Читать книгу Qubit's Incubator - Charley Brindley - Страница 3

Catalina pushed open the door to find a large warehouse. She stepped inside, letting the door close silently behind her.

The place had apparently been some sort of assembly factory many years ago.

The underside of the corrugated ceiling was about seventy feet above her head. Twenty feet up, a wide balcony ran along the sides of the building. Many doors lined the outside perimeter of the balcony. A few were open, but she couldn’t see inside the rooms.

A large block-and-tackle hung from a steel girder. A metal hook, the size of a wrestler’s arm, was suspended below the rusting block on a rusting chain. Someone had hung a large doll from the hook.

Catalina tilted her head and squinted at the doll, which had a noose around its neck.

Is that Donald Trump?

The central open area of the huge floor had thirty desks placed haphazardly about. Most were occupied by men and women concentrating on their computers or building models of strange devices.

One young man glanced up at her, then returned to assembling a tall Tinker Toy gadget on his desk.

Surrounding the open area was a collection of cubicle work areas. She saw several rows of these cubicles, forming semicircles around and away from the open area, like an amphitheater. She could see into some of them, and most were occupied.

Find a vacant desk, he said.

Catalina walked through the open area, passing around a few cleared desks.

It’s so quiet in here.

Someone coughed. A chair squeaked. No other sounds could be heard. But there was an air of intensity about the place, like a classroom during a calculus exam.

She came to an unoccupied cubicle. She placed her iPad on the cleared desk and tried the chair. Leaning back, she gazed about at the blank walls of the workspace.

Just needs a few pictures to…

“Hey, Pissant.”

She almost fell over backwards. “W-what?” Looking up, she saw a young Black woman peeking over the wall.

“Pissants live in the bullpen,” the woman said. “You don’t become a drone until you’ve accomplished something.”

“Drone?”

“This cubicle don’t belong to you.” The Black woman disappeared.

Did she call me a ‘pissant?’

Catalina collected her iPad and went to the open area of the bullpen.

She found a desk with a Scotch tape dispenser, stapler, pencils, and an old-school computer.

Sitting at the desk, she opened her iPad and searched for a Wi-Fi connection.

“What’re you doing?”

She jerked around to see a scruffy old man with one hand on his hip and the other holding a steaming cup of coffee.

“I-I-I’m…”

“I-I-I’m…” he mocked her in a singsong voice. “Get out of my chair.”

Catalina grabbed her iPad, stood, and backed away. “Sorry.”

“Over there.”

The old man pointed with his coffee cup toward the edge of the bullpen, where a gray metal desk and matching chair stood like salvaged government-issued office furniture relegated to the outliers.

She went to the desk, and when she sat in the chair, she could feel the cold metal through the fabric of her skirt.

The desk was turned away from the others in the bullpen, facing a brick wall that looked more like a weathered outside wall than the inside of a building.

Her hand, as if by its own accord, felt for the pocket in her skirt. Slipping her hand into the pocket, her fingers searched for something. When they touched the smooth surface of one of the objects, she smiled.

High above was a large skylight providing a view of the blue sky, but only a dim gray glow came through the ages of caked-on grime.

Opening her iPad, Catalina searched again for a Wi-Fi signal. Finally, she found ‘Qubit Inc.’ The curser blinked, then a message popped up, demanding, ‘PASSWORD.’

She looked over her shoulder at the other pissants. They’re not going to be any help.

The ‘low battery’ LED began to blink on her iPad.

She saw an electrical outlet embedded in the brick wall, twenty feet away. She took the charging cord from her purse.

Six feet long. How am I going to reach that outlet? Move the desk? Glancing at the others, she shook her head. Invisible little pissant. That’s all I am. Do I really want to do this? At least at home I can charge up my computer and get online.

Turning back to her iPad, she tried ‘qubit’ for a password, then ‘Victor,’ but neither was acceptable.

If I try a third time, it might lock…

“Bullpen.”

