***
Jeremy looked at the tiny hydrogen-boron fuel pellet in his forceps, then held it up to the camera they had on a tripod. The pellet was probably too small to be seen on the video, but that meant something all by itself.
He took it over and slid it into the barrel of the chamber in their fixture. Jeremy glanced at Medness. Today Medness couldn’t hide his excitement.
Jeremy said, “Ready.”
Medness read from his checklist, “Close the main compartment.”
“Compartment closed.”
“Charging laser,” Medness said. They weren’t going to run a full-power test but were running one they’d calculated should reach break-even.
Hopefully without breaking anything.
“Monitoring instruments are all powered up,” Jeremy said.
“Ready to fire?”
“Ready to fire.”
“Firing,” Medness said.
A moment later Medness said, “Laser fired.”
“All right!” Jeremy shouted. “We got a huge pulse out of the collection field!”
Tensely, Medness said, “Shutting it down. Begin your calculations.”
Jeremy looked over at Medness. He might’ve sounded tense, but he looked as happy as Jeremy’d ever seen him.
Two minutes later, Jeremy jumped up and did a leaping, bounding dance around the lab. He shouted, “Laser consumption fifteen kilowatt-hours. Collection field output… fifty-six-kilowatt hours! More than three times break-even! We’re going out for a freaking beer! Yeah!” Higher powered laser shots wouldn’t use that much more power but should produce a lot more output. They were well on their way to commercial fusion energy.
He looked over at Medness, half expecting him to throw a wet blanket on Jeremy’s celebration, but Medness was on his feet doing his own—subdued—dance. Medness said, “Call your friends. Tell them I’m buying.”
“What time? Where?”
Medness waved the questions off as if they were of no consequence. “You decide, then text me. I’ll be there. I’ve gotta thank my wife first.”
“Thank your wife?”
“Yeah, she’s the one that found Seba’s talk in the news and pointed it out to me.” Medness snorted, “I told her the reporter must have his head up his ass. So now I’ve gotta call her and apologize, then thank her. Then I’ve gotta call Seba and text a few friends, I can go as soon as I’ve gotten that done.”
“Oh! It’s already evening. Are you sure you should be calling Seba this late in the day?”
Medness laughed, “If I were him, I’d love getting this kind of interruption.”
“Can I listen in?”
“Sure.”
***
They were in the big back room at the Buffalo and it was crowded. Kaem estimated Staze had fifty to sixty people there. I’ve got to ask Arya how many people we have on the payroll now, he thought, looking around for her.
She was chattering with Ryan, Dez, and Prakant, a kind of eclectic group. She looked happy, smiling, and laughing. Why can’t I bring that out in her? he wondered. He started toward her, eager to join in on whatever they were laughing about.
He brought himself up short. I shouldn’t ruin her happy mood, he decided.
~~~
Emmanuel and Sophia entered the room Staze had rented at the Cavalier Buffalo. He’d warned her it wasn’t a high-class place, but he still saw her looking around in bemusement. She’s probably deciding the company’s not doing as well as I claim it is, he thought, not sure whether that was funny or worrisome.
Sophia’s eyes tracked to Kaem standing by himself. She took Emmanuel by the hand and towed him after her, presumably intending to cheer up her lonely looking son. Arriving, she inauspiciously began by saying, “This place is kind of a dump. Do you really think Staze is financially doing okay?”
Kaem spoke defensively, “The food’s good and it’s kind of a tradition. We had our first celebration here, back when we first made some money. A lot of the big events in the company’s history have happened here. So,” he shrugged, “we just keep having them here. Besides, most of our employees are young and not long out of college. They’re used to these kinds of places.” He grinned at her, “When we get old and stuffy, we’ll probably start going to the kind of places you like.” He quickly dodged the sharp finger-poke she aimed at him, then turned to Emmanuel. “Do you think most of our people are here?”
Emmanuel looked around. “Most of them, I think. Why?”
“I’ve got to make an announcement.”
Emmanuel frowned, “Wait till they’ve all got some drinks and food from the buffet.”
“Oh, yeah. Good idea.”
Emmanuel looked over at him, thinking, He’s smart about things, but not so much about people. I’ve got to get him to read some of my leadership books.
Lee came over and started talking to Kaem.
Sophia leaned closer and said, “I thought Kaem was with that nice Dez Lanis?”
Emmanuel leaned back to look at his wife, “As far as I know, he went on one disastrous date with her. Surely that doesn’t mean he’s with her?”
Sophia waved dismissively and said, “I’ll ask Kaem later.”
A little later Emmanuel and Sophia were talking to Mahesh Prakant and his wife. Mostly, Emmanuel thought, because so many of Staze’s employees were young and single. It was relaxing to talk to someone married and closer to one’s own age.
After that conversation broke up Sophia nudged Emmanuel, “He’s even older than you. What does he do at Staze?”
Emmanuel said, “He’s the CTO.”
Her eyes widened, “The guy who took Kaem’s job?”
“Kaem’s still got a job, Sophia.”
Still staring after Prakant, she said, “You know what I mean.”
“I think the man’s very good at management. It seems like Kaem’s still in charge of the technical stuff. Either that or X constantly monitors his conversations to feed Kaem ideas.”
“If
