Homebrew - a NaNoWriMo Novel - Day 11

I'm missing a day on my titles, but I'm still up to 23K. Enjoy!

She drifted out of sight, using small bursts from her SMU-2, skinsuit mobility unit, the same unit each of the trainee workers had affixed to their breather packs. However, despite having been trained on the SMUs the prior day, their units were not active at this point. Their training today was focused upon moving and working without relying upon the SMUs. Also, if they managed to successfully assemble the framework components into a solar power segment. Each double team of four workers had been assigned one frame segment; theoretically, the student teams could build four complete segments for the current section of the ante-orbit array. Another class was practicing on the other side of the OPS and each completed segment would be added to the post-orbital array. One wag from the original construction crew, had noted that the proposed design looked very much like Mickey Mouse ears. Naturally, the crews nick-named the power arrays 'Mickeys'. Dora and her class were assigned to 'Mickey-One'.
Most of the difficulty involved with assembling the segments was man-handling the pieces into position. Yes, in a micro-gravity environment, each length of framework 'weighed' practically nothing, and could be swung and shoved by even the lightest person in the work crews. However, getting a frame piece moving wasn't the problem; that came when it was time to stop the movement as each section had a mass that would 'weigh' 1,200 pounds on the Earth's surface. To move the frames around required two people pushing and pulling in tiny increments, never letting the frames stay moving for too long. Also, while a frame 'could' be swung in an arc with one end as the hinge-point, that would create a huge moment on the other end, with energy far beyond what one person could stop by simple bracing and pushing.
Dora and J'Shawn had practiced a bit on Earth in the 'micro-gravity' simulation pools, but the simulation wasn't the same as the water added a resistance that kept the movement from getting out of control. They had learned the basic techniques but were gaining experience from the difference that the space environment introduced. Further, the assembly tools didn't work as well under water, especially the construction tape. A cross between duct tape and the kind of plastic-film packaging tape, it had a layer of aramid fiber 'cloth' sandwiched between two layers of mylar film, with a layer of adhesive on one side. The adhesive bonded exceptionally well to the metal and plastic used in the frames and the adhesive did not 'boil off' in vacuum for several years. Unfortunate for the workers, it would stick just as well to the breather-pack cases and the skinsuit cloth, requiring an application of a special liquid to break down the adhesive bond. The de-sealant could only be applied in an atmosphere, which meant any tape that snagged on a worker had to be snipped free from the roll in the dispenser. And if the tape had already been applied to the frame, the worker found him or herself 'bonded' to the workpiece until his or her partner could cut the worker loose. Already, Dora had adorned herself with five shiny patches of tape and J'Shawn had four.
However, the record was seventeen, held by Joe Buckley. Over the secondary group channel, all had heard his partner and their monitor berating him for his inordinate clumsiness during the first hour.
"J'Shawn," Dora said, "do you think we'll get our segment done? It looks to me as if we don't have that much left to assemble."
"Yeah," he replied, "I think you're right. But that all depends if Sean and Elle can pull their weight. I've been monitoring the test circuits and I'm still not reading any signal from panels eight through fifteen."
"Don't you worry your knappy little head about us, big guy." Dermot responded. "We're just about... there. Now test the circuit."
"Okay, I'm showing positive current flow. Baby-cakes, I do think Sean and Elle have finally got their act together."
"Girl, I wouldn't take any of that 'Baby-cakes' guff off him. So give him Hell."
"I don't mind it, Elle In fact, it's rather nice. Better, for example, than him going all 'Connoly' this and 'Connoly' that the way whatshername did back down below. Do you all remember who I mean?"
"Oh yeah." said Dermot, disgust dripping from his voice. "Miss Ice Queen. Penelope Faith Burdette, Miss Atlanta of 2010. I remember her."
"She heard me playin' some DJ Mr. Z on my iPod and she damn near flipped out! Said that it wasn't music, that it was the tool of the Devil and how could I claim to be God-fearin' and still listen to such violence-provoking trash. Then she bitched about my corn-rows. That girl was a trip! Made this brother feel real 'accepted' - not!" He paused. "Okay, guys. I'm getting a full set of happy green lights from each of the solar panels and the control CPUs. I think we have a winner. Are you two all tightened down at that end?"
"Yes," Dermot and Ellen said almost simultaneously. "Jinx!" Dermot added. "You owe me a coke."
"I do not! And it's called a soda."
"Hey you guys," Dora entered the conversation, "Everyone knows it's a pop."
"Naw girl, every brother knows 'pop' is just another name for your old man. Now be cool my brothers and sisters, I got to get our mentor over here so he can check out our work."
In moments M'Butu had rejoined the team and verified they had successfully completed the solar array segment.
"Good work. All your connection points are secure; you've left no excess tape dangling or adhesive extruded and you've accounted for every connector piece other than the ones you used," she said. "I'm getting decent output from the solar panels even at this angle from the Sun; all your electronic modules are reporting no problems on their diagnostics." She switched to the main radio channel for the class. "We have the winner right here. Team Alpha-Three has finished their segment."
Shouts of dismay and disappointed groans met her words, the betting pool had favored Alpha-One. As the winners, their team would be exempt from cafeteria clean-up duties for their next two assigned shifts. The race was on to see which team finished last and had to take those duties.

