Chapter Eleven, Interview And Names.

"Let's start with what our readers might be more interested in. As I was saying, with your unstable molecules, you have created a kind of clothing that, according to you, will grow with its wearer."

"That is the goal, yes." I answer succinctly.

"You were also saying that you were using recycled plastic as a source to create it. This made me think about all the different kinds of materials others clothes are made of. Let's put a hypothetical out there, that everyone buys your products and stops buying all the other kinds of clothes. How do you address the problem that all these clothes become waste, and all the materials and jobs surrounding those materials become useless for the former and useless for the latter?"

"Well, I said that we used recycled plastic to avoid creating waste, it would be irrational to not have taken that into account. We have used plastic because it was one of the cheapest materials available to us at that point, but we could use wool, latex, fur, polyester, etc., we just didn't have the available sources to do so. If one of our products is defective, it can be reused as the main material for another product. As for the jobs, while a machine transforms one product to another, all that goes around that is left to the human, so new jobs will be created. We could use automation to take our products in and out, but we won't, because that would create more pollution until all the electricity used on earth is renewable."

"But, these clothes, since the aim is for one person to only need three or four during their lifetime, it means that it will ultimately rely on a specific number, like 28 billion. Once you've created enough clothes for everyone, what will happen to the machines?"

"One good thing about unstable molecules is that it has just been discovered. Plastic was discovered over a 100 years ago, and we still find new uses for it. Clothing is just one application of this molecule, and that was just one person thinking about the uses. Now that my research is out there and the molecule has been proven to exist, the scientific community will look for other uses, and we won't be shy with providing the machines to those scientists to experiment." At this, Mr. Urich scribbled a few notes for a moment.

"Coming back to clothing. We discussed the hypothetical that everyone buys your suits. Do you think the brands and clothing industries will let you sell your clothes and destroy their multi million industry easily? I wouldn't go as far as asking if they would try to assassinate you but don't you think they will try to bury your product?"

"We actually have been contacted by a small number of them that wanted information about the app and the way it worked to create designs and sell them. We also received a huge number of threats as well. Including a couple of death threats. All of that was in the first twenty minutes after the conference. Also, while our suits can change shape, we can't yet turn them lighter or warmer, so you would need another type of clothing for summer or winter. For this we planned leaving it to the industry in place, just replacing their main material from what they used to unstable molecules."

"How would that work?"

"We first thought of creating everything ourselves, but we're a bunch of scientists. Not designers. So instead, we created a model of factory that could be used by other manufacturers. We'll be selling a few of those machines in the coming months. We would be selling our suit as a base model while their would still be competing products. Just using the same material. We will be releasing a creator package that includes the suite to create clothes and add features to them. We talked about smart clothing but it's still limited to two or three features. The main feature of our suit is its ability to change models through a connection point. All basic clothes we'll be making are also machine washable and tear resistant. We can make some fireproof, odor absorbent, shock reducing, bulletproof to a degree, transpirant, breathable, water resistant, transparent, color changing, heating or chilling, etc. but not at the same time. We limit our models by adding the two we chose as basic to one more feature, but the other sellers might choose different feature combinations. We don't want to destroy an industry or competition, but shift their practices to be more eco-responsible and use a truly economical material."

"I don't think they will take it that way, and the threats seem to indicate that."

"That's true, but it was my second ever press conference, and as you said earlier, it wasn't much of a conference. I forgot to say a lot of points that should have been said. I'm banking on your interview not being too overtly redacted and cut, haha." We laugh a bit. "But more seriously, We'll be releasing a statement concerning all the good points you've just underlined on our website after your interview is published. Hopefully tomorrow morning. I'll also take a few more interviews in the coming week to address further questions. We'll be meeting a number of industry professionals as well."

"Thank you for the exclusive. Now, you've so far created an autonomous flying electric car, a clothing that changes shape with the click of a button, and a device to detect all kinds of radiations. How can you explain the width between all of these inventions?"

"The car was because we had an idea that would have been pretty cost-effective. The clothing was to answer a scientific interrogation. The radiation detecting device was because, a few months ago, my team and I suffered an incident during an experiment, and we got hit by radiation, but we didn't know until recently. With the help of Dr. Langkowski, we created a device to let us know which radiation it was and help us figure a way to cure us. The result is this RDD. We have a lot of inventions in mind, some of them centered around our team member's specialties, some from the entire team."

"Can you give me an insight into what those might be?"

"The next two inventions probably won't be as controversial as the suit. That's all I can tell you."

"I'll take it. Thank you for your time, Dr. Richards." He cuts the recorder.

"As I told you, I'm no doctor yet." we rise from the chairs.

"I know, but it should be coming up pretty soon. I'm sure they were just dubious concerning your research, but with the end product in hand they won't be able to say that it's bullcr*p. I've talked to my editor, and he agreed to delay the print till I've given my piece, so the interview should be published by tomorrow morning. I just need to get to work to get someone to help me put in the form. Thank you again for your time."

