Chapter 89: Then Put My Name on It

Jeff called while Liam was walking out of his last class on Friday. For a moment, Liam looked at the name without answering, still trying to remember where he had parked. Then he moved away from the students gathering outside the entrance and accepted the call. After yesterday, discussing money with someone who wanted too much of it almost sounded pleasant.

“We’ve considered your concerns,” Jeff said.

“I’m listening.”

“The personal guarantee can be removed. The company would begin with a smaller facility, and we would adjust the expansion accordingly.”

“And the agreements with the other companies?”

“They’ll be included in the revised documents.”

Liam stopped beside a bench and set his bag down. Jeff continued explaining, mentioning changes to the schedule and the amount of stock the business would initially carry. There was no irritation in his voice. Apparently, saying no hadn’t destroyed the opportunity or caused John to lose interest in him. It had simply made them find another arrangement.

That should have pleased him more than it did.

“Would the Millers still control the storage and transport charges?”

“Those would be agreed in advance.”

“For how long?”

“That depends on the individual contract.”

Liam looked across the courtyard while a group of students passed him. He could spend another week asking questions, send another set of documents to Daniel, and eventually own a small part of something that required the Millers’ cooperation every time it needed to operate. A few days ago, he had been thinking about replacing them. Somehow, he had ended up negotiating the price of becoming dependent on them.

“I’m going to pass.”

Jeff went quiet.

“On the revised terms?”

“On this investment. I appreciate you reconsidering it, but it isn’t what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for?”

Liam rested a hand on his bag. His first instinct was to give a polite answer about keeping his options open. Then he thought about the recorder on the workbench, Alexandra’s drawings, and the customer whose lecture they had lost.

“Something I can help build.”

“You would be helping us build this.”

“I’d be supplying money. You already have people doing the rest.”

Jeff didn’t argue immediately. When he spoke again, his tone remained even, though the conversation had become noticeably shorter.

“If you change your mind, let me know.”

“I will. Thank you for the offer.”

Liam ended the call and stood there for another moment. Eight million dollars remained where it was. There was no reward notification, no congratulatory message, and no sudden proof that he had made the correct decision.

He picked up his bag anyway.

‘I don’t need to buy something just because they finally made it less annoying.’

Frank was less formal about it.

Liam found him waiting near Clara’s car when he arrived at Rider to meet her. Frank lifted a hand in greeting, then glanced at the coffee Liam was carrying.

“Tell me one of those is for me.”

“One is for Clara.”

“So the other one’s available.”

Liam handed it over before Frank could reach for it himself. Clara was still inside, finishing something with a classmate, and he had several minutes before she came out. Frank took a drink and leaned against the empty space beside the car without touching it.

“My father called.”

“That was fast.”

“He wanted to know whether I’d said something.”

“Did you?”

“Apparently not the right thing.”

Liam smiled, though Frank didn’t seem particularly upset. He asked whether the tour had put him off, and Liam told him it hadn’t. The facility had been useful to see. The business being offered simply wasn’t the business he had imagined buying into.

Frank nodded after a moment.

“Fair enough.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you want me to do? Hold your coffee hostage?”

“You already have it.”

“Then my negotiating position is excellent.”

Clara appeared before Liam could answer, walking toward them with her bag slipping down one shoulder. She took her cup from him, greeted Frank, and immediately asked whether they were discussing another purchase.

“No,” Liam said. “I turned one down.”

“Good. You’re running out of places to put things.”

Frank laughed and stepped away from the car. Before leaving, he told Liam the invitation to visit again still stood. There was no warning about disappointing his father and no suggestion that refusing the investment had ended their acquaintance.

Liam watched him go while Clara unlocked the doors.

He had spent so much time remembering what the Miller name meant in his previous life that he sometimes forgot Frank still had to do something himself before Liam could blame him for it.

Clara looked over the roof.

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah.”

They had lunch, and for once the conversation remained about things happening in front of them. Clara complained about a group assignment, showed him a picture Megan had sent from practice, and asked whether he could help move a chair at the apartment later. Liam agreed before asking how heavy it was.

Her smile made him reconsider.

“What chair?”

“You’ll see.”

‘There it is. The expensive part of lunch.’

Alexandra had finished the new recorder casing by the time Liam reached the workshop. It was slightly larger than the original, with enough room inside that closing the cover no longer required carefully holding a wire out of the way. She placed it in his hand before he had even put down his bag.

“Press it.”

He pressed the corner.

“Harder.”

“How much harder?”

“Like someone put it at the bottom of a bag.”

Liam looked at her, then at the plastic.

“You need to be more specific with me.”

She took it back before he could demonstrate why.

The improved units weren’t ready for another sale yet, but the first long recording had survived, and the power tests continued to work. Two more buyers had answered their inspection message. Alexandra had arranged times around their classes instead of promising everybody she would be available whenever they wanted.

