Chapter 101: Hot Technology. Infidelity Leads to An Opportunity

Mark

I hosted a program review meeting on the Gigabit Cellular Technology or GCT program. We had the entire team in the executive conference room – about fifty people. While I hosted, Tom actually ran the meeting.

We had two test beds that were functioning far better than expected. One young woman reported on how they had tried to overload the system and get it to degrade or even fail, but to no avail. There was so much bandwidth and the PCM under-pinings for the use of the technology just adapted comfortably to whatever they threw at the electronics.

As each person or sub-team reported, Tom looked prouder and prouder of his staff. He was lavish in his praise, and made sure to give each person credit by name for what they’d accomplished. I could see that he was doing this with me in the room so that everyone knew the ‘Big Boss’ (me) had heard about them. I played my role accordingly, often engaging the people at our coffee breaks and adding my gratitude to Tom’s.

The next moves were already charted out. We wanted to wire the entire city with GCT, and toss out some real technology into the real world and see how it behaved. Tom already had a team working with Verizon Wireless to make that happen. We pledged four thousand custom handsets that could handle the technology to them to get things going. As it turned out, some older phones could be easily and cheaply adapted to also use the technology.

The meeting broke up at five o’clock. Tom stayed behind and I felt he had some other agenda item he wanted to discuss, not at all uncommon.

Melanie went off to type up her notes and Sheila went to check on accumulated mail. Izzy breezed by with a handful of calls to return and messages for me.

I gestured Tom into my office. He followed.

I went to my desk and spread out my call slips. As I did, I looked up expectantly and said to Tom, “So, what’s up?”

The silence between us forced me to look at him more critically. He was staring at me obviously in a quandary.

Finally, he spoke, “Mark, I know this might sound crazy, and I’m taking a risk here, but I want to ask Julie to marry me. I’m asking your permission. I haven’t asked her, but I know she’d be in seventh heaven if I did. It’s nothing disloyal to you.”

I felt a flood of tears come to my eyes – happy tears.

I came out from behind my desk and hugged Tom to his surprise. Eventually, I held him at arms length, “God, man, you’re like my brother. You don’t need my permission. I love her and I love you. You two are a match made in heaven. It’s hard not to see that you are both deeply in love. This will make everyone so happy.”

Tom said, “I’m worried it might start a trend.”

“Of what, marriages?”

Tom nodded with a worried look on his face.

I balked, “If people in the family find greater happiness by being tied to someone else by some vows and a piece of paper, more power to them. In your case, I hope you’ll both still stay in the family. I love you and I love Julie. Every one of the rings we’ve given has had some kind of words to go with it to imply that we don’t expect exclusivity or monogamy or total dedication. The rings are simply met as reminders that there is an intentional family that loves you and will always be there for you.”

“Oh, I know. Everyone has told me that. I even reminded Julie of that last night when we were in bed. I think she knows me so well that I’m sure she suspects something like this might be coming.”

“Then do it. Get her a nice ring too and do the whole ‘on bended knee’ thing. Also add in some flowers and a date night of some kind. Be extra romantic. Propose in some magical place.”

Tom laughed, “I like your ideas, and thank you for being so understanding. Just so you know, my expectation and hope is that we will continue to remain in the family as full participants in mind, body, and spirit. Julie loves you and the others so dearly; I can’t see my proposal and a shift in our relationship changing any of that. I love the others, but ... well, Julie is just so special to me.”

“Children?”

“Julie has said she wants some – one or two. I do too. I’ve been such a hold out on the matrimonial front that I guess I’ll end up raising my kids more like a grandfather, but I do want them. As you know I’m over twenty years older than Julie.”

“Go do it,” I encouraged. “Take whatever time you need to make it happen, and do some kind of wonderful honeymoon too. Build memories.”

Melanie and Andy beat me into the office the next day, a surprising occurrence since Mel normally rode in with me when we were at the condo. She left for work an hour before I had, and I’d wondered what was happening. They were waiting in my office with a young man Melanie introduced as Nat Sterling. I didn’t know why they were here, but I made welcoming sounds. Izzy was moving around the office preparing coffee and some morning cookies in the small kitchenette on the executive floor.

When we all had coffee, Andy motioned to Melanie to introduce the morning, a point I’d been told to wait on a few minute earlier. Mel had more than earned her credentials as my head of special projects or whatever we wanted to call it that day.

Melanie spoke with authority I hadn’t really heard in her voice before, “Mark, Nat’s one of our research fellows in the commercial division’s R&D labs out in Hyattsville. He’s made a discovery that Andy and I think is even bigger than the GCT program. It is more far-reaching, more profitable, and more apt to be stolen or the patents violated than anything we’ve done to date. Andy and I just spent an hour meeting with him this morning going over ever facet of the technology and its implications that we could. He is one smart young man, and he knows he’s got a tiger by the tail.”

I leaned forward. I had no idea what they were talking about, but the build-up was starting to excite me.

Andy gestured to Nat. He reached into the pocket of his tweed sport coat, and then handed each of us what was obviously a flat battery pack. I examined the device. For a few minutes, I thought it might work in a cellphone or some other device requiring a flat power pack. I looked up at Andy and Nat with the obvious question on my face.

