Chapter 36

Just before my fifteenth birthday, Valerie moved out with a lot of crying. She had found an engineer who worked for me and they wanted to live together for a while before thinking seriously of marriage. I had talked to both and could see that this might work. All my girls were on the birth control pill, even if the medication had not passed testing, yet. The girls were just listed as test subjects and I would keep track of their progress.

They needed it, because I started to have a watery discharge that did much more to my nervous system than what the old dry orgasm could ever do.

Linda was still fragile but it became apparent that it was her natural state. I would not get her out of the house until I found a man suitable enough to handle the responsibilities. Linda would depend on him for most things and for some men that is what they were looking for in a woman.

My birthday this time was very well attended. The President sent me a photograph of my two tailors and himself. He was wearing a dark shirt and an equally dark vest that I had sent him. I had sent the tailors to fit him personally with our product. Two Puerto Ricans, who didn't like his ideas concerning their country, had made an attempt on his life a few years ago. He liked the added layer of security our product gave him.

When the White House renovation was completed the first time around, the President had led the procession back into the building to show his guests around. This time Bess did this and the people she took with her on this historic occasion, were her supporters in getting the contraceptive accepted by the public. Margaret Sanger and Katherine McCormick were in the forefront in many of the newspapers. The ones that Katherine owned had many stories of why she was there and not watching the televised event like many other conservative Washington socialites.

The Pill had been passed in the United States and was almost there in Canada. Both were almost accepted when the polio vaccine was finally passed.

As a birthday present I got some very large orders for Kevlar vests and, of course, for holsters and pistols. A large American bank had talked to Martin and with other contracts in hand I had bought slightly under fifty percent of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation. The process went surprisingly quick, considering the cost. The manufacturer was more in debt than what was commonly known.

At the moment I was after their ArmaLite Division that manufactured handguns. That portion was as much to get, considering that the war and the contracts were drying up. The Korean War was still going strong but they were mainly using surplus World War II equipment. I already owned three percent and this was unknown to the company. I now had a controlling interest.

They started the work on the M16, or what was called the AR-15. The company had actually made the rifle in the first place and it was an easy process to fabricate. I had played with the rifle a few times and knew how to assemble and disassemble it. It was even enough of a novelty that I had studied the gas-operated magazine-fed rifle. The rifle I had once studied was actually made by the British firm of Sterling Armament Company and called the Sterling-Armalite AR-18. It had been carefully re-engineered to make it simple and could be made in less developed countries. The AK 47 was the same way. Ours would actually be this product to start with. It would mean less in sales but it would mean that the rifle would be very readily accepted by the military.

This was not presented to the military but I knew that soon it would be needed. The ammunition was the .223 shell, which was the same as the NATO standard SS 109 type (M855) ammunition. This we used in a new line of rifles used to kill varmints. It was very popular in the States. All shell-making machines were ordered with interchangeable parts, so that we would be able to use all the machines when the time came. I was so sure of the rifle's acceptance that I had great many ammo cans made and then filled with our rounds.

The aircraft division were given preliminary drawings for the AH-64A Apache helicopter. This craft would take years to develop and they had to wait on engines and computers yet to even give a fraction of its capabilities. Helicopters were now only thought of as vehicles for evacuating wounded and moving generals from place to place. It was not until part way into the original-era Vietnam War when a general used the machine to get troops to and from a problem area quickly.

Two of the 1700 horsepower turbines could be used in the Black Hawk. I wanted a tank but I had seen the British Challenger 2 made by Vickers and there was no way I would go with an American version after looking at all the pros and cons. The same company would still make its Rolls-Royce Perkins Condor engine but it would have my modifications. I did not know a great many but the few I did would make this a much superior engine. This piece of equipment would have to come from Britain and West Germany.

The electronic controls were non-existent for the helicopters. Some of the simpler ones were started on with two separate research teams. I could come up with some nice weapons for all of them: Hellfire and Sidewinder missiles, the Hydra missile launcher and M-230A1 30-mm automatic cannon. This last was a chain gun design, powered by an electric motor. The pilot or gunner could use all of the weapons, provided the computer augmentation was in place. The venerable Huey was not even invented yet but I was making rocket launchers and other weapons for this, much simpler, weapon. If I were given enough time, all of this would be available.

The weapons systems would have to be farmed out and I wanted the missiles to go to Canada and the chain gun and controls to American firms.

