“Can I take the test records?”
Polak pointed to a cabinet full of folders. I wondered whether it had the same chaos in the records as in the drawings.
Thick, bound folders kept records of all BioKin’s deeds. The project had a brisk start two years ago: a team of three magicians and four alchemists gathered together to make a unit that would utilize the advantages of the enhanced bacteria. As its basis, they took a standard fermentation vat and four of the most promising strains. The process worked beautifully in the tubes, but when they tried to scale-up, failures came one after the other. To be more specific, the record uptime of the new gas generator was one month. The alchemists deserted first, quickly figuring that they wouldn’t get a free ride, and then followed the magicians, one of whom was Johan’s student. For the last six months, BioKin worked with less staff, fine-tuning (seemingly) the final nuances of the design. With no result…
The project looked quite hopeless; it was the right time to quit. But I had already squandered Quarters’ advance and didn’t expect any more money to come. If the unit could not work, I had to explain why, at least.
For three weeks I pondered the problem, viewing it from different angles, focusing mainly on the actions of people who managed the fermentation vats, not on the charts provided by the bacterial engineers. Summer break at the university facilitated my task: I spent all my days and nights at the factory. Soon I realized that the gas generators in general were surprisingly stupid; that is, the time elapsing between the turn of the control switch and the response of the culture was quite long, up to fifteen minutes. According to the experiments’ records (and I had no desire to repeat them again), the inoculation of advanced cultures into the fermentation vat was like trying to run a tractor engine on nitroglycerin. No way would it work! The fact that BioKin managed to keep the unit stable for the whole month was a masterpiece of alchemical thought! In order to substantiate my feelings, I read all of Johan’s articles and lecture notes on the theory of operation control and came to the disappointing conclusion: the application of the new BioKin design for the control block was impossible without an essential modification of the vat’s design.
The latter idea I presented at the next coffee break, now taking place regularly (Johan, who had put on weight and regained some of the pink color in his face, was back to work).
“How should a ‘perfect vat’ look, in your opinion?” Polak smiled encouragingly.
“A long, small diameter tube.”
Carl snorted.
“It will cool down too quickly!”
“It can be warmed from outside,” I snapped.
“What if we use a self-heating culture?!” Johan unexpectedly helped me out.
“How about cleaning them?” Carl did not stop.
“We can combine multiple tubes into a battery and clean them one at a time.” Strings of digits and design schemes were already spinning in Polak’s eyes, who shouted, “Smaller volumes are easier to handle!”
“And use diverse strains simultaneously,” Johan stuck to his guns.
The team took heart, and the work began in earnest. Carl drove me off my favorite drawing desk—that was the first result. Wouldn’t it be fairer to drag his own board to the window? I protested but soon realized that on a wave of enthusiasm he would do all the hard work for me. I quietly retreated and returned to leisurely sorting the drawings.
Polak knocked in money for the model (simple, one pipe) from the client, and it was a feat worthy of inclusion in the annals. Making the buyer fork out for yet another pilot device after two years of total failure… Polak had a phenomenal talent for persuasion, though, perhaps, Ron contributed to his success, too. We hoped that the new gas generator would be tested by the end of summer.
I wondered if I should quit before running the tests or wait for the results. I was sure the unit would work as designed, but feared another meeting with the shift master from the factory.
Just after the drawings of the new design had been sent to the factory and we had learned that there wouldn’t be any problem with assembly, Ron invited me to the wine cellar “Three Students” to celebrate something. I did not mind and greatly hoped that he would buy us something stronger than coffee—all that creative rigmarole wore me down even more than combat with ghouls.
“Dance!” Quarters demanded.
“Want a kick in the teeth?”
He asked touchily: “Why have you gotten so angry?”
I would have explained why, but I did not want to start all over again. Ron could not keep his news secret for long: “Our patent is bought…”
“Hmm…”
“For twenty-five thousand crowns!”
“What?!”
“And a crown from each machine that installs the device. Can you imagine how many diesel cars they make per year?!”
“But our device won’t be on each one; dark magic is expensive.”
Quarters squinted his eyes: “Man, did you show your amulet to anyone?”
“Well… to Rakshat, for example.”
“Did he tell you that your design was a ‘transmaster?’”
“No.”
“I am telling you that! It does not use the Source, meaning it can be installed by any magician. Dark magic is only needed to create the inverse template, and then any white dolt can rubber-stamp the amulets. Done!”
I was flabbergasted. I felt like a cat that someone dipped in a cold bathtub.
“Didn’t we sell it too cheap?”
“Are you kidding? We sold only the principle; design and production are not our problems.”
I already knew what the realization of a basic idea would cost, and I understood that we got rich almost for nothing.
“When will I get the money?”
Quarters solemnly handed me a check: a large, multi-colored paper with gold lettering and metallic sheen. The money. A lot of money. Almost without any strain on my part. I love that so much!
“How will you spend it?” Ron was curious.
I brushed him aside. For now, I just wanted to look at the check, carry it with me, and show it to everyone.
“Interest will go to your student account.”
“Ron, you are a genius!”
“Come on,” Quarters was embarrassed. “If you think up something like this again, let me know!”
And then I noticed a funny thing.
“Listen, the check was issued two weeks ago.”
“So what? It’s not a fish; it won’t rot.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me right away?”
“So that you wouldn’t lose the incentive to work.”
When the meaning of his words reached me, I almost lost my speech.
“You son of a bitch…”
To kill him! To wipe the bastard off the face of the earth and leave him without offspring!
“Quiet, be quiet! Why get worked up? Everything turned out excellent!”
“Shit!”
For a few minutes I unsuccessfully chased Quarters around the pub, but he refused to meet me in a fair fight. He locked himself in a bathroom stall. Breaking my way into the bathroom was kind of awkward, and I returned to the table, meanly determined to eat all of the food without him.
That rascal… god save me from working under his command!
In about ten minutes Quarters got bolder and came out of his hiding place: “You got mad at me for nothing, Tom!” he proclaimed emotionally (I had already finished all the pork ears on the plate by that time). “I only wanted the best for everybody.”
“Go to hell! All because of a cool chick?”
“Are you kidding?” Ron took offense. “I bet with my uncle I could make the device work. Thirty percent of the shares in his factory if I win.”
What could I say? He definitely had a talent! Sort of dark magic, just more profitable.