West of Nothing

26. Goat

When Major Zeus showed up later that afternoon in the company of two others, Mason quickly realized this was no ordinary inspection. One of his companions was the military mannequin, now in a tan skirt-suit, that had accompanied the bigwig general. The other was a newcomer, definitely not military. His cherry-red jeans might have just come off a store rack; they still had the creases down the sides. A citron-colored shirt stretched over a midriff that was starting to show a bulge. He had the dark brows and olive skin of a Middle Easterner with a bald head that, judging by its dull gloss, had been freshly shaved.

"This is Athanasios Passioudopolis." Military Mannequin's voice was low and husky. "He is distinguished professor of Applied Quantum Physics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, and a leading expert on graphene. The team should greatly benefit from his expertise."

"Good to meet you," Athanasios said. "Can I take one of these computer stations here? How do I log on?"

Skunkworks opened his mouth to object but a small hand gesture from Major Zeus stopped him short.

"How about this one?" HotDamn said amiably, diffusing the tension.

"That will do," said the major. "Come along Adria. We should leave them to their work."

"Speaking of work," she said. "The general will be expecting your report by fourteen hundred. You'll want to put some hand-grease into this one. The last couple have been lacking in technical particulars."

When Major Zeus and Military Mannequin departed, an awkward silence fell over the Bridge. It wasn't like the major to thrust a new member upon them without an informal vetting, no matter how distinguished they might be. Even more unsettling was the implication it hadn't been the major's call. Who was really calling the shots?

HotDamn helped the newcomer log in and get settled. While still polite, he was less effusive than usual. There were no chummy thumps on the shoulder.

"If you're wondering if you can trust me, you need have no worries there," Athanasios said unprompted. "I have top secret security clearance. My group has collaborated with the research arm of NATO on shock absorbent helmets and other field gear. Much of the work is classified so I can't go into detail but if you want confirmation, just ask that major of yours."

"That won't be necessary," HotDamn said. "There, looks like you're all set. If you have any questions, just message FN Helpdesk and they'll get you straightened out."

No one spoke to the new guy for at least fifteen minutes, not even Johnny, who had barely gotten settled in himself. For his part, Athanasios made a convincing show of being immersed in the archive footage.

Mason decided he would have to be the one to break the ice. "So, you're from Goat-someplace-or-other? That's where the big particle collider is, right? The Super Hadron?"

"You're thinking of Geneva, almost two thousand kilometers away." Then, as if to soften his response. "Gothenburg is in Sweden. It's more known for its fish market than it's particle colliders. But I do travel to the LHC on occasion to give visiting lectures."

"You're into fishing then?"

Athanasios' smile was wry but not unkind. "Never even touched a live one. I'm there strictly for the university, which has one of the best materials labs in the world."

"You speak pretty good English for a foreigner."

"I grew up in Denver. My parents are Macedonian and I spent summers with my grandparents in nearby Greece. I earned some extra money in college giving guided tours of Byzantine historical sites to American tourists. For a small country, it has a long and distinguished history."

A few minutes later, Mason still couldn't remember the man's name. "So, uh, Goat-berg guy, I was wondering... You're an expert on graphene, right?" Mason knew what graphene was, of course. You couldn't be a microbot maker and not be a little obsessed with the stuff. Light as spider-silk and a thousand times stronger than steel, it was supposed to hold the key to making indestructible body armor and space elevator cables, but nowadays it was mostly used for high-end tennis rackets and golf clubs. "You think the X-Bot is made of graphene then?"

"Probably not the dome, but I suspect the lower body and legs are. Maybe even some of the internal structure. But I have many questions. What is its tensile strength? Are the carbon sheets flat, folded or coiled? What are they alloyed with?"

"I thought graphene was just graphene."

"That's like saying plastic is just plastic. There are literally a countless number of formulations. Small amounts of so-called impurities result in different physical properties. Take iron and steel. Steel contains a tiny fraction of carbon, but that's enough to alter its molecular arrangement, creating interstitial zones that serve as a shock absorbing matrix."

"If graphene can have so many different forms, how can you be sure it really is graphene and not something else?"

The man became quiet for a moment. "You've hit on a tricky problem there. The major sent some scans to my group at Gothenburg along with high speed video of one of the legs in action. It wasn't much to go on, but after a decade of intensive study, I've built up a sort of intuition. I judged there was a better than fifty percent chance it was a long-polymer graphene compound. If that was the case, that meant someone had figured out a way to commercially manufacture it and I had to find out how they did it and what its exact molecular properties are. I caught the first plane to the States and came knocking on the major's door, demanding I be let in on whatever project he had going on here."

"That woman in the suit, where does she come into the picture?" Skunkworks asked.

"Adria? I knew her from my NATO days. When I caught wind she was involved, naturally I asked her to put in a good word for me with the major."

"Seems like she did a little more than that."

"She's come up a few ranks recently. Being in a four-star's inner circle will do that for you."

Mason got the sense some important parts were being left out of the narrative, but it was no use prying.

"Well, goat man," Skunkworks said. "However you managed to wangle your way here, you picked an opportune time. We're making preparations to take a sample and we could use the help of a materials specialist."

"Whatever I can do. By the way, my state-side friends call me Nathan."

"Here on the Bridge I think we'll go with Goat, thanks."

Athanasios' face tightened but when he looked up at the jumbos it took on the look of reverence and wonder that was the hallmark of the newcomer. Whatever he had thought he was getting into, he was fully under the X-Bot's spell now.

In spite of the inauspicious start, Skunkworks was right. If ever the team needed the help of a materials scientist, it was now, just when they were preparing to carve off a chunk of the X-Bot with a high-powered laser. In theory, the laser could be treated as an ultra-fine knife-blade. Just aim and cut. That worked fine for things like soft tissue and bone but, as Goat explained in painstaking depth, materials like graphene had special photo-electric and thermal diffusion properties. Cut too quickly or with the wrong modulation and the light beam might be absorbed or cause the material to super-heat. Counter-intuitively, it might even cause the tear to reseal itself as you went. All these factors had to be taken into account.

Goat contributed in other ways too. He more than made up for the mathematical deficiency left by Shouter's departure and his down-to-earth pragmatism served as a counter-balance to HotDamn's bull-by-the-horns audacity. He was able to go toe-to-toe on a technical level with Skunkworks, served as a physics encyclopedia for Doogie and Corny, and didn't get annoyed when Mason asked him to explain a crystallographic lattice for the third time.

It was surely no coincidence that Johnny and Goat had both showed up precisely when they were most needed. Up to this point, the team had mostly been allowed to direct their own research, but Mason was starting to wonder how much of that was an illusion. He didn't know beans about how classified military projects were run, but if there was one thing he knew about puppet masters, it was that the best ones never showed their strings.