Seba turned to Prakant, “Another project for a junior engineer is to figure out whether we can imbed Stade wires in glass. Then we could burglar and hurricane proof people’s windows.” He snorted, “Especially our own. We had a break-in recently.”
Prakant nodded, but he was thinking, I don’t think he sees Lanis as a junior engineer. I wonder if that’s going to be a problem…? Of course, after this conversation, I’m having a hard time thinking of her as a junior myself. He blinked, But I see Seba, who has to be the same age as Lanis as… not senior, but in-charge. This despite the fact that this “X” guy’s actually the boss. Hell, with me going in as CTO, Seba’s not even going to have a title anymore, but there’s something about him that… makes you feel like he is in charge. Is he going to take direction from me? After a little more thought, Prakant decided that Seba seemed like he should be in charge because he could think circles around most people. And, so, I probably shouldn’t be telling him what to do very often. Good thing he seems to be such a nice guy.
And a good thing I had my recorder on for this conversation. I’m gonna have to go over the recording and make a lot of notes to get myself organized.
***
When Brad walked up to his lab, he saw some huge boxes in the hall by his door. Excitedly, he stepped into the lab to find a boxcutter. His grad student, Jeremy, said, “Hey, Dr. Medness. I assume you saw we got a delivery? Those boxes may be huge, but they don’t weigh much. Do you know what they’re for?”
For a moment, Brad considered trying to keep it secret. That’s silly. I’m going to need Jeremy’s help. “Don’t tell anyone, but they’re molds to cast Stade.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened, “That new material from UVA?” he breathed.
Brad puffed out a little laugh. “Wrong on two counts. First, it isn’t actually a material, though it is easier to think of it that way. And, second, though it’s from Charlottesville and some of the people involved are recent grads, it isn’t from UVA.”
Puzzled, Jeremy said, “I thought Seba, the inventor, was still a student?”
“Yeah, he is.” In a doubtful tone, Brad said, “He claims he came up with his theory before he started school. In any case, he offered to make us a Stade fixture for free.” Brad grimaced, “Well, we have to make the molds for it and they aren’t cheap, so it isn’t exactly free.” He held up the box cutter, “Wanna see whether we got what I ordered?”
After a bit of work, they had a bunch of mirrored acrylic parts out. Then, after more work, they’d assembled them into a gleaming fixture with an enclosed space inside of it. Brad found himself explaining how the interior parts would be stazed so they’d only last a couple of hours. Then they’d assemble the other parts around them, spacing them away from the temporary Stade with little pieces of plastic included for that purpose. They’d staze a more permanent Stade inside that outer mold, then wait for the inner Stade to disappear.
“Wow, how’d you figure all that out?”
“I didn’t,” Brad said, feeling a little embarrassed, “Seba looked at the plans I came up with and made enough suggestions that I had to do it all over.”
Jeremy frowned, “Would your original plans have worked?”
“No,” Brad said, trying not to sound resentful or embarrassed as he studied the assembled acrylic parts, trying to visualize how the Stade was going to form inside it. Then he started disassembling the mold, comparing the mold components to the drawings he’d spend so much time working out before he’d placed the order. He did not want his first stazing to fail. Partly because he’d already spent so much money on the molds. Partly because he was going to have to drive the molds down to Staze to get them stazed, a substantial waste of time. Partly because he was so tired of Seba pointing out his stupid mistakes.
“So, how do we get this bad boy stazed?” Jeremy asked excitedly.
“I’ll make an appointment with them and then drive the molds down there to make sure they don’t put them together wrong.”
“Cool! Can I go with you?”
“Sure. If they give us an appointment for a time you have free. I’ll call ’em now and we’ll see if we can arrange a time that’s good for you too.”
Brad got an appointment for Friday when Jeremy could go with him. Jeremy said, “That’s great!” He paused a moment, “Um… I’m realizing that in all my excitement over how Stade works and learning how it’s cast, I never asked you what our Stade device’s going to do?”
“It’ll give us something to talk about on the drive down there. Read up on Hora’s ideas for hydrogen-boron fusion.”
“I thought those didn’t pan out?”
“They didn’t. But he didn’t have Stade.”
Chapter Seven
When Grace got home, she found a FedEx envelope on her porch. She immediately got a bad feeling about it. Only legal documents got printed out and delivered anymore. The only legal document
