Chapter Fifteen: Part Two
Harold drove them into the sunlight and traffic as Kate asked Rick, ‘So where are we going?’
‘My lab. I set up a temporary digital and physical lab just north of town. We had started the digital prototype mapping and the team was working backwards through the data packs Ashinkata and Rissi were trying to sell us when you caught wind of their scam. I feel like an old-time prospector when I hear myself say that there is something there, I just can’t see it yet.’
Rick picked a small satchel up from beside his seat and passed it to Kate. Opening it, she found a computer tablet and a spiral bound notebook, along with some pens and pencils. She also found an identity tag with her name on it tucked in an inside pocket, her ID photo lifted from the amiga’s business website.
‘The tablet is unlocked by your tag. We have some great programmers and physical modellers ready to test anything that looks like it might work. Our intent, if we can get it to work, is to license region-based production and installation on a charity and sponsorship model, and in such a way that third world and developing communities can afford them and have access to them.’
‘Motivated by what happened to the people of Alegria and the gold mine’s waste?’
‘Not only that, Kate. Most of us have served in some pretty abused areas, and the people in those spots, simple everyday people, are stuck with no choices. It is not penance or anything like that. It’s just something that needs fixing, and we are in a position to help. We know how things would have turned out for our people if my father, Dominique Sr. and Edward did not have the contacts and leverage that they had. International relocation of an entire village is not a solution that will work too many times. Folks have to be able to access clean water where they are, and clean water supplies are failing everywhere around the world.’ Kate lifted his hand to her lips and kissed him, loving the passion with which he spoke. For the duration of their commute, they discussed the engineering challenges of the venture.
During her introductions, Kate recognised some of the team member’s names from her professional life, and many of the others by reputation. One man had been a favourite lecturer and mentor in her post-grad degree and she gave him a warm hug. Rick smiled privately as he watched his entire staff fall under her spell. The ID tag around her neck gave her full rights in the lab; all doors opened for her and every computer switched on when she hit their enter key.
In the centre of the lab’s floor was an open space with two huge touchscreen displays. Rick touched one and called up the current plans of the design. He showed Kate how to operate the software for a few minutes and stepped back.
Spreading the plans over the two displays, Kate started analysing the project, familiarising herself with the general structures before spending half an hour examining the flow of energy within them from start to finish. Her father had always said, ‘To keep energy in a system, identify everywhere it’s lost and fix the biggest numbers first.’ She looked at the schematics, highlighting everywhere she suspected of wasting or losing energy. This was pure engineering and she loved it. She loved the feeling of unleashing her brain at a problem.
Her father, and his most trusted men, had nurtured the analytical skills she was now applying. She found herself thinking more and more of two in particular. Tyson and Eric would love this. It is so right up their alley. She remembered the two men who had helped raise her. They had been both Kate’s, and her father’s, principal advisors and problem-solvers. A thought was now screaming in her mind, trying to get her attention as she dropped another red circle onto a section of the schematics in front of her.
‘It’s about time you saw that one, missy,’ she heard from behind her.
Kate’s blood stopped, frozen. The part of her mind that had been trying to get her attention smugly reminded her that she had been thinking of those two because they were standing right behind her. Squealing, she spun and wrapped herself around both of them, unleashing an emotional flood containing the last ten months’ worth of feelings and experiences since she’d said goodbye to them.
After everyone in the lab had taken a few deep breaths, Rick asked, ‘I assume you remember these two gentlemen?’
Kate introduced the two men to Rick as her uncles. Their loving pride in Kate was clear as they teased her, telling Rick how much she used to pester them with brilliant ideas when she was growing up; adding that they also ended up using a few of her ideas as well.
Kate looked from her friends to Rick, her questions obvious on her face.
‘Knowing the challenges, I asked some colleagues for a list of names. Yours was at the top of those lists as well, Kate. Eric and Tyson unanimously came up as two men to call. That they can share some more information on my most cherished prize,’ he smiled broadly at Kate, ‘is, as Dom would say, merely a value-added bonus.’ Given the smiles on her old friends’ faces, Kate realised that her relationship with Rick was already in the open and accepted.
Eric, ever the practical one, grabbed Rick and Tyson’s shoulders and said to Kate with a wink, ‘Shall we solve this “crip” and make the world a better place?’
Rick looked over to a man at a nearby workstation. ‘Would you overlay our four maps please?’ Then he looked at Kate and asked, ‘Crip?’
‘Challenge Requiring Intelligent Persistence,’ she said to him.
Kate saw three more interpretations of the problem merged with her own, revealing only a few minor variations in their assessments. Coffee and food was consumed over the next twelve hours as, one at a time, the engineers addressed each challenge in turn. When the next shift of computer modellers had come in to relieve those still hard at work, nobody wanted to leave. These were not the sort of people to go home when problems were being solved. They all worked to model the ideas and thoughts flowing from the floor. One by one, the problems gave way until everyone conceded that there was no more for them to do until running a full scale digital simulation.
Rick said, ‘It will take six or seven hours for the computer whizzes to give us our first values. The floor above is all dormitory rooms. Can I suggest some shut-eye?’ Kate and her old friends nodded in agreement, reluctant to leave the dynamic of the room and the challenges it contained. Rick ordered more food to fuel the overnight effort of the programmers before showing the three friends upstairs.
~~~~~
A discreet knock woke them. ‘Yes?’ Rick called out.
