Vaz Read online

  Davis turned and scurried to the bathroom.

  ***

  While he waited for the replicated version of the original testing chamber and the new ceramic electrode for his new chamber, Vaz began testing the hydrogen absorption capabilities of the other test disks he’d had in his pocket when he’d arrived back from Querx that first day. His new chamber should work fine for that, so he carefully got one out from the drawer he’d stashed them in, unwrapped it and put it in. He closed the chamber and turned on the hydrogen.

  Vaz’s AI said, “You have a call from Stillman Davis.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Davis is the department head for R&D at Querx.”

  “Oh,” Vaz initially felt surprise, then felt a rising tide of anger. He’d been much happier a moment ago, he thought. “I don’t want to talk to him.” Without anything active to do on his experiment he sat and stewed about Davis. Finally he got up and began pounding his heavy bag. Davis’ face figured prominently on it in his imagination.

  ***

  Stillman sat in his office trying to calm himself. His emotions cycled between rage at Gettnor, and panic that he was about to lose the job he’d worked so long and hard to get. How could Vangester think that Gettnor, of all people, was indispensable! Now the SOB has the gall to refuse my calls! Davis had sent an e-mail also but there’d been no response and he doubted there would be.

  Eventually Davis settled his thoughts sufficiently and came to the crushing conclusion that if Gettnor was refusing his calls, there was only one way to get through. He would have to go to Gettnor’s house. His AI had no difficulty determining the address. As he walked out he turned to Maddie and said, “I’m going out for a bit, not sure when I’ll be back.”

  “OK.” She said, an uncertain tone in her voice as she wondered where he was going. He left the office all the time without telling her where he was going, why this time? Why “out?”

  Davis walked up to Gettnor’s house and identified himself to the house AI, suddenly worried that Gettnor already had another job and he’d wasted his time. After a pause to speak to Gettnor, the AI said, “Mr. Gettnor does not wish to speak to you.”

  Relieved that Gettnor was home he said, “Please tell him I would like to offer him his job back.”

  There was a pause; then the AI said, “Mr. Gettnor said he does not wish to work for you.”

  Davis’ stomach clenched at the specification that he didn’t want to work for him. He desperately did not want to step down as department head; that would be his last offer. “Please tell him we can offer a larger salary if he will return.”

  The AI came back on, “He doesn’t want a larger salary.”

  “We could double his salary.”

  “He doesn’t want a larger salary.”

  There hadn’t been a pause, suggesting to Davis that the AI had simply obeyed its earlier instruction, so he said, “Please tell him we could double his salary.”

  This time there was a pause, but then the AI simply said, “He said, ‘No.’”

  “Tell him we could triple his salary.”

  After a pause, “He said, ‘No.’”

  “Tell him we could give him a bigger lab.”

  After a pause, “He said, ‘Don’t need a bigger lab.’”

  “Tell him we could get him more or better equipment.”

  After a pause, “He said, ‘Go away.’”

  “Tell him we could also quadruple his salary.”

  Davis waited quite a while and when the AI said nothing he finally asked, “What did he say?”

  The AI responded, “He hasn’t said anything yet.”

  Davis gritted his teeth, picturing Gettnor in one of his catatonic spells. He racked his mind for anything else but finally said, “Tell him I could step down as the department head of R&D if he doesn’t want to work for me.”

  After a pause the AI said, “He asked if Dr. Smint would be department head again?”

  “Dr. Smint is too old.”

  When the AI said nothing for a long time, Davis said, “Ask Dr. Gettnor if he would like to be department head.”

  After another very long pause Davis asked, “Did he respond?”

  “He laughed. Then, though it wasn’t very clear, I believe he said that you were an idiot.”

  Fury boiled through Davis. He grabbed the handle and struck the door itself with a fist. To his surprise, the door swung open. At first he expected Gettnor to be behind it, opening it to confront him. The entryway was empty however. Davis stepped inside, “Gettnor!” he shouted, wanting to confront the man who was destroying his career.

