Charley Brindley - Qubit's Incubator

“William Thomas Edison.”

“What’s he working on, a newfangled plow?”

Joe laughed. “He’s designing a system to collect water from the air using nanotubes.”

“Really? What’s inside the nanotubes?”

“No one knows. He’s not talking until he makes it work.”

After Catalina ran the extension cord from the outlet to her desk, she plugged in her iPad to charge the battery.

On her way back to the supply room, she stopped by the restroom. While washing her hands, her eyes fell on the cap of the cold-water faucet.

After drying her hands on a paper towel, she took two objects from her skirt pocket. The first was a small oval brass nameplate with ‘Evangeline Psychiatric Hospital’ engraved into the metal. The second was a micro screwdriver. She sipped the nameplate back into her pocket and removed the leather sheath she’d fashioned for screwdriver.

Working the sharp edge under the chrome cap on the faucet, she popped it off.

She rinsed the metal cap and dried it.

Holding it to the light, she admired the curlicue ‘C’ imprinted in the cap.

“Sweet,” she whispered. “A perfect oval.”

After removing the hot water cap, with its pretty ‘H’, Catalina cleaned it and dropped both caps into her pocket. She then slipped the screwdriver into its sheath and put it away.

In the storeroom, she found a desk lamp. She took the lamp and a box of colored chalk back to her workspace.

As she sipped her orange juice, she read research articles and doctorial theses from JSTOR—short for Journal Storage—a digital library of academic journals. Her interests were in the latest developments in organic electronics.

After two hours, she leaned back and rubbed her eyes. She looked at the brick wall for a moment, then up at the dim light coming through the dirty skylight.

Next, she read a scholarly thesis for over an hour, trying to decipher the technical jargon. At lunchtime, she went to the kitchenette, and in the fridge she noticed several containers with names written on them.

“Don’t touch anyone else’s food.”

The guy reached past her to take a pink Tupperware bowl with ‘McGill’ written on the side in black Magic Marker. He elbowed her out of the way to reach for a Snapple Peach Tea.

“Excuse me .” She stepped away from him.

Without replying, he took his bowl to the microwave. As his food warmed, he wrote ‘Chunky Beef Soup’ on the dry-erase board mounted on the wall where several other grocery items were listed.

He leaned back against the counter next to the microwave, folded his arms, and stared at Catalina.

His two-day-old beard was dark brown and neatly trimmed. His Persian blue eyes could have been cheering, had he let them. His longish hair was a shade lighter than his beard. Athletic and trim, he just missed being likeable.

She ignored him as she checked the freezer for something to heat for her lunch.

“Pissants eat Ramen Noodles.” He glanced at the timer on the microwave.

Catalina took a packet from the freezer; ‘Barbeque Beef and Rice.’ She read the instructions.

“Seven minutes,” he said when the microwave dinged.

“It says ‘Five.’”

“It takes seven, Pissant.” He took his hot food and cold drink, then brushed past her. “And clean up after yourself.”

She watched him go to one of the cubicles.

Obnoxious Drone dick .

She set the timer for five minutes.

After taking a Snapple Straight Up Sweet Tea from the fridge, she sipped it while waiting for her lunch to heat.

The barbeque beef was barely warm after five minutes. She set the timer for two more minutes.

Rude Drone McGill. He could have been nice about it.

She returned to her desk, and while eating, she found an article on synthetic nerves.

As she read about an artificial nerve system developed for use with prosthetic devices, she clicked on the links to more research papers.

Her forgotten lunch grew cold as she studied tiny organic circuits printed on a person’s skin.

Thirty minutes later, she was startled when her phone chimed.

“No phones!” someone shouted from behind her.

She turned to see several people glaring at her. The old man made a cutting motion across his neck.

After clicking her phone onto ‘Airplane mode,’ she answered the call.

“Hey, Cat. How’s it going?” Marilyn, her roommate, asked.

“I’ll text you,” Catalina whispered.

“Why can’t you talk?” Marilyn whispered also.

“Just text.”

“Okay.”

‘I just pissed off all the Pissants again with the phone call,’ Catalina texted to Marilyn.

‘You can’t use your phone in that stupid place?’

‘Apparently not. Like everything else, I learn by being yelled at.’

‘So, you got in?’

‘Only for thirty days. If I produce something in that time, I might get to stay longer.’

‘At least you’re in.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m ordering pizza. Cecil, Mack, and Debbie are coming over. What time will you be home?’

‘Don’t wait up.’

‘You ordering in?’ Marilyn asked.

‘No, they have food here.’

‘All right. I’ll see you when I see you.’

‘KK.’

Catalina went back to her reading and found a post-grad student at MIT had used a 3-D printer to produce a human-like hand with synthetic nerves.

She was startled by someone standing beside her chair.

The redhead she’d seen in Victor’s office stood staring at Catalina’s computer.

Oh, God. Another obnoxious Drone .

“What’s up?” Catalina asked. The redhead’s dangling jade earrings held her attention.

“It’s five after four, Saylor.”

Catalina glanced at the lower right corner of her screen. “Yes, it is. Thank you.” She stared at the redhead.

“You have an appointment with Mr. Templeton.”

“Oh, crap!”

She scooted back and grabbed a notepad. The woman led her toward the door of Victor’s office, opened it, then went in ahead of Catalina.

“Miss Saylor.” Victor waved her to a chair in front of his desk.

The redhead took the chair next to her. She crossed her legs, adjusted her emerald green skirt, and positioned a note pad on her thigh.

“What do you think of this place so far?” he asked.

Catalina thought for a moment. “Hostility, rudeness, everyone is mean…” She glanced at the redhead. “Except for Joe.”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy. Did you find everything you need?”

“I see we have printers, a scanner, and a copy machine, but no Three-D printer.”

“Why do you want a Three-D printer?”

“I want to print a hand, and also some organic circuits.” Catalina noticed from the corner of her eye the redhead looking at her, then the woman looked at Victor.

“What type of Three-D printer are we talking about?”

“A Dremel Three-D-Twenty.”

The other woman wrote on her notepad. “How do you spell that?” she asked.

Catalina spelled it for her.

“What will you do with the hand and circuits?”Victor asked.

“The echolocation AI program I’m writing will need tons of data for machine learning.”

“Yes, I suppose it will. What computer language are you using?”

“Python.”

“Is it hard to learn?”

“Well, if you’re familiar with Perl and Java, it’s not too difficult.”

“Hmm…I see.”

“What’s with the dorm rooms?” Catalina asked.

“Candidates with special circumstances will sometimes be assigned to a dorm room.”