Читать книгу Qubit's Incubator - Charley Brindley - Страница 4

At 7:30 p.m., Catalina heated a cup of Ramen noodles.

“How you liking those noodles?” a slim Black guy asked as he took a glass bowl covered with aluminum foil from the fridge.

“Not bad,” Catalina said. “I like them because they’re quick and easy.”

The microwave dinged, and she took out her steaming mug, while holding the door open for him. “Your turn, Drover.”

He wrinkled his brow. “You know me?”

“Yes, and also your name is on the tin foil.”

He laughed.    “Call me ‘Alex.’” After removing the foil, he placed his bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy in the microwave.

“I’m Catalina Saylor.”

“Really? Catalina is an island. How you spelling that last name?”

She spelled it.

“Cool play on words by your parents. An island and a sailor.”

“Yeah, they were pretty cool.”

He glanced at her but didn’t ask about the word ‘were.’ “Whatcha working on?”

“Converting echolocation sound waves to tactile impressions.”

“Holy crap.”

“I know, and I have only twenty-nine days left to prove the concept. How about you?”

“I’m working on flexible solar cells,” Alex said.

She sipped from her cup of noodles. “How flexible?”

“Like a cloth that could be made into clothing.”

“Nice. I could take a walk in the sunshine and charge my dead phone at the same time.”

“And your boyfriend’s phone, too.”

“Screw him,” she said. “He can get his own charger.”

“Ouch, harsh. What he do to you that’s so bad?”

“He dumped me. I’ve got to get back to it.”

“Yeah, me, too. I got seven days till I drop dead.”

“You’ll make it,” she said.

The microwave dinged. “Later.”

At the edge of the bullpen she noticed a large chalkboard on the wall next to a projection screen. It had a list of names, dates and information. Across the top was ‘Patents Granted.’

The first one was Wayne Ponicar, Therapeutic Water Body.

Next was Dwight Calister, Stair Climbing Wheelchair.

Followed by several more names and their inventions.

When she walked back through the bullpen, she saw nine people still working.

As she ate at her desk, she watched a YouTube video of a prosthetic hand. She turned off the sound so she wouldn’t get yelled at.

Halfway through her noodles, she began coding a new program.

When she leaned back to stretch her arms over her head, she realized it was after midnight. Swiveling around in her squeaky chair, she saw all the pissant desks were vacant. Through the doorway into one of the cubicles, she saw a guy working at his computer.

Drone dick McGill. Why are you still here?

She shrugged and turned back to gaze at her brick wall. After a moment, she stood, shoved her chair out of the way, then pulled the desk away from the wall.

She noticed McGill scowl at her when the screeching of the desk on the concrete floor caught his attention. She ignored him.

In front of her desk, she stared at the bricks for a moment, then opened her box of colored chalk.

Around 1 a.m., Catalina heard McGill make a lot of noise at his desk, apparently preparing to go home.

I guess he wants me to know he’s leaving. Good riddance to an ugly annoyance.

She didn’t turn to give him the satisfaction of knowing how irksome she thought he was.

It was after 4 a.m. when she went out through the side door, then checked to be sure it locked behind her.

* * * * *

Catalina got almost three hours of sleep, then rode her moped back to the Incubator.

With a cup of coffee and cream-filled donut from a Krispy Kreme box left over from the day before, she was back at her coding.

At 9:30, Joe came to her desk.

“You’re drawing something on your wall,” Joe said.

Catalina looked at it for a moment. “Yeah, I started on it last night.”

“What’s it going to be?”

“Not sure yet. What’s your project?”

“Telephoto glasses.”

“Really?” She was quiet for a moment. “How do you control them?”

“It’ll be a heads-up display on the inside surface of the glasses. Eye movement will turn it on and off, and operate the amount of zoom.”

“I would love to have a pair of those,” she said. “I could be on a road trip and zoom in on a mountain range in the distance without ever taking my hands from the wheel.”

“Exactly.”

“Cool idea.”

“Thanks,” Joe said.

“Who’s that redhead?”

“Victor’s assistant, Tracy.”

“She’s not very friendly.”

“All business,” Joe said. “Well, back to work.”

* * * * *

In the outer office, Tracy pulled open her desk drawer. She picked up a dangly earring with an oval jade stone encircled in gold and slipped it through the hole in her left earlobe. When she looked for the second one, it wasn’t there. She shoved aside pencils and paperclips but couldn’t find it.

“What the hell?” she whispered as she opened another drawer.

