Chapter 6: The Reality Waver
“Hey Jay, what’s up! Thanks for referring me to Keith! But I will make sure I actually read whatever form you ask me to sign next time!” Lavine answered on the phone.
“Hey Lavine, I have put you on speaker because I am with someone. I am kind of in an urgent situation and I need your help. Lavine listen carefully as this is important, please go to my bedroom in my house and bring me a black box from the place where we last played poker and…don’t open the box. I am on the 38th floor in the World Commercial Building. Please don’t tell anyone else…” Jay spoke carefully before it was cut off.
“Wait, Jay! What’s going on?” Lavine tried in vain to force the words into the phone after Jay hanged up.
“Poker? We never play poker!”
Lavine didn’t know what exactly happened but he knew Jay was in trouble. He did not hesitate to act. He managed to get into Jay’s bedroom. Although Lavine had no idea about “the place where they play poker”, he knew Jay’s temperament well. Jay was such an out-of-the-box thinker that most people would not understand what he was thinking. Lavine was an exception. Growing up together with Jay had led Lavine to search in the least expected places. Jay could have simply told Lavine exactly where he hid the box, but he trusted Lavine to understand what he meant. Jay could not afford to let his hostage-taker know what he was scheming. He managed to find the black box which had the size of mini ring box. However, next to it, there were another identical black box and a new deck of sealed playing cards.
“What is going on? Think Lavine Think! Think like Jay.” Lavine murmured to himself.
” Lavine listen carefully as this is important, please go to my bedroom in my house and bring me a black box from the place where we last played poker and…don’t open the box.” Lavine was meddling with the new deck as Jay’s message lingered in his head.
“Was Jay asking me to think outside the box like he always did?”
“I guess I can’t play poker if I don’t open the deck and I can’t think outside the box if I don’t know what’s inside!” Lavine said to himself as he opened the deck of playing cards.
He took out all the 52 cards which he did not find anything unusual. But after further examinations, he discovered there was an extra playing cards box inside the playing cards box.
“An extra box?”
He then opened the two black boxes where he found a pair of devices that looked like wireless earphones.
“A pair of devices…but he only want me to bring a box? Poker…Bluffing…Exchanging Hostage?”
He knew the black box would be something that could set Jay free. But what should he do? He realized time was running out. He brought the things with him to the 38th floor in the World Commercial Building where the giant investment corporation “The Road Builder Group” was located.
Lavine was escorted into a conference room where he saw Jay and Frank, the notorious Billionaire who owned the Road Builder Group.
“Do you have the black box?” Frank asked impatiently.
“Yes I do.”
“Give it to me.”
“No. Not yet. Jay, what’s the situation we are in now?”
“Ok Lavine. As you know, my parents won a holiday package and they are now enjoying their holiday in a resort island owned by The Road Builder Group. It was a setup by Frank. He wants the black box in exchange for my parents to come back.”
“So now you know. You can hand it over to me now?”
“Is that what you want?” Lavine asked Frank as if it was a rhetorical question as he took out a black box.
Both Lavine and Jay paid close attention to how Frank reacted.
“Yes.”
Jay secretly swallowed a sigh of relief as Frank seemed not to know there was a second black box.
Lavine made eyes contact with Jay. At a nod from Jay, Lavine put the black box on the rectangular conference table before pushing it towards the other end where Frank was waiting.
“What! There is nothing inside! Are you bluffing me!” Frank shouted
“How do we know you will keep your end of the bargain after I give it to you?”
“I am a businessman. I only want to get what I want. I don’t want people to be involved in accidents unnecessarily.”
“Ok. I don’t have the real black box with me, but I put it in a public locker. How about we exchange what we want simultaneously. Can you please bring Jay’s parents back to their house where Jay will be waiting for them? The moment they meet, I will tell you where the locker is and where you can find the key. Once you get the box and verify what you want inside, you will release me too. If Jay doesn’t see me in his house within two hours after you have it, he will call the police.”
“Done.”
The sequence of events happened consequently without the involvement of the police.
Lavine finally arrived Jay’s house.
“Thank you Lavine. You saved our lives!”
“There you go” Lavine handed over to Jay the second black box which contained one of the devices that he didn’t give to Frank.
“Beautifully done Lavine!”
“Sorry that I had to put the other real earphone-like device in the public locker for Frank otherwise I don’t think he will honor the swap.”
