Chapter 12: Nits and Nano

Cassie's next couples of days were busy. The security breach happening right before the holidays had been a lucky stroke. The student body was busy getting ready to head home and the excitement of missing instructors and professors could be overlooked.

The former security chief was removed and he was informed that DHS would insure that he would never again work in any form of security. Three prospective new chiefs were brought in for interviews. Cassie was part of the interview process and she found she could use her deep scanning abilities to determine when they lied.

Then she used a form of binary search to narrow the lie down to the truth.

"Sir, looking over your application and resume I am sure that you lied to us. Now, some lies are harmless; others are not as harmless, as I'm sure you know. So let's determine which are which. I'm going to ask a few questions. Failure to answer will be a 'no' so there will be no unanswered questions.

"Have you ever committed a felony even if nobody else knew of it?"

"No I have not."

"Was it a violent felony?"

"I have not committed a felony!"

"Was money involved?"

He just sat there with his mouth closed.

"Was it sexual in nature?"

"Was a member of your family involved?"

"My opinion is that we turn this applicant down, he is most likely a sexual predator. He would use his position to force female employees into sexual liaisons."

"Who do you think you are? I have never committed a felony!"

Cassie stood up and leaned toward the man, "I am Special Deputy US Marshal Howard! When you leave here, I will institute a deep background search of you and any sexual crimes around you." She had, without thought, thrown back the left side of her jacket where her badge and credentials hung along with her pistol.

He stared at her left hip, turning pale as he did so. Then he turned and rushed out of the office.

Cassie sat back down. Her face focused on the door that had just slammed shut. One of the assistants to the DHS agent in charged was talking on a phone in the corner. He hung up and bent to whisper to his boss.

"There have been three sexual assaults and murders of female employees that worked with him. We have notified the FBI of our suspicions. But how did you do that?"

"You ever see that TV show 'Lie to me'?"

"Well by telling him that saying nothing was saying 'No' he was forced to try to answer, but I could tell when he thought he was telling a lie."

"By continuing to ask questions, I narrowed down his lies. He knew he had committed a felony. It was violent, but did not involve money. It did involve sex, but was not on a member of his family which is the most common sexual violence."

"The background report showed he had never had a complaint filed on him; nor been part of an investigation in relation to a crime. I am betting that a deep background with these suspicions will show that other females have been assaulted and murdered at other jobs where he has worked. He has to move along though or suspicion would finally narrow to him."

"Marshal, this one interview with you present, would pay for your inclusion if we had to hire you to participate."

Days later none of the applicants had been found acceptable, though none was as spectacularly denied as that first one. However, serious questions rose on the suitability of any of them.

"Marshal Howard, could you take over the position of security chief here?" The DHS AIC asked her.

"No Sir, I have a full load about to hit me. Within a year and a half I will earn my BS and have half my MS done. I've got a proposal for you, though: Contract with CHH Security and Protection to handle the security here on site. The President of the company is a Special Deputy US Marshal; the Chairman of the Board is also. The company does close scrutiny of all its employees with spot checks of background routinely."

"See if that would be feasible?"

He sat there thinking, and then he looked at her as his eyes widened. "That's you! You are the Chairman of the Board. So we would basically be contracting with you!"

Cassie smiled at him. "But not with me personally! We use a military ranking system; Clint Wilson is DOA, Director of Administration, and is President of the company and a Special Deputy US Marshal. He is the effective commander. I'm in charge of SOC, Special Operation Command, as well as the Chairman of the Board. He does not give commands to me, and I make suggestions to him."

"I would not have supervisory oversight of whoever he puts in charge. That person would be in charge of the site. Since I will be working the lab as a scientist and not a security person, we need a 'Chinese wall' here so I am not in a conflict of interest. I certainly can report anything I see to Clint for follow up by the Security team."

"Let me kick this up the ladder to my boss. It's for sure that with you doing observation it would be a lot harder to pull what was going on here again. We busted three separate industrial espionage and two foreign espionage operations in this one sweep."

