“Great idea,” Kaem said. “Don’t forget you’ll have to use a large font since the smallest features you can form are a millimeter.”
Norm nodded thoughtfully, looking immersed in the problem.
~~~
Kaem looked around the room. Everyone was busy. He thought, Great. Nothing left to do but look at all those damned emails. Maybe I can come up with some instructions for my phone’s AI that’ll sort them? He considered this a minute, then thought, Sorting them won’t do me any good because eventually I’ll have to do something with all of them. What I need is a minion who could deal with most of them.
He glanced over at Arya, But I’d better not ask her to hire anyone until we get some money.
As if in answer to his thought, Gunnar exclaimed, “Hey! The Mylar’s arrived down at Space-Gen’s site in Texas. Who can go down there with me to staze the new vacuum chamber?”
Lee said she had to go since it was for Space-Gen. To Kaem’s surprise and delight, his dad said he’d like to go too, saying, “I don’t have much going on until we get the Mylar to staze our furnace.”
Kaem tried to make headway on his email, but when he saw his dad wasn’t busy, he went over and sat down next to him. “Um, Dad, I think it’s great what you’ve been able to do with the toxic waste cleanup, but I’m thinking about your future with Staze.”
Emmanuel gave him a troubled look. “I’ve been worrying about that too. It doesn’t seem like the company will have much need for a chemist once this toxic waste problem is cleaned up. Do you think if I made myself useful to Gunnar on this trip, he might give a good report on me? Try to get Mr. X to consider me for jobs other than chemistry?”
My dad still has no idea what’s going on here, Kaem thought. Which is good, he reminded himself. He said, “That’s a great idea. I was thinking I could talk to X about whether you could lead a team when we hired more people. Staze’ll be building a lot of stuff and we’ll need managers who can motivate those teams to get things done.”
Emmanuel tilted his head thoughtfully, “I’ve never led a team.” He looked at Kaem and smiled, “But I’d love to try. I’ll start reading about techniques and methods so I’ll be ready if X gives me the chance.”
Kaem thought, I should be reading about leadership too. He said, “That’s great,” and started to get up.
His dad stopped him with a hand on his arm. He said, “I’m proud of you son.”
Kaem sat back down, feeling as if his legs had been knocked out from under him. Feeling his eyes welling with joyful tears, He said, “Thanks, Dad. I’m really proud of the way you’re handling the toxic waste too.”
***
It was the end of the day and Arya had left for home about ten minutes earlier. Lee got up and walked over to Kaem. A glance showed he was still working on the emails that he’d complained about all afternoon. She leaned close and spoke quietly. “Hey, I’m heading home. You wanna walk with me?”
Kaem glanced at his watch, then around the empty room. “Damn,” he said.
Lee suspected he felt like he’d wasted the afternoon doing nothing but dealing with emails. I would’ve felt really frustrated too, she thought.
Kaem stood up, “I’d love to, though I’ve got a class so I won’t be walking all the way home. But we could walk partway together.”
Outside, she asked, “A class? You’re taking night classes now?”
He gave her a shy glance, “It’s…” He took a breath. “I’ve never been healthy enough for a class that taught a physical activity. I’m kinda excited to be taking one.”
“They teach PE at night?” she asked, surprised.
He shrugged and looked embarrassed. “I’m taking karate. It’s supposed to be good exercise.”
Lee blinked. She’d never thought of Kaem as a macho kind of guy. “I can’t picture you getting in a fight.”
“Me either,” he said, looking away. He turned back to her. “But karate’s a physical activity class that’s offered in the evenings when I’ve got the time. And… sometimes fights come to you, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. I think that’s a guy thing.”
“Well,” he said, “I got bullied a few times when I was a kid.” Giving a little shrug, he said, “I was a pretty easy target since I couldn’t fight back for more than a few seconds without having a sickle crisis. Believe it or not, my dad taught me to throw one punch then curl up in a ball, since I couldn’t fight long. Surprisingly, one punch ended a couple of fights for me. Then, humiliatingly, one time when I was curled up in a ball getting the crap kicked out of me, my sister rescued me.”
“Your sister?! Was she a lot older?”
Kaem gave her an embarrassed look, “No. Younger.”
“Holy crap. She must’ve loved you a lot.”
“Oh hell no. She was my number one enemy. I think she just didn’t like anyone else picking on me. I was grateful to be rescued though.”
Lee studied him. “I think she cared more than you can know. She just hid it well.”
They walked in silence a bit, then Lee asked, “You haven’t been in any fights as an adult, have you?”
He looked unseeingly into the distance, then said, “My first day at UVA a big guy tried to pick a fight with me.”
“You talked your way out of it?”
He snorted, “No. Arya
