Today is the day that Blink Crest is to present his senior project. He is about to achieve his master's degree in Electrical Engineering. He has been very secretive of the project, so nobody knows what to expect.
Also in the class, and thus sitting in on the presentation, is Robert Russell, another student about to obtain a degree in Electrical Engineering. Russell comes from a very rich background, and is expecting to take over his multi-million dollar family-owned power company. Russell presented his project the day before on possible military uses of electricity. While it was quite impressive in the complexity of the solutions, its results were not optimal.
Into the studio came Blink, wheeling a cart with a black cloth draped over it. He made his way to the front of the room, faced the judges, and waited for silence. "Thank you for coming to my presentation" Blink began. "I expect that you won't be forgetting this particular presentation anytime soon, as it will without a doubt change the world forever."
Well, he had certainly gotten the judges attention. They were all professors who had already taught Blink, and thus knew to expect greatness from one of the brightness minds they had ever seen. The students, on the other hand, were mostly skeptical. A few of them visibly facepalmed.
Russell nonchalantly picked up his tablet pen and prepared to scribble notes. He had been recording all the technology presented in each presentation so far in order to develop anything worth using for his family business. While it was true that Russell had signed a form that bound him to not steal intellectual property, it was also true that he had enough money and ambition not to care.
Blink continued. "Let's start from the beginning. The purpose of this project was to create a very small yet highly efficient generator, for use in such things as construction projects in remote areas. I have constructed a protype of this generator. It is small and it is efficient." Blink pulled off the sheet to reveal a small black box that measured about 5 cm a side, sitting on top of another black curtain. "This right here will produce a megawatt of energy if you simply leave it in place."
The judges were stunned. The students were confused. Russell started scribbling furiously.
You may be wondering what it uses as an energy source. It's not the sun. It's not the wind. It is heat. This is not, however, a sterling engine, which I'm sure you are all familiar with." Blink turned the box 180 degrees to show that the back face of the box was missing, revealing the inner workings of the device.
"Any gaseous particle above zero Kelvin has heat. That means that it is travelling at a non-zero velocity. When the particles collide with the conduction matrix, they produce a current. Now normally, since the motion is random, the current is also random, and thus cancels out. But this conduction matrix is constructed to focus the current in a single output direction, no matter the point of impact or the input direction. The result is that energy is constantly being produced just from contact with the air."
"The conduction matrix achieves this goal by its structure. You may notice something slightly familiar about it. It is in fact a spherical diffraction pattern. This can easily be produced by using burning lasers to cut the matrix into a solid piece of conduction material."
"This small structure is able to produce a megawatt of energy because it is precise on the atomic scale. Every single atom that collides with it contributes to the power output. The only rival to this technology is nuclear energy, which of course, is not about to be unbanned."
"Now I will do a demonstration. I have brought with me an absurdly powerful tank engine." He took off the black cloth to reveal it. "It uses 600 KW, less than two thirds the capacity of this generator." He hooked up the generator and turned it on. The tank motor roared to life, deafening the audience. After a few seconds, Blink shut it off. "It works."
"So, in summary, I outperformed the efficiency and size constraints by developing this new technology. It is cheap to produce, and can operate almost anywhere. And it will change the world forever. Thank you."
The judges gave a thunderous applause, soon followed by the students. Everybody rushed up to the front to congratulate Blink. Russell sat calmly in his seat until the crowds poured out, thinking about how best to approach this. Once the professors had left, he went up to Blink and introduced himself.
"Hey Blink, great work. You are, without a doubt, one of the best engineers of our time. How would you like to work for my power company? We could start you out on 2 million dollars a year."
Blink regarded him emotionlessly for a second. "What, only two million? You know it's worth trillions!" He laughed, but quickly caught himself, resuming the cold stare. "Look, I know what you have been doing with that tablet for the past week. I know you have been planning to steal people's ideas. And I know that you will try to steal mine. I may not be able to stop you now, but I will, at some date, wreck your life if you fuck with me. You got that?"
Russell thought for a minute. "Well, at least I gave you the opportunity to be on my side. Remember that in the future." He quickly walked out of the room.