Catalina turned to see a man standing behind her. “What the hell? I took a cubicle, and someone told me to go to the bullpen. I went there and found a desk. Then some snippy guy told me to get out of his chair and come over here. So now I guess this is your desk and I have to go back to the middle of the floor and wait to see if any desk remains unused. Why is everyone so mean in this place?”

The man smiled, watching her smolder.

“Well, at least you can smile,” she said, then closed her computer and rolled up the power cord.

He was about thirty-five, heavyset, with a shaved head and thick black beard. His faded blue shirt had long sleeves buttoned at the wrist.

He toyed with a red rubber band using a sleight-of-hand trick where the rubber band seemed to flip from one pair of fingers to the other two when he folded them into his palm, then opened them. Using his thumb so smoothly in his palm, it almost seemed like magic as the band jumped back and forth.

Tattoos of beautiful jaguars slipped from beneath his cuffs, sinking their bloody claws into the backs of his hands.

Catalina stood, ready to go look for another desk.

“‘Bullpen’ is the password.” His voice was soft, unthreatening. He sipped from his bottle of Coke.

“Oh.” She sat back down. “Thank you.”

She opened her iPad and typed in the password.

‘Qubit’s Incubator. Connected, secured.’

After opening a browser, she went online to her webpage.

A blurred view of the Alps filled the screen. As the panoramic image sharpened, it slipped into a video from the viewpoint of a drone aircraft approaching the tallest mountain.

“The Matterhorn!” the guy whispered.

Catalina nodded as she watched the screen.

The drone turned slightly to the right, flying toward a huge glacier. As the video zoomed in closer, a red dot appeared on the snow-covered ice field. The dot grew larger and became a woman in a red jumpsuit. She waved to the drone. Closer still, and one could see skis, ski poles, and a yellow backpack.

When the drone was a few feet away, the woman smiled, adjusted her goggles in place, then pushed off.

The drone turned to follow her down the slope as if it were on a pair of skis fifteen feet behind her.

“Wow,” the guy exclaimed. “You did the CGI?”

“Yeah. That twenty seconds of footage took three weeks of coding.”

“I believe it. Beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She looked up at him. “I’m Catalina.”

“Adu Dhabi Wilson.”

“Really?”

“I was born in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, when my parents were stationed at the diplomatic mission there.”

“So, I should call you ‘Adu’ or ‘Will?’”

“Most people call me ‘Joe’ or ‘Pissant.’”

She smiled. “I like ‘Joe.’”

“It seems you need an extension cord.”

“Yes,” Catalina said.

“And desk supplies.”

She nodded.

“Come on.”

Joe led her thorough the bullpen, where half of the twenty-four people looked up from their work, glaring at him as if he were a turncoat.

She followed him along an aisle between cubicles.

Outside the last ring of workspaces, he motioned to his left. “Kitchenette.” A few steps farther. “Bathrooms. And…” He came to a door beyond the bathrooms. “Supply room.”

He pushed open the door to reveal rows of metal shelves.

“Cool,” Catalina said. “Pencils, tape, staplers, tablets–”

“Extension cords.” He handed her a new cord, along with a surge protector.

“Great. Can I take some other things?”

“Sure. Take whatever you want. All this stuff’s for everyone’s use.”

She loaded her arms and started for her desk. “What’s the deal with the bullpen and the cubicles?”

“Something to drink?” Joe asked as he headed for the kitchenette.

“Yes.”

He tossed his empty Coke bottle in a trash bin and poured a cup of coffee. “If you take the last cup of coffee, start a new pot. We put away two or three gallons a day. Sodas and juice are in the fridge. If you see something running low, add it to this list.” He waved toward a dry-erase board on the wall beside the fridge. ‘Jif Crunchy Peanut Butter. Mayo. M&Ms’ were listed on the board. “We take turns on runs to the grocery store.” He opened a small canister. “This is petty cash for the store. The Good Fairy replenishes the cash when it runs low.”

