I laughed. “Might have to force her down theaisle.”
He shrugged. “I’m okay withthat.”
As he stood, I put an arm around his shoulders. “Did the cuff work?” I whispered. No one had said anything and if it didn’t work, Damien was going to be pissed. They’d made some adjustments and basically rewritten the entire code that was stolen. We could have many nights ahead of us, testing the band until we found one thatworked.
Brisk grinned. “It more than worked, Kit. It’s going to change everything. This thing will end the DreamWars.”
A thrill went through me then, like being on a roller coaster and almostvomiting.
Maxine came up behind me. “Let’s do whatever we have to in order to get those cuffs out to the general population. They could save countlesslives.”
They could. They would. And it broke my heart that the government wanted them for themselves. For the rich and powerful, the educated and whoever else they deemed worthy enough tolive.
How darethey.
Chapter Fifteen
“Coffee is life,”Ronnie said next to me, while she downed her secondcup.
I snorted. Coffeewaslife, and it cost an arm and legtoo.
“You’re sure it worked? It didn’t feel too hot? Didn’t blast you back? Your arm isn’tsore?”
Damien was grilling Nox while looking at the feedback data on hiscomputer.
Nox shook his head. “Felt no more of a kick than I would with a shotgun. It must’ve blasted the hatchlings over fifty times in the time we were there and never got toohot.”
Damien was grinning. “Jer, look at this. Does this look right?” He pointed to a bunch of zeros and ones on thecomputer.
Jeremy glanced at it for all of five seconds. “Yep.”
Damien got up and started pacing. “Okay, here’s what we do. I’ll have the factory immediately start fabricating the cuffs and the plasma bricks. It’s the same technology, so the bricks should work as well. I’ve given the bricks a bigger power source and also a bigger cooling source since they’ll be working thehardest.”
“Can we help?” Iasked.
Damien pointed to me. “Yes! I’m going to need you to reach out to Santiago and his people. They’re going to receive the first shipment of plasma cuffs, and I need them to go on the news and talk all about them and how they work and where to buy them. Legally, I need to stay off thenews.”
I nodded. Santiago would kill to have the cuffs. “Consider itdone.”
Josephine stood. “I’ll talk to Billy and have him set up direct shipping from the Striker Industries website. We can have these cuffs drone-delivered to people all around the world within a couple hours of beingmade.”
Whoa. I wasn’t aware Josephine knew much about the familybusiness.
Damien nodded. “We need to get them out to as many people as quick as possible so the government doesn’t have time to shut it down. We also need to keep this mining site in Bisbee a secret for as long as we can, or they’ll just take it over by eminentdomain.”
I had no idea what eminent domain was, but it soundedbad.
“You got it.” Josephine bent to grab herphone.
“And Jo?” Damien called out to her as she turned to leave the room. “Make them free. Give the bands away for free. We’ll accept donations but… make ’emfree.”
Josephine’s mouth popped open as my heart nearly burst from my chest. “But the shareholders and the cost couldbankrupt—”
“Tell Billy to make them free,” he repeated with a bit moreforce.
Shenodded.
“Mr. Hansen, if I go bankrupt, you’ll still let me live here with you, won’t you?” He beamed that charming smile and I nearly melted. Saying he was going to make them free was one thing but doing it wasanother.
