The Science Of Love: A Billionaire BWWM Romance (12 page)

Finally,
David decided the time had come to fly down to the Florida Keys and
see the pilot plant Dr. Simmons was building. If it was truly as
revolutionary as he promised, it might be something they could invest
in. If there was a way to make clean power for the future, he wanted
to be involved. David had taken his computer software company to
places no one had ever expected, was it so hard to believe he could
work miracles for the energy industry? And if he was the one to do
it, basing everything off what Jada had told him, what a boon it
could be for the future. Someone had once told David the limit to a
nation’s standard of living was the amount of energy available,
but there was no lower limit. He decided to fly to the island of St.
Matthew and see for himself what the good doctor was trying to
accomplish.Jada insisted she go with him. It was she who had found
the article which first alerted him to the work Simmons was doing
down in the Florida Keys. She was the one who explained to him the
whole concept of power by nuclear fusion. And it was her professor
who had told him that the project warranted further looking into.
Plus, she could talk the same language Simmons spoke when it came to
physics, David would be out of his league. And any aid he might take
down there with him would not have the same personal connection to
the project that she did.

David
was still concerned about her, even at the early stage of the
pregnancy, but he agreed to let her go with him. They decided to tell
everyone at David’s company and where she was teaching dance
that they were going to take a mini-honeymoon to the Caribbean for a
few days. They didn’t tell anyone the reason was to investigate
a nuclear power plant under development.

The
scientist who was working on the experimental plant had a strange
reputation. He was a diligent worker who had won many awards all
years he was employed by the government. He was organized in
everything he did and wore the same style of white suit every day.
Simmons was infamous for the quarrels he had with his colleges,
although he usually won the argument. He had a dedicated group of
followers around him, but was relentless on everyone who worked for
him. Although he had yet to produce any power from his experimental
plant, his break-down sheets on where the money went was detailed to
the point of insanity. An accountant had noted Dr. Simmons even
listed the cost of the private phone calls he made on the facility’s
land lines.

But
Simmons was still considered something of a divine being by the
people who worked for him. He never had a problem attracting interns
or laboratory help, many of who paid their own way down to his
laboratory and facility on the island. It was said that ten months of
working under Dr. Simmons equaled ten years’ experience
anywhere else.

After
telling him they would like to tour the facility with some ideas of
investing in his project by email, David and Jada left for the island
of St. Matthews. The island was officially US territory, although the
local population spoke a Caribbean
patois
version of English. The island was part of a group of small
territories America had bought from Britain at the close of World War
II. Most of the island survived on tourism, but there were a few
local industries, such as fishing and agriculture.

They
were forced to fly to Miami, and then take a smaller prop plane to
the island since the runway wasn’t big enough to accommodate
large passenger jets. They found the flight to St. Matthews bumpy and
annoying but there wasn’t much they could do. They had a small
room booked at a hotel near the facility and off the usual tourist
areas. It was a quiet little place, but the beach was visible from
their floor.

Jada
dropped her luggage in the middle of the floor after David had paid
the cab driver. The room was painted in pastel colors to make it seem
festive. David pulled out his tablet computer, got a Wi-Fi connection
and checked his email. The famous Dr. Simmons had yet to answer their
latest email. He had initially agreed to let them tour his lab, but
only if they were escorted everywhere they went.

“
Man
really knows how to attract investors,” David said while
searching for any new email. He looked over at Jada, who had stripped
down and was headed into the shower. Their sex life had diminished
rapidly the further along her pregnancy had progressed. He still
wanted to be with her as much as possible, just that they had to be
careful. He was even more excited than his new wife about the arrival
of a baby. David was constantly looking at baby furniture on the
internet with her.

David
brought up another book on the Tokamak reactor system he was reading
on the tablet. There had been some breakthrough on the process over
the past few years, but the magnetic field used still couldn’t
hold the hydrogen together long enough to start the fusion reaction.
Until it could be done the whole concept was still speculation. This
is where Dr. Simmons was making his big claims.

There
was a knock on the door and David went to see who it was. He looked
through the peep hole and saw a young blond man with a hurried look
on his face. He opened the door and asked the man who he was.

“
Jason
Starcom, Mr. Smith,” he told him. “Dr. Simmons has sent
me to come and take you to his laboratory.”

“
My
wife is the shower, you’ll have to give us a few minutes,”
David told him.

“
I’ll
wait in the car,” Jason told him. “Please be quick, Dr.
Simmons doesn’t like it when people delay for too long.”

Jada
came out of the shower with the towel wrapped around her. She looked
around for her husband who was coming back inside the hotel room,
shutting the door behind him.

“
We
have to go,” he told her. “Now.”

“
Why?”
she asked. “We just arrived.”

“
Simmons
wants to see us,” he told her. “He’s ready to show
us the reactor and has this thing about people being on his time. His
driver is down in the parking lot waiting for us.”

“
You
sure it’s really his driver?
“Yes. I looked him up on
line. Simmons even sent an email just now telling me he would be
coming.”

Jada
shrugged and went to put on her dress. She’d laid one with
tropical colors out on the bed and quickly struggled into it. She
checked her reflection in the mirror and fixed her face the best she
could. Her hair wasn’t even worth bothering with the little
time she had; David was going to braid it for her again, but now they
didn’t have the time. She slipped on her sandals and went to
the door where David was waiting for her.

David
looked down at her choice of footwear and shook his head.

