Chapter Three
Jennifer Ryan looked at her watch, her long blond hair still damp from the shower.
Damn, I’m late… again.
She downed the last of her now-tepid coffee, grabbed her coat and headed for the office. She opened the front door, the cold air hitting her like an express train. The icy blast instantly chilled her to the bone.
The thirty year-old scientist made her way through the frigid streets, her mind, as always, centered on her work. She cursed herself. She still couldn't get the dammed battery to work properly.
It performs in all the simulations but the prototype burns out after just a few seconds. What am I missing?
Her insides knotted in disappointment and frustration.
Three months of redesign and it still isn’t right!
After three years of work, she could feel how close she was to the solution. She angrily kicked a booted foot at the snow bank, sending a piece of ice skidding down the frozen sidewalk.
Eyes following the projectile’s sliding path, she looked a block up the street and noticed a small group of children on their way to school. A snowball war raged among the motley assemblage of youngsters and their carefree laughter reached her as each pelted the others. She sighed loudly, momentarily envying them their innocent, care-free existence.
Oh, to not have the cares of adult life. No rent, no boss to impress, no grants to secure. Just unlimited time to do as you please…and to have their energy!”
She smiled at the thought as she watched them declare a “cease-fire”, the entire boisterous pack scrambling toward a bright yellow school bus stopped at the corner. The boxy leviathan waited patiently, it’s flashing red lights warning motorists of the children’s imminent approach.
Watching the bus pull away from the curb, Jenny continued her walk, she also continuing her musings.
It seems that we use up a lifetime of energy before we’re ten years old.
She stopped at a coffee stand in the middle of the block for a cappuccino and as she walked away with the steaming brew in hand, the answer came to her. Like a crack of thunder, it rang in her ears.
The problem with the battery is that it acts like a child!
The total simplicity of the idea made Jenny laugh out loud and she knew she had finally discovered the key to her problem …or at least part of it.
It has no pacing, no restraint. It’s using all of its energy in an uncontrolled “super burst”.
Her pulse quickened and the work center in the back of her mind raced as the wind picked up, chill gusts blowing in off the frigid Atlantic Ocean.
Beginning to really feel the cold now, a sudden shiver ran the length of her body. She contemplated the merits of this particular mode of transportation.
Taking the car is faster, until you add in the time to find a parking space, and then you have to include the ten dollar fee!
Nothing irritated Jenny more than paying to park. It was just one of her pet peeves. Fee or no fee, she silently reminded herself to drive the next time the temperature dropped near zero.
I’ve been working for months on ways to mitigate the affects of the heat. I can’t believe I missed it. It’s so simple!
As she rounded the last turn, the building appeared. Rising between the other monoliths dotting the sun-lit skyline, the new “Boston Tower” building sat right in the middle of the North End. The papers said the latest methods and techniques were used in its construction and the media dubbed it “The Castle of Boston”.
She looked up at the 75 floors of glass and gold anodized steel as she ascended the steps toward the entry. The offices of Jenny's employer, Diversified Research Inc. occupied the Tower’s entire 28th floor and she considered herself lucky to be working there. With its first class reputation and budgets, a position there embodied a research scientist's dream.
A cloud of warm air enveloped her as she entered the lobby. The hushed voices of dozens of anonymous people carried across the vast expanse, echoing off the travertine walls as they made their way to the elevators or down the corridors beyond. Soft light glowed in hundreds of silver points from a colossal crystal chandelier, the gold down-rod suspending it twenty feet above the mosaic marble floor.
She approached a guard sitting at a chrome and glass security desk in the center of the room, leaving a trail of wet footprints as she moved. “Morning Carl, how's it going?”
“Oh, just fine, and how are you?” he asked, his Georgia roots evident in this smooth drawling speech. “Are ya’ll getting ready for Christmas?”
Jenny gave a good-natured groan while she passed through the checkpoint, swiping her key card in the magnetic lock on the door beyond. “No, I haven't even started yet. I always wait until the last minute. I’m so bad about that.”
“Well ya’ll better get a move on, it’s almost here.” He said.
Her face flushed in embarrassment at the admission of procrastination. “I will.”
“See ya’ll later.” He said and she returned his small parting wave, walking away from the jovial security guard.
