Chapter 11

The three nurses were through with their post-natal exams of Andrea and Savana and both mothers were leaking milk from their swollen breasts when Lisa called for Connie and Nora to bring the babies in.

Laura and Lisa washed their faces and hands and they were already calling Mommy as they were taken to where Andrea and Savana were reclining, with their breasts uncovered.

“Turn them loose and see what they do,” I told them. They were already crawling and saying Mommy. What would happen next?

Both girls crawled to Andrea and both boys crawled to Savana. We were looking around to each other, as if in shock. Jana and Tana pulled themselves up to Andrea’s breasts and stood beside her as they leaned over to take a nipple. Suma grabbed her digital camera and started taking pictures of the babies as they nursed.

Hawk and Falcon did the same thing when they came to Savana. They pulled up and stood by her side as they leaned over to nurse.

When Adam and Kendra came in, I told him, “Adam, I suppose we need to get back to the shop and help Carlton and the others. We have a lot of planning, ordering, and legal work to take care of in a short time.

“Savana, you and Andrea call us if you need anything.

“Kendra - can you, Susan and Leigh go with us so we can make some final plans?”

At the sound of my voice, the four babies stopped nursing and turned to look right at me.

Then to our surprise, all four pointed at me and said, ‘ Dada’. One after the other, they repeated it, pointing to me.

I wiped my eyes and grinned. I felt like jumping upon a fencepost and crowing like a rooster, I was so proud.

The four babies crawled over to where I sat with my legs crossed. They pulled right up and held their arms out to me.

I was getting really emotional and told the others, “I’ve got to get ahold of myself. I have a bunch more of these little wild-ass Indians on the way.”

I reached out with a sweep of both arms, and gathered them to me. I was kissing and smooching each of them and they were laughing and kissing me all over my face. Suma was snapping pictures with her digital camera as fast as she could.

“Can you say ... Papa Adam?” I said, pointing to Adam.

“Papa Adam” they came right back, as they looked at Adam. I knew then what I must have looked like when I cried. Adam had tears running down his face, but he was smiling as wide as his mouth would spread. Kendra was holding Adam as she hugged his neck and kissed his face.

I pointed to Adam...

“Give Papa Adam a hug,” I told them and they climbed down to crawl over and pull up on Adam’s leg, reaching up for him. Adam and Kendra both reached down to get an arm load of babies and hug them.

“Hug Mama Kendra,” Adam said, pointing to Kendra.

“Mama Kenna” the four said, clambering over Adam to get to Kendra. Now Adam and I both knew what we looked like when we cried, as Kendra hugged the babies to her bosom and cried.

Everyone was laughing at the antics of the babies, who were not even four hours old.

Suma their took pictures with Susan and Leigh huddled behind Adam and Kendra and the nurses behind them. Connie and Nora were on the floor in front of Adam and Kendra.

“Papa Adam – Daddy and Mama Kenna have to go to work. Can you say bye-bye?” I said – not really thinking they could.

“Bye-bye Papa, Dada, Kenna ... Bye-bye Papa, Dada, Kenna ... Bye-bye Papa, Dada, Kenna,” the four repeated until it became a sing-song chorus to them as they continued.

“We know you hate to leave, but you need to get started on this project. We’ll have many more times together with the babies,” Savana told me as she stood to kiss me and hug Adam.

“Savana’s right. Soon we’ll have the first home ready to move into and we’ll have all the room we need. The second one will be finished before the other babies are born. We’ll be a big happy family and our babies will grow up together ... smart as hell too, if this is any indication,” Andrea said.

“Bye-bye Papa, Dada, Kenna, Hell ... Bye-bye Papa, Dada, Kenna, Hell... “ The four of them repeated, and we knew right then we had better watch what we say.

Nora and Connie took the babies back out to play in the dirt after we had each hugged and kissed them over and over. They were already spoiled little brats and they weren’t but a few hours old. Adam and I pulled on a pair of cargo shorts and the women pulled on t-shirts and cargo shorts.

We knew the military was moving in and until we had some kind of privacy, we needed to respect them. We decided to walk to the shop and leave the van and other vehicles.

Sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the shop we saw military vehicles parked on the other side of the river, near the end of the bridge. They were already constructing a drive through guard station over there. The two fencing crews had started on either side of the new gate they had installed, and were going in opposite directions away from the bridge, one south along the river road, the other one north ... setting steel posts in concrete.

There was a steady flight of helicopters landing and taking off as they dropped off supplies. There was what appeared to be a convoy of military trucks with construction equipment, unloading the heavy equipment and building materials. There were concrete trucks lined up to pour what looked to be, from here, two large helipads, one on each side of the dual guard stations. They were installing a huge gate which lifted vertically to allow passage onto and off our property.

We stood and watched as the Flag was raised on a tall flagpole by the guard station, which was still under construction. The traffic was congested at times, with oil tankers leaving loaded, and empty empty tankers returning – plus all the construction and the military vehicles coming and going. But they managed.

The officer in charge told us later, that the drivers of the oil tankers were now required to sign in and out at the gate when they came to load oil from the storage tanks. We were told later that each driver also had to have a full background check on file with the FBI, before they could even keep the job they had.

The road crews were building a road just inside the tall chain-link fence, all the way around the perimeter of the property. Gravel trucks were dumping the SB-2 chat (crushed limestone) into a spreader which was laying an eight inch deep roadbed of chat, twelve feet wide. I watched for a while at the way the crews were making progress as fast and as far I could see. There were fifty foot towers going up every fifty yards along the fence and I figured this was where the motion detectors and cameras would be mounted and aimed both directions.

These men are working too hard for me to stand and watch. I went in to see if I could help Carlton and his group of beautiful, sexy, pregnant assistants. Adam and Kendra were already in a meeting with Carlton and his crew. They had each taken responsibility to make contacts with different suppliers for the parts and components we would need to start manufacturing our Power Modules.

It was all coming together fast, since most of what we needed was readily available on the market, except for a few small items.

Today, while we were all here, we decided to have weekly meetings such as this, with voice and video recording. Brenda is a whiz at real short-hand and she kept our minutes on paper, which she transcribed and put a paper copy in our meeting files, along with DVDs of voice and video for quick reference.

“Boyd – Brenda tells me that Cathy and Jeanette have come up with an idea for a power unit that will retro-fit into an automobile, based on the design Carlton used on our Power Module,” Adam told me as soon as I sat at the eight foot folding table.

“That sounds great!

“Tell me what you have, Cathy.”

“Well, Jeanette and I were looking through some old supply catalogs we brought from OSU and came across a small G-A-P Diesel Turbine engine built through NASA’s General Aviation Propulsion Program. We looked into it and there’s a very good possibility we can convert it to the new fuel cells and install the unit to power an electric car after we pull the electric motor and components. Our figures show that such a unit would achieve power and speeds that would exceed a V-8 engine. We did further calculations and the cost per mile in such a car would be somewhere in the range of one-to-two cents per mile.”

“What would the projected cost of such a power unit be, using all the new components you’d need?”

“If we buy the components and build the dynamos ourselves, or even contract to have them built, we think we can have a much smaller version of the aluminum turbine engine built for less than two thousand, and the small dynamo for another fifteen hundred,” Cathy said.

Jeanette spoke up now, and added, “Boyd, we know that’s high for a small power unit, so Cathy and I came up with the idea of eliminating the transmission. What we’ll use, is a direct drive front axle. Then Cathy came up with the plans for a speed sensor, so we can use the power unit itself for sensing speed and braking, much the same as a hydrostat transmission. This will bring the price of such a car back well below the cost of a new, four cylinder, American made sub-compact car. Plus we can operate at one to three cents per mile on direct dyna-electric power with no storage battery, no charging time, and no piggy-back gasoline engine like the hybrids.”

“I have the idea in my head, but I’m confused about the direct drive front axle. Are you talking about a trans-axle type of front-wheel drive?”

“No Boyd, we want to extend the main crankshaft of the turbine engine out and connect to a drive wheel on one side, then extend the armature shaft out the other end of the dynamo and connect to the other drive wheel. We’ll use common universal joints for these connections so the front wheels can easily turn and operate independently.”

“Can you build a prototype so we can see it run and get the bugs out?”

“We sure can. All we’ll need is a small car that was built to have a front-wheel drive, trans-axle. We’ll pull the engine and trans-axle, then build our power unit to fit right into the car’s engine compartment.”

