Vaii said, “Really?”
Prakant felt like his head was about to explode, “Space tower?!”
Vaii gave him a surprised look. “I thought you knew. Lee and Kaem think they can build a tower high enough that they can launch rockets off it without needing a first stage.”
Lanis clapped her hands together excitedly. “That’s so cool!”
Prakant found himself thinking Aaron Marks was going to detonate when he heard about this. Then Prakant remembered he’d signed an agreement not to disclose Staze’s plans to anyone, certainly not to Marks. Besides, he didn’t work for Marks anymore. He himself had considered the possibility of building a tension loaded space elevator out of Stade—which seemed a lot more doable than a tower erected from the ground up. But if this tower could be built… I need to see their plans! he thought.
But Vaii was turning them over to Tina to finish their in-processing. She finished by saying, “As soon as you’re finished with Tina, go talk to Kaem.” She indicated a crowded corner, “He’s over there.”
Prakant eyed the crowd around Seba—who couldn’t even be seen for all of the people’s backs—and wondered whether he’d get to talk to the young man at all today.
However, by the time they were done with Tina, had been issued corporate laptops, and made their way over to that corner, Seba was alone. When he saw them coming, he excitedly rose to hug Lanis and shake Prakant’s hand. He checked his watch and said, “It’s twelve-thirty! Time flies. How about if we go for lunch while I try to bring you guys up to speed?”
Lanis grinned at him, “Greek food at Dimitri’s?”
He gave her a wide-eyed look, “Don’t tell me you’re already tired of it! You’ve only been there once!”
“No,” Lanis said, “I loved it. I may get tired of it after a while; the pickings around here look pretty slim otherwise. But, right now, I’m looking forward to it.”
“I’m not very cosmopolitan, so I still love the place,” Seba said, guiding them to get their jackets and leave the building. Once they were on their way, he said, “So Dez you need to know about projects you might want to take on.” He glanced at Mahesh, “Mr. Prakant, you need to know about everything we’ve got going so you can have input and give guidance everywhere. I thought—”
Prakant interrupted, “Mahesh, please.”
“Oh, thanks!” Seba said as if honored. Keeping his eyes on Mahesh, he said, “Anyway, I thought I’d describe possible projects to Dez while you listen, and after I’ve given her plenty to think about, I’ll give you even more things to consider, okay?”
When they’d both nodded, Seba enthusiastically began describing a bulletproof Stade vest program Staze had going. He explained that, because of Stade’s phenomenal insulation value, the garments were too warm in the summer, but pleasant now. “In fact, I’m wearing one of our early prototypes,” he said, letting them feel the panels in the jacket he had on. “As you can imagine, it’s nice and warm for winter, but it still has problems.” He demonstrated how it folded and buckled at the shoulders and elbows when he moved around. “This would be better if we used even smaller panels around the joints, but then a bullet might just drive a panel into the victim’s tissues.”
Looking thoughtful, Dez said, “What if it was like chain mail?”
“I think that’d be worse than small panels, wouldn’t it? A high-kinetic-energy bullet could drive a fold of mail pretty deep into you.”
She nodded, “It might create a wound, but I’ll bet the damage would be superficial. Much better than deep penetration and, if they can’t do their jobs in coats like yours, it might be preferable.”
Seba nodded, “We’d need to generate Stade chain mail with different sizes of links and do testing on ballistic gel with real bullets. He gave her a curious look, “What if chain mail shredded bullets into small fragments that hit like a blast from a shotgun?”
She shook her head, “Getting shredded will absorb a lot of their kinetic energy. They won’t penetrate very deep. Small shotgun pellets don’t penetrate people very deep unless you’re shot from close enough that they still have a lot of oomph.” She sighed, “Would it be perfect? No. But it’d be better than bulletproof gear you won’t wear because you can’t move around in it. Realize that most current bulletproof vests don’t protect anything but the chest and maybe the abdomen. If they did, they’d limit function. So, this’d be a lot better than those are.”
He studied her, “You seem to know a lot about guns.”
She gave him a measuring look in return, “I’m a gun enthusiast. Is that a problem?”
“Nope,” Seba said cheerfully. “I was also thinking about making big panels over the chest and abdomen, but making them out of one-millimeter wire screen that’d let air through but still shred bullets?”
She nodded slowly, “Good idea.”
“Maybe we could put medium-sized wire panels over the front and back of the shoulder. They’d have tiny posts on them that slide along between the wires on the big panels to allow motion.”
She frowned, then grinned, “Your wires for the screens just go one way rather than crossing like regular screen, right? Because no one can bend Stade wires?”
Seba nodded.
Lanis got a distant look, then said, “That might work but it’s a more complex solution. I’ll bet we’d do better with the chain mail, but we should try both.”
Prakant was thinking, This girl’s sharp!
“Agreed,” Seba said to Lanis. “Even if you don’t take this project on, you’ll probably be advising whoever does.”
She nodded.
Seba said, “The next one for you to consider is a prototype for flywheel energy storage. I’ve talked to Vinargy Electric who owns the Surbury
