Entangled

Entangled

by Thomas W. Baker

Published by Thomas W. Baker at Smashwords.com

Copyright © 2010 Thomas W. Baker

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Prologue

WANTED

Pony Express - St. Joseph, Missouri to California in 10 days or less. Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week.

In the 1860's, a half million people sprawled west of the Rocky Mountains, many driven there by a rush of golden dreams in California a decade earlier. They were desperate for news from the Eastern United States where the bulk of the Civil War was fought. One news service, The Pony Express, formed from a government mail contract already given to a stage coach service operating on both the Butterfield route through the southern U.S. and the even slower route by ship-stagecoach-ship over the Isthmus of Panama.

Two thousand miles separated St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. With twenty riders, a hundred and sixty-three stations, and two hundred horses along the route, a mochila, a specially designed mailbag, carried the news and important letters along the central route in ten days at one week intervals. The first express mail started on April 3, 1860 with young, skinny, and wiry Johnny Fry holding the reins.

In only one and a half years, the Pony Express was abandoned. What killed the Pony Express was not the golden spike joining the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, but an electric spike running along wires.

On October 24, 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph completed its first transmissions and what used to take ten days now took minutes. A paradigm shift in communication, a spooky action at a distance, had toppled the Pony Express. Then came radio, a wireless wonderment that first zipped across the English Channel before the 20th century, shifting communication to broadcast for the masses. What will the next shift bring?

Chapter 1

There was nothing ceremonious in the way Sheri Forrester slid from under the covers, tossing the sheet aside, and sitting at the edge of the bed. She took a few moments to catch her breath before rising to fetch the robe she left draped over the hotel room's desk chair. Reminding herself that Steven was at least a decent lover - not the best she'd had, but eager - she slipped quietly into the robe.

As she sauntered toward the bathroom, Steven watched her casually, savoring the view of her legs to help soothe his soul after the storm of a great woman's body. Eyes closed, he let a few minutes pass to daydream the episode before opening his eyes and spotting the marketing report on the nightstand.

He stirred under the sheets, reaching out for that report he grabbed earlier in the day during the Wireless Expo nearby in San Francisco's Moscone Center. This generic wireless report he had picked up between his customer meetings and his speech. For him, there was probably nothing he hadn't already seen, but maybe the author's different perspective would provide some amusement. Sometimes a different view would complement his strategies, sometimes it would point out a weakness that he could exploit in his competitors, and sometimes it would crucify his company. In Steven's mind, all information was to be used opportunistically.

Sheri, meanwhile, emerged from the bathroom, strode to the desk, and drew out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her purse. You want one? she teased out of habit. He would say no, as usual, but maybe one day she would entice him into one long drag, just for her. Making men do anything they didn't want to do was a fun challenge. She turned and held out the pack to him.

No, my little minx. You know better than that, Steven replied in his practiced, patronizing voice.

Shrugging, Sheri pulled a single cigarette from the box with her lips. Your loss, she said, making the stick waggle. She tossed the pack on the desk and lit up, taking a long, slow inhale. She could always count on smoking afterward to give her some satisfaction no matter who she was with.

Though, Steven interjected into the silence, you might get me that scotch you offered me earlier. He had skipped the scotch when he entered the room, going straight for her; now, he figured she was up anyway.

Sure, okay. Just- she took another long drag, gimme a minute.

For a few more moments, Steven watched her pace and puff, staring out the big bay window into the East Bay like a panther. He watched how positively feline Sheri could be; disappearing like a house cat to preen one moment, prowling like a huntress the next. At 38, her body was lithe and toned as if she exercised constantly to keep herself fit and tight.

Once she stamped the half-smoked cigarette out, Sheri strode to the mini-bar and pulled two baby bottles of Scotch from the rack. Two ice cubes for Steven, she recalled. After pouring, she brought both glasses to the mattress beside him.

These rooms here remind me of my grandparents who lived in Daly City back in the sixties and seventies. Something about the teak furniture, I think, Steven commented, recalling his childhood visits to San Francisco.

It's a little out of style, don't you think? Sheri said without much care.

But that's its charm, and the view here is spectacular, he said cheerily as his eyes moved from the furniture to the big bay window looking out into the Bay. In all his travels, he could not really appreciate decor or style even though most of the rooms he stayed in were top notch. No, he was much more taken with the windows, the most interesting feature of any hotel room. The views from the window said a lot about the hotel, whether it was a good view from a half-rate hotel, or if you watched trash bins from above. A window showed the living city, cars and people in a symphony of movement. A picture or painting on a wall was so static, like his life lately.

