“That ought to do it,” said one of the lab techs to the other. “Now try it.”

Apparatus hummed, fans whined, electrons moved, and a particle stream emerged from a nozzle into a modulation chamber. Soon, a carrier signal riding a beam of subatomic particles emerged on the other side, traveled across a long room, and impacted a receiving antenna. One tech spoke into the device, and his voice came out the other end. They had done it!

The small technology company in a low-rent office building was humming with activity. Ever since the two founders, Josh Sanders and Andrew Firth, had turned a brainstorm into working hardware, activity had shifted into high gear. While most of the wireless companies were advertising 3G and 4G devices and networks, the two men had embarked on an attempt to leapfrog all their competition.

The key was to produce a tachyon particle stream, and modulate it with spin, waveforms, and velocity. Once they had tackled the encoding, they had a transmitter. The receiver came next; this was followed by miniaturization work on the entire apparatus.

Creating a subatomic stream in a tiny space, then encoding a signal onto it was no small feat. They worked for several years in obscurity.

Securing additional venture capital was even more of a challenge. But they persevered.

Finally, the momentous time approached when they were going to show off their devices at a trade show. The two were standing in a sparsely furnished office in their small building.

“So, did they call back?” asked Josh, spreading his hands.

Andrew rubbed his neck, looked up in a grin: “Yes, finally.”

“And?”

Andrew grinned even more: “They said they are willing to put in ten million. Woo hoo!” Andrew gave Josh the thumbs-up.

Josh whooped: “We got it! Now we can put up some working cells and really test this thing. We’ll blow ‘em away! By the way, any word from Hitachi on the receiver display?”

“I gave that one to Pat. But he said the other day they thought they could do it, although they weren’t certain of a pricing model at this point.”

“Darn. We need that display. We have to have a product to take to CES this coming spring. Not to mention the CTIA.”

Andrew put his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Easy. We will get it. Compared to the tachyon modulation, these obstacles are going to be easy. It will come.”

Josh grimaced. “I know -- it will happen. Don’t you worry about me, ol’ buddy.” He winked. “Now let’s go get a beer to celebrate.” The two left their small office building on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, and headed for a favored neighborhood bar.

• • • • • •

About that same time, the marketing team at Verizon Wireless was gleeful about its latest advertising program. It highlighted the differences between Verizon and AT&T in wireless coverage, especially over their 3G and 4G networks. They believe this campaign had AT&T beat. In a similar post-meeting celebration (without the neighboring bar) two overly-confident vice presidents chatted quietly in the hall of the corporate offices.

“What about the rumors of that start-up in California?” said the first VP.

Said the second: “You mean the one that is supposed to leapfrog everyone’s’ technology? I wouldn’t worry. Just kids playing around.”

“So there’s nothing to it, then?”

“Overblown. They’re tinkering around with some stuff, but nowhere near fielding anything useful. It shouldn’t be a problem for us.”

“Well, let’s hope not anyway. Remember Qualcomm, Cisco, and the rest.”

“I know -- those companies surprised everyone. But these upstarts aren’t in the same league.”

“All the same, we should keep an eye on these guys. They could be onto something.”

• • • • • •

The next day back in Silicon Valley, in his unassuming office space, Josh was leaning back in his reclining office chair, brushing his long blond locks out of his eyes. The first round of funding was successful; they were well on their way. But, it couldn’t stop there. They had to continue to raise more money. And he would need a haircut before the presentation to that new VC. Although he thought the longer hair and blue jeans suited his image as a hip young entrepreneur, his audience demanded better grooming. After all, he was only 28 years old, and Andrew was 31. He needed to dress a bit older, especially since Andy had a beard, and was more fastidious with his business-type look -- even wearing a suit and tie at times when they weren’t meeting with VCs.

Josh gazed out at the surrounding buildings, bathed in morning sunshine. Someday he would be bigger than any of them in Sunnyvale. He just knew it. But enough dreaming, he decided. It was time to get back to reality and make this work.