I remember the stir 'Puff the Magic Dragon' made, so Gatling gun, rocket launcher and 105 mm howitzer installations was started. The Gatling gun, though, would have to be started from scratch and a lot of work would have to go into proving that an old DC-3 could handle these pieces of equipment.

Automatic shotguns had been popular in the dense foliage that was sometimes found in South East Asia. This I made but added some HEAT rounds to the mix. They might not work at close range but would make a good concussion round.

As a treat I had the electronic boys make me some light antitank weapons. The M72 was a great weapon and very light at just over five pounds. The rocket originally was sixty-six millimetres across and had two thirds of a pound of octol explosive. This was in as shaped charge with a piezoelectrically fired primer. A small probe went forward and when it hit a target it would push back and detonate the explosive just before the target. My improvements in thrust and explosive power would make it a much more formidable weapon when the new version was finally made.

The old weapon would not kill many tanks unless it hit perpendicular to a surface but it was a great weapon that was used widely for taking out fortified positions. At the moment, though, it was just a group of drawings in my mind.

Bell had finally come around and I negotiated hard and got a graduated ten percent of the company. This was based on performance and as each stage was completed I would get more shares. When and if, I sold my rights to the future satellite phone system, I would get an even higher percentage. I told everybody involved to buy shares now while they were cheap, because they would certainly climb after a small fall. I would have more shares than anybody else by far. Not only our computers but my solid-state lasers and now my fibre optics were employed.

After some tests by the military, they undertook the replacement of much of the wire. It would be unaffected by EMP, while copper was. The hydrogen bomb had not been detonated yet, so this effect was not known. They were going on my say-so and the scientists whom they talked to agreed.

I made some money on put shares from IBM and Univac when I introduced a few computers for the modern office. Television time was arranged for that and I didn't even have to pay for it. It showed Laura portraying a harried secretary. She was typing a document on a typewriter and then she had to change some of it. She started crying but then she went over to the computer and swiftly typed it again, changed the text some more, before finally printing it to a new dot matrix printer.

While the paper copy went into a fax machine for transmission to Toronto, another copy went into her records. The file in her computer was also sent off to another computer at Bell Labs. The fax was then used to make multiple copies of a document. The file itself was copied into a small, portable, non-volatile NAND RAM chip of only sixty-four megabytes. Our hard disk drive was not working yet but we made some promises and progress. If Microsoft could do this, then so could we.

While Laura the secretary was waiting for the sheets to be printed in the commercial, she used the microwave to heat some tea.

When the files had been sent out electronically, Laura started a program much like Internet chat. So far, it was only text but that was good enough for all the viewers. She got confirmation and clarification of some aspects of her present task.

Aron came in later and asked if he could use the machine for schoolwork. Laura looked at her watch and gave her permission. He popped in his own NAND RAM chip and fired up a story he was working on. This he edited and then printed for his teacher to read and to mark. Laura found a mistake and Aron simply re-edited the document and printed a new copy.

Josh Appleton came in. He was still nervous about this filming but he did bring up some mathematical formulas and told Laura what they were for. In two minutes and after a warmed up coffee he had the data that would have taken years to find normally with humans alone. He gave his thanks to Laura for doing the work of hundreds in just a few seconds.

Finally, mom came in and brought her cookbook loaded in a RAM strip. She simply selected the ingredients she had on hand and then went through the list of recipes she could make. A final selection of how many people would be eating and the quantities changed on the screen before printing.

In the last scene Aron and a friend came into the dark room and turned on the computer. In a moment they were playing a video game. This was educational and showed mathematical questions flashed on the screen and a now-functional digital-to-analogue sound card telling the boys how well they had done. When it said that it was ten o'clock and they should be in bed the boys reluctantly saved their status and left the room.

The show touched on a lot of different facets of the computer but hardly did more than scratch the surface.

As predicted, IBM stock started to slip and Univac took a major plunge. IBM had previously taken it into their heads to start on vacuum tube computers. They were slow, energy-consuming models and they took a real beating when companies found our machines to be many times more powerful.

As the film clip played in more and more cities, the stock fell even more. More shows were produced with different variations in equipment and I had to laugh because I still didn't even have to pay for this news. The viewing audience stared raptly at the devices. Bell had to put in some commercials, so the stations would make some money.