Nat spoke in an even tone, and I could tell he’d rehearsed this short spiel. “What you have in your hand is the best battery pack in the world, bar none. It is lightweight, works at sensible temperatures from sixty below to near boiling, doesn’t wear out that we can tell, meaning that it can handle hundreds of thousands of recharges without degradation, and has an inordinately high energy-density. As far as we can tell it’s safe, meaning no explosions like the lithium-ion batteries that plagued Samsung, it’s fast charging, and I think they’ll be easy to manufacturer. The battery you hold in your hand could power your cellphone without recharging for over two months at full brightness with the cellphone on an open two-way call link. Those are the major benefits.”

I sat back in shock. This really was phenomenal. I wondered about the downside he’d alluded to. Nat looked at us and I looked from him to the battery in my hand. I said, “Keep talking.’

Andy stepped in. “The worldwide battery market is a one to two hundred billion a year chunk of the overall global economy, but if what Nat just said holds true, these little devices could end up going into all sorts of appliances and things that have shunned battery use for all sorts of reasons including every automobile in the world. We’re talking like TRILLIONS here depending on how much market share we can capture. This seems like our chance to get in at the very beginning of something.”

I asked, “What’s the underlying technology? What’s the downside to all these things? Why hasn’t someone else discovered these?” I tossed the battery around in my hands.

Nat turned to me, “The underlying tech is lithium air, but what I discovered is that when we dose the copper anode with a tracer of Thallium – that’s chemical element 81, we get all these other benefits. Add in some other catalysts and voilà, what you see is what you get. The downside is that we’d swamp the worldwide demand for Thallium because the market has been historically small. On the other hand, the techniques to extract this element are known and not too expensive to create. It’s basic ore extraction technology that’s been around for over a hundred years. As for why no one else discovered it to date, I would guess the monkeys haven’t hit the right combination of keys until I did.”

I chuckled at Nat’s reference to the old adage that if you gave enough monkeys typewriters that sooner or later one of them would write King Lear. If that were truly the case, then sooner or later some other monkey would write an even better play and scoop the market on us.

I got up from my chair and went to the door. “Sheila. Izzy. Can you join us? Also, could one of you get Jerry Roberts, our chief counsel, Tom Power, and Marty Winthrop, our head of the commercial division, in here. Tell them to get here on a run. We have a truly explosive and world changing situation that we could blow away if we don’t handle this right.” Izzy who’d come to the door, rushed off to contact the three individuals I’d named. If this was as big as it looked, we wanted a full court press.

Elsa

Out of the blue, I got a text from Matt, a guy friend I’d met months and months earlier at the Club Infinity. ‘Hi Elsa. Still there? It’s been a long time. Would love to see you again. Lots to report that you might find interesting since you knew the opening situation I faced. You set the time and place. XOXOX Matt.’

Before I replied, I recalled the circumstances of our meetings and what I’d learned about the nice man: married to a introversive woman named Peg who’d basically cut him off from sex and even conjugal affection; embarked on a course of action to win her back and put some passion back in their relationship; and had started to try all sorts of things relating to her style of dress (less monastic) and her attitude about sex and love.

I checked my calendar and decided to meet him Wednesday evening at Club Infinity. I texted him, asking if that day and time worked for him. It did.

A couple of days later, I sat at the bar at the Club when Matt sauntered up. I got a kiss on my cheek. “Can a guy buy a pretty lady dinner?”

I stood and gave him a more serious kiss and hug. After all, we had been intimate several times in our crazy relationship and I saw no reason to be standoffish. “You certainly can, but it’s on the house. I wasn’t sure how much time you had. A couple of my sisters might show up, but you needn’t worry about them.”

“About dinner, I insist. This conversation we’re about to have is to help me, and maybe satisfy your curiosity.”

“Matt, my boyfriend, owns this club. We never pay for drinks or meals here, even when we have guests ... especially when we have guests who are as nice as you are. If you want to spend your money, stay late and put it in the strippers’ garter belts when they perform or give you lap dance.”

Matt looked surprised, but acquiesced about paying. He expressed his gratitude ahead of time.

We took a table for two off in a little alcove that had a view of the stage. At that point in the evening, the club was appealing to the cocktail and dinner trade, and not the erotic dancer crowd; that would come later in the evening after about ten-thirty.

At his request, I gave Matt a little bit of catch up about my life and the family. He had seen the TV news film clip of my less than perfect landing at city airport, and breathed easier knowing I was well and whole after the experience. He’d also gotten a birth announcement over a year earlier by email when I sent them out to everyone I knew, so he knew I was now a hot MILF instead of only a pregnant single horny female, which is what I was the first time we met. I recalled that I had seen him one time since then when I was nursing and we satisfied his lactation fetish.

I asked Matt, “So, how’re you doing with Peg and your marriage improvement program?”

Matt got a grim look on his face and shook his head negatively. “Not well. Things really fell apart. We’re separated now - divorced. Things happened pretty fast about nine months ago. I’m still kind of reeling from the whole experience. Matter of fact, I feel like I’m just getting my sea legs back about life.”