Zero-Point

by T J Trapp

  “Do you have anybody running your front office? Who answers the phone?”

  Sylvia gave him a sidelong glance and Alec realized that he was using outdated terminology.

  “When the boss man is not here, we all take turns tending our cells, entering ordering info, inventory, order processing, that sort of thing,” Sylvia answered.

  Alec thought to Erin, This place has all of the equipment that I will need. It works with the right exotic materials that I need to make a transporter that can send us home. This guy is in a hurry to sell. I think we can make a good deal at a cheap price. It’s not a good sign that he’s willing to sell so cheap, but we have enough money in our account to meet his price. What do you think?

  Erin thought back, These people are apprehensive about us and about what will happen with their business and their jobs. Your friend is very anxious to sell, even at the discounted price that you are offering him. I think we will find that all is not as rosy as he portrays it. However, I sense no overt lies, so the other issues are wizard issues that you must decide.

  Alec turned to the man. “All right. You drive a hard bargain. We will take the business based on the terms that you want. I can do the upfront payment now and we will return a percentage of the profits for the next five years to make up the balance.”

  The man looked very relieved. He shook Alec’s hand enthusiastically. “Let’s go in the office and close the deal,” the man said. “Congratulations. I hope that you can make it successful. I mean, continue to be successful.”

  ✽✽✽

  “This is now our place,” Alec said to Erin. It was late afternoon; the sales transaction was completed, the building lease and equipment transferred, and the man who had sold them the place had packed up his personal belongings and left.

  “Let’s meet our staff,” Alec said. “They’re probably wondering about us, and whether they still have jobs. And I’m wondering about them. I don’t know who all works here, or what they all do.”

  Erin asked Frederick to assemble the staff, and soon the entire team was standing around the machine shop. Over thirty people worked in the business. Alec introduced himself and Erin as the new owners. He told them that he intended to continue to keep the business viable, and that they would continue to have jobs. In addition, he told them, he intended to work hard to develop some innovative new products. Everyone looked very relieved when they went home for the day.

  It took several days for Alec and Erin to start to understand the business that they had purchased. Frederick put a new sign over the door: ‘A&E Enterprises.’ Erin took on the task of working with the staff and determining the real issues, while Alec worked with the key people on the delivery of the shop’s products.

  Erin had discovered a newfound delight in a little shop next to the hotel that they were staying. Donuts. This was a food that did not exist in Theland, and she found it exquisite. Glazed donuts, cake donuts, bear claws, eclairs, fancy donuts with cream fillings. All were a delight to Erin. By the second day, Erin decided that everyone in their new business should have donuts in the morning. She noticed a donut shop only a few blocks from their facility and walked across the industrial park, past boarded-up buildings and places with windows heavily protected with iron bars, to get to the small bakery; there she handed the clerk her cell and bought the entire inventory of donuts as well as a carafe of coffee. The owner of the bakery just shook his head when she told him she had walked down the street to specially buy his donuts. Erin walked back juggling the several large boxes of donuts without any problems although she could sense high levels of interest and concern from the few people who saw her.

  After the donuts were gone and everyone had returned to work, Erin met with Alec in the small front office that they had claimed as their personal area. “How do we make coins, with this business?” Erin asked. “I was not involved with the merchants at home, but my father taught me how to trade. I sense that our people are concerned.”

  “We make products here that people want to buy, and then we sell them,” Alec shrugged. “Just like any other business, I guess. I have never run a business either. We bought this place to make the stuff we need for our own use, not to make money.”

  “But our people …” Erin started, but was interrupted by a tap on the door. “Come in,” she said.

  Frederick stuck his head in their office. “Boss, we have an unhappy client coming this morning. He’s our major client, and will be here shortly. You should probably be involved in the meeting. It may not go well.”

  “Is there an issue?”

  “Not for another two weeks. After that there is a real issue.”

  “What?”

  “This client is the one we are currently doing most of our work for. We are providing him with dysprosium-tricarbide-infused neodymium magnets that he is using in one of his new battery applications. He is concerned about our ability to meet his production goals. He knows about our material problem. I assume the previous owner told you about the supply problem before you bought the business?”

  Alec had a blank look. “Why don’t you tell me about the problem, so that I will make sure I understand it.”

  Frederick sat down at the table with Alec and Erin. “We have committed to make a large number of components for this customer. Daniel and Sylvia can tell you about the details, but what I know is that we do not get paid unless we deliver all of the components on time. At the moment we are on schedule, but we have a little problem.”

  “What is the little problem?”

  “We are almost out of dysprosium pellets. We need almost another half-tonne to fabricate everything that we promised. Once we get the pellets, we’ll have no problem making the components. The problem is that our pellet supplier is in a foreign country. And, a business in that country has been competing with our customer to win a big contract with an aerospace company. Now, somehow the foreign bureaucrats have gotten involved – our competitor seems to have convinced someone in their government to restrict the dysprosium supply that can be exported.”

  “Can we get it from somewhere else?”