  There was no response, so he stepped farther inside and shouted again, “Gettnor! I know you’re here somewhere. Talk to me…” Davis trailed off before he said “you idiot!” fighting to remember, despite his trembling fury, that he must somehow convince Gettnor to listen to reason. He couldn’t afford to anger Gettnor any more than he already had. He stepped into a large room, apparently a family room. Compulsively organized, all furniture perfectly aligned and stark, it looked like something arranged by a machine. “Gettnor?” he called out again.

  From behind a door across the room he heard the tread of someone climbing stairs. Realizing he was in a home without permission he slowly backed toward the entry reassuring himself that, as a brown belt in karate he had nothing to fear from someone like Gettnor. The door opened and Gettnor stepped into the room, frowning at Davis. He carefully closed the basement door behind himself then started walking toward Davis.

  Stillman said, “Look, Dr. Gettnor, you’ve got to listen to me! I… made a mistake letting you go. I have a temper and that fire frightened me! But I should never have let you go! What can I offer you to return to Querx?”

  Gettnor grasped Davis by the arm just above the elbow.

  “Hey, let me go!” Davis tried to jerk his arm out of Gettnor’s grip, but it was unyielding. In response Gettnor lifted Davis by the arm until his feet were barely touching the floor and began to move him toward the door despite his protests. “You’re hurting my arm!” he gasped with a sense of panic, it felt like his arm was in a vise. He struck at the hand holding him without noticeable effect. How could a weirdo nerd like Gettnor possibly be so strong? Gettnor strong-armed Davis through his front door and gave him a little shove. Davis stumbled back, “We could give you a bigger share of the royalties on your patents,” he said, rubbing his arm. “Wait!” he gasped as the door inexorably closed before him. He stepped forward and called out, “Please! Listen to me. We can work something out.” He thumped the door. Under his breath he said, “You idiot!” Louder he said, “Come on!”

  After a while, shoulders slumping, Davis got in his car and headed back to Querx.

  Vangester’s secretary waved Davis into his office. “Mr. Vangester?”

  Vangester looked around from his screen, “Any luck?”

  “No sir, the man’s completely unhinged! He assaulted me!”

  “He came in to see you in person?”

  “No sir. He wouldn’t respond to calls, so I went to visit him. I’m trying to go the extra mile here.”

  Vangester frowned, “Let me see the audio-video of your interaction.”

  Davis’ heart sank. For a moment he considered refusing. After all your own AI’s audio-video records had been judged privileged and to require a warrant to examine without the owner’s permission. Unless you gave them up voluntarily. But if he refused, it would seem he had something to hide. He decided his only hope was to show it to Vangester and hope that he didn’t look as bad as he feared on the record. He told his AI to forward the record to Vangester’s.

  Vangester leaned back in his chair and looked up at his HUD, seeing the encounter from Davis’ perspective. “Oh, Christ!” he said with a disgusted tone. Then he drew his head back and paused the recording to look wide eyed at Davis. “You entered his house without an invitation?!”

  Davis said, “The door swung open when I touched it. I thought maybe the AI was invit
ing me.”

  Vangester rolled his eyes, “Touched it?”

  “Well, knocked.”

  “Good God! If he’d shot you, the court would have found in his favor you know.” Vangester sighed disconsolately, turning his eyes back to his HUD. When he finished watching the record, he said, “Could you have ‘screwed the pooch’ any worse? Of course,” he shook his head sadly, “I guess I’m the idiot for thinking that someone so clueless he fired our most important employee was the right person to try to hire him back.” He paused, then bowed his head, “Maybe there’s some hope in the fact that he asked if Smint could be department head again.”

  “Smint’s over the age limit.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. We can work around that rule if it means getting Gettnor back.”

  “Sir, give me a chance. I’m sure we could find someone even more qualified to replace Gettnor. The man’s unhinged!”

