Chapter 19

Nikki's week:

I thought he was messing with me. I got dropped off at the engineering building along with Cindy on Monday morning. We're working with a couple of junior professors, guys hoping for tenure. We're novelties, mascots, pets, curiosities. At least we started that way in the middle of June. I'm not saying that at this stage they're exactly ducking and running, but Cindy and I have waded through about two years of engineering courses.

So when I walked into Jeffrey's office this morning, he had this smirk on his face.

"You're up to something," I said. "Are you gonna cause me pain?"

"Not like the pain you've caused me, Little Mizz Nikki Cajun Genius Girl," he said. "I had a talk with the department head last week. He's amazed at your progress. Too amazed, he says." He bridged his fingers together and rested his chin on them. "Did you go through the text I gave you last week?"

"Yessir," I smiled. "And I'm putting together a rail-gun, too. Got my husband looking for a freebie capacitor from the utility company."

"Oh, come on! A rail-gun?"

"Not up to that naval thing that's in the lab, but this one ought to be fun to experiment with. I'm using a spark gap for a trigger. Current-limited charge."

"You can't get a predictable firing pulse like that," he said.

"Oh, that's not what I'm after. I just want to see some bits of steel take off across the room."

"You're nuts."

"Maybe so. But I don't have access to the kinds of high power electronics you guys have. Cindy said..."

"And that's how things go off track," he laughed.

"Well she's the one who got the copper tubing from the HVAC contractor. I came up with the rail gun based on magnetics, she came up with the capacitor for storage. I came up with the spark gap."

"How would you two like to actually get to do some of those experiments?" he asked.

I squealed.

"Okay, then here's today's test. You know the drill."

He passed me a sheaf of papers. I did indeed know the drill: head into the empty conference room and get after it.

"Thank you, Doctor Jeffrey."

"You're quite welcome, Nikki."

I went into the conference room and laid things out, sat down and started reading. Got startled. Maybe the first page was wrong. Looked at the second page. Same thing. Third. Okay, they're messing up.

I knocked on Jeffrey's door. He looked up, grinned. "I figured I'd see you back pretty fast."

"What's the deal?" I asked. "I did this two weeks ago."

"Very astute observation, young padawan," he said.

"Why?"

"My boss, the super-doctor..."

"Doctor Stebbins," I said.

He smiled. Doctor Stebbins knew me by name, smiled and waved if he saw me. "Yes, Doctor Stebbins. He wanted me to make sure that you were actually retaining the subject matter. So be a good little girl and go take the stupid test. Again. And make sure you don't do measurably worse this time."

That 'little girl' comment was from a previous conversation wherein he opined about female engineers in general and especially 'little girl' engineers in specific, after Cindy and I both completed the first classes. "Yes, Revered Professor of Engineering," I said. And I curtsied.

When I turned, one of the department secretaries was staring in the door at us. "You guys are strange," she laughed. "And getting stranger..."

I returned to the conference room and did the test. Jeffrey never gave me a time limit and by now stopped looking surprised when I popped out before noon with the papers in my hand.

"Is your support network in range?" he asked. "I can give you the test you expected after lunch. If you think you can finish it before five, that is..." He stared at me.

"Puh-leeeez," I said.

"Tell me something, Nikki Granger," he said. "What exactly do you think you're gonna do with an engineering degree at age eighteen? You can't even go on the factory floor."

"Can too," I said. "Federal law says eighteen for hazardous work. Besides, I'm gonna be an engineer. It's not like I'm gonna be tapping crucibles at a steel mill."

"You said your husband snuck you into a high voltage transmission yard?"

"Yes he did," I smiled. I remembered the day I accompanied Dan to a utility company switchyard. Fascinated me. The company representative that let us in was another engineer, older guy.

"We'll bend the rules a bit," he said. "Since you're interested and we're escorting you."

And he and Dan showed me how the energy fields can charge objects that aren't physically connected and how low-level, high voltage can build on things. Yes, I got little shocks, kind of like scuffing your feet on carpet in the wintertime then touching a doorknob.

"Besides, we have our own lab at Dan's office," I said.

"You're avoiding the question," he said.

"Power system studies," I said. "I'm already working on them. With real engineer oversight, of course. That's data on a computer screen. In a program."

"I know," Jeffrey said. "I've used the program."

"That's part of that substation tour," I said. "Dan wanted me to see what the equipment looks like that those symbols on the screen represent."

"You DO have a clue," he said. "I have full-grown students who have no idea what they might do with a degree."

"Embedded controllers," I said. "Remember my cat feeder."

"I'd rather something that emptied my cat's litter box," he said.

"I looked," I laughed, "and nothing on the market impresses me. Don't you have a buddy in the mechanical engineering department who can figure that out?"

"Oh, hush!" he laughed. "Call your sisters."

That means that Cindy and I are sitting on the steps together waiting for Tina and Susan. I told her about Jeffrey and the double test.

"I got one, too. Remind me to send Doctor Stebbins a postcard," she laughed. "I suppose it's good that they're thinking about us. Even on Friday."

So we're sitting there waiting and this guy comes over and says "Hi! Are you waiting on somebody?"

"A ride," Cindy said. "Our sisters are going to pick us up."

"Are you visiting somebody?" he asked.

"We're engineering students," I said. "And if this afternoon goes well for me, I think I'm going to be a second semester sophomore by the end of the day."