Moving down the hall, Jenny's mind was still working on the battery problem as she reached the elevator doors. The opulent glass and polished steel barrier parted soundlessly and she stepped into the posh interior of the car, touching the button for the 28th Floor. While the elevator climbed effortlessly aloft, she began to go over the last tests of the prototype in her mind, dissecting her failures one by one.
She had gambled on her own theory that the excess energy given off by radio-active waste could be safely manipulated to be useful, bringing her only laughter and scorn from the so‑called “experts” in the scientific community. Their cruelly rendered words still rang in her ears. It won’t work…and even if it does, it’s too dangerous. No responsible researcher would attempt it.
She remembered well the grim disappointments of her early overtures. After years of theoretical research, the Department Of Energy brass sent her a letter denying her application for research funding, dismissing her theory as “dangerous, ego-driven folly” without bothering to gain any real understanding of how the process worked. She clenched her teeth in anger, remembering how the self-appointed “deities” at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission questioned her for hours on why she wanted to do research on atomic waste, only to deny her request in the end. She smiles as she remembered cursing their inane shortsightedness.
Depressed and angry, she’d left her upstate New York home to work for a Manhattan chemical company developing food additives. It paid the bills, but it offered no challenge to a woman who earned a doctorate in chemistry at the age of 22 and a second one in nuclear physics at 24. For two years she marked time, plugging away at her job and continuing to develop her particle manipulation theory in her spare time.
My God! That was six years ago. Has it really been that long?
Staring at the elevator doors, she also recalled the day her life changed. After she had almost given up hope of ever being able to really see her theory to fruition, Jackson Verde walked into her office and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
A grin crossed her face as the elevator moved skyward and she remembered her initial feelings of righteous indignation. The man who would later be her boss sat down in her chair and put his feet up on her desk.
She remembered being shocked into silence, staring wide-eyed while he reverently lit a cigar and blew out a thick cloud of aromatic blue smoke before speaking.
“Dr. Ryan, I'm Dr. Jackson Verde, and we’re both busy, so I'll get right to the point. I work for a defense contractor called Diversified Research Incorporated. I read your latest paper on particle manipulation technology and I have two questions. Question number one; will it work?” he’d asked, pausing only briefly to await a reply.
Still too stunned to speak, Jenny nodded in the affirmative.
“Question number two; what do you need to make it work?”
Jenny remembered his t
otal faith in her and her theory. In addition, she had to give him points for sheer audacity. Four years later, she was head of the chemical research department. The first class lab and skilled support staff gave her the freedom to devote a large amount of time to the particle manipulation project, code-named “Ever-cell”, time that seemed wasted of late.
The bell above her head chimed, snapping her stroll down memory lane and signaling her arrival at the 28th floor. She stepped out of the elevator and strode down the hall, passing an eclectic collection of post-modern art hanging in the hallway to her office. Passing a uniformed solider in the hall, she concentrated on her own thoughts. Arriving at her desk, she sorted her email, discovering that Jack wanted to see her.
The problems with the prototype will just have to wait.
Reaching Verde’s office, she tapped lightly on the partially open door. Jack called from in front of the bar across the room.
“Hi, Jen. Come on in.” She stepped inside.
Decorated in dark woods and red leather, the space possessed the formal air of the exclusive men’s clubs of the nineteenth century. She suddenly felt small pings of anxiety race through her.
He placed an antique flintlock pistol on a wooden stand, the small brass nameplate glittering in a shaft of sunlight streaming through the window. The silver-inlaid firearm took its place among a collection adorning a series of small glass shelves, their staggered formation flanking both sides of the bar.
“New addition?” She asked hesitantly.
He smiled. “I found one that belonged to Samuel Adams himself. It was actually a gift from George Washington.”
She had no interest in firearms, antique or not, and knowing any response would seem contrived, she smiled uneasily and pressed on. “You wanted to see me?”
“Sit down, Jenny. I need to talk to you for a minute.”
She swallowed hard and walked toward the overstuffed wing-back chairs on the opposite side of his richly appointed office and sat down.
The face of Jack shaking hands with Presidents and celebrities stared out at her from the wall behind the enormous oak desk. Their two-dimensional eyes seemed to follow her, making her senses crackle with nervous energy.
He lit a cigar and spoke, the authority of his tone penetrating the puffs of smoke. “We need to talk about the particle manipulation project.”