My Only Talent Ch. 50

They hung on every word while we took the 101 to this giant building that Steven said used to be a blimp hanger. We sat in the car for an extra ten minutes while I finished the story, then the navy guys left and Steven drove me to SFO to catch my flight back to Logan.

He asked me one final question. "Tell me the truth Roberts, are your two wives as hot as Suzanne?"

I answered without thinking about it. "99% as hot, and 10X as trustworthy!"

He smiled. "Good trade!"

* * * * *

By the time I got back to Massachusetts from my California trip, I was sorely missed, and both Nora and Lara greeted me enthusiastically and demandingly. I did my best to live up to their welcome. Even though I was only gone for three days, Randy already looked bigger, and when I held him, I noticed a complex mix of signals like Nora used to send: lilting effervescent bubbles that popped and fizzed tantalizingly. His symbol table was certainly expanding. I wondered how well his developing Suzie receiver was working. When the three of us sat on the couch together while one of the girls nursed him, his Suzie sounded like a happy babbling kid. When he went to sleep, the signals got muted and different in tone, but they did not cease. I wondered what his dreams were like.

In addition to my news about NeuroSignal, Lara had some news of her own. She had been offered an internship with one of the judges in DC that had helped with our marriage plan, and she intended to start it as soon as she finished her program at Penn/Wharton. Her completion date dovetailed nicely with Nora finishing her MBA, and a discussion quickly ensued. Nora could get easily secure an internship or a high paying job in the DC area, but I would have one more year beyond that in Austin to finish my degree. Then what? I guess I would learn more on my trip back to Kent.

But for now, the drums were beating, and I was receiving some massive and manic Suzie signals from both Nora and Lara, and it was time to devote myself to them. Feel the rhythm of the heat. I was certainly much more sensitive to the signals from all around me since Randy had arrived, which was not entirely desirable. I could hear Lara, not just Nora, and that was good, and I could also hear Rachel's signals, and all the other women around me, not just the ones signaling for me. Previously, the women that were not interested in me sent no signals at all that I could detect. Now, I could also hear the women that actively disliked me, as they mentally cataloged the things they did not like. It was bruising to the ego to hear that my eyes were shifty or too close together, or that I wasn't tall enough, or muscular enough, or that my face was too plain.

I was apparently more polarizing now that I was older and a father, in that the women that found me attractive seemed to find me more so, but many of the ones that previously just ignored me now seemed to actively dislike me. My first trip to Whole Foods after we got back buffeted me with new and discordant signals, such that I tried to shut them all out. I was not able to. One my second trip there, I detected several males signaling attraction, but even more regarding me an inferior competitor for the affections of the ladies in the store. Too much information.

I found refuge in the arms of Nora and Lara, and Randy seemed to effectively shut out the signals of the rest of the world when I was home with him. He was like one of those white noise generators that shuts out disturbing sounds so you can sleep, functioning as a pleasant 'cone of Suzie silence' when I was at home. He was also a little erotic enzyme. He facilitated the chemical reactions between Nora and Lara and me, and made us all 'more randy', living up to his name. Like a catalyst, he was not consumed in the reaction, but facilitated it, and in fact he was growing every day.

At one point, Lara said she was worried that Nora and I would bond over Randy and begin to shut her out, but the opposite had obtained. I could hear Lara's signals perfectly again, and they harmonized beautifully with Nora's, making us all frantic with desire for each other. The more excited we got, the sounder and longer Randy slept, and the longer we could carry on, making for some of the most powerful orgasms I had ever experienced. The girl's climaxes resonated deeply within me, and reverberated, making me harder and giving me more endurance rather than triggering my own release. It was certainly serendipitous. It was a wonderful little sub universe that I wanted to live in all the time.

