The first step is to hook Brief. They met the next morning in the campus café, surrounded by students, chalkboards and the soft hiss of the coffee machine. When Gero arrived, Brief was already buried in a stack of schematics, coffee cooling at his elbow. Gero slid into the seat across him.
« Dimensional compression again? » He asked.
Brief's face lit up instantly. « You have to see this. I've got preliminary model where a localised field can reduce effective volume by a factor of ten without increasing mass. Imagine a suitcase that holds a warehouse! »
« I am imagining, and I'm imagining how much power the field generators will need. »
Brief deflated a fraction. « Yes, yes. That's what the committee says too. Nice toy, Brief, but what powers it? A nuclear plant in your pocket? »
Gero tapped his fingers on the table.
« What if, you had a battery that didn't act like a battery? » Gero said slowly.
« What!? »
« Not a finite tank,» Gero continued. «A core that constantly recharges from its surroundings. Hight density, very low degradation, pulls trickles of energy from thermal, mechanical, EM sources. It won't be infinite, but it could be… persistent.»
Brief stared at him, eyes unfocused slightly as his brain raced along the possibility.
« How persistent? »
«Years, decades of stability, and that of course, with right materials.»
«The right materials,» Brief repeated. «Let me guess, very expensive and very rare and Ferbolg will lock you in a basement if you break too many?»
Gero smiled faintly. « Somewhere between expensive and please justify this to three committees. »
Brief sat back, tapping his pen against his teeth.
« If you could give me a core like that, » he said, « I could drastically shrink my field generator. No bulky external packs. Compression Capsules… » He stopped, seeming to saver the word.
« Would suddenly be plausible! »
Gero filed the phrase away. Compression capsules. The seed of a corporation that did not yet exist.
« Then let's help each other, we draft a joint materials request. Officially, the ferroelectric composites are for my autonomous core project and your field generators. Shared cost, shared testing, everyone wins! »
« And unofficially? » Asked Brief, one brow rising.
« Unofficially, » Gero said, « I get enough material to test domain stability for crazy recharge cycles. You get enough to push your compression fields to pass proof-of-concept. If it works we publish together. »
Brief's suspicion melted instantly at the word publish.
«You do realise this makes us look like we know what we are doing,» he said. «That's dangerous, Gero. They will have expectations!»
« It will be fine,: Gero said dryly. « Can you meet me in Nira's office at four? I'll bring the draft request. »
Brief grinned. « Drag our fearsome advisor into this too? Excellent, Four it is! »
The second step is naturally to sell the project to the university.
Professor Yasuhara's office was a cramped cave of papers and diagrams. She listened with her arms folded as Gero and Brief outlined their proposal.
«We are not asking for an unlimited supply, » said Gero, gesturing at the projected slide. « Just a pilot batch of x-17-class composites from Kyoumoto. The cost is eight million one hundred sixty thousand Zeni. But split between the joint innovation fund, my and Brief's thesis budget, and Ferbolg's contribution, it's more than manageable.»
Brief jumped in then. « We are not just chasing cool toys, Professor. His work on domain stability directly affects my ability to maintain compression fields without spiralling energy waste. If his cores improve, my generators shrink. We can publish a coherent story about autonomous, long-life core-field systems. »
« Grants love the word coherent.» Gero added.
Nira's gaze flicked between them.
« You're both in your final semester, » she said, « your preliminary data supports any of this now? »
Gero slid a different page forward, filled with graphs, fatigue curves, early test data from his smaller and cheaper composite runs. Slight but real improvements in charge retention. Modeled projections reaching much further.
«These are with suboptimal materials,» he said. «Low purity ceramics, budget constraints. The trend is there, x-17a grade composites will push us into a qualitatively different regime.»
Brief added: «And I've already replicated field compression at small volumes. It's inefficient now, but every fluctuation he eliminates in the core translates into less waste in my system.»
Nira watched them for another long moment, the edge of her mouth quirking up a bit.
