Vaz Read online

  “Also I’m aware that Mr. Smint used to encourage you to spend up to one third of your time working on projects of your own interest. I don’t want to stifle creativity, but I do believe that spending more than 10% of your time on unassigned projects is unwarranted.” He tried another smile, “That said, if you have an interesting project of your own that you want to pursue, bring it to me and we’ll see if we can’t just make it into a project that Querx is interested in.” Davis kept a pleasant expression despite the galling way they turned again to look unhappily at one another.

  Sometime during his presentation he wondered which one was Gettnor. He became distracted trying to pick him out, then by the possibility that the man hadn’t actually attended his presentation.

  As he finished his presentation he had an idea. He stepped over to the door, asking each of them to introduce themselves to him on their way out.

  No, that SOB Gettnor, had not come to this introductory meeting!

  ***

  Vaz muzzily heard someone say, “Dr. Gettnor?” They sounded… not happy. He lifted his head off his desk, noting absently that he’d drooled on its surface. “Huh?” he responded.

  Davis stared. The man had been asleep, head down on his desk! As Gettnor turned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes Davis’ eyes widened, he’d shaved his head! And his eyebrows! Bizarrely, his eyelashes constituted the only hair on his head. Davis wondered if the man had cancer and it just wasn’t in his records. “Dr. Gettnor?” he repeated wonderingly, thinking this couldn’t actually be Gettnor, could it? The man had on sweats for God’s sake! Davis’s eyes narrowed, taking in Virginia Tech’s “VT” logo on the baggy sweatshirt.

  Gettnor cleared his throat, “Yeah?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Gettnor rubbed his eyes and squinted at Davis’s name tag. He read off, “Stillman Davis.”

  “Yes?”

  Gettnor shrugged and lifted his nonexistent eyebrows.

  “Your new department head?”

  A furrow developed between Gettnor’s eyebrows, “What happened to Dr. Smint?”

  Davis blinked in astonishment. “He retired.”

  A distant look appeared in Gettnor’s eyes. “Oh… yeah.” He stood up woodenly and extended a stiff looking hand. “Welcome aboard.”

  Davis looked at his hand with distaste but then shook it. The hand was hard and calloused but the grip was weak. Somehow even the man’s handshake offended him. Exasperatedly he asked, “Why are you asleep on company time?”

  Vaz stared at Davis, then tilted his head. He examined Davis’ face wondering whether the man was angry or not. Vaz knew he wasn’t good at recognizing people’s moods. Could Davis be joking around? Smint hadn’t cared when Vaz worked, just about results. He sighed and said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, then suddenly just couldn’t stay awake this morning.” Vaz didn’t realize that he hadn’t made it clear that he hadn’t gotten much sleep because he’d been here in the lab much of the night. He’d thought of a possible new hydrogen storage alloy while lying awake with one of his periodic bouts of insomnia last night. Excited about it and unable to sleep, he’d decided to come in to work and try casting a sample. His shoulders slumped as he realized that he’d slept through calling Lisanne this morning to tell her why he was gone. She would certainly be pissed.

  Seeing the man’s shoulders slump and thinking he felt guilty, Davis said, “You missed my introductory meeting with the research staff this morning.”

  Because he’d been told innumerable times that he should, Vaz expressionlessly said, “Sorry.” Even though he wasn’t at all.

  “It’s recorded on the Department server.”

  “Oh.” Vaz said a puzzled furrow between his brows.

  “So you can still watch it.” Davis said impatiently.

  “Did you say something important?” Vaz was genuinely curious. Department meetings seldom had anything relevant to his research, so he virtually never attended them. He didn’t want to waste time watching something irrelevant and didn’t consider the possibility that Davis might find the question offensive.

  In silent fury, Davis’ cheek twitched twice, but outwardly he only said, “Dr. Gettnor, I don’t hold Departmental meetings to say things that are un-important.”

