Vaz Read online

  ***

  Back home Vaz wandered into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich. As he sat eating and staring sightlessly out the window he pondered the “meltdown” of the hydrogen saturation apparatus, still wondering what in the world could have happened. There wasn’t nearly enough current being delivered to the apparatus to melt metal by itself. Though the small fragment of the alloy had absorbed over fifteen hundred times its own volume in hydrogen by the time the meltdown occurred, it was only a few cubic millimeters in size so that it really was only a liter or so of hydrogen. If the hydrogen had burned it would have made a pretty good flame for a few seconds but it wouldn’t have had enough energy to melt the apparatus like it had. Besides it would have tended to melt the top of the apparatus, whereas the apparatus had been much more melted at the bottom than in the upper portions.

  So not enough hydrogen, not enough electricity. What the Hell had melted the apparatus?!

  When he’d finished his sandwich he went down to his basement and dug through his cargo pocket. Sure enough, there were seventeen of the alloy disks still in his pocket. He felt slightly guilty about taking them, but really did feel they belonged to him, not to Querx. No one at Querx would have any idea what they were, nor care about them, or ever put them to use. He found a magnifying glass and inspected the laser cut numbers on them. Vaz breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that one of the disks was a copy of the original alloy that had just melted down. He put them carefully away and had his AI open his big screens so he could begin searching the net for possible mechanisms.

  Lisanne came home, cooked dinner, called Vaz up and watched him eat mechanically without appearing to notice his food or Tiona’s hostile attitude. He sat at the table staring into space long after his surly kids had excused themselves and gone upstairs. Lisanne put his dishes in the dishwasher and spoke to him several times without a response. She shook her head and went upstairs herself, wondering if he’d notice if she turned out the light.

  Vaz got in bed with Lisanne in the middle of the night. She snuggled up to him but when she started to slide her hand under his pajama top he gently grasped her wrist and pulled it to the outside and around him.

  In the morning when Lisanne left for work Vaz was still in bed. She knew Dr. Smint kind of let Vaz work whatever hours he wanted but it always worried her. This morning it irritated her because he usually made lunches for the kids and they had bitched about the sandwiches she made for them. “Make your own sandwiches tomorrow then!”

  Dante said, “Why can’t you just give us money to buy lunch like all the other kids?”

  “We’re not made of money like some of your friends’ parents. And I seriously doubt that ‘all of them’ buy their lunches. But if you want to buy lunch, get a job. Spend your own money.”

  “Man, this sucks!” he said as he slammed out the door.

  “Or make your own lunch.” Lisanne shouted pointlessly at the closed door.

  Tiona waited until Lisanne was looking her way to throw her lunch bag into the trash. Then she headed out the door too.

  With a sigh Lisanne got Tiona’s lunch out of the trash and put it in her own bag. She chewed her lip as she stared up the stairs to where Vaz was sleeping, thinking about waking him up. Finally she shook her head and went out to the garage to begin the drive to work.

  When Vaz finally woke he started going over the numbers he’d come up with the night before. By his calculations there wasn’t enough energy available in any conceivable reaction of the hydrogen with oxygen, or with any conceivable chemical reaction of the materials in the apparatus. An oxidation of the small quantities of vanadium or boron or palladium in the little disk wouldn’t produce much energy. If the stainless steel of the apparatus around the disk could be oxidized, perhaps, but he’d looked carefully at the stainless steel. It had looked melted but not burned on the floor of the lab at the end. Even if he combined the entire power consumption of all the electrical equipment on the lab bench with some kind of chemical reaction he couldn’t get enough power for the meltdown he’d witnessed.

  Nuclear reactions would easily have enough power but there wasn’t anything fissionable in the setup. Fusion shouldn’t be able to happen because he was using ordinary hydrogen, not deuterium. Should it? He called up more websites…

  A few hours later Vaz sat back feeling stunned. Though he’d never paid much attention to it, he knew that people had claimed to have achieved “cold fusion” with tabletop devices operating at or near room temperature in the past. Paneth and Peters had claimed, but then retracted such a claim as far back as the 1920s. Fleischmann and Pons had made it famous in the 1980s. Though they’d never retracted their claims, their experiments had been soundly denounced by the scientific establishment and called “pathologic science” by respected investigators.

  Others continued, even to this day, to investigate the possibility of cold fusion. However, most scientists accepted the tenet that it would be impossible to force large numbers of hydrogen nuclei close enough to one another for them to fuse using electrochemical forces alone. There actually were many ways to cause fusion of hydrogen nuclei on the table top and “neutron generator” devices built on these principles were in common use. However, such devices consumed more power than they generated. Those who investigated tabletop fusion nowadays usually said they were investigating LENR or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions because of the stigma associated with the term “cold fusion.” Occasionally, one of them would claim that excess energy had been achieved but they always turned out to be crackpots or at least were unable to replicate their own experiments.

  Even those who were crazy enough to flout established science with thoughts that they might be able to achieve LENR expected to achieve it with “heavy hydrogen.” A light hydrogen nucleus contains only a proton. It is significantly easier to achieve fusion by forcing together “heavy” deuterium molecules which have hydrogen nuclei that contain a proton and a neutron. Even better with a mix containing deuterium and tritium, hydrogen nuclei that have a proton and two neutrons.

