Chapter 93: A Breakthrough Technology. The New Julie

Mark

Elsa coached me through the sixth checklist as she did it with me. This time we prepared and tested the back up hydraulics on the Boeing 737-700. I was again sitting in the copilot’s seat with Cindy in the jump seat as Elsa flew PIC – pilot in command. Both engines were idling and we were about to get our clearance, taxi, takeoff, and fly back to the mainland. Behind us in the passenger compartment rode the rest of our family and friends.

I read back the status lights from the annunciator panel near my left knee and overhead in the tightly arranged cockpit. “All lights in the green. Fire suppression system also green. Tertiary hydraulic pumps green.”

I heard Elsa speak through my Bose headset, “St. Croix ground, November One Mike Whiskey ready to taxi, IFR to City Airport, with information Delta.”

The radio woke up from its long slumber. At St. Croix their ground control frequency was also their clearance delivery frequency; “One Mike Whiskey, cleared as filed. Squawk four-six-five-two. Taxi to runway two-eight. Snooz Four departure. Switch over to tower frequency one-one-eight decimal six when ready for take off.”

Elsa checked in with the tower as we reached the run-up area. After announcing our readiness for takeoff she heard, “Cleared for takeoff, One Mike Whiskey. Contact departure on one-two-eight decimal six-five passing through one-thousand-two-hundred. Good day.”

We started to roll the short distance to the ten thousand foot runway. I watched Elsa pick up and quickly read two more checklists, verbalizing to herself each of the items as she looked at each item on the panel, even pointing at some of them with the laminated checklist page. She had me steering the jet onto the wide runway and lining up with the centerline, as she made sure the Snooz Four departure plate was on the iPad on her yoke.

Elsa spoke into the mic, “One Mike Whiskey rolling on runway two-eight St. Croix.” She released the brakes, pushed both throttles forward, and we accelerated quickly down the runway. She kept her right hand on the throttles as she watched the airspeed and steered the plane down the centerline. At one point I heard her say “V-2,” and shortly thereafter we rotated and were in the air.

The tower remained silent. We’d already been cleared. We rotated at about a hundred-sixty knots a third of the way down the runway, but that was hard to tell as our speed was climbing rapidly as we accelerated. By commercial standards, we were light. We quickly set up a three-thousand foot-per-minute rate of climb, blasting through twelve-hundred feet about twenty seconds after the wheels left the ground and folded into the wing and nose. Our airspeed kept climbing.

Elsa promptly called in after switching frequencies, “San Juan Departure, November One Mike Whiskey with you off St. Croix climbing through two-thousand on Snooz Four.”

Departure came on instantly, “Radar contact One Mike Whiskey. Cleared to flight level three-niner-zero, direct City Airport as filed.”

Elsa responded and we banked into a half-standard rate turn for the jet as we came around to our heading for the city. We’d now fly a perfect great circle path to our home airport high above almost all the weather and other aircraft flying in various directions, especially as we reached the east coast of the contiguous states.

Elsa checked the autopilot settings as we continued to climb to our assigned flight level, and then double-checked with the magnetic compass. Over her shoulder she asked Cindy, “Did you see me forget anything?”

Cindy smiled at her sister and teased, “Text book, my darling sister. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

The three of us laughed. Elsa said, “I’ll turn off the seat belt lights.” She switched on the planes intercom to the rear cabin where the rest of our family rode in luxury and spoke into the mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, the seat belt light is off; however, I recommend you wear your belts if you aren’t moving about or engaging in co-ed activities that require two of you occupying one seat. There are no reports of turbulence, but there’s always the errant fur ball of air out there to run into unexpectedly. You’re in good hands with Captains Cindy, Mark, and Elsa in the cockpit.”

From that point on the flight was almost boring except for a few changes of communication points as we cruised through the various air traffic control centers on the way to the city. We started down in altitude about thirty minutes before we touched down at city airport. There was a constant use of checklists as we monitored the large jet’s systems and progress.

At our normal parking location at city airport we were met by a bevy of specialists: fuel truck, line men, cleaning crew, two luggage handlers, four limousines, and four war wagons full of security personnel.

Andy, Margo, and Don took one limousine and quickly disappeared for their homes. Another car took Wes, Scott, Anna, Vanessa, Monica, and Felicia and headed off towards their homes. Two golf carts squired Troy, Janet, Dan, and Sandy to the commercial terminal for their short flights to Atlanta; another cart took Jon and Amber to their car along with their luggage. The rest of us piled into one of the remaining limousines so we could head into the city and our condominium. Soon we had what looked like a presidential caravan heading into the city.

I sat in the middle of the long table looking across the table at Melanie and a trio of people standing in front of my executive office’s massive projection screen. They’d just come into the executive conference room. She was doing some informal introductions of three very nervous individuals who worked for me but who I had never met: two women and one man. Mel said, “Mark, this is Karen Lowenthal, Nancy Redwing, and Bud Norway. They are the engineers I was telling you about in our Telcomm Systems Group that have the idea about a way to piggyback broadband onto our cellular technology in remote areas ... really anywhere. They think they can get upwards of a five hundred to two thousand megabits per second, but I’ll let them give you the details. This is exciting stuff.”

I was in my usual Dockers and shirtsleeves sans tie. I stood and turned to the sharply dressed threesome who all wore business suits, and in Bud’s case, a tie. We shook hands. “Melanie told me briefly about your concept. I need to hear it first hand. Andy will be here in a minute. In the meanwhile, tell me about your backgrounds and what led you to this idea.”

