Chapter 31

Tina's turn:

So I walk into the lab and there's Susan. No, that's not unusual. We don't have a schedule posted and we don't clock in. We do make plans if there's going to be something interesting happening, but Susan's been trying to get a pair of rails machined for our final design, and she hasn't been successful. Genteel southern girls don't curse, so her aggravated "Darn!" and "Oh, poo!" are as bad as it gets.

This time, though, with Susan is this old guy. 'Old guy' in this case means noticeably older than my Alan.

"Hi," I said.

"Tina, this is Mister Jim Harris. He's a master machinist. Mister Jim, this is Tina Addison. Her husband's the other engineer in the office right now."

"Hello, Mizz Tina. Interesting project you have here."

"Thank you," I said.

"Mister Jim's showing me how to deal with the copper better. And a neat trick that lets us get a round profile on the rails. I think that's better than the V-groove we settled on."

"We don't have to move this for a while," Cindy said.

"Move it?" I asked.

"Yeah, the university's buying it, you know, but they don't have a place to put it yet. So it stays here. We build it to the firing stage. Document our build., Tell them when we test, and they witness and document the tests. We document all the changes and modifications." The little pixie crossed her arms. "You're looking at your senior project."

"No joke?" I squealed.

"No joke?" Mister Jim blurted. "You mean this thing's for real?"

"You haven't shown Mister Jim the whole thing?"

"All I've seen is Mizz Susan's machine tools."

We gave him the tour. "Now forget everything you've seen," Susan said. "The project at school's under a government security pact."

"No shit! Oops, sorry, ladies! This thing's for real? You've tested it?

"We can charge the capacitor bank, that's the part that stores the energy, to ten thousand volts. That's twenty-five percent above the nameplate value. Like supercharging an engine. Takes us twenty minutes to do that. And then we can dump all that energy across these two spheres and into the rails. Should get really energetic between those rails. But we haven't fired a projectile. We need rails. Did Susan show you her projectiles?"

"I used brass," Susan said. "But with what you've shown me today, I'm thinking I'll make some out of copper."

"If you give me a drawing, I can program our CNC mill at the shop and make 'em a lot easier."

"How much will it cost?"

"If you provide the stock and don't get in a hurry, nothing. I have a young machinist who has been dying to get his hands on that machine."

"I've got it," I said. "I assume you have an email address. You want CAD or a PDF?"

Alan's head peered in the door. "I thought I heard your voice," he said to me. "Mister Jim..."

"Just 'Jim'."

"Jim, I hope you know what you're getting into."

"I'm finding out. How old is this girl?" He asked.

"Just turned eighteen."

"She's sending me drawings and knows about CAD and PDF and gives me a choice."

"You're seeing the tip of the iceberg, Jim."

"Or we could print you a hard copy," Cindy chirped in that sweet, disarming voice.

I scooted over and kissed Alan's cheek. "He's got a CNC machine. Volunteered to do our projectiles as a training session for one of his guys."

"Oh, really ... Terri..." Alan said.

"Mister Jim, would you mind terribly if I brought our daughter over and let her see your CNC machine?"

"You've got a daughter?"

"Step-daughter. Alan's daughter. She's eight. She wants to see one."

"W-w-wait. Eight years old?" He really sounded incredulous now.

Cindy already had her cellphone out. "I'm texting Terri. She and Rachel are doing history this morning, but she can get over here." She turned to Mister Jim. "Terri's being home-schooled. The school district didn't have any way to handle her."

I saw the look on his face. MY daughter. "Oh, not a behavior problem. She's eight. She passed the GED tests..."

"Like HIGH SCHOOL?!?" he blurted.

I nodded, perhaps a little less enthusiastically than Cindy.

"I gotta see this."

"She's something," Alan said.

"Mini-me," Susan lilted, tilting her blonde head. "You'll see."

The back door swung open and we got the pair, Terri and Rachel.

"Hi Dad. Hi, Tina. Hi Susan. Hi, Cindy!" She looked at Mister Jim. "I'm Terri. This is Rachel."

Mister Jim squatted to their level. "Hello, Terri. Rachel. I'm Jim Harris."

"Pleased to meet you, Mister Jim," the pair said, almost in unison.

"Mister Jim has a CNC mill," Susan said.

"Really?!?" Terri squealed. "Where?"

"My shop is on the other side of town."

"Would you mind if we saw it? Please?"

"What do you know about CNC mills?" he asked.

"Susan and Dad explained to me about XYZ axis control. I'm curious."

Jim looked at Alan. "I have a granddaughter this age. If I explained XYZ control to her, my daughter would make a case for child abuse." He smiled. "Get yourself over to my shop. Bring your mom and Susan and Cindy and whoever else. I'll make sure that you see it run."

"I'd like to see it set up," Susan said.

"Susan, if you pay attention to the old guy who normally runs it, he's gonna have a heart attack." He laughed, whipping out his cellphone. "Can I get a picture of your lathe? That Hello Kitty sticker may just be the new trend in machine shop decor."

"Sure. Just no pictures of our, uh ... apparatus," Susan said.

