Jaci Stone

"That seems to be a waste of material," Miranda offered.

"I don't have a big, masterful laboratory to test the compound. To me, the lifespan is a feature, not a waste." I dumped half a liter of water into the tanks and closed them up. "The process for this level of production will take about twenty minutes. If you fully load one, about six hours to produce."

"And the lifespan of the compound fully loaded?" Miranda asked.

"Ninety minutes," I replied.

"Seems a short amount of time to use two hundred fifty liters," Miranda observed.

"At that level, the compound is injected into the soil at six bar or ninety psi. A four-second injection uses approximately two liters and covers a square meter. Jorge can do a medium-sized yard in that time. Feel free to observe. As I've told you before, Miss Olsen..."

"Doctor Olsen," she corrected.

"...during the process, the safeties will not allow the tank to be opened. As you can see, it is already at forty bar. Excuse me."

I climbed off the trailer and went over to Stewart. Francine had been intently watching my presentation and was still studying me as I interacted with Stewart. He went to his car and she put her hand on my arm. "You make people underestimate you, then you whack them on the head."

"And along the way I've received a few whacks of my own."

"Oooh, touché."

"Miranda's interest is not in the tank, it's in the shell," I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because there are a dozen ways to do that biomass conversion. All of them can be scaled except for mine."

"What does that have to do with the shell?"

"The tank is a self-contained apparatus. It makes its own power for the heating and mixing from sunlight. Plus, the tank can hold a pressure of one hundred bar with a peak at one hundred forty. The shell also has one notable feature."

"It's almost indestructible," Francine finished for me.

I remembered when my father had lined up my broken ice-cream maker on the range and aimed a fifty-caliber machine gun at it. Out of one hundred shots, every shot was a hit, and none did damage. "My darling daughter, do not show anyone how to make a weapon out of that." It was one of the very few times he had called me 'my darling daughter.'

"I won't give her the means to weaponize it," I said.

"There are enough weapons in the world," Francine agreed. "She can't offer you anything because the money would be mine."

"It's not her I'm worried about," I admitted. "It's Gerry."

"Ahh." Francine bumped my hand with hers. "Me first."

A few minutes later, the whistles on both tanks went off. A sign that the mixture was ready in each. Gabrielle and one of the women that came with Miranda went over to Jorge's tank. Gabrielle tapped the pressure release valve, releasing the internal pressure so that the tank could be drained via the spigot on the side. The woman held up a four-liter jug and drained the contents of the tank into it.

On my tank the woman performed the same operation. "They work," she announced.

"Who's got the check?" I asked.

Francine pulled an envelope out of her suit pocket and handed it to me. I took a peek inside and gave it to a hovering Miranda. I want a receipt for those tanks to show the court."

"Of course."

Those words again. Grrrr. "Thank you."

"How much would they have cost had I asked?" Francine gave me an elbow in the side.

"Five hundred thousand. Orgasms."

"I'll remember that." Francine and I watched the handoff of the check, then as everyone else took off. Seeing those Suburbans pull away with my nitrogenators was hard, harder than I thought it would be.

Starr came zooming onto the lot in my BMW, coming to a stop right in front of me and Francine. After she got out, she rubbed the roof and sighed. "I can see why you drive her so much, that car is awesome. I'm getting one with my next paycheck."

"Starr, this is Francine Talbot," I said. "Frannie, Starr Stone."

Francine opted for the hug instead of the handshake. "Pleased to meet you, young lady. Any friend of Jaci's is a friend of mine."

"Frannie, Starr's my age."

"Yes, Jaci, I know," Francine snapped. "I do like to feel old and motherly every once in a while. Starr, I have a dealership in Norwalk, just off the 605. They'll have the best '5' coupe on the lot in Keystone Blue ready for you by the time you get there."

"Huh?" Starr asked. "I don't have my passbook with me."

"Dear, you won't need your passbook," Francine assured her with a smile.

"So, let me get this straight. You came here to check on a two million dollar exchange, but will give me a seventy-five thousand dollar car for nothing?" Starr asked.

"It's more like one hundred thousand dollars, and yes."

"Hey, what about me?" Pete asked. "I pull my weight around here too. More, actually."

"Sure Pete, you too. Maybe a nice minivan for the family?"

Starr and Pete exchanged a look. "Maybe sometime in the future. All of us have plenty of time, you know what I mean, right?"

"Not really," Francine said.

I took Francine's hand and pulled her close so my mouth was in her ear. "You're aging backward, Francine. Pretty soon you will have the option of having children of your own. It wasn't just a cure for your cancer, it is also a cure for everything else, including old age."

Francine gasped. "Immortal?" she whispered.

"Yes, I thought you knew. You look ten years younger than when I first met you. Pretty soon you'll be getting carded at your own bars," I whispered.

Francine pulled away from me. "Thank you."

