Vaz Read online

  “I’ve heard of them, they’re doing pretty well. I’m surprised that they don’t pay well.”

  Tiona shrugged.

  Carter had his AI call up data on the average physicists salary and throw it up on the screen on his wall. “Here, check this; it looks like most physicists get paid pretty well.”

  She looked up at it a moment, then sniffed disconsolately, “My brother’s seen one of his pay statements. He doesn’t get paid nearly that well.” She drooped, “But he’s pretty weird… so I guess he might not be very good at it.”

  “Weird?”

  “Yeah, he shaves his head… and eyebrows… and,” she dropped to a whisper, “he kinda lives in the basement. We don’t see him very much.”

  Carter didn’t say anything for a bit. He’d seen Tiona in the hallways of the school many times and would never have guessed that anything was wrong. He was often caught by surprise to find that the same young people he saw laughing and apparently full of confidence around their friends, frequently turned out to feel quite insecure when he talked to them in his office. Tiona had seemed so ebullient and self-assured whenever he’d seen her around the school. Finally, he said, “Let me look at your grades.” He glanced up at his HUD and his eyebrows rose. She took a lot of advanced placement classes and so far had perfect grades leading to a GPA far above 4.0 by their current grading system. In fact he hadn’t seen a GPA that high for years. She might be displaying a lack of confidence here in his office, but she was on the track team and had won a lot of middle distance events last year. She had just been elected was vice president of her class. He looked back at her, “You’ve got great grades and activities. We should be able to get you an academic scholarship of some kind. Have you taken the SAT yet?”

  She didn’t look up as she said in a low voice, “Next week.”

  “All right then, do well on that and we’ll get you a scholarship!” He tried to sound upbeat.

  She nodded, eyes still on the floor. “What about my parents?”

  He felt helpless, wondering how she thought that he could do anything about her parents’ marital problems. “Do you know why they’re having problems?”

  “Money.”

  Carter sighed, it’s always money, he thought. “Are they in debt?”

  “I don’t think so. I think they’re just worried that they don’t have enough to send us to college.”

  Carter glanced up at his HUD. Dante Gettnor was her brother. He must be the other part of “us.” He leaned back, “So you feel like if you got a scholarship it might take some stress off of them?”

  Her eyes widened. It didn’t look like she’d thought of that before. “Maybe.”

  “Sometimes kids bring their own problems home with them and are in a bad mood around their family. They might not even realize it, but that can put a lot of stress on their parents. Do you think that might be happening?”

  Tiona looked a little bit embarrassed, “Uh, maybe.”

  “So, can I offer a summary of suggestions?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Do well on the SAT, we’ll get you a scholarship. De-stress your parent’s money concerns by telling them that you’re planning to get a scholarship and that I think you’ve got a good chance. Talk to them about your worries and ask what you might be able to do to help them. Especially, try to be upbeat around them so your own funk doesn’t contribute to theirs.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Her voice broke, “You make it sound easy, but it’s not.”

  He shrugged, “All you can do… is all you can do.”

  She sighed and stood, “Yeah.”

  After she’d left he stared after her a moment, wondering if he’d made any dent in her problems.

  ***

  Jack Smint opened the door of James Milton’s patent office and went inside without noticing that the car behind him had gone on to park a little farther down the street.

  The PI inside the car focused his laser acoustic transducer on the window of the small office building. He expected to have to turn it from window to window until he heard Jack Smint’s voice but it picked him up on the first window it hit. He heard Smint say, “It worked again! Without a doubt! We can demonstrate it to whoever you want. Even though it would be good if they could come here, we can work out a way to take the equipment up there too.”

  In his office Milton stared at Smint. “You’re absolutely sure? ‘Cause I’ve done some reading and a lot of very smart people say it just isn’t possible.”

  Jack said, “Yeah, I’ve read the same stuff. Because of that I’ve checked every instrument and reading Vaz has done and unless he’s gone to extreme lengths just to fool me, it’s real.”

  Milton leaned back, “OK, I’ve drafted a preliminary application. Give me the diagrams of the final setup. I’ll finish the app, have you guys look it over and we can send it in. Then we’ll wait for them to tell us how and where they want to look at it.”

  ***

  Vangester looked up as the PI stepped into his office. “What have you found out?”

  “Smint just left Gettnor’s place and drove over to James Milton’s patent office. They’re pretty excited about something. Don’t know what it is yet, but they’re applying for a patent and it sounds like they have buyers interested. They’re already talking about ‘demonstrating’ it to someone. I assume as soon as they have ‘patent applied for’ status.”

  “Sons of bitches! They’re gonna regret crossing me like this.” As he walked the PI out, he turned to his secretary and said, “Have Phil Dennis come up and talk to me.”

  Phil stepped into Vangester’s office. “You called?”

  “Yeah, it looks like you were right. Smint and Vangester are patenting something. What can we do about it?”

  Phil shrugged, “Maybe nothing if there isn’t any evidence that it was actually invented here.”

  “Well? What have you found out? Was Gettnor working on something before he left?”