“No worry. I already have the blueprint of that prototype…”
“How did you get involved with someone like Frank?”
“A few years ago, my uncle told me he was secretly developing the prototype of a ground-breaking invention called “Reality Waver”. It is a wearable device that can convert the brainwaves of your abstract imagination into practical engineering blueprint. By connecting it to a 3D Printer, you can produce what you want by simply thinking about it without any technical training. It would have a massive commercial appeal. Imagine you could think about a new clothes tailoring to your size in your mind and press a button and then it would appear in your 3D Printer shortly. It acts as the bridge between idealistic thinking and practical reality. Your brain wave can literally “wave reality”. My uncle used to tell me that if you had a 3D Printer big enough, it could build a whole city. However, it could also be used to invent and build new powerful weapons…imagine a dictator who could just think about a powerful weapon and the weapon would just appear in a few hours without doing any research, relying on any technical experts, or learning from other countries…”
“And we have now given that to Frank?”
“For the lives of my parents, yes.”
“Sorry to ask even ask…but the device just sounds too amazing and dangerous. It doesn’t feel right giving such a powerful invention to a guy like Frank.”
“According to my uncle, Frank claimed that he only wanted to put it to commercial use to make money. After all, he owns one of the largest 3D Printing companies in the world, so it makes strategic sense to him. However, my uncle never trusted him. With the right price, Frank will do business with anyone. My uncle also told me that Frank was becoming close to the CEO of a large weapons manufacturer who commissioned Frank’s company to build their latest high-tech factories. Frank company grew to where it is now mainly because of its road building and infrastructure projects and thus the name, “The Road Builder Group”. He hired my uncle to work as a consultant for one of their projects when they first met. Somehow he got wind of the invention that my uncle had kept secret. I am probably one of few people who know about it. While the invention was still incomplete with a critical missing link, it already had a number of key technological breakthroughs. My uncle devoted his life to this invention at the expense of not having his own family. He treated me like his own son. Frank tried to buy it from my uncle, but he denied it even existed. Frank tried pretty much everything to coerce him into giving up the prototype. He acquired the lab where my uncle used to do his research and evicted him. He hired people to break into his apartment. He had people going through his mails. He had people following my uncle every day. But my uncle never gave in.”
“So he killed your uncle?”
“My uncle was killed in a freak accident where his car drove off a bridge. However, he seemed to have predicted his fate. The day before the accident, he couriered me a big box of present for my birthday. Besides some books and magic toys, I found the two little black boxes and a birthday letter inside…”
Dear Jay,
Happy Birthday! I won’t be able to be with you this year to celebrate your birthday but I hope you will like the present I give you. It contains a special selection of books and magical toys. I wanted to instill into you the knowledge and magic I have learned over the years. When I was little, I always wanted to be a magician for all the joy I could bring to the people. And don’t you ever tell anyone about the failed magic performance I did for you on your last birthday!
I am sure you will become a fine man like your father and I hope you will one day find your True Calling.
I am going away for a while and don’t know when I can come back. But don’t worry for I have taken with me the important thing, my True Calling.
Regards
Bill
“Thinking back now…he probably was tired of Frank surveillance and coercion as he couldn’t really concentrate on developing his invention further. So he attempted to leave the country with the invention, but his car was chased by Frank’s people. Sending the invention to me before he went would be an insurance policy in case anything happened to him or he had to destroy it himself before Frank could get hold of it.”
“But now he has the prototype!”
“Don’t worry. It takes both of the earplugs to work. My uncle designed it so that the two had completely different engineering makeup and could operate independently. However, the advanced features can only be performed when the two operate together. I was relieved that Frank has not found that out. Apparently my uncle had been misleading him too. Just look at the sign of “L or R” on either one of them.”
“With the money Frank has for research, he may be able to figure out and backward-engineer the other part of the devices?”
“He might. But it could take many years. The technologies my uncle had invented was light years ahead of anyone else. That was why Frank had to get it from my uncle.”
“So what are you going to?”
“Well I will…”
On the next day, Frank received a mail from an anonymous sender.
Dear Frank,
Please find attached an evidence about your illegal dealing for one of your building projects.
I hope you get what you want in life, but if you ever try to lay a hand on Jay or anyone close to him again, this will only be the first breaking news you will see on all the major newspapers.
Have a nice day.
An Admirer