Resonance: a World Without Scarcity
Copyright© 2026 by Grant C. Alister
Chapter 8: Dinner
“Before anyone says a word,” Robert Jones said, hanging his coat on the back of a chair, “I want a few things understood.”
He gestured toward the dining table.
“First, we’re going to eat.”
He raised a finger. “Nobody makes decisions on an empty stomach.”
A second finger joined the first.
“Second, we keep this calm. No speculation, no panic.”
A third finger.
“And if whatever is in that case is even half as serious as Emma implied, fewer words before dinner is better.”
He looked at each of them in turn. “Agreed?”
Danny glanced at James.
Emma nodded immediately.
James hesitated—
“Yeah,” Danny said.
James exhaled, then set the case down. “Agreed.”
“Good,” Bobby said.
He picked up the case, carried it across the room, and placed it on a sideboard as casually as if it were someone’s car keys.
Then he disappeared into the kitchen.
The house smelled warm and comforting in a way that felt almost disorienting given the reason they were there.
Garlic mixed with roasted onions. Something slow-cooked and rich.
Danny leaned back and sniffed the air.
“Whatever civilization-ending conversation we’re about to have,” he said, “it smells fantastic.”
Emma gave him a look.
“This is how Bobby copes.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “Cooking?”
“Feeding people before dismantling their arguments,” she said.
From the kitchen Bobby called out, “That is a gross mischaracterization of my process.”
A moment later he appeared carrying a large cast-iron skillet and set it in the center of the table.
Nothing about the meal was extravagant. But it was thoughtful.
Braised short ribs rested in a deep red reduction beside roasted potatoes and carrots. A simple loaf of crusty bread sat on a wooden board, still warm. A salad waited in a large bowl dressed lightly with lemon and olive oil.
Comfort food. The kind meant to slow people down.
“Alright,” Bobby said, handing out plates. “Eat.”
No one argued.
For several minutes the only sounds in the room were the quiet rhythms of dinner.
The clink of glasses.
The low hum of conversation drifting faintly from a television somewhere deeper in the house.
Taking a bite Danny closed his eyes briefly. “Okay,” he said after swallowing. “If the world ends tonight, at least I went out on good short ribs.”
James managed a small smile.
Emma shook her head.
Across the table, Bobby watched them carefully while cutting into his own food.
He didn’t look at the case on the sideboard.
But he was clearly aware of it.
Lawyers, James thought, watched rooms differently. Collected details the way engineers collected data.
After a few more minutes, Bobby set his fork down and wiped his mouth with his napkin.
“Alright,” he said calmly, “before we go any further, I need to do something mildly ridiculous.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “That sounds promising.”
Bobby stood and walked into the kitchen. A moment later he returned holding three folded dollar bills.
He placed one in front of each of them.
James looked at the bill.
“Should I be worried?”
“Not yet.” He pulled out his wallet and removed a small business card.
“This is a one-dollar representation agreement.”
Danny blinked. “You’re joking.”
“Not remotely.”
Bobby slid the card across the table toward them.
“I want each of you to hand me a dollar. In return, I represent you—for this conversation.”
Emma smiled slightly.
“You’re establishing privilege.”
Bobby pointed at her. “Exactly.”
He folded his hands on the table.
“If whatever you’re about to show me is what I think it might be, the next hour will contain statements that should never appear in a deposition transcript.”
Danny slowly pushed the dollar toward him.
“Civilization-ending technology and legal paperwork,” he said. “This really is America.”
James handed his dollar over.
Emma followed.
Bobby stacked the three bills neatly and tucked them into his wallet.
“Congratulations,” he said calmly.
“You now have legal representation.”
Danny leaned back in his chair.
“For a dollar.”
“For a dollar,” Bobby agreed.
Bobby wiped his hands on the napkin and leaned back slightly.
“Alright,” he said.
“Counsel has been retained. Privilege applies.”
Danny lifted his glass.
“Best legal services I’ve ever bought for a dollar.”
Bobby ignored him and nodded toward the small case sitting in front of James.
“Now,” he said calmly, “let’s see the problem.”
James slid the anti-static case toward the center of the table and opened it.
Inside, resting in the foam insert, was the disk.
Small.
Plain.
Barely larger than a coin.
Bobby looked down at it.
Then back at James.
“That’s a battery.”
“It’s not a battery.”
“Of course it’s a battery,” Bobby said patiently. “It’s shaped like one. It looks like it could even be put in a battery holder.”
James shook his head.
“That’s just packaging. It could look like anything we want. We just chose that for convenience.”
“It doesn’t store any energy as far as we have been able to tell.”
Bobby leaned forward slightly.
“Then what does it do?”
James hesitated. “We’re ... not completely sure yet.”
Bobby frowned. “That’s not reassuring.”
Danny shrugged. “It worked for thirty-two hours straight. That’s reassuring enough for me.”
James ignored him.