  Phil tilted his head, “Of course he was working on something. He was assigned to work on hydrogen storage and was doing just that. Right before he was fired he’d been casting little disks of a variety of compositions, all containing palladium.”

  Vangester interrupted, “Casting disks? What would that have to do with hydrogen storage?”

  Phil shrugged, “I had the same question. The geeks downstairs tell me that palladium absorbs large quantities of hydrogen. We’re assuming that Gettnor was trying to find an alloy that absorbed more, or maybe that absorbed nearly as much but didn’t cost so much.”

  “So, did he succeed?”

  “We don’t know. The day Davis fired him he had one of the disks in a device he’d made in the lab. We think the device was to measure hydrogen absorption but we aren’t sure.”

  Vangester frowned, “Can’t you just test it or take it apart and figure out what it does?”

  “The device melted down quite spectacularly in front of Davis. The meltdown was a big part of Gettnor getting fired. Davis called him a menace and yelled at him about sleeping on the job, then told him that security would be down to escort him out. Of note, Gettnor didn’t seem upset about it melting down; he looked excited.”

  “What?! Why wouldn’t he be upset?”

  Dennis shrugged, “Damned if I know. One thing we’re pretty sure of, and that might give you some leverage, is that he took some of the disks when he left.”

  “Really…” Vangester breathed, “how do we know?”

  “When the security guy was trying to get him to leave, Gettnor scooped up a bunch of the disks and put them in his pocket. The security guy insisted that he put them back, but we’re pretty sure that there were still quite a few left in his pocket when he left.”

  Vangester drew his head back, “Can we prove it?”

  “Maybe not conclusively, but I think ‘any reasonable observer’ of the record would conclude that he took a lot fewer disks back out of that pocket than he dumped in.”

  “‘Any r
easonable observer’ being some kind of legal term right?”

  Dennis nodded.

  “All right! Good pickup. Now, just what can we do with this ammunition?”

  Dennis shrugged, “Who knows? Depends on what his new invention is. If it’s a new kitchen slicer and dicer, we probably can’t do anything. If it has one of those disks in it, then we can probably claim a share.”

  Vangester enthusiastically rubbed his hands together, “Now we’re getting somewhere. We just need to know what they’re patenting.”

  “We won’t know that until the patent application is published in eighteen months.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  Dennis raised an eyebrow, “I hope you’re not going to tell me how you plan to do that.”

  “My little secret. You have made sure that nobody’s going to throw away the rest of those disks haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, oh and that’s another indication that he kept some. The machine he used to cast samples made a run of 100 disks of different compositions the night before he got fired. There are only 83 of them left in the stuff we boxed up from his lab.”

  “Even better, right?”

  Dennis shrugged, “Sure. My advice?”

  Vangester raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “Don’t do anything illegal. In these days, with audio-video records of everything, it’s too easy to get caught.”

  Vangester’s face smoothed, “Of course not,” he said.

  Dennis thought, he protesteth too much.

  ***

  Mike shook his head. Gettnor had come in and asked to be taught wrestling techniques. Mike had tried to point out that striking had worked pretty damn well for him in his sparring with Durson and in his amateur MMA bout. Gettnor had insisted however.

  That had been during last week’s lesson. Mike had confessed he didn’t really know what grappling holds were legal in wrestling but had promised to look it up by this week’s lesson. Today he’d spent the lesson teaching legal wrestling techniques to Gettnor and Durson who’d recently become his regular training partner.

  Then he’d suggested that Gettnor and Durson try the moves out full on. Normally Mike trained all moves slow motion and practiced with great care to be sure no one got hurt. But, since wrestling skills seemed much less likely than striking techniques to really hurt someone, he’d thought it would be OK for them to actually take each other on, as long as they followed the wrestling rules.

  Since Durson was quite a bit bigger than Gettnor, and seemed to be nearly as muscular, Mike had thought that Durson would have the definite advantage.

  Hah! Gettnor had scored takedown after takedown, quickly wrapping Durson up and pinning him in 30-60 seconds each time. The expression on Durson’s face was priceless. Durson had always thought his knockout was pure luck and apparently believed, like Mike had thought, that when and if they sparred again, he would win like he should have the first time.

  The power in Gettnor’s limbs seemed all out of proportion to his size. Sure he looked really muscular when the baggy sweats he always wore got pulled aside, but Mike had known a lot of guys who looked ripped, yet didn’t seem to be all that strong. The appearance of being ripped was as much a lack of fat covering the muscle as it was actual muscle. But Gettnor was strong. If Durson got a good hold on him he just broke it. Gettnor didn’t have to have a decent hold on Durson to pin him with it. Durson’s eyes were wide with surprise each time he got pinned but he seemed as helpless as a beginner in the hands of a powerful and experienced fighter as his limbs were forced inexorably into whatever position Gettnor wanted.

  While Durson was putting away his stuff, Gettnor turned to Mike and said quietly, “Durson is big, but doesn’t really seem to be all that strong.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow, “Oh, Durson’s strong all right. You’re just unbelievable. Would you like me to arrange some more amateur MMA bouts for you?”

