The mathematicians giggled and the others were all grins. He unzipped the bag and lifted out the device.
Bryan’s face lit up. “Yes! I won the bet! I told you he was going to implement a static plate deflection system!”
“Sorry Bryan. It’s not a static plate deflection system,” Ben said with a grin. “It’s more elegant than that.” He pulled out his documentation and handed his notes to the woman they called Mare, which was apparently short for Mary. She was maybe 5′ 4″, had a head of brown curly hair that reached her shoulders and was pleasantly plump all over. She hid her soft hazel eyes behind serious black rimmed glasses. She checked over his math as he outlined how the device filtered the heavy particles from the air intake system. Eyes began to widen. It took him a good hour as he fielded questions along the way, to describe how it worked.
“Fuck! I have to see this in action.” Bryan blurted.
Mare held up her hand as she was still approving the math. Don looked at the group but everyone waited until she finally nodded. She passed the papers to the other woman, who they called Henri, short for Henrietta. Henri was taller at 5′ 10″ and rail slim with straight blond hair to mid back and sported vintage, jewel encrusted cat-eye framed glasses over her pale blue eyes. She conferred with Mare on one point then she nodded too. “Set up the test bed,” Henri said.
The men burst into motion. Two ran for the hazmat suits and two others moved to help them suit up. Bryan and his second in command, Gary, went to the control center outside of the radiation chamber and calibrated the test bench.
Ben carried the prototype to the entrance and Don followed with an excited smile on his face. He leaned over to whisper to Ben. “I didn’t follow half of what you were explaining but I haven’t seen them this excited since they discovered it was you who was working on their engineering board request.” Ben just shrugged with a smile. Inside he was squealing like a little girl again. His design was finally going to be tested in the physical conditions with the actual materials he’d designed it to filter. It should work but he couldn’t get this stuff at home. He patted the prototype. This would be the last time he got to handle the device. After it did its job it wouldn’t be safe to leave the chamber. It would take a long time to become contaminated to a level where it would be lethal from exposure but he couldn’t take it home. He turned to Don and handed him his phone.
“Could you take a picture of me with the prototype?”
Don grinned. “Sure.”
He took a couple and Ben thanked him as he reviewed them. Mare and Henri watched Bryan and Gary finish up the calibrations. They nodded and the two suited men went into the chamber, Ben handing the second man the device. The men went through the airlock to get inside.
Connecting it took some time as they wanted to ensure a perfect seal to get accurate readings.
Don was getting impatient as he didn’t know what was going on. When the men left the chamber and took off their suits everyone gathered in front of the control center. “What are we looking at? How will we know it’s working?” Don asked.
Bryan pointed to a number displayed on the control board. “The number on this display indicates the number of radioactive particles per million in the intake.” He pointed to a second number on the control board. “This will display the number of radioactive particles per million after the filter.”
They double checked the boards and everyone indicated they were ready to go. They started the test with the filter in a still environment, no movement or vibration that would normally be experienced in a truck. They started the intake with minimal dust and gradually turned up the concentration. They watched the post filter display. Virtually no contaminates got through even when they brought the levels up to three time their largest recorded level. The particles that did were barely registered, making their presence negligible. The team was all grins and Ben’s grin was widest of all. This proved his filter would work for stationary implementations of which he could think of many.
“Now we are going to add the vibration of the idling truck.” They ran through the test again and once again negligible contaminants were present in the filtered air. They reset the test bed.
“We are going to run the recorded movements of an actual truck going through its normal routine. This is the rough test. Hang on to your panties people, here we go!” Bryan said. The gimbals under the test bed added the recorded motions to the platform. The filter thumped, bumped, vibrated, jerked and bounced. The contaminant concentrations were automated as well to match the real conditions of the day the truck movements were recorded.
“Something got through! There was a surge!” Don exclaimed as the number of the filtered side jumped a little and settled back down.
