"Is that good?"
Finally Abe looked at him. "Is that good? You ask me if that's good! What kind of meshuggeneh question is that?"
At least the color was returning to his face.
"Broadcast power. I never heard of it. Pardon me."
Abe reached for the truck, and Jack noticed his hand hesitate, like he was afraid to touch it, like it was some sort of holy object. But finally he grabbed it and lifted it.
"See this aerial?" he said, holding up the wire. "The motor can't run without it. No aerial… no power. But stick the aerial into its slot…"
As he did just that, the motor whirred and spun the wheels.
"… and suddenly we've got power. Power from the air."
From the air? Had Abe just had a mini-stroke?
"You're losing me," Jack said.
"You were right about the thing in the battery compartment, Jack. It's not a battery. It's a transceiver. It's taking the signal the aerial is receiving and transforming it into electrical energy."
Jack felt a kernel of excitement begin to burn in his gut.
"Okay, but what's the aerial receiving?"
"Power. Whoever modified this toy must have some sort of a transmitter somewhere that can broadcast a beam, a wave, an I-don't-know-what—let's just call it energy, because that's what it is——that can be downloaded through the aerial and turned into electrical power."
Jack stared at the spinning wheels, feeling that excitement swell and burn hotter. He was beginning to see how big this was.
"But how?"
"If I knew how such a thing could be, would I be standing here talking to you? No, I wouldn't. I would be sitting in my palatial home on Martha's Vineyard—my Martha's Vineyard, because I would have bought the entire island. Jack, I'd be much too rich to even know you, let alone talk to you. I'd be the kind of rich that'd make Bill Gates look like he's on welfare."
"All right. I get the message."
"Do you?" Abe said. "You've heard the phrase, 'The end of life as we know it?' That about approximates it."
Jack nodded. "No power lines. No electric cords. No—"
"You're thinking small, Jack. How about saying bye-bye to the internal combustion engine?"
"Hey, you're right," Jack said. "Finally we'll be able to breathe the air around here and maybe…"
He heard his voice trail off as the full import of Abe's words hit ground zero. Now Jack had to sit down.
"Holy shit."
Because suddenly it was all clear… or most of it, at least.
"Oil," he said after a moment. His saliva had gone south. "Oil will be worthless."
"Not completely," Abe said. "As a lubricant it'll still be good. But as a fuel? Feh!"
"No wonder Kemel's been ready to do anything to get hold of this."
"Kemel? This is the Arab you told me about? Yes, of course he'd do anything. This little toy car portends the complete economic collapse of the Middle East. Not to mention Texas and the U.S. Gulf Coast."
"My God," Jack said. "The economic holocaust you've been talking about all these years… it's finally—"
"That was supposed to be from runaway inflation. But this isn't it. Don't worry so much. Wailing and gnashing of teeth there'll be, huge upheavals in finance and in every industry that gobbles power, but no holocaust. Unless of course, you're heavily invested in oil stocks."
"Yeah. Then it'll be time to take that long first step off a window ledge."
"But if you should have lots of your money invested in countries that rely heavily on foreign oil—"
"Like Japan?" Jack said, thinking of Yoshio.
"Japan, yes. Big time, Japan. They're virtual slaves to foreign oil. Broadcast power puts the Japanese and Middle East economies on a seesaw: one drops into the abyss, the other goes into orbit."
The pieces were falling into place. Jack could almost hear the clicks as they came together.
"That's it, then," he said. "No wonder that Japanese trade delegate was so ecstatic: Ronald Clayton was on his way to Japan to sell them his broadcast power technology. Kemel and his Iswid Nahr buddies got wind of it, and made sure he never reached Japan. That's why they're so desperate and so secretive now—they don't want anyone to even guess broadcast power exists."
Even the will's cryptic message for Greenpeace made sense now: broadcast power meant no more oil spills… a brand-new day for air quality, the ozone layer, the whole environment: World-changing technology…
Abe cleared his throat. "One thing I don't understand—I should say, one of the many things I don't understand—is why Ronald Clayton was taking his technology to Japan. He didn't need Japan. He didn't need anybody. All he had to do was patent it and quietly announce it. He wouldn't have to go to anybody. The world would stampede to his door. Not only would he be rich beyond King Midas's wildest dreams, he'd be worshiped as well. He wouldn't be Time's Man of the Year, he'd be the world's Man of the Millennium. Why was he going to Japan?"
"Haven't the faintest," Jack said, taking the chassis from Abe and switching off the motor. "But I know someone who might."
8.
"… And so it's my guess," Jack was saying, "that this little truck is going to flip the world on its ear."
Alicia had been relieved to see Jack. Not glad, just relieved that the man at the reception desk asking to see her without an appointment hadn't been Will. He'd already called twice this morning. Alicia knew she couldn't face him, but maybe she could dredge up the courage to talk to him. At the very least she owed him a return call.
But Jack had come in with that toy truck from the house and pulled it apart on her desk, talking a blue streak. Alicia had had a hard time following him at first. She was still dazed from watching Hector die. And then she'd been a little frightened. Jack was positively wired. For a bad moment she'd thought he might be on speed, or maybe peaking in the manic phase of a bipolar disorder. And when she'd heard what he was talking about, she pretty much settled on the latter.
But then he wasn't simply telling her, he was showing her how the Rover didn't have a battery and would only run when the aerial was attached. He called it broadcast power.
"Broadcast power," she said, catching the chassis as it rolled across her desktop. "But that's science fiction."
"So was rocketing to the moon and a computer on your lap—once. Now they're history. But what's got to blow you away even more is the fact that it's all yours."
Was it hers? she wondered. Really? And how much was it worth? A tingle crept over her skin as she realized that a day might come when every lamp, every microwave, every TV, every car in the world would have one of those little transceivers in its works. Worth? Alicia doubted she or anybody else could count that high.
"Not all," she said, remembering something. "A third of it is yours."
Jack cocked his head and gave her a puzzled look. "Mine? But—" •
"Our deal, remember? We split the proceeds—you've got a thirty-three percent share."
"Jeez," Jack said, dropping into a chair. "I forgot all about that."
"I'm sure you would have remembered eventually." She refused to let herself get excited. "But right now you've got a third of nothing. We've only got half of the equation. The receiver's not worth anything without the transmitter."
Jack nodded. "Like taking a TV set back to the 1920s, I guess. Without somebody broadcasting, it's just an expensive night-light."