Chapter 18

It didn’t take her that long to recover, which was good because we had to head out for our morning classes. The other ladies had come in by now, so they took over the explanations.

The International law class wasn’t boring. I could see where it was going to be very helpful to know the proper application of these laws, considering how globally intertwined CEDEM already was. I was slightly annoyed, because I realized I was going to have to contact Baron Rothschild for advice. I was also irritated, because it was on the exact thing he’d wanted me to do in the first place.

Lab was fun, because they’d finished things up without me yesterday, and were all ready to play today. We did some of the same experiments that the Boeing engineers had done, but took it further. We did destructive testing of coated items, as well as corrosion, pressure, and flame testing of the actual Ice-X material and Ice-X coated items.

Halfway through, Doctors Korn and Fallow showed up.

“We heard there was a bit of a demonstration going to happen today,” Doctor Fallow said.

John exclaimed, “You’re here at the perfect time! We’ve just been having fun, while doing real science at the same time. David, do you see that plastic bag sitting on the counter? Do us a favor and pick it up, tell us what you feel. You won’t need gloves.”

Korn shrugged, then picked the bag up. “It’s a little cool on the outside, but nothing serious. The bag is clear, so I can see the liquid inside. It’s just sloshing around, basically like it’s cool water. There seems to otherwise be nothing remarkable about it.”

“Good!” John put some heavy, insulated gloves on. “Now, please hand me the bag and step back.”

Looking confused, Korn did so. Ross took the bag and tossed it against a cabinet. Nothing happened. Then he picked the bag up, held it over a beaker, and poked it with the point of a scalpel. The liquid began pouring out, into the beaker, with clouds forming over it as it hit the glass walls. A thermometer in the beaker recorded the temperature of the liquid.

“Excellent. It strengthened the bag so it didn’t rupture upon simple impact, like the bags do with tap water in them, and still maintained outside temperature that’s safe for bare hands,” Ross said.

“Is that liquid nitrogen?” Korn asked.

James was smiling. “Yep. That was basically a one quart zipper seal plastic sandwich bag, full to the brim with liquid nitrogen. Nothing special about the bag, just the generic ones that you can purchase at any discount store in town. Well, and it’d been coated on the inside and outside with what we finished up making last night, and allowed to dry. The bag maintained its flexibility, while also insulating the inside and outside. We’d just finished our last measurements of the outside temperature of the bag after two hours of sitting on the desk, and it hadn’t changed for a full hour. We’ve been taking them every five minutes since we filled it.”

Ross said, “Temperature remains negative one ninety-five. With the room temperature of twenty-three, the exterior temperature of the bag never got below nineteen.” He put the beaker under a vent hood, so it could finish boiling off and exhaust outside.

“That was rather dramatic,” Korn said.

“A bit different than what the Boeing engineers found, but they’d also coated bananas with temperature probes inside them. The bananas got to negative thirty-five on the inside, but we’re also talking about a porous skin, which is what I suspect was going on. The plastic bag isn’t porous. Also, a banana in a freezer at negative seventy-three for eight hours was at negative seven. This also was coated on both the exposed and non-exposed side,” I explained. “We’re going to check liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen this afternoon with both plastic film and small metallic containers. And then I’m probably going to have to call someone over from Ames, so they can contact Kennedy.”

Korn frowned. “Why do we need to contact President Kennedy? This is certainly a remarkable achievement, of course.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I need to talk to Doctor Barnum, the administrator of the Kennedy Space Center. I already know her, anyway. That way they can figure out even more things for the space shuttle, since they were already planning on an external fuel tank coated with just one layer of this, instead of foam insulation.”

Korn locked up again, this time for almost a full minute. Doctor Fallow waited for him to finally start moving again. “David, would you like me to help find you a nice home to live in, so you can sit in your rocking chair?”

“Fuck you, Stephen. Cal, if I understand things correctly, this is something you’ve actually already created, you were simply having Doctors Ross and Spudich recreate it here for experimental purposes.”

“Correct. The commercial supply is massively back ordered right now, and this way, they know how to make it for laboratory purposes only. It’s a fully patented process. This was also my way of showing them that, while in some areas I know what I’m doing, I’m still going to need help and instruction in doing actual research on the half dozen or so things I want to see if it’s possible to make.”