* * *

"Alpha and Papa classes," Second Shift Supervisor Jean Tilmanson called, "gather 'round. It's payday."
In moments, he was surrounded by thirty-two excited workers, each vying with the others to be closest to him.
"Make a line, Peas! I'm not going to hand out any pay to you if you insist upon being an unruly mob. Show some semblance of dignity!" He gestured where he wanted the line to form and the mass soon formed a line, wending out from the desk he drifted behind and stretched three-fourths the way around the cafeteria. "That's better. Now before I hand out pay records and debit cards, I want to remind you of a few minor details. First, every dime you earn up here is considered to be earned in a foreign country. So you don't have any income taxes withheld. However, for those of you who come from countries which have a government-mandated retirement system, all premiums and taxes owed to those programs have been deducted from your pay. Second, you are getting a debit card today as this is the first time you're getting paid up here. You will keep your debit card and bring it back with you on subsequent paydays. You must have the debit card to get paid. Losing a debit card will cost you twenty-five dollars the first time and fifty dollars each time thereafter. This fee is stated in dollars, but if you choose to receive your pay in Euros or other currency, the equivalent amount will be deducted. Third, each and every one of you has two bank accounts. One account is your primary account and that is the account we deposit your pay into. The second account is your debit card account. Because we don't want to encourage you to buy too many possession to be hauled up here, we limit the amount of money which you can transfer into this account. That limit is one hundred dollars. If you use up all the money in that account, you can go online and transfer an additional one hundred dollars, or the equivalent in your home country's currency, into the debit card account. Any questions?" Tilmanson ignored the raised hands. "For those of you who have questions, that was rhetorical. If you have any serious questions, come see me after we get done with disbursing the pay. There's a game on tonight and I don't want to waste time on this."
Within a half hour, all of the new workers had their pay stubs and debit cards. Team Alpha-Three headed back to Dora and Ellen's room. Once inside, the perched on the lower bunk and the two fold-out chairs.
"Brother and Sisters, will you look at that! Real money, and none of it goes to dear old Uncle Sam." J'Shawn slobbered a kiss onto his record stub.
"Ewww! Gross! And to think you expect to put that mouth anywhere near my lips!"
"Dora, tell me you're not swapping body fluids with him, girl." Ellen said. "You don't know where he's been. He might have touched Ice Queen." She shuddered.
"Now don't you go dissin' me, girl. I never, I repeat, never touched that bi-atch. Why... I'd rather eat a Domino's pizza!"
"Oh here we go again. Ladies, you don't know how lucky you are that he's not your roomie. Always with the negative comments about Domino's pizza. I paid my way through college delivering Domino's."
"You did not! You told me you worked for some landscape and gardening firm. I know you've said the same thing to J'Shawn and Dora. So don't feed us a line about Domino's."
"I said I worked doing gardening and landscaping during the summer months. During the school year, I was a loyal Domino's delivery person. I still have one of the hats in my gear."
"I want to know what you guys plan to do with your money," Dora asked. "I mean, this is the first paycheck of our future."
Each of the others paused, J'Shawn, somewhat stunned, Dermot's face going thoughtful, Ellen beginning to pout.
"We're not going to get all serious today, right this minute, are we?" she asked. "I was hoping to celebrate!"
"I never quite thought about what to do." said J'Shawn. "I suppose I was planning to just save up what I could so I'd have a little something when this ended. Not," he hurried on, "that I expect it to end soon."
"It's okay to want to celebrate. I want to celebrate. But before we blow all our hard-earned money, I'd like to run an idea past you guys."
"What idea is that?" Dermot finally joined the discussion.
"I'm planning on investing most of my pay. After all, we don't owe any taxes other than what Social Security and Medicare take out. Plus, they deduct right off the top for our meals and they provide our jumpsuits and skinsuits free of charge. And they don't charge us for our rooms," she said. "When you add in that there's not much to buy up here, nor is there much room to collect things, that leaves a lot of money just sitting there in the banks. What I'm proposing is we invest the money and have it earn even more."