«You two are dangerous when you team up,» she muttered. «Fine, I'll endorse the request and send it to the materials committee. Gero, you attach Ferbolg's co-funding letter. Brief, you keep your field generator diagrams just vague enough that they don't accuse you of trying to build a pocket black hole.»
«Those accusations were wildly exaggerated!» Briefs tried to protest.
Nira just raised a hand and said: «Shush!»
The third step consisted to motivate Ferbolg's bureaucracy.
Back at the company, Gero drafted the internal counterpart to the university request. This one was more strategic. He opened the internal procurement system and built a shared requisition for x-17 class composites. The request cited three separate Febrile projects then he attached a memo outlining cost savings of bulk purchasing, projected cross-project benefits, and a bullet point that made managers salivate:
« Preliminary nodding suggests a twenty to thirty percent increase in cell life over current designs. Long-term field data could support premium pricing and stronger negotiating positions with future military clients. »
He slipped on these military clients instead of naming any. No Red Ribbon yet, no need to summon demons by name. Finally he flagged the request to his division head, Haider Korr, with a note:
«Aligned with long-term strategy to specialise Ferbolg in durability-focused energy products ahead of emerging competitors."
Emerging competitors like whatever Brief would turn his future company into.
He hit send, and then he waited.
The following days approval arrived in layers.
First an e-mail from Nira: « Materials Committee approved. Kyoumoto batch x-17A authorised. Don't waste it. »
Then a second message from Ferbolg Procurement:
« Re: Composite Request- x-17A. After review, central purchasing department agrees for a trial order at reduced quantity. Any over-use will be charged to project codes A4, D2 and J-Univ. »
They cut his requested volume by twenty percent, but honestly he expected worse. Now it was enough to stash a third away for personal use. Now he can make two full-scale Stage 1 core prototypes, a handful of smaller test cells. And fill his personal stash. He printed the confirmations and held them in his hands for a moment, feeling a quiet satisfaction. In his old life, Gero had clawed his way to advanced materials trough decades of hard labor, slaving away to get enough credibility. He also had to make enormous compromises that slowed down his research. But in this life, Victor just convinced an university and a mid-tier company to hand over the precious materials and a science prize for free, using nothing more than honest data and careful lies of omission.
The shipment arrived on a gray rainy morning. The crate rolled into the university's joint lab, clacking over the threshold. A bored delivery agent signed it ove. Gero's and Biref's names were both on the manifest. They practically vibrated with excitement as they opened the seals.
Inside, carefully packed against impact, lay blocks and plates of the x-17A composite. Pale, with strange inner sheen, like bone crossed with pearl. Each one represented alot of money, and maybe it was a fifth of what Gero saw in his entire life before being executed by the androids.
Brief picked one up, whistling. « If I drop this, do we both cry or just you? »
« We both cry, » Gero said. « Then we raid Ferbolg's accounts. »
They laughed but Gero's grip on his own block was very careful. He could feel almost viscerally, the chain of consequences connected to these dull ceramic chunks, with them, he would build the first true auto-recharging and long-lasting core of this world. The energy market will be totally transformed, and it's monopoly will generate tons of Zeni! Once his financial safety will be assured…
In the future, a young man named Trunks would step out of a time machine into a world he though he understood. Here, decades earlier, a newly remade Dr. Gero began to ensure that when that day arrived, the rules of the game would already be different.
But Victor forgot about one thing: Dr.Gero's interpersonal relationships.
Hot Pizza's first stage assembled form looked almost modest, a cylinder the size of a thermos, composite shell etched with connection ports, it's interior packed with layered plates and a central core. They mounted it in a rig, hooked up the harvesters, and started the first long-cycle test. Charge, discharge, ambient trickle seeping back in. Numbers were steadily crawling across the monitor. By seven that evening, the curve looked promising, by eight, it looked better. Gero was leaning forward, fingers steepled, and observed the tiny fluctuations in internal polarisation settle into a stable pattern.
