[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (35 page)

As the impossibly minute structures started to take shape, the machine began to move them into each other. Like pieces of a puzzle, the computers controlling the machine began to intertwine them, winding them into each other like a thousand minuscule metal snakes merging. The bounds of gravity negated by the resounding waves in the sphere, its impossibly precise pulsing fingers were able to manipulate the material in any way its programmers chose.

Within a few seconds the chip was taking shape. After five seconds it was done.

As the machine finished, it calmed the now melded block on the screen, allowing it to regain its solidity. Then the complete object dropped slowly off-screen and it was over. The screen went blank, the machine came to a stop, and the vibration slowly dissipated. The room was left unnaturally silent like a garden after the lawn mower has been silenced. The recipient of the whole demonstration sat mutely, his body still reverberating from the machine’s bass thrum as his mind vibrated from the shock of what he had seen. It had been beautiful and fantastic to behold, and he sat mute.

After allowing him to mull for a moment, Madeline nodded to the technicians who proceeded to open the sphere once more and retrieve the chip from it, taking more care this time with the finished product. They brought it to her and she spoke as she held it aloft. “The chip we have just made is perfect in every way. Pure and accurate down to the molecular level.” One of the technicians stood to her side opening the president’s cell phone expertly with a small metal shim designed for just that job. In front of the still visibly stunned Shinobu, the tech used a set of tweezers to remove the phone’s primary chip from its small motherboard and set it to one side, taking the new chip from the smiling Madeline.

“Identical and perfect, in every way.” reiterated Madeline, “Only this new technique allows us to duplicate the circuit’s specifications at a significantly smaller scale.”

The technician finished slotting it in, reattached the phone’s cover, and handed it to the president who pressed the power button and waited for it to switch on. When he saw that it had found a signal, he dialed a number on it. A moment later a ring could be heard and he smiled as the project manager scrambled to get his own phone from his pocket. As the phone rang the team started to applaud.

Shinobu Matsuoka laughed, bowed deeply, indicated for his technicians to do the same, and then stood and faced Madeline. “Thank you, Ms. Cavanagh. You have delivered all you promised and more. Matsuoka Industries is forever in your debt. Now, I have much to do, so if you will excuse me I will allow you to have your lab back. ”

She nodded and returned his small bow, the technicians around her basking in the reflective glow of the president’s obvious satisfaction. But before he could leave, Madeline stopped him.

“Um, Mr. Matsuoka, I am glad that we have been able to meet your expectations.” said Madeline, searching for the right words. For her part, Madeline did not want to let the president out of her sight now that the man knew what the resonance manipulator could do.

“If I might,” she went on, “I would like to discuss something with you, regarding the next delicate steps in the development process.” She smiled innocently. He looked at her awry for a moment. But the sheer awesomeness of the display he had just witnessed gave her the benefit of any doubt he might have, and so he smiled accommodatingly. They walked out side-by-side, Madeline working hard to craft the beginnings of a long and involved explanation of why the president should wait just a day or two longer before making his plans to go public with the new technology.

Ayala would be there in four hours. Madeline hoped she would know how to handle the situation from there.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Shinobu Matsuoka mulled over the implications of the new technology. The obvious happiness of the president had given the project manager new found confidence. This, combined with his guilt at having gone behind Madeline’s back, gave him a bolder voice than he would usually have been capable of, and for now that voice had joined Madeline in stressing to the president that the new manufacturing technique was far from ready for production. Shinobu had acquiesced but demanded a timeline for the machine to be ready. The debate had gone on like this for hours, Madeline eyeing her watch occasionally as she waited for her friend Ayala to arrive.

After a while, Matsuoka had tabled the timeline discussion, confident that he had his own plans for how to take the machine to the next level. They had spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the implications of the new device. The immediate difference the new technology would make was a dramatic reduction in the cost of manufacturing complex microchips. This would be achieved through reduced inaccuracies and thus reduced waste, and from no longer needing the expensively sterilized work environments that had been the trademark of chip manufacture for so long.

After the initial cost savings had been realized, it was hoped that chip designers would start to take advantage of the freedom the new technology gave them as well. The machine would allow the construction of truly three-dimensional chips, layers upon layers of semiconductor in relational, organic designs that would push the boundaries of integrated circuit design.

Once the device was released, Matsuoka’s competitors would no doubt be quick to realize that this was an industry changing event, and frantically start to look for ways to duplicate the process. In due course, they would find information on the new process surprisingly easy to come by, as Ayala and Madeline had no desire to hand Matsuoka a monopoly. But it would take them all years before any of them realized the full potential of the new manufacturing technique, just as it had taken its Mobiliei inventors a decade to make the leap. The capabilities and potential applications of resonance manipulation were actually far more widespread than microchip manufacture, and it was along one of these branches of possibility that Ayala and Madeline now needed to take their new toy.

It had taken millions of dollars to develop the first working prototype of the resonance manipulator from the schematics John Hunt had given them, millions of dollars that Madeline and Ayala had not had. For this reason, it had been essential to engage a proxy that would provide them with the resources they needed. This, of course, had come at a price, and the team had been under no illusions that using an outside company to develop this crucial device had been a large potential gap in their security. But they had neither the money nor the materials to build such a machine. They had considered attempting to tap into the military’s seemingly bottomless research funds, but while it was going to be difficult to manage a private company’s curiosity, that was nothing compared to what it would have been like trying to restrain a general or admiral once he had seen what the resonance manipulator could do.

Nonetheless, the chance that the development of the machine by Matsuoka Industries would be discovered by the Agents or their guardian angels overhead had been a constant threat. Because of this, Ayala had enforced strict controls on Madeline while she was working at the Matsuoka plant in North Dakota in order to protect her identity while there. She had carefully mapped each of the security cameras within the facility itself, as well as at the nearby extended-stay hotel where Madeline had taken up residence.