  “Not really. Over ninety percent of the commercially-available dysprosium in the world comes from this one area. We have been told the mining company will be allowed to ship our raw material as soon as it clears up some worker safety issues, but we have been told the same thing over and over again. I think they are just making up excuses, because they seem to have no problem shipping to our competitor! We run out of material in a week, and if we do not deliver, our customer will lose the competition. If they successfully stall for a few more weeks, the other company wins the contract and our guy tanks.”

  “So there’s no other suppliers?”

  “We could buy material on the secondary market – there’s a little bit available from time to time – but the price is so high that it would break us.”

  A car pulled into the front parking lot and a man got out and slammed the door.

  “There he is now,” Frederick said.

  Erin could sense the client’s high level of unhappiness even before he entered their building.

  The man came in the door and didn’t give them a glance. He walked straight into the conference room. Frederick and Erin and Alec followed him. As they walked in he said, “I didn’t come for pleasantries. I understand that your supply of a critical rare earth material has been cut off, and that you are in trouble on your delivery schedule. I know that you have brand-new owners to satisfy, but you are on my critical path for our success!” The man pounded his fist on the table and leaned forward menacingly. “If you do not deliver your components, on time, to meet specifications, we all fail to meet our product delivery! That is unacceptable!”

  “We … we …” Frederick stammered, but the angry man cut him off. “I tried to find someone else that can make your component, but it seems that there is no one else. If you do not succeed then we do not get this contract and none of us get paid!” The client jabbed his finger at
Frederick. “I suggest that you get on an airplane – today – and go resolve your supplier issue. Maybe you should get the new owner involved and get him on the airplane with you. Is that clear?”

  Frederick didn’t know what to say and just stood there stammering. Alec waited a moment and then responded. In an even voice, he replied, “We understand your concern. I suggest that you run your business, and let me run mine. We will make sure that we have enough material and that we meet your schedule.”

  “And who are you?” the man almost shouted.

  “I am one of the new owners,” Alec replied.

  “Would you like a donut?” Erin said brightly. She twisted the lines. The man looked at Erin and smiled.

  “No thank you,” he said to her. Then he turned back to Frederick. “I have delivered the message that I came to give. I did not come for donuts, I came to make sure that you deliver what we need.” He nodded politely to Erin and turned and walked out the door. He left the building much calmer than when he arrived.

  As soon as the client left, Daniel and Sylvia crowded into the meeting room. They are worried, Erin thought to Alec.

  I know, he thought back. So am I.

  Daniel blurted out, “Mr. Thelander, we didn’t want to say anything while the client was here, but – unless we get more material, and very soon, we cannot do what you said. I don’t know how much you have worked with material suppliers before, but …” The young man shrugged his shoulder helplessly.

  “Show me the material that we are running out of,” Alec requested.

  Daniel led the way across the machine shop to a back supply room.

  “Does the rest of the staff know about this problem?” asked Alec.

  “Of course they do,” Sylvia answered. “They can see the inventory sheets, but they are trusting us to do our job.” She stopped before a locked door and pulled out a key from a big ring clamped to her belt. “Here is the materials storeroom. We keep the important materials under strict control.” She unlocked the door, and they stepped inside the storeroom. “There are my last three containers of dysprosium pellets,” Sylvia pointed.

  Focus. Alec sensed the material. “Let’s see what we can do. I think we can make a hundred pounds or so of material before the end of the day. Do we have any scrap materials we can use as filler?”

  “Scrap materials? Like what?”

  “Oh, like sand … or metal scrap … something like that.”

  Sylvia replied, “We have several thousand pounds of sand out back that we use in the casting process. Once it gets contaminated, we don’t reuse it. When we get enough, I send it out to the industrial dump. Will that do?”

  “Perfect,” Alec said, and went to work. He commandeered a workbench in the materials processing area. Two workers bought in a wheelbarrow-full of sand. Alec took a big scoop of it and poured it on his workbench. Focus. The dark energy swirled, and the sand transformed from a pile of sand into a small gray lump. “Not quite right,” Alec muttered, and put another scoop of sand on the workbench. Again the dark energy swirled, and a small pellet with a metallic silvery luster sat where the sand had been.

  “That should be the right stuff,” Alec said.

  Daniel watched in amazement. “How …” he began, and then fell silent.

  “Sylvia, please give me a couple of the dysprosium pellets,” Alec directed. Wearing heavy gloves so as not to contaminate the specimens, she placed two pellets on his workbench, then looked at him, askance. Alec put a heap of sand on his workbench. He focused and created a pellet of material with the same dark energy feel as the dysprosium. Then he created three more pellets.

  Erin stood next to him; while Alec focused, she helped him sense the pellets. Two felt right, and two felt slightly wrong. He slid the two good pellets into containers and sealed them. Alec focused and modified the two defective pellets until they felt right. He created four more pellets before he ran out of sand.

  “Sylvia. Take these pellets and have them analyzed. See if they meet our quality requirements. I think they will be as good as the other pellets that we have.”