  Davis then turned abruptly and left, but the restrained calm of his words and Gettnor’s inability to interpret the meaning of his stiff shoulders meant that Gettnor failed to recognize just how angry Davis was.

  Gettnor stared at the screen containing his calculations for the new alloy for a moment, then with a sigh told his AI (Artificial Intelligence) to bring up Davis’ talk from the Departmental meeting. He had the AI speed through the talk, gradually more and more irritated as he realized that nothing Davis had said seemed to be of any import or relevance to Gettnor’s work. Vaz hated people who felt a need to talk and demanded that others listen even when they had nothing of significance to say.

  Furious over the time he’d wasted, Gettnor closed his office door and leapt up to grab the bar he’d suspended from the ceiling. He slammed out 40 pull-ups, 80 pushups, and 80 sit-ups. He thought he might have to start over, but finally achieved an endorphin release at about the 70th sit-up. The endorphins relaxed him as they usually did. He didn’t like wasting time on exercise like this, but since that day about six months ago that he first achieved an endorphin release pounding the couch and doing sit-ups he’d come to realize that exercising to such a release kept him from sitting and stewing. He would be feeling like his head was about to explode, and the relief of that sensation felt wonderful. He dropped panting into his chair and closed his eyes. He tried to stave off a grim sense of foreboding.

  Vaz didn’t think he was going to like working for this Davis. His mind tracked back to his time on the faculty at Virginia Tech. Small minded people on the faculty and students who were completely impossible to teach had wasted his time, frustrating him until he finally lashed out at one of the students. He’d nearly struck the young fool and been summarily dismissed from the faculty.

  Davis seemed like the kind of imbecile he’d had to deal with back then. Controlling his temper could be extremely difficult around them.

  Vaz sent Lisanne an apology for leaving in the middle of the night without telling her. He knew she’d still be pissed, but he also knew it would be worse if he didn’t apologize.

  When his breathing had slowed he went back out to check on the casting of his new alloy.

  The casting’s electrical properties weren’t at all what he’d predicted! In fact they were so bizarre that he retested them five times thinking that he must have hooked up meters or leads incorrectly. Finally he removed the new casting and retested a disk he’d made a week ago. The old disk produced the same electrical results as it had a week before, confirming that there wasn’t a problem with his test setup. He tested the new disk again.

  It gave him the same bizarre outcome that it had minutes ago!

  Vaz sat back, staring at the disk. He called up the calculations he’d made for this alloy and looked them over again. He got the same predictions… so at odds with reality. He tried to tamp down the irritation that he always felt when natural phenomena didn’t obey his calculations. Closing his eyes he wearily reminded himself that understanding why something didn’t follow expectations could be much more important than a result that came out as expected.

  Vaz’s mind raced through possible explanations for the unusual electrical performance, discarding one hypothesis after another. Suddenly, like a light blossoming in a darkened room he felt his consciousness expand to encompass the problem. He’d had this experience before, usually a short while after getting angry and subsequently exercising to exhaustion for a dose of endorphins. If he encountered a difficult problem during one of his endorphin induced euphorias, it could seem as if his intelligence had suddenly doubled. He felt omniscient as he pondered the electrical properties of the metal. Aha! In a moment of sudden clarity he saw why they were so b
izarre and how a slightly different casting chemistry could make them even more astonishing!

  A voice grated, “Jesus Christ! Are you asleep again?”

  Vaz’s stomach clenched as he felt his understanding begin to slip away. Squinching his eyes to keep out the world, he lifted his hands palm outward to fend this person off for just a moment until he could firm his understanding…

  “Gettnor, open your goddamned eyes when I talk to you!”

  Vaz felt it slipping away… Shoulders rigid, he opened his eyes and scrabbled for the pencil in his pocket, looking around desperately for a piece of paper to write down the few fragments of understanding he still retained. He still held up a deflecting hand. He saw no paper, so he began scribbling directly on the table.

  A seething Davis ground out, “Gettnor! Whatever you think you’re pretending to do so frantically can wait until you’ve spoken to your department head.”

