Chapter 5

Monday, September 14, 2009

I woke up and hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. The upside of having to go to class naked was that I got to sleep in an extra five minutes. I showered and went to get breakfast. I sat down with Hunter and Jeff.

"Excited about your first day in The Program?" Hunter asked.

"Technically, I started yesterday."

"Who's counting?"

I laughed. "Actually, I'm pretty nervous."

"Because of the meeting?"

"Yeah, with the governor and the president of a community college."

"Don't worry about it. I must have met half a dozen governors naked, plus a couple of senators, 20 or so congressmen, the president..."

"The president's seen you naked?"

"Well, it was when he was running. I introduced him at a couple of rallies after the Olympics."

"Yeah, but you're sort of known for that kind of thing. I'm going to be walking into an important business meeting with people who've never heard of me before stark naked."

"Try picturing them in their underwear."

"They'd still have on more than me."

"Yeah, but they'd look pretty silly," Jeff said. I thought about it for a moment and had to admit that he was right. We ended up spending the rest of breakfast talking about politics. Since my dad was a doctor and Hunter's was a prominent Democratic politician, we had both gotten an earful lately about the health care law and wanted to compare notes.

I went back to my room. Billy had woken up and was chatting with Sara Arevalo. She lived across the hall from us and they were sort of dating. I grabbed my backpack and we went to class. I sat down next to David Ginsberg and Tom Stanford. David was wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt and Tom had on jeans and a polo shirt. They were both barefoot, which was odd. Tom went barefoot everywhere, but Ginsberg wore shoes a lot more often than most people did.

We sat through the lecture and walked out together. "I was thinking we could meet for lunch and go over the plan for the meeting," Ginsberg said.

"Sounds like a good idea. Do you want to meet in my room at 12:30?"

"Sure."

They went wherever they were going and I went to chemistry class. I went to the back of the class and grabbed a lab coat. I was allowed to wear it because The Program made exceptions for safety equipment, but the dirty looks I was getting made it clear that some people were less than thrilled about the prospect of using a lab coat that had touched my junk. I found my lab partner and took a seat. We were working with acids, which made me really glad for the lab coat, although I wished I had something to wear on my feet.

When class ended, I had some time to kill, so I went to the library and got caught up on homework. I then went back to my dorm and took a shower. I wanted to make sure I was at least clean for the meeting.

David and Tom came up to my room. They were both wearing suits. Ginsberg was wearing several military medals, and it was probably the first time I'd ever seen Tom wearing shoes. I, of course, was naked. I ran through the powerpoint presentation a few times and then we broke for lunch. The mood at lunch was pretty tense.

"So, how do you think our chances are?" Tom asked Ginsberg.

"Pretty good."

"You don't think me being naked will be a problem?" I asked.

"No, the political price of being seen with a naked guy is lower than the benefit of the jobs created."

"Really? What about those commercials?" The TV airwaves were filled with attacks on the Democratic candidate for governor for supposedly wanting to put The Program in every school district.

"Those are from one of those crazy Tea Party groups. McDonnell wants to keep the election focused on jobs, and this is a good way for the Democrats to gain ground on that front."

"But the plant won't be open in time for the election."

"Tim Kaine isn't running in this election."

"Good point."

"You guys want to head out? I figured we could catch the tail end of the rally."

We walked to the main quad were the rally was taking place. The speeches were pretty uninspiring, but the weather was nice and there was something of a festive atmosphere. When it was finally over, we found the conference room where the meeting was set to take place. The governor, the community college president, the president of our college, and an assortment of hangers on were waiting for us. I could feel all eyes on me, and there was a distinct chill in the room.

We took our seats, except for Ginsberg, who stood at the front of the room and began speaking.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I'm David Ginsberg, CEO of Richsea Energy. This is Tom Stanford, our CFO, and this is Mike Perkins, the Chief Technology Officer."

"Is he always naked?" someone asked.

"Class project," Ginsberg explained, "which I'm sure is something Mark Zuckerberg never had to deal with." Everybody laughed, and the atmosphere in the room suddenly grew much more relaxed. "I'm going to go ahead and let Mike explain the technical side of things."

I stood up and plugged my computer into the projector. I brought up my powerpoint and began with a very basic overview of the chemistry involved. I had practiced on Ginsberg, who seemed to know as much about biochemistry as he did about the surface of the moon. I got into sort of a groove as I went through the slides. By the middle of it, I had almost forgotten I was naked. I finished the presentation, and Tom stood up to go over the financials. One of the hangers on raised her hand.

"I'm sorry, your cost to make this stuff is 58 dollars a barrel?"

"Yes."

"The price of oil is currently 72 dollars a barrel."

"Yes,"

"So won't there be more demand for your product than you can produce?"