Scarcity
Page 48
“I am.”
“Then I believe together we could usher in a new golden age of abundance and prosperity for the world.”
“I agree. But we need to be careful.” Jimenez turned to Luthor. “I will need a group that I can trust in charge of this country’s management and implementation of 126. No one else on the planet knows more about 126 and its potential for energy generation than you. I would like to offer you all a collective position on my new committee in charge of 126.”
“Will we get a cool acronym?” Qwiz asked.
“Absolutely,” Jimenez replied with a laugh, “one of you would be required to sit on my cabinet as well, reporting directly to me. Dr. Tenrel, I would like that person to be you.”
Luthor felt a knot tighten in his stomach. He had no desire to get involved with the government ever again. He had been betrayed and forgotten in Antarctica, he’d been harried and hunted by Stalker and carbon enforcement. Now Jimenez wanted him to sign up again, another tour of service. He found Tanya’s eye. She wore the same knowing smile that always made him feel a little better even when he never would admit it to her.
“Dr. Tenrel?” the President prodded.
Slowly, resignedly, Luthor nodded his head, “I’ll do it.”
“Then let’s get to work.”
Epilogue
Luthor looked over a massive facility humming with activity. Cyclotrons, old and new, were producing 126 at a break-neck pace. Every hour this complex was producing as much 126 as Luthor and his team had in their entire first year. It still strained his imagination at times to understand the scope of what the USW was doing. In a spree of scientific production, unheard of since the Manhattan project, they had dedicated every resource to producing 126. Facilities like this one were popping up all over the hemisphere, so many in fact, thousands of highly skilled Markless had been recruited to ease the workload. Formerly forlorn, hopeless, and homeless, they jumped at the unprecedented opportunity to hold a job and re-enter society.
Luthor had even pulled some strings and been able to recruit Father Roc’s little band to help run security at this particular plant. Thaddeus, DeShawn, Abigail, and Serenity had gladly joined up. Roc himself insisted on staying behind, declaring there were “more lost sheep to find.” The four friends had done an admirable job of protecting the newly minted element as it was fused together from smaller atoms.
Other massive projects were sprouting up everywhere to actually utilize 126 being created. Every unused hill near a population center was being used to build self-contained hydroelectric dams. Massive pipes funneled water down through turbines and then 126 pulled the water back up to the top to run it through again. Every city in the world could have the power of the Hoover-dam in their back yard without blocking up a single river.
The main limitation was the amount of 126 available. Fortunately, its components were not difficult to come by. Stored waste from nuclear reactors was ample, it just needed to be dug up and refined, and depleted Uranium was almost as ubiquitous as steel after the war. Shoved into a cyclotron, tuned to Luthor’s specifications, the refined Krypton bombarded Uranium targets and produced reliable quantities of the remarkable element.
The biggest problem was providing enough electricity for the production process. New generators, solar and wind farms were sprouting around the facilities like a corn field in the spring. Wind and solar companies struggled to meet the demand. Ironic that the production of the very element that would make their best products obsolete currently boosted their sales.
Tanya squeezed his hand and smiled at him. He still hadn’t acclimated to the strange pinch on his ring-finger every time he held Tanya’s hand. Small price to pay, Luthor thought. Mental note: advocate marriage to friends. It far exceeds its reputation.
Luthor smiled broadly at her; he found himself doing that a lot more lately. Falling asleep next to Tanya every night seemed to soothe his depressive spells as a massage soothed a sore back. He readily admitted to anyone who asked that he had been wrong; marriage as it turned out, was wonderful. The best thing about being married to Tanya was the lack of worry. Throughout their long dating relationship, Luthor had fretted about Tanya realizing how messed up he was and leaving him. Now, she had promised before her God that she never would, for better or for worse. As strange as it sounded, he believed her. Marriages used to end in divorce all the time, but in the modern world, few got married. To do so was a strange, and therefore serious, undertaking. It made their covenant together feel real, even sacred somehow. He never doubted for an instant any more that she would remain by his side. She knew all of him, even the worst, most broken parts of his cannibalized soul, and had promised to stay with him anyway.
The freedom not to worry about Tanya combined with Bill’s advice, helped to unchain his soul just a little bit more every day, keeping Anti-Luthor from returning to his home. The old man’s continued influence had helped immeasurably more than any Army-paid shrink ever had to help his PTSD. Bill had lived in the darkness as he had and had emerged again. It was possible. Luthor continued to talk about his experiences, and though painful, he sensed the pain was like surgery: it hurt, but ultimately healed. Bill had even roped him into speaking at a veteran’s convention next month. That would be a test of his newfound resolve.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He picked it up. It was nice to have one again.
“Dr. Tenrel speaking.”
“You know who this is, old fart. It says on your screen. Can’t you just say ‘hi Michael,’ like a normal person?”
Luthor laughed, “we are important people now, a certain amount of decorum is required.”
Michael was currently overseeing a gargantuan new facility being constructed in Tennessee that would produce 126 by an entirely new method. He and Luthor had collaborated with dozens of PhD’s from both China and the USW and developed the radically new synthesis method that didn’t require an accelerator. If successful, it would generate ten times more 126 atoms than their current cyclotron farms while using less energy to do so.
“Well, boss, I just got off the phone with Fermilab, and I have some news you might want to hear about.”
“Shoot,” Luthor said. Tanya leaned in to hear the call as well.
“The big wigs at IUPAC are discussing the official name of the element.”
“Oh no…”
“Oh yes. Support is strong for naming it Tenrelium, in honor of you.”
“Smogging son of—” Tanya slapped his arm and he bit off the epithet. He heard Michael laughing on the other end of the line. “What about you? You helped! And you saved my life at least twice.”
Luthor had not wanted the element named after him. It didn’t feel right somehow, but that had egged Michael on, making him the chief advocate of the name ‘Tenrelium’ in academic circles. It seemed to bring him joy to no end to have it named after Luthor.
“I was an intern,” he laughed again, “you discovered it. Besides, it sounds good. Tenrelium.”
“It sounds terrible.”
Tanya squeezed his arm and he smiled in spite of himself.
“Well, I just thought you should know. The panel is voting on it tomorrow.”
Luthor hung his head. As if Michael could see the reaction, he heard more chuckling from the other end of the phone. “Ouch,” Michael said, abruptly cutting off his laughter.
A new voice appeared on the line. It had a slightly Russian accent to it. “You deserve congratulations, Tenrel, and more respect than this fool gives you.”
“Thank you, Vika,” Luthor said, but still heard Michael cackling in the background.
Tanya grabbed the phone, “Vika, its Tanya. Smack him around a little bit more, will you? Since that tour to China with Qwiz and his father, Michael thinks he’s a rock star. Somebody needs to deflate that boy’s ego while he can still fit through doorways.”
“Jimenez had it written into my job description. I kick his ass every night whether he needs it or not,” Luthor and Tanya sha
red a glance. Given Vika’s new official romance with Michael, Luthor didn’t want to imagine what other connotations that comment might mean.
“We’ll see you next week,” Tanya said, ending the call.
“I fear for his life if he is ever unfaithful,” Luthor said.
“I know. But honestly, she is perfect for him, exactly what he needs in a woman. She’ll whip him into shape in no time.”
“I have a hard time imagining him as a polite, faithful gentleman.”
“Believe it. Before the year is out, he will be a new man.”
“If you say so.”
“It seems to me, that if we can change the world and give it enough energy to thrive again, then nothing is impossible.”
THE END