The Far Side (12 page)

“You blew people up?” Kris asked, a little horrified.

“Yes, Miss.  If I was in my uniform you’d see crossed artillery pieces, showing that I was an artilleryman.”

Kris relaxed a little.  It was more understandable, anyway.  Shooting someone wasn’t good, but blowing them up...  Ick!

Oliver picked up the phone and made two calls, then put it down.  “Your truck is ready, Kris.  It seems okay, but after a couple of days, bring at back and Bernie will look at it again.  Can you gather up Andie and be at Crenshaw at one thirty?”

“Sure, we have a bunch of errands to run this afternoon.  I think she’s shooting at being up and running again tomorrow.”

“The girl is a horse,” Oliver said with a laugh.

“Well, she says she can get by on four hours sleep a night.  I can’t.”

“I suppose it’s too late to warn her that that could stunt her growth,” Oliver quipped.  Kris gave him a finger.

He picked up the phone again and a moment later Kit came in.  “Kit?  Any news?”

“I’ve talked to a couple of friends who are interested.  I haven’t given them salary quotes, but I’m sure we can do better than what they’re making now.  A couple of them will be coming in later this afternoon... two are at USC, one at UCLA and one still at Caltech.”

“Get them to sign NDAs, and then talk to them.  If they look good, call Andie and arrange a time you can bring them by in the next day or two.”

“No problem.”

He glanced at Kris, and then flicked his eyes to Ezra.  Kris nodded.  “Ezra, this is the usual NDA.  You can sign it now or take it to a lawyer to vet it and bring it back tomorrow, but they will tell you it’s pretty much plain vanilla.  Basically you agree not to divulge any details about whatever the projects are that you’ll be working on.  Those details range from who is working on the project, anything about its nature and content, including the name... and then there are a million words about sanctions that you might face if you violate terms of the agreement.”

“Kurt said you’ve never screwed anyone that he’s known about.  I’ll sign it now.”  He signed a copy and kept one for himself.  He waved the page, covered with 10 point type, front and back.  “The security oaths in the service are a lot shorter and simply list the number of years you’ll get in stir and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars you’ll owe for each offense.”

“Kit, you talk to those technical people.  You understand that you can talk in general terms about the project once they sign the NDA, but still not in specifics.  That’s for Andie and maybe Kris to decide about how much to tell someone to entice them.  You can’t promise employment either; you’re just a first interviewer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kris, her father and Ezra Lawson went down to his car, a rather plain Camry, but it was large and had leather seats.  “Call Andie, would you, Kris, and tell her we’re coming.  Tell her that we want to go view the facilities, leaving her place by one pm.”

“Sure,” Kris replied, and checked her watch.  It was nearly noon, so the odds were that she wouldn’t be waking Andie up.

“Hey, Andie!”

“Kris!  Just the person I want to talk to!  Isn’t this cool?  Being able to sleep until eleven thirty on a school day?  I love it!”

“Well, I think we’re done with school, Andie.”

“No loss!  I was curious about Caltech, but not that curious!”

“Are you presentable?”

“That depends on who I’m going to be presented to.”

“We’re coming by in a bit... just tell me when.  Dad has someone you need to talk to; he’s a security consultant guy.  Then we need to leave about one to go see the facilities Dad has found for us.  Kit has some of his Caltech buddies coming in this afternoon for initial talks.”

“Cool.  Give me a half hour, okay?”

“Sure, see you then.”

They went to their house and spent a half hour talking in generalities, before loading up to go visit Andie.

Andie was munching a Hot Pockets snack, dressed, more or less, as if she was ready for school.  She quizzed Ezra for even longer than Kris and her father had, but not getting much more out of him.  Finally, Andie grinned.  “So, he’s not going to cost me anything, right?”

“That’s right, Andie,” Oliver told her.

“Good, he’s hired.  I am the child of the modern age.  Ezra’s answer if he was comfortable with killing people was telling.  ‘Not any more.’  I know our country has to do it because I’m not brain dead stupid, but after a while it stops making sense.  In my opinion.

“Ezra, you want to see what the fuss is all about?  I’ll give you a bonus if you can put the right name on it.”

They trooped into Andie’s bedroom, and once again Ezra laughed at seeing the machine in Andie’s closet.  “I don’t have a clue.  Tubes, wires, bubbles, gizmos... all too complicated for the likes of me.”

“Well, let me explain this simply.  Let’s call it ‘Fusion for Dummies.’”

