Switcheroo by Robert Lewis Clark Page B

player.   He
would be reassigned, probably to a lesser position with less pay.  Then, in
short order, a flood of angry creditors would be followed by bankruptcy and a
costly divorce.
    Randall Kendrick had been voted
most likely to succeed in his class at Knoxville’s West High School.  A
talented baseball player, he attended Georgia Tech in Atlanta and graduated in
engineering in the top five percent of his class.  He moved back to Tennessee where he interned at and was eventually hired by ORNL. He worked in the labs as
he continued college at UT and earned a masters degree.
    At the time, the Lab was shifting
its focus from nuclear research to other forms of science.  Kendrick drew plans
for and was integral in perfecting a lens that was part of a missile guidance
system we know today as ‘smart bombs.’    This technology created great revenue
for ORNL and propelled Kendrick to “made man’ status in the lab’s
organization.  He was given a fat budget, title of director and commissioned to
do research in defense and other areas that could create more revenue for the
labs.
    There was only one problem.  After
several months, Randall found that the missile guidance system was a bit of a
fluke.  He did not seem to have another invention in him.  He was not stupid,
but he was no Einstein.
    Realizing this, he knew he had to
hire some engineering talent.   He began going to colleges and recruiting young
physicists and engineers right out of school. He looked for genius types with
no social skills, the real nerds.  They would do the inventing; he would take
the credit and keep the ball rolling.
    Along the way, he had moved three
times to successively larger houses which tripled his mortgage. Now he had
three daughters to support.   His wife found little to occupy herself except
shopping each day.  After twenty years of marriage he had built a huge debt on
a house, furnishings, a pool and pool house, a new Land Cruiser, a BMW, and a
Corvette.
    The Corvette especially upset him
because he had purchased it more to piss off his wife than for his own
enjoyment.  She was only mad for one day and now he was stuck with an
eleven-hundred-dollar monthly car payment for seven years. The car was
painfully small and folding himself into the seat made his bones ache like a
bad yoga class.   Plus she punished him the next week by signing a thirty
thousand dollar landscaping contract for their home and the pool grounds.
    Kendrick was working like crazy
and did not have much time for family.  This was good, because it kept him from
killing his wife.  He was pretty sure his two girls in college were doing
well.  His youngest daughter- still living at home- was dating a kid who had
attended a public school (graduation uncertain), was way too old for her. A
complete loser.  Kendrick was positive the boy did drugs or sold them, or
both.  This kid ate at the table with his hat on and his jeans hung low,
bagging down to his knees.  He went by the name Dink or Slink, Randall couldn’t
remember.
    Here’s where it gets sticky. 
Randal Kendrick’s new recruits at Special Research were not cutting the
mustard.  They had been going for the big prize, teleportation.  Kendrick’s
star player, William Madison, was the smartest and the nerdiest of them all.   Madison had built a small black box that supposed to be able to move objects, maybe even
living things instantly, without regard for space and time. Wow.
    Kendrick told him that he had
until Christmas to get it working or they were through.  He had received notice
that the Special Research Unit would be slashed from the budget unless it could
pay for itself, which it was not even close to doing now. Kendrick began
drinking.  Drinking led to hangovers. Hangovers led to Kendrick verbally
abusing his staff.
    During the summer, he pushed
William Madison to perfect the teleportation device.  Kendrick was like a rabid
college basketball coach, he even threw a chair across