  “‘More qualified!’” Vangester snorted. “You just don’t get it do you? There are a lot of people ‘more qualified’ in this world. Diplomas, degrees and grades—none of them measure whatever it is that Gettnor has. People who have whatever it is that he has frequently don’t do all that well in those arenas. You can’t hire them on purpose, you hire them by accident, then you do whatever you can to keep them. The one thing you don’t do is fire them once you find one. Gods!” Vangester buried his head in his hands.

  “Sir, let me work this problem. I’ll figure out a way to fix it.”

  “Davis, the only reason you haven’t been fired already is that I’m worried that I might need you for some reason, perhaps just so that I can fire you to make Gettnor happy! For right now, you continue to run your department, but do not contact Gettnor or otherwise interact with him in any way. I’m going to see if Dr. Smint can help us out.” He shook his head morosely and waved dismissal at Davis, saying to his AI, “Get me Dr. Smint.”

  Back in his office Davis found himself wound so tight that he couldn’t stop shaking. He paced as his mind darted frenetically from place to place. Maddie knocked to ask a question. He barked, “Get out!” Eventually, he couldn’t take his own frantic edginess anymore and stormed out of the office a little before 4PM.

  Downtown, Davis took off his AI and got out of his car, walking down and around a corner then another couple of blocks to Jerrod’s Bar and Grill. Stepping inside the door he waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, then walked slowly over to the bar, surveying the patrons. Taking a stool he ordered a beer and asked the bartender if Jerrod was in. The bartender shrugged. “I’m a friend.”

  “Call him then.”

  Davis gave a little shake of his head.

  The bartender frowned at him, then shrugged. Holding his hand back where it would be out of the view of his own AI’s cameras and low enough that Stillman suspected it wouldn’t show on the bar’s AI either, the bartender pointed back toward Jerrod’s office, all without moving his head. A moment later the man moved off to serve another customer. Davis picked up his beer and wandered off toward the small room at the back of the bar.

  He knocked on the door and a gruff voice said, “Come on in Stilly.”

  Davis stepped in, concerned about how Jerrod had known it was him. He glanced around and saw a screen displaying the little hallway outside the office. He looked at Jerrod and meaningfully tapped his AI head gear.

  Jerrod snorted, “Look at you, skulking around like the bad guy in a shoddy vid. Don’t worry, my AI’s not recording.”

  Davis pointed at the screen recording the hallway outside, “You’re recording me coming and going.”

  “It records over the same memory chip every ten minutes. Unless you piss me off, then I dump it to real memory. What are you tryin’ to do ‘off the record’ Stilly? It ain’t like you to be acting like us ‘unsavory’ types. You ain’t very good at it.”

  Davis studied his old friend. They’d known each other since high school when Davis had kept the books for a small time gambling operation Jerrod had run for students betting on local athletic events. They’d drifted apart when Davis went to college and got a respectable job but still saw one another occasionally. Jerrod was still a big guy, but his muscles looked… soft. With modern medicine people rarely bulged with fat anymore, but Jerrod didn’t look as powerful as he used to. Of course, he probably had younger, dumber people doing his “enforcing” nowadays. Finally he said, “I’ve got a problem.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  Davis’ shoulders slumped, “I just got promoted to department head.”

  “Don’t sound like a problem to me.”

  “I fired this asshole that worked in my department.”

  Jerrod barked a laugh, “Good for you Stilly! Show some spine.”

  “Yeah… Turned out the big bosses think he’s some kind of hot shit. He’s patented some things that made the company some money.”

  Jerrod leaned back and grinned, digging in one ear with a finger, “So you got’cher shiny little dress shoe all down in da pooh, eh? Why’nt ‘cha just hire him back?”

  “I tried. He won’t come back.”

  “So? Screw it. He’s gone, the big bosses are just gonna have to deal.”

  “They’re gonna fire me unless I get this guy back on the payroll.”