She explained the Van de Graaff, which Kris couldn’t help but notice had been reassembled.  Then Andie explained the fusor design, and while that was back up on its stand, it still had a lot of broken connections.  The vacuum pump was simply a mounting on the machine’s base, which, for the first time, Kris noticed was a piece of four by eight, three-quarter inch plywood that was wedged into the open space of the closet.

Andie went on describing the theory of the fusor and finished with, “Any questions?”

“That’s a fusion reactor?  In your closet?”

“That’s right.”

“And how close are you to break even?” Ezra asked.

“Nowhere close.  Way, way beyond.”

“Christ!  You don’t need a bodyguard; you need a company of infantry!  Maybe a division!”

“Well, I figure that they’re not going to risk hurting any of us if the horses are out of the barn.  It’s my plan to dump this to the Internet if there’s the least sign of anyone interested in hurting us.  There is a lot of interest in this sort of work.”

Kris met Andie’s eye and asked basically the same question as her father had asked of her earlier.  This time there was the slightest hint of a head shake.

“We’ll talk more about this when we get back from our afternoon appointment,” Andie told them.  “Kris said we had to leave about one.  It’s about that now.”

Four of them fit comfortably in the Camry, with the two men up front.  Andie turned to Kris once they were underway.  “I tore apart the compressor last night, to see what sort of shape it was in.  It’s a wreck; it could have quit any time.  It works by sucking air from one side of the compressor, compressing it and then out the other side, letting it expand.  I’ve disconnected the output side, so it just goes into the air, no big.

“However, I forgot I had a lot of boron powder in there, some of it less finely ground than the rest.  The coarse stuff has scored the pump cylinder pretty bad. It’s supposed to be using something like Freon or ammonia as a working fluid, not air.  I need to figure a way to keep the crap out of the pump.

“Short term, I bought three, but I can only get one in the car at a time.  They are a little heavy and pretty bulky.”

“Guess what?  I asked Dad if I could have a pickup truck to run around in this summer, instead of a Mini!  We bought it this morning.  After all this time, I finally have wheels!”

The two shared a laugh.  “Dad can take us back to his studio after this visit, and we can go get the other two pumps,” Kris told Andie.

Andie spoke up a little louder.  “Great, I’ve got just about everything I need to get the original up and running tomorrow.  We’ll run a few tests, and then start on another one of the same design at one of these sound stages you’re talking about.”

“If you like them,” Oliver reminded her.

“Hey, I’m a geek!  If someone invites me to a dance -- what, I’m going to say no?”

They got to the Crenshaw Studios, found a place to park a quarter of a mile away along a side street and walked to the office.  David Solomon was there and Oliver made the introductions.

At least with a veteran of the movie industry, David knew better than to waste everyone’s time with questions that weren’t going to get answered.

He showed them four sound stages, all more or less identical.  Each building was a large warehouse-like structure with high ceilings and very minimal interiors.  One of them had an office with a few old desks and chairs, but most of the volume was empty.  There were piles of old wall flats, window frames and the like along one wall and while the piles were frequently high, they didn’t cover very much floor space.

David Solomon talked about electrical and sound panels, and was mildly surprised that Andie knew what he was talking about.  Kris couldn’t follow all of it, but it was pretty obvious that Andie was satisfied.  “I’ll just leave you alone, Ollie, and you can talk about it.”

“We’ll take three,” Andie told him.  “That’s what you and Mr. Boyle talked about, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.  Remember that you’re going to need to use union gaffers for the electrical work.  If you don’t it’ll be a headache for all of us, as I’ll have to have people periodically inspect any electrical work you do.”

“They’ll have to sign NDAs, David,” Oliver said reasonably.

“That’s no problem; they know the score.  The guys here, most of them have been here for years.”  He sighed.  “It’s weird; it’s getting harder and harder to recruit people for the trades.  And the way they work...” he shook his head.  “It’s not like the old days.”

“They can start moving in equipment tomorrow, David?” Oliver asked.

“Oh, sure, sure.  You know we have light sets, some sound equipment and things like that if you want to save a little money.”

“We’ll see, David.  Right now we just don’t have any idea of what we’re going to need,” Kris’s father replied.  “But, I’ll be happy to give you first shot at any lighting and sound equipment, though.  I’ll have a check couriered to you by close of business today, David.  Three months and your usual deposit.  And whenever you’ve got the lease ready, I’ll sign it.”

“Sure, Ollie.  I have my secretary preparing the papers now, probably I can send them back with your courier, and you can return the agreement tomorrow.”

“That’ll be good, David.  Thanks!”