“
That
won’t do,” he told her. “We might end up touring
the plant or whatever he’s got out there. Put on some heels or
at least some shoes without open toes.” Jada went back to the
luggage and changed her sandals for some casual flat-soled shoes,
similar to the ones David wore.

David
took Jada’s hand and walked down to the parking lot with her.
The sun was high in the sky and sending down wave after wave of heat
to bake the ground. Sand was everywhere, extending up to the parking
lot and out to all the beach side residences. St. Matthews was a
popular tourist spot for many people from the upper forty-eight
states and many of them where down here to escape the chilly weather
of the early spring. It had been a rough winter and the island had
done a good amount of business.

Jason
was sitting behind the wheel of the jeep he had brought to take them
to Simmons’ laboratory. David could tell the young man was
nervous. He looked to be German in ancestry, although David could not
tell because he spoke standard Midwestern English. He wore a loose
fitting shirt and casual shoes and was babbling over a cell phone
when they walked up to the jeep.

“
Oh!”
he exclaimed into the phone upon seeing them. “They just walked
up to the jeep. I’ll have them to you as soon as I can.”
Then he put down the phone and started the engine.

David
and Jada slipped into the back of the jeep and Jason began pulling
out of the parking lot.

“
That
was The Chief,” he told them. “He wanted to know how long
it would take for you to arrive. Sorry, but he gets a little antsy
when things don’t happen on time.”

The jeep
began bouncing down the road. Most of the road was in good shape, but
the suspension on the jeep, an older model, left much to be desired.
It was obvious Jason was trying to get them to Simmons’ place
as quick as he could drive. He kept checking the speedometer and
looking around for police cars.

“
Easy,”
David told him. “My wife is pregnant. She’s still in the
early stages, we need to be careful.”

Jason
slowed the jeep down a bit. “I’ll keep that in mind. Be
sure to tell Dr. Simmons. Just about everything in there is shielded,
but you won’t want to go too close to experimental reactor.

David
gave her an “I-told-you-so” look and the jeep continued
to spin down the road.

Simmons
had created his own corporation on the island: Simtronics, INC. He
had himself as chief stockholder and chairman of the board. The laws
governing the creation of a sub-chapter S corporation made it
impossible to staff the BOD with family members, or he would have
done it. He had two of his sons, each of whom held PhD’s in the
hard sciences, working for him and his wife handling the money as
Chief Financial Officer. The rest of the BOD was filled with
investors he had convinced to give him the money needed to begin the
construction of his pilot plant to produce electricity by using
nuclear fusion. At one point he had considered floating a penny stock
option, but he wanted to make his corporation appear as legitimate as
possible. The last thing he wanted to happen was to be accused of
creating a fake company as a means to run off with his investors’
money.

The
interns and outside employees who worked for him lived in a small
bunk house he’d build out of surplus military trailers on the
grounds of his facility. The main part of the production area and his
laboratory was housed in a Quonset hut attached to a concrete block
building. The entire facility had been picked up cheap from a fruit
exporter who had gone bankrupt when it was discovered the place was a
front for cannabis harvesting. The laws hadn’t been adjusted at
the time for medical use and the DEA had impounded everything. They
still kept a close watch on what he was doing and stopped by every
other month to look at his laboratory and pilot plant.

The jeep
pulled into a graveled parking lot and Jason offered to help them
out, but David waved him away, preferring to take Jada’s hand
by himself. She wasn’t having too much trouble at this stage,
but he was over-protective as it was their first child. He held her
hand as they walked up to the main building which was located right
next to the hut. David noted an electrical substation next to the
facility; obviously the good doctor hadn’t found the right way
to make electricity if he was still paying the power company.

No one
came out to greet them and Jason took them into the building. There
was a glass door at the front which swung open to let them into a
waiting room, but the building lacked a receptionist or visitor’s
log. It was air-conditioned, a welcome relief to the outside heat
which was pegging close to a hundred. Jason asked them to have a seat
and he would go find The Chief. Jada and David sat down on a set of
chairs which looked to have been new back in 1980 and thumbed through
some out of date magazines. The paintings on the walls were faded and
had not been hung properly in the first place.

Jada
looked around at the lobby and turned to David. “Maybe he’s
spending all his money on equipment.”

Suddenly
the door burst open and it was Jason once again. He stood there
looking at them with sweat stains on his shirt. “Dr. Simmons
will see you now,” he told them.

Jason
led them through a warehouse filled with parts to a small office
connected to a conference room. They entered through a conference
room where a man in his forties, Simmons, had a set of plans
plastered across the table surrounded by computer tablets and
laptops. He was barking at a group of men and women around him, none
of whom looked older than twenty-five. Every single one of the people
who surrounded him appeared to be in a state of abject terror and was
not saying a word. A few of them were making notes on their tablets
and one was jotting things in a paper pad.

“
No
excuses!” the older man, who was wearing a blue shop jacket,
was yelling. “I said I don’t want to hear any excuses as
to why we can’t reach the magnetic flux it’s supposed to
be capable of reaching!” He shook a finger at a young man in a
white lab coat who appeared to be of Indian extraction. “You
told me it would hit the maximum limit the first day of operation! We
are
five
days into the
test and it’s not even at half! How do
you
explain that?”

The
young man began babbling a series of technical monologues, but the
older man interrupted him.

“
Just
get it done or go back to the damn college where I found you!”
he yelled. “And enjoy the next twenty years of trying to get
tenure! Now all of you get out of my sight!”