Cassie thought that there would be no decision made until after the New Year, so she prepared to wait. This did not mean she sat back relaxing until she heard back. It meant that she concentrated on her studies. Her Graduate Tutor was now on her payroll as a temporary hire. She found him a room at her main house and saw to it that he made it to his classes. But approximately eight hours a day he lectured her.

In her one nanotechnology class she saw a shortcut for binding elements closer together. The instructor ignored her suggestion.

Cassie took a couple of hours in the Research Building to run her math past the computer and it checked out. The next day, in her weekly meeting with the Dean of the Physics department, she showed him her printouts and what she had suggested to her instructor.

Over the next week her paper was published in the Nanotechnology Under-Review magazine. The Dean's name was below hers. That did not bother her as the magazine would have never considered publishing it with just her name on the paper. The College applied for a patent. The college legal agreement with its researchers was 50% to the college and the other 50% divided equally with all the participants in the research. This did not bother Cassie at all; she was here to learn.

Knowing how much she was missing being with her family over the holiday, Cassie took care that as many of her people as possible were given leave over the holidays. That turned out to not be as many as she had first thought. The majority of those working for CHH were without families.

Cassie suggested to Clint that maybe a Christmas festival be held on the estate. For the next three weeks the estate got very quiet with no construction. She had no school except that she would go into the Research Building two or three times a week to keep up her oversight of the remaining security onsite. This security was temporarily in place from DHS.

Then the accident happened.

Cassie slowly regained consciousness. Her head ached, as did her whole body. She automatically reached out to scan and she screamed. She felt compressed, as if the world had fallen on top of her. She blanked out.

In the distance she heard a voice, "Cassie, oh Cassie sweetheart. I am here baby. I am here."

Well of course she was. Her mother was always there for her! Cassie felt her hand being squeezed tightly and squeezed back.

"She's waking up!" she heard he mother scream.

"Sarah dear, don't get excited." Her dad said.

"She squeezed my hand, George!"

"Good! I have been scared. She has been unconscious for days. The Doctors said they can find nothing wrong, but a heck of lot they know!"

"Yeah, George our girl is unique."

"I can hear you." Cassie mumbled.

"Oh My God! Did you hear her George?"

"I heard her!"

Cassie felt kisses being pressed on both sides of her face. The pain had subsided. There were just a few aches. The headache was almost gone. She slowly opened her "eyes". There were her Mother and Dad. She sighed in relief. She remembered the pain that had hit her when she had first tried to scan. She remembered how she had overdone it and lost most of the ability until she had learned to push just so far, and then relax before trying more.

Cassie extended her scan further and further but slowly. She gripped her mother's hand tightly. "Cassie! Please dear, not so hard." She heard as if from far away. She was in the Hospital near the college, but she had reached all the way to the college with her normal 360 degree scan. That was over 3 miles! Normally she could only scan this way to a distance of half a mile.

She then began narrowing her scan down and reaching in the direction of the estate which was nearly 15 miles from the campus. 'Oh My God!' she thought, as her scan 'saw' the whole estate and then began to pick out details. Clint and June were hugging. 'Wait! When had June arrived here?'

"When did June get here? I thought that she was not coming until around April?"

"June? Who is June? Cassie?" her mother asked.

"Egh, she was my assistant up in Idaho, she is Clint's girl friend."

"I have not met her Cassie, so I don't know when got here. Is she outside?"

"No, she is at the Estate." She smiled, "She and Clint are kissing."

Cassie heard the steady beeping from the medical machines that were all connected to her. Neither her mother nor her father said a thing. Cassie did what had become a routine habit the last month or so; she scanned herself.

The muscles of her body were all recovering from bruising. Some of her organs had taken a beating as well. In fact her body appeared like she imagined one would look like after a real hard beating. "What had happened to her?" she wondered. What about her sensitivity? Had it changed? She reached for the pendant that she wore, feeling for the boundary between the gold and silver that it was made from.

Her scan slid right along the boundary and went deeper then she had ever gone. It was empty. There was nothing there except for a few strange things that came and went with no apparent movement. Then she 'saw' it: a massive object. Then it hit her, this was an atom of gold! She looked closer and it grew as her scan got narrower. She saw the neutrons and protons that made up the nucleus of the atom and the empty space between them.