They returned to the studio office and stood in the parking lot.  “Kris and I have to go get some compressors.  Tomorrow, Ezra, show up at my house at 1 PM.  Think of it as your final exam.  After that, if you still want it, the job is yours.”

“And Kit?” Oliver asked.

Andie shrugged.  “He’s on probation, sir.  You two can talk all day and all night long about he did what he thought he had to, that it was for our own good and all of that fuckin’ bullshit.  From my point of view, he betrayed his word and my trust.  He didn’t trust me enough to tell me what he was going to do or attempt to explain his actions in advance.  Yeah, it’s great, wonderful and all that, that things have worked out as well as I could dream.

“Kris tells me you are big on trust in your business.  You tell me why I should trust someone who doesn’t trust me or my judgment?”

“I can understand your feelings, Andie.  But it’s happened.  It can’t be undone, no matter how we’d like to get a do-over.”

“Yeah, well, the chuckle-head is smart enough and brave enough.  That’s buying him a second chance.  I don’t give second chances very often.  He’d better make the best of this one.”

She paused, and smiled.  “You remember a couple of years ago, I cracked my ankle skiing?”

Both Kris and Oliver nodded.

“The asshole fucker doctor went into a storeroom after he got the cast on, rummaged around and came out with two wooden crutches, one broken.  Right there in front of me he whipped out a saw and starting cutting.  He did pretty good work, because they fit just fine.  His big mistake was laughing at me at the end and telling me, ‘Here’s one in tiny tot size.’ I took them from him and balancing on my good leg, gave him both right in the nuts.

“While he was leaning over and gasping for breath, I told him I was surprised that I’d been able to hit anything as small as his brains had to be.”

Oliver Boyle shook his head.  One thing about Andie, she wasn’t shy about making her opinion known.  “I will tell Kit he’s to be extra good, okay?”

“Whatever.  If he can’t figure it himself, we’d be better off without him.”

Andie turned to Kris.  “Chauffeur!  Bring my car around!  We have errands to run!  Atoms to burn!” 

Chapter 5 :: Forward!

Andie had a couple of errands for Kris to run Saturday morning, including a grocery store trip to stock up on Pop Tarts, Hot Pockets and chocolate cupcakes.  Kris had never figured out how Andie survived on her diet, much less stayed anything near thin, which she was.

At noon, Andie was reading things to her, and Kris was entering them into Andie’s laptop.  At a quarter of one, she looked at Kris and grinned.  “The vacuum pump has been running most of the night, so I think I’ll just go ahead and charge the fusor with hydrogen and boron.  It’s going to take a few minutes, I expect, before it works again.”

Kris nodded and watched Andie pour in some finely ground borax with as much soap washed out as possible, then she sealed that chamber up and let in some hydrogen.  “This is where it gets interesting,” Andie told her.  “There’s no way to charge the boron easily without letting in air.  I suppose I’ll figure that out one day, but not today.  There’s also a tiny bit of air added when I put in the hydrogen.

“So the vacuum pump is going to have to work a few minutes to get it down to a reasonable level again.  I didn’t charge it before, because I don’t really have a good way to keep the borax particles out of the vacuum pump.  I’m going to have to check it closely every day.  I thought about using some cheesecloth, but that’s going to have to be a research point, because if it plugs up, it could stop the machine with little or no warning.”

The doorbell rang and Kris went and let in Ezra.  She was mildly surprised to see he was alone.  When he reached Andie’s bedroom, he looked at the machine in the closet, obviously perking right along.

“Fusion, eh?”

“Yes, but a particular kind,” Andie said, and then explained about no neutrons and no radiation.

Ezra nodded.  “One thing I need to ask is do you know how the machine acts around firearms?”

Andie laughed.  “Well, it hates cell phone batteries, that’s for sure, if you get them within a few feet of it when it’s running.  Kit thinks the magnetic fields are messing with the battery electrodes.  Could be.  But, it didn’t faze the 460 Weatherby Magnum, so I don’t think it’ll bother a pistol... are you packing?”

“Mr. Boyle said the idea was to get you used to the idea of security.  If you know I’m carrying all the time, you’ll stop thinking about it.  Some people, according to Kurt, get a little nervous about it.”

He paused.  “Can I ask why you were testing with an elephant gun?”

“Well, since you’re here, I’m going to get this thing going -- or at least I’m going to try to.  As I said, there’s a final test you have to pass... Kris and I have passed -- even that asshole Kit passed.  It’s not impossible; in fact, it’s not that big of a deal... so long as you like to live life on the far side.”

Kris snickered.  The “far side” was becoming their slang for the other side of the blue door.  It was as good of a name as any, she thought.

