Vaz

by Laurence Dahners

  But, it wasn’t unusual behavior for Vaz Gettnor. She finally decided that if it weren’t for her little talk with Tiona, she wouldn’t even be considering that something might have changed about him.

  After dinner, Lisanne cleaned up the kitchen, purposely delaying until Vaz had gone down to his basement. Once she thought he’d had time to settle in she tried the door. It was unlocked so she went down the stairs. She felt weird, as if she was invading his personal and private space, even though it was part of the house they both owned and she used to think of herself as welcome down there.

  When she opened the door, like Tiona, Lisanne felt surprised by the markedly increased lighting. The old clutter had all been cleaned up and benches set up for the new equipment. Her eyes narrowed, it seemed like a lot more equipment than could possibly have been in the boxes that had been delivered the day they’d blown up. Had he been ordering even more stuff?

  She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she’d checked yesterday and their shared accounts hadn’t sustained any expenditures she didn’t know about. If he’d spent more money it must have all come out of his personal account that she didn’t have access to. Certainly, she didn’t want to blow up on him if his psychological state teetered on edge. “Hey Vaz.”

  He regarded her warily, lifting a set of magnifiers off his head. After a moment, apparently remembering that she would expect a response he said, “Hey.”

  “Tiona tells me you’re doing some pretty exciting stuff down here?”

  Vaz nodded, but not as eagerly as she might have expected.

  “What are you studying?”

  Vaz blinked. “She didn’t tell you?”

  She tilted her head, “Hydrogen-boron fusion?”

  He nodded.

  Lisanne smiled brightly, “Wow! How are you doing it? Everything I read says it should be impossible.”

  He nodded again and his eyes dropped to the device he had been working on. After a moment he said, “It should be. Yes.” A long pause ensued, then sounding frustrated he said, “I’m unable to work out any math that can explain it. The device results in a great number of hydrogen protons being tightly packed in around boron atoms that are immobilized in a boron-vanadium-palladium alloy matrix. I force new protons into the matrix with a surging electric current and simultaneously strike it with highly energetic ultrasonic waves transmitted through the highly compressed hydrogen. I believe… I believe that ultrasonically induced flexing in the matrix somehow forces protons into contact with boron nuclei. However,” he shrugged, “by every calculation I’ve made, it should not… should not produce the numbers of fusion events that are occurring.” His eyes rose to focus on her again, “So I must be missing something, because the fusion events are there.”

  “Can you show me?”

  “The mechanisms are disassembled now. I could show you records from the last test if you like?”

  “Why did you disassemble them?” she asked, stomach clinching. She’d learned while reading about claims for “cold fusion” that bad or fake science mysteriously could never be reproduced at the time that verification experts showed up to witness the claimed scientific events personally. Equipment was always broken or not performing at such times.

  “I’m building a third version.”

  “How come?”

  “Trying to improve the efficiency, both by increasing the frequency of the fusion events and by more effectively harvesting the energy from the alpha particles.”

  Lisanne looked around the room. He sounded sane, for Vaz. Except that he thought he could do something that everything she read said was impossible. Why, after a completely unprepossessing period as a research drudge for Querx, doing who knows what, but certainly not exciting stuff, would he get fired and almost immediately discover something that no one, not even in the huge academic research foundations around the world, had been able to accomplish? Not wanting their pleasant conversation to languish she said, “What’s the huge thing there?” she pointed at the enormous stainless steel tank.

  “A boron lined water tank to stop free neutrons.”

  Lisanne looked back at Vaz. Magnifiers back over his eyes, he was back to working on his device. “I… I’m glad we’re getting along better.”

  “So am I.”

  “Can we go out to dinner tomorrow night? It’d be nice to get out on a Friday night.”

  Vaz closed his eyes without lifting his head. He didn’t want to go out, but reminded himself of his own concern that he was becoming less and less comfortable leaving the house. He resisted the temptation to point out that if she was worried about money she shouldn’t be going out to dinner. “OK.”

  Lisanne smiled sadly at him. “It’s a date then.”