“That’s ok. The levels are still well below danger levels. We could put the filter into a vibration dampening mount and this should eliminate the issue,” Gary suggested. The others began talking about how this could be implemented.
“So it’s a success?” Don asked.
“It’s a bit premature to break out the champagne but I can say it looks really good.” Bryan said. “We’ll keep running the tests. We’ll be able to give you a definitive answer by 6PM tonight.”
Ben wanted to continue watching the testing but Don gestured for him to follow as the man headed for the stairs.
Bryan caught Ben’s frustration and grinned. “Feel free to come back to watch once you’ve had your business talk,” he whispered to him.
Ben nodded and followed Don up the stairs and they took the elevator up to the top floor.
He led Ben to his office passing through the outer office with its empty assistant’s desk. Once inside his large corner office with its view he felt better. This was his domain. He was about to offer him a drink when he remembered Ben didn’t partake. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea, soft drink, juice, water?”
“Water would be great.”
He pressed a button on his phone. “Evie, could you bring Ben a cold bottle of water? In my office. Thanks!”
Ben raised an eyebrow.
“I, ah, had to let my secretary go. Haven’t found someone to replace her yet.” Don said gruffly, pouring himself a scotch. Ben noted the time was still 30 minutes shy of lunchtime.
“I take it you’ve patented that device you designed.” At Ben’s nod he nodded as well and they moved to the desk where he took his seat behind it and Ben took a chair in front. Evie arrived with his water and he thanked her and gave her a smile. She beamed back at him.
“Thanks, Evie. Close my door on your way out? Thanks!” Don said and the young woman left.
“I’ll get right to the point as I think we’re both men with little patience for bullshit.” He looked at Ben and saw he was listening. “Would you be interested in selling the patent?”
“No.”
“Alright. Do you have a manufacturer in mind?” Don continued.
“I do.”
The man frowned. His options for being involved in what his business nose was telling him was a potential gold mine were rapidly diminishing.
Ben saw the man desperately thinking of a way to get in on this deal. He thought of how he had to chase Sturn Manufacturing to improve their marketing. This might be something Blake could deal with.
“How good is your Sales and Marketing team?” he asked and the man’s eyes lit up.
When Don and Ben finally returned to ‘The Pit’ it was past 8pm and the engineering team was shutting their test bed down. The group was all smiles. Ben suppressed his pout at having missed all the fun stuff and returned their smile.
“Holy Shit Ben! That’s just the most fucking brilliant design I’ve ever seen! Even under extreme conditions the rate that gets through falls well below the danger levels. No government agency would fail these ratings! If we were to mount it on a vibration dampening system, the rate would drop even lower!” Bryan gushed and Gary nodded enthusiastically. They all looked hopefully at their boss who couldn’t suppress the grin.
“It’s going to be up to you sorry lot to think of inventive ways to use this design across all industries. Blake Enterprises, my newly formed company for which Mr. Shepherd here is a silent partner, is going to market and sell the hell out of these filters to any and all who has the need of them.”
“Who’s going to manufacture them?” Gary asked, looking at their inadequate milling tools.
“Sturn Manufacturing in Austin, Texas” Ben said. “They have top notch facilities but their sales and marketing isn’t so strong.”
“Are we getting out of the Uranium mining business boss?” Mare asked.
“Naah, just diversifying!” Don said with a grin. “We have a contract with Ben in principle and once the lawyers do their duties we’ll get started.”
A cheer went up and Ben grinned at all the happy faces. He’d been impressed by the sales and marketing teams he’d met upstairs so he and Don had knocked together a basic agreement. He recommended Don create a new company to handle this new business so it could be protected against market shifts in Blake Uranium. The man saw the wisdom in that and contacted his lawyer to get started on the paperwork. He invited Ben to be a silent partner for a fixed amount to be withdrawn against initial licensing fees. Ben explained his philosophy regarding his price scheme for licensing, valuing volume over exorbitant fees per unit for long term growth and stability and told him to speak with the CEO of Sturn Manufacturing for proof. Don was delighted.