32. The Man With the Silicon Eyes

Mateo sat for a moment as Nigel kept trying to figure out the Mp3 player’s circuitry, then reached out and turned the cellphone over in his hand without taking it out of the box clamped to the lab bench. He flipped it open.

The screen came on and glowed, showing the river cliffs with the woods above it starting to turn to fall, taken on a kayak trip a year ago. He flipped to the little Tetris knockoff instead. He didn’t want to see the pictures of home. He wanted to think about literally anything else. Even that he was zero help in the past was a better thought.

...red to ... oh, swap that green with that purple, then that red, then ... the red crystals disintegrated in little pixely clouds.

It was a weird idea, a computer without a screen, not even an LCD display. Like an animal with no eyes...

“Hey, Nigel. How do you guys read punchcards?”

“Electrical sensors. Why?”

“Huh. Oh. What kind? How do they work?”

“We feed the cards across a metal surface, and metal brushes complete the circuit.”

“Wait, wait, don’t tell me, photoelectric sensors are totally impractical for some reason, and —“

“Wait, photoelectric sensors? Electric eyes?”

“Yeah, I guess you don’t have those.”

“No, that is, they’re in use, just not on... Huh.” He thought for a while. “Is it faster than metal brushes?”

“Yeah. A friend of mine and I built one once. So we had to read about the different kinds. It was — it’s going to be invented in the 60s.”

“But why? In your time you don’t need—“

“Science fair. We won state, too. My point is, it’s definitely faster than metal brushes. Probably easier on the cards, too.”

Nigel sat back. “...huh!” The look on his face reminded Mateo of Avi getting a questionably sane idea. “I, uh—“

“What? You think that might actually work?”

“I mean, it would be a technical challenge, but not like bolting jahtohs onto Spitfires.”

“JATOs. And ... for real?”

He looked up from the microscope again, something like awe in his eyes. “I think you’ve really hit on something.”

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