  Jerrod’s eyebrows rose, “Really? They must really have the hots for this guy.”

  Davis shrugged despondently, “The CEO claims that the board will want someone’s head to roll when they find out this guy’s gone.”

  “Come on!” Jerrod leaned back and scraped a tooth with a fingernail. “How much are these inventions worth?”

  “I tried to look into it since this shit came down. I think somewhere between five and ten billion dollars so far. Turns out his inventions are responsible for most of Querx’s cash flow.”

  Jerrod sat up suddenly, “Really…” Jerrod looked much more interested. “I guess I’d want your head on a stick too. Don’t they already have the rights to these inventions though?”

  “Yeah, I think they’re more interested in what he’ll invent in the future.”

  “Huh, why’s he been working for them anyway? He must be rich himself from inventions like that.”

  Davis shrugged, “I don’t know. He’s kind of… impaired. An idiot savant. Lord knows, they’ve been shafting him on the royalties, paying him about a tenth of a percent. His salary’s crap too. But he’s so weird, I doubt he could run a business himself.”

  Jerrod waggled his eyebrows, “Why don’t we hire him ourselves?”

  Davis snorted, “He’d never work for me!”

  “Wouldn’t have to know you’re part of it.”

  “And if he never invented anything again? We’d be on the hook for his salary with nothing in the bag?”

  Jerrod shrugged, “OK, we’ll make sure he’s actually inventing something before we hire him. Meantime, what are you wanting to do?”

  “Make him go back to work for Querx to save my job.”

  Jerrod frowned, “How do you make a man go to work for someone else?”

  Davis narrowed his eyes, “You’ve got people working for you… that don’t really want to. Your accountant for instance.”

  “Yeah, but they owe me somehow. And they work for me. How do I make someone who doesn’t owe me, work for someone else?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the expert in these kinds of things.”

  Jerrod looked doubtful, “And you’re going to pay for this?”

  Davis tilted his head, “How much?”

  “I’ll have to look into it. At least ten grand.”

  “Jeez, for an old friend?”

  Jerrod raised an eyebrow, “An old friend who might get me sent to prison.”

  Davis winced, “OK.”

  Jerrod leaned back, “So, this guy have any bad habits we can blackmail him over? Mistresses, drugs?”

  “I doubt it, he’s a real nerd. I’m pretty sure he’ll crumble if someone threatens him though.”

 
; Jerrod stared doubtfully at him. Then he shrugged, “OK, we’ll threaten him. You’re new at this so I’ll remind you, no electronic money. I’d suggest you buy some gold or platinum and pay me with that. Taking out large quantities of cash is looked on with a lot of suspicion nowadays.”

  Davis nodded.

  “Buy a lot more of whatever you get than you need to pay me with. No matching transactions. Besides it might be more than 10G.”

  Davis nodded again.

  “Do not contact me over the net. Check back in person in a few days.”

  Back home with his AI on again, Davis sent Vangester an e-message, “Working several angles to get Gettnor back for us. Please give me some time.”

  ***

  Dante and Steve walked around the corner to the wall they usually sat on to eat lunch. A large body leaned up away from the wall. Jack!

  Jack said, “So, Gettnor.” He sneered as he said Dante’s name. “Silvy ain’t here to protect you today.”

  Steve looked back and forth between them while Dante stared sullenly at Jack. “What do you want?” he said sourly.

  “I want you to understand that if I see you sniffing after my girl again I’m gonna crush you like a bug.”

  Steve snorted, “I’d like to see you try Mr. Football hero. He’s a wrestler you know?”

  Dante didn’t change his expression but after his experience the other day, really wished Steve had kept his mouth shut.

  Jack grinned hungrily at Steve, “You just keep telling yourself that bein’ a wrestler means jack shit.” He turned back to Dante. “If you think it does, just keep sniffin’ around my girl and we’ll find out.” He turned back to Steve, “And anytime you want to try your wrestling moves out on me, just come ahead pretty boy.”