“Sounds good to me, will you need any help?”

“We’ll need help pulling the old engine and milling some of the parts, but the rest is just fitting the components, which we can handle. We’ll need to find a car that’s still in fairly good shape to start with.”

“Kendra, can you get with Susan and Leigh and use your pull in DC, or whatever it takes, to get us a new car from a major manufacturer, less the engine and transmission ... Be sure to let it be known that whoever works with us on this, will have the exclusive rights to build and sell this new power unit for at least ten years – before we let it out to the open market. We may have to refer them to the Oklahoma Governor or even the President to have us checked out as legitimate.”

Kendra was quick to tell me, “I don’t have any pull with the car manufacturers – but – I know people who do, and they owe me favors. We’ll make it work, Boyd.”

“Good enough. Get Leigh and Susan in on this. We want the legal issues covered from top to bottom before we ever agree to any contracts.”

Adam added. “OK, I see where you’re going with your thinking now. We will build the prototype, then contract the right to manufacture the power unit out to the auto manufacturers.”

“Yes, and we’ll retain all marketing and patent rights,” I told them.

“Carlton, what are your figures on the amount of new age fuel in each fuel cell for such a power unit?” I asked.

“Hard to be exact Boyd, but I figure somewhere between two and five grams, for an endless supply of fuel.”

I said, “So, when we contract the rights of manufacture, we sell the fuel cell ourselves through the car manufacturer and let them make a small percentage for installation and handling.”

“My thinking exactly, Boyd,” Carlton agreed, then added, “We’ll need to always have control of the rights on the fuel cells. Of course, no one else will be able to copy them – yet we need to keep up with each one we release to the manufacturers.”

“I love it. I’ll get with Susan and Leigh, and we’ll start on it right away,” Kendra said.

“Get Suma involved also. We’ll need all the pre-publicity we can get to make this go over. Once the public gets the message that our new car design will be cheaper to buy, just as fast, and never need refueling, with zero emissions – we’ll be on our way.”

“Boyd, Deanne and I can have you a workable fuel cell ready in a week or less. One that will hold that small amount of new age fuel,” Brenda added.

“Good. Glad you thought of that. We’ll need three or four, just to be sure. Get with Carlton and be sure of the size, no need in making them any larger than necessary.”

Cathy added. “Jeanette and I will start scouring the salvage yards and used car lots for an old clunker which will fit our needs.”

“Good! Talk to Savana, Nora and Connie, they’re all from Custer City. They may be able to help you find something.”

Adam spoke up, “Boyd, I have an idea similar to the one we were just discussing. The other day, Kendra and I were going to Custer City to pick up more groceries and supplies, and she let me drive her Corvette. I had never driven a vehicle until just recently as you well know, but I was simply amazed at the power, and the feel of command I got from driving her sports car. I was wondering if there is a way to take the same idea we were just discussing and turn the power unit lengthways, remove the engine and transmission from a sports car, like the Corvette, and replace the power-train with our unit. We’d retain the drive shaft and rear axle, for the rear wheel drive vehicles. Cathy’s idea for a speed sensor that will also brake the car like an engine brake on a big truck, will let us eliminate the need for a transmission. We can still use the rear wheel drive vehicles if we do this.”

“I see no reason why not Adam, but why the Corvette?”

“I think we can build an engine which will be even more powerful than the twin turbo-charged Corvette, Kendra owns, and still have the fuel efficiency to run for less than five pennies per mile.”

“Great Adam ... Let’s do that one. That would really stand the car manufacturers on their ears, with the public and the folks in DC taking notice too.”

“We could even build racing engines, if you two are going that far,” Kendra joked, then laughed as we looked at her.

“Now we’re getting somewhere! But how would you ever get that much power and acceleration?” I asked, since I’m sort of a NASCAR fan.

“With the speed sensors, Cathy suggested we develop,” Adam answered quickly.

Cathy jumped on this and added. “Boyd, what I had in mind with those sensors, was to make them sense the pressure on the accelerator and deliver fuel accordingly ... For the high-performance vehicles, like Adam and Kendra are talking about, we would simply increase the port size of the fuel intake valve.”