Chapter 35

The next week I had many of the board of directors there to see what we had wrought. Some were in New Jersey to talk to the people there. They all had photographs and documents that they wanted to get sent over the wires.

More wiring was dedicated to our job and we had a regular Internet café in the making. I was even serving ice cappuccino while the wealthy men and a few women talked to the people on the other end of the line. These people were put up at my expense. When they left, I was very sure that my contract would get accepted even if they were going to quibble a bit.

The next week we had the military from both countries coming to see our product. The services the computer and the communications net could provide were altered to fit the military mind. They liked the idea of a ground-hugging missile and the advanced avionics I could provide for the various jet aircraft.

Some, belatedly, wanted to have all this classified but it was in the patent offices of many countries already. They did love 'Space Invaders' and a few other simple games but you could not get them to admit it. Documents were passed between here and Ottawa and between here and Washington for these tests. There was just as much saliva flowing as with the others who had come the week before. I was sure of some follow-up work and some contracts. Teletype was available but graphics were not possible. Our encryption was mentioned but I was sure that they did not understand the finer points of what I offered.

The week before the fair we had various companies there to see what we had and how they could incorporate our equipment into their products. They came up with so many ideas that I had to straighten them out at what the machine could do. They thought like the writers of the old mad-robot movies that were supposedly done with vacuum tube computers.

When those had left, I scheduled a news conference and I showed the press what we could do, with a special bent toward their profession. Word processing was mentioned with spell checkers and automatic formatting. Our word processor was on the same level as WordPad and the spellchecker was not ready yet.

Mathematics was stressed and compared to our calculator. Since we could print on the fax we had a clear record of all that was done. As with the other groups, I put in one of the formulas for finding 'PI'. The machine chugged away and in four minutes spit out a long continuous page of paper with PI to only sixty five thousand places of accuracy. I was sure they would try to check it out but I doubted if they would be done before the end of the century if doing it by hand.

They sent and received data from Bell Labs. A form was sent with signatures on it and it was returned with some checkmarks in the appropriate places. They could see the obvious advantages to businesses already. The fact that good quality photographs could be sent from a portable device hooked to a phone line from any place on earth made them sit up and pay attention.

The fair came around and this time it was more organized or the vendors knew what to really expect. Dad and grandpa made a killing on their food. Mom had left the mine in the care of others and was there to help, too.

Aron, Helen and Laura had a stall to sell the two games and they made a similar killing. By the way the cubes were selling, I knew that this time the cube might outsell the original. They had help in this venture. The people who manufactured the games for me were here selling so they could see just how well their efforts were valued.

Lass made another showing and the owners had her doing tricks but she was now jumping on her hind legs. Everybody could see that she was just like any other dog that was free of arthritis. Her pictures sold well, especially those of her during the operation.

The gold and the motor home had stayed home this time. The only things really new this year were our exhibits. Besides the microwave ovens and radios, we had our calculators securely mounted under heavy plastic. People could come up and find out answers to their mathematical questions. The computer, fax machine and the two combined did draw a lot of people. They had read about it in the newspaper and had come to see what they were like first hand. The only thing that would have really got them going, was a digital-to-analogue card that would talk to them in a mechanical voice.

There were, no doubt, foreign powers here, too. They would be here to find out about our inventions. With spies all over the place, I was sure that they already knew quite a bit about what I was doing.

There were at least three attempts to steal the calculators and one more for the computer and fax. I let the police handle it but I was sure some company or government put the men up to it.

Katherine McCormick got back to me the last day of the fair. She was very excited. "Mr Kramer, the formula you made works exceedingly well. I want to start full-scale tests. Are you agreeable?"

"That sounds good to me but I think in this situation, like with the vaccine, we should start with an American company. It will manufacture the pills and conduct the tests independent of Canada and the rest of the world."

"That is fine with me but why don't you just supply the contraceptive and we can test that?"

"If the substance is made in the United States, then there is less of a problem getting it approved. There is a lot of complications with cross border drug shipments, especially when your customs agents might take it into their minds that they do not want the substance in their country to corrupt young women. This could ruin a test that may have worked otherwise. If the drug is made in the United States, then I have a ready-made supplier when the drug passes."

"You are certain it will pass?"

"Of course I am. This is a fairly simple substance. I am currently working on more advanced varieties but they may take decades before they can come to market."

"What varieties are you talking about?"

I listed all the modern contraceptives of my time and what was in the works when I had come back. If they ever came about, they would not go on the market for at least ten more years.

"That is fascinating. I had no idea medical science had progressed that far."

I chuckled a bit and said, "It has not. It is what I think will work. I have to work very hard on a number of topics to see my way clear to even start to experiment. To change the topic a bit: do you believe the researchers would be interested in a lucrative job in manufacturing the oral contraceptive for my company?"

"I can ask, if you wish. Now that I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I want to race to it."