Opening the fridge, he showed her the contents—Coke, 7-Up, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, juice…

“A bottle of OJ, please,” she said.

He reached for the orange juice, glanced at her load of supplies, then balanced it on top of her stack.

Closing the fridge, he led her back toward her desk. “When you’re accepted to incubate, they toss you into the bullpen to sink or swim. If, after the first thirty days, you’re still a viable tissue mass, you get a cubicle. Two months later, if the gods smile upon you, you rise to the top.” He pointed up.

Above them, Catalina saw the balcony going around the four sides of the bullpen and cubicle area. Two circular staircases led up to it. To the right, where Joe pointed, were fifteen doors. Some of them were open, but most were closed.

“What are they?” she asked.

“Private offices.”

“For who?”

“Monarchs.”

“Wow. And those, too?” She nodded to fifteen more doors on the left balcony.

A young woman with a Dr. Pepper went up one of the staircases and turned to her right, while the redhead from the outside office climbed the opposite staircase and went to one of the offices. She didn’t knock at the closed door, instead pushing it open and stepping inside.

“No. That side’s the dorm.”

“What?”

“Dorm rooms.”

“Who gets those?”

“The lucky ones.” Joe sighed. “How I would love to live up there.” They watched the other woman go into one of the dorm rooms. “Come on,” Joe said. “Let’s get you settled. I’ve got six days to become a drone, or die.”

“Will you make it?”

“Most pissants die of self-inflicted trauma before they metamorphosize into worker drones.”

Catalina leaned close to Joe. “Who’s that old pissant? The curmudgeon?”

“William Thomas Edison.”

“What’s he working on, a newfangled plow?”

Joe laughed. “He’s designing a system to collect water from the air using nanotubes.”

“Really? What’s inside the nanotubes?”

“No one knows. He’s not talking until he makes it work.”

* * * * *

After Catalina ran the extension cord from the outlet to her desk, she plugged in her iPad to charge the battery.

On her way back to the supply room, she stopped by the restroom. While washing her hands, her eyes fell on the cap of the cold-water faucet.

After drying her hands on a paper towel, she took two objects from her skirt pocket. The first was a small oval brass nameplate with ‘Evangeline Psychiatric Hospital’ engraved into the metal. The second was a micro screwdriver. She sipped the nameplate back into her pocket and removed the leather sheath she’d fashioned for screwdriver.

Working the sharp edge under the chrome cap on the faucet, she popped it off.

She rinsed the metal cap and dried it.

Holding it to the light, she admired the curlicue ‘C’ imprinted in the cap.

“Sweet,” she whispered. “A perfect oval.”

After removing the hot water cap, with its pretty ‘H’, Catalina cleaned it and dropped both caps into her pocket. She then slipped the screwdriver into its sheath and put it away.

In the storeroom, she found a desk lamp. She took the lamp and a box of colored chalk back to her workspace.

As she sipped her orange juice, she read research articles and doctorial theses from JSTOR—short for Journal Storage—a digital library of academic journals. Her interests were in the latest developments in organic electronics.

After two hours, she leaned back and rubbed her eyes. She looked at the brick wall for a moment, then up at the dim light coming through the dirty skylight.

Next, she read a scholarly thesis for over an hour, trying to decipher the technical jargon. At lunchtime, she went to the kitchenette, and in the fridge she noticed several containers with names written on them.

“Don’t touch anyone else’s food.”

The guy reached past her to take a pink Tupperware bowl with ‘McGill’ written on the side in black Magic Marker. He elbowed her out of the way to reach for a Snapple Peach Tea.

“Excuse me.” She stepped away from him.

Without replying, he took his bowl to the microwave. As his food warmed, he wrote ‘Chunky Beef Soup’ on the dry-erase board mounted on the wall where several other grocery items were listed.

He leaned back against the counter next to the microwave, folded his arms, and stared at Catalina.

