While reading her book, Lucy occasionally glanced over at the television to watch the election coverage on the television. It was kind of sad, but the news coverage only addressed a few of the state elections. When they failed to mention the race in Texas, she shook her head and said, "The news services really make me mad."
"Why?" William asked moving his book aside to look at Lucy.
"They are only covering some of the races we're interested in," Lucy said gesturing over at the election coverage that was on the television.
William said, "They are covering most of them."
Lucy shifted around so that her head was in a more comfortable position on his lap. She said, "That's because they are rather surprised that their candidates of choice are losing."
"You knew that was going to happen," William said. His hand drifted down to stroke Lucy's breast. Even though she was fully dressed, he could feel her body reacting to his touch.
"They don't even realize the significance of this election," Lucy said glancing over at the television.
"No one does. The majority of political analysts won't realize what happened tonight for years to come," William said. The power structure of Washington had just become a lot more moderate and less divisive. Several major committee leaders had just lost their seats in office. The policies of those committees would change directions significantly.
"A third of the Senate Armed Services committee just changed," Lucy said.
"That's nothing compared to the ethics committee," William said. There were going to be a lot of shakeups in Washington over the next few years.
"I didn't realize that," Lucy said. She was going to have to spend the time to come up to speed on the nature of Washington politics. She thought about the display thinking that none of the lines displayed even hinted at things like that.
"There's still so much work to do yet," William said. There were elections overseas that had to be addressed.
"We've got to start finding the candidates for the elections in two years," Lucy said. There were a couple of radical Senators and Representatives that hadn't been up for reelection this year that had to be removed.
"I've already got Victoria working on it," William said.
"You know that you overwork that poor woman," Lucy said with a grin.
William laughed and said, "She loves every minute of it."
"You're right," Lucy said. It amazed her how that woman spent nearly every minute of the day at the computer searching out information about every subject possible. She added, "She's going to have to get a personal life."
"We're going to have to find her a boyfriend," William said.
"You're right," Lucy said wondering how he had managed to get the topic of discussion away from the election results. Of course, neither one of them had been surprised by the results despite the shock the various pundits on television had expressed. She asked, "Do you have any men in mind for her?"
"No," William answered.
"Neither do I," Lucy said. Unlike a lot of women, Lucy didn't really go for the match making bit. She had never tried to set up two people in the hope that they would like each other.
William was quiet for a moment. He said, "We've got a wedding to attend in a few weeks. I still haven't come up with a good wedding present."
"What do you think of Bill Strauss?" Lucy asked.
"I like him. The family has needed another man in it for a long time," William answered. With four women and only three men, the family had been out of balance for a long time.
Lucy thought about it. The young man was going to college. He was currently working in a wire company to pay for his education. She wondered how easily he would adapt to having the kind of power that marrying into the Carter Clan would give him. She said, "He seems kind of naïve to me."
"He's young," William said.
Lucy frowned at the characterization of Bill as being young since he was a couple of years older than both of them. She said, "He's older than us."
"We're older than us," William replied dryly.
"You're right," Lucy said after thinking about it for a moment. At twenty years of age, she had an advanced degree in mathematics and control over billions of dollars. It was easy to forget just how much she had experienced of the world compared to most people her age.
William said, "He's not like my father, but he's going to be important to the future of the world."
"What do you mean?" Lucy asked sitting up to face William.
"Daddy John invented the fusion cell and saved the world from an energy crisis. It cleaned up the air and eliminated much of the pollution. He made it possible for people in remote areas to have a standard of living unimaginable in the past. I think that Bill Strauss will solve another major problem facing the world," William answered.
"What?" Lucy asked.
"The decline of natural resource reserves," William answered.
"What do you mean?" Lucy asked. She knew about the young man's desire to deal more effectively with the trash an advanced civilization produced.
"Think about it. What is in the trash we create?" William asked.
"I don't know. Stuff, I guess," Lucy answered still not following him.
William said, "I'm talking about materials of which the stuff is made. You throw away a television and it has metals in it. A million televisions get thrown away and that is a lot of metal."
"Oh," Lucy said realizing that it was all about numbers. One item wasn't much, but a million of them made it a lot. There were six billion people on the planet consuming resources and throwing away their trash. With a global increase in the standard of living, there was an awful lot of trash getting generated.
William said, "There is more than just the stock of metal reserves at stake. Just think about all of the other material that is in trash. All of it can be recycled into new products. Glass, ceramics, and plastics can be used in all kinds of things. Even organic material can be transformed into oil and fertilizers."