"You're not talking risking every dime on some fly-by-night investment scheme are you?" Ellen asked. "Dad did that and went broke trying to make money off some stupid invention."
"Nothing like that. I was planning on putting my money in several mutual funds, not the ultra-risky ones, but funds which have reasonably high yields. I'd also like to consider ploughing some of the money back into OPS bonds. After all, this project will succeed and demand for power is always increasing. I wouldn't ask that you put every dime of your pay into the investments with me, but I would ask that you match me an equal amount, That way, we all have the same share coming to us out of the earnings."
"Didn't you do something like this for your father? I think I remember you telling me so," Dermot said.
"Yep. And in three years, I doubled his money. I can't say we'll see that kind of increase right off the bat, but we should be able to, over the time we're up here, earn almost half again from investment dividends and interest, what we earn in net pay."
"I'm in!" said J'Shawn. "I want a hefty nest egg."
"So am I." They all looked at Ellen.
"Oh, all right. It's not as if I have anywhere to shop. And this just means that I can have more money to go shopping when I do get near a mall. I'm in."
"Good. What I'm going to do is open an account with one of the online trading firms with our money. But before I do, we need to settle how much we'll invest each payday. We're all clearing over $7,000 per pay cycle. Does anyone want to buy an item that costs more than $2,000, including having it shipped up here?" J'Shawn and Ellen shook their heads, but Dermot just raised his eyebrows.
"What," she asked. "You do have something you want? Something that can fit in up here and costs more than two grand? What is it?"
"You're all going to think I'm crazy."
"Brother, for a white man, you are crazy. Tell her... Hell, tell all of us what it is you want."
"It's already up here, so there's no real shipping. No, wait. That's not true. It has to be moved into orbit near us - but it comes with a tow boat. And it will take about two months to ease it into the proper orbit, they're using a low-Isp ion drive."
"Sean," Ellen said. "Are you telling us you want to buy a spaceship?"
"Not a space-ship. Rather a space habitat module. Bigelow Aerospace has about twenty Genesis III habitats left over from their upgrade to the new Exodus I habitats at their orbital hotel. They're selling them rather cheap, $4,500 including transport to a new orbit. And all of these have the modifications that added a 'garage' module at one end." He saw their disbelief and he hurried to get the rest of his argument out, "They're all quite spaceworthy; the only reason Bigelow is replacing them is they want to triple the rooms in their hotel. And, I've got $2,000 of my own money saved up. So I only need about $2,500. That would still allow, if we set aside $500 for personal money for the next two weeks, about $4,000 from each of us to invest."
"Day-um, Bro! You sure don't think small!" J'Shawn paused in thought. "Say, do you know if they're offering a price-break for buying more than one?"
"As a matter of fact, they're discounting a purchase of two to five to $4,000 each. And if someone wanted to buy more than five, the price would drop to $3,500 each. But there's no way I could afford to buy five."
"Wait a minute." Dora said. "We can buy these, as individuals? And use them? I thought all habitats and stations had to be owned by OPS, a country or the UN?"
"No. For the larger stations, only a corporation can get the licensing. But small habitats of this size, if they're already in orbit, can be owned and operated by individuals as part of the 'salvage' effort designed to clean up orbital space. We have to maintain them and we have to get approval to keep them in a particular orbit, but that's what I plan to do."
"My grandfather always told us the best thing to do is to buy property," Ellen added. "This is property, real estate, right? And if we don't buy it, someone else will. Eventually someone will want to make use of it, so even if we don't, if we own it, we can sell at a later time and make a profit, right?"
"Right. This changes everything. I don't know what we can do with all of them, but we could probably make use of four of them." Dora didn't even have to run the numbers through her notepad's calculator function. "Okay, we can all chip in $4,000 to buy four of the habitats. That still leaves us, if we set aside $1,000 for personal money, $2,000 each to invest in mutual funds and the like. Are we all agreed on this?"
"Yes."
"For sure."
"If you and the guys are willing, I'm in."
"Then we have a plan." Dora said, writing everything into her notepad.