His two-day-old beard was dark brown and neatly trimmed. His Persian blue eyes could have been cheering, had he let them. His longish hair was a shade lighter than his beard. Athletic and trim, he just missed being likeable.

She ignored him as she checked the freezer for something to heat for her lunch.

“Pissants eat Ramen Noodles.” He glanced at the timer on the microwave.

Catalina took a packet from the freezer; ‘Barbeque Beef and Rice.’ She read the instructions.

“Seven minutes,” he said when the microwave dinged.

“It says ‘Five.’”

“It takes seven, Pissant.” He took his hot food and cold drink, then brushed past her. “And clean up after yourself.”

She watched him go to one of the cubicles.

Obnoxious Drone dick.

She set the timer for five minutes.

After taking a Snapple Straight Up Sweet Tea from the fridge, she sipped it while waiting for her lunch to heat.

The barbeque beef was barely warm after five minutes. She set the timer for two more minutes.

Rude Drone McGill. He could have been nice about it.

She returned to her desk, and while eating, she found an article on synthetic nerves.

As she read about an artificial nerve system developed for use with prosthetic devices, she clicked on the links to more research papers.

Her forgotten lunch grew cold as she studied tiny organic circuits printed on a person’s skin.

Thirty minutes later, she was startled when her phone chimed.

“No phones!” someone shouted from behind her.

She turned to see several people glaring at her. The old man made a cutting motion across his neck.

After clicking her phone onto ‘Airplane mode,’ she answered the call.

“Hey, Cat. How’s it going?” Marilyn, her roommate, asked.

“I’ll text you,” Catalina whispered.

“Why can’t you talk?” Marilyn whispered also.

“Just text.”

“Okay.”

‘I just pissed off all the Pissants again with the phone call,’ Catalina texted to Marilyn.

‘You can’t use your phone in that stupid place?’

‘Apparently not. Like everything else, I learn by being yelled at.’

‘So, you got in?’

‘Only for thirty days. If I produce something in that time, I might get to stay longer.’

‘At least you’re in.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m ordering pizza. Cecil, Mack, and Debbie are coming over. What time will you be home?’

‘Don’t wait up.’

‘You ordering in?’ Marilyn asked.

‘No, they have food here.’

‘All right. I’ll see you when I see you.’

‘KK.’

Catalina went back to her reading and found a post-grad student at MIT had used a 3-D printer to produce a human-like hand with synthetic nerves.

She was startled by someone standing beside her chair.

The redhead she’d seen in Victor’s office stood staring at Catalina’s computer.

Oh, God. Another obnoxious Drone.

“What’s up?” Catalina asked. The redhead’s dangling jade earrings held her attention.

“It’s five after four, Saylor.”

Catalina glanced at the lower right corner of her screen. “Yes, it is. Thank you.” She stared at the redhead.

“You have an appointment with Mr. Templeton.”

“Oh, crap!”

She scooted back and grabbed a notepad. The woman led her toward the door of Victor’s office, opened it, then went in ahead of Catalina.

“Miss Saylor.” Victor waved her to a chair in front of his desk.

The redhead took the chair next to her. She crossed her legs, adjusted her emerald green skirt, and positioned a note pad on her thigh.

“What do you think of this place so far?” he asked.

Catalina thought for a moment. “Hostility, rudeness, everyone is mean…” She glanced at the redhead. “Except for Joe.”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy. Did you find everything you need?”

“I see we have printers, a scanner, and a copy machine, but no Three-D printer.”

“Why do you want a Three-D printer?”

“I want to print a hand, and also some organic circuits.” Catalina noticed from the corner of her eye the redhead looking at her, then the woman looked at Victor.

“What type of Three-D printer are we talking about?”

“A Dremel Three-D-Twenty.”

The other woman wrote on her notepad. “How do you spell that?” she asked.

Catalina spelled it for her.

“What will you do with the hand and circuits?”Victor asked.