Asa Weltschmerz had speculated that after Randy was born, I would not only hear signals from women other than Nora but be actively driven to carry out Mother Nature's prime directive and look for available females to 'make another baby' ASAP. He was anxious for me to knock up Lara to test his hypothesis that once she was pregnant, I would only hear her signals and not Nora's. Lara had told both Asa and me that having my baby was her major goal in life. We had just had a wonderful time in bed, and I had finished up deeply in Nora with Lara smiling at us both, when the conversation turned to exactly that.

Nora grinned and said, "After Lara finishes her schooling and starts her internship in DC, things are going to change up a bit!"

I must have looked uncomprehending, so Lara took up the thread. "Nora and I have it all sorted, Robbie. Once we get to DC, all your ejaculations will be confined to my happy little baby box until further notice."

I felt the need to ask: "Such further notice involving?"

Lara giggled. "My being pregnant, at which time you should direct all your final drives into Nora until she has another baby, too!" I suppose I was not the only one mother nature was speaking to, and Lara continued. "My lizard brain says get pregnant now, but I am being practical and planning ahead. But once I walk across that stage to graduate, I am going to crawl up on a rock somewhere and shake my tail at you. I will expect to be mounted and filled!"

Duty continues to call.

* * * * *

I had an extended conversation with Rock Tappert about the government walking in on the patents. He knew which one it was, and he expected it. He had three more improvements on it yet to file, and they were even more 'interesting', and he hoped the government would help shepherd them through and rope in some related IP to go with them. I asked him what was so sensitive and interesting?

"What do you know about symbol tables, Robbie?"

Careful, don't mention baby Randy and Suzie signals. "Well, I sort of understand them in the context or encoding and decoding information, and Nyquist rates, and in a linguistic context. Is that what you mean`?"

"Exactly, and those are simply different aspects of the same thing. For instance, it's easier to decode a coded message if you know how many symbols there are, right? Classic example is that English has twenty-six letters, do a frequency analysis, hypothesize some consonants and vowels, try an alphabet assignment, decode, etc. all that basic old 20^th century cryptography stuff?"

"Yes. I can see knowing the number of symbols in the table would make things easier."

"Certainly. But even if you don't, it can be understood eventually. Many linguists think that is the way babies learn language. Their little brains remember in toto all the words they have heard, and then constantly try to decode the new sounds and have them fit what they already know or have just observed. Each new word or syllable is a symbol in the table, and each new sentence is a message, and they try all the possible symbol assignments and meanings for what they have heard and try to fit them into the sentence or context. The AI people used to call it a 'proof by resolution' and it takes lots of computing power to do it. Quantum computers can do it faster if properly set up, but babies seem to be innately good at it. Some people think human brains can somehow inherently do multistate computing. Some people think the entire universe is effectively a neural network, too."

"But what is the 'national security' angle of these patents?"

"You have probably heard people say that quantum computers are powerful enough to break any normal encryption, no matter how many bits in the key. But what if you didn't know how many symbols there were, or if the number or meaning of the symbols constantly changed, too fast for you to match anything. Then even if you had a super powerful computer, it could take so long, or not be done at all, that the message was effectively secure. Further, what if you didn't even know what part of a signal contained information, or your receiver could not tell which changes actually conveyed a message, or couldn't even detect the changes? What if the symbol table and where the information was constantly changed too?"

I began to see the Navy's point of view. The network we were building could rapidly carry all sorts of normal traffic, but also carry traffic that no one else would even know was there, much less be able to decode. I wonder what else they had in mind.

* * * * *

Khalan King had several more phone calls from the agent that Big Bones Jones had introduced him to, but he didn't return any of them. Chrissy and Joyce were regularly invited to more of Big Bones' parties, but they did not attend, despite their sorority sister's urgings. Khalan's dad Reginald King began to research and score sports agents more thoroughly than any of his buddies ever worked on their fantasy football team drafts. He was playing money ball for his son's real money, and he developed his own analytics, eventually centering around guaranteed contract dollars delivered per a recruit's pre-college recruiting 'star' ratings. Khalan had only been a three star with most services, and unrated by others. Reginald found he could separate and group agents by this measure. Some only got big money for five-star guys, but minimum UDFA contracts for three stars. But a few got big money for the five-stars but also good deals for the three-stars they took on, and those were the ones he focused on. A couple of them were also ESU alums.