"And thank you for your questions, they were most revealing as to the fact that we need an assistant in communication to prevent that fiasco again. I'll take you to the door." I say, accompanying him and chit-chatting about his various articles, including the one about the Harlem Terror a few years ago. After that, I went back to the team to talk about the interview and the next steps to follow.

Preparing ourselves for what was to come, we invited Hogarth to the table, as our lawyer. At that point we would definitely need a good one. The few couple of weeks after that were hectic, the team working on their stuff while leaving me to deal with all the executive decisions and installation or re-purposing of factories. The good thing was that after the interview and more details were revealed, we received noticeably fewer threats. The bad thing was I kept getting overworked.

Finally, late into October, I was pretty much done with setting everything up, and the suits were starting to sell. The uniforms were another thing, and was going to take longer because of the importance of the product. No one wanted to get rushed product, but everyone wanted it now, so it was a bit more complicated. We were chilling in the lounge after a long sparring session, watching The Empire Strikes Back, one of the things Cap had to catch up on, when Alfred interrupted the movie.

"Excuse me, everyone, I think you should see that." He said, pausing the movie and showing the news, with videos of a battle between what the anchorman was calling two men in iron suits. "By the information available, it would seem that the red suit is Tony Stark while the darker one is Obediah Stane." The four of us look at each other, while Steve is glued to the screen, muttering about Starks and their technology.

"So this is where Nat went…" Ben said.

"Right. I should get going as well. I'll see you guys later," Steve follows, leaving the room in a rush.

"That's quite shocking… I mean, you told us about it, but…" Sue says.

"Right. That's the first time a major event you predicted would happen actually… happened…" Johnny continues;

"It's… quite the wake up call." Ben finishes.

"Right. That's true. Well, now you know it's not all mambo jambo anymore. It also shows that the timeline is still en route and that major events should still happen." I say. "How close are you two from finishing the device you've been working on?"

"We're not quite there yet. It uses tremendous amounts of energy. The only thing we can think of to power it is the Arc reactor you told us about. We would need about 1.3 Gigajoules per building. It's extremely inefficient for now. It works, but it's a waste of power."

"Alright, good. Keep working on it occasionally, make it a secondary objective until I can contact Tony to let us borrow some, or work with us to better it. Try to find something else in the meantime as a main project. Sue?"

"I'm basically done. The materials are a bit expensive though, so unless we find a cheaper alternative it won't be as accessible as I had hoped."

"We'll check it out. Alfred will also look into it, I'm sure it can extrapolate and do a lot of simulation using different materials and alloys."

"Already on it, Sir." Alfred adds.

"Good. I'm going to check on your servers and the original machine, to see if I can find out what happened."

"You don't want to see how the fight ends?" Johnny asks.

"I already know…" I say, leaving them in the lounge. Armed with renewed motivation, I get to work to examine the changes made by the unstable molecule machine to the electronics inside of Alfred's servers. During that time, he isolates whatever I'm working on from the rest to make sure nothing happens to him. If I can understand the changes, maybe I'll unlock a new use for the machine, even solve the guys' power deficiency problem. After all, Alfred should be using much more power than is actually the case. And I do mean a lot more. His mensual consumption is around 10 times less than it should be. Instead of 12 MW, he's currently running around 1.3 MW at peak. If I can find out what makes that happen, I can try and apply it to all things reliant on energy. And that's just the energy part. When the machine was on, the improvement was constant. Its power consumption as well as processing were improving.

After a while, Sue comes in to try and convince me to stop a bit. When I ask her why, Alfred tells me the date. I had been working on it for 20 hours straight. She tells me that Stark called a press conference and revealed itself to the world, as I had told them in advance. I feel so close to understanding what made the part I was working on change, but I understand that my body and mind need rest. I follow her to sleep a bit. Two days later, I'm back to it. I slept for a while, but the next day I went to train, using my powers so as to avoid a relapse, as Alfred warned me that my radiation level was a bit high.

Finally, I make a small breakthrough. I found out that a part of the circuitry which was originally copper has changed. Analyzing it, it seems to be a new kind of metal, an alloy between copper and whatever the machine made. This alloy is the key for the energy and processing power. It makes information goes a tiny bit faster than using fiber optic, but also losing much less energy than a normal copper wire. Testing it out, it seems that the delay is around 10 milliseconds and the energy loss is only about 0.3 to 0.5%.

"Alfred, turn on a new simulation matrice. Using copper wire as a base and what we know the end result is, try and find out the best parameters for the unstable molecule machine. If you need to experiment, I authorize you to test it out on the top floor, making sure that no one is three floors under it."

"Will do, Sir. We haven't named the alloy yet, do you have something in mind?"

"Not yet. It's not a creation for now. It's a discovery. Once we can make it, I'll probably name it unstable copper or something along those lines."

"I don't think you should name it such, the "unstable" part of the name wouldn't inspire people to trust it."