“The echolocation AI program I’m writing will need tons of data for machine learning.”

“Yes, I suppose it will. What computer language are you using?”

“Python.”

“Is it hard to learn?”

“Well, if you’re familiar with Perl and Java, it’s not too difficult.”

“Hmm…I see.”

“What’s with the dorm rooms?” Catalina asked.

“Candidates with special circumstances will sometimes be assigned to a dorm room.”

“Define ‘special circumstances.’”

“After two weeks, if you’re still here, we’ll talk about that. In the meantime, I need your statements from the four credit card companies and any other past-due bills you have.”

“They don’t send paper statements anymore.”

“But you can email them to me, right?”

“Yes.”

“And your bank statement.”

Catalina glanced at the redhead, who was taking notes again.

“Mr. Templeton,” Catalina said. “Why do you need my financials?”

“Curiosity. Is it a problem?”

She shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Is there anything else you need?” he asked.

“AWS Cloud Computing would be nice.”

“Why do you need that?”

“My iPad won’t be able to handle the data-crunching.”

“We have a Power Edge T-Six-Thirty server.”

“I used that to get online, but it’s too old and slow. It would take a year to process one hour’s worth of data.”

“We’ll discuss AWS after two weeks. Anything else?”

Catalina shook her head.

Victor opened a manila folder and removed some papers. He slid them across the desk.

“What’s this?” Catalina asked.

“Our contract.”

She flipped through the papers. “Eight pages?”

“No, just four. There’re two copies.”

After reading the first paragraph, she turned to page four and saw a place for her signature. He’d already signed his name.

“Take it home with you tonight and read it over. You can sign it tomorrow.”

“And if I don’t sign?”

“Then we can’t help you.”

She stared at the contract for a moment. “Can you give me the abridged version? Just the high points?”

“It says Qubit’s Incubator agrees to provide a safe and quiet workspace for you in exchange for five percent of the net profits, if any, from any product or idea produced during the term of this contract. You may receive other benefits as deemed necessary.”

“It takes four pages to say that?”

“There’s a lot of legal details. That’s why I think you should take the time to read it before you sign you name.”

“What if I never produce a marketable product?”

“Then we terminate the contract, and you’re free to leave us, owing nothing.”

Catalina held out her hand to the redhead, palm up.

“What?” the redhead asked.

“Your pen.”

Catalina signed the first copy, passed it to Victor, then signed her copy.

“Okay.” He placed the contract in the folder. “How’s your workspace?”

“It’s fine. A little bleak, but that’s okay. What’s the work schedule?”

He handed her a key card. “If you leave after six p.m., be sure the door is locked. I expect everyone to be here from eight to five, except Sunday and Sunday Plus One.”

“Sunday Plus One?”

“We used to call it Monday, but we no longer have Mondays. On the day after Sunday, everyone comes in late and leaves anytime after two. Tuesday is the start of eight-to-five. Saturdays are casual, come in late, leave early. You’re free to come in on Sunday if you want to.”

“Okay. Do many people work late?”

“Most of the probationers put in a lot of time.”

“Probationers?”

“You’re here on probation for the first thirty days. I think probationers are called ‘Pissants’ out there.” Victor tilted his head toward the bullpen.

“Yes, and the Drones get cubicles.”

“They do.”

“And Monarchs get upstairs offices?”

He nodded.

“How does a Drone become a Monarch?” Catalina asked.

“Receive a patent on an idea or device.”

“A patent. Okay.”

“Do you have to give that café…” He glanced at the redhead.

“Hugo’s Blue Plate Special,” she said.

“How did you…” Catalina began. “Nevermind.”

“Do you have to give notice when you decide to quit?”

“It’s just a phone call. I don’t have to do anything like a two-week notice. Hugo can easily find someone to take my place.”

“You should probably make that call today.”

“All right.” She stood. “I better get busy.”

“Don’t forget those financials.”