Chapter 21: Night Moves

The biggest problem I faced with any plan to introduce the Taluatan Fusion Reactor to Earth was my desire to leave the bright ideas to others, and let them publish their research and announce their discoveries.

I had learned how to set little bundles of my own consciousness in the minds of people I was keeping tabs on, either to monitor their safety or alert me to a specific action or activity on their part. In truth I had little triggers like that set in every person I had ever revealed my gift to. Revealing my secret to someone who that person did not believe already knew it would trigger it, and I would be alerted. I was using this technique to solve my reactor problem.

In order to do this I first had to determine who in the world was conducting research in the appropriate areas. Once I had a list of likely candidates, I had to design a bundle of my own consciousness that I could leave behind in theirs that when triggered by the anticipated thoughts or actions would provide the appropriate mental connection.

I was calling them inspiration bombs, and they were pretty much at the very edge of my understanding of the human mind. I'd been involved in multiple deep conversations with both my Teacher in the Garden and Eru. In the end it was Eru's many years as a practicing Soul Diver on Taluat that paved the way for me. Much of his treatment of patients involved setting behavioral triggers that needed to release into the patients thoughts in ways similar to what my inspiration bombs were going to need to do.

It took almost the entire first trimester of Ginny's pregnancy before I was ready to turn them loose.

Yes, Ginny and I were fully invested in the modern childbirth process. We attended classes, we joined groups, we had regular checkups, and 'daddy' was there every step of the way. It was essential for us both, her as a licensed doctor, and me as the undercover wielder of 'alien' mental gifts, to maintain as much normalcy as possible in our public lives.

My first candidate for an inspiration bomb was Ramesh Sundri, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work involving the physics of higher dimensions was on a path that could lead him to a method of manipulating energy and high state matter at lowered temperatures.

My second candidate was Chen Hsu, of the Chinese institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing, China.

My third was Heinrich Brunieva at the Institut für Theoretische Physik at Geissen.

I set eighteen other secondary and tertiary inspiration bombs, all designed to be triggered by relevant announcements cascading from one of the three 'prime' candidates. If I hadn't had the good fortune to catch all but three of my candidates attending a series of guest lectures at CERN in Switzerland two weeks earlier, I might have had some problems gaining access to a couple of them, particularly the Chinese physicist, who seldom was allowed out of the country.

Six of my secondaries I got during an incredibly fun evening in Boston sitting in the corner of a place called 'The Cold Comfort, ' drinking Guinness and talking high energy physics with a group of eight MIT post-grads in between their efforts to dance with and talk to any one of a large contingent of Boston University coeds at the other end of the bar. All eight of them lobbied me hard for positions with Obsidian Research, and two of them I was actually thinking might make good candidates.

"A plan designed with the ultimate goal of providing the absolute minimum financial return." Was Grandpa A.J.'s joking description of what I'd done. Of course their would be no financial return for us on the research these men and women would conduct, but once all the pieces were in place, their discoveries would give me the framework needed to produce a prototype of the reactor. His avowed skepticism of my plan would have carried some weight, if it weren't for the massive amounts of money we were already making on the fuel cell technology.

Obsidian Industries signed long-term licensing agreements with with Duracel and Energizer Holdings, Inc., for the production of batteries for the consumer market. We inked a deal with Mag Instrument, Inc. the makers of the MagLite flashlights. Within two years they planned on selling nothing but Obsidian fuel cell powered MagLites. The entire smoke detector and emergency lighting industries were in an uproar as well, as they scrambled to be the first to offer units that were good for the life of the owner.

The deals with Sony and Panasonic for the rights to manufacture fuel cells for the digital camera, video and laptop markets was going to be worth billions over the next 50 years alone.

The momentum was starting to swing in our direction on the use of our fuel cells in the automotive industry as well. California's recently announced tightening of their already strict emission standards were going to be very difficult and costly to meet for any company trying to do so with standard internal combustion engines. Substituting our fuel cells was an easy fix, as long as the recharging infrastructure was in place. It certainly helped that our fuel cell technology was not chemical in nature and did not depend on the storage or transfer of any reactive or explosive materials. They did not create electricity on the spot by using a chemical reaction with hydrogen as most current fuel cells did. We called them fuel cells, but really they were what we called solid state synthetic crystalline electrical sinks.

Grandpa A.J. had been working on a deal with the State to convert their entire fleet of passenger and utility vehicles to the new fuel cell technology, in exchange for the State's assistance with the permitting process and pre-approval of over 500 locations for recharging stations. Our local State legislators were falling all over themselves in Sacramento championing our cause, and who could blame them. We were already employing 250 workers in our Stockton plant, and as recharging stations and retrofit shops began opening it promised more jobs, which meant tax revenues, all on top of an industry that was reducing vehicle emissions and noise pollution.

Some of the new materials technology associated with the fuel cells were quickly adapted by Proto-Tech and other companies for use in creating a new generation of high torque, light weight electric motors. The new motors combined with the fuel cells had already completely revolutionized the snowmobile and jet-ski markets.

While I still wasn't convinced that the current batch of elected officials in Washington really took the threat of global warming seriously, they did decide to pay it some lip service right away by legislating gas-powered yard machinery right out of existence, as well as a federal ban on anything but zero emission vehicles in all national parks and preserves.

Municipal bus services and long haul shippers all across the country had begun converting to our fuel cells, and the pace picked up recently, as federal legislation was proposed which promised tax breaks and other incentives for switching to the new fuel cells.

The only way Obsidian Industries could have been making money faster would have been if we were printing it ourselves.

In the corporate world, at least in our corporate world, the 'fiscal year' begins on the first day of October. I got Dad, Grandpa A.J. and I together with the Legion at the house on Meadow for a celebration breakfast. After a very nice meal of biscuits and Gravy, I got everyone's attention.

"Legionnaires, today marks the start of a new fiscal year, and even though we think of ourselves as 'The Legion' you are all employees of Obsidian Research and Obsidian Industries. As such, it is time to finally discuss money."

"About damned time!" Chet hollered. I waited for the laughter to die down.

Everyone is aware that the 'package' I have mentioned in the past was an annual salary and profit sharing, as well as full medical coverage. Obviously recent developments have had an impact on what the medical coverage might mean."