As he shook Jeremy’s hand, Norm said, “Norm Tibbets. I’m an aerospace engineer who works part-time here and part-time at GLI.” He turned and surveyed the room then walked off toward the corner, “Bring your boxes and we’ll try to capture this table over here.”
They arrived at the cornermost table and set down their boxes. The two boxes they’d brought were big enough they mostly covered the table. Norm said, “Those boxes have all the pieces of your mold?”
“No!” Medness said, “We had to rent a van to bring all of it. We need more than one table!”
Norm frowned, looking around. “How big’s it going to be when it’s all assembled?”
Medness said, “It’ll probably fit on the table when it’s all done, but…”
Norm waved at the crowded room and shrugged. “I hope you see the problem? I’d suggest you give some thought to how it’s going to be assembled, then unbox and bring in the parts you’re going to staze first. Get them stazed, followed by the next parts, etcetera.”
Jeremy, already embarrassed by the way Medness had been acting, was mortified when Medness said, “I want to talk to Seba.” He looked around, said, “Never mind, I see him,” and headed off that direction.
Norm watched him walk away, a dyspeptic look on his face. He turned to Jeremy and said, “You must love working with that guy. Look, I’ve got a lot of other projects I’m supposed to be working on. If you guys decide you want to work with me, come find me, okay?” He turned and walked away as well.
Not knowing what else to do, Jeremy headed across the room after Medness. Arriving there he found Medness waiting near a black guy who was talking to a young blonde woman. A couple more young people were there, seeming to hang on their every word. When the black guy finished what he was saying, Medness broke in, “Mr. Seba, I’m Dr. Medness. We’re here to staze the fixture for our H-B fusion experiment.”
Seba looked at Medness, blinked, and said, “Norm Tibbets was going to help you.”
Obviously having expected a more obsequious reply, Medness said, “Well, yes, but,” he waved at their corner “Tibbets has us trying to set up on one table over there in the corner.”
Seba blinked again, “The tables are thirty by seventy-two inches. The footprint of the mold for your fixture is twenty-nine by fifty-eight. It should fit.”
Jeremy was astounded Seba remembered their project in such detail, but Medness simply seemed exasperated. He said, “We need more room to unbox and assemble!”
“Unbox and assemble before you bring it in. Or, you’ve got a Ph.D., be more creative than that if you like. But, as you can see, we’re overcrowded at present. We are planning to rent the building next door, so if you must have more room, you could come back in a week or two when we’ve got that one available.” He frowned, “However, we’re hiring so many people that even that building’ll probably be overcrowded soon after that. So, if I were you, I’d plan to come the day after we get access. Sorry,” he said, turning away, “I’ve got to get back to Ms. Lanis’ project.”
He’s gonna explode! Jeremy thought, watching his boss turn white, then red.
But after another moment or two, Medness took a deep breath. He looked like he was counting or saying a prayer. He turned abruptly and stalked back toward their corner. “Which parts did we bring in?” he asked icily back over his shoulder.
“Um, I’m not sure,” Jeremy responded. “I’ll have to check.”
“For God’s sake, Jeremy!” Medness snarled.
Shifting his ire to someone who can’t fight back, Jeremy thought. He said, “We probably need to find the mold components for the temporary interior Stades first, right?”
“Of course!” Medness said as if he were speaking to an idiot.
“I’m thinking we want to leave those two big boxes on our table so no one claims it. I’ll go out and start looking for the interior molds.” He swerved and headed for the door before Medness could say anything else nasty.
It took them most of an hour to unbox and bring in molds for the temporary interior components. They nearly filled the table. As Medness was putting together the last of those pieces, he said, “Go find that Tibbets guy and tell him to come staze these parts.”
Jeremy found Tibbets working at a screen that looked like it had a diagram of a coffin on it. He said, “Excuse me, Norm. I hope you’ll forgive Dr. Medness’s behavior. He’s a brilliant man, but short on social graces.”
Norm waved it away. “I’ve worked with plenty of assholes in my time.”
“We’ve assembled the molds for our temporary interior Stades on the table you found us. We’re hoping we can get you to staze them for us?”
“Sure,” Norm said, “Just let me save this CAD.”
A moment later Norm stood and they started over to the corner. Jeremy, partly out of curiosity and partly in an attempt to have some pleasant conversation, said, “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s that thing you’re working on?” He chuckled, “It looked like a coffin.”
“It’s version two of our patient stazer,” Norm said.
“Patient stazer?” Jeremy asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, we’re hoping to put critically ill patients in stasis until they can be treated.”
Astonished, Jeremy wanted to ask more questions, but they’d arrived in the corner where Medness was still trying to get a couple of mold components to pop together.
Norm said, “Let me look at the cable sockets on these…” He turned several of the molds so he could see the receptacles on them, then said, “The small stazer will do all of these. Hang on.” He started for the