“The best description we have right now,” he said, “is that it behaves like a conduit for energy—delivering continuous power.”
“There is no decay.”
“No discharge?”
“None.”
Bobby frowned. “At all?” Bobby’s gaze moved between them.
“You’re telling me this ... is pulling energy from somewhere.”
“That’s our working theory,” James said.
“And delivering it as electrical power.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Three point seven volts. Three point two one watts.”
Bobby frowned. “And that doesn’t change?”
“It hasn’t.”
“Batteries store energy chemically,” he said. “They discharge. Their capacity is measured in amp-hours.”
“This doesn’t discharge.”
Bobby frowned.
“So what’s the capacity?”
James shook his head.
“That question doesn’t apply.”
Danny leaned forward.
“Because it doesn’t decay.”
James nodded.
“Exactly.”
He spread his hands slightly.
“Amp-hours just measure how much energy a battery can release before it dies.”
He glanced at the disk.
“This hasn’t died.”
“Thirty-two hours. Three point two one watts the entire time.”
Bobby frowned. “No variation?”
“None.”
“No drift?”
“No.”
Bobby stared at the device again.
“Then if it isn’t a battery,” he said slowly, “what exactly is it?”
James paused.
“That’s the part we don’t fully understand yet.”
Emma spoke quietly.
“The best description we have so far is that it behaves like a conduit.”
Danny added,
“Or a transformer.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow.
“For what?”
James met his eyes.
“Energy.”
Silence settled briefly around the table.
Bobby looked down at the disk again.
Then back at James.
“And you’re sure you didn’t just reinvent the most confusing battery ever built.”
James gave a small, tired smile.
“I’m quite sure.”
“Of course you are.”
He nodded toward the device.
“It’s not a battery.”
“It’s a power source.”
“Yes, a power source we don’t understand.”
“Now, assuming I believe you, who else knows about this?”
“As far as we are aware, just the people in this room.”
Bobby nodded once.
“Good.”
He tapped the table lightly with one finger.
“Can anyone else reproduce it?”
James shook his head.
“Not to our knowledge.”
He paused.
“That doesn’t mean someone else won’t discover it eventually.”
Bobby nodded slowly.
“Then we should assume they will.”
He glanced down at the disk again.
“Which means this isn’t just a scientific discovery.”
He looked back up at them.
“It’s a race.”
He glanced down at the disk again, then back up at James.
“How difficult was the process that led you here?”
James hesitated.
“Conceptually? Very difficult.”
“And practically?”
“Surprisingly simple.”
Danny gave a small shrug.
“That’s usually the dangerous kind.”
Bobby leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.
“Let me make sure I understand the situation.”
He nodded toward the device.
“You’ve discovered a small, scalable power source that produces electricity continuously without fuel, without charging, and apparently without decay.”
No one corrected him.
“And right now,” he continued calmly, “the only thing standing between that device and the global economy is the fact that two engineers, an urban planner, and a lawyer have been polite enough not to tell anyone.”
Danny shifted in his chair.
“When you say it like that...”
Bobby ignored him.
“Energy,” he said, almost to himself, “is the foundation of every industrial system on the planet.”
He ticked points off quietly with one finger.
“Oil.”
“Natural gas.”
“Coal.”
“Utility-scale generation.”
“Transmission infrastructure.”
His eyes flicked back to the disk.
“If this scales even modestly, those systems don’t evolve.”
“They collapse.”
Emma folded her arms slightly.
“Not just energy companies,” she said.
Bobby looked at her.
“Everything built around them.”
She gestured faintly toward the window, toward the city beyond the quiet neighborhood.
“Cities are designed around energy constraints.”
She ticked off a few examples almost absently.
“Power plants outside urban cores.”
“Transmission corridors.”
“Fuel supply chains.”
“Peak demand planning.”
Her eyes returned to the small disk on the table.
“If power stops being scarce, half the assumptions behind modern infrastructure stop making sense.”
Danny frowned.
“Meaning?”
Emma shrugged slightly.
“Meaning the way we build cities changes.”
She paused.
“Fast.”
Bobby studied her for a moment.
“That’s optimistic.”
Emma met his gaze calmly.
“It’s inevitable.”
Emma shook her head slightly.
“Not everything changes the same way.”
Danny looked at her.
“You just said cities get redesigned.”
“They do,” Emma said. “But infrastructure doesn’t disappear just because energy becomes cheap.”
She gestured lightly toward the window.
“Electric grids might shrink.”
“Fuel logistics might disappear.”
“But the communications infrastructure stays.”
Bobby raised an eyebrow.
“Explain.”
Emma leaned forward slightly.
“Unless someone invents a reliable way to run global networks wirelessly without running into the limits of the radio spectrum, we still need fiber.”
She tapped the table once.
“Fiber to neighborhoods.”
“Fiber to buildings.”
“Fiber to homes.”
Danny nodded slowly.
“Bandwidth problem.”
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