His phone buzzed on the edge of the desk, or more exactly the big foldable box that was called a cellular phone at that epoch. He even forgot he had one and permanently left it in the lab. He didn't look at it at all, but Brief did. « Uh I guess your phone is ringing. It may be important? »
« No, surely not. » Answered Gero.
He then processed to enter a command and the core entered a new cycle, harvesters shifted emphasis from thermal to EM noise.
« So you are not going? » Asked brief.
« What's the point of going anywhere right now? » Asked back a puzzled Gero. « Moreover the core's domain behaviour in the first twenty-four hours is non-repeatable, That's irreplaceable data, any conversation or activity I could have instead is meaningless.»
The phone vibrated a few more times before Gero actually put in in the closet, wrapped inside a coat. And once the tests were over, at bloody three of the morning, he finally checked what was going on with the phone.
He saw rivers of messages asking if he would come, asking if nothing unexpected happened to him etc, and.. erm… Gero had visibly planed a dinner with Vomi, the woman that would become the original's wife. But, eh, why would he need to date and marry that future outlaw that will work for the Red Rubon Army? Her name literally means vomit, it's a big no. He answered:
« I should have been clear earlier: I don't intend to continue this relationship. I have other priorities and they will not change. It's better if we stop here. »
He hit send and blocked her phone number.
Gero spent his time divided between his studies, thesis, and the lab. And soon enough it was time for the graduation.
The ceremony was boring though, every one was in robes, there were speeches, applause, he received two rolls of paper with his two PhD insides. He spent alot of time in the university to get more diplomas and masters, but it is the first time he went for the PhD, and had to make it count, so he followed a double cursus. He was twelve years older than Brief in fact. One could think at first that it made him lose a lot of time, but by completing some credit requirements, he was able to auto validate by default without a need to pass an exam on multiple redundant subjects, and a doctorate that should have taken eight years of study only took him three years instead.
After the ceremony, he exited the auditorium with the rest, his diplomas under his arm, already thinking about the meeting with Ferbolg's R&D head later that week.
« Gero! »
Brief's voice cut trough the crowd. He stood near a fountain in the courtyard, his own robe crooked, his mortarboard in Panchy's hands as she fussed with his collar. Her blonde hair was tied hight, her eyes tracking everything around them with quick and evaluations glances. She spotted Gero and smiled politely.
«Doctor.» She said. «Congratulations.»
«You didn't trip on the stairs, I'm mildly impressed.» Gero said to Brief.
« I planned the entire walk like a lab procedure, step one: don't fall. Step two: get diploma. Step three: endure parental photography. »
Pachy rolled her eyes affectionately at her fiancée's nonsense. She was used to that nonsensical banter between the two scientists. Then she turned that gaze to Gero, and the warmth in it was all gone.
« Can I borrow your colleague for a moment? » She asked Brief, not waiting for an answer. « Friend-of-a-friend business. »
Brief grimaced. « Is this about Vomi? »
«Yes. »
Gero suppressed a sight and decided to cut it short. « If you're about to ask for my side of the story, it's short : I don't care and it's over now. Nothing else to say. »
Her eyebrows rose. « You don't care!? She waited for you for an hour, at that café you both like, she thought that maybe you crashed your scooter or gotten stuck in some catastrophic lab meltdown, instead you were what? Watching numbers move? And you even dared to send her that damn message in the middle of the night! »
«Yes. And months later I still don't care, she will never be important to me, and yes I broke with her. It is over. »Brief made a strangled noise and said : « Well, you surely realise you went a bit overboard that time, you could at least pretend to feel bad? »
« Why? » Asked Gero. « I made a clean decision, dragging it out with apologies and half-truths would be worse for both of us. She now has the information she needs to stop wasting her time and she should move on. »
Panchy stared at him like he was a particularly interesting kind of insect.
« You know, » she said slowly, « most people end relationships with some basic courtesy. Meeting in person...»
« Sentiment doesn't scale, » Gero said. «What I'm working on does. I'm not going to compromise on that for the sake of being comfortable to be around.»
