Cameras -- Fiction; Inventions -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Television programs -- Fiction
He sat back. He was trembling a little. His hands felt clammy. But he
soon got hold of himself. He looked at the control room clock. One
thirty-three. The guys would be back in about twenty minutes. He had to
hurry. He killed the power, switched on his work lamp, and peered into
the innards of the fused, mutilated matting amplifier. From the storing
case he hauled out the complete circuit blueprint, and set to work.
The next fifteen minutes were spent in sketching in new connections and
bridges and crossing out old ones on the drawings. Then Don carefully
fished out the paper clip spiral and deliberately dropped the heavy
work light into the amplifier. There was the sharp noise of splintering
tubes. Stuffing the corrected circuit blueprints in his pocket Don
hurriedly left the studio minutes before the crew returned to continue
their rehearsal for “The Planeteers.”
Don walked quickly through the mid-day crowd towards the park. Barnes
would have his hide--first for wrecking the matting amplifier and
secondly for walking out on the rehearsal. But he desperately needed
time to think. So what if he was fired! It was a _big_ thing he’d come
across.
He had immediately recognized the tremendous possibilities of his
accidental discovery. It had been simple for him to analyze the circuit
changes produced by the paper clip spiral and to realize that it would
literally be child’s play to construct a single camera which could be
focused on any given area and pick up an image regardless of whatever
obstacles might lay between, unknown to anyone in the area! With this
camera he could reach in anywhere with an invisible, all-seeing eye.
And he was the only one who had this secret. Reflexively he touched the
pocket which held his notes.
He definitely did not want to give this discovery to the network.
He still remembered and resented that objectionable clause in his
employment contract: _I will assign to you irrevocably any and all
rights I may have or get to all “inventions” made by me alone or with
others, whether during or outside of my regular working hours._
Like hell he would! This was one thing that number one boy wasn’t
giving away. There was a mint to be made--and Donny boy was going to
make it!
It was a warm, sunny day. Don hunted up a quiet corner in the park and
relaxed on the grass. He had some tall thinking to do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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