"You're kidding, right?" he asked, eyes wide. "How old are you?"

"I'll be sixteen in a week. Cindy?"

"Fifteen the first week of September."

"You're kidding, right?"

About that time Jeffrey came down the steps and saw us. "Girls. You've met Justin. Justin, you're talking to true phenomena, Cindy and Nikki."

"Your nieces, right? They're jerking my chain about being sophomores."

"Worse than that. Much worse. And it's true. I just invited Nikki to look into our rail-gun lab."

Cindy's head snapped in my direction. "Really! You told 'im about our experiment?"

"And the only reason I hadn't invited Cindy was that I hadn't yet seen her."

Cindy and I looked at each other. "We're gonna do it, right?"

"Oh, wait wait wait. Come on," Justin said. "Tell me they were joking about their ages, will ya."

My reaction was to pull my student driver's license and show it to him.

"Geez," he said.

My cellphone rang. I pulled it out. Susan. I didn't need to look. She's got her own ring tone like all of us do. "Hi, Susan," I said. "Where are y'all?"

"Turning onto the side street," she said. "Come meet us."

"That's our ride," I said.

I stood up. "Nice meeting you, Justin. I suppose we'll see you around."

"Justin's in and out," Jeffrey said. "Summer semester. Catching up."

"Oh," I said. "We're going to have a study place off campus at our office."

"Office?"

"Our husbands have an electrical engineering company. That office." I reached in my backpack, fished around, pulled out a business card.

"You're MARRIED?"

Cindy waved her left hand. I did the same. "Yep!"

And the two of us bounced off to meet Tina and Susan.

It was just Tina and Susan. "Where's my Terri?" Cindy asked.

"The Pixie's Apprentice is taking in a movie with Rachel and her mom. Since it's not animated, my Jason is not begging her to go with him. And me," Susan said. "When it comes to animation, I'm an afterthought."

"You know better than that, Sis," I said. "Jason's never letting you be an afterthought, ever again."

"Yeah..." Susan said softly. "Yeah..."

I had to giggle, remembering how we used to soft-pedal our conversations around Susan before she and Jason got married. Now we didn't. And Susan was sometimes a bit forward. "At least I don't have to dress up like 'Little Mermaid' to get 'im goin'," she'd said. "Or Little Red Riding Hood."

That brought a gasp from Tina who'd intimated about role-playing with Alan. "I'm just not that good at it, you know. Gets to a point that I just say 'forget it!' and dive in!"

Cindy brought up the subject of Justin.

"He really didn't believe you?" Tina asked.

"Showed him my driver's license," Nikki said.

"And we showed 'im our wedding bands, too." I waved my finger. He thought we were Jeffrey's nieces or something."

"Where's lunch today?" I asked. "Desai's?"

"Naan bread and dal and chutney?" Cindy said. "Good for everybody?"

"Says Chandra," Tina giggled. "Yes!"

"And I'm gonna qualify for my own bindi," Susan chuckled. "Who'd'a thought."

"Yeah, it is funny, isn't it," I said.

We trooped into the Desai restaurant in our normal herd, greeted like family because, you know, Cindy was. At least adopted. We copped our family table in the back corner, Cindy went into the kitchen dipped us up a bowl of dal, another of fresh chutney and a stack of papadum and naan. And iced tea. I giggled. India meets Alabama, so we get sweet tea. Of course Mizz Desai was there hovering over the bunch of us like a loving grandmother is expected to do. Her real grandkids were in summer classes, so we got full grandma'd. Makes me happy.

Then we loaded back up and went back to school. I walked right into Jeffrey's office. "Well, did you catch more comments from that guy?"

"Justin?"

"Uh-huh. What's 'is deal?"

"Just a guy. Student. Said he saw you two sitting there and you looked too young to be students."

"We are," I laughed. "I'm supposed to be starting my junior year of high school in a month and a half."

"And when you take this test and pass it you'll have completed your sophomore engineering courses and I'll raise my right hand in court and attest to it."

"Well let me see what I can do," I said. I took the papers and headed up the hall. An hour and a half later I popped out for the bathroom and a cup of coffee, then dove back in. Nikki in the zone, I was. Last year, I didn't know it was a zone. The teacher would put the tests out and I'd have little flashes of 'remember when she said that' and 'that's a commutative property issue' and I'd pass. The flashes happened enough to get me B's and C's and kept Mom from having to talk to anyone at school. That was last year's goal.

Things have changed in my life since then. Dan, my Dan, my wonderful Dan. And Dan's Nikki learned about the Zone.

I'd spent a week with the books Jeffrey had given me, soaking stuff off the pages. It went in my head. And now it was pouring out. I was writing it as fast as I could, and I knew that when I presented the written work, Jeffrey had a list of questions for an oral exam. He was thorough. I think that the first time we did that exercise he thought I would be intimidated. It wasn't as intimidating as a building collapsing around me, so I just gave him the answers he wanted and then told him some more things that he didn't ask that I thought was significant. That was that first oral exam.

Now we just get comfortable and he asks the questions and I expound upon them.

"I don't know how you do it." He shook his head. "I know ... gifted." He pulled up another textbook. "Here's next week's fun."

"Have you decided how the labs are going to work?" I asked.

"I've thought about it. You mentioned your husband's work. Do you think he and I and you could talk?"

I brightened up. "When?"

He opened his calendar on his computer and looked. "How about Wednesday afternoon?"