“Understood. Um ... please don’t use up all of the Ice-X today, unless you make some more. I’m going to get in touch with Bob ... Doctor Robert Madix ... and see if we can’t get a couple of people from the Chemical Engineering department over here, too. There’s no reason we can’t work on some of your engineering studies at the same time we’re doing your chemical and medical work. Oh, speaking of medical work ... where’s Doctor Blau?”

Spudich said, “She was here earlier, but had to leave. One of the hospitals had a patient come in that needed one of Cal’s pills, so she headed out to administer and monitor it. We’re up to twelve tests so far, all of them with zero side effects, and all of them doing exactly what they were supposed to.”

“There’s that many rapes happening around here in just a week?” I asked, rather incredulously.

Dave had been watching quietly from his seat. He coughed, then said, “That’s the ones that get reported. There are thirty-two women raped in California every single day of the week. Those are the ones that report it. There’s at least that many, and speculation is that there’s maybe twice that many, that don’t report it. And that doesn’t count the assaults stopping just short of rape.”

He saw my face, and said, “No, Cal. With the permission of the University, we can increase our presence here, especially since I know you’ll pay for it. Unlike the Stanford Police Department, we can tell the State of California to kiss our ass, because we’re a private security company. Come to think of it, the badge I have also trumps any California law enforcement agency. But we can’t just find the rapists and kill them.”

“Maybe not,” I said, looking at Sayel now. “But we can damn sure push this drug out for further ‘experimental’ testing to everyone that needs it. Apparently, I have a bit of influence in Washington. Doctor Fallow, one of the things that Doctor Blau said she could do was contact the pharmaceutical companies to see who would be interested in making this for us. If you could page her, and find out the information from her, I want to be sitting down Friday afternoon with whoever wants to make it, market it, and get it out to the public. Jim, you know how to make it. Would you please assist and supervise Cody and Sam in making five hundred more doses of it, to be ready no later than the end of lab tomorrow? John, we’ll move the Ice-X work to that side of the lab for now. Continue with the material tests until I get back. I’m going to call Ames and see if I can get someone from there here this afternoon. Doctor Korn, thank you for your suggestion regarding Doctor Madix. If he or someone from that department could be here in an hour, that would be great.”

I set my things down and walked out the air shower. Dave and Sayel were hot on my heels, barely catching up to me at my golf cart. I was in and not only driving, but also using a bit of my power for us to move somewhat faster than a golf cart should.

Dave said, “I’ll save you the trouble. I’ll go find Mike, so he can explain to President Kennedy why there’s going to be another hundred or so security guards on campus by Friday. And no, there’s no way we can get them here quicker than that, so don’t bother. You go find someone who has phone numbers. I’ll be back out here when you’re done inside, I hope.”

I may have stormed into the house, to find Hannah already waving at me. “Thank you for holding on, Doctor Barnum. Cal just walked in the door, so he can explain better than I can.”

She handed the phone to me. “Doctor Barnum, Cal Lewis.”

“So I gathered, from Miss Rothschild. Do you have some letters behind your name yet?” she asked, with a light laugh.

“Only Associate degrees so far. I won’t get my first batch of Bachelor’s until April 4^th, and then it’ll be eight of those, a couple of Master’s, and maybe a PhD. But that’s not why I was having Hannah call you. We’ve done some work here at Stanford in the lab on the properties of Ice-X, and I’d like someone from Ames to come here to watch or help, or otherwise talk with us.”

I could hear the confusion in her voice. “ ... You’re on the second week of classes.”

“Yes, but they gave me my own lab, or at least I’m paying for it, and I have two professors and four graduate assistants helping me. I’ve already developed one drug that we’re going to put to market on Friday.”

“You’ll forgive me, but after you left, I thought perhaps you were a mass hallucination we’d all had, at least until we looked at the white boards we still have.”

I chuckled. “I understand. I have that effect at times, I think. At least now that I have full access to the computers and the linear accelerator here, I can improve upon the tokamak reactor design I gave the Chinese.”

“Not even going to ask. I’ll call Ames and get someone out there ... what, tomorrow?”