* * * * *

At 3 in the afternoon, two workers wheeled a large crate up to the side of Catalina’s desk. Without a word, they opened the box and removed bubblewrap.

Catalina grinned. The 3-D printer!

Tracy came to watch the men work.

They soon had the machine setup and plugged into Catalina’s surge protector.

One of the men turned it on and ran some diagnostics, while the other man cleaned up the packing material.

Apparently satisfied all was in order, the guy handed a clipboard to Tracy. “Your signature, please.”

Tracy signed the form, then traded the clipboard for a thick manual.

The two men took the crate and packing material and left the building.

Several people in the bullpen stared at Catalina, Tracy, and the new printer.

After Tracy gave the manual to Catalina and started for the outside office, one of the pissants asked, “Why does she get a Three-D printer?”

“Beats the hell out of me, Crammer.” The door swished closed behind Tracy.

As Catalina read the manual, McGill came to examine the printer.

“Why do you get a Three-D printer?” he asked.

“It’s not mine, McGill. It belongs to the Incubator.”

“How can we use it when you have it way the hell over here?”

“It has Wi-Fi. If you’ll get your crayons and a large poster board, I’ll try to draw a picture of how a Wi-Fi peripheral device can be connected to a server. The drawing will be big and simple, something you might comprehend.”

Joe laughed as he left his desk in the bullpen.

McGill turned to glare at Joe when he came toward them.

Joe smiled at McGill.

“I know how Wi-Fi works, Pissant,” McGill snapped. “But why didn’t they install it next to the server instead of way the hell over here?”

Catalina took a 32 gig memory chip that came with the instruction manual and plugged it into a slot on her iPad. “That’s something you’ll have to take up with Tracy.” She flipped a page in the manual.

* * * * *

By 5 p.m., she’d installed the nylon filament roll that came with the printer and was ready to print the sample image from the memory chip.

As the printer hummed and nylon filament was pulled into the print head, a bright red object began to form.

Several pissants and two drones came to watch as layer upon layer built up on the bed of the printer.

“What is that?” someone asked.

Catalina shrugged as she watched.

“Some sort of statue?” another pissant asked.

“Maybe.”

“It’s a chess piece,” Joe said.

Catalina smiled.

“A knight.”

“Yeah,” McGill said. “A knight.”

It took only five minutes to produce the three-inch tall knight.

Catalina cut it free from the printer bed, examined it, then handed it to Joe.

“Nice.” Joe passed it to McGill.

“The edges are rough,” McGill said.

“So?” Journey Covey, the Black woman who’d told Catalina to get out of the cubicle, took the knight from McGill. “Five minutes ago, it was just a coil of red nylon string.”

“Can a Three-D printer print a Three-D printer?” Joe asked.

Everyone stared at him.

“Probably the outside parts,” Catalina said. “But not the internal structure, or the electronics and coding.”

“You could print all the parts,” Journey said. “But you’d have to code the programming.” She passed to knight to another drone.

“What are you going to print next, Catalina?” Joe asked.

Using her phone, she clicked a photo of him. “Your hand.”

* * * * *

It was almost midnight when the last pissant left the building. All the drones and monarchs had left hours before.

Catalina went to the storeroom and took a spray bottle of Windex, along with a roll of paper towels.

She opened a back window and stepped out onto the fire escape.

After glancing around, she went up the metal stairs to the roof, then made her way along the parapet in the dark until she came to the skylight above her desk.

She looked down at her workspace for a moment, then at the bullpen and rows of cubicles.

It took a lot of Windex, and a half-roll of paper towels, but she finally cleaned away the years’ accumulation of crud, leaving the glass sparkling in the moonlight.

* * * * *

The next morning at sunrise, she was back at her desk. The glow from above, cast her work area in a warm, yellow radiance. Turning in her chair, she saw the bright sunlight painting the far wall in golden orange while filling the whole place with beautiful natural light.

Just before seven, McGill came in and glanced about, smiling. When he saw Catalina watching him, he frowned. She duplicated his ugly grimace.

The brightened work area seemed to cheer everyone else as they came in, even old man Edison.

“When did they clean your skylight?” Joe brought his coffee and a spare chair to her desk.

“I have no idea.” She grinned. “It was like that when I got here.”

“You know…” He sipped his coffee. “That cleaning guy could have slipped and fell off the roof in the dark.”

“Or he could have fallen through the skylight.”

“Yeah, that would’ve made a mess on your desk.”