  Vaz was using light hydrogen. He shouldn’t be able to achieve fusion, but if he did it would emit a lot of radiation. He wished he’d thought to examine the lab meltdown with a Geiger counter, or some other method to detect radiation.

  The other possibility because of the boron-vanadium-palladium alloy he’d used was that he had achieved hydrogen-boron fusion. When hydrogen and boron fused they would produce three helium nuclei and a lot of energy. But, such fusion should require temperatures over 6 billion degrees Celsius!

  After another period of staring off into space Vaz started ordering equipment.

  At the rate he spent on exotic materials and sophisticated equipment, after just a few orders, he’d emptied his personal debiting account. He considered a moment, then transferred money to his personal account from his “royalties” account, a separate account that he maintained just to contain the royalties from his inventions at Querx. He never touched that money and virtually never even checked the balance of the account. Lisanne didn’t even know about the account. It had started as a small account after the first patent Querx took on one of his ideas. He’d shunted the money from each of the royalties into it as time went along. Just when he’d begun thinking that he really should tell Lisanne about it, she’d started talking about how she wanted to take a nice vacation in the Caribbean.

  Vaz didn’t like going to strange places, they made him uncomfortable. Lisanne had been working their budget trying to find money for the trip and he’d realized that if she knew about his royalty account she would immediately begin making reservations. So, he hadn’t told her about the money and, to his relief, she’d eventually decided they couldn’t afford the trip.

  He only really thought about the money once a year when he had to put the income from the account on their taxes. Fortunately, because he was so good with numbers, Lisanne was happy to have him do the taxes and so he’d been able to continue hiding it. Each year at tax tim
e he became stricken with guilt over the fact that he’d been hiding it. He worried that she’d be furious when she realized they could have gone on a vacation any time she wanted. He worried that she’d be angry that he’d hidden something so important from her, or that she’d think he didn’t want her to know about the money because he wanted it all if they got a divorce. This despite the fact that he couldn’t imagine life without her. Worst of all, hiding it felt… dishonest, and he hated dishonest people.

  However, on this day, he felt better when he saw that the account had nearly eleven million dollars in it. Half a million dollars of new lab equipment wouldn’t make a huge dent in that. And, why have the money squirrelled away at all, if not to be used for something important like this?

  At four o’clock his AI reminded him that he had a self-defense session scheduled at Mike’s Mixed Martial. At first he didn’t want to go, feeling too excited about the meltdown to want to waste time at Mike’s. But then he recognized that his jittery state could use some of the calming he got from an exercise session. He put on his sweats and headed out the door.

  ***

  Mike watched his new pupil lumber in the door. Gettnor was in sweats this time but seemed on edge, shifting from foot to foot until he saw Mike and headed his way. He only said “Hi,” when he arrived, then stood, still shifting his weight and waiting to be directed. Mike decided to have him burn away some of that restless energy hitting the bags, this time with Mike critiquing his technique.

  As before Gettnor set about pounding the bags relentlessly and hard. Most of Mike’s feedback had to do with decreasing the power of his punches and trying to improve his accuracy and speed.

  After a session with the bags that most would find punishing and exhausting, Gettnor only looked like someone had calmed him. “What’s next?” he asked.

  Mike took him through a series of slow motion grappling moves, constantly having to caution him to slow down and be more gentle, “Jeez, Vaz, this is practice. Tone it down some more or one of us is going to get hurt.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Gettnor shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Sorry. I’m just wound tight.”

  Mike saw Rich Durson across the room. Bigger and younger than Gettnor, Durson really liked sparring. Mike uneasily worried that Durson might actually be kind of a bully when he was away from the gym. But, maybe he could give a Gettnor a little of what Gettnor seemed to want. If they both actually wanted to fight it seemed silly not to grant them their wishes. He turned to Gettnor, “Hey, there’s a guy here that likes to spar. Would you like me to ask him if he’d spar with you?”

  Gettnor nodded eagerly without saying anything. Mike eyed him a moment. He said so little, Mike realized that he had no idea how bright the guy might be. Could Gettnor be mentally retarded or something he wondered? He turned and pointed at Durson, “Before you say yes, that’s the guy over there. He’s bigger and more experienced than you. You sure you want to take him on?”

  Gettnor nodded eagerly, staring at Durson like a dog might strain at a steak.

  Mike shrugged and went over to talk to Durson. As he expected Durson glanced at Gettnor and agreed readily.

  Mike got them fitted with gloves, headgear and mouth guards, then took them to the ring. He explained the rules for sparring to Gettnor who only asked one question, “I can hit him, right?”

  “Yes, but he’s a lot more experienced than you. I suggest you focus on defense this time. Remember keep your hands up. Try to take him down to the mat if you can.”

  Gettnor tipped his head dubiously. Then shrugged and walked through the gate in the netting that surrounded the ring. Mike entered the ring too, got between the two men and said, “Just one, two-minute bout. I’ll call it if you look like you’re getting hurt, or about to get hurt, or if you tap out.” He’d addressed this last to Gettnor but also turned to Durson to make sure he understood.

