The Far Side

by Wylie, Gina Marie

  He gestured to Kit. “I will make Kit my representative to you and give him nearly a carte blanche. I ask three things of you in return.”

  “We’re going!” Andie said, her voice bitter.

  “We’re back to wondering how you’d react if I kept interrupting you, Andie. Could you at least exercise some common sense for a few minutes and hear me all the way out?”

  Andie nodded, but every sinew in her body spoke of her distrust.

  “The first thing I ask of you is that, when you start making more money than you’re spending, you pay me back for anything I’ve spent on this, dollar for dollar.”

  Kris frowned, her eyebrows furrowing. “Dollar for dollar? What about profit?”

  He sighed exasperatedly. “What is it with you two? You want to kill the golden goose? Shoot the messenger? Can you button it up for another couple of minutes?”

  Kris subsided, not used to her father in his angry mood.

  “Second, once you’ve banked a few hundred million, I would be obliged if you would look over some of the projects I’m working on, and invest a little money in one or another. Or several others. As you may have heard, I actually return money to my investors. This would help me and make you some money in return.

  “And, last but not least, I will hire for you recognized experts in various fields, including weapons and personal defensive arts. Experts of your choosing. All I ask of you in that regard is that you listen to their recommendations -- not read the memo -- but listen to their briefings.

  “That’s it.”

  Andie reacted first. “That’s it?”

  “That’s right, that’s it.”

  “And we can do what we please?” Andie asked, clearly not believing him.

  “Kris is eighteen, Andie. You nearly are. I can’t legally make Kris do anything, and your father isn’t going to bother, is he? And, in not very many days, you’ll be eighteen yourself.”

  “And that’s all?” Andie said, highly suspicious.

  Oliver laughed. “Well, I just thought of another thing, and you’re right to be suspicious. I want to be kept informed of your activities... before the fact would be ideal, but not too much after the fact will suffice. I would like, on occasion, to be allowed to offer my advice, as today, with a minimum of interruptions.”

  “And that really is the final requirement?” Andie asked, her voice filled with sarcasm.

  “Sure.”

  “You two,” she gestured at Kit and Oliver, “get the fuck out of my house. Wait on the street.”

  They went out the door and Andie looked at Kris. “I don’t trust the fucker, no offense.”

  “Andie, yesterday it was your idea to enlist his aid. Now, he’s offering it on terms I wouldn’t have imagined possible.”

  “He’s got a hidden agenda.”

  “And you think he wouldn’t have an agenda if we’d hit him up like you asked yesterday? My father is a businessman. Contracts are his lifeblood. We get him to sign a contract with these terms. Slam dunk.”

  “You really trust him?” Andie asked.

  “He’s my father. I understand about yours, but this is my father we’re talking about. If I can’t trust him, my life is so screwed up I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “You and I go to the same high school. We know kids whose parents have totally fucked them over.”

  “We do,” Kris told her. “But usually they were blind to the clues. I have no hint he would ever do something like what you’re saying, Andie. Again, if I can’t trust him, I need to reevaluate how much I trust everyone in the world -- even you.”

  Andie stuck her tongue out. “Okay, I agree. But Kit... the fucker ratted us out.”

  “He did,” Kris told her friend.

  “On the other hand, Andie, my father has a saying he uses often, when someone on his crew makes a decision on his or her own that turns out to be right.”

  “And that would be?”

  “It’s easier to explain than to ask permission.”

  “Undoubtedly that means something to you -- to me, it’s gibberish.”

  “It means that sometimes if you have a good idea, you have to have the balls to get it done -- because if you ask if you could or should do it, the conservative line will be two thumbs down.”

  “So, you’re saying we should just ignore him ratting us out?”

  “Good God, no!” Kris said. “He goes on probation! We watch him like a hawk. One more fuck up and he can watch what we do in the documentary.”

  Andie guffawed. “Hopefully, we can get that camera back.”