"Right. How about Alfium?"

"It would be an honor, Sir."

"Call me when you're done, I'm going to take a shower."

"I am, Sir. The simulation is done and stable at 99.987%. Shall I proceed with a sample?"

"Already? Alright, sure. Where's everyone?"

"Ms. and Mr. Storm are in Ms. Storm's lab, for a check-up. Mr. Grimm is in the guest lab."

"Call them, and tell Ben to bring a prototype for their device. We'll be testing the cable on it."

"Very well, Sir."

A few minutes later, the four of us are together, watching the video feed of the unstable molecule machine in the top floor. We're waiting for it to either blow up, change something it shouldn't, or finish the cable. Seconds later, we have our answer with a large noise. Or regular noise, except we were extremely silent during that time so the small *ding* the machine made when the cable was done appeared to us as a large noise.

"I'll get it!" says Johnny, flaming on and running to the window. He comes back a few seconds later with a roll of cable in his hands, which are no longer alight. While Ben and Johnny take most of the cable and line it up in their prototype, Sue and I take a small part of it to check it out.

"So you called Alfium because you discovered it in Alfred's circuits?"

"I mean, yes. I was originally going to call it unstable copper, but he said-"

"That's a terrible name. He was right." I sigh.

"If you want, we can market it as a more powerful optical cable, saying the name Alfium comes from Alfheim, home to the Light Elves, since optical cable conduct information near light speed. Since it's energy efficient and creates very little pollution, we can market it as an eco-responsible material. And knowing that in the legends Alfheim is a kingdom of enchanted forests and beautiful gardens, we can use a tree as a logo. Or we can even use the World Tree, Yggdrasill as a catch all, further dividing everything into nine categories, Alfheim being centered on ecology." A silence follows what I say. "What's going on? Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Sir, I think they are shocked by your ability to spin a terrible name into a great one," answers Alfred. "And I believe it would make more sense to call it as such as well. I don't care much about the recognition anyway, knowing that you had me in mind at first is good enough for me."

"Thanks. And thank you guys for the vote of confidence."

"Alfred, can you call Jeri Hogarth and tell her to create a subsidiary to Baxter Foundation, calling it Yggdrasill. I want that company to have nine branches as well, using the different Norse names for each of them. We'll do as Reed said and market the cable as Alfium using Alfheim as a brand. The logo will be the World Tree, and each product, depending on where they belong, will have their origin's symbol high-lighted on the logo." Sue asks Alfred. "I hope it's not too late to market the suit from one of them."

"Which one should we choose, professor Richards, specialist in Norse mythology?" says Johnny, sarcastically.

"Well for the firemen uniforms, you can decide between Jotunheim or Muspelheim, one is considered the Ice world, the other the Fire world. If you want protection against fire, then Jotun. If you want fire resistance, Muspel. For the police and military, let's go with Nidavellir, the Forge which created Gods' weapons and armors. For the normal suits Midgard should be fine, and we can go with Asgard for the luxury brands who associate with us. Is it alright with you, dear student of mine?" I ask sarcastically as well.

"Well, we should do Muspelheim for the firemen, that leaves us Jotunheim for cold resistant clothes, or winter wear." Sue says, choosing for us, before gently slapping us both behind the head using her power. "And stop that, both of you."

"I'm done," says Ben, holding the completed prototype. "Shall we plug it in?"

"Alfred, monitor the power drain and compare it to the last prototype. Ben, whenever you're ready." Ben then takes a deep breath, takes a special multimeter and plugs the device, before turning it on.

"Estimating… 90… 100… 120… It's plateauing around 130 Megajoules. Congratulations Mr. Richards, you've invented a new metal alloy. Mr. Storm and Mr. Grimm, your device requires 10 times less power now, and the simulations shows that the shield it would create should be around 11% stronger." At that, we all celebrate. This alloy could potentially be used everywhere, communication, transport, energy, internet… and for a cheaper price. Alfred told me that during simulations, the original material didn't matter, we could turn plastic into alfium as easily as transforming copper. The applications of it are endless. Now, knowing that their device can potentially be powered by wind power instead of the arc reactor makes it actually viable. The whole group is ecstatic, until Sue wakes us up.

"Reed. We can't use it or publish it, yet."

"What? Why?" Johnny asks.

"We've miscalculated the impact of the suits, we can't do the same with this. If we received death threats for nudging one industry, what do you think would happen when we release this? I don't think a few death threats will be a problem, what could be a problem is the fact that they would actually try to kill us to get it this time. We need to think about this very carefully. Now we need allies. We can't do this on our own. We're making progress as the Baxter Foundation, but we're nowhere ready to tackle every industry in a big way. We need a chaperon, or several."

"Do you have someone in mind?" Ben asks. She sighs.

"I have a couple of ideas, but we need to think about it. Let's call Jeri to the table, she needs to be here as well." Sue says. "We'll talk more about it when she gets here. For now, let's celebrate a bit, this is a success after all…"