Chapter 157: Chapter 156: What Is It?

We pull up in front of DTI a few minutes later, and Dad tells me, “You two wait here for a moment.” Exiting the vehicle, he walks over to a policeman and talks to him and then is pointed over to another group, which he heads to. Dad shakes hands with Katsuo, who’s talking to the group of policemen, and they talk for a few minutes. He walks back over, opens the door and tells us, “Come on. It’s safe. It seems that a graduate student from Tokyo University, who works as a part time researcher, was a little upset that his boss didn’t listen to him, so he disconnected the power from DTI to prove a point. I’ll let Katsuo explain it all to you.”

I shrug slightly and hold my questions until we reach Katsuo. He’s grinning like the cat who ate the canary as he tosses and catches something the size of a basketball. As we reach them, he tosses it to me and I catch it. It’s heavy, but not so heavy that I can’t easily hold it. I glance at it curiously and then back at him as I quirk an eyebrow, which he seems to find funny. He then stands there waiting while grinning at me.

I sigh and growl under my breath since he seems to want me to ask. I'll never understand why adults seem to like these kinds of games. “Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“Sora, you hold in your hands a power source. One powerful enough that it easily powered all of DTI.”

Holding it up, I look at it critically. “This little thing powered the whole campus?” He nods. “How much power does it take to run the campus?”

A man behind Katsuo says, “Roughly 60 megawatts.”

Katsuo moves aside and gestures to the man. “This is Daishi Hoga of Tokyo Electric.” I nod to him.

“When your researcher disconnected DTI from our grid he caused a large feedback into it that almost took out an entire substation. Thankfully, our AI caught it in time, shut it down momentarily and shunted the feedback.”

I look at him, hold up the ball and ask, “You’re telling me that this produces 60 megawatts?”

He shakes his head. “No, if you look there is a gauge on the side and it was reading 13.87% when we found it.”

I look at it again. “14%? That would mean that at maximum this could produce around 430 megawatts.”

He nods. “Approximately, and it wasn’t even warm to the touch when we disconnected it.”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate it if you and your people wouldn’t talk about this.” He nods again. “Is there any damage to your equipment?”

He shrugs. “Not really, other than him cutting the power lines to your campus, and we’ve already repaired that.”

I think for a moment. “If I pay all the costs your company incurred tonight, do you think you could not press charges against him?”

“I don’t think there would be a problem with that.”

“Thank you.” I delve into my purse and then hand him my card. “Have whoever get in contact with my secretary, Akari, and she’ll make all the arrangements.”

Taking my card, he replies, “Of course.”

“Where’s Mr. Ohta? I’d like to have a talk with him.”

Katsuo leads us to the security office where he’s being held at. He’s sitting down, handcuffed, and looking at the floor, seeming scared.

Turning to the national police captain. “Alright, it’s your turn. Since Tokyo Electric and we aren’t going to be pressing charges, are you planning on charging him with anything?”

“Most likely, since what he did falls under the terrorism act.”

I gasp dramatically to help make my point. “Captain Gaminashi, you must be joking!” He looks at me with a deadpan expression and I let out a sigh. “Seriously? Captain, in no way am I trying to tell you how to do your job, but he’s a graduate student and researcher, so I seriously doubt that he’s a terrorist! A little dumb in his approach to things, but I don’t believe he’s a threat. Nor do I believe that you think he is either. It’s apparent that this was an attempt to garner our attention for his project, which he definitely has. I’d be very appreciative if you could release him into our custody and drop this.”

After a bit of back and forth, and him calling his superior, he says, “Alright. Here’s where we stand. Commander Nakamura is willing to leave things alone and not charge him as long as nothing like this happens again.”

I look at Mitsuo and glare as I state, “I can promise you that this will never happen again. Isn’t that right?” He swallows hard and nods vigorously. He’s released and everyone begins clearing out. Once only DTI personnel are left, I state,“I want everyone involved with this in Katsuo’s office, now!”

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Without giving anyone a chance to reply, I turn on my heel and march over to the elevators and press the call button. Standing there, I impatiently tap my foot. If you can’t tell, I’m more than a bit irked at the situation, even if, at the same time, I’m rather excited by his invention. Basically, I don't know whether to kiss him or smack the hell out of him.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for all of us to gather in his office, where I ask, “Do you mind if I borrow your seat?”

Katsuo shakes his head and takes one of the side seats. Once everyone finds a seat. I close my eyes for a moment, take a deep breath, and slowly let it out. Opening my eyes a minute later, I focus on Mitsuo as I growl out, “Just what were you thinking? Did you even give a single thought to the damage you could have done both to the power grid and to the facilities here?”

He says, “I…” then closes his mouth and looks down.

“Mister, I have 57 billion yen invested in this facility. Our partner nations have another 400 billion or so and you somehow thought it was a good idea to endanger that, and it was for what? To prove a point? Good God! At least use the brains that I know you have since you were able to make something like this! If nothing else, you could have spoken to Katsuo. We have an open door policy for a reason!” Picking up the device, I hold it up. “What is this and what’s this all about?”

