Chapter Fifteen: Part Three
Looking like he wished it was a large red button; a young man had his finger hovering over his keyboard. The assembled men and women were silent and waiting with wide smiles. Many were officially off duty, but not one of them was prepared to leave. There were some things you just had to be there for, and this was one of them. Kate took Rick’s and Tyson’s hands in hers. Rick looked to her and squeezed her hand before nodding to the technician. On the large screens, everyone watched as the numbers started rolling, barely breathing. When the wide border of the main results window switched its display from red to white, excited whispers of ‘Break-even’ shot around the room. The computer simulation had passed failure already, and was only just past the two-thirds point of the run.
A restrained murmur revealed the tension in the room when the final numbers started rolling in and the display switched colours again, this time to green. The head computer technicians looked at their screens, double-checking the sequence before nodding to each other. The senior technician almost screamed. ‘It’s a Yes! It’s a Yes!’
Loud cheers erupted around the room as the staff swamped Kate and Tyson, all chatting excitedly and congratulating them. Kate looked up from the celebrations to see Rick standing next to an open laptop. Madison and Mason were on its screen, laughing and hugging. Kate realised the link was live when Madison waved her over from the monitor.
‘Congratulations, Kate. Sheer brilliance!’ Mason said over the link after she joined Rick in front of the laptop, with the rest of the team forming up to stand behind them.
‘It was a team effort, Mason,’ she said.
From behind her, Eric’s proud voice corrected her. ‘It was Kate and Tyson, sir, ma’am. You should have seen them! She’s a better bloody problem-solver than her old man by a good margin, and he was genius.’ Kate looked at him with a smile that melted his heart. ‘It’s true, Katie. You are the brightest I’ve ever worked with. Your dad would be proud.’
As Kate heaved again into Eric’s chest, wrapped in his bear hug, Madison wiped her eyes, having witnessed the exchange. Rick said to Kate with a smile, ‘They have been watching live all day.’
Still beaming, Mason said to his son, ‘Rick, let’s get the physical model happening as soon as you can configure the material data packs and specs; and make sure the lads can get hold of those materials? We’ll see you tonight.’ Rick nodded to the monitor, holding Kate around her waist. Mason said via the monitor, ‘Kate, we are sorry to have to take Rick away from you so soon. We will have him back as soon as we can.’
Seeing the questioning look on Kate’s face, he went on quickly, ‘Well done everyone. Well done and thank you.’ During the cheers, Rick and Kate waved before the computer screen went blank as Rick’s parents signed off.
Rick looked at Kate and said, ‘We have to go to Central America tonight.’ He added quickly, ‘We hope to be back in two weeks, Kate, three and a bit at the most if things go really well. I hope you know how hard the thought of leaving you is to me already, even if only for a short time?’
Kate broke protocol and kissed him in response, accompanied by subdued cheers and chuckles from everyone whilst they were doing their best not to look. Rick felt a surge of deepening emotion for her when she hadn’t made it about her, but understood and accepted that he had other demands on his time. Her mind excited and intrigued him.
After a few hours more, everyone was sure that they’d squeezed every significant and practical possibility from the new design for now. Rick had his own brain wave earlier in the day, taking his cue from Eric’s doodling, just as Kate and her father had on many occasions. Eric’s doodles were his way of thinking. Together they’d worked out a way to make the entire design scalable and modular. Fatigue started to fall upon the whole team shortly after that. It was time to send everyone home and let the physical modellers have their fun for the next few weeks building a prototype.
Rick said goodbye to Eric and Tyson before standing to one side to let Kate say goodbye to her friends. When she’d stopped looking at the empty street in the direction their cars had driven, he asked, ‘Kate, may I ask how you are feeling?’
She looked at Rick, not wanting to disappoint him but feeling the need for some distance. She knew that she needed some time to think over everything that had happened since dinner on Thursday evening. Honesty wins, every time.
‘Rick, I am tired to the insides of my bones. I feel exhilarated too, but mostly I want to sleep.’
‘I mean how are you feeling about us?’
She kissed him hard, and held him even harder in response. He only let his embrace around her release when they had both run out of breath.
Rick smiled. ‘Harold will take you home, Kate.’ He pointed to the waiting town car. ‘May I call you Tuesday? We are in deep bush until then and connectivity is likely to be patchy at best.’
‘You better, or else!’ Kate smiled, her mock fierceness giving way as he drew her head back by her hair, kissing her throat and making her moan loudly.
As Harold pulled the car over to stop outside her building, Kate thought that she’d almost fallen asleep at one point during the drive home. In fact, she’d been asleep before they’d left the driveway of the lab. Harold had made sure that the ride was extra-smooth as he drove her through the deep twilight of the spring evening before seeing her safely to the door of her apartment.
~~~~~