  Both fighters nodded and Mike dropped his hand between them saying, “Go.”

  Durson, who favored striking styles, got up on his toes and began dancing to his right while Gettnor stood flat footed, watching, hands not high enough.

  To understand what happened next, Mike had to watch the video from his AI’s cameras and from a couple of the security cameras in the studio a few times. Durson closed in and flicked out a testing punch with his left. When he did Gettnor blocked it aside with his left forearm while sending a right to the left side of Durson’s head. Gettnor’s punch had come from down low and was going up when it hit.

  Durson’s feet actually came up off the mat slightly as he sailed out to the horizontal, bonelessly crashing to the padding, out cold.

  At the time, Mike’s initial reaction was that Durson must have stumbled and would get up, then wide eyed he stepped over to look at Durson, palm outstretched to keep Gettnor away. Gettnor had already dropped his hands and stepped back, looking disappointed.

  Not worried, disappointed.

  Mike saw that Durson was out but still breathing. His headgear had twisted around. There was a glove abrasion on his cheekbone and a tear at the base of the upper part of his ear. He moaned and after a few minutes sat up and then staggered back to his feet. Mike recommended that Jen drive him to the ER but Durson refused. Mike called Durson’s girlfriend and got her to agree to check on him in an hour or two. Mike followed as Durson unsteadily went out and got in his car and gave it directions to take him home.

  Before he closed the car door Durson looked blearily up at Mike and said, “He got in some kind of lucky punch, huh?”

  Mike shrugged and said, “Yeah,” but a little shiver that ran over him said he didn’t think so at all. When he got back in the gym, he couldn’t help but eye Gettnor a little warily. Gettnor still stood just outside the ring, one hand on the netting. He’d taken off the headgear, but still had on his gloves and was chewing on the mouth guard. Expressionlessly, he said, “Sorry.” He didn’t really look sorry. He looked… relaxed. He said, “Anything else today?”

  Mike shook his head, a little rattled. Real fights often ended with one good punch, but it didn’t happen very often in arranged fights. Certainly, someone who’d only had two training sessions didn’t knock out an experienced scrimmager.

  Gettnor pulled off his gloves and put them away, then headed out the door.

  ***

  Back home in his basement, Vaz was pleased to achieve another one of his periods of intellectual transcendence, apparently brought on by the heavy episode at the gym followed by the explosive release of tension from the fight. However, despite his omniscient grasp of the problem, he got no closer to determining whether something about the setup at Querx might somehow have been able to produce hydrogen-hydrogen or hydrogen-boron fusion without high temperatures that were thought to be needed.

  He couldn’t come up with any other explanations that would result in a sufficient energy release to produce the meltdown either.

  He felt the rumble of the garage door opening that signaled Lisanne was home and checked the time with widening eyes. It was late! Now he realized that he felt hungry. He should have noticed that Lisanne was late and started cooking! He trotted up the stairs.

  Lisanne stepped inside hoping that Vaz would be cooking. He was in the kitchen but seemed to be just starting to get things out of the fridge. Her shoulders slumped a bit but she resolved to make the best of it, at least he was trying. She walked into the kitchen, “What’cha makin’?”

  “Something with fusilli pasta and hamburger I think.”

  “OK,” she shrugged, “anything I can do?”

  “Relax a minute; then make a salad?”

  “Thanks,” she said and headed upstairs to change out of her work clothes. She said, “Hi,” to Dante and Tiona as she passed their rooms. Neither of them answered. She stopped just past Tiona’s room and closed her eyes a moment in frustration. Deciding that it wasn’t worth a fight at the moment, she went on into her own room.

  By the time Lisanne came back down to make the salad the kitc
hen was filled with fragrant cooking odors. When she’d finished making a Caesar salad she stepped over to the stove to look at what Vaz was doing. He had a pan full of broken up hamburger that he was stirring. It looked like it had olives and tomatoes chopped into it. The fusilli was cooked and drained. While she watched he poured it into the pan with the hamburger and started stirring it around.

  Lisanne put her head on his shoulder and arm around his waist. Her eyebrows rose, his narrow, rock hard waist. She realized suddenly that his clothes might be fitting poorly because his body had been changing. And if that had been happening, she recognized that he might have been hiding it from her. He’d stopped sleeping in his undershorts and started wearing heavy pajamas. He’d bought the ill-fitting clothes. He’d started taking his showers in the basement and had started turning the lights off before they made love. She’d been noticing that he felt firmer. If he’d been getting himself in shape, why wouldn’t he want her to see his body? Her heart flip flopped, could he be having an affair? Getting in shape for another woman?

  Unconsciously Lisanne’s right hand had been rubbing Vaz’s waist. His hand came down to capture hers, “That tickles.”

  Lisanne reached down with her left hand and suddenly lifted the front of his shirt. He let go of her right hand at his waist and grabbed the left one, pushing it and his shirt back down. But not before she’d seen the rippled muscles covering his abdomen. Her eyebrows rose, “Vaz?”

  He blushed sheepishly but said, “What?” as if he had no idea what she was asking about.