Chapter 2

The next weeks we made great strides in mapping and cataloging every single object within 50 light years of Earth. There were no intelligent species to worry about as neighbors, the closest was the Klirkk system at 98 light years. It was the same system that we had previously detected as having a nearly perfect replica of Sol, and a planet in the habitable zone.

As the year came to a close, I handed Adele a present, which she quickly tore open, revealing the mug I had found. It boldly declared, “The first rule of 2021 is: No talking about 2020!”

“Funny Adam, aren’t you here to talk about 2020,” she asked.

“It’s my last opportunity apparently, tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve,” I said, making her chuckle again.

“Well, I’ve been sending you statements and reports,” she said.

“I’ve been reading them all. The thing is that I have a bit of a confession to make, and I don’t know how you’ll take it.”

“Taking six months off for the baby?” she guessed.

“No, I’ll be coming into work, but you should know I’ve made a new breakthrough, in the laser field. Fully conventional, meaning no mass to energy conversions, lasers for industrial and defense applications. I can give you a demo in February if you want to see about approaching the Swiss Air Force again.”

“Safe and sane power levels?” she asked.

“I don’t know about safe, the military lasers are made to kill the enemy.”

“But just enemies, not the rest of humanity in an accidental explosion that creates a mile deep crater?”

“Right,” I said rolling my eyes.

“That’s not the confession, what’s up Adam, you can tell me.”

“Our graphene factories are about to have an increase in production capacity. I bought better equipment from a very nice guy.”

“You said that they were industrial secrets, that you were responsible for them, and that no one else had them. Now you said you bought better equipment, from who, Martians?”

“Blue frogs, actually. They are from a star system about 450 light years from here.”

There was a stony silence. “That’s not funny, Adam,” she finally said.

“What’s not funny is what it cost me to get it. I had to travel about 300 light years just to get to the place where they were sold.”

“Adam, I’m warning you, this had better be a joke.”

“Adele, this is not a joke, it’s alien technology. I’ve also got an improved medication machine design that will provide a 3500 times faster production of vaccine powder.”

She looked like she was going to faint for a bit. “How much faster?”

“3 grams a minute instead of 1 gram a day, roughly. I haven’t actually tested it yet, it might be less, but it will be significant.”

“We have been wondering what to do next, the third production building will be full just after the new year.”

“I want to stop production on the old version, and start upgrading them. I’ll start off slow, doing just one a week to make sure it works well, if so I can ramp it up. Do you think Herr Von Gunten will approve?” I said.

“It doesn’t matter what he says. I tracked down the single share that Michael bought for his grandson a few years ago. I bought it for five million and signed an agreement not to pursue his breach of the NDA this time.”

“Who?” I asked.

“You called him Doctor Bozo I think,” she said, and I grinned.

“So we own 50%, plus one share?”

“Technically it belongs to you. Our contract forbids either Zwizz or ZZ from owning more than 50% of Zwizz. The contract says nothing about having voting rights for more than 50%. For now, you are personally donating those funds to the employee health care fund.”

“What does it do for the employee health care fund?” I asked.

“It gets part of the funds, .0001% actually, of every vaccine sale. That goes to pay for health insurance for all our employees.”

“That’s fantastic,” I told her.

“Now tell me more about this alien technology,” she insisted.

“Sorry, not allowed. I can tell you I’ve got a few new products coming down the line from the same source. One is a photonic computer chip and an AI system that will make Level 6 self driving cars a full reality.”

“What’s level 6? I thought it only went up to level 5.”

“Full autonomy, and the ability to yell at each other in heavy traffic,” I told her chuckling.

“Let’s leave that for second quarter 2021 to talk about,” she said, not laughing at my joke, “If you can ramp up production of the vaccine, then we might be able to eliminate the virus everywhere.”

“Upgrading just two machines will put us in the million doses a day range,” I told her.

“Upgrading 1 per week, will have what kind of effect in a month?”

“1.8 million doses a day by the end of January. By then I should have enough experience that I can up that to 5 per week.”

She punched some buttons on her calculator, “That’s 50 years to upgrade all 12,800 machines. No way to do it faster?”

“Not that I can tell now, and upgrades are faster increase than new built. Hard to say what the future will bring. Even at 5 per week, that’s 10 million doses per day being produced by mid March. I don’t see why we would need to keep upgrading past that point. Supply would start outpacing WHO’s ability to deliver and administer. Are you still planning on just two auctions per week?”

“Yes, all the extra is going to WHO.”

“What have the Americans said? Any contact from the next administration yet about getting back on the approved list?”

“I’ve had a phone call from them. I’ve made it clear that they need to follow WHO guidelines, but that I won’t stop the individual States from purchasing vaccine directly.”

“They are still clamoring for universal vaccination right?”

“Yes, they think everybody has to get vaccinated to make the virus stop. Which in their case might actually be the truth if they refuse to take the obvious and simple steps to halt infection. They’ve got tens of thousands dying now from the Thanksgiving holiday spread. The Christmas holiday spread will likely make it even worse in a few weeks.”