“This afternoon, within the hour, please. We’re going to have some of the chemical engineering department come over to assist as well. Would you believe liquid nitrogen in a plastic sandwich bag that could be picked up in your bare hands?”

She was silent for a few seconds. “What building and room? They’ll be there in half an hour!”

I told her, we made our goodbyes, and hung up. Hannah was on another phone line. “Thank you, here’s Mister Lewis now.”

“Hi, this is Cal Lewis.”

“Mister Lewis, we haven’t met yet, but I’m Jeane Kirkpatrick, Vice-President of the United States. I have heard a lot about you, and some of the things you’ve done around the world. How can the government of the United States help?”

I turned to Hannah and blew her a kiss. “Madame Vice-President, the Food and Drug Administration has a long history of making sure that medications have been tested, retested, and then tested again before allowing them to be released in this country. Certainly the issue with thalidomide that the Kefauver-Harris Amendment addressed in 1962 was important, to give the FDA more ‘teeth’ in dealing with pharmaceutical companies. At the same time, it wasn’t until the Hatch-Waxman Act last year that extended patent protections, because generic drugs were coming out before the actual original medication was even approved by the FDA.”

“What have you invented?”

“You may be familiar with the ‘Morning After’ pill, that can prevent conception up to seventy-two hours after sex. I have invented a medication that will cause the shedding of the uterine lining up to twenty-one days after sex, specifically designed for rape victims, so they are not forced to either get abortions or literally have their rapists’ child. It has been tested upon chimpanzees, proven to be one hundred percent effective, and under experimental drug protocols, has proven one hundred percent effective in assisting rape victims here in California. I did not know until today that on average, thirty-two women per day are raped in this state. I plan on presenting this completed product to assorted pharmaceutical companies on Friday, and I will not allow them to simply purchase it and then shelve it, so they can continue with something else. We will have five hundred additional doses available by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I see,” she said. “Is that all?”

“Well, I just got off the phone with Doctor Barnum, and there’ll be someone from Ames at my lab in about twenty minutes to discuss what we’re doing to help NASA. I’m going to start work tomorrow on a chemical that will do for heat what Ice-X does for cold. I’m also starting work next week on creating antiviral medications, but I expect that’s going to take us a year or so before we have our first effective cure, and then a couple more for the rest of the cures.”

“Cures for what?”

“I doubt if I’ll get a cure for the common cold, but depending upon whether we have to get specific with the viral treatment, or can make one that’s broad-spectrum, probably all varieties of hepatitis, viral pneumonia, AIDS, and maybe most cancers.”

It was dead silent on the line for a solid thirty seconds. “You think you can cure cancer?”

“Madame Vice-President, I used an unapproved, unethical and highly experimental treatment on someone that is very close to me, and already have cured her metastatic breast cancer. Doctor Korn rightly threatened me over doing anything like that, ever again. So now, I need to figure out how the hell to make it work on other people, and not just someone specific.”

She was decisive, I’ll give her that. “I’ll clear this with the President. We’re both well aware of who you are, and what you’ve been doing with other nations. We’ll have Doctor Young, the Chairman of the FDA, at your Stanford lab on Friday afternoon, when you meet with the pharmaceutical people.”

“Thank you, Madame Vice-President.”

She chuckled. “No, Mister Lewis. Thank you, for calling me. I’m certain you’ve talked with Cain and Abel. They’ve given us quite the report. I’m glad to hear it’s the truth. I look forward to meeting you at some point. Goodbye.”

Mina was waiting with a sandwich and can of pop for me. I took them and gave her a good kiss. “Thank you.”

“No, Master. Thank you, for being such a wonderful Master.”

I had a bit of a smile when I got back outside and slipped into the passenger seat. Dave was already waiting, with a slight smile of his own. Sayel was his usual inscrutable self in the back seat.

“Sorry, did you get a chance to get something to eat?”

“Yeah, thanks. You made Brad happy, by the way. He won the pool.”

“You were betting on when I’d decide to increase the security for the whole campus?”