He looked over the sheet of figures handed to him by the office admin dynamo, Marilyn. The tachyon equipment was a huge drain, and a manufacturer for handsets still had to be convinced everything would work. Problems, problems.

At that moment, his desk phone warbled.

“Hello? What? OK, I’ll be right down.” Andy had something else to show him in the lab. He headed down, all thoughts of grooming and numbers dispelled.

Andy said, “You’ll want to see this.” Another lab tech walked over with a prototype handset.

It’s large, way too large, thought Josh. But he decided to wait to express his concern.

Then the tech said to an assistant: “Okay, call me.”

The handset rang. The tech pressed a stud on the phone, saying hello. Suddenly a glow rose over the handset, several inches high. Josh craned his neck and moved over for a better look. He could see the other lab tech’s face (the caller) rise in a hologram, full color. The two techs chatted awhile, doing the live demo for their boss.

When they realized their great work had impressed, the tech standing next to Josh hung up by punching another button. Like magic, the image lowered back down to the flat screen on the handset.

“Remarkable! It looks sharp and full color too. I wonder if Toshiba can produce these en masse.”

“We still have to negotiate a final price, but the details are in that report on your desk. You did see that, didn’t you?” said Andrew.

“Yes, I just started reviewing the figures when you called to interrupt me,” grinned Josh.

“But this was worth the interruption. If we can get some towers leased, we are going to knock them all on their asses with this. I can see a billion-plus IPO once we show this to the industry.”

“First things first. Toshiba, the show, and then the IPO. But, we’ll get there!” said Andrew. Josh and Andy high-fived each other, and let out a hurrah for good measure. Things were looking up.

• • • • • •

Several months later, the startup known as Ten-Gee had contracted to display their products in a 10 x 20 booth at CTIA. It was an unusually large space for such a new outfit. But, they were intent on making a splash. Backed by money from some Japanese companies and several prominent American venture capitalists, the booth was ready with several phone stations, as well as space for the tachyon transmitters and sample tower repeaters.

Andy and a couple of techs were worried, though. The night before the show, they were trying to fine-tune their equipment, and glitches kept popping up. Working through the evening, and into the early hours, they finally found the culprit: a card had been removed. Sabotage? Josh had no time to look into it. Instead, he rushed back to his office and found a spare card. It was six o’clock in the morning, and he had not slept a wink. Pure adrenalin was keeping him in high-alert mode.

With less than 30 minutes until the show floor opened, Josh handed the replacement card to the tech, who, despite sweaty palms, inserted it into the device. The team then did a down-and-dirty demo to ensure all was in working order -- just as the show hall doors opened.

“Well, that was interesting. But all is well. Now we’re in business,” sighed Josh to Andy and the techs.

He turned to see people walking toward the booth. No sooner had he wiped the sweat from his brow and grabbed a bottle of water, than he was stopped in his tracks.

“Excuse me, are you Josh Sanders?” Josh turned, and saw a guy shoving a mic in his face. Behind him, a cameraman was aiming a large square lens his way.

“Yes, that would be me. And this is my partner, Andrew.” Josh was waving him over. Andy had started to duck around the back of their display, but not in time to avoid the interviewer.

“No need, Josh. We just want to ask you a couple of questions. Like, can you really leapfrog existing cellular technology? How is this possible? Have you got patents yet?”

“Yes, by proprietary methods, and yes. Now, if you would excuse me….” Josh tried to beg off. He was utterly exhausted, and had to relieve himself besides.

“Please, sir, just a few more questions….”

Andrew finally moved in and took up some slack, replying to several queries about their prospects and potential spectrum availability, not to mention FCC approval of their novel bandwidth requirements.

They took turns answering them. Finally, satisfied, the interviewer and cameraman moved off to pounce on another hapless victim. Josh shuffled off on leaden legs to find a restroom. Andrew rushed back to make sure everything was working properly this time.

Josh exited the men’s room, looked for a cup of coffee and checked his watch. The day had only just begun. As he walked back toward the show floor, he heard a familiar voice.

