicking a goal from midfield. Then another goal from closer in. Then one from beyond midfield. Then another and another. Kaem didn’t know much about soccer but the guy was astonishingly athletic and many of the goals seemed as if they would’ve been nearly impossible. Kaem wondered why his mother was watching this player in particular and whether his dad was jealous. Then he noticed she was sobbing. Kaem’s dad stepped over to her and put an arm around her shoulders, his own head tilted back so he could watch too.
A sudden suspicion struck and his eyes searched for the display’s label.
It said, “Emmanuel Seba, attaccante.” Kaem’s AI told him that
“attaccante” was Italian for the soccer position of “striker,” apparently the team member most likely to score. Kaem wished he knew more about the sport.
“Dad?” Kaem asked softly, “That’s you?”
His dad nodded, looking somewhat choked up himself.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this? You played in the big leagues?”
“It’s just a game, Kaem. I was successful at it, and suddenly rich, but I spent the money as fast as it came in. When I hurt my knee…” he shook his head disgustedly and his voice cracked, “then we were just as suddenly poor.” He turned to look at Kaem, “That’s why I’m always urging you to save and invest. If something were to happen to this amazing job you have, I don’t want you to end up the way I did.”
Kaem turned to look at Bana. She looked as stunned as he felt. Their little family gathered for a long four-person hug.
~~~
The next evening, they were invited to visit their Amato grandparent’s—Sophia’s parents—home and meet the relatives.
Kaem had wondered why they hadn’t seen the Italian part of their family immediately on arrival. In fact, he’d started to wonder why he’d heard so little of them in all the years he and Bana were growing up. He hadn’t asked, thinking it might be an embarrassment, but when his mother told Bana and Kaem where they were going that evening, she said, “I should tell you why I haven’t spoken of them to you all these years. They didn’t like me marrying a black man, and an athlete to boot. Then, when Emmanuel got hurt and it turned out he’d frivolously spent all his money, it blew up our family. Blew it up so badly we’ve never recovered.”
Sophia warned them that, though she hoped the evening would be a happy reunion of people who’d forgotten the ugly things they’d all said so many years ago, it could yet be cold and bitter.
~~~
In the event, it was joyous. Their grandparents graciously and enthusiastically embraced all of them, including Emmanuel, apologizing for the way they’d treated him in days gone by. To Bana’s surprise, their grandfather, though old, was a handsome man. She saw much of him in her brother.
A Tower in Space-Time (The Stasis Stories #5) Page 7