From behind the door, a voice said, ‘The models are set up and ready to run, sir. The others are waking up too. Fresh coffees will be here in ten minutes.’
‘Thank you,’ Rick called back. They looked at each other for a moment before they started giggling. Overtaken by the efforts of the previous day, they had fallen straight to sleep after kissing and snuggling for a few moments.
Kissing Kate on the top of each breast, then along her neck to finish on her giggling lips, Rick declared, ‘To be continued.’ He rolled from the bed, collected two towels from a shelf and offered her his hand. Kate nodded and rose to join him.
Freshened by their shower and walking onto the main floor of the lab, the lovers saw Eric and Tyson standing with the leaders of the computer team. The old friends exchanged warm smiles in greeting, but the engineer in all of them was impatient to see how their efforts stacked up when they ran the model.
‘Sir?’ asked the man at the computer desk.
Rick looked at the faces around the room as Kate squeezed his hand. He turned back to the man. ‘Hit it.’
Ceremoniously pressing the ‘Enter’ key of his keyboard, the young man said with all the gravitas he could, ‘Running.’
Nearly twenty people gathered around the huge touch displays as they showed each sequence of the modelling simulation in turn. Numbers whirled across columns as different lines of text lit up and went dark. Everyone in the room held their collective breath, willing the model to work. The computer techs leaned in close, watching their screens closely as the numbers rolled to a stop, double-checking the run sequence.
‘It’s not a Not!’ the lead technician shouted. Quiet cheers and back-slaps went around the room in a chain reaction. An odd term, it meant that the design had not failed in a conservative general model. The judgement that it would actually work was a different thing altogether. This first test was to see if they could fail the design. If it passed this point, the time and effort to construct the far more precise models required to prove the design in full would be justified. Nobody was disappointed. Only the best designs achieved a positive at this stage, and happy chatter filled the room.
The celebrations began to falter as those closest to the large displays found a common focus. Kate and Tyson had brought up the schematics and both stood motionless and silent, each looking at different areas of the design. When Rick stepped behind them and held up his hand, silence fell over the room. Familiar with the process, every person there pulled back to allow whatever idea was blossoming to reveal itself. Kate and Tyson took a screen each and pulled up different parts of the schematic diagrams, the two friends sharing a single train of thought.
Rick watched something magical happening. They all did. Not a sound was made as the two minds worked in perfect synchronicity, each recognising the problem, and knowing the solution was just there, working their way to the same goal from opposite ends. Twenty minutes after the room first fell silent, Kate and Tyson both jabbed at the same points on the screen, their fingers touching and their words matching exactly. Discharging the tension that had built up in the room, everyone laughed for a moment before the room fell quiet again. Following Kate and Tyson’s directions, the computer techs quickly stripped the now redundant parts of the design away, allowing the pair to begin to reveal the basis of what they had seen over the next thirty minutes as the rest of the room sat still and watched.
‘Shiiiit!’ declared Eric in quiet admiration. A moment later, Rick saw it too. He stood, silently pointing and miming to assign tasks. Each person nodded as they understood their instructions, and within moments, barely audible murmurs were rolling around the room as the computer modellers sprang back into life with a new challenge before them. Kate and Tyson rode their wave of inspiration, designing a new technology in real time, their soft voices the only ones audible in the quiet room.
Hours passed with nobody daring to speak above the most discreet whisper, lest they interrupt the flow of innovation. Kate and Tyson just had to motion, point or speak. Two computer techs stood, one to the side of each, mapping the changes and ideas as they were decided upon. Rick saw tears of pride in Eric’s eyes as he watched the pair working at the main displays. He and Rick, with two others, were already working on the next steps and prioritising tasks to make the new ideas real.
Stillness fell over the room. A quiet cheer of respectful admiration rolled around the room when Kate and Tyson looked at each other and flew into a laughing hug.
Tyson said to her, ‘Still pretty sharp there, Missy!’ She could only hug him all the tighter. After they disengaged, Kate saw Rick and Eric leaving the computer-modelling people with huge smiles.
Rick said, ‘Let’s get some air. It will be a few hours before we can see what that brain-storm achieved.’
Stepping outside, the warm air and overhead sun surprised the four as they realised it was almost lunchtime. ‘Food is that way,’ Rick said, pointing up the laneway, whilst dialling a nearby pizza shop to order lunch for his staff. Glowing in their achievements, they walked in silence. By unspoken agreement and superstition, they didn’t discuss the solution currently being modelled. It was only when Eric broke at the café and told Kate how much he’d missed her that she lost it. After the tears had almost passed, Eric said to her, ‘Hey Missy, how are those tears going to solve any problem?’
Tyson leant over to fill Rick in, explaining that Eric had said that to Kate any time she let a problem overwhelm her when she was growing up. Looking to Kate, he said, ‘Katie, I am so glad you have found this young man. You need to listen to me now. You have to stop carrying all that guilt. There was something missing in that prick. We never liked him, but we never saw that in him either. None of us did.’
Kate leapt into Tyson’s lap, hugging him tight. Holding discreetly back, Rick wordlessly passed table napkins to the pair, his eyes soft. The tears eventually ran out and their conversation renewed.
After a three-hour lunch and too many coffees, a text appeared on Rick’s phone, announcing that the computer simulation was nearing readiness. He discreetly paid for lunch and walked the three back to the lab.