  “First we have to fix the machine.”

  “Well, I have enough to get started on it later.” Andie waved at the front door. “I’m here to say, I am a little daunted by what’s in front of us. We need to do some research on parameterization. We need to build a couple of these things for power production; we need to do a lot of things. That’s going to need money and bodies. We sure as hell need to have more secure communications and better fallback options. Kris, one of those laser ranges was nearly two hundred feet from where we entered that chamber. I was shooting at one of the dark spots opposite us.

  “If we’d been two hundred feet further away, we’d never have heard you. And unless I’m sorely mistaken, the radios might possibly work that far, but they may not be much better than a shout. That’s a lot of solid rock in there.”

  She waved towards her closet. “This is like playing Russian roulette with a gun with five loaded cylinders. I made that blue door twenty times, and kept it open a total of about four hours. Those aren’t the kind of odds we should be comfortable with.”

  Kris reached out and touched Andie’s arm. “Once in twenty? I think that’s about as safe as the Space Shuttle.”

  “Half as safe,” Andie corrected. “Still, way too dangerous!”

  “So, we call them back?” Kris asked.

  “Yes. We get more information about what your father is willing to do. For the time being, we’re going to have to trust Kit. I’m not sure how I can do it long term, though.”

  Kris opened the door and gestured to the two men standing out by the street to come in.

  “We’re ready to deal,” Andie told Oliver Boyle. “I can’t get that contract for you before next week. What I will do is write up a memo of understanding tonight, email it to Kris, and you can sign three copies by breakfast tomorrow. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Yes,” he told the young woman.

  “How much are you willing to shell out?”

  “You have money of your own. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re still planning on going to college.”

  “Fuck no!” Andie said, chortling. “What the fuck for? A stupid ticket punch? One day the bastards at Caltech will give me an honorary doctorate. I’m in no hurry.”

  Oliver looked at Kris. “I have never made suggestions to you about college or your major have I?”

  “No,” Kris replied.

  “Now, I offer you some advice. Kit tells me this is the greatest thing since the steam engine. I imagine Andie would say something of a similar vein. I think, on balance, Andie is right about this. If the two of you bring this to fruition, you can write your own tickets... or if nothing else, you would no longer be in a position where you care.”

  He looked at Andie again for a few seconds. “This is just me, Kris’ father speaking, okay? Not the prick who just talked to you about contracts. This is your idea, Andie, and I don’t want you to lose a single iota of the credit you should get for it.

  “That said, Kris has a practical bent. Please, give her a role beyond that of holding your toolbox.”

  “It was my idea, Kris had nothing to do with it. But you’re right -- Kris has a lot of practical ideas. Trust me; she’ll never be relegated to holding the toolbox. I’m saving that for Kit.”

  Kit chuckled. “Speaking of that, I talked to your principal today as well as your physics teacher. The next time the two of you should bother with them is g
raduation night. Don’t bother to go to class tomorrow -- it’s senior ditch day.”

  “We already had it,” Kris told him.

  “Yeah, but you two get a second award,” Oliver told them dryly. “The diplomas are already printed and in a stack on the man’s desk. No sweat.”

  “And the valedictory?” Andie asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Kit replied.

  “I was going to be valedictorian.”

  “Nothing was said about it. I’ll check tomorrow and find out. I can’t imagine there being a problem. Tomorrow you can be here, doing your thing.”

  Kris saw her father was looking at her. It wasn’t exactly obvious, but he was thinking about something. “Dad, you have something to say?”

  “General things,” he told them. “Andie, I don’t want to get your back up, okay? So if I say something stupid and obvious, write it off to my being stupid.

  “You two need to sit down and think about where you want to go from here. A research plan, so to speak. I assume you want to get this machine fixed up.” Both Andie and Kris nodded.

  “Fine, but you need to have a plan, listing your goals. If I’m not mistaken, you are going to need more bodies, but you are concerned about confidentiality, among other things.”