"Not a problem. I understand." He snapped a couple of pictures. "How about a group shot? With Susan by the control head."

I had Terri and Rachel in front of me when he snapped the picture.

"Nobody's gonna believe this." He was laughing. "Susan, if you decide to ditch that electrical engineering thing, I'll hire you tomorrow for my shop."

Susan does this 'demure' thing. "Oh, thanks, Mister Jim. But I kinda like the electrical engineering, but I don't limit myself, you know."

"Oh, I understand, young lady," he said. "But I would dearly love to see the faces when I introduced you to the crew as a machinist."

Alan was laughing. "Jim, I appreciate you taking time to come see us."

"Alan, you know, sometimes you go through life and just never know what wonders you're missing. Today has been one of those. Seriously, you ladies are welcome to come by any time. Make sure you call so we can have an idea of what's in the shop for you to see."

"I will, Mister Jim," Terri said. "I really will."

"And I'll bring 'er myself," Susan added.

Mister Jim took off, leaving behind a bunch of conversations, but one of them was Susan excitedly telling us that she'd have the final version of the rails ready for testing soon.

We had the new bullet trap bolted to the floor across the length of the lab. We had our power capacitor bank tested. We'd run through every test we could think of, short of actually putting the rails in and inserting a projectile.

Dan Richards had said, "This trap will handle everything short of a .50 BMG round."

Of course we'd already talked about that among ourselves. "We're going to start at low energy and step it up in increments," Nikki said.

"And we'll collect data at each step and compare with calculated values so we can extrapolate losses."

"And we will also monitor erosion on our rails and support and guide system," Susan said. "That's an unknown."

"If you blow through the back of that trap, you're gonna punch a hole in Tina's apartment," he said.

Actually, we have a line superimposed over the plot plan for the apartment and the office, and yes, if you draw from the muzzle of the railgun through the back of the bullet trap, it does go through Tina's apartment. Of course, there's a stack of sandbags on the outside wall behind the trap. That's something that three combat engineer lieutenants came up with.

"Nothing like a bag of dirt," Dan 2.0 said.

Hardware things. That's all. Interesting. I guess I never got enough time playing with Legos and K'Nex when I was younger.

Software things. Learning. Classes. I had some. Susan had some. Holes in a schedule. Mines. Pits. That's what the guy I sat beside the day I turned my schedule in. I laughed.

"That's funny? This stuff?" he asked.

"Yes it is," I said. "A year ago I was a dropout from the eleventh grade. Today I'm scheduling my junior year courses for electrical engineering."

"So I take it from your attitude that you're not worried."

"Nope," I said. "I'm already doing work with my husband. Electrical engineer."

"Oh. I didn't see the ring. I wasn't hittin' on you, though."

"No, you're worried about the new semester. How'd you get here? How're you doing so far?"

"I didn't do anything like what you're talkin' about," he said. "Just a college kid."

"What's your major? I know it's cliché', but I'm not hitting on you, either," I said.

"Yeah, that is kinda cliché'. Little more sophisticated than 'what's your sign'. I'm doin' pre-med."

"Oh, then you're jerking my chain," I laughed. "You can't get into that without some horsepower."

"Everybody thinks that. But it's tough."

I heard my name called. "Well, good luck," I said, leaving him sitting there.

"Wait! I didn't get your name!" he blurted.

"Because I didn't give it to you." Okay, I guess I was being hit on.

My schedule was accepted and duly incorporated into the system. After I finished, I went outside and sat on the steps and forwarded my new schedule to the gang. Later, I'd sent it to the community calendar so we could track each other's itineraries.

And Alan's not going to know why I'm extra attentive to him this afternoon.

Life has become a series of little vignettes since we cranked up the Community for real. I remember when Cindy first proposed it, and I remember talking to her about Susan being a part, and then Nikki popped up.

Now we're adding Nikki's friend (and mine) Maddie. Maddie's not an engineer. She's headed into accounting and business administration. When she and her parents came to town for a campus tour, they nabbed the last apartment.

I remembered Maddie from when I was sitting with Nikki at our little 'outcasts' table. We were on the outside. Maddie was on the inside. Nikki said Maddie'd changed, grown up. Maddie's not the only one. Nikki and I have grown up, too.

But adding Maddie, that brings up another point: Mizz Beck. You see, we're home-schooling Terri and Rachel. That means that Alan and I and Sim and Beck are taking responsibility for the educational progress of our children. I'm in school. Beck has (had) a full time job. Alan and Sim both work. Who's gonna school the girls.

Over dinner... "I don't know if this is kosher," Sim said over a plate of lamb biryani at the Desai restaurant. "Our Rabbi just shakes his head."

"More than the biryani," Beck said. "What do you think?"

Alan had been appointed by the others to breech the idea to Sim and Beck. "Hours we spend trying to track the finances and the correspondence and the administrative processes are hours we don't do engineering. And I almost shiver at the thought."

"And you want me to do that?" Beck said.

"Well, you were saying the other day that you would relish a more flexible schedule and fewer hours," I said.