Part 56: Smart Sand

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Like I said earlier, PuckerBrush Nevada, The Truck Stop, is located out in the sticks. Back when I first starting stopping here there wasn’t anything around. It looks like the area is being developed a little.

We were slowly making our way back to the bridge’s get-on ramp a few miles away. Bubba pointed to a tanker train just in front of us.

“Meow? Raw zit. Spit…Splurt?” Bubba could read the sign on the side of the tank. I was real proud of that boy. He was not only growing like a weed he was sharp as a tack. He was soaking up knowledge like a sponge soaked up water. Gretchen had taught him how to read. He was reading to Maverick every night before they went to sleep.

Not to be left out…the owl said “Eeep?…Eeeeep!!”

Made just about as much sense as what Bubba said but he said it in Owl-speak instead of in cat-talk. The two of them were curious about everything.

“That’s a construction vehicle.” I told them. “Looks like it’s going to a job site…hmmm. It might be real close to…it’s turning off the ….yup…there it is…right there”.

The tanker train had slowed almost to a stop, then pulled off the access road into a field. Yup…someone was going to build something. “I never get tired of watching this kind of thing. Pull over along side the curb there Gretchen.“

She did. Bubba and I got out and walked over a little closer, I had my smoke pole in ’tee’ form. Maverick perched on the cross part. Someone had strung some construction tape around the job site. We didn’t go past that.

The tanker had just rolled to a stop. The driver got out. When he saw us standing there he looked at Bubba, and the owl real hard, then at Gretchen’s drones floating at high guard, then at me. He grinned and walked over.

“How you doing mister?” he said to me.

“Nice Kitty” he said to Bubba.” Pretty bird” to the owl. He didn’t attempt to touch either one of them.

Wise man.

“We were curious about what you were gonna build” I told him “If you don’t mind we’ll just stand here and watch”.

“Sure thing.” He said. “I don’t mind a bit. I come over because I thought you might be needing something. I guess I’d best get to work. I have half a dozen more places to be today. I have to.”...and he talked and talked. Like most truckers he’s a lonely kinda guy.

Truckers are alone for most of their working life. Some of them are like clams but some aren’t. When the not-clams get someone to visit with they won’t shut up. After a while he stopped gabbing and walked back to his truck and climbed inside.

Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. I imagine he was getting some coffee and settling in behind his work console. I expect it took a bit to get set up. Something should be happening any second now.

Sure enough. All along the top length of the tanker trailers, antenna arrays sprung up and unfolded like flowers after a rain. I noticed something that looked like fire hose nozzles moving alongside the bottom of each tank. The nozzles all swung out and pointed toward the center of the job site. Then they sandblasted the place.

Streams of sand arced through the air and hit the ground. Where the sand struck a structure began to grow. It was like how I imagine a stalagmite would grow, only lots faster. There was no splash, no runoff, nor dust. Each and every grain of sand knew it’s place and went there. It self assembled into a building. It looked a little bit like a castle.

A few minutes and it was done. There had been a vacant lot here when we stopped…now there was a fairy castle, human sized. The Trucker climbed down out of his rig and walked over again.

“I meant to give you my calling card” he said “in case you ever need any work done.”

“Why thank you I said”. I never tire of watching intelligent matter in action. That’s neat stuff. The Bifrost Bridge is built much the same way, only using DiamondFog . SmartSandtm is a competitor of DiamondFogtm but not as fine grained. No one in the industry knows how DiamondFogtm can even function. We ain’t a talking either. If they can reverse engineer it good for them..until then it’s our secret.

“Me Wurt Bleep?” Bubba said to Maverick.

The owl responded as you would expect an Owl to…”Who?” he said.

I got to give the Trucker credit. He didn’t even blink. He didn’t act like a talking black panther or a Hoot Owls perching on a walking stick was the least bit unusual. Perhaps being from Nevada he was familiar with talking pussy and owl-hoots. I dunno.

“I’m glad you asked me that” he said “Let me explain. It’ll give me a chance to polish up my sales pitch”

He reached into his pocket and removed a big coin. He flipped the coin into the air and it landed on the ground.

“Nothing around here near to sit it on.” He said. “That’ll do just fine.

Then his smartphone out of his pocket and spoke to it.

“Sandlet”.

The coin turned to dust then the dust rebuilt itself into something that looked like a toy jack, only complicated.

“The little grains of sand look something like this” he said..” If you look at them really, really close.”

“It’s controlled by digitally encrypted radio. You probably saw my antenna array swing into action? The dust is made from industrial diamond. We’re kind of proud of this model. It’s an order of magnitude smaller than the other stuff we make. Sadly it’s still orders of magnitude larger than DiamondFog. No one has a CLUE as to how that stuff it made. But even so..our stuff can make damn near anything” he said.

Bubba was enthralled. I was pretty impressed myself, especially by him giving credit where credit was due.

He said. “Hmmmmm…I have an idea”

He fiddled with his smart phone for minute then handed me something that looked like an old fashioned credit card. “This is the control card for the “gimme” coin. I pass these things out as much as I can for advertising. See these little Icons on the card? “

He pointed at a picture. “Swipe your finger right or left and the picture will change. There’s a whole menu of things that it can make. When you see something you like. Tap the icon with your finger. Like this.”

He demonstrated by swiping his finger. The pictures scrolled sideways. He stopped at one and tapped it. The little spiky thing turned into a necklace. A cat sized necklace. I picked it up and put it on Bubba.

“Pretty boy!” the man said.

Maverick cocked his head and looked at Bubba..Bubba ‘smiled” the Owl shrunk back…..some.

The man stepped back some too. Bubba has some impressive chompers.

“That’s pretty cool.” I said. We chatted some more then we went our separate ways. He had a whole shopping center to build, he said, and after that a subdivision.

We had to go to Seattle.

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To Be Continued
The Next Episode will be
Part 57: A Gentleman doesn't 'kiss and tell'…
The Previous episode was
Part 55: We’ll have a Bar-B-Que.
the first episode was
Part 1 : Winter Storm

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I'm

@everittdmickey
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I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
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Sometimes I also comment on the news

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