Ayala had then shown Madeline ways to come and go from each building without her face being seen by any of the cameras. She had done the same for two restaurants nearby which Madeline was then cleared to eat at. It was a limited lifestyle and Madeline had never felt so constricted in her life, but she knew all too well the consequences should she stray from the path. The only place where she could move at ease was in the highly secure research lab at the facility. There were no cameras there, by design, the programs that were conducted in its confines being highly confidential.

Hours had passed since the demonstration, but eventually Ayala had arrived. It was 4:15pm before Madeline finally met with Ayala in a back room of the Matsuoka facility in North Dakota. Madeline excused herself briefly to talk with Ayala when the woman arrived at the building. It only took a few moments for Ayala to get up to speed and then the Israeli woman told Madeline what they were about to do. There had been no discussion, once Ayala had told Madeline what she must do she had opened the door and sent for the Matsuoka CEO to join them. As they waited for him, Madeline found she was even more worried now, having some small idea of what Ayala was willing to do to keep the emboldened CEO in line.

With haste and no small amount of bravado, the CEO brushed into the room, bowing to the two ladies. He was alone, and he was smiling, seemingly unfazed by the sudden appearance of the second of his two mysterious friends. It had been a good day for Shinobu Matsuoka and he was a very happy man, all the happier to see the two women who had made it all possible.

“Good afternoon, Ayala, it is most pleasing to see you again.” said Shinobu, seating his smug little self down in the small room.

He was not used to being in such discreet confines, but for these two angels he felt he would do almost anything right now, almost. The two women across from him looked at each other, like conspiring sisters, and Madeline nodded almost imperceptibly at the older Israeli, who took the lead.

“Matsuoka-san, thank you for responding so quickly to our request for a meeting, we know how precious your time is.” said Ayala, well practiced in the unwritten rules of polite dealings, no matter how covert they might be.

“A man would have to be a fool not to want to meet with two such ladies as yourselves, especially ones who have brought such good fortune.” said Matsuoka, his English excellent, if accented. But, now that he saw the expression on the face of the darker lady, he realized he did not feel as convivial as he had thought.

Madeline had always seemed to be exactly what she said she was, a scientist from some entity, probably the US government, but that was not certain, who had decided that the technology she was working on was too important to be kept under lock and key. And now that he had seen it in action he had to agree. But her friend was not so easy to read. She was nice, and very polite, following all the Japanese rules of social engagement with surprising alacrity for a Westerner.

But under that he sensed, well, he sensed that there was something he couldn’t quite sense. She was not easy to read like her partner and that unsettled Shinobu. And now, after he had surprised Madeline this morning with his visit, she had returned the favor with her own sudden appearance not six hours later.

His instincts told him that their deal was about to change. He didn’t like change. He liked innovation, oh, he liked that very much. He liked it when his company stumbled on the most important new technology since the microwave, that kind of change was most welcome. But he didn’t like it when the person who had given it to him wanted to change the nature of their agreement. No, that kind of change was very unsettling indeed. And he sensed already that this was the direction of this conversation. Bracing himself for a heated discussion, he readied himself to hear what they had to say, and to defend his contract if need be. They had as much to lose as him at this point.

“Maybe you can tell me what this is about?” Matsuoka asked, somewhat cagily.

“Of course, Matsuoka-san. We have asked you here today because we would like to negotiate a new contract with you.” said Ayala like she was ordering a latte.

He withheld an ironic smile, his eyebrows rising only slightly as he placed his elbows on the table, his fingers interlocking slowly. He had been a man of considerable influence for many years, and he felt even more like a sovereign now that his company had in its possession a technology that would catapult it to the top of the computer industry, and probably many other industries as well. But as he thought of his position, he decided he was not too proud, nor too foolish, to know how much of his good fortune stemmed from these two ladies. Maybe they had something more for him, he tried to tell himself, though that seemed hard to imagine.

He decided he was willing to listen to their proposal, not that he would let that show, of course. He was not an amateur negotiator; he knew never to show the other party what power, if any, they had over you.

“Ladies, while I thank you for your help to date, we both know that this relationship was as beneficial to you as it was to me. And of course, you have been adamant that this is as much about your releasing the technology your current employers held hostage as it was about my firm making profits. We are still in the same position as we have always been. I see no need to renegotiate our agreement, nor will I entertain such a topic.”

“You misunderstand me, Shinobu,” the use of the senior man’s first name was like a slap in the face in Japanese culture, made all the more powerful by Ayala’s previously careful adherence to the cultural rules of his country. As he reeled from the snub, she continued, “we do not seek some retroactive change in compensation, your money is not important to us, though do not think for a second that you would not be forced to give us more compensation if we demanded it.”

She smiled ingratiatingly, “But Matsuoka-san, we do not want to make this confrontational. We simply want to take our professional relationship to the next level.”

He waited in silence. This was not how he had expected such a negotiation to go. She carried on, her voice lathered with irony and political grease, “You are a powerful man, Mr. Matsuoka, but soon Matsuoka Industries is going to grow exponentially more powerful, and you are going to become very rich, very fast. This is good, but it is not why we have given you this technology. Now that you have seen what resonance manipulation can do, we are sure you are going to start planning the next step in its deployment. No doubt you are already thinking of the plethora of ways it can be applied to your business to make you more profitable. And you will get the chance to pursue all those avenues, trust me. This machine will make you every bit as rich as you hope it will. In fact, once you know the full extent of its abilities, I think you will agree that even your substantial ambition will be more than satiated by what is to come.”