"You don't sound so sure," Starr said.

"Well, I've always thought I was just getting a few extra years. I didn't know I...was going to keep living."

"Uh-oh," Starr said.

"Uh-oh, what?" Pete asked.

"Well, Frannie was so busy giving her money away, she wasn't thinking about keeping some for her retirement," Starr joked. "Do we still get the cars, Auntie Frannie?"

"Yes," Francine giggled. "Wait, what happens if I want to pass on? Do I have to find somebody to cut my head off or something?"

"Frannie, all you have to do is say or think 'I take my last breath,' and repeat it until you do. That's all," I said.

"I understand," Francine nodded. "We shouldn't be talking about this in the middle of a parking lot!"

Starr snapped her fingers. The noise of the city resumed around us. "Cone of silence. Handy for when us aliens need to have a private conversation in a crowd."

"Handy," Francine admitted. "I guess I have a lot to do now."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Well, I've been planning on breaking everything up, my companies and everything. I didn't want to leave everything to just one person to handle, it almost killed me. Now, I want to keep everything, but pass it on to a good set of hands."

"Looks like Arthur is going to be busy," I observed.

"Tomorrow," Francine said. "Today is you and me, Jaci."

"Can I do dinner with you later? Starr, Pete, and I have some things to take care of," I said.

"Of course." She pulled out her cellphone and dialed my number. My phone buzzed in my pocket. "Just to make sure it is working."

"Yes, it's working," I nodded.

"Do you need a lift?" Starr asked. "Your ride took off with Jaci's tanks."

Francine sent out a text message from her phone. "Ten minutes out."

"You two, go get lost for eleven," I ordered.

"Yes, Madam Stone," Pete snorted.

"Jaci? Do you have the keys to that garage over there?"

"Sure, why?"

"I feel like getting my knees dirty, and not planting flowers, either."

"Frannie, your mind is so dirty they'll have to make a special cleaner," I smiled.

"You have the detergent," she countered.

***

I didn't mind the needling that Pete gave me on the way to the machine shop. He accused me of corrupting such a nice woman, and I told him to stuff it.

Dancer's machine shop was devoid of people except for Jorge, he was there waiting on his new tank.

"Are we alone, Pete?"

"Yeah, Dancer even turned the cameras off like I asked," Pete replied.

"How do you even know that?" Jorge asked.

"Pete's very good at what he does, Jorge."

I knelt before the first tank, pushing sixty grams worth of gold into the slot on the bottom. "You watching, Pete?"

"Yup."

I pulled my diamond-tipped awl out and started scratching the spell into the side of the tank. I had almost forgotten the words, and their corresponding ideograms, but I got it. "Nice poetry, right?" I asked.

"Not easy to remember, but I got it," Pete answered.

Next, I took the awl and pricked my finger. "Jorge step back so you don't get burnt, my friend." I dropped the blood onto the spell, and Pete and I stood back to watch it work.

Slowly, a black shadow covered the shiny stainless steel tank. In a minute, the whole tank was matte black, so dark that it appeared to absorb light. "That's cool," Pete said.

"The amount of gold you need is relative to the mass of the object. Approximately fifty grams per hundred kilos."

"Okay."

"All yours, Jorge," I said.

"Why did that woman pay a million dollars per tank when you can duplicate them for a hundred thousand?" He asked.

"I don't know and really don't care," I shrugged. "If Miranda wants to feed the world, more power to her. If she wants to make weapons, then she's going to be sorely disappointed."

"I certainly hope so," Jorge sighed. He let out a string of invective in Spanish and two of his guys came into the shop. He pointed to the trailer holding the tank I had just finished converting and they wheeled it out. "Thanks again, Jaci. It will get some good use."

"You're welcome," I gave him a hug. "Drive safely."

"You too."

Pete managed to duplicate my conversion without a hitch. "You know, I don't think I'll be spreading that around. You've got me thinking about someone misusing it."

"I trust you to make the right decision, Pete," I said. "Help me wheel this out of here."

Once we had the trailer hitched to my truck, Pete hopped into the cab. We rode toward my house in relative silence, my mind churning through the exchange. Gabrielle hadn't said word one to me since I was served, not unusual for divorces, I guessed. The closest thing to a reaction I had gotten from her was when Francine had handed me the check. I think that by handing me the check, Francine was showing Gabrielle that I had the power to stop the whole transaction.

"Jaci!" Pete yelled. But it was already too late. The interchange I was going through at seventy miles an hour was only engineered for forty-five. I left the ramp like a truck in a stunt and went up through the air. If I would have had just the truck I would have been fine. The trailer I was towing decided our fate. The mass at the center of the trailer skewed my trajectory and pulled me right over the arrestor wires. Immortal or no, falling twelve stories in six tons of vehicle and trailer is more than enough to squish your brains.