“How about Martin’s phone number and e-mail?” I asked when it was clear he wasn’t going to budge. “I didn’t get those from his grandmother.”
Liu finally decided he could give me those in good conscience. He put them into an e-mail that I’d be able to read as soon as I got my cell phone and iPad back from him, but he also sent an e-mail to Martin explaining what he’d done. He didn’t stop my looking over his shoulder while he typed. He finished with “If you’re reading these, Martin, give me a shout. Jari.”
I returned to my chair. “Did Martin talk to you about anything that bothered him during his last week here?”
Liu shook his head, slowly. “He was a very focused guy. One of the most creative we’ve worked with. But he was also very private. The kids we take on for summer projects were his age. That’s why Martin was put in my group—there’s a theory around here that I connect with Millennials, but it wasn’t a good fit this time. Martin’s been here almost two years. He was a full-time employee, with a different background and mind-set. The fellows looked down on him for going to night school, so they couldn’t cope with his being better at logic and math than they were. He resented them for—I don’t know—the sense of entitlement they exuded.
“Frankly, I’m surprised that he got asked to their end-of-summer barbecue. Might have been one of the women in the group—once or twice I thought they might have had something going on.”
I pounced on that, but Liu wouldn’t give me her name.
I asked what Martin was working on. “For that matter, what do you do here that involves big lathes and gantries and radiation and a gazillion computers?”
Liu gave a mock-wounded look. “It’s the same old story: everyone knows about Bell Labs, but no one’s ever heard of Metargon. We’re as big or bigger, we’ve won almost as many prizes, and we’re turning energy on its head in the way that Bell turned communications upside down with the transistor. That’s what Metargon means: beyond energy. Watch my face and watch the screen at the same time.”
He turned the glass monitor around so I could see his face and the screen together. He blinked four times and my face and website disappeared. He blinked twice and the screen filled with icons. He looked at an icon with a sword on it and the application opened—a video game that began with a movie of a woman in shimmering turquoise armor. She was locked in combat with five large men. Liu moved his eyes around, and the woman’s arm changed directions, changed movements.
“It’s clumsy; Princess Fitora still dies in five minutes, although Martin could keep her going for eight. He designed some of the software that runs her, but it’s set up as a computer game because that makes it more fun, more engaging if you’re working on it. Ultimately, when we have it refined, a person who’s completely paralyzed will be able to use those eye blinks to tell a computer to bring him or her a drink, or move their wheelchair to the bed, or change a catheter bag.”
“Sounds quite wonderful,” I said honestly. “When I looked at the plaques in the lobby I thought you were involved in nuclear power.”
“We have a nuclear design section, but old Mr. Breen started in computers; it’s where he made his money after World War Two. Metargon also works in energy; we’re ahead of the game in solar, but this location is focused on electronics.”
Princess Fitora was lying on the ground, her sword-arm moving feebly as her attackers converged on her.
“That’s what Martin worked on for us: how to use voice, or even tongue clicks, to mimic using a mouse or touching the screen. Anyway, Martin was focused, he was creative, he moved this project along well, but if he had a personal life, he didn’t talk about it. I didn’t know until you said it that he lived with his grandmother, for instance.”
I asked Liu if he had gone to the fellows’ barbecue, but he said it was something that the group had organized themselves. “They were done for the summer; it wasn’t a place for management to butt in.” A bell chiming on his computer drew his attention back to the screen. “My next meeting’s in five minutes; I’ve got to take you back to the lobby.”
As I got to my feet, I looked back at the glass screen. Princess Fitora was lying on the ground with five swords through her chest. The men around her were giving each other high fives. The image was profoundly disturbing: as Liu escorted me back to the main lobby, I found myself pressing my hand against my heart.
When we passed the machine shop, three men were positioning the Frisbee over something that looked like a wellhead, but Liu hustled me along too fast to stare. At the exit, he handed me back my phone and my iPad. I walked down the drive to the gates, where I stood until the receptionist saw me on her monitor and rolled them open.
AUSTRIA, 1943