  A despairing Vaz felt his vision of the problem slip completely away. Ashen he stared at the few notes he’d made on the table. They didn’t make sense to him anymore. Slowly he looked up at Davis, head beginning to pound and shoulders tensing. Desperately he tamped down his rage, hoping that Davis wouldn’t say something that made him explode. “Yes?” he said, trying to unclench his teeth.

  “How is it that I visit you twice in my first day on this job and find you sleeping both times?”

  Vaz’s eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t sleeping!”

  Davis snorted. “Excuse me. Reclining your head on the headrest with your eyes closed.” He raised an eyebrow, “I’ll admit you weren’t snoring. But…! I expect the people in my department to be working when I visit them”

  Vaz grimaced, “I was working. I had just had a major insight that I was visualizing.” Dispiritedly he said, “I’ve lost it now.”

  Davis scoffed. “Well, as soon as I’ve finished discussing my requirements of you, Dr. Gettnor, you can get back to your ‘visualizing.’”

  To Vaz’s dismay, Davis had come to tell him that he would be expected to be on time to work. There would be no more of Smint’s laxness regarding his working how and whenever he wanted and only being expected to produce results.

  By the time Davis left, Vaz felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

  ***

  Lisanne looked up as Vaz came in. “Vaz,” she began, and then she saw he’d immediately turned and put his hand on the door to the basement.

  He turned woodenly. Expressionlessly he said, “Sorry.”

  She wondered if he even knew what he was apologizing for. Wearily she said, “Go. Dinner will be in a half an hour. Will that be enough time?”

  He nodded stiffly. She waved a dismissive hand and turned toward the kitchen. She wondered once again just what he did down there in his basement “man cave.” She’d learned through bitter experience not to detain him from going down there when he seemed to want to. He didn’t usually go down there immediately upon getting home from work, but if she stopped him from going down on the days when he did, he’d act like an asshole until she did let him. Something down there calmed him.

  Glancing over at the basement door she wondered what would it be like to be able to cook dinner with him? He cooked—either slavishly following a recipe or creating the weirdest most wonderful meals completely from his own imagination. After finishing one of his impromptu meals he would be unable to write down a recipe for whatever he’d just made. And if she asked him to help her or, God forbid, she tried to help him, the meal they cooked together turned into an absolute disaster.

  A tear trickled down Lisanne’s cheek as she divided the hamburger into five parts and started squeezing out patties. She sometimes wondered how she could have fallen in love with someone so… odd. How could she not have recognized that what others thought was weirdness and she thought was shyness, actually was an inability to relate normally to other human beings? And yet… somehow… she did fall in love with his brilliance… and shyness… and she still loved him, despite how intensely frustrating life with Vaz could be.

  Vaz closed the door behind him, telling it to lock. Lisanne would be able to open it of course, but it would take a moment or two for the AI to accept her request. During that time he would be able to try to compose himself. He forced himself to go down the stairs calmly, one at a time, because pounding down the stairs like he wanted to would worry Lisanne. Once he reached the concrete floor of the basement he grabbed his gloves and slid his hands into them. He lunged out to punch the Everlast heavy bag hanging by the far wall.

  Picturing Stillman Davis’ face on the bag he pounded the bag steadily and as hard as he could for ten minutes. Then he pulled off his sweatshirt and switched to his speed bag, setting it thrumming for another ten minutes. Panting, but feeling relaxed and tranquil again, he stepped back from the bag and headed into the basement bathroom to towel off. The glance he saw in the mirror while reaching for the towel disturbed him. Over the six months since he’d found that exercising to exhaustion could exorcise his demons, he’d developed a bulging and to him bizarrely muscular appearance. His body seemed a caricature to him, at odds with his mental image of himself as a man who valued and depended on mental rather than physical capacities. He’d gone out and bought baggy oversized shirts and sweats to hide what had happened to him.

  Vaz had his AI unlock the door to the basement so that Lisanne wouldn’t find it locked if she opened the door to call down that dinner was ready.

