“I see. And the difference between those two figures is called profit?”
“Sure. You think I’m a 1930s style socialist? But more important, think about what we could do with cheap tunnels. A lot of mountain ranges—the Rockies and the Andes—are too wet on one side and too dry on the other. Think about big tunnels to carry irrigation water to the deserts. Or, think about an underground highway system. No snow on the roads to cause accidents. No rain to wash out bridges. No bridges at all, for that matter. No fog or other problems with visibility. No dogs or other animals to hit. No children to worry about. Without all the obstructions, it would be easy to automate, so bad drivers wouldn’t be a problem, either! I tell you it would save billions of dollars and fifty thousand lives a year!”
“So you are suggesting that we become involved with the construction industry?”
“Sure. But it’s even more than that. Do you realize that half of the lumber that’s harvested is turned into sawdust and scrap? You saw what the circuit did to the wood in that house. Smooth polished surfaces on both sides of the cut, with absolutely no waste. That translates out to less expensive wood and fewer trees cut.”
“Hey, aren’t some of those sawmills powered by burning sawdust?” I asked.
“Let ’em buy coal. We can tunnel it out cheap. Or better still—well, maybe I don’t believe this one myself, but think of a piston engine with one of these gadgets where the spark plug used to be. If we could somehow work it so that the circuit didn’t destroy itself, and could make the air in the cylinder go away without hurting the engine, atmospheric pressure would naturally force the piston into the cylinder, and if we can make the air come back at the right time, we push the piston back out. It sounds like nearly free power. I mean, the circuit was powered by a transistor radio battery, and when you do the math about how much stuff was removed . . .”
“Uh, huh. What about the Second Law of Thermodynamics?” I said.
“That’s what bugs me about the idea. . . . Anyway, back to cutting techniques. Do we have to make chips that are spheric segments, or can we shape this field, or whatever it is, into other contours? Do you know what we have to do to make an automotive quarter panel? You take an ingot of steel and run it through ten million dollars worth of rolling mills to turn it into sheet metal. Then you take the sheet metal and run it through typically six dies worth a half million each. Dies you have to throw away to make next year’s model. Maybe with a properly shaped field, we could cut parts directly off the original ingot. Then all we’d have to do is weld ’em together.”
“Hey, maybe not even that,” I said. “You saw that stick I put through the stone?”
“Hey, yeah! Look, we clamp our support brackets right where the fender is going to reemerge. Then—”
CHAPTER SIX
The Partnership
“Gentlemen, I gather that you are both enthusiastic about the technical and financial prospects of our venture. But the question before us is ‘Do we have a venture?’ Is Ian going to leave tomorrow and return to Pontiac Motors? I have an offer to start teaching in the fall. Am I going to be there? Is Tom going to go and do whatever he had in mind before all this came up? Or are we going to take our newfound capital and work together to develop this new technology?”
“Well, uh, of course!” I said, “I mean, this is a clean shot at a fifteen point buck! We’d be dumbshits to pass it by! A man would be a fool—”
“I quite agree. We have stumbled upon our chance at success. Wealth. Fame, if we want it. Power to change the world into a better place. Most definitely I second your motion.”
“But it’s . . . it’s so wild!” Then Ian said softly, “I’ve got a place, now. I’ve got security. I’m moving up in a good company. . . .”
“Ian, there is nothing as secure as money in the bank,” Hasenpfeffer said. “You now have seven years’ pay in your third of our account. Why not spend those years testing your mettle? General Motors knows that you are competent. They will be happy to take you back, if we fail. Come with us! Screw your courage to the hitching post!”
Ian stared at the table. “I’ve bought this condo, and I’ve got mortgage payments. I’ve got car payments. And payments on the Harley. I owe on my credit cards. . . .”
“Hmm . . . Tom, what would you say if the company were to take over all of Ian’s debts and assets—whatever they are—and bring him to exactly the same financial status that you and I presently enjoy?”
“Hey, sure. No question. Bankers are all leeches, bastards, the lot of them. All for one!”
“And one for all!” Ian suddenly shouted. “I’m with you! We’ll do it!”
As things fell out, and with Hasenpfeffer selling the condo, our little company cleared $2,954.26, and kept Ian’s Corvette as group property. And Ian got his Harley paid off, since Hasenpfeffer and I owned our BMW’s clear. But I get ahead of myself.
“Well then, we are agreed,” Hasenpfeffer said. “The next question is ‘Where are we going to do it?’ I would like to suggest Ann Arbor. It is a town that we all know—we went to school there. It has a major university, with all that that implies. It is near a major airport. It has hundreds of high-tech companies, and it is within easy driving distance of the Detroit area, with its thousands of diverse manufacturing facilities.”
“Uh, sure. Why not?”
“Fine, Jim. It’d be nice to walk in Ann Arbor with some money in my pocket.”
“Walk? There is, of course, the parking problem, but what I have in mind is some ten miles outside the city limits. While you two were hospitalized, I took the liberty of investigating the real estate market in that area. I located an interesting property. It has forty acres of wooded land, so if we need to make big balls of earth go away, we shall have plenty of dirt to do it with. It has a large, modern three-bedroom house with four baths, and it has an eight thousand square foot metalworking shop, complete with milling machines, surface grinders and that sort of thing.”
“You say that this is all new?” Ian asked.
“The buildings are three years old. I have the machinery specifications here somewhere. . . .” Hasenpfeffer fumbled through his inner jacket pockets. “Ah. Here, eight thousand square feet . . . ten-ton overhead bridge crane . . . five thousand CFM air compressor with piping. . . . truck wells. . . . six hundred AMP, 480-volt service. . . . three Bridgeports, one with readouts and one with CNC. . . . two lathes. . . . but here, Ian. You know more about this sort of thing than I do.”
Ian went down the list, mumbling. “Yes. Yes. With this stuff, I could build anything. But with only a quarter of a million, we can’t afford to buy all this.”
“However, I did buy it. It was an estate sale. The heirs were faced with selling it at auction for twenty cents on the dollar (and then paying a ten percent auctioneer’s fee) or selling to me at twenty-two cents on the dollar, cash. They accepted my offer, and I paid them.”
“What did this cost . . . us?”
“$226,000.00.”
“Hey, that’s most of what we have!” I yelled.
“True. Which is precisely why I sold it.”
“You sold the place!” Ian shouted.
“Yes, for $358,000.00, retaining the chattels—furniture, machinery and so on. Then, of course, since we needed it, I bought it back for $480,000.00, on a lease with option to purchase, with the first five years rent paid in advance. And a balloon payment, due after that period, of $470,000.00—should we decide to exercise our option to purchase. Actually, we probably won’t want to buy it then. If our venture is not successful, we won’t need the property. If it is, we will probably need something bigger. But it looks nice on the lease.”
“Uh . . .” I said. “You bought it for $226K. You sold it for $358K. Then you bought it back for $480K . . . Why?”
“Surely it is obvious. When the smoke clears, we get the facilities we need for five years at no cost to us, except that we have to pay the taxes and insurance, which will be assessed at the $226,000.00 price.”
“You mean that you conned somebody into giving us the place almost free?” Ian’s eyes were tall.