Peter Jensen: The blackmailed mother book I

"Nothing," Roger said, a little shaken. He realized that he'd suddenly burst out loud with his thoughts, a sure sign that the pressures, were getting to him. Just a little more, though, he thought… hold on for a little more; you can do it, Rog. You have to do it…

Skopos' downtown offices were actually for their sales force, though all of the upper executives were there as well. It was handier and a better area to live around than where the plant was. Roger, as chief engineer and vice-president in charge of development, was in the unenviable position of being liaison between the plant in Kirsten, Nevada, and the main office. He had moved from Kirsten when his promotion to vice-president had happened; Rapier City was much nicer and more varied than the smaller Nevada town; and he'd figured it really didn't matter at which end of the business he lived. He had to be at the other end half of the time, and his family would still be five hundred miles away. Here, they had a nicer home, a better neighborhood, and more things to do. For him to have turned down the promotion or shirked the duties and stayed in Rapier City all the time would be tantamount to quitting. Roger felt it was the best compromise under the circumstances.

Especially now, especially when his invention was at the brink of success. He went into the reception room, nodded to the PBX operator, and walked briskly to his office. His secretly, Agnes Goodfall, was all but wringing her hands.

"You're late," she said timorously.

"I know. Everybody in the board room?"

"Yes, Mr. Carmel. Including Mr. Quarran. He said…"

"I'm sure he did, Agnes," Roger said, cutting off her whine. He took a few papers from his desk and added: "See you later."

The president and chairman of the board of Skopos was sitting at the head of the board room conference table, leaning back with a cigar in his mouth like some despot. Not so benevolent a despot though; Jerome Quarran was a ruthless shrewd manipulator who'd taken over Skopos when the electronics engineer who'd started the company five years ago went broke. A scientist does not a businessman make. Quarran looked up with his thick, heavy, watery eyes as Carmel entered and took his usual chair on the left band side. He didn't say anything, merely brushed an invisible cigar ash off his plaid vest with that quick flick of annoyance superiors sometimes use on underlings.

The scientist who'd begun the company was across from Carmel. Wilfred Krocklin was in his mid-fifties, but looked older and emaciated. Unlike the arrogant and fleshy-jowled face of Quarran, Krocklin was gaunt and lined with doubt, with large, ever-frightened eyes like those of a tarsier monkey. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, his collar turned up, his tie askew. His sparse white hair was uncombed where he'd run his fingers through it for one reason or another.

Sitting at the end of the table was Martin Oliss, V-P for sales. He was sharply dressed in the latest style as usual, a natty robin's egg blue suit with a slight Edwardian cut to it, and his long, wavy blond hair was perfectly in place. He looked imperturbable and slightly amused, like a cat with canary feathers caught in its mouth. That was his way, constantly cool and a little condescending.

Roger was sometimes piqued by Oliss; that supercilious air rasped his nerves after a while, and the ever-present preening of the fashion-plate image made Roger wonder if Oliss wasn't a near egomaniac. If anything personified Martin Oliss in Roger's mind, it was the way the man was always smoothing his thin mustache as if it was a waxed objet d'art. It was to Roger little more than a milk stain on Oliss' upper lip, the blondness being hardly visible. Nevertheless, Oliss was invaluable, a long-term employee who grasped what Quarran wanted, and did it. He was to the others at Skopos the emitomy of dedication and hard work. So Carmel took what he considered Oliss' personality quirks in stride, saying nothing.

"Hello, Roger," Oliss said, fingering his mustache. "We were wondering if you'd missed the plane."

"No," Roger replied. "No, I took an earlier one." He smiled as if sharing a common complaint with the others. "Have to see my wife sometimes or risk a divorce, you know."

Oliss was bemused; he had one luscious babe for a wife, as Carmel knew. Lonnie had told him that Cylvia had the same problem as she had when Martin went out of town.

Quarran made a noise in his throat like coal rattling down a chute. He was married to a dreadnaught of a wife, and while Roger had no way of knowing, he suspected that Quarran stayed away from the home and hearth as much as possible. There were office rumors about a little sweetheart stashed in a high-rise apartment on the other side of town…

"How's the Min-miniskopos doing, R-roger?" Krocklin stuttered. He was referring to the invention which had made Carmel the vice-president. "W-we're most anxious about it-t."

Oliss came forward and put his hands on the chair beside his boss. "Yes, Roger. Is it about ready?"

Carmel opened his attache case and brought out a sheaf of papers. He spread them on the table. "I can announce that by this time next month, we'll have a working prototype."

"Excellent," Krocklin said, beaming.

"You said it would be done by now," Quarran grumbled. He chewed on his cigar and glared at Carmel. He was never pleased.

Carmel replied: "I also told you that with the aluminum companies on strike, I couldn't guarantee it. All we're waiting for is the extruded panels, which have to be made up special. If the president puts a Taft-Hartley injunction against the strikers and there's the 90-day cooling of period, we'll get the paneling and…" he paused to shrug slightly, "and then it's only a matter of putting one together. While I was down at Kirsten we tested one that was in sections, and it works fine, but you know how the government is – they have to see shiny new boxes, not a mess of wires."

"Damnit," Quarran snorted, "we don't have the time! We have to have your miniskopos ready in time for the Fall Appropriations convention in Washington. You know that, Roger."

"That's…" Oliss consulted his mental calendar for a moment. "That's fifteen days from now."

"I don't know what you're going to have to do to get that blasted invention in presentable shape, Roger, but you're going to have to come up with something!" Quarran twisted into something of a smile, and looked levelly at Carmel over his glasses. "We can't afford to wait another year."

Carmel groaned and sat back in his chair. He was afraid of this. Skopos, Incorporated was in the video tape recording business, had been almost from the time of the market's inception. Krocklin had named the company after the old Greek word which eventually became the English word, scope; apt enough title, but Krocklin hadn't been able to meet the changing demands of the market as wisely.

When video tape first started, there were any number of companies, each with different systems. Unlike audio tape recorders or record players, there weren't any standard speeds or tape widths, and as a result, Ampex was out with an inch wide tape running at faster speeds than the Sony machines with quarter-inch tape. Panasonic and Concord came in with half-inch tapes at still another inches-per-second speed, and others loaded the market with their attempts. Nothing was interchangeable, and if a customer bought one brand, he sometimes found that six months later not even the same company was producing the same gear.

It was a guessing game as to who would come out on top, the developments in the industry outstripping any possibility for inter-company cooperation and standardization. Krocklin found that although his machines and cameras were of excellent quality, the average consumer was leery and often bought from the Big Boys out of fear of obsolescence – and the still high cost of manufacture had effectively stopped mass home consumption which would make the whole venture profitable.