He watched as she stepped out of the white Buick that had just parked in one of the visitor slots downstairs, opposite the company’s main entrance. A stocky Oriental was straightening up from the passenger side. “Wow!” Kevin murmured. “Look who just showed up with your uncle.”
Taki, hunched on the stool next to him, glanced away from the sheet of printout and down through the lab window. He was second generation Japanese-American, the same age as Kevin, almost as smart—when he wasn’t thinking up bad jokes—and the only other person able to see the world the way it really was, i.e. the way Kevin saw it. “Her name’s Michelle Lang,” Taki said, looking back at the printout. “She’s his business lawyer.”
Kevin blinked. “She . . . is a lawyer? . . .”
“Yes, I forgot—he said he was bringing her here today to meet your dad and see the mecs for herself. She’s from a law firm somewhere in the city.” Taki indicated a block of code with his pen. “What if we moved those lines outside the loop?”
It was an instantly captivating, indefinable quality that combined looks, dress, and poise that did it, Kevin thought to himself, propping an elbow on the worktop and cupping his chin in a hand. “Style” would be the word, he supposed. She was tall and slim for her size, with long, off-blond hair tied back in a ponytail from a tapering, high-boned face that was eye-catching in an angular kind of way, though not really the Hollywood or fashion-model concept of beautiful. She was wearing a tan two-piece with a contoured skirt that enhanced her ample proportion of leg, and carried a brown leather purse on a shoulder strap. No briefcase. That appealed to Kevin straight away—a lawyer who didn’t have to be in uniform all the time. And there was something about the unhurried way she turned after closing the car door and stood for a moment surveying the Neurodyne building curiously that set her apart from the typical visitors who hurried inside as if intimidated by the thought of being watched from a score of anonymous office windows. With the touch of haughtiness in the way she tossed her head, she could have come to buy the place.
Ohira, by contrast, black hair cropped short, crumpled suit draped awkwardly on his broad figure, looked more as if he might have come to deliver something to it, were it not for the giveaway flashes glittering from his fingers. He took a last draw from his cigarette, crushed out the butt with his shoe, and joined the lawyer behind the car. They walked together toward the main entrance to the building and disappeared beneath the forecourt canopy.
“It would speed things up a lot,” Taki said.
Kevin pulled himself back from thoughts of lithesome goddesses and fair-skinned mountain maids. “What?”
“If we moved those lines of code outside the inner loop. It would speed up the scan sequencing.”
“Move which lines?”
“These. The ones I’m pointing at.”
“Oh, sure. I was wondering how much longer it would take you to spot that.”
“Yeah, right.” Taki moved the keyboard closer and began entering the changes.
Kevin looked around at the laser heads, control consoles, and other equipment filling the partitioned space of the Micro-Machining Area. Patti Jukes, one of the technicians, was at the bench on the far side, manipulating something under a binocular microscope. Larry Stromer, the supervisor, stood nearby, cleaning a batch of substrates. It was quiet for early afternoon, which was why Kevin and Taki were able to use one of the computer stations. There was definitely something to be said for having an easygoing scientist for a father, who just happened to own the company, Kevin couldn’t deny.
Then he looked back out the window at the Buick—sleek lined, a creamy off-white with black side-stripe and trim, looking sexy, gleaming, and racy. And there were times when it seemed that the fascination with technology that he had grown up with could result in existence becoming too restricted and narrow.
Life continually pressed its confusion of opposites, such as the conflicting advice that young people were assailed with. On the one hand, they were urged to make the effort to broaden their outlook; and then, at other times, to concentrate on what they were good at and not waste the best years pursuing futility—and usually by the same people. The easiest thing was to agree with everything and not take too much notice of either line. After all, wasn’t it another of the standard dictums that nothing teaches like experience?