In a corner under the bright trade show signage was the CNBC newscaster reporting live from CTIA. He was just finishing his report about the trade show. “So, there you have it. The young upstarts at Ten-Gee are hoping to leapfrog the giants of the cellular field. Unfortunately, the company’s founders look flustered and disorganized at their booth. We can’t know how they are doing it, but they’re taking on a really big challenge -- one that others wouldn’t attempt. But, in the name of competition, you gotta love their enthusiasm.”

Several attendees mingled about watching the report and looking at each other with smirks as if to say: No way will these young upstarts do anything significant.

• • • • • •

Back in New York and Dallas, the phone company executives at both AT&T and Verizon listened to the same report and laughed aloud with their peers. Didn’t these two guys know they were out of their league?

• • • • • •

Things were hopping at CTIA. Josh and Andrew, fortified with some good coffee, gained their second wind. The crowds were amazed at the demonstrations of real-time holographic video transmission. In the end, the two partners and Ten-Gee won the day -- big time. The crowd was so thick around their booth, people could barely get past it to see the other displays further down the aisle.

The handsets performed nearly flawlessly, transmitting full-motion holo-video, holo-pictures, and, of course, sound for the wowed crowd. The technology even worked several miles outside the convention hall. Josh and Andy made sure to tell the industry that with their proprietary technology, more wireless carriers could compete because they needed fewer towers to propagate the signal much farther.

• • • • • •

Within months, Ten-Gee became all the rage. Investors came out of the woodwork and managed to package an Initial Public Offering of stock valued at 5 billion U.S. dollars. Andy and Josh were rich. And 10G technology surpassed 3G and 4G by leaps and bounds.

• • • • • •

Again, back at the phone companies' corporate offices, the executive suite was buzzing. A vice president was on the hot seat and the CEO was steaming mad.

"I thought you said these guys weren't a threat! That they were just a couple of kids!" The president was glaring at his VP of R&D.

He mumbled, "Well, sir, I thought they wouldn't get this far…"

"It looks like you were wrong again, mister. Now we're facing another startup-turned-Goliath again. You better polish up your resume." He threw up his arms in exasperation, and turned his chair away from the man, signaling that there was nothing left to say. The meeting -- and the VP's career -- were over.

• • • • • •

Meanwhile, in another galaxy and dimension, the leader of sophisticated extra-terrestrials was not amused at all by the recent interference with its planet's electronic devices. King Oorghtet burbled in alarm as he noticed his apparatus having difficulties that he could not entirely fathom.

When he discovered who was behind this mess, there would be hell to pay. And it was only a matter of time until he found who the culprits were. He had already summoned the Galactic Fleet Admiral to demand that this be remedied immediately!

The Admiral's answer, roughly translated to Earth English, was less than satisfactory: "I have isolated the interference to my satisfaction. None of our instruments or facilities appears to be the cause. I have also ruled out any natural causes, such as neutron stars or black holes. Therefore, the offending particle beam has to be coming from the next dimension over in n-Space. "

"Next dimension?" King Oorghtet boomed. "And just what are we supposed to do about this?"

The Admiral looked confused. Its 8 eyes circled in disbelief. "This is what our scientists are telling me. Therefore, I would like approval to send a craft across the dimensional demarcation to investigate. "

"Do it immediately! And SOLVE this problem!" the King commanded.

"Yes, your majesty." The Galactic Fleet Admiral saluted with a tentacle rigid against his forepod.

• • • • • •

Back on earth, success was sweet for the two entrepreneurs. Josh Sanders was able to build his wife the multimillion dollar home overlooking the Pacific she had always wanted. Andrew Firth was able to buy his girlfriend a diamond necklace and take her on some lavish trips. The two men were rich and the wireless world was enhanced in ways no one could previously imagine.

Then King Oorghtet's inter-dimensional ship arrived.

Mike Wilson is a cleaning specialist at a telecom facility in Des Moines, Iowa, with 12 years of work experience in the IT field. He is published in an assortment of fiction and poetry periodicals. Contact Mike at radagast47@gmail.com or follow his blog at http://radical-readings.blogspot.com.

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