Ryan looked at Ward with the patience of someone explaining something for the second time.
"I told you yesterday. The core technology is the neural link. A floating neural connection system that interfaces the pilot's nervous system directly with the mech's control architecture. That's it. That's the secret."
Ward shook his head. "And I'm telling you — respectfully — that what you're describing cannot exist. Not at this level of fidelity. The best brain-machine interfaces on the planet can manage gross motor commands with a multi-second delay. What you demonstrated today is real-time, full-body motor translation with sub-millisecond latency. That's not a generational leap. That's—"
"Impossible. I know. I built it anyway."
Ward studied him. The kid wasn't defensive. Wasn't performing. He was just... stating facts, the way you'd tell someone the sky was blue.
"This matters more than you realize," Ward said. "Based on what we saw today, Scrapper would almost certainly qualify for a national priority research designation. I can practically guarantee it. Funding, resources, institutional support — all of it."
Hartley jumped in. "Forget the priority designation. Come to MIT. We'll get the president to authorize a dedicated research program for you. Annual budget north of ten million. Lab space, graduate assistants, access to every facility on campus."
The numbers hung in the air.
Ten million dollars a year. For a kid who hadn't started college. In the corner of the workshop, Tom Mercer's mouth had gone slightly slack. Lisa's hand had found his arm. Chloe was staring at the professors like they'd started speaking in tongues.
Tom had spent twenty-three years running a machining shop. In his best year, the business had cleared a hundred and forty thousand before taxes. Ten million dollars wasn't a number that belonged in his vocabulary. It was the kind of figure that existed in news articles about other people's lives.
Hartley wasn't finished. "And that's before any defense contracts come into play. If the neural link performs the way it did today under controlled conditions, DARPA will want in. Lincoln Lab will want in. You'll have more funding than you can spend."
Ryan let them talk. He'd expected this — had planned for it, in fact — but hearing the actual numbers spoken aloud by two MIT professors standing in his family's workshop was still a surreal experience. Like watching a chess game you'd been playing in your head suddenly manifest on a real board.
"I appreciate the offer," he said. "Both of you. But you still don't believe the neural link is real."
"We believe something is real," Ward said carefully. "We saw Scrapper move. We saw you control it. But the mechanism you're describing—"
"Then test it."
Hartley's eyes lit up. "Let us try it. Right now. I'll go up there myself—"
He was already moving toward the ladder. Ryan caught his arm.
"Professor. The neural link puts significant strain on the nervous system. It's manageable for young, healthy pilots, but the pressure scales with age. For someone your age, the load could cause real neurological damage. Headaches at best. Seizures at worst."
Hartley stopped.
"I'm not that old," he said, with the wounded dignity of a sixty-two-year-old who still ran 5Ks.
"Old enough that I'm not letting you up there. But here's what I'll propose: you find a volunteer. Someone young, healthy, no neurological conditions. A grad student, an undergrad, I don't care. They come here, they pilot Scrapper under controlled conditions, and you watch the whole thing. Neural link, real-time control, no tricks."
"And in exchange?"
Ryan smiled. He'd been waiting for this part.
"In exchange, I need materials. The neural link is degrading — bad materials, limited lifespan. I've got a parts list. Some of it's standard industrial. Some of it requires fabrication capabilities that only exist in the defense-industrial sector. I need your help sourcing it."
Ward and Hartley looked at each other. Then back at Ryan.
"Show us the list," Ward said.
Ryan's bedroom was exactly what you'd expect from a fourteen-year-old genius, which is to say it looked like a library had been detonated.
Books everywhere. Stacked on the desk, piled on the floor, crammed into shelves that had given up pretending to be organized. Textbooks, technical manuals, reference volumes — scattered across every horizontal surface with the casual entropy of someone who consumed information faster than they could file it.
Ward picked up the nearest stack and started reading spines.
Principles of Plasma Physics.
Laser Physics.
Solid-State Chemistry and Its Applications.
Advanced Thermodynamics.
Computational Fluid Dynamics.
He put them down and picked up another stack. More of the same — doctoral-level material spanning half a dozen disciplines. Physics, chemistry, materials science, computer engineering, biology, mathematics. Not the reading list of a high school student. Not even the reading list of a graduate student. This was the kind of library you'd find in the office of a polymath who'd been working across fields for decades.
"You read all of these?" Ward asked.
"You think I built a mech with high school physics?"
Ward laughed. Fair point.
Hartley had noticed something else. He was holding a copy of Principles of Thermodynamics for Aerospace Engineers, turning it over in his hands.
"This book's barely been opened," he said. "The spine isn't even cracked. Same with most of these — they look like they've been read once, maybe twice, and tossed aside."
Ryan shrugged. "Once is enough."
"Once is enough to learn doctoral-level plasma physics."
"I have an eidetic memory. I read something once, I know it."
Hartley looked at Ward. Ward looked at Hartley. They had the expression of men who'd reached the limit of what they were prepared to believe in one afternoon.
"Prove it," Hartley said.
He grabbed the aerospace thermodynamics textbook, flipped to a random page, and read aloud: "A stream of air at one atmosphere and twenty degrees Celsius with a mass of one kilogram undergoes reversible adiabatic mixing with a second stream at nine atmospheres and twenty degrees Celsius, also one kilogram. Find the resulting pressure of the mixed stream."
"Zero point five three," Ryan said, without hesitation.
Hartley blinked. "Show your work."
"That's the example problem on page seventy-eight. Bottom of the page."
Hartley looked down. Page seventy-eight. Bottom of the page.
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Pick another one," Ryan said.
They picked another one. Different book, different field — an organic chemistry problem. Ryan gave the answer and the page number. They tried a third. A fourth. Each time, Ryan responded instantly: answer first, then the exact location in the text, as if he were reading from a copy of the book projected inside his skull.
Ward quizzed him on material outside the books — problems from his own graduate coursework, questions that required cross-disciplinary synthesis. Ryan answered those too, working through the logic at a speed that made Ward feel like he was watching a computer process a query.
"How," Ward said finally. It wasn't really a question.
"I don't know," Ryan said. "I've been like this as long as I can remember. I've studied my own cognition extensively. MRI, EEG, neuropsych batteries — I've run everything I could get access to. No anomalies. No explanation. My brain just... works this way."
He tapped his temple. "I read it once. I know it forever. That's all I can tell you."
Ward sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
A fourteen-year-old. With eidetic memory. Who'd taught himself doctoral-level material across a dozen fields. Who'd built a functioning mech in a backyard workshop. Who'd invented a neural interface that the entire defense-industrial complex of the United States hadn't managed to produce.
Either the universe was playing an elaborate joke, or he was sitting in front of the most important scientific mind of the twenty-first century.
Ward was not a man who believed in jokes.