Once he was out of sight of the studio, he couldn't control his fear any more. He took off sprinting. His heart was pounding, his mind was racing. There was no way he was going to pass up stealing that technology. But he had to find a way to stop Blink.
For months, through many calls with his family and his lawyers, Russell formulated his plan, paying attention to every possible scenario. At the same time, he began developing the technology at his company.
Blink soon found his life was crumbling away. Russell's company had stolen his technology, and there was no way for him to fight it, due to the huge bureaucracy of the company. He tried to get employed by a rival company in order to develop an even more advanced version, but he was not even offered an interview. Russell had him blacklisted.
Blink knew that there was no way he was going to get into any large industry being blacklisted by Russell. Blink had underestimated the sheer undeniable influence of money. He decided that the only way to get out from under Russell's supervision was to disappear from public view.
He moved to a town in the slums and opened a junkyard. He scraped by year after year, using his extra money to but the materials he needed to experiment on new inventions. He also did a lot of community service for the town, and he became commonly known as "the good electrician." He became good friends with Jack, one of his young neighbors.
Meanwhile, Russell's company had taken over the world. After mass producing Blink's generators, they were able to undercut the prices of every other company, eventually buying them all out, and becoming a multi-trillion dollar business. But they didn't stop there. They proceeded to buy out all the politicians, and out-invest the military, creating their own personal strike force.
In five years, Russell had become a world dictator. By controlling the power grid, he could put down any revolts by simply cutting power to a city or region and sending in his strike force. There were reports from all over about the horrors being committed. When the strike force went in to a blackout zone, nothing was left alive. Women, children, even small animals and insects.
The slums were afraid of the power company. They were extorted on a daily basis, and could do nothing to combat it. Blink knew that there would be a riot soon, and that the slums would become a blackout zone shortly thereafter. Luckily, he had a plan.
Blink had spent the years inventing everything he needed to assault Russell. He had created a gun that electrically charged the bullets before they fired, delivering a deadly shock on impact. He also developed a laser vision system that allowed him to see in pitch black environments. This technology was far superior to that of Russell's strike force, which used illuminated night vision goggles and silenced weapons.
His most important invention were some magnetic boots. Since the electric grid went through every single building, this enabled blink to walk on walls, ceilings, and up buildings.
June 25th, it started. The lights all went out, and all that you could sense was agony and fear. You could hear it. You could smell it. You could taste it. You could feel it.
Blink was suited up and ready. He switched on his laser vision and began to walk through the slums. He saw some soldiers rushing into his neighbor's house. He ran after them, following inside. He looked around, and saw the residents of the house hiding behind a door. He silently walked over and opened the door, took them by the hand, and led them outside. They quickly went back to Blink's junkyard and into his secret bunker where many others were waiting.
"We saw them. A full unit, fanning out across town. They seem to be doing a circular sweep" said one of the newly rescued. "But Jack is still on the roof, he needs help."
"I'm on it" said Blink. He rushed out of the bunker, and saw that more soldiers were now looking through his junkyard. He snuck around the heaps of metal to behind the trio, and quickly dispatched them. Then he ran back towards his neighbor's house. Instead of entering from the ground, he rushed up the side of the building, coming onto the roof just in time to gun down two soldiers who were approaching the chimney tower. Jack must be inside. He jumped up and threw down his hand. He felt Jack's hand grasp his. After pulling Jack out, Blink said "what do you think you are doing? This isn't training anymore, you could have died!"
"Blink, there's another two units, and they are escorting something huge. I think it's the blackout device."
"Ah good, for a minute, I thought they might have forgotten it" said Blink, grinning. "Now go back to the-"
Blink detected footsteps. He quickly dropped a spherical object on the ground, grabbed Jack, and dashed off the roof. He immediately heard an explosion, followed by three thumps.
"Shit, they are going to be converging here soon" said Blink. "Get inside the bunker and activate the defenses."
Jack ran off and disappeared. The defenses, high-voltage tesla coils hidden in the junk piles, should keep the bunker safe. But nothing would be safe for long if he didn't disable the Blackout device.