Liam examined the revised assembly sheet while she explained the changes. There were photographs now, close enough to show where the wires belonged, and a separate space for recording each test result. Someone else could follow it without needing either of them standing over a shoulder.

That made him look up.

“Who’s this for?”

“The next person who builds one.”

“Were you planning to hire somebody?”

“I was planning not to explain the same mistake twice.”

He laughed and placed the sheet beside the recorder.

Then he finally claimed the reward he had left waiting.

The Divine Reserve Cell appeared in his hand beneath the edge of the table. It was a small dark block with two recessed contacts and no markings he recognized. He turned it over once before placing it on a clear section of the workbench.

Alexandra’s attention went straight to it.

“What’s that?”

“A power cell.”

“From where?”

“Something I want us to examine.”

She looked at him rather than the object.

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“I know.”

For several seconds, neither moved. Liam could have invented a supplier or said somebody had sent him a sample. Both would give her information she might later rely on, and he was beginning to dislike how often keeping his abilities private tempted him to make someone else’s work harder.

“I can’t explain where it came from yet,” he said. “If that means you don’t want to work on it, tell me.”

Alexandra considered him, then pulled her notebook closer.

“Can it explode?”

“I haven’t tested it.”

“Then we start there. Not with you plugging it into something.”

He moved his hand away from the contacts.

“That sounds reasonable.”

The first useful discovery was that the cell was empty.

Liam read the information from Material Analysis while Alexandra checked what she could with the workbench equipment. There was no convenient supply of energy waiting inside it, and the system’s explanation remained annoyingly clear. It stored what it was given. It didn’t create anything.

They began with a small input.

The cell accepted it.

Alexandra recorded the amount, watched the instruments, then asked him to adjust the output. Liam used the reward’s control while keeping his hand against the casing, and she leaned closer when the reading changed.

“Again.”

He changed it.

“And hold it there.”

They connected a small test load and watched the output remain steady. Nothing glowed. Nothing floated above the table. The cell sat where he had placed it, doing something that looked ordinary enough until Alexandra compared the measurements with its size.

She repeated the test before saying anything.

Then she reached for a different instrument.

Liam waited.

‘That face usually means I’m not getting home on time.’

“What capacity is it supposed to have?” she asked.

“I don’t have a number I’ve verified.”

“Who made the casing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can we open it?”

“Not today.”

She sat back, folding her arms.

“You’ve brought me a box full of questions.”

“I thought you liked those.”

“I like answers eventually.”

He smiled, but she didn’t return it immediately. Her eyes moved toward the recorder, then back to the cell. Liam could see her trying to decide whether this was an interesting afternoon or the beginning of something she would be expected to spend months understanding.

He pulled out the chair beside her.

“Then let’s talk about the work before we do more.”

Alexandra listened while he explained that he wanted to make the workshop into a real business. The recorders would stay small until the design and testing were ready. The cell would remain a separate research project. He could pay for equipment, parts, and somewhere better to work without requiring either product to make money immediately.

She stopped him when he mentioned hiring more people.

“Who decides what they work on?”

“We would.”

“And if we disagree?”

Liam opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Diane had asked him what part of the Miller business he would actually own. He had spent days refusing an arrangement where his money entered someone else’s operation without giving him enough say. Now Alexandra was asking what happened when it was her work going into his.

“We need to decide that before hiring them.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

She looked down at the notebook. For a moment, he thought she would ask for a higher wage. Instead, she turned back to the first page of the recorder redesign and placed her hand over it.

“I don’t want to build everything and find out later that I was only helping.”

“You wouldn’t be.”

“Then put my name on it.”

Liam looked at her.

“The designs,” she said. “The company, if we’re starting one together. Something that means I don’t have to ask whether I belong here every time it gets bigger.”

He thought about the money he had already given her, the help with her mother, and how easily he could have mistaken her gratitude for agreement to whatever he suggested next. Alexandra wasn’t asking him for another gift. She was asking what her work would mean once they stopped calling this a project.

“That’s fair.”

She watched him carefully.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Liam took out his phone, opened a blank note, and placed it between them.

“Write down what you want. Ownership, pay, who decides what. I’ll do the same. Then we get someone to explain what we missed.”

“I want someone I can ask questions without you sitting there.”

He nodded.

“Arrange it. Include that cost.”

Some of the tension finally left her shoulders. She picked up the pencil, hesitated, then pulled a fresh sheet from beneath the notebook rather than writing on his phone.

Liam let her.

On the other side of the bench, the test equipment continued drawing power from the small dark cell. For the first time that afternoon, neither of them was watching it.

Alexandra wrote her name at the top of the page slowly and looked towards him.

Then she slid it toward him.

“Your turn.”