Dave chuckled. “Well, yeah. That was a given, we just didn’t know when it was going to happen. It’s only about six million per year for a hundred licensed and armed regular guards. They’re not the level of security we have around your house here or in Kansas, but they will be professionals. Sayel will make sure of that.”

“I will?” he asked.

“Yeah. We’re going to have you demonstrate what happens if one of them abuses his or her authority and power. Do you have a particular preference on a demonstration animal, or can you take the head off a cow in one swing?”

“Fortunately, I am Pakistani, and neither Indian nor Hindu. Thus, I can already tell you from personal experience that the answer is yes. It will make a bit of a mess, though, which you’ll want to keep in mind.”

“You guys figure things out, I have to get back inside. Thanks, both of you.”

“Of course, Master.” Sayel grinned then, as he followed me.

There were four people waiting at the entrance to our lab that I didn’t recognize. Doctor Korn was talking with one of them, while the other three looked like they were together.

Doctor Korn said, “You’ll want to watch that, young man. I’m taking into account that you already have the personality of someone who is accustomed to leading. I would appreciate it if you would learn a bit more tact in the future.”

“My apologies, Doctor Korn. I can say that I will attempt to do so in the future, but it may not always happen. I do have a tendency to get focused at times. In this case, it was due to who I knew I was going to have to call regarding what I was asking Doctor Blau to do. Fortunately, that went well, so Doctor Young from the FDA will be here Friday afternoon to cut the red tape with the pharmaceutical companies.”

Korn frowned. “Doctor Frank Young?”

“If he’s the Chairman of the FDA, then yes, that’s who Jeane Kirkpatrick said would be here.”

Korn blinked again. “You were on the phone with the Vice-President?”

“Yes, apparently Ronald was busy, which is fine. She seems to be nice, even if I’ve only talked to her on the phone.”

Korn looked at Dave, who said, “Don’t look at me. I was making sure you’re going to have another hundred security personnel here on campus, for safety purposes. I’m certain that Sayel at least heard one side of the phone call, though.”

Sayel nodded. “Yes, of course I did. I must say, it was interesting to find out at dinner last evening that my Master was the topic of discussion of five Prime Ministers, one Prince, and of course, President Reagan, regarding his multinational businesses.”

Korn closed his eyes, shook his head a couple of times, then opened them again. “Cal, please disregard my previous rant. It’s very difficult at times for me to remember that, not only aren’t you the usual student here, you’re in many ways the one who should be instructing us. Cal Lewis, this is Bob Madix. I’m going to do something I’ve never done with a student before, only with my peers, by the way. My name is David.” He held his hand out.

I shook it. “David, I’m Cal. Pleasure to meet you.”

From the group behind us, a man with a French accent said, “Well, that definitely tells me we’re in the right place, even if we are a bit confused. I’m Doctor Justin Boucher, Director of the NASA Ames Research Facility. This is Doctor Finley Duncan and Doctor Virginia Valenzuela, our top two aeronautical engineers and research scientists.”

I adopted a very bad accent, and spread the words out. “Velcome to my secret la bore a tory! Muahahahaha!”

That broke the tension, getting a laugh from everyone. “Okay, seriously, let’s go on in so I can show you exactly why you’re all here today.” They followed me in through the air showers.

The group led by Jim were busy at work. John, Jonathan, and Molly had moved everything like I’d wanted. Doctor Fallow was still present as well, watching Jim’s group working.

Doctor Madix said, “You have two full professors and four graduate assistants working with you here?”

“Yes, Sir. Hey, team! For those of you who don’t know him, this is Doctor Robert Madix, the Chairman of the Chemical Engineering program here. And these three are from NASA Ames, Doctors Boucher, Duncan, and Valenzuela. John, do we have more of the double coated plastic bags available?”

He grinned. “Three more, plus we’ve also got several baby food jars, and soda cans. Plus simple aluminum foil. Single and double coats.”

“Excellent. Okay, if you’d all gather around. First off, let’s get a regular plastic bag. Okay, you’ll note that this is straight from the box, looks perfectly normal, because it is. Molly, gloves and liquid nitrogen. Okay, this is a standard thermos bottle with liquid nitrogen in it. Molly is going to hold the regular plastic bag open, while Jonathan pours a bit of liquid nitrogen in it. And ... that didn’t take long, for things to freeze, break, and just fall right on through. Which is expected. Now, one of the double coated bags, let’s do the same thing, shall we? Yep, all the way full. And use the tongs to get it to seal, perfect. If you’d put that on the table, Molly, yes, thank you.”