So what's new at T.W.P? Steven asked. You never said you'd be at the Expo and surprised me with your message this morning.

Sheri smiled before delivering, Ah, well, I have been busy, but if you have to know, I've got this new project idea. If I told you anything else I'd need to kill you. Actually, as Vice President of Research and Development at Terra Wireless Products her schedule demanded constant travel between TWP's design facilities in San Diego, Colorado, and New Jersey, their headquarters. Her job had grown beyond the convenience of video conferencing, especially with Asian companies who had very different views on business relationships than U.S. companies. Besides, she figured out long ago, why bother with a conference call when she could traverse the world in TWP-sponsored style, a perk she had earned?

Her mind vectored to the new project. She still struggled with the implications of its fantastic possibilities.

The radio section of a satellite, and even of mobile phones, consisted of a complex and sensitive array of integrated circuits and discrete resistors and capacitors, the guts of modern radios. The integrated circuits were a specialized process technology different and more costly than their counterparts in computers. This entire radio section was commonly the most sensitive and problematic of all sections of a satellite's payload. With this new technology, the issues associated with the radio design complexity and sensitivity to manufacturing the boards would be radically reduced, maybe even eliminated entirely, slashing manufacturing costs while also enhancing reliability through the hazardous launch stage.

Perhaps, Sheri continued teasingly, I can tell you it promises to revolutionize satellite radio design and resolve all those nasty satellite production problems, if you promise not to tell.

Sounds very interesting. Won't that end up disrupting... Steven almost continued, but he realized he would jeopardize losing Sheri's focus to her corporate quest for promotion again. I'll just leave that to you.

Well, sure. Someday the supply chain will break, but the project is still in research mode and won't be ready for production for at least three years. Nothing to worry about for a long time.

Silence pressed in for a minute as their thoughts diverged, so Steven took Sheri's glass and set both on the nightstand and motioned for her to sit.

He began, I've got to catch an early flight tomorrow. How much longer before you get home?

I'm in Korea for another week. But I am here for one more night.

So, Steven smiled as his hand slid under the sheets, searching for the smooth skin of her thigh, let's merger again, shall we?

Chapter 2

Dillon Faust set his lunch down at the dining table's corner seat which the afternoon sunlight, streaming through the cafeteria's tall glass window, had warmed. He was lucky today to get such a seat; his 11 am, one-hour meeting always seemed to turn into two hours at Terra Wireless Products, a symptom of the company's senior staff. These executives talked to their subordinates about needing to read the managerial book-of-the-day on how to run meetings effectively and efficiently, but most of them either never bought those books themselves, or ever read them. They certainly didn't follow those books' advice; just felt they could write them.

He set his salad on the table then sat on the flat bench seat, feeling the warmth instantly, like a heated car seat. Dillon, less than average stature, warmed up quickly. As a scientist absorbed in mental work all day, he enjoyed sitting in the sunshine and letting his mind wander. Until three of the company's System Engineers joined him, of course.

Hey, did you see slide twelve, the projected terminal sales next year? Dillon asked in reference to the number of satellite receivers that Terra Wireless Products would sell. He figured at least one of them would know.

I only caught a glimpse, but it looks like it will hit ten million units, eh? replied the shortest of the three.

Ten million isn't bad, but pales in comparison to cellular, Dillon ruminated. Once satellite radio gets integrated into cellular handsets, then, then we're positioned to explode in chipset sales.

They began talking about the general Marketing slides presented at the meeting they just came from, a quarterly update meeting by the division Vice President. These meetings, Dillon knew, attempted to keep morale up in a stagnant company. Unfortunately, for those who had been at TWP for a few years, these meetings were useless. They contained the same information over and over: what a great vision the VP had, what great potential there was for TWP moving forward, what a great market to be in, what great customers we had. To someone new at the company that was okay. One could believe that TWP was on the road to even greater success.

Staff learned eventually that what wasn't said was the key message, the items the VP avoided so she didn't have to field questions. No one would ask hard questions anyway because no one wanted to be fired the next day. Some managers would say none of the regular staff had balls; Dillon would say the staff was smart enough to let the VP think she wooed the crowd again.