The three young engineers looked at each other, and then Karen started with a somewhat stiff outline of her resume: Purdue engineering, computer science and networking, masters from MIT in networking topology, with Worthington for ten years in our commercial division, most recently in our cellular technology departments.”

We didn’t make or sell cellphones, which was a commodity market dominated by Apple and Samsung – the latter troubled by exploding Lithium-Ion batteries. We made the cell towers and telecommunications infrastructure the phones talked to – a much higher margin part of the business where Worthington had a strong market share and competitive edge.

Karen turned to Bud, and he started. “I’m a University of Denver grad in double-E and computer science. I’ve been here at Worthington for six years.” Nancy started, “I’m a University of New Hampshire double-E, with an MBA from City College; and I’ve been here eight years, all in the cellular tech area.”

Andy hustled into the room with apologies about a long phone call he’d gotten trapped on. He sat with a huff and looked around. Mel did introductions again, and then asked the three engineers to start their presentation.

Forty-five minutes later the three engineers came to a stop. They’d finished their delivery and fielded a few questions along the way. Fortunately, they’d loosened up as they realized that neither Andy nor I were going to pound on them or try to trip them up in some way. We were quite friendly and cordial with the trio and encouraging. Izzy brought in coffee and cokes for everyone with a plate of home baked cookies she’d made the night before for just this meeting.

Andy, Melanie, and I looked at each other. I turned to Melanie and asked, “What would you do at this point?”

Mel smiled, “I’d give them ten million dollars and ask the three of them to create a prototype somewhere nearby so we could see whether it works and is as economic and effective as their estimates are.”

I turned to Nancy, who’d presented the cost-benefit analysis of the technical scheme. I asked, “Is ten million enough? I’m very interested in seeing this move forward at high speed.”

She gawked at the huge amount of money about to drop in her lap as the project manager, “Oh, my, yes. More money would make it happen faster if that’s important. We can get more staff, particularly technicians fabricating the electronics and programming the new systems and modems. We’d do breadboards for a prototype. More intricate circuit designs, chips, and what not would come in a later phase preparatory to commercial production.”

I looked at Mel and Andy; they were both nodding. Mel gave me a thumbs up.

I stood up and said, “Congratulations, you just got yourself twenty million dollars. Please get Mel a project plan with significant milestones and checkpoints by the end of the week. Andy will talk to your department head. I’d love to see some marketing of this concept in six months and live implementations started in less than a year. Andy and I’d like to touch base on your progress in about a month or when you have something significant to tell us. Mel will set it up. If you need any resources – ANY – to make this move faster, one of you please let Melanie know; she’ll make it happen. Please consider that you are reporting directly to this office on this, although you should keep your usual management in the loop.”

The three engineers blanched at the implications of all that I’d just said. I’d just painted a very aggressive schedule for them. What they didn’t know was what I had planned to help speed this breakthrough in technology along for them.

After the engineers left the room, Andy, Mel, and I looked at each other. I speculated, “This is a winner – like in the hundreds of millions to the bottomline on an annual basis. There are extensions to what they proposed they haven’t seen. There’s also a mechanical analog for what they proposed, maybe even something we could use in pipelines, for instance.”

Mel nodded, “I thought you’d like this.”

I asked her, “When is Tom Power back here?”

She shook her head, “Nothing planned that I’m aware of. He’s pretty anchored in Silicon Valley with Nanotech.”

I stood, “Then why don’t you talk to him. Tell him we have a tiger by the tail for him to whirl around, and that Andy and I want him back here ASAP to talk about this project with him. Don’t upstage the engineers; it’s their idea and they need to grow with it. We’ll provide the mentoring to make it happen. If you have to, have them brief him by teleconference. I want to talk to him after he sees what this technology can do. Tell Tom I’ve already thrown in twenty mil.”

“Got it.” Mel smiled. She rightly felt proud for spotting this technology when she ran through all the entrepreneurial efforts going on in the bowels of the huge corporation. She wasn’t an engineer, but she heard a few of the right words to make her talk to the right people and learn more about what was going on. Mel was now in high gear.

Andy nodded, “I can see I’m going to be doing some reorganizing and moving key staff around again ... and I just got everything stable in the commercial division.”

“Get those three whatever resources they need. If twenty million isn’t enough let me know and I’ll give them more. What they’re talking about alone is a huge business with unlimited worldwide potential.”

Elsa

Two weeks had passed since we got back from our villa on St. Croix. For most of us, things were pretty much normal.

The exception was Julie.

Julie had undergone a serious rebirthing experience on the island, and consequently had resolved to be a different person. She wasn’t THAT different superficially, but many of her deeper and more fundamental beliefs and behavior patterns changed, especially in terms of how she interacted with each of us and in her attitude about sex.

Julie talked about the ‘other girl’ who she’d been, as though she wasn’t one and the same person; ‘The ‘other girl’ wouldn’t have done that (or said that, or asked that, etc.)’. Many of her new questions revolved around relationships and sex. Directly and indirectly I jotted a few of them down either as she asked me or as I heard her talking to others. Occasionally, I’d get a text at work when she had a few minutes and Philip Emerson was napping.

How do you know when you’re in love?

Is there a limit for how much sex a person can have?

Is there a way sapphic sex could involve penetration?

Is there a limit to how many people you can love?

When someone is called a slut, what have they done?

Is there such a thing as too many partners in too short a time period?

How can you tell when you shouldn’t ask someone to have sex with you?

If you like sex with men and women does that make you bisexual?

Does anal sex hurt?

How do you deep throat someone?

What kind of limits or boundaries should I put on myself regarding sexual activity?

How do you know someone else is in love with you and cares deeply about you?

Are double penetrations or airtight sex acts more fun?