"We don't need oil," Lucy said.
William said, "We still need lubricants. We still manufacture plastics out of petroleum."
"I guess I never thought about that," Lucy said.
William said, "When Bill realizes his dream, he will have taken a huge burden off of the planet."
"You're right," Lucy said. She didn't need to ask if he would realize his dream. With the support and resources of the Carter Clan behind him, he could make those dreams come true.
"He's going to be very important one day," William said.
"What about the age differences?" Lucy asked. Kelly was starting to show her age. There was more than a forty year difference in age between her and Bill. Ling was nearly thirty years older than Bill. Linda was twenty years older. Even Claire was ten years older than Bill.
"I wouldn't worry about that. Even though Mom Kelly and Ling are still attractive women, it isn't the physical appearance that is the foundation of love. I'm convinced that he loves them for all of the right reasons," William answered.
"You're right," Lucy said hoping that he was correct.
"Of course I am. I'm William Redman Carter."
Lucy started tickling him. Laughing, she said, "You are going to get punished for that."
An hour later, the young couple returned their attention to the television. William said, "The election results are in."
"All of our people won," Lucy said tracing a finger along the scars on his chest.
"I suppose that I should call them and congratulate them on their victories," William said with a sigh. He reached down and cupped her naked breast. He ran a thumb over her stiffened nipple.
"Call them tomorrow," Lucy said moving her hand down his body.
"I can't," William said. He frowned while thinking about the nature of the conversations that he was going to have. In a sad voice, he said, "We have to remind them how they got to where they are."
"You're right," Lucy said while sitting up. She patted him on the thigh and said, "Go make your calls."
After dressing, Lucy made her way to the laboratory to enter the results of the election into the model. She knew that it would take almost a week to calculate the new projections out fifty years, but she would know the short-term consequences within a couple of days. For now she would have to live with that.
After entering the data in the program, she sat back and watched the display slowly update. Frustrated by the lack of information that was captured in the flat two dimensional image, she said, "I'm going to have to figure out a better way to display the results."
She reached for her pencil and pad of paper. Sketching out three axes on the sheet of paper, she mumbled, "One axis has to be time. There are just so many different factors that have to be displayed. Three dimensions just aren't enough. I guess I could add color to the lines. That would allow me to display a fourth factor. The line style could provide a fifth. The line thickness could provide a sixth. That leaves me with the problem of trying to express a hundred other measures."
She turned to stare at the whiteboard on which William's original equations were displayed. Although there were relatively few equations, they had replicated them for each country. There were interactions between the parameters for each country that made the overall computation unimaginably complex. Her transform functions had bundled a number of factors together. That only made it more difficult to interpret the results. She sighed and said, "This isn't going to be easy."
Picking up the phone, she made an internal call. When Dawn answered, she said, "Dawn, are you doing anything at the moment?"
"It is ten o'clock at night," Dawn answered. She was already dressed for bed.
"I just need to talk to you for a few minutes," Lucy said.
Dawn sighed and said, "I'll be there in a minute."
Lucy looked up from her sketches when Dawn entered the room. It was hard to not to laugh. The young woman was dressed in her pajamas with slippers on her feet. With obvious irritation, Dawn said, "Don't say a word about how I'm dressed."
"I won't," Lucy said unable to keep her eyes off the bunny slippers.
"I ran into everyone I know coming over here. You'd think no one had ever seen pajamas and slippers before," Dawn groused.
"I just didn't realize that they made pajamas with little bunnies on them in that size," Lucy said staring at the outfit.
"I like them," Dawn said a little defensively. Her mother had bought a pair of them for her when she turned sixteen as a joke. Much to her surprise they had been the most comfortable pajamas she ever had worn. Ever since then she had ordered new ones just like them whenever her current pair had worn out.
"Okay," Lucy said. She decided that William would like them almost as much as he liked her wearing his shirt. She added, "I bet William would like me to have some like that."
It seemed to her that everyone made fun of her pajamas. She had expected Lucy to be a little different. Taking a seat, Dawn asked, "So what is so important that you called me here at this late hour?"
"I don't like how we are displaying the results," Lucy said gesturing to the front of the room.
"Okay. Just tell me what you want displayed and now you want it displayed. I'll write a program that does it," Dawn said shrugging her shoulders.