With the closing of the fair I was free for a short period of time. This I wanted to use to contact a publisher. Typists had made more copies of many more manuals I wanted printed, along with books on simple programming. The second book was aimed at the primary grades, because it would be best to catch the children young for this kind of thing. If I could ensure the security of the machines I would put a few in Aron's school.

Similar books would be printed in the United States and if we could come up with a swap deal, we would not have to pay any duties.

Instead, I got a call to go see some military types to discuss weapons.

I was invited to visit the famous building in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington. I had been at the Pentagon so many times I had lost count. I was dressed to suit the occasion but it was still hot. I was given a visitor's tag after a phone call and escorted to General Locatelli's office. I waited while the secretary fiddled with a damaged typewriter. In only five minutes I was summoned into the office. I had never met this man before, so did not know what to expect. He offered me a seat and some water. I accepted both in the warm office.

The general took care of his body. He was close to six feet tall and weighed around two hundred pounds. His uniform was blue and the ribbons said that he had seen action in the war and not from riding a desk. He looked to be close to fifty years old and I thought him a bit young for his job and position.

"Hello, Mr Kramer. From the report I got about you I would think you were able to bend steel in your bare hands. I am glad you are normal-looking."

"Thank you, General. My Superman cape is currently out being cleaned, so you see the real me. What may I do to serve your country and perhaps the NATO?"

"You have made many brash statements in the last few months, or at least that is how some see it. The list of things you claim is so long that we don't really know where to start. Why don't you begin with what you think can be most easily accomplished."

"I can do some of that, General but I have not had time to do enough research to patent the ideas. I would find it extremely rude if you happened to tell others and the gossip got to a manufacturer who would patent my idea. I could talk about different weapons and when you see one you like we just go further into that, with your word that it doesn't leave this room. You realize that your word here is balanced against many millions of dollars that I could possibly make."

"Well, my word was never valued at quite so much but I freely give it."

"Ok, we start simple that should make me a few million in pocket change." The general smiled at this and I continued. "Would you call a guard in here with his side arm? I want no shells, just the gun itself."

I got a smile and he used the phone and a guard came in. He removed the shells from his weapon and turned it over to General Locatelli. The general handed the gun to me. "May we have a moment in private to do some secret weapons research?"

The guard left but was not happy to leave his weapon. I checked to see if there was a shell in the chamber then said, "You have to help here, General." I handed him the weapon. "Hold the weapon in front of you so I can work on it."

The general got up from behind his desk and held the gun pointed toward a concrete wall. I took out my laser pointer and then took some scotch tape from a handy dispenser. The laser was placed under the barrel of the gun and I secured it with only the tape this time.

"General you have heard of my lasers? Well, I made a small one that emits visible light. Laser light goes straight and does not spread much. There is a laser under your gun. Don't point it at your eyes, or at anybody else's eyes either."

"Ok," he said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Pretend you are in a dark and dangerous environment. You cannot see very well. There are many hostiles about." I turned the laser on and stood back. A small, red beam shot out and hit the wall. As the gun moved, so did the dot.

I said, "We can make a small frame under a new gun and mount the laser in it, so it does not fall off. It will be sighted in, so the dot is where the bullet goes."

The general moved around the room moving the gun here and there visualizing what I asked him to see. In a moment he said, "How far will the beam go?"

"To the end of the universe. With a good lens mounted on the end, you should see the dot to a hundred yards on a dark night. As you can see it is visible in daylight. The fact that the beam is where the bullet will go will terrify many people. A soldier is under a lot of stress and the dot gives him an added advantage of hitting just what he is aiming for"

"I can see that already. Our special forces can use a weapon like this." The general handed the gun back and I turned the laser off. "That is a handy toy that a soldier can use. What else do you have?"

"Let's return the weapon before the soldier outside the door gets too upset."

When the soldier put his weapon back in order, he checked it for damage. I had used some Kleenex to remove any traces of glue. When the door closed I said, "I have had some ideas about polymerising some light-weight molecules. Six months ago I sent my research over to Joseph Cranz. We worked hard but mostly I talked over the phone lines with their chief chemist. We developed a lightweight fibre, which, when woven into a tight material, will be strong enough to stop small-arms fire."

"Go ahead with that, Mr Kramer. I am very interested in this product."

"Call me Alex. I can talk to Joseph Cranz and get some of these vests delivered. Everything I found has become my property and even the process got a patent applied to it."

I continued, "The material, for its weight, is many times stronger than steel but will of course be bulkier because of its low density. It is woven into coarse thread and woven into a heavy fabric. There are multiple layers used. For savings in weight, it is in the form of a vest. Other garments could be made but all must be in multiple layers. Bruising will be unavoidable and if the bullet strikes over a bone, there may be breakage. It is not perfect."

We discussed the properties but I was not in the least bit vague. I had read once about this material but had not made it before. Its manufacture had been some of the only real research I had seen done. I had, of course, worn a vest myself many times. Cutthroat business deals did not always see the use of a knife.

When we had been a few hours at talking about these two products and discussing only lightly the other statements, the General said, "We would like to know a lot more about what you think you can do for our missile defence. Do you think the laser you made will shoot down the Russian missiles?"

