Spyder Web

19

After purchasing a staff parking sticker for his Mustang, Nolan drove through the university’s North Campus to the new home of MARC, the Michigan Applied Research Consortium. He was amazed at how much the North Campus had changed, growing from a small collection of buildings on the university’s fringe into a self-sufficient academic complex complete with its own bell tower.

MARC was the realization of an idea that Nolan’s father, Sean Kilkenny, had nurtured during his long and successful career in international finance. As a player on the world market, the elder Kilkenny had observed a disturbing trend: Ideas and technologies created in American research labs found their way into foreign products well before reaching domestic manufacturers. During the seventies and eighties, this technology gap widened and U.S. firms were no longer considered innovators in several key markets.

Sean Kilkenny had studied the situation and discovered that no direct linkage existed between American academia and American industry. Like the Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany, MARC would bridge that gap with a formal structure for joint business-university research projects. If MARC was successful in Ann Arbor, Sean Kilkenny hoped to transplant the idea at other research universities around the country.

The university’s contribution to Sean Kilkenny’s dream came in the way of a land grant for the MARC facility in the rolling hills of the North Campus. The difficult site contained two prominent ridges and a rocky swale in which a six-inch-deep creek flowed. MARC’s architect responded to the terrain by designing a series of interlocking circular modules mounted on tall, slender pilotis.

Few of the trees or natural features of the site were disturbed, as most of the building rose well above steep grade, like a forest of interconnected tree houses. The modules formed a solid canopy, penetrated by light wells that allowed sunlight to reach the ground beneath the facility. In contrast to the earth-toned brick buildings owned by the university, the MARC building reflected the high-tech ambitions of its owners. A sleek curved skin of stainless steel and black glass tightly defined the nearly liquid form suspended in the densely wooded site.

Nolan walked in and greeted the receptionist before entering his father’s office. The interior of the building was a palette of neutral finishes, whites and grays, accented with bright splashes of color and light. The effect was an image of calm efficiency of purpose.

‘Come on in, son,’ Sean called out as Nolan peered through the doorway. ‘I don’t think you’ve seen the place since we finished construction last year.’

‘No, but it looks great.’ Nolan gazed out the window into the snow-covered woods. ‘Nice view, too.’

‘There’s not a bad view in the building. Come on, I want to show you something.’

Nolan followed as his father led him through the serpentine corridors; the interior seemed to ripple and flow as much as the exterior.

‘Did your boxes arrive from Little Creek?’

‘Yeah, Dad. The movers dropped everything off at the house. I’ll finish unpacking this weekend.’

‘It’s kind of funny, actually. Of all my children, you were the last one I would have picked to move back home.’

‘You always did like the others more.’

Sean glared at his son. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

‘Just kidding, Dad,’ Nolan said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, I won’t be bivouacking with you for that long.’

‘Oh,’ Sean said, surprised at the announcement.’Where will you be going?’

‘The barn — up in the loft, actually.’

In the rolling hills, fifteen miles west of Ann Arbor, sat the twelve-hundred-acre Kilkenny Farm. From the early 1820s until Martin Kilkenny bought the land from his father-in-law in the 1950s, the property had been known as the Egan Farm. For over 150 years, the farm had produced corn and hay. These days, most of the acreage was leased out to farmers on adjoining parcels; a few acres around the house provided the family with fresh produce and flowers.

Three buildings had been constructed on the site. The newest, the house where Sean and Meghan Kilkenny had raised their children, had been built in the 1960s. Next in age was the farmhouse, which, due to numerous renovations, could not be dated with any accuracy. The oldest and by far most dramatic was the Egan barn. Its massive stone foundations grew out of a hillside like the trunk of a great oak. From there, a skeleton of hand-hewn timbers rose like the arches of a Gothic cathedral. The barn was forty by one hundred, and nearly fifty feet tall at the ridge. It had been the first building erected on this site and the upper loft became home to the first generation of Egans who settled here after leaving Ireland.

‘Is this your grandfather’s idea?’

‘How did he put it? “Nolan, you’re a grown man now, and living with your father, good as he is, is sure to put a damper on your love life.”’

Sean laughed. ‘Your brogue’s pretty good. You sound just like him.’

‘My love life aside, I think he was really looking for an excuse to renovate the loft. He’s finished off the lower areas for his shop and the garage for your car collection. I think he’s just itchy for a new project.’

‘What the hell. Actually, it sounds like a good idea. You’ll still stay with me until the loft’s done?’

‘I’m Grandpa’s labourer, so I better be on-site.’

