Chapter 18

Alan's turn:

I'm riding herd on an avalanche here. The things that are going on around me are beyond imagination. If, three years ago, somebody would have told me that I'd be married to a slightly pregnant nineteen year old engineer, that my daughter would have a business card from Google with her name on it and there'd be a robot parked over in the corner that followed people around making noises matching its mood, I would have suggested that somebody was pissing in their ganja.

The new office. That's astounding. Two years ago we opened the business. 3Sigma has grown, a raft of engineers, a flock of technicians. Service trucks. An admin and accounting section. We're moving into the new building in two weeks. We thought we'd just build out the first floor of a two-story building. Nope. All those people need places to hang their hats or turbans. Hello, second floor.

One of the Desai kids is an intern. No, he doesn't actually wear a turban, but when I said 'hang your hat' he let me have the speech, grinning the whole time. It's odd, too, because you see him, dark-skinned product of parents from India, you're expecting the lilt and the accent. You get pure Alabama. He's one employee I don't have to worry about. His parents would skin him alive if he produced less than a 100% effort.

"Okay, you got me. You don't, like, have a Sikh buddy?"

"Wouldn't help you a bit, Mister Alan," he laughed. "Sikhs do not take their turbans off during the workday."

There's more than one college student making a bit of money off us. Several of the graphics design and marketing types have helped us with our marketing literature and website design has moved out of the 'do it yourself' realm to something quite upscale. We're keeping the lab at the old building for the time being, but I'm looking at what we need as a business and we may rethink that.

Our own technical staff needs a lab/workshop. They've already collided with the Munchkin Mafia in the old lab. One of our new techs, a middle-aged guy, Mark, came into the office. "Alan, I can't work like that."

"Like what? You're setting up some relays. Simple programming and burn-in."

"Your daughter keeps asking me questions."

"And you can't answer them?"

He harrumphed. "I tried tossing off a quick answer and got 'I already KNOW that. Are these primary or backup? What scheme are you using?'" He shook his head. "Ninety percent of the guys in this business can't answer that, Alan."

"I'll tell 'em to leave you alone."

"No, don't do that. They're entertaining. Just don't expect fast turnaround."

"You can run 'em off..." I told him.

"That bunch? I'd just as soon stomp on baby chickens. Besides, I tried. When they left, that damned Bot-bot was playin' a dirge behind 'em."

I had to laugh. He laughed, too. "Them's some dangerous minds," he said.

"Did they introduce you to Bot-bot? Formally?"

"Oh, yeah. Like 'Bot-bot, this is Mark. Mark is good.'"

"So you've impressed ten year old girls," I laughed.

"Those ain't no ordinary ten year olds. And Vicki? She's eight."

"Oh, she's probably impressed, too."

"Thanks. I feel much better."

"Seriously, if you're uncomfortable..."

"Alan, I don't mean to do it, but I've been in the field a long time, and you know, when things go wrong, I'm just liable to say 'fuck' or something."

"Tell you what, Mark. Next time Bot-bot's around, you just go ahead and say it. See what happens."

"Now I'm scared."

"Don't be. Bot-bot's harmless."

Tina. My beautiful, auburn-haired, slightly pregnant wife. Every day she makes a point of lifting her shirt and placing my hand on her belly. Same question. "Do you feel anything different?"

"I know it's there, punkin," I always answer. "Maybe a little bit of fullness that wasn't there before."

It won't be another month or so before an ultrasound reveals the baby's sex. We're not being picky. We're shooting for 'healthy'. 'Smart' would be nice, too. I shudder to think of the situation if the new one isn't somewhere on the upper end of the scale, but I know my bunch and no matter what happens, it'll be good.

That other part of married life? I know that Tim Duncan's got to fly back home to talk to a client, and Kim's not going, so it's no surprise when Terri troops in and asks, "Dad, is it okay if I stay with Kim tonight? Me and Rachel?"

"Whose idea was this?" I ask.

My daughter has the dangerous capability to melt me with those blue eyes. "Hers, Dad. Really."

"I suppose so."

She looked at me, smiling. "Don't be a pest, Terri. Don't do anything inappropriate, Terri. Don't talk about family matters, Terri."

"Thank you for saving me the effort, Terri. Now do all that."

"Oh, Dad," she said. "It's me and Rachel and Vicki an' you know, Kim's only sixteen..."

"Almost SEVENTEEN!" I picked.

"Da-aaaddddd!"

"Okay. Make sure you find Tina and tell her what's going on, and the four of you, absolutely NO energetic chemistry or ionizing radiation..."

"Cookies," she said over her shoulder. "We have Cindy's recipe."

That little arrangement means that Tina and I have the apartment to ourselves tonight and I can love my cutie of a wife and assuage her worries about 'look at my nipples. They're turning colors.' And 'will you love me when I'm big as a barrel?'

She knows the answer is always 'yes'.