"Not from the ground to orbit, we can't. The energy we would need has to be a small atomic bomb. The energy from the blast works on the rods to focus intense beams of energy at a distant target. It will have to be stationed in space. When a missile comes within a thousand miles it will aim at it and then destroy the enemy missile before it can reach the ground."

The General said, "How is it aimed?"

"Signals from an onboard radar are interpreted on the ground, or you could use one of my computers to do it when suitably authorized."

"You can build one of these things?"

"Sure but I have to tell you that I never used it very many times on earth."

The general laughed and said, "I figured that. I am sure we would have noticed."

"General, you said, 'begin with what you think can be most easily accomplished'. I did do that and went on. I think I can get us into space a lot sooner than the Russians. I want civilian satellites that will send out radio, television and telephone calls."

"I can give for you a small, handheld device that lets you know within ten feet where you are, anywhere on the earth. I hear your soldiers getting lost in battle or on reconnaissance is a problem. If used with a missile, my Global Positioning System will take it to wherever you want, including a buried missile silo.

"My telephone will give a soldier in the field the capability to call his home, here to the Pentagon, or to his unit commander.

"With a very good telescope in one of my other satellites, I can send back pictures of a Russian missile site and even read the numbers off a Russian licence plate. All those require artificial satellites placed in orbit by me."

"Alex, those things you have mentioned before and they are unbelievable. They have been postulated but nobody can do them, yet. How are you going to do better than thousands of scientists and engineers?"

I explained, in principle, how each device would work and added a lot of encryption for the phones. Unlike CNN, I would allow more bandwidth with more phones, so good colour pictures could be sent from a camera through multiple telephone connections.

"What if the Russians or the Chinese start to jam your satellites?"

"I think your wars will all be small ones. Your government is not really too pissed off at the Russians, you just want an excuse to keep a good military and get paid. If jamming occurred, you just send a missile to the jamming device. Failing that, I would make a maser uplink. This, like the radio, goes directly to the satellite but it cannot be intercepted."

Locatelli sat in his chair and closed his eyes with his fingers touching almost like in prayer. "To be honest Mr Kramer, I don't know enough about what you are now talking about. Will you talk to a group of experts about what you mentioned and others?"

"That is acceptable but I want to limit the discussion to one thing at a time. I want people capable of making decisions, too. Getting a roomful of engineers saying they love my ideas does not get me contracts. I expect to become very wealthy by serving the military of your nation. Your word that you gave me restricts what you can say to this group. If you are enthusiastic, you may mention my small laser. The laser is patented but not for the use I showed you. To explain my other ideas I need to experiment more and then protect my ideas by laws. I want to educate the world but not at the expense of people stealing my ideas."

"I see your problem, Mr Kramer. What can you suggest that would get around this conundrum?"

"I can see an easy way. I talk to a few people like you. They sign a secrecy agreement with me. They will get a clause that if I am doing something contrary to the interests of your country, the contract will be void. If those people think I am not full of shit, they will pay for a lab of my choice, where I want it but it will be in the United States. The government will pay the entire range of bills and give me money to pay for a hundred or so researchers. They will retain ownership of the land and equipment. I get free and clear protection for my ideas. They get the use of my inventions along with me."

The General said, "That means a lot of trust on both sides. I can see lawmakers and other important men asking for details of the men you might get. I can't see the men remaining secret."

"Let's see that we get to the first step. I have a few friends who may keep any future employees on the right side of their contract."

The meeting was to be in two days, so I took the chance and phoned the Secretary of State. It was hard to get through but he called back in an hour and a half. After a few pleasantries, I said that I was in town pandering my wares to the military and would like to talk to President Truman, if he had a moment. Twenty minutes later I was talking to another voice I knew.

"Hello, Sir, I am close by trying to prostitute my knowledge to the military for a few shekels. I have a sample of a new teaching aid here. If you can give me ten minutes, I think I can get you to do something for your government and for me that will be mutually beneficial."

"I am always intrigued by you, Alex. Stay by the phone and I will get my secretary to phone you back with a time."

"That sounds good. If I have to work for you, do I get to call you 'boss'?"

"Not in front of others, Alex."

That night at nine thirty I was invited to see the President and his family. They were now living across from the White House while it was being renovated. This building was called the Blair House and would serve for a few more months. The Secret Service agent was dismissed. While we had our talk, I was introduced to Elizabeth, better known as Bess.

Harry Truman said, "Bess wanted to see you and I had to do what she says or there will be no peace. It is a shame that our daughter Margaret is not home tonight."

I shook the woman's hand and said, "I am very glad to meet you, too. It must be hard to put up with the boss sometimes."

In a very nice voice she said quietly, "It is but women have to work with what we have. Oh and thank you for the recipes. Your device scandalized the chef here, as did it being used by non-chefs. The hand-made recipe book was right there, too. I sent your mother and the other ladies a card of thanks."