« You're despicable and selfish! »
Brief suddenly cut: « Could you stop talking about people like about vectors please? Pan, let's stop there, it is not a day for quarrels. »
« Fine. » She said. « Do us all a favour and now stay away from her, if she hears you talk like this it will make things even worse. And also stay away from all of my other friends. You are not… suited for them. »
« That was my plan, I'm not suited for anyone really. That leaves more room to occupations and subjects that matters. »
« Enjoy your problems that matter, » she said. « Some of us are going to go build things for people instead. »
« People will use my cores, » countered Gero, « They just don't get to vote on my private life decisions. »
« Okay okay! » Said Brief. « Graduation brawl is not on my checklist. Pan, we've got my parents waiting. Gero, all the best. »
They parted ways there: Brief and Panchy walked into a knot of family and future plans; Gero toward power and riches. Whatever emotional debris he left behind would settle without him.
A few days later, he was finally about to make a deal with Ferbolg. And it felt more real than a diploma.
Glass walls, a large and cold conference room, coffee, and his battery on the meeting table, in it's demonstrating casing, quietly doing the one thing it had been built to do: not die. Ms. Anzu, head of R&D, tapped the performance report with a perfectly manicured nail.
« Autonomous replenishment rate under energy sparse conditions is… frankly, ridiculous. I've had the other prototype tested by our own people and the degradation held without any issues. »
«It's designed for that,» Gero said. «everything else is negotiable, longevity isn't, but could be arranged for marketing purposes.»
Across from her, the CFO and a Legal rep watched him over steepled fingers and contract pages.
« As we discussed, Ferbolg is prepared to purchase the prototypes and their design and associated IP in exchange of two milliard eighty six million bonus of signing as head searcher and a full financed lab, which will, as well as the tools and building, be transferred to your name. You will get a Senior salary of sixty million Zenis, annually, as well as the yearly bonus in company's shares. You will also obtain five percent of annual gains resulting from the products developed in your lab. In exchange, you will be subjected to the exclusivity clause. » Confirmed the Legal representative.
« In other words, » the CFO added. « We found you, fictively employ you, so you keep doing what you are best at, so we can earn even more money and market share. »
It was exactly what Gero wanted. And he already had prepared even more advanced models that would satisfy the industry for two or three centuries. Even more if the humanity gets regularly erased by some monster spawning out of nowhere. He signed instantly, because before the appointment, the documents were already reviewed by his lawyers.
« Welcome to Ferbolg, Dr.gero. » said Ms.Anzu offering her hand, and he shook it.
He literally speed run a game Gero took decades to fail. Then he went to the waiting room, as a secretary would soon guide him to his lab, after a tour of the company's main building of course.
Brief came in as he was waiting, but Gero didn't display the contract, he kept it in his case.
« How'd it go? » Asked Brief.
« We have an understanding, they get to make and sell the batteries and I get a salary and a lab. »
Brief noted slowly, with some hope in his eyes. « Let's see what they offer for capsules then. »
Gero watched the couple enter the meeting room, but he already knew how it would go. The capsule technology wasn't even half baked yet, and it was too huge of a gamble for any company.Brief will have to rely purely on himself. And two hours later, as he was guided to the car by the secretary, he saw the same couple with disappointed and indignant faces.
« They didn't offer much, did they? »
« Congratulations, you can still read faces. » Said Panchy.
« They don't want the public to access it, right? »
Brief blinked. «Yes. That exactly. Which is not on their roadmap.»
«Then you'll have to make it alone, or nearly alone.»
«I'll manage.» Said Brief, some how managing to square his shoulders.
«Then we're both where we need to be.» Said Gero with some sarcasm.
Panchy's gaze sharpened at that, too furious to catch the meaning. « That's it? No sorry it didn't work out? No we'll collaborate anyway? »
« Yeah, you're on your own. I have nothing to win here. »
« You know, » said Briefs, « it's funny. When I first met you, I though that finally, I met someone who loves the work as much as I do. »
« I love the work, but working without a careful planing is useless. I wish you the best of luck. »
Then Gero left. On his way to the laboratory, he was already thinking about the next step.