  Lisanne said a blessing as always. Vaz didn’t believe, but he didn’t object either. They all helped themselves to the hamburgers and buns and began choosing their condiments.

  Lisanne turned to their son, “Dante, how was your day?”

  “Fine.” He took another bite of his first burger. Dark like his father, he was in the midst of a teenage growth spurt, eating more food than Lisanne could believe.

  “Everything OK in your classes?”

  Still chewing, Dante nodded his head without looking at his mother.

  Lisanne closed her eyes; Vaz thought maybe she didn’t like Dante’s response? He didn’t feel sure of it though. Lisanne picked up a slice of tomato and put it on her hamburger while turning to their daughter. “Tiona, how did you do on your English test?”

  Tiona didn’t meet her mother’s eyes either. Well Vaz couldn’t be sure, her wheat colored hair hung over her blue eyes. She took a bite of hamburger and for a moment Vaz thought she didn’t intend to answer, but then, around a mouthful of food, she sullenly said, “Fine.”

  Vaz became aware that Lisanne’s eyes were on him. He thought she was unhappy with the kids… and maybe with him? Did she want him to intervene or something? Surely not, whenever he did, it finished with everyone upset.

  As soon as she finished her hamburger Tiona asked if she could be excused. Lisanne sighed and nodded. Both of the kids got up, took their dishes to the dishwasher and went upstairs to their rooms.

  Still chewing his hamburger, Vaz felt Lisanne’s eyes on him. Bringing his gaze up to her face, he swallowed and said, “What?”

  “Did you think the kids’ behavior was acceptable?”

  Vaz felt his own eyes widen. He found a few hairs near his left elbow and began twisting them, uncomfortable because he wasn’t at all sure what she wanted him to say. “Uh…” he began.

  Lisanne waved a hand deprecatingly. “I know, you aren’t even sure whether they were being rude.” She shook her head despairingly, “So of course you didn’t say anything, right?”

  Vaz nodded, eyes still carefully on Lisanne’s as she’d taught him. She sighed again making him even more uncomfortable. He said, “Did you want me to...?”

  Lisanne tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. Quietly she said, “No… no,” she squared her shoulders, “I don’t know why I even think you should get involved when the kids are a problem. You just make things worse.”

  Vaz narrowed his eyes. That sounded like a statement that should make him angry. He tilted his head considering. He didn�
�t feel angry; it was a true enough statement after all. “OK,” he said, and put the last bite of his hamburger in his mouth. He felt pretty sure that Lisanne was angry so he considered some of the strategies he’d been taught to deal with uncomfortable situations. After he swallowed that last bite he settled on, “The hamburgers were good, thanks.”

  Lisanne narrowed her eyes at him in turn, making Vaz wonder if he’d said the wrong thing again. But after a moment she shook her head, gave him a wry grin, and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Long after Vaz had taken his dishes to the sink and retreated to his basement Lisanne sat at the table mulling over her little family. She knew teenagers were supposed to be difficult, everyone said so. Somehow, she’d thought that hers wouldn’t be. They’d been so sweet back between the ages of three and twelve but…

  She’d heard that the “teenage years” were grueling so you wouldn’t be sad when your children moved out. But, the sullen and surly way Dante and Tiona had been acting this past year… she’d begun to think that they couldn’t move out soon enough to suit her. Gathering the rest of the dishes, she resolved to get on the net and do some research on how to deal with these issues.

  Lisanne spent a couple of hours looking around the net, trying to decide how to calm the issues she felt were tearing her family apart. She began to firm up a plan and sat wondering whether she should discuss it with her husband. Everything she’d read emphasized that the parents should agree on how to deal with such problems, then approach the problems together so that they didn’t undermine one another in their strategies. But… Lisanne knew that Vaz would prefer that she simply resolve the issues if she could, without making him think about any interpersonal interactions if he didn’t have to. Still, shouldn’t she tell him about her plans?