  “Yes, sir,” Andie said, sounding subdued. “There’s no way to deny it -- there’s a fucking lot to do, and without more hands, it’s going to be slow. Maybe too slow. If we go too slowly, we might be tempted to take shortcuts. That wouldn’t be good.”

  “There’s a studio on a lot in Hollywood,” he told them. “It has seen better days, but they have a dozen sound stages. They’ve been rotating them, so they all get some use, so the sound stages aren’t covered in cobwebs, but the fact is, they’ve never had more than seven in use at once.

  “The sound stages are great big barns with a lot of useless shit that only a set designer could love. Do you want two or three?”

  Andie didn’t even blink. “Three, I think. Another full machine like this here and two power fusors.”

  “I know you’re not happy with Kit, but he is going to be my representative with you. You don’t have to cut him in on anything you don’t want, but you’ll be making a mistake if you don’t. He was telling me earlier about how poorly a lot of his classmates are being paid.

  “These are sound stages on a movie studio lot. I’m sure you want some security on them, and on what you’re doing. Just tell people you’re making a science fiction movie and the script is secret. I can supply you with industry standard non-disclosure forms. As more than one person has found out, you really don’t want to mess around with those.

  “I can get you standard set security -- rent-a-cops who would never dream of going through the door to the sound stage.” He waved at Kris. “You might want to think about the whole ‘we’re-making-a-movie’ meme. It will cover everything you are likely to do. You, Andie, can be the set designer and can order anything you wish. Kris is known all over town as a cracker-jack cinematographer, so she’d be heavily involved in set concepts. Kit is now my guy there, and you can tell people that I’m acting as a senior producer and that maybe I might get more involved as the process goes along. Right now, you’re in pre-production, including concept stuff.”

  Andie looked at Kris. “You know more than I do about this shit.”

  Kris laughed. “I’d never have thought of this, Andie! It’s perfect! We’ll have security, lots of room, and a cover story. We can do like Dad says -- whatever we please. Anything you do would be covered up as movie planning details. You have no idea what they do sometimes, it’s incredible!”

  The two nodded at each other. “Okay,” Andie told him.

  Oliver nodded. “That’s it then. Get the memorandum of understanding to me as soon as possible. You don’t have to use Kit’s name, but a representative of mine will be present as you wish. Andie, I can’t stress this too much -- trust is a two-way street. You want me to trust you. If you don’t trust me, it should be clear that I’m not going to trust you. Keep Kit or whoever, if Kit doesn’t work out, filled in. I’m not insisting on it, but you’d be making a huge mistake not doing so.”

  “I can fire him?” Andie asked, her eyes gleaming.

  Kris nudged her friend: please don’t!

  “Not arbitrarily. If you give me a good reason, yeah, you can. But again, we get back to trust issues, Andie. Fire everyone I send and you’re making a pretty blunt statement... and I’ll have a reserved right to cut off the money, in that case.”

  Oliver spoke his last bit. “Kit and I will leave you alone, now. Kit, hand them each your card.” Kit handed them out. “Tomorrow, you don’t have anything more important than this. Not until a week from Saturday when you graduate do you have anything better to do. Call Kit tomorrow for help. For one thing, he’ll have information about the sound stages.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Kris said mildly.

  The two men left and the two young women looked at each other. “You’re not upset I’m cutting you out of this, are you?” Andie asked abruptly.

  Kris laughed. “This is yours, Andie. Dad made it clear it’s yours. I swear to you, I know him. He’ll go all out to make sure you get credit. In Hollywood, you are so totally screwed if you try to steal other people’s ideas.”

  “You trust him?”

  “Andie, he’s not your dad, okay? When your dad is in the house, I lock the bathroom door when I have to pee. I’ve never felt like that around my dad.”

  Andie giggled. “You don’t want to know, but you don’t have to worry about that, not from him.”

  “Well, trust me; my dad is someone you can trust. Someone we can trust. Yeah, I thought he’d throw a fit, but I forgot I’m eighteen. He can’t.”

