Chapter 2 - The Machine in the ShedWendell had spent twenty minutes telling himself he was imagining it.
The handwriting couldn't be the same.
It couldn't.
He had buried that research eight years earlier.
The scientist who led it had disappeared from his company after a catastrophic laboratory accident.
The project had been terminated.
Every prototype had been destroyed.
At least that was what Wendell had been told.
“What's your father's name?” Wendell asked.
Jaylen's eyes moved toward him.
“Daniel Tate.”
Wendell froze.
Daniel.
For a second, the workshop disappeared.
Wendell remembered a laboratory.
White walls.
A forty-year-old engineer standing in front of a prototype battery.
Daniel Tate had been brilliant.
Brilliant enough to frighten people.
His idea had been simple in theory.
Create a compact energy unit that could absorb waste heat, convert it into usable electricity, and stabilize itself under changing loads.
If it worked, it could radically reduce storage losses.
It could change renewable energy economics.
But something had gone wrong.
A fire.
An explosion.
Daniel had been blamed.
Wendell had signed the termination papers himself.
Then Daniel vanished from the industry.
“Your father worked for Hayes Renewables,” Wendell said.
Jaylen stared at him.
“You knew him?”
“I knew of him.”
Jaylen's expression hardened.
“He used to say your name.”
“What did he say?”
“That you weren't like the others.”
Wendell frowned.
“What others?”
Jaylen didn't answer.
Instead, he walked to the machine.
“This is not the final version.”
Wendell looked at the device.
“What does it do?”
Jaylen switched on a small battery pack.
The copper coils began to hum.
A tiny display flickered.
Wendell watched the numbers.
Temperature.
Input.
Output.
Efficiency.
His breathing slowed.
“What efficiency are you getting?”
“Sixty-eight percent.”
Wendell stared.
“That isn't possible.”
Jaylen smiled.
“My dad said the same thing.”
“That's above anything my company has achieved.”
“I know.”
“Who else knows about this?”
Jaylen hesitated.
“My mom.”
“Anyone from Hayes Renewables?”
“No.”
Wendell took a slow breath.
“Good.”
Jaylen looked confused.
“Why?”
“Because I don't know who inside my company can be trusted.”
Jaylen studied him.
“You think someone stole my dad's work?”
“I think your father was working on something important.”
“He told me someone tried to take it.”
Wendell's eyes hardened.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Jaylen.”
“My dad said if anyone ever came asking about the machine, I was supposed to say I didn't build it.”
“Why?”
“Because the man who caused his accident might still be looking for it.”
The words landed heavily.
Wendell looked through the window.
His SUV waited outside.
For the first time, he didn't care about missing his meeting.
He cared about something else.
Something buried beneath the wreckage of an old corporate secret.
“Jaylen, your father didn't cause that accident.”
The boy's face went still.
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember the report.”
“You signed it.”
Wendell couldn't answer.
Jaylen pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
“My dad kept this.”
He handed it over.
Wendell unfolded it.
It was a photograph.
Daniel Tate standing in the Hayes Renewables laboratory.
Beside him stood Wendell.
And another man.
Richard Voss.
Wendell's current chief operating officer.
Wendell stared at the image.
Richard was smiling.
But behind the photograph was a handwritten sentence.
IF I DIE, DON'T TRUST RICHARD.
Wendell looked up sharply.
“Where did you get this?”
“My dad.”
“Does Richard know about you?”
“I don't think so.”
Wendell folded the photograph.
“Don't tell anyone about this machine.”
Jaylen nodded.
“What are you going to do?”
Wendell looked toward the road.
“Find out why your father died.”
Jaylen's expression didn't change.
But his voice did.
“Then you're going to need this.”
He pointed toward a metal box in the corner.
Wendell opened it.
Inside was a data drive.
And taped to its lid was one message:
PROJECT ORION — FINAL PROOF
Wendell stared.
Project Orion had officially never existed.
Yet someone had left proof behind.
And someone inside his company was already searching for it.
Because at that exact moment, seventeen miles away, a black sedan stopped beside a pay phone.
A man stepped out.
He made one call.
“Found the boy's house.”
A pause.
“No.”
May you like
He looked toward the distant trees.
“The machine is probably still there.”
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