Susan's – excuse me – according to the girls, that's now 'The Radiant Susan', isn't showing either, and the Ellerbee combination is well known in western Georgia and South Carolina. Poor Jason's now a degreed engineer with almost a decade of HARD experience, but blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 'I don't wear these jeans TIGHT' Susan is who pops up when we get a call.

"Yeah, is this the 3Sigma that has that blonde gal?" one of our prospective clients asked on a recent phone call.

"Yes, it is."

"Not that she's the only attraction that you folks have," he said. "I've heard that y'all are the ones to get to do these upgrades, but my old buddy said to ask about Susan and Cindy in specific."

"Susan will make sure that she accompanies her husband to a meeting with you."

"What about Cindy?"

"I'll have to get her to check her schedule. She's working on her PhD."

"I heard she wudn't but sixteen."

"You heard correctly. But she's got a bit of classwork and a symposium at Las Alamos coming up."

"Los Alamos? Like the gummint research?"

"Yep. She's one of the nation's top minds on high energy DC pulse propagation."

"What'd you use THAT for?"

I laughed. "Mister Brinkman, If I told you I'd have to..."

"I know. Shoot me."

"Worse than that, friend. I don't begin to know what the gummint wants with 'er, but there she is. The kid's got enough security clearances to be able to use the ladies' room at Fort Knox Gold Depository."

Laughter. "Look, Alan," he said, "I'll send you a couple of dates. If you could send us an engineer or two to talk, that'd be great. If one of 'em was that blonde gal, that'd be better."

"We'll do it, Mister Brinkman..."

"Brink."

"Okay, Brink. We'll set you up. And without saying, if you're ever in Auburn, stop by."

"I might. I need to look at the football schedule."

"Football or no, you're always welcome to drop by."

I was leaned back in my chair after that one when Dan 2.0 walked by.

"Heard some of that," he said.

"Yeah. Need the munchkins to get in genetic engineering."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Do a little gene-swapping. Susan's looks. Cindy or Nikki's brains. Make up about a dozen of 'em like that and we'd OWN the utility engineering market."

"It's bad enough as it is, buddy," he laughed. "Doesn't matter which one we bring. Those old guys just fall apart when one of ours starts spouting her ideas of improvements over their old protection schemes. Nikki completely torpedoed a roomful of 'em with her explanation of total power flow protection for their sub-transmission grid."

"I know," I said. "I'm looking at the purchase order."

"Yeah," Dan said. "That's Piedmont. The head engineer said he's gonna go home and kick his wife because THEIR daughter isn't like Nikki."

"Nobody's daughter is like Nikki," I said.

"Except maybe Donna's. And yours. And Tim's. And Beck's..."

"I heard that," Beck said from her vantage at the front desk. "That's YOUR fault. I was quite happy to have the brightest kid in school, you know. Now ... The Munchkin Mafia..."

"Don't forget," I said. "That guy from Google's flying back here. Wants an update on Bot-bot. Says the girls are pushing in a different direction on autonomy and they wanna know why..."

"That's easy," Beck said. "The girls program in a bit of 'cute'. Their music selections..."

That's another set of conversations. "I know, Dad," Terri said. "It would just be too easy to rip passages out of the actual music we have on the computer, but we WANT Bot-bot to sound like a robot, not a mobile stereo. That's why he doesn't talk much, either. He's not supposed to be Siri."

So that means that one day, Beck rings my desk. "Alan, there's a gentleman here from Auburn. He's one of the professors in computer sciences. Wishes to speak with you."

"Send 'im back." I pushed the paperwork on my desk aside.

"Mister Addison?" a dark-skinned face appeared in my door.

"Yessir," I said, rising and extending my hand.

He shook it. "Doctor Harkur Asharam. Computer science and software engineering at Auburn."

"Very pleased to meet you. Please, sit. What can we do for you?"

He smiled. "Some things you have already done for us. One of our students, Vivek Gupta, has done work for you."

"Not exactly for US," I said. "He has worked on my daughter's robot."

"Your tutoring sessions have helped Vivek's grades in mathematics. This, I know. He tells me he has been programming what amounts to a multi-platform multi-nodal neural network."

"Doctor Asharam..."

"Please. We are not in my office or in the university halls. I am Harkur."

"Okay," I smiled. "I am Alan. Excuse me. I have to see if I can get you something." I punched the phone.

"Yes, Master," Beck laughed.

"Where's the Mafia?"

"Kim's house. Literature this morning. Cindy gave 'em a writing assignment."

"See if you can break 'em loose. Bring Bot-bot."

"I have heard the name 'Bot-bot'. I have seen YouTube videos. This is not CGI? Not remote control? No trick?"

"My life would be simpler if it was a trick. Harkur, look at this..." I pushed a pair of business cards across my desk. One had a cartoon of a toothy, smiling pterodactyl. That's Terri's personal card. The other had her name under the Google logo, along with the title of Engineering Concept Consultant.

"This is true? This is an accomplishment for a young student."

"She's not eleven yet."

"No."

"Yes."