The Tin Man

If Fenton was peeved at being addressed by his first name, it angered him even more that Masters was rubbing his nose in it by sarcastically using the proper title. “Dr Masters, you’ve wasted my time and that of all these good folks by not being here for this presentation. You will reschedule this briefing with my staff when you can be here in person, as I requested, and I think you owe us all an apology. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“Folks, I’m not being lazy-believe me, this is a better way to do this demonstration. I’m ready to do it right now, and I guarantee I’ll blow your socks off.” Masters was addressing everyone in the FAA conference room with a confident smile, but when he saw that Fenton was still packing up, he quickly added, “American companies should have first dibs, but if I can’t get DOT and FAA to sign off on it, I’ll go to Europe. Check my prospectus, folks-I’ve already got Commerce Department clearance to sell overseas. Time is money, guys, and this technology is ready to go now. If I don’t do this for you now, I’ll do it for Airbus tomorrow.”

Fenton could feel all eyes move from the monitor to him at that moment. No one in the aerospace industry or the airlines really liked Jon Masters, the genius with the attitude of a smart-ass seven-year-old, but everyone knew that he represented the cutting edge in aerospace technology. A license for one of Masters’s new gadgets could be worth billions. No one liked the Federal Aviation Administration, either. It was an agency that could be tolerated only as long as its authority didn’t hamper business. Masters was being rude and crude as usual, but if Fenton walked out, he’d probably cost all or some of them billions. They all knew that Masters had Commerce Department authority to export this technology, whatever it was, and that fact alone made this presentation important.

Fenton felt their icy stares and silent sit-down commands, scowled at the video monitor, and said angrily, “We don’t like threats, Dr Masters.”

“Sorry, sir,” Masters said. “But I’m just excited. You know what it’s like. I guarantee, you’re really going to like this. Really.”

The aerospace execs breathed a sigh of relief. If Masters kept up his punk attitude, Fenton would walk. But the apology showed Fenton the proper, if minimum, amount of respect, and Fenton returned to his seat. His aide scrambled to rearrange his papers and notes before him.

“Thanks, Ed,” said Masters. The execs concealed their chuckles. Masters went on: “Folks, I’ve been building gadgets for twenty years to help the military find and blow things up, but now I’ve developed a technology that will help prevent something from being blown up. It’s called ballistic electro-reactive process, or BERP for short.” Helen Kaddiri swallowed her irritation-it was just like Jon to give his inventions ridiculous names like “BERP.” “Let me explain how I discovered this technology.”

Jon Masters held up a square wire frame, then dipped it into a pan of liquid on the seat next to him and held it up to the camera. “We’ve all played with soap bubbles as kids, right?” He poked the bubble on the wire frame, and it promptly burst. “The film is less than three-thousandths the thickness of a human hair. Held together by simple chemical bonds, negligible surface tension. Easy to break-obviously. But while I was experimenting, I touched a couple of hot wires to the frame that a bubble was on, then shined a laser light on it. Here’s what I saw.”

The lights in the cabin dimmed, and a beam of green laser light emanated from somewhere just off camera and shined on a new bubble Masters formed in the frame. The surface of the bubble continued to shimmer and undulate. “Watch.” Masters flipped a switch, then moved his finger against the bubble. The surface of the bubble changed-the undulations and shimmering stopped, replaced by a solid green color. “See that? All the light refractions and surface eddies on the bubble disappear. Now check this out.” Masters turned the frame horizontally, then carefully placed a paper clip on the bubble. It did not break-the paper clip appeared to float in midair. Masters even waved the wire frame, and the paper clip held fast.

“I know what you’re thinking-the paper clip is suspended by a magnetic field formed by the wire frame, or by surface tension. Not so fast, Sherlock!” Masters withdrew a regular wooden pencil from a pocket and dropped it on the bubble-and it too was supported in midair. “That bubble is three-thousandths the width of a human hair, yet it’s supporting millions of times its own weight. Surface tension? Chemical properties of the soap solution? Yes and yes-but properties that were changed by an application of a small electric charge.” The lights in the cabin came on again. Masters flipped the switch beside him, and the paper clip and pencil promptly dropped through the frame into his lap as the bubble burst.

“I call it electro-reactive collimation, a realignment of the molecular structure of the soap solution so that the surface tension of the solution is millions of times stronger than normal,” Masters said. “Collimation occurs in nature all the time, but it’s usually induced by temperature or chemical interactions. I can make it occur with the application of a small electric current. By varying the amperage and frequency of the electric charge, I can also vary the properties of the collimated material.”

“How long have you been working on this process, Doctor?” one of the execs asked.

“Oh, about thirty years,” Masters replied. “I first discovered it when I was around seven years old. I knew lots of kids who played with soap bubbles, but as far as I know I was the only one who shot an electric current through one. I just hooked up an old six-volt dry cell to the wire frame, and there it was.”

“This is all very fascinating, Doctor,” Fenton said, “but can we get to the point of this demonstration?”

“Sure, Ed.” He held up a piece of cloth mounted on a frame with wires attached to it. “It’s possible to collimate a whole variety of liquids and colloids-those are substances that have properties of liquids, solids, or gases combined. I can even use seawater to protect ships and submarines from collision or from damage due to water pressure-imagine a submarine that can dive to the deepest depths of the oceans without being crushed, using the seawater around it, the very thing trying to crush the ship, to protect it! Of course, it’s also possible to de-collimate something, or make it less dense, without using temperature or without mixing other chemicals in it. When I get that technology working, the applications will be truly Star Wars-like-can you say ‘phaser guns,’ boys and girls?

“But the really cool application of electro-reactive collimation is in materials science, and it’s there that I’ve had the most fun over the past couple years,” Masters went on, his excitement evident in his voice. “That’s because solids can be collimated just like liquids and gases. Now we start getting into some really neat applications!” He held up another, larger wire frame, this time with a thin, light gray material hung within it. “This is a piece of one of the BERP materials I’ve developed. It’s lightweight fabric, about as light and flexible as nylon.” He rustled the frame, and the fabric swayed as everyone expected. “Now check this out.”

Masters picked up a hammer, hefted it, and swung it at the fabric. The observers were stu

He also dropped it again after he hit it, jumping in surprise when the electric shock came, a bit stronger this time. And this time Helen Kaddiri noticed. “Jon, what’s wrong?” she radioed to him via his earset communications unit. “Why do you keep dropping it?” There was no reply, confirming Helen’s worst fear. “Jon, is that thing shocking you again?”