  Back upstairs Lisanne stopped outside Dante and Tiona’s rooms, knocked and got the doors to both rooms open. Looking from one to the other she said, “We’re all going out to dinner tomorrow night.” They both began to protest, obviously not wanting to be seen in public with their parents. Irritated to be standing in the hall trying to talk to her children through their open doors, Lisanne said, “Tiona, please come into Dante’s room with me so we can talk.”

  Tiona made a face but acquiesced. They both picked their way through the mess on Dante’s floor to sit on his bed. Lisanne turned to Tiona, “Have you talked to Dante about your concerns regarding your father?”

  Tiona’s eyes widened but she only shook her head minutely.

  Dante said with a mildly disgusted tone, “You mean about him quitting at Querx and not even looking for another job?”

  Tiona said quietly, as if imparting a horrible secret, “Don, he got fired!”

  Dante turned wide eyed to his mother, doubt written large on his face.

  Lisanne nodded, “He told Tiona last night that he’d actually been fired.”

  “Goddammit!”

  Lisanne thought about asking Dante not to swear, but she reflected, he was nearly grown. She looked back and forth from one child to the other. “You may realize he’s been spending almost all his time in the basement?”

  They nodded, Dante suppressing the impulse to tell about his Dad’s MMA adventure, still not wanting to admit he’d gone to the MMA fight himself.

  “I was worried that he might become a recluse but then Tiona told me last night that she was worried too.” She looked meaningfully from one to the other. “Tiona went down to talk to him and he claimed that he’s achieved nuclear fusion and intended to finance your college educations with money from that invention.”

  Dante’s head drew back, “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

  Lisanne smiled sadly, “Yes, if it weren’t impossible. I went down a little while ago and asked him about it… He told me he’d “disassembled” the device to make a better one.”

  Dante said, “So?”

  Lisanne shook her head sorrowfully, “You can’t read much about fusion without reading about the large numbers of charlatans and simply deluded people who have previously claimed to have achieved fusion with ‘tabletop fusion’ setups. All those claims have in common that when others come to inspect the setup, it’s never working. It’s broken, or it’s down for maintenance, or there’s some other problem. It’s called ‘pathological science.’ Many of the people involved aren’t trying to fool anyone, they actually believe it themselves.”

  Dante said, “So you aren’t going to give him a chance to prove himself?”

  “Of course I am. And it will be amazing if he’s truly successful… but we need to face the reality that getting fired may have driven him into holing up in his basement and simply fantasizing that he’s doing important stuff there.”

  Dante and Tiona stared. Dante with dawning horror and Tiona with dismay over this confirmation of her worst fears.

  After a pause without any questions from the kids Lisanne said, “I know your dad has always been a little weird.” Dante whose head had drooped so that he stared at the floor between his knees snorted, “But in his own s
weet way he cares about us deeply and I care about him too. I’m hoping you two will help me try to pull him out of this and save him and our family?”

  They both nodded.

  “I think that we’ve got to get him out of his basement and out of the house. He’s got to get back into the world again. We need to be loving and supportive despite his being fired. We need to be enthusiastic about his science though not about fusion because we don’t want to encourage any delusions he may be having. I want him to feel that we love him even though he’s suffered a major failure. I want him not to be afraid to risk failure again, if and when he gets up the courage to apply for another job.”

  They nodded. Because Lisanne and Vaz had always been careful to hide any disagreements when the kids were smaller, this was the kids first experience with one of their parents suggesting that the other one wasn’t perfect. And it came with the baggage that they might need to pitch in and help their dad work out a problem.

  Tiona felt it hard. She’d personally been disrespecting her father’s weird ways for so long now that she felt guilty contemplating that she might be partly responsible for his sudden loss of touch with reality.

  “Do you guys have any suggestions for other things we might do to help?”

  They both shook their heads and Lisanne said, “So, dinner tomorrow night, out. You guys have any suggestions for places where you won’t have to be seen eating with your parents?”

  Tiona leaned closer and put an arm around Lisanne, “It’s OK Mom,” she said throatily, “I don’t care if my friends see us. Pizza?”