Working for a Living

Don’t go around saying that the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
-Mark Twain

June 27, 2011

Earth hung below Dermot, glistening green to the North shading to medium tan closer to the Equator, the oceans a sapphire blue counterpoint. Not that he had much time to enjoy the view this last month. Once he had passed certification for outside assembly crew, he had spent six day work weeks hauling framing pieces, assembling array modules, testing circuits; while it had been rewarding getting the extra pay, he felt so exhausted at the end of his shifts, he barely managed to eat his meals and collapse in bed. And his relationship skills had taken a nose-dive. Prior to arriving at OPS-1, he and Ellen were close, and getting closer. Now, with his energy sapped, he snarled and snapped when he should have been sweet-talking.
This very moment, she hung opposite him, connector-bolt ready to place through the holes in the frame pieces for this section of the array module. Yet, except for an occasional curt 'Are you ready', she hadn't said anything to him all shift. It was time to do the unthinkable.
"Elle," he started, fumbling for the right words, "we have to talk."
"No one's stopping you. Go ahead, talk." Her words froze his ears and his tongue. He bent closer tugging the overlapping pieces in line, slapped a glue ball over the hole and she slammed the connector in place, bursting the ball and smearing glue along the rod - joint made. "I'm waiting," she added.
"Um... Yeah." He rushed out the rest. "Look, I'm sorry I've been such a jerk lately. It's nothing you've done. I've just been,"
"Bent out of shape? Nose out of joint? A real asshole?" she filled in for him. "I'm thinking All-of-the-above fits perfect." She moved down the edge of the frames to the next connection point. He drifted after her, burning with shame and not a little desire to justify his actions.
"Yes. Some of the above. Maybe even all the above, although I would hope you're exaggerating a bit." He turned away to stare at the globe beneath him.
"Earth to Sean. Come in Sean. We have a schedule to beat and just floating there staring down isn't beating it." Her words brought him back.
Turning he said, "Sure is beautiful, isn't it?" He focused upon her, not the frame. "I mean, part of why we came up here was to be able to take in the view, that view. Or at least that was one of my reasons."
"Sure, but we're on the clock. We have all off-shift and our break day to sight-see." She flipped up her glare shield and looked at him, a safe enough action as the Sun was far off to their right. "Are you... Okay, apology accepted. But if you want to talk about this further, I'll listen. Just not right now; save it for when we come off shift. We've only got another half hour."
"Is that okay? Because I'd really like to talk about this." He began to tug the holes into alignment, then looked up. "Don't forget to lower your shield."
With that, they continued, finishing the current array section almost five minutes before shift end. After their Assistant Shift Module Assembly Supervisor cleared their work, they caught the first tow back to the hangar bay. On the way in, Ellen nudged him and pointed to their left, down-orbit from the station. At first, he couldn't see what she was pointing to. Then recognition flooded through him; the four points of light just coming above the horizon were moving. That meant they were approaching OPS-1. They were the Genesis III habitat modules voyaging to rendezvous with OPS-1! In less than a month they would be in orbit just six kilometers behind the power station.
Once inside and out of their breather packs and helmets, Dermot and Ellen snagged bag meals, heading for Dermot's room. J'Shawn and Dora had been reassigned to Third Shift for the remainder of the week as a pair of workers had come down with the flu and were currently sitting the disease out in isolation in the on-site Medical Module. By this time Dermot's room would be empty. Naturally, he opened the hatch and waved her in first.
"Have a seat." he said, pulling down one of the fold-out chairs for himself and giving her the bunk. He opened his sack, examined the meal and glanced up. "I got grilled tuna melt and fresh fruit. How about you?"
"Give me that. Here's your sliced turkey sandwich and macaroni salad." She pushed her bag into his hands and snagged her own. "How you can eat that macaroni is beyond me."
For the few minutes it took to eat their meals and finish their drink boxes, they ate in silence. After catching the last drifting scraps with the hand-vac, he put the refuse in the garbage slot. Unable to avoid the conversation any longer, he turned and found her watching him, not showing encouragement or rejection.
"Picking up where I left off," he said into the silence, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so withdrawn. Nor did I want to behave as if I was mad at you. I'm... not mad so much as frustrated. But not with you."
"Then what or who is causing all this frustration?"
"Good question. And I'm not sure of the answer. I do know that part of it comes from work. I feel as if I'm on a treadmill and not getting anywhere, but I'm doing so very fast. Does that make sense?"
"I don't know. Do you think there's something you're not doing? Or is it more that you don't get along well with our supervisor?"
"I think it has to do more with not accomplishing something. I mean, you saw our habitat modules are on their way, yet it's as if we're in a holding pattern until they get here. That's part of it; I want to have things ready to go when they arrive, but I don't know exactly what I want to have ready."