1.4. Jill Talcott

Dr. Jill Talcott was not going to take no for an answer. She stopped in the bathroom and ran a brush through her shoulder-length dirty blond hair, applied Chap Stick, and smoothed out her navy gabardine slacks and sweater-vest. She ran through her speech, muttering to herself in the mirror, then headed for the Shrine.

The Shrine housed the physics department’s holy grail—a quantum computer. The beast itself, Quey by name, was as large and unsightly as an industrial trash bin. On its metal cover was a Huey, Louie, and Dewey comic book page with a fourth duckling penciled in, a computer in the place of its head. That was Dr. Grover’s idea of humor. Nerd. He could afford to laugh. Rumor had it that Grover and his computer had cost Udub over 5 million to steal from Berkeley. Rumor had it that Udub president Paul Reardon would have given his firstborn son if it had come to that.

Grover was putzing at a monitor. In his shorts and Birkenstocks he gave the impression of an aging beach bum. A full beard added to the disguise. The university brass ate it up.

“Jill Talcott,” he said, as though naming an inkblot in a routine psych exam.

Jill forced a pleasant look. “How are you, Dr. Grover? How’s the baby?”

“Blew some chunks the other day, but she’s back up. Whaddya need? I’m superbusy.”

“Well, you see, Dr. Grover—”

“Chuck.”

“Chuck, I need some time on Quey. You may remember from staff meetings that I’m working on wave mechanics. I’ve worked out an equation and I’m ready to crunch some numbers.”

“So file a request with the Committee.”

“I’d rather not. I only need a few hours. Two slots, two hours each, would be fine. I’m willing to do them in the middle of the night.”

Her voice was crisp, no-nonsense. He glanced up at her, amused. “You’d ‘rather not’? You’ve got balls. Jill the Chill.” This last was muttered, almost too low for her to hear.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’. Sorry, but we’re already scheduled twenty-four seven.” He typed in something at the keyboard and a diagnostic screen appeared.

Jill was prepared for rejection. Even the insult of that ridiculous nickname only made her more resolute. Her chin came up. “This work is incredibly important, Chuck. If my equation works—and it will work—it’ll be groundbreaking. Particularly the way I’ve… that is…”

“It’s up to the Committee to decide if your work has merit.”

The Committee: Grover himself, Dick Chalmers, the physics department head, and President Reardon. The three heads of Cerberus.

“I’m not ready to show my work to the Committee,” Jill said impatiently. “There’s got to be something we can work out.”

Grover swiveled away from the keyboard and eyed her appraisingly as if considering menu items on a cold buffet. Jill thought it was the first time he’d ever really looked at her. She knew what he’d see: an associate professor, low on the radar, a thirty-four-year-old pixie-sized southern woman with boring taste in clothes, no makeup, no glamour. He’d see all that, but what she hoped he’d also see was the ambition in her eyes. Jill the Chill. Maybe. But a man like Chuck Grover ought to know the value of being tough.

“Look, Chuck, no wave mechanics equation has ever been proven, because they can’t be run on a conventional computer—there’s way too much data to crunch. You beat everyone with your technology, but in ten years, there’ll be another two dozen quantum computers at least. Sooner or later someone is going to solve wave mechanics and it’s going to be a major event. It’s either going to be your quantum computer or it’ll be someone else’s. I want to make it yours.”

It was the speech she’d prepared, and she thought it was a good one.

He patted his pocket, found his cigarettes. “Lemme show you somethin’, Jill.”

He led her out of the Shrine and up a floor to his office. It was Grand Central Station compared to hers. Stacked along the front of his desk were dozens of wire baskets filled with files. At the sight of them, Jill began chewing on a fingernail.

“Do you know what those are?” he asked, lighting up.

She nodded, hopes sinking.

“That’s right. Official requests for Quey’s time from all over the world. And do you know how many of them are about wave mechanics?”

She had a moment of sheer terror. “How many?”

Grover made her wait for it. He plopped down in his chair and tapped his ashes in a coffee cup. “Well… only two that I can remember. But I get more every day, and I haven’t looked through the new requests in a couple of weeks.”

“Chuck! Whoever else is working on this, they can’t be as close as I am. And besides, I’m right here at Udub, not halfway around the world! Isn’t that why the university pays you through the nose? So that our department, our staff, can become world leaders in physics research? Isn’t that the deal?”

“Bottom line, some of the people who want Quey—and that means they want me—are big names, Jill. Big names. So if I give you time instead of them there has to be something in it for me.”

He waited, obviously expecting something. What? Not her body; his eyes told her that. Shit. Normally, she didn’t give a good goddamn what anybody thought, so she was lousy at reading people. She took a shot.

“If my equation works, I’ll be able to publish in the best journals. There might even be a book in it. Naturally, I’ll credit your work. Quey’s an important part of the process.”

“I’m glad you see it like that. The thing is, I can’t tell if you’re full of shinola or not, can I, since you refuse to file your theory?”

“But—”

“Forget it. I wouldn’t have time to review your work if you printed it in fifty-point font and hung it over my bed.” He smirked at his own cleverness. “The point is, if I let you use Quey it’s a risk—there’s got to be an upside for me. I want co-authorship.”

He said it so casually. For a moment Jill was sure he was joking. She waited for him to crack a smile or say “gotcha.” He didn’t.

“But… you don’t know anything about my work.”

“And you know about Quey? Face it—without her you can’t crunch the numbers. Without the numbers your theory is one of thousands, not even interesting to the lowliest publication. So much TP in other words. Isn’t that right?”

He looked so infuriatingly indifferent. Whether she took his offer or not or did a striptease in front of his desk, it was all the same to Chuck Grover.

“But Quey is a tool! Like a particle accelerator or a telescope. You can’t claim credit for my work just because I use a tool you built!”

“That’s harsh, Jill.” Grover stubbed out his cigarette, looking deeply disappointed. “I prefer to think of us as a team. But if that’s not how you see it I guess you’d better just go through the channels like everybody else.” He walked to the door.

Jill was not naive. She prided herself on knowing the score, particularly when the score in question was hardball as played in academia. But even she was stunned at Grover’s cojones. He thought he could glom onto the work of others, those without the clout to kick up a fuss, because he held the keys to Heaven. And he was absolutely right.

“Fine,” she blurted. “I agree. But in return you’ve got to give me a little flexibility. I may need a couple of run-throughs.”

“Three slots,” Grover said crisply. “Three hours each, between midnight and three A.M.”

Jill nodded her assent, biting her lips over what she really wanted to say.

Grover grinned, his happy self once more. “Cool. Send me an E-mail. We’ll work out the schedule.”

As he walked away, Jill heard the mocking voices of the faculty saying that to get Quey, Reardon would have given his firstborn son.