Andie started doing things, and the Van de Graaff started up.  “You did iron the belt this time, right?” Kris asked.

“You bet.  And I visually inspected it.  It looks good, but I have a checklist now of things to look at before we start up each time.  I’m pretty sure if I’d have looked before the last run, I’d have noticed something wrong.”

Andie turned to Ezra.  “Well, here goes.  There’s about a fifty-fifty chance, I think, that it’s not going to work at first.  So be patient.  Last chance to back out.”

“I’m fine,” he told them.

After a moment, Andie looked at a meter.  “Now this is interesting, the output current is about 2 percent higher than before.  I hope that’s not going to muck things up.”

“And how much current are you putting out?” Ezra asked.  “Just for my own curiosity’s sake.”

“Forty-eight kilowatts at the moment.”

Ezra blinked.  “Say what?”

“Two hundred and forty volts at 200 amps,” she told him.  “A bunch.  About now our poor little electric meter is spinning backwards to beat the band.  DWP is going to shit a brick when they read it the next time.”

“Now?” Kris asked.

“Yeah, now,” Andie agreed and started up the magnetic field.  After a few seconds, the blue sheet appeared, waving as if in a strong wind.

Andie sighed in relief, while Ezra spoke nervously.  “Is that Cherenkov radiation?”

“Maybe,” Andie said, watching it intently.  “Blue also happens to be the color air gives off when it fluoresces.  But it shouldn’t be confused with radiation, radiation.  It’s just excess electrons, I think.  One of these days I guess I need to check.  It’s not neutrons.  I’ve got three counters on and running and they aren’t having cat fits.”

The blue rectangle had stabilized.  “And there you have it,” Andie said simply.

“A patch of fluorescing air?”

“Not exactly,” Andie said, picking up the flashlight.  She walked over to the blue door, watched the fusor running and then stuck her head and her arm through for a moment.

She pulled back and grinned at Kris.  “Oh happy day!  Oh happy face!”

“We’re back?”

“We back!” Andie confirmed.

She turned to Ezra.  “Fish or cut bait time.  The last time we went through there, Kris noticed the machine was coming apart and yelled for us to come back.  Kit and I dropped some equipment and sprinted back.  We weren’t back a minute when it came apart.”

“There’s another side to this?”

“Exactly right.”

“And where is it?”

“I have absolutely no idea.  We were thinking we were safely exploring when we were brought up short by our ignorance.  I’d like to get the equipment back.  It’s about thirty or so feet away, through a cave passage.  It’s dark, and a little dusty.  There’s no water that I can detect, the rock is limestone and seems solid enough.

“There’s an expensive camera in there, and my old man’s Weatherby from when he went elephant hunting a few years ago.  No one had the heart to tell the simpleton that you can’t hunt elephants any more, that they’re on the endangered list.  So he shot them with a camera, which he thinks was a big cheat.  I agree.”

Andie waved at the blue rectangle.  “I’m going through.  It will take me two trips to fetch the equipment we left behind earlier, or one trip with two of us.  With Kris remaining here, with the notes I’ve left behind, if there’s a problem we have a really good chance of being rescued.  But I shit you not... there’s a really good chance something I don’t understand about this could bite us in the ass.”

“Lead on, fearless leader,” he said lightly.

“We were taking the rifle and a pistol in case of lions, tigers or bears.  We haven’t seen a living thing, but there is something there.”

“You know this because of...?” Ezra asked.

“There’s a ring of stones, around an old campfire pit,” she told him.

“Like I said, let’s do this.”

Kris watched them step through the door, one after another.  About five minutes later Andie came back through, then Ezra.  Kris sighed with relief when she saw the camera.

Andie went to the machine and started shutting it down.  “I hereby declare a moratorium on the use of this machine except as a proof of principle for lookie-loos.  And Kris, when we started to gather up the equipment, I told Ezra he was hired, effective yesterday.”

“No problem,” Kris replied, going to the computer and making a few more notes.

“Now, call your old man and let’s see if Kit found anyone for us.  Failing that, we can use your truck to haul a load of gear over to the studio.  One of these days the old man might look out the patio door and wonder what all that shit is out there, or God forbid, it rains.”

“I’m not a wuss, okay?” Ezra told her.  “But the fact is that the docs were quite positive that I not carry more than thirty pounds and not carry it more than ten feet.  Like I say, my back’s manageable these days, but I can still remember what it was like when it wasn’t.  Thanks, but no thanks.  You’ll have to find someone else to carry gear.”