He murmurs, “I didn’t know about the open door policy.”

“You should have. It’s in your employment contract, but that isn’t answering my questions.”

He looks up at me and gestures to the device. “I got cold fusion to work using helium-3. What you hold is a 450 megawatt cold fusion reactor. According to my calculations, that device you’re holding can power a fair sized town all by itself for around 75 years all using 3900 mg of helium-3. No maintenance, no muss, no fuss, just clean energy and no dangerous byproducts. I brought this to Mr. Suda’s attention this morning and was basically told that they were exploring other methods, so it wasn’t needed. Ms. Kobayashi, I’ve been working towards this since I was 16, and for him to tell me that my life's work was basically worthless… Well, I’m sure you understand.”

I nod. I’d be upset too. “If your supervisor didn’t give you the time you wanted you have the right to bring the matter to his boss’s attention! I make sure that we have open door policies for a reason! Did he tell you why it wasn’t needed?” He shakes his head and I turn to Katsuo. “Get Suda in here, right now.” Katsuo nods and I look back to him, “To reiterate, what you should have done is made an appointment with his boss and brought this to his attention. For that matter, you could have asked to see Katsuo and he would have had to make the time to see you. You wouldn’t have gotten in trouble unless it was a waste of his time. Mitsuo, there are very good reasons I have these types of policies in my companies. There are always ones out there that let their egos get in the way of progress. I see us as an extended family, so I don’t tolerate that kind of thing.”

I settle back in the seat for a few moments as I think. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. One: you are never, ever to do anything like this again. Two: Katsuo is going to set you up in your own lab along with some assistants and engineers. Three: I want you to begin work on scaling up your reactors.” I look at the device and then toss it to him. “Take care of that. I’d like to see some 50 gigawatt reactors as soon as possible.

“Once you have working models and you have a good idea of their stability and longevity, then I’m going to talk to the government about your project and see about slowly replacing our power production with your reactors. Mitsuo, if this works out, you’re going to be a wealthy man.” His eyes widen in surprise, which makes me laugh and shake my head. “You truly didn’t read your employment contract, did you? Mister, you get 5% of the net profits when we sell your reactors. Alright, go home. Take today off and report to Katsuo tomorrow. He’ll have you set up with your own lab and staff by then.”

He leaves and Katsuo, my father and I are chatting about the reactor and possible uses beyond simple power generation. One of them being containment for the dark energy vessels. Mitsuo doesn't know it, but he may have just saved the dark energy project.

A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door and Katsuo calls out, “Come in.”

My eyes flash angrily when I see it’s Suda. I gesture to the chair in front of me, “Sit down. Do you know who I am?”

He nods. “You’re Sora Kobayashi and you own DTI.”

“Good, that makes this easier. Who gave you the authority to say that a project wasn’t needed?”

His mouth opens and closes for a few moments, then he finally says, “No one. I’d never do that.”

“Athena, is he lying?”

“Definitely, Sora.”

Angrier now that he lied to me, I stand, place my hands on the desk and lean across. “My reputation should have preceded me. Mr. Suda, I will not tolerate liars in my companies. You specifically told Mitsuo Ohta that his cold fusion project wasn’t needed, and that is unacceptable! Your response should have been to tell your boss of Mr. Ohta’s success and continued on with your work. Instead, you do that and nearly cost this corporation billions of yen, which I am quite sure you don’t have, to reimburse me for the damages… For the moment, you’re suspended. Katsuo will be pulling up the video of the incident. If the evidence shows that in fact you did tell him that his project wasn’t needed, you’re going to be fired for cause, which if you are unclear on the term, means that you will probably never hold more than a menial job again.”

His chagrin is plain as day as he plaintively asks, “Don’t you think that’s a little harsh for one offense?”

“I don’t know or even care how they run things elsewhere, but here, it’s my show and my rules. That should have been made absolutely clear to you when you were hired. Regardless, overreaching your authority, I can and would have forgiven. I’d have probably slapped you on the wrist and told you ‘bad boy’ or maybe even demoted you at most, but then you compounded your offense by lying to me. Mr. Suda, look at it this way. We have to be able to trust what you say, and if you’ll lie about something like this, then what will you do when it’s a major issue? Mr. Suda, your project is important to us, but your ego is writing checks that your ass can’t cash and we can’t have that here.” I glare at him for a few moments as he stares back at me angrily. Shrugging at his attitude, I tell him, “We’re done here. You’ll be informed of the results of the investigation.”

After he leaves, I look at Katsuo. “No matter how it turns out, I want him gone. He’s nothing more than a bomb that we’re playing hot potato with and no one knows when he’ll blow up to do some real damage. Furthermore, I want you to have an all employees meeting and clarify our open door policy. I do not want this happening again. You might also reiterate our stance on lying. I also want you to have HR review their psychological screening process.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. Alright, We’re going home. I have classes today. Have a good night, Katsuo.”

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