The Pike: Ships In The Night by Erik Schubach Read Free Book Online Page A

so close to a breakthrough that will allow us to accurately predict and combine pairs of qubit states.  That will be a huge achievement in the quantum computing field and will move us exponentially past the roadblocks that Nagasuma and Sky Computing have run into.  Allowing us to utilize the quantum superposition of eight states.”
    Mom had that look on her face, which dad says is amusement.  She shook her head and said, “Just say you had a good day, my Liya.  You know I can't follow all that numbers nonsense.”
    Nonsense?  Doesn't she realize that numbers and math are everything?  They are all encompassing and can be used to explain all things and quantify everything we know about the world and the universe, and the universes beyond our current ability to interact with?
    Wait, she was grinning again.  Then I understood.  She was just playing with me!  I smiled back at her as she backed through the kitchen door with a couple plates of food.  Humorous.  It was great that she understood me so well.
    I finished up and moved to the books.  It relaxed me that she used an old-fashioned ledger.  I grabbed the stack of receipts and invoices and flipped through them quickly doing some quick math.  I paused at a couple where she charged less for some menu items than she should have, or wrote them off.  We lost money on those tickets.  She always undercharged the customers who were having financial difficulties and even gave out free meals to any homeless people who came through.
    I didn't understand why that made me feel... warm?  Inside, when I looked at her.  We had a hard enough time making ends meet without her giving food away and affecting the bottom line, but it made me look up to her in a way I didn't understand.  It made me want to aspire to be like her and do her proud.
    I saw the lights dim under the door and mother stepped into the back, wiping her hands on her apron.  She smiled and walked up to me and gave me the last of the tickets.  I skimmed them quickly, adding them to the totals in my head then exhaled and looked at her before writing in the ledger in the revenue, and expenditures columns.  Mentally calculating in taxes and overhead for the day I wrote ninety-three dollars and four cents in the net column.
    I sighed and showed her.  If Lisa Ives had still been working here, she would have taken home seventy-two dollars of that.  Leaving mom just over twenty-one dollars to show for her day.  Something had to be done, she was working herself so hard for less than minimum wage.
    She shook her head at my expression, like she knew my thoughts, and said, “There's at least forty dollars in the tip jar at the register for today.  You don't need to have such a sour face.”
    We turned back to the sound of the back door opening and dad stepped in.  The big, fit man taking up the entire doorway.  He gave us both a wink and a wave and asked as he reached for the three large bags of trash beside the door, “How are my girls tonight?”
    Again, I felt like a little girl, and I gave a tiny wave. “Hi, daddy.”
    He gave me that smile that mom says won her over when he was an exchange student in the Philippines from Seattle when they were in high school.  Then he went back out the door with the day's trash in one hand. He was always so strong.  He was a sanitation engineer for Bremerton.  He says that's just a fancy name for garbage man.
    A minute later he came back in and washed his hands at the sink before joining us and giving us each a kiss on the forehead.  He stood behind mom, towering over her and rested his big hands on her shoulders.  I could see her change her angular momentum to lean back into him.  She looked back and up at him with a smile.
    He asked, “We all set here?  Ready to go home?”
    Mom nodded. “We're all locked up.”  She held up the big brown paper bag that would have our dinners in it.
    I looked at my cell and shook my head.  “We leave at eight sixteen.  It