  Lisanne stood, and Tiona stood with her. “OK pizza it is. Maybe next weekend it’ll be ‘dinner and a movie,’ live large I say.”

  Dante quietly said, “Mom, can we afford to go out?”

  “Eating out isn’t all that much more expensive than eating in. Keeping your dad sane is immensely valuable by comparison. Besides, you guys shouldn’t worry all that much about money. I’ve got enough in my retirement account to send you to state schools,” she shrugged, “I just might have to retire a little later is all. And of course, any scholarships you get will be greatly appreciated.” She waggled her eyebrows at them.

  ***

  Vangester wanted to be present for the negotiation about Gettnor’s royalties, but worried that having the CEO of the company present at a negotiation over a back pay issue would give Gettnor’s lawyer the impression that the company was taking this more seriously than he wanted her to believe. Instead he settled for watching through a feed from Phil Dennis’ AI.

  Gettnor’s attorney, Anbala Singh entered first and Vangester relaxed a little. She was short, slender, young woman of Indian descent with long dark hair. Because she was attractive, Vangester dismissed her as harmless. Next to enter was Gettnor himself walking with his peculiar gait that gave the impression he’d just gotten off a horse. Vangester was surprised to see someone else enter; it was that bastard Smint! “What is Smint doing here?” he hissed at Dennis over the link, “Did you call him as a witness?”

  Dennis replied as they’d agreed, tapping his finger once as a “no.”

  Singh said, “Shall we begin?”

  Dennis nodded.

  She said, “You have failed to pay my client, Mr. Gettnor, the full amounts that were specified in his employment contract. I refer to his share of the royalties and profits on the inventions he made while working at Querx. This shortfall amounts to $187,891,752. We would like to arrange to receive that money as soon as possible.”

  Vangester’s stomach roiled, that was almost exactly what the accounting drones at Querx had calculated. He’d hoped that Gettnor would be unaware of the total amount.

  Dennis said, “Oh come now. Dr. Gettnor was informed that we were lowering the percentage Querx would pay on his inventions. He made no objection.”

  Singh laughed as if she’d been told a particularly funny joke. “Seriously? You’re going to try to claim that having one of your minions just drop by to tell him that he was being paid a lower share constitutes a legal and binding modification of an employment contract? When he didn’t even express agreement?” Singh leaned forward and put a finger on her cheek, grinning, “Perhaps Dr. Gettnor could just drop by and tell that same woman that he’d decided he wanted his cut of the royalties retroactively upped to 60%. As long as he left before she disagreed, I assume you’d be bound by the new agreement eh?”

  A silence stretched. Vangester, unable to see the sour expression on Dennis’ face finally hissed into the link, “Say something, dammit!”

  Dennis tapped a finger deliberately a single time on the table. Then to Singh he said, “You are no doubt aware that Dr. Gettnor was far from an ideal employee while working here at Querx, coming in late, leaving early, often disregarding his assigned research to hare off into other areas that interested him.”

  Singh grinned again, “And coming in late at night for far more hours than he lost at the beginning and end of his workday. If you’d like to consider him an hourly employee we could talk about your paying him ‘time and a half’ for his overage hours which we could extract from his AI’s records. Also I believe that it was while straying from his assigned research path that he made nine of the twelve discoveries that Querx patented.” She lifted an eyebrow, “We’d be willing to pay back the company for those ‘off track’ hours if they’ll stipulate then that the entirety of those inventions must then belong to Dr. Gettnor?”

  Dennis didn’t respond to this assault. Instead he said, “In fact, our security records document that Dr. Gettnor stole Querx property on the day he was fired.”

  Singh covered her mouth, saying, “Oh my goodness.”

  Vangester hopefully thought she’d been taken aback.

  But then she said, “Are you referring to the alloy disks?”

  Dennis nodded.

  “Dr. Gettnor does regret the fact that some of those were still in his pocket when he left. Do you have use for them? If so, he could replace them. Or if you’d like, he’d be happy to reimburse you up to ten times their appraised value? Or,” she grinned again, “you could press charges for the theft. That would nicely separate the disk issue from this present negotiation.”