That turned out to be a nuisance.  There were two of the vacuum compressors to move, and while Andie only wanted to take one, it weighed about sixty pounds.  They had been a bitch to unload the day before and even one was a pain to load -- Kris didn’t think that the fact that the two of them together had to struggle to get it in the back of the pickup was a good sign.

The rest of the items, mostly small, weren’t so bad but still it took a half dozen trips, although with many of them Ezra could help load them in the truck as well.

They drove to Crenshaw Studios and David Solomon came right out to see them.  He handed Andie a wad of keys, and then Kris got a similar quantity.  “Your father, Miss Boyle, said that you would require a couple of gaffers and grips to start.  Miss Schulz, I understand that there are going to be a lot of electrical hookups.”

“Yes, there will be.”

“If you use a studio grip for those, the usual rules are relaxed.  Without one of my people doing the work, I would have to insist on inspection of any work you do, before it could be used.  It is very possible that you would inadvertently violate the fire or electrical codes and have to redo the work.  This isn’t an attempt at extortion, no matter what you may have heard in various stories.  My people know the codes, they know where everything is, and they’re studio people -- it doesn’t take three of them to plug in a toaster.

“And, yes, they work for me, even if you’re paying for them.”

Andie growled something under her voice that sounded angry.  Kris laughed.  “Think temp employee, Andie.”

Andie laughed too.  “Oh, that’s ever so much better!  I pay them what they’re worth, and he makes a profit out of underpaying them!”

David laughed too. “Trust me, Miss Schulz, I don’t underpay my people.  I assure you, you’ll be paying a premium for their expertise.”

Andie stuck her tongue out at him.  “Just so I get what I pay for.  That had fucking well better include zipped lips.”

“Miss Schulz, I’m sure Ollie Boyle and his daughter have told you about the rather dim view people in this industry take of those who talk out of turn.  About ten years ago, one of my gaffers told someone that a particular show was filming their season-ending episode here.  When we found out who had talked, he was unemployed a few seconds later.  I assure you that I have people of the highest caliber who won’t talk.”

They were standing where they could see the pickup.  He waved towards it.  “I have them on standby, they can help you unload your truck.  We have dollies, hand trucks and the like that you can use.”

Andie nodded.  “I’m still getting used to all this, I’m sorry if I got out of line.”

“Miss Schulz, projects like yours and others cost a great deal of money.  I’ve known directors who don’t change clothes for days on end... but spend an extra few bucks on something unnecessary and they have a cow.”

They there were introduced to two gaffers, the studio electricians and the grips, guys who lifted and toted for a living.  Andie grabbed the head gaffer and dragged him inside, and after a few minutes had a spot picked out.  She turned to the senior grip.

“How do I get an enclosure here, call it twenty feet long and wide, and a twenty foot ceiling built here?”

The man shrugged.  “Well, I suppose if you were in a real hurry we could run it up by the end of the day, although it would be easier if the sides were in multiples of eight feet.  I’d like a little more time.  Ten tomorrow morning okay?”

“You’re shitting me!” Andie said.

The man shook his head.

“Andie,” Kris told her friend, “these guys can put up a house faster than Habitat for Humanity can.  You just want four walls and a roof.  Nothing to it.  You don’t care if the outside is unfinished?”

“I don’t care if the inside is unfinished,” Andie told her.  “And twenty-four feet on a side is fine.”

“Well, you get a choice, one side or both, Miss,” the grip told her.

“Then finish the inside.”

Kris went to supervise unloading the truck, with the junior gaffer and two grips doing the work.  What had taken twenty minutes was done in five without seeming effort on their parts.

In the middle of it, Kris’s cell phone went off.  “Kris, Kit.  I tried to get Andie, but her phone keeps going right to voice mail.  I’ve talked to four people, three men and a woman, I knew from Caltech.  They’re interested, even if I was a little vague.  Say the word and they can show up for you and Andie to talk to.”

“Sure, just a second.”  Kris talked to Andie and then got back with Kit.

“Tomorrow morning at one, at Andie’s house,” Kris told him.  “She says you might as well have them all come at once.”

“Yeah, I imagine that’s a good idea.  See you two then.”

“We got the camera and rifle back this morning,” Kris told him.

“Cool!  That’s amazing!  Evidently where the other side is located isn’t terribly sensitive to anything that you changed with the new machine.  It’ll be exciting to figure out why.  I’ve been trying to work out the math, but nothing leaps out at me.”

“Well, we’re at Crenshaw now, and then we’ve got more errands to run.  We’ll be in touch.”