  “Yes, Boss,” Sylvia said, uncertainly, looking from Alec to the canisters with the pellets, and then back to Alec.

  “We will see you in the morning,” Alec said, and brushing the few remaining crumbs of sand from his hands, Alec and Erin left the building.

  ✽✽✽

  The next morning, Erin brought the usual box of donuts for the staff. Daniel cornered Alec and steered him into the front office away from the others.

  “Boss, Sylvia did the assay on your material after you left last night. It is good material – as good as what we get from our overseas supplier. If you approve, I will tell her to start the chemical processing so that we can make components with it.”

  He stopped and looked at Alec, hesitated, then continued. “I don’t know how you did it, but I think you must have used dark energy to make that dysprosium out of the sand. I’ve studied about dark energy, but I have never seen anyone actually use it. No one has used dark energy for almost two decades. It has been considered too dangerous. I was taught that it required a huge collector in order to do anything with it. They don’t even teach about it now, except in obscure physics classes in college.”

  “You studied physics in college?” asked Alec.

  Daniel looked slightly embarrassed. “No, I studied mechanical engineering. I have a degree in engineering, but I was always interested in dark energy, so I took a class about it. It was a 400-level course that was based around solving the dark energy field equations that were developed by one of the pioneers in the field, someone named Holden. We didn’t get to do anything practical or use dark energy to make anything, but it was interesting.”

  “Well I guess my little secret is out of the bag. Yes, I used dark energy. I am familiar with the work of Dr. Holden.”

  Daniel’s eyes widened with excitement. “I knew it! Can you make some more of the material today, and can you teach me how to do it?”

  “Certainly. I would be glad to show you.”

  ✽✽✽

  Back at his workbench, Alec decided he should establish some protocols, and he and Daniel each donned an industrial lab apron and some safety glasses. Alec lectured as they worked to create more of the pellets.

  “When we transform something with dark energy, we have to scavenge the same number of quarks from the surrounding materials. That why we need the sand – it serves as our source of quarks. For our rare earth dysprosium pellets, we require a big pile of sand because the dysprosium is almost five times as dense as the sand.

  “Using dark energy is both straightforward and very complex. It requires the use of an auxiliary source, a medallion, to generate the proper flow of energy. I have an extra medallion that I can let you use until you are capable of making your own. The medallion is made up of tricrystals – they are what allows you to focus dark energy.

  “Once you can focus the dark energy, you can use mental imaging – your imagination – to manipulate the dark energy into a useful form. That form can be translated through dimorphic translations into any equivalent shape. When you release the dark energy, you have changed the local space into what you imagined. When we have finished making these pellets, I will let you practice. I want you to start by simply using the medallion to sense the energy while I make some pellets.”

  Daniel quickly caught the hang of how to focus and by lunchtime had managed to use dark energy to convert a scoop of sand into a lump of indistinguishable material.

  “Time for lunch,” Alec said.

  “Whew!” Daniel said. “That requires a lot of mental energy! It taxes my brain!”

  “Yes, said Alec smiling, “it can be quite exhausting.”

  As Alec and Erin finished their lunch, Frederick came into their office. “Boss, I hate to trouble you, but we have another problem.”

  “Besides the dysprosium?” Alec asked.

  “Yes – and this one doesn’t have anything to do wi
th material supply – it’s is much more difficult. It has to do with the staff here.” He took a deep breath and launched into the issue. “Our people need to get paid. Our old boss didn’t make payroll last week, and most of the staff didn’t get paid. I need some help coming up with enough money this week to make two weeks’ payroll.”

  “How much is that?” Alec asked, and winced when Frederick told him the amount. “That is more than the amount of cash I have remaining in my cell account. I guess we will have to go to Plan B.”

  “I hope Plan B is not: ‘forget to pay everyone for another week,’” Frederick said with a sour face.

  “No, no,” Alec reassured him. “We’ll figure something out.”

  He walked back to his workbench. Daniel and Frederick both followed him.

  “Daniel, you can help me. Sense with your medallion and I will show you how to feed extra dark energy to me. This task will be much easier with a little extra dark energy.”

  Alec showed Daniel how to focus, and then Alec focused. He let the dark energy that he generated flow, and then he touched the stream of dark energy that Daniel was generating. He combined the two streams of dark energy and focused them into the product he wanted. He released the energy and made sure that Daniel had successfully released his focus also. Some of the sand converted to an ingot of bright, shiny metal. He handed the ingot to Frederick. “Here – have Sylvia do the chemical analysis on this material. It should test as pure gold. If it does, then sell it and use it for the payroll.”

  Frederick was silent for a moment as he held the still-warm ingot. He stared at the heavy bar in his hand, then at Alec, then back at the gold. “No problem, Boss,” he finally replied. “I will tell our buyer that we are selling some of our precious metal inventory to meet payroll. They won’t find it strange. The workers will all thank you when they get paid.” He smiled at the ingot. “So will I.”