  Dennis sighed and drew his last weapon, “We are aware that Dr. Gettnor has submitted another patent application.”

  Singh nodded, still grinning.

  “We have reason to believe that the new invention relates to those disks and therefore is owned by Querx.”

  Unfazed she said, “Why, you’re absolutely correct. The disks are of an alloy that Dr. Gettnor worked on as part of his assignment while working at Querx. He had been assigned to try to improve hydrogen storage and had calculated that this particular alloy, cast in that particular fashion, would absorb more hydrogen than pure palladium, which surprisingly is already capable of holding more hydrogen than is contained in the liquid state of hydrogen. You’re welcome to patent the new alloy in his name per the original employment agreement he signed with you. He’ll tell you how to cast the alloy, and he’ll tell you which of the many alloys he cast at Querx is the most effective.”

  Dennis narrowed his eyes, “And in return you want what?”

  “Why, nothing. Dr. Gettnor feels that this is only right. It follows from the employment agreement he signed when he came to work here.

  Dennis felt shocked. It sounded valuable, and they weren’t even going to fight for a bigger share? He put up a finger, “I’d like to take a small recess, can I get you refreshments?”

  Singh smiled broadly, “Certainly. I’d like tea. Dr. Gettnor, Dr. Smint?”

  Dennis hustled out of the room, told a secretary to get them the drinks they’d requested, and stepped down to Vangester’s office. As he came through the door he said, “How valuable is that?”

  Vangester smiled a predatory smile, “Tens of millions at least, probably more than we’re at risk for on Gettnor’s contract dispute.”

  “So I should go for it?”

  “No!”
Vangester frowned as if Dennis were an idiot, “We have the disks, we’ll just figure out which one absorbs the most, then assay it and cast them by the millions.

  “Richard,” Dennis sighed at Vangester, “They aren’t asking for anything in return for the alloy.”

  Vangester cocked his head, considering. “I’ll bet they want us to give up our right to prosecute him for theft of the disks.”

  “Maybe, but we wouldn’t get anything out of prosecuting him for a crime you know?”

  “OK but at the least, they’ll want us to stop playing hardball on Gettnor’s share of previous royalties.”

  Anbala Singh smiled up over her teacup at him when a disgruntled Phil Dennis reluctantly reentered the room. She’d stifled conversation amongst Gettnor and Smint while Dennis was gone, suspecting that someone would be listening. Gettnor hardly ever talked anyway, so it wasn’t difficult. Once Dennis had seated himself, she said brightly, “Are you ready to pay Dr. Gettnor his share of the royalties?”

  Dennis looked like he’d bitten something else sour. “Here is what we’re willing to do. First, just in order to stay out of court, we’re willing to grant Dr. Gettnor ten percent of the 187 million he claims he’s owed but no more. We’d increase his share to two tenths of a percent of gross and six percent of royalties, i.e. double his current share. If he insists on more you’ll find yourself in a protracted court battle.”

  Singh interjected, “Oh I don’t think it will be all that protracted, these issues are pretty straightforward.”

  Dennis continued, “Second, we’re glad that Dr. Gettnor is willing to fulfill the terms of his employment and tell us what he knows about the alloy that we’re working to perfect. If he does, we’re willing to grant him the same two tenths percent of gross that we’d now be paying him on his other inventions.”

  As if delightfully amused, Singh laughed until she had to get a tissue out of her purse and dab at her eyes. “Well!” she gasped finally, “We aren’t going to agree to that. What we’ll do is give you one week to sign the agreement I’ve forwarded to your AI. After that time point, we will then file suit and also ask the court to have you recompense Dr. Gettnor for the $7,498,416 in interest that Dr. Gettnor would have earned on his money at prevailing interest rates had you paid it to him when it was owed. Also Dr. Gettnor will no longer agree to teach you how to manufacture the new alloy.” Her eyebrows bounced up and down, “And, tell your handler,” she pointed at her ear suggesting that she was fully aware that someone outside the room was telling Dennis what to do, “that I’d be delighted to take this to court.” She giggled, “That would just be so much fun.”