  Gettnor shook his head. “No. I’m not mad at anyone anymore so I don’t really need a fight. In fact this is the final lesson of the last set I bought, so I’m going to stop the lessons for a while. Thanks for what you’ve taught me.” He turned and walked out the door.

  Mike shook his head as he watched Gettnor leave. Completely typical, he thought. No “goodbye,” no handshake. Mike had the feeling that to remember to say the “thanks” or other polite niceties Gettnor had had to consciously give it thought. Not that he was opposed to uttering niceties, just that he had to give it significant conscious effort. Mike wondered if he’d ever see him again. He shrugged and went back to talk to Jen at the desk.

  ***

  Milton looked up as his secretary ushered Querx’s CEO Richard Vangester into his office. The CEO had never been down to his office so he felt a little perplexed as to what it could be. “Mr. Vangester, please sit. How may I help you?”

  Vangester took the seat and waited until James took his own. “You can tell me just what Smint and Gettnor are patenting down here.”

  Milton’s smile froze on his face. “How would you know about that?”

  Vangester gave a predatory smile, “You don’t have the ‘need to know’ on that. You just need to tell me what they’re doing.”

  “Mr. Vangester… that would be… a betrayal of a client’s confidence.”

  Vangester snorted, “Come on, Milton. We both know that Querx is your biggest client by far. Which client do you value most? I don’t think you’d like it if we cut you off, would you?”

  Milton leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. He fixed Vangester with an enigmatic gaze for a minute. He cleared his throat, “Querx is my biggest client. Yes. But, not my only client. And they’ve been my biggest client, only because Querx has had a steady stream of Vaz Gettnor’s intellectual property for me to patent. Querx hasn’t submitted anything to patent since you fired him. With a choice between a corporation and a genius, I’ll take the genius every time… especially over a corporation that comes down here to lean on me.”

  Vangester obviously hadn’t considered this aspect of the equation. He began to turn red. Before he said anything though, Milton added, “Of course, I’d love not to make a choice, but if there is a choice to be made, my legal obligation is clear as well.”

  Vangester stood, “You’re going to regret this!”

  Milton stayed in his chair but raised an eyebrow, “And you’re going to regret firing Vaz. But I suspect you already know that.”

  ***

  Anbala Singh motioned Smint to a seat in her little conference room. Once they were seated she said, “Dr. Smint, I’ve reviewed the electronic copy of Dr. Gettnor’s contract you sent me. It seems straightforward. Can you tell me what you would like to know about it?”

  “Jack please. Here’s the issue, Querx has only been paying Dr. Gettnor a tenth of a percent on the gross for products they make themselves and three percent of their net on his IP that they licensed elsewhere.”

  “Really?! Anbala looked up at her screen and had her AI bring up the relevant part of the employment contract. After skimming up and down a few moments she said, “Well there’s no provision for that in this contract. There must be a codicil or superseding agreement?”

  “Vaz doesn’t remember agreeing to one and we’ve had his AI search through its AV memory for the time he’s been employed there. Of course, we might have used the wrong keywords for our search. It’s a lot of data.”

  “You just searched the time between this contract and the change in income from the patents?”

  “Yes, we did find a conversation about it. Shall I play it for you?”

  “Sure.” She waved at her screen, “put it up.”

  Smint spoke to his AI and a moment later an unstable video popped up on the screen, obviously recorded from someone’s AI headgear. It was focused on some lab equipment. A nervous sounding voice spoke from the speakers, “Dr. Gettnor?” There was a pause, then she said “Dr. Gettnor?!” again and a little more emphatically. The video picture rotated and sw
ung up to show an anxious appearing redheaded woman on the screen.

  “What?” a male voice grunted impatiently from close to the microphone, almost certainly the wearer of the headgear. Anbala assumed it was Gettnor.

  The woman washed her hands together, “I, uh,” she glanced up at her HUD, “about your royalties. I, uh, wanted to tell you that now that you’ve collected a half million dollars… that your percentage,” she glanced up at her HUD again, “drops to one percent of gross, with fifteen percent of licensing.” She said the last in a rush as if rehearsed and distasteful.

  After a long pause the image tilted and Gettnor’s voice said, “Is that what’s supposed to happen?”

  The woman looked almost panicked but she nodded spastically. Gettnor turned back to his lab equipment without saying anything. They could tell, because the video image didn’t bob, that he hadn’t nodded his head either. On the audio track the woman said, “OK, see you later.”

  Anbala, eyes wide, turned to Smint. “Gettnor didn’t think she was acting weird?”

  Smint lifted his shoulders a tiny bit, “You’d have to know Vaz Gettnor. He isn’t really very good at interpersonal interactions and really has a hard time reading other people’s emotions.

  “This is all you’ve found?”

  Smint said, “Well, there’s another one later, much the same. It mentions reducing the royalties to a tenth of a percent with three percent of licensing.”

  “And that’s what Dr. Gettnor’s receiving currently?”

  Smint nodded again.

  “And you’re thinking that they may try to claim that his failure to object constitutes acceptance of a new contract?!”

  Smint shrugged. “I don’t know. These are the only things we’ve been able to find that relate to changing his cut of the royalty.”

  “Let me see the second one.”