After a few more turns, they arrived at the home of the MARC computer lab. Sean Kilkenny ran his magnetically coded ID card through the reader and the electronic lock immediately released the door. Inside, Nolan recognized the cylindrical form of a Cray supercomputer at one end of the lab, beside a bank of computer equipment. In the corner of the lab, an iPod in a speaker dock played an old Leonard Cohen-Jennifer Warnes duet.

‘Hey, Grin, are you in here?’ Sean Kilkenny called out over the music.

‘Yeah, I’m here,’ a disembodied voice replied to the summons. ‘Give me a sec. I’ll be right up.’

Nolan followed the voice to an open panel in the floor. Peering in, he saw a pair of blue jean-clad legs ending in two well-worn leather hiking boots. ‘I found him, Dad.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I’m coming up for air,’ Grin called out from below as he slowly wiggled back to the opening.

A hand sprang out of the opening, which Nolan clasped firmly to aid in extracting Grin from the access floor. Rising disheveled from below, he stood about five foot eight and had a pointed goatee and shoulder-length brown hair drawn back in a ponytail. He wore a pair of round wire-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose and sported a wide smile that gave him a slightly mischievous appearance. This image was enhanced by a tattoo of a mythological Pan seated on a crescent moon, scattering pixie dust, that he sported on his left forearm.

Grin wiped a dusty hand on his faded blue jeans before offering it to Nolan. ‘Thanks for the assist, man. That’s a nasty place to work in, unless you’re a rat. By the by, I’m Bill Grinelli, but everyone just calls me Grin.’

‘Nolan Kilkenny. Pleased to meet you.’

A smile of recognition appeared on Grin’s face. ‘Are you the guy who wrote that wild imaging program at MIT?’

‘Yeah,’ Nolan replied tentatively. ‘How’d you find out about it?’

‘I gave it to him,’ Sean answered. ‘Grin is our resident computer genius.’

‘Naw.’ Grin smiled. ‘I just like to play with the toys. Anyway, Nolan, that program was a nice piece of work. I was impressed by those nifty algorithms you used — elegant stuff.’

Sean Kilkenny smiled proudly. ‘That’s high praise, Nolan. This guy knows his way around computers.How’s it going in here, Grin?’

Grin stroked his goatee. ‘Pretty well. The ITC data line is finally in, so Newton’s lab should be operational by the end of the week.’

‘This is where Kelsey’s lab is moving to?’ Nolan asked as he looked through the glass partition into the adjacent room. The lab was square, with twenty-foot sides and a lay-in tile ceiling ten feet above the floor. The lighting was a mix of fluorescent tubes and recessed incandescent downlights, allowing the amount of light in the room to be varied.The center of the lab was dominated by an isolation table, a four-inch slab of stainless steel mounted on stainless-steel legs capped top and bottom with rubber cushioning pads. The mass of the table and the rubber pads helped to dampen, or isolate, the table from vibrations within the building. Numerous boxes of equipment were stored in the room and portions of the access floor were open.

‘Yeah, and that’s why I’ve been busting my tail to get all these data lines in so that you and the fair professor can plug her new toy into my Cray.’ Grin obviously felt territorial about everything inside the MARC computer lab; he was the overworked master of this domain. ‘Have you talked with Nolan yet about giving me a hand around here? I know it looks like everything’s under control, but I really could use the help.’

Sean shook his head, scowling. ‘No, I haven’t had the chance to discuss it with him yet.’ Turning toward his son, he said, ‘I was planning to talk to you once you had a feel for your workload, but Grin’s let the cat out of the bag.’

‘Why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?’ Nolan asked.

‘Nolan, let me give you some background,’ Sean began. ‘I hired Grin because he impressed the hell out of me with everything that he knew about computer technology. I respect his opinion on everything that goes on in here. As a personal favor, I asked him to look over your master’s thesis and doctoral proposal, so I could understand better what you were doing.’

Grin picked up the story. ‘I loaded your code and ran the programs. Like I said, it’s cool stuff. It was my idea to get you working in here. I could really use somebody like you to help out with all the wild research we’re going to be getting into. I figured since you and Kelsey will be working out of here anyway, maybe we could cut a deal. If it’ll help you decide, you’ll get doctoral credit for your efforts.’

Nolan threw up his hands. ‘You two are shameless!’

‘Playing you just like a Stradivarius, huh?’ Grin asked, a devilish smile flashing through his goatee.

‘Full concert and a couple of encores,’ Nolan replied. ‘Of course I’d love to work here; I’d be an idiot not to. Don’t feel bad about spilling the secret, Grin. If you hadn’t brought it up, I would have asked before we left anyway.’

‘Great. I’ve already worked up a brief for you on the system specs and our workload.’ Grin looked visibly relieved now that the lab’s labor problem had been solved. ‘When can you start?’

‘Right now. I’ve got some time before I meet with Kelsey. Why don’t you show me around?’