Anyone who talked to a marketroid or bothered reading TWP's quarterly SEC filing would know TWP's revenue picture. Hell, if people weren't told the exact numbers, the usual presentation, that meant revenue was not going up. VPs never advertised their failures to their division. Why would they?

Pete, who had answered Dillon earlier, was an 11-year veteran and wasn't accepting a future ramping market at face value. The market went flat for a few years and even the next generation volumes are starting to flatten. The overall market's 15% growth this year should flow right down to us if the execs would manage the business even remotely right. Even if they kept their hands off the business and just kissed the customers' asses, we'd at least follow the market growth.

You know it's more complicated than that, Dillon followed. At least TWP isn't at the bottom of the food chain. He referred to the chain of suppliers in the wireless business. At the bottom were the discrete part manufacturers; above them the Integrated Circuit manufacturers; then, up a level, the Intellectual Property designers such as TWP; then the satellite and handset manufacturers; and at the top the service providers controlling features and determining manufacturing cost and subscription rates.

And besides, he continued, it's always been for us to pack more and more functionality for the same cost every product generation just to keep up with Moore's law. That law was the famous technology prediction formed in 1965 that circuit capacity, focused primarily on integrated circuits, halved in size about every 18 months, which also nicely matched most hardware companies' duration of a single generation of products.

I hear you, Pete said, still unconvinced. I know the other companies in this business. Most are growing as fast as the whole market grows. Why aren't we?

The other two young engineers sat quietly in stark contrast to the noisy background. New to the company, they sponged up the conversation.

Dillon had speculated earlier this year but kept silent, stabbing at his salad. He had found that TWP's revenue had always bounced around from year to year, but on average it was not keeping pace with worldwide growth. The number of chip designs per year was flat over the last two years. They were not getting new design wins into additional manufacturing lines at their customers. In the cellular world, there were almost as many manufacturing lines as there were phone models, pumping out versions of phones with the same basic internal electronics but with different housing styles and software functionality. And TWP's profits were sliding due to profit margin erosion yearly, a fact in the electronics business. The same integrated circuit chip would sell for about ten percent less the next year, then the next, and so on. Without more design wins, TWP would die a slow death in their market.

And, Pete added after a minute, that satellite market history that we pulled together for the boss last month wasn't even presented. The VP must have trashed it if our director ever presented it to her.

Dillon and Pete had volunteered to pull together historic information for the VP to try to get some responsibility into Marketing, who avoided their past predictions better than a politician and instead focused on predicting the future. But the past proved immensely valuable in assessing how quickly a market could change.

The cellular market's growth rate wasn't even as spectacular as TVs or DVDs, but people's basic communication needs drove cellular volume far beyond the other market saturation points. In 1990 there were about 11 million digital cellular subscribers. In 2000 that number jumped to 750 million. By 2005 that number zoomed to 2 billion, almost one of every 3 people in the world, with over 1 billion cellular phones produced that year alone. China alone had about 400 million subscribers, far above the U.S. with only 200 million. At the end of 2008 the subscribers approached 4 billion people, almost two-thirds of the world population. These numbers showed saturation arriving soon and when new design wins had to become reality in order for TWP to grow or just survive. The cellular market was a reasonable template for what could happen in satellite radio if some predictions came true.

Dillon replied on a different tack. "We've seen VPs come and go over 10 years now. It takes about a year for their efforts to be measurable by the Board of Directors, for their actions from the day they walk in to affect the company's output. Once measured, unless they actually improve things, they get shuffled somewhere else within the next year to make way for another ambitious golden boy... or girl.

Oh, VPs don't need to make good decisions - they just have to make them. The board wants to see action and that's what it's given, for a time. VPs then need to keep moving jobs, upwards being their desired direction, so they can blame the new guy when business turns to shit the next year. If the VP doesn't move within the first two years then they're stuck with what they made, and either leave or get pushed out. If I were as narcissistic and greedy as most of them, that's what I'd do. But as you see, I'm the down-to-earth type.

Pete finished his iced tea. You keep thinking that, Dillon, he laughed. Anyway, you know I'm joking. I'll see you at the product review at three.

Chapter 3

The blue Kia Rio turned left off of Crawford's Corner Road into the half-mile driveway of the Holmdel facility, passing the 130 foot water tower, modeled after the world's first production transistors from the late 1940's, but looking more like one of H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds alien walkers. The image flashed again in Jason's mind as he passed, and he recalled that Grover's Mill was nearby too, which was one main setting of the astonishing radio broadcast Orson