  “And I have two weeks,” Andie huffed a sigh.

  “So, Kris, now what?”

  “I’ve watched the production managers on some of Dad’s projects. They keep track of what’s spent on what. We’re going to have to do a lot of work, Andie, to get this right.”

  “Can’t we just say, “fuck it!’ and hire someone?”

  “Sure... but if you don’t have your finger on them, they can do things you really wish they hadn’t. It didn’t happen to Dad, but to another guy a few years ago. The production manager was pocketing a lot of money. A lot. It nearly sank the project; it did cripple it. You have to supervise people, Andie, because if they think you don’t care -- they stop caring.”

  “This is going to be a headache.”

  “Andie, again, going back to what I know. In movies, every day you spend in pre-production saves you hours on the set. For a typical movie, Andie, they might be paying forty thousand dollars a day for equipment rental, maybe a couple of hundred thousand for the talent -- the actors. Another hundred thousand for the crew. Some movies cost a half million dollars a day in production, Andie. You can’t screw around with that kind of money. Planning is everything. It can save you a million headaches down the road.”

  “I just want to do my thing,” Andie said forlornly.

  “Yeah, but do you want to do it half-assed once, or right a whole bunch of times? With good people and good gear and a good chance of coming back?”

  “I’m not Joan of Arc; I have no desire to be a martyr.”

  “Then we need to sit down like Dad said, and do priorities. We’re going to need equipment, people, and all sorts of stuff. Then we need to get it put together. We need a reason for everything we do, so we don’t go shooting off on a tangent and wasting time unnecessarily.”

  Andie walked into her room and pulled a piece of paper from a jumbled pile of papers. “This is the inventory list of what I used on the first fusor. I drew lines through things I knew were okay and checked things I knew were broken. That still leaves about a third of the items.

  “I’ll finish the list tonight. I’ve got a lot of the stuff on order for tomorrow... it’ll be good if I’m here to receive it.”

  “I understand rebuilding this one. What w
ill we do with three sound stages?” Kris asked.

  “How big are they?” Andie asked.

  “Well, I don’t know the place Dad was talking about. But, think big warehouses, but without any interior walls. There may or may not be an office. There are a lot of power outlets, most of time on the floor. All kinds of outlets, too. The studio will have a diagram. There’s going to be plenty of room.”

  “I guess that means we’re going to need more people,” Andie told Kris.

  “Well, we can do it like they do in the movies. Dad said Kit knows some people. You talk to them, and if you like them, hire them. We can talk to Dad and Kit about how much to pay them.

  “We build another of these,” Kris waved towards Andie’s closet. “Call it a ‘fusor classic.’” Andie grimaced but made a come-along gesture. “Anyone who doesn’t understand gets fired. Andie, that’s another thing about movie making. If you don’t measure up, they don’t give you a second chance. You’re fired -- just like that.”

  “Okay, we build another fusor classic. Then what?”

  “We build a third, maybe in another building, so we’re sure they aren’t interacting with each other. Use the best of the new people to supervise it, maybe get a couple of more people. We run tests on the first new machine, to see what happens. Once that happens, you make a decision about what we want to do with it. I wouldn’t want to even guess what those options would be.”

  “The third machine,” Andie said with authority, “should be to generate power only, using everything we’ve learned from the others.”

  Kris nodded. “You understand that the final decisions are going to be yours.”

  “The fuck you say! If you want your name up in fuckin’ lights, I’m going to work your ass off! Make you the chief scientist or something. Wouldn’t that look cool on a resume? Chief scientist on the first break-even commercial fusion reactor?”

  “That’s not where my heart’s going to be,” Kris told her friend.

  “Yeah, and you think my heart’s going to be there, making all those decisions? My old man hasn’t got much to offer in the pithy saying department, but now and then he does come up with a gem. ‘You gotta give a little to get along.’”