He began to research them in depth. By the time fall football rolled around, he wanted to find some plausible ways to meet these agents socially. He knew they kept databases of college players and their contacts, and he wanted Khalan to be on their lists. If Khalan were to be named a starter after his first fall camp, he would get lots of attention. Preparation could then meet opportunity.

He also developed his social media skills in researching Chrissy and her sorority. His first impression was that she got posted about all the time by others, but seldom posted about herself. She mostly appeared in connection with her sorority, and always looked fantastic in the photos. She often appeared with another sorority sister named Joyce, and he saw Khalan and Roger in lots of her pictures. He also found the previous photos of her with Big Bones Jones, and that explained a lot. He began some in depth research into Big Bones. Forewarned is forearmed.

* * * * *

I left for Folkestone on a Friday afternoon, in a military plane along with Steven Beyers and another guy I had never seen before. Nora said she understood the need for the trip, but with a clenched jaw. Luckily, Lara was going to be there over the weekend to help. This other guy turned out to be the one I needed to talk with, and the plane was a place we could speak securely. Steven Byers went to the front of the aircraft, out of earshot.

The new guy looked just like one of my introverted NeuroSignal postdocs, but he had a dominating intellectual presence like my brash cosmologist and ex middle school buddy Ralph. He didn't give me his name, and he said it would be better if we never met again.

"We need to get you up to speed on a few things so you can understand the briefing you will get in England. I've seen your courses and grades, but I need to quiz you a bit to so I can assess how much you only memorized and never really understood."

He then questioned me mercilessly on all my math, physics, and engineering work so far, and especially on statistics. I recalled my tutoring times with Ralph, Oiler, and Esmeralda vividly, and used their examples almost verbatim. He then asked my about why I took linguistics, and my intellectual relationship with Red Rock Tappert.

I told him how it all seemed to tie together, and that I had read theories about the human brain and quantum entanglement, using some examples from Dr. Augie's talk at the seminar at the med school in Austin. When I finished, he stared at me for a full minute without speaking.

"You present a real conundrum, Roberts. You know enough to be dangerous, and I can infer the way your mind works, and that makes you doubly dangerous. You don't memorize anything. You must understand how something fits into what you already know to learn it. That makes learning new information more difficult, but also almost impossible to forget once you master it. It also gives you what we sometimes call a "large working set" to recognize connections and possibilities that others may overlook. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "Are you saying that I am doing a continuous 'proof by resolution' on everything I try to take in? No wonder I get tired when I study."

He looked alarmed. "Tell me some other people that you know personally that would really understand what we just talked about."

I thought a minute, then mentioned Rock Tappert, my linguistics prof, Ralph, Dr. Augie, and Asa Weltschmerz. I studiously avoided Nora and Lara. He asked for more information about Ralph. He took notes on Ralph. Then he looked very suspicious.

"You make things difficult for me, Mister Roberts. You must know enough about what we are doing to manage things effectively, and to recognize what is sensitive and what cannot be discussed at all. You have to keep some things unsaid, but at the same time completely support all the cover stories we have devised. I cannot have you going off half-cocked, so I am going to have to tell you just about everything about this project. This increases your risk exponentially. You must never slip, even for a second. Can you keep it all in confidence?"

"Ask Ambassador Pliskin."

"He already told me he thought you could be trusted. But his risk is different from mine. If you screw up, he will make you disappear. Unfortunately, he would do the same for me, and a lot of good people would be put at risk." He paused for a moment, then continued. "Okay, Roberts. Listen up!"