"I want to display a hundred different things at once and I have no idea how," Lucy answered.
Dawn said, "Well, I can't write a program without knowing the requirements."
"I can't give you requirements without knowing what is possible," Lucy said.
Dawn sat back and thought about it for a minute. She didn't even know what to suggest to Lucy for this particular problem. She said, "I'm not going to be able to solve this problem tonight."
"I'm not asking you to solve it tonight," Lucy said.
"Good," Dawn said rising from her chair.
Lucy smiled and asked, "Can you get it done tomorrow?"
"No," Dawn said staring at Lucy in disbelief. It took a minute to realize that Lucy was joking. Shaking her head, she said, "I'm going to bed. I'll think about it and give you a call when I've got a suggestion."
"Good," Lucy said. When Dawn reached the door, Lucy asked, "Where did you get those pajamas?"
"I ordered them online. Why?" Dawn asked.
Lucy said, "I think William might like them. I bet he'd find them sexy."
"You've got to be kidding," Dawn replied. Judging by the expression on Lucy's face, she decided that Lucy wasn't kidding.
Almost as if knowing that he was being discussed, William entered the room. He looked over at Dawn and said, "Sexy pajamas. Can you tell Lucy where you got them? I bet she would look good in a pair of them."
"You two are sick," Dawn said thinking this was the first time that he had ever looked at her with any indication that he was even aware of her gender.
"What did I say?" William asked looking over at Lucy.
Lucy laughed and answered, "I had just asked her where she had bought them."
"Oh. Great minds think alike," William said walking to stand behind her.
"I'm going to bed," Dawn said leaving the room. She had never had anyone say that her pajamas were sexy.
William looked at the display and said, "It sure is hard to see what the lines represent."
"That's what I was just discussing with Dawn," Lucy said.
"We're going to have to get a three dimensional display," William said.
"We need a hundred dimensional display to show all of the information we have," Lucy said.
"I can't even picture that in my mind," William said.
"Neither can I," Lucy said with a sigh. She said, "I guess the only choice is a pair of 3-d glasses."
William said, "I don't like wearing those 3-d glasses. There's got to be something better."
"There aren't many options out there," Lucy said.
William said, "You could illuminate a rapidly moving translucent surface. Of course, that would require a vacuum since spinning something at the kind of speeds necessary would meet a lot of air resistance."
Looking up at the display that took up the entire front of the room, Lucy said, "It would need to be big to display all of that data."
"Yes it would," William said.
Lucy said, "I don't think it would be practical."
"There's always multi-photon absorption," William said thinking aloud.
"What's that?" Lucy asked sitting up.
"Some atoms will make a transition if hit with two wavelengths of light at the same time. They get excited and then decay back down to a ground state by giving off photons of a third wavelength," William said.
"Interesting," Lucy said.
"Of course, you'd need a powerful laser to get much of an effect," William said.
"That doesn't sound very feasible to me," Lucy said.
"Maybe, maybe not," William said. He thought about it and said, "It would be nice if it could be done with air. You wouldn't need to enclose it."
"It would have to be enclosed. Lasers that powerful would represent a danger. People could go blind," Lucy said.
"True," William said.
"Hmm, do you think that Amanda's boyfriend might be up to the challenge?" Lucy asked thinking about it.
"He might be," William said scratching his chin. It would be a tough problem to solve finding the right mixtures of gases, the right frequency lasers, the proper control optics, and fast enough control algorithms.
Lucy asked, "Do you want to talk to him or should I?"
"I will," William said.
"That is probably best," Lucy said. She had an idea that the world of computing was about to make another transition in complexity.
"I'll talk to him in the morning," William said.
"Good idea. Don't you have some more calls to make?" Lucy said.
William said, "I finished all of my calls."
"In that case, let's get to bed," Lucy said.
"Sounds like a plan to me," William said. He looked at her and asked, "Are you going to wear my shirt tonight?"
"If you want me to," Lucy said with a grin. She knew that she'd only wear it for a few minutes before he took it off of her.
"I want," William said. Talking about her wearing his shirts reminded him of something that he had wondered about. While walking towards the elevator, William said, "I noticed the other day that a couple of my shirts are missing. I kept waiting for them to come back from the laundry, but they never did."
"I'll buy you some more," Lucy said with a smile. She didn't have the heart to tell him that Sandra and Barbara had borrowed two of his shirts.
William said, "I'd like to go visit the homeless hotel tomorrow."