I walked over to the table, pointing at the bag. “Does anyone watching have any doubt about what was just poured into that bag? Especially since a bit of it spilled, and hit the counter?”

They all shook their heads.

“Okay, very good.” I walked over and picked the bag up with my bare hand. “David, I believe you saw the end result of this before.” I held the bag out for him.

Without hesitation, he took it from me. “I saw it before, and I’m seeing it again, and I’m still not believing it. Bob, now do you see why we need your department involved?”

Doctor Madix frowned. “Have you recreated that weird chemical we’ve heard about, but haven’t gotten any to play with ourselves, the Ice-X?”

“No recreating it, Doctor Madix. As far as the patent is concerned, I’m the one who invented it in the first place. My father actually did, but he’s deceased. I just used the lab here to make some, because there’s still a lot of applications for it that I haven’t figured out yet. Please, pass that around. Um, John, you might want the gloves this time. Let’s do the same with the liquid oxygen. We haven’t tested that, so we’ll want to see what happens.”

Other than being a rather interesting shade of pale blue that made me feel a little homesick, the liquid oxygen performed just like the liquid nitrogen. That’s what we’d expected, since it only had to be at negative one hundred eighty-three.

“Let’s do this next one under the hood, for safety’s sake. I don’t expect there to be an issue, but since we’re talking twenty degrees Kelvin, negative two hundred fifty three, I really want to be careful. John and I will do this bag.”

Everyone watched as he took the thermos of liquid hydrogen and began pouring it into the bag that I was holding open with tongs. A coating of frost formed on the outside of the bag as it filled. Once we had it full, I was especially careful in sealing it. With that done, we then brought it from under the hood. The frost quickly melted off while it was sitting on the table.

Molly had the thermometer and was recording temperatures. It wasn’t quite as exciting as watching grass grow, but all three NASA scientists and Doctor Madix were almost enthralled at simply watching the three plastic bags sit on the counter.

While they were doing that, John and I filled baby food jars. Some only had a coating on the inside, some only on the outside, while others were coated inside and out. Rather than doing open top aluminum cans like we’d thought, we made hollow balls of aluminum foil, and put the liquids inside.

“Everyone, you might want to check this out. This is a standard baby food jar that was coated on the inside, before we poured liquid nitrogen in. As you can see, it’s acting just like the plastic bag as far as structural integrity, but as it’s only got a coat on the inside, it’s considerably colder on the outside. That’s more representative of the bananas that the Boeing engineers tested. This one only had it on the outside, and the temperature difference simply shattered the glass. Then this one, with two coatings, inside and out, is acting just like the plastic bag. The jar lid is screwed down tight, as well. This one I’d be curious to see if it ends up warming up enough for expansion to make it explode, so I think keeping it under the hood is a good idea.”

“Definitely,” Doctor Boucher said. “We’ve had accidents before filling rockets prior to launch. Other than re-entry, that’s the most dangerous phase of the mission.”

“That’s what we’re going to start working on tomorrow, actually,” I said.

Doctor Valenzuela blinked, then said, “You know how to make something to resist the heat of re-entry?”

“I’ve got the basis for something that is promising. I just don’t know. My goal is five thousand degrees. Cold is a bit different. Zero Kelvin ... negative two seventy-three ... that’s it. Things get weird when you approach Bose-Einstein temperatures. We can make superconductors that ... damn. David, do you have more NDA forms?”

Doctor Fallow said, “Really? He can call you David? Holy crap, I better start looking to the east for three wise men, because this is a bigger miracle than that. And I have them, Cal. Doctors, would you all please sign these, so we can learn what miracle with superconductors Cal is working on?”

Doctor Korn’s “Fuck you, Stephen,” almost sounded friendly, while everyone quickly signed.

