CHAPTER XIII
Lisa Kozny woke with a start, her vision fuzzy. With a frown she started to make sense of the figures on her alarm clock the red digits slowly coming into focus. She groaned as she realised that she had awoken with only minutes to go before the alarm would go off.
"Every damned time!" she cursed.
As she slowly made sense of her surroundings she realised something was wrong. Lucy had been with her but....
"Lucy?" said Lisa into the dark room, her outstretched palm patting the now vacant space in her bed.
BEEP BEEP BEEP sounded the alarm.
"Shut up!" Said Lisa bashing the alarm.
Just then the door squeaked open and the still handcuffed Lucy entered, totally naked, with a tray resting on her up turned palms.
"What's that..!?" Lisa asked, squinting into the light entering from the doorway.
"Breakfast....are you going to just lay there or will you turn on the light?" Lucy said sarcastically.
Soon the pair were upright in bed eating and drinking the breakfast talking about their plans.
"So ... basically I think the note might be important but I don't what the message means... someone thought it might be some kind of stock market code or something.... I've made a photo copy, ask around for me?"
"Sure...I know some of those nerds, they might know." Lucy said, eating a slice of toast double handed, her hands still bound together.
"Do I even want to know how you did all this handcuffed?" Lisa asked.
The pair finished off and Lisa got ready for work, another day at the precinct, and no doubt another day at the mall for trust fund socialite Lucy.
Lisa arrived at the precinct and carried out her morning rituals, emails were checked and answered, reports from overnight digested and...
"Oh great...."
Overnight the uniforms had bagged themselves the screwdriver bandit working a stairwell of a multi-storey carpark. The mugger, a PTSD sufferer and former Gulf War veteran, now some fifty or so years old, had been caught in possession of a flat head screwdriver.
"Hey...this is Detective Kozny, robbery homicide...yeah....look, your mugger, did you run the screw....yeah, that.....ok, I want to......uh huh.....yeah I'll come right over"
Lisa smiled, the screwdriver had already been tested for blood traces and glowed like a Christmas tree and now was being tested for DNA. Time to go over and get a confession and put the case to bed, one for the DA's office to deal with. Perhaps she wouldn't need to dig through all those financials after all.
Meanwhile Lucy managed to organise lunch with her favourite Helman Brother traders, Trevor and Gavin and after a hard morning's shopping she was looking forward to her favourite beverage at her eatery of choice, K.Thrace&Sons Coffee House, a cappuccino with their salad wrap and cheesecake.
Gavin and Trevor looking sharp as ever took their seats opposite the young socialite, the trio exchanging pecks on the cheeks.
"So hello young lady, an unexpected pleasure....." piped up Gavin.
"Well, I was just around and I thought I'd catch up....do you think you'll come to my next party?" Lucy asked, lazily stirring her drink.
The two men glanced at each other "Sure, I think we will be there.... are you inviting your two friends....from the magazine...." Trevor probed.
The pair had taken to some writing staff at some sports magazine and we're hoping to break the ice with them. Lucy grinned as she took a sip of her drink.
"Of course...." Lucy winked.
"Cool" Gavin exclaimed.
Lucy, now having the men eating from her hand produced the copy of the slip of paper, the mugging victim Victor Reeves seemed so desperate to hang on to.
"Hey, I was at a party and found this....it might be important, I don't know....I was hoping there might be a way to link it back to its owner." Lucy probed, reading the men's expressions.
"Hmmm...let's see....well this is old outcry stuff...." Gavin said as he passed it to Trevor.
"Yeah....let's see.....well....someone is expecting a bumpy ride...." Trevor said, eyes widening.
"How so?" Lucy asked, wanting more. "What is it?"
"Well, basically this looks like a buy order, with chasing stops, then sell on the close, then he was to set up short positions, lots of shorts......" Trevor explained.
"Ummm....ok....so.....what is it?" Lucy said dumbfounded.
"Sheesh Trevor....what he is saying is....this guy was buying something...then was to sell the same day. Next.... he would put on a big bet it would fall..." Gavin clarified, snatching the paper back.
"Do you know what it was for?" Lucy asked as she scythed away a chunk of cheesecake with her fork.
"This, ummm.....oh this is that oil company.....North Sea Enhanced something blah blah blah...." Trevor said.
"Well I hope whoever this was for carried out at least the first part, they were up big yesterday, would have been worth a lot .." Gavin added.
=======
Bobby Sanderson was back at his LA facility for the official tour. A cloud of lab-coated people led him through the various laboratories showing off their projects.
"And this.....is MetaCoat....." Said a lab-coated scientist.
Bobby looked on as a length of chain was slowly drawn through a spray booth into a hot drying room then out onto a drum.
"Wow, the process is that quick?" Bobby asked. It seemed very quick for what it could allegedly do.
"Yes, that quick...do you want to see a test?" replied the scientist.
"Let's see it!" Bobby said enthusiastically.
The group moved on to a test area , a powerful hydraulic ram was situated behind a clear protective screen.
"This is a traditional steel chain..." a technician said, passing several links to Bobby to feel the weight.
"And this is an aluminium chain with MetaCoat..."
"Well, that's a difference already, there's no comparison at all.....but....how strong is it?" Bobby asked enthusiastically.
"Well, let's see....on the rig we have two identical lengths of equal gauge chain...one steel, the other MetaCoat aluminium" the technician said.
"Ok, let's go..." Bobby said, clapping his hands together.
The technician set the test rig in motion, the force gauge climbing and climbing.
"Ok we are approaching the limit for the steel chain and...."
BAAM!
The steel chain had failed, a link breaking open, the O rapidly straightening out, first into a C before the other links slid through the straightening metal.
Meanwhile, shockingly, the aluminium links were holding as the gauge inched up higher and higher.
"So, at what point does this break...?" Bobby said glancing at the metal, then the gauge.
"Keep watching..." said one for the scientists motioning his head towards the experiment in progress.
The gauge kept climbing and climbing and climbing without a hint of problems for the lightweight metal.
BEEEEEEP
The ram stopped its work and the gauge began falling again.
"What happened , why did you stop....?" Bobby said confused.
"You don't understand, the safety limit of the machine was reached, basically that little aluminium chain was stronger than even a chain for a ships anchor...and I mean a big ship..we haven't been able to break it yet...."
"You're telling me you've invented indestructible metal...?" Bobby was astounded.
"Well don't get ahead of yourself....this has limitations....for example, it works for metal under tension, like chains or cables, but it isn't bullet proof, it doesn't counter kinetic energy for example.....so, we can't just spray tanks with it and make them indestructible.....or make cars crash proof." The scientist explained.
"Well...even so, this is.....incredible.....is it marketable yet or....." Bobby wondered what might be holding back the project.
"Well, a few issues, first is toxicity, this needs to be factory applied, no home use, and the other is cost versus useable time..."
"Useable time?" Bobby was confused.
"Well, we can inert pack chain like this and put it on shelves but basically five to seven days of exposure and the stuff degrades. Beyond that and you're left with aluminium and white oxidised MetaCoat"
Bobby considered the problem, though perhaps it wasn't a problem at all. He could imagine being able to sell a chain that was capable of lifting anything for a week. Some jobs might only require a few days use, but at least they would be guaranteed to lift anything. And if they wanted more they could buy it...the aluminium could be recycled, reformed and re coated.
"Guys, I think we can work with this for sure....." Bobby grinned. Chalk another one up for his pet R&D division.