It took the whole flight. I was soon reeling from information overload. There were several layers of increasingly sensitive things to know about the "New Chunnel" and least least five layers of deception and cover around it. Oliver Hastings Harrison had not really been cashiered by the navy. He was now moving into an infinitely more powerful position than a mere Fleet Admiral. He had put together a host of intelligence agencies, navies, governments, and business interests, and Abelard Peters and his Pier Group were right in the middle of everything, with trillions of dollars in contracts. OHH being sacked was just a diversion and cover story. Even most of the partners in the project only knew their part of the story, not the whole picture.

Drummond McFadden was brought into the whole thing just after I left England to go back to Austin, and he had been working feverishly on both the real designs and the cover stories ever since. All those multiple new tunnels had multiple new functions: housing supercooled detectors for submarines, neutrinos, and exotic particles I had never heard of, bases for conventional submarines and a fleet of AI UAVs, plus constructing what he called the next version of something called HAARP, and even a tunnel that dipped down near the planet's core to generate terawatts of power. Drummond turned out to be a perfect match for Summer Mawn, and they were the toast of the Walpole Society, both seducing and influencing key politicos and suppliers for the project and making connections at levels the navy couldn't reach.

He then launched into an extended discussion about quantum theory -- far beyond anything I had discussed with Ralph, Asa, or anyone else. Dr. Augie would be fascinated. He explained things step by step, tying it all to what I already knew, and making clear what nobody knew, and it all made sense to me. The implications were staggering, but the connections between the Chunnel project and NeuroSignal were now clear, and the navy would freak even more when they saw Rock Tappert's latest improvement patent applications. He ended up with a scary concept called quantum mischief, which I first thought might be an appropriate description for little Randy Robert's attitude, but it turns out to be much more than that. My anonymous instructor even knew all about my deal with Lara's dad and selling insurance to the Pier Group, as they were planning to use it to explain my frequent visits to Folkestone before I finished my undergraduate degree.

Once I finished, he said I would split time between DC and Folkestone. Nora's plan for me to get a big B school MBA would morph into an 'executive MBA program' carried out weekends and part time, and also serve as cover for some other activities. I would be expected to remain committed to working for NeuroSignal for a long time, at a very hefty and accelerating rate of pay. Lara would be happy about the requirement for me to be based in DC, and Nora would be happy to go back and forth to England to visit her folks.

By the time we arrived in England, I was already exhausted. I grabbed a few hours of sleep, and spent 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday in extensive meetings with Drummond and OHH, with meals brought in. I didn't even get to see Summer.

* * * * *

I suppose since this is the last episode of our little serial journey together, I should give you a brief recap of whatever I know about happened to the rest of that old gang of mine, so to speak.

I saw online that Janet Arroz had made partner at a big accounting firm, and I sent her an ESU football memento from the game we attended together for her office wall and what I thought was a nice hand-written note saying I was sorry things did not end well between us but that I wished her the very best, and that she still had her spot in my all-time girlfriend hall of fame. I know the note and the gift was delivered to her firm, since I used Fedex, but she never replied. I never heard nor saw hide nor hair of her wild roommate Melanie Manchester again. She disappeared into the back alleys of Houston somewhere, but I hoped she was okay, and that her abusive stepfather was not. Lou Baby lost touch with her too.

Kevin K. Kretzman married Lou Baby, and he did go to Hollywood, stepping down a few pegs from movie magnate to take a very low paying production assistant's gig at his second cousin the producer's third-rate summer replacement half hour comedy show. His cousin was a mercenary son of bitch and he worked Kevin like a dog, but it eventually paid off. Those accounting and finance courses Kevin had taken as electives back at ESU got him assigned to production design and accounting, and soon he was the liaison between his cousin the tortured artist producer and all the accounting and business functions, handling 'all that numbers shit', and most importantly payroll and managing cash flow for every production. Kevin's ZZZ experience served him well, if almost by accident. Part of their pledge training involved learning the history of all the ZZZ chapters throughout time and all the famous ZZZ alums and the details of their lives and being able to instantly recall and recite such trivia even when just being awakened and hazed in the middle of the night or other times of stress and suffering terrible and humiliating punishments if a single detail was wrong.