The final straw in one commercial was when Laura found that her IBM typewriter failed. She picked up the machine and threw it onto the floor and then did all the work on our computer with much more speed and with the ability to alter the document before printing. IBM and Univac shares fell even more. I was getting frantic calls from both companies to see what I could do to save them.

There were less than two thousand of our computers in existence. Bell and my companies had all but a hundred that were used in some government offices. Each and every one was hooked up to an LCD screen and ran on portable batteries supplemented with wall current.

Computers and various other electronic parts took up more and more floor area. We had no shortage of credit but I did have a shortage of skilled help. Things would soon change but that did not relieve us from growing pains.

So far, Bell had only allowed us and the government, to attach the devices to their lines. To make sure they expanded, I convinced the military to use our devices for communications. When there were enough computers for them to reach the average citizen, Bell would be the only provider and get a good fee for doing so. Good old avarice would allow me and the public, access to their wiring. In the other time Bell was just told to do so when the government wanted people to use their modems but that was after a considerable amount of pressure.

The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed the previous year. This limited a President to two terms but it was not signed into law. I knew that Adlai Stevenson had run against Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in my old time line. The vote was very one sided and Eisenhower won handily.

Adlai Stevenson had got very few Electoral College votes, too and that was a first indication that he was in trouble. I had done my own looking at candidates and could see little that would run against the popular war hero. I knew a lot of people now and I even pushed Adlai Stevenson's cause.

A belated birthday present came in November. It seemed that Congressman McCarthy was caught flagrante delicto, so to speak, on many different photographs. Apparently, investigators had followed him and made a pictorial exposé of his various love affaires. One happened to be General Bower.

He was not threatened with a court case this time but the facts were left for the people to decide. McCarthy was censured this time for a different reason and he used a pistol to end his life. I can't think of too many people who had actually liked the man and would mourn.

The Democrats seemed to have been posed for this event and attacked the Republicans at every opportunity. It turned out that there were quite a few closet homosexuals in the party, or at least many were caught. The ones to fear the same thing in the Democratic Party kept a very low profile while the hunt was on.

On the legal front, we were having a bit of trouble. Companies wanted our electronic products and when they were refused because of lack of supply, we were taken to court and charged with being a monopoly. This was done on both sides of the border and I found our legal staff growing even quicker than our businesses. I had known of this event from the first and made sure I was not selling even to my own companies. Bell and my companies were doing research all the time and it just so happened that we made products from the parts.

The Aron's Cube and Grandpa's hat went full tilt to bring in more cash. I did not want to run my companies on credit alone. They were an instant success. The cubes had six different faces of world leaders. I made sure the President was on one face, as well as his image being on the plastic disk. A new line of flexible dolls came out with Helen and Laura models. The two moulds were carefully made and there was a hint of the mons and Laura had larger breasts. Both girls loved the dolls till they changed clothes on them and found that they were a bit more sexually explicit than any other dolls made.

As an incentive for the sale of the cube, I started a competition to see who could solve the cube the fastest. Our calculator and some money were the basic prizes but a computer would go to the overall winner. Four separate competitions were run. Canada, the United States, Britain and I made sure Japan was included.

I found Doctor Sabin and convinced him to join my drug company. I sent him off to China immediately to find the weak polio viruses needed in the live vaccine. He and twenty-three others got special visas from the Chinese government and left on their quest.

Early in the new year I flew with Laura, Helen and even Aron on a long series of business trips that would take us around the world. Things were getting tense at home. People were patting our backs but some were real nut cases and would use a knife instead of their palm. Some of our security detail had to come with us to run interference, for the other countries would be the same.

Britain was our first stop and we stayed in London while I checked on the drug company that I had a thirty percent share in. Most of the negotiations had been done over the phone and the final papers would be signed after I investigated the books. The price was paid with some cash and the licence to make the polio vaccine. The anaesthetics and the contraceptives, when they passed, would net me twenty percent more of the company in lieu of payments. I had even owned this company in my previous life. We signed a few contracts that dealt with the manufacture of the 'Pill'.

Through my name and many favours asked, I was able to take my family to meet King George VI. He had a laid back personality and was well liked by his people. His family came out to meet mine. I was a novelty for what I had done but now it was obvious that Laura and Helen were my wives. This put me in the group with all the bad apples. Many people simply refused to deal with me.