“Thank you. We all know that high temperature superconductors are anything that reaches a superconducting state above thirty degrees Kelvin. I have a bit more work to do, but I know that copper oxide laminates can become superconductors at ninety degrees Kelvin. Liquid nitrogen, like is in that plastic bag and this jar, is seventy-seven degrees Kelvin. Oh, and since it came up earlier, David, the reason so many governments are interested, is that I’m working with the Saudi government to build a magnetic levitation train between Riyadh and Mecca.” I started to hold up my right hand, then laughed.

“Sorry, I don’t wear it when I’m doing lab work. I was going to show you the ring that King Fahd gave me, making me a member of the Saudi royal family. Doctor Boucher, the reason I wanted someone from NASA Ames here today is because we already know the normal, real world applications for Ice-X. That’s why we’re running at full capacity, and are building another facility in Kansas, and possibly another in the Punjabi once I become the ruler of that new nation, since I’m already their Prince. I figured you might be able to come up with suggestions for experiments for us, because I know Doctor Barnum is already talking to Martin Marietta about redoing the external fuel tanks for the shuttles. We already figured that a simple paint job of Ice-X inside the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks would eliminate two tons of weight due to elimination of the spray-on foam, allowing the shuttle to take two additional tons into space.”

“Cal, the straight aluminum foil doesn’t work well, because it’s not completely sealed,” John said. “Sorry to interrupt, but take a look.”

“I wondered about that, and was half-way expecting that to fail.”

Doctor Madix asked, “What other experiments are you planning on doing? I’m ... damn, I’m just impressed, already. I don’t know if I can free up a full or even an assistant professor to be your laboratory assistant, but I can damn sure send three or four graduate assistants over, starting Monday, if you think that’d help.”

“Yes, it would. Doctor Fallow...” He held up his hand to stop me.

“If David can do it, then I can. Stephen, please.”

“Thank you. Stephen, you and I will need to discuss a couple of things regarding the research for next week. Cellular growth of samples, for example. I presume that’s part of what’s in the hot lab area section.”

“Yes, it is. Or if it’s not, it will be. And you’re ready to start on that? What about the thermal coating project?”

“If I’ve got three or four more pairs of hands, I don’t have to do everything myself. James and his team are doing an excellent job with making five hundred dosages of the ... damn, what do we call it?”

Molly spoke up for the first time. “Well, I wouldn’t call it Rape-X, that’s for sure. The pill out right now is known as the morning after pill. I’d call it, ‘No Regrets’, or something like that. You’re really going to have more security here on campus?”

“That’s my plan. It won’t cost the university anything. Hell, it’s going to be cheaper than the twenty-five million I’ve budgeted for this lab, to have ... Dave?”

“Miss Lawson, the plan is to have at least one hundred additional male and female Wackenhut security officers patrolling the campus. That may not seem like that many, but we’re professionals in what we do. I’m not going to say we’re going to be able to prevent all of the crimes that are committed here on campus. We won’t. But we’ll be an additional presence, and instead of whatever response time the actual Stanford police department has, I can guarantee you that we’ll be faster. And one other minor detail, that I’m sure that my boss, Mike, won’t necessarily point out to Mister Kennedy. I’ll trust all of you to do the same. We’re not restricted by city, county, or state law. We’re working for Cal, and we have – literally – a Presidential finding to keep him and those he designates safe. He’s just designated Stanford University as someplace to keep safe.” He snorted, then.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about what you showed us the other day, Doctor Fallow, in the animal testing building. I would almost pay money to see someone from PETA come onto campus and try to cause trouble.” He pulled out his Deputy US Marshal badge. “We have Federal arrest authority, and that’s one thing I’m sure those people that started to protest Cal’s research laboratory didn’t count on. We have Federal weapons authority for protection, as well. Does anyone know what a B-61 or W-80 is?”

Jonathan spoke up. “I studied those in Physics. Those are designations for nuclear warheads.”

“Correct. Everyone knows that most of them are stored at Minot Air Force Base. What most people don’t know is that Wackenhut guards them. There’s Air Force security, sure, but we do most of the work. We are authorized to use deadly force without warning to protect them. Cal is considered to be slightly more important to the US government than our entire nuclear stockpile. I’ll let you figure out what’s going to happen if someone decides to hurt him, or anyone he wants to protect.”