Then he clicked back to the slo-mo simulation. This time Josh put a shield thing in front of each of the wolves. He hit a key and the blast began again, but this time the fire got really intense in front of the wolves, but then sheeted over them. Every single one of the team remained alive.
The simulation finished, and Josh looked up at Nero, hoping to see understanding. Nope. What he got was a slow, silent blink before Nero tapped the key.
The simulation started again, burned through, and once again, the team was left standing.
Again. And again. And again.
Over and over, he stared at what had never happened: a team who survived the attack.
“Stop torturing yourself,” Josh whispered as he tried to bring the laptop around. Nero grabbed his wrist, stopping him from touching the computer. “Nero—”
“Thank you,” Nero said, his voice cracking. Tears were shimmering in the guy’s eyes, and the air felt thick with emotion.
“I know it’s too late for them, but—”
Nero shook his head, cutting off Josh’s words. Then he pointed at the screen. “Build,” he ordered.
“It’s already cooking. I’ve made it as dense as I possibly can, but we need to test it.”
“There isn’t time. Make as much as you can. We’ll figure out the rest in the field.”
“No, you won’t.” Josh was horrified by the thought. Computer simulations were one thing, but actual tests were a thousand times better. “Besides, that’s not the only problem. The heat will be intense. The wolves will have to be covered head to toe in something heat-resistant.”
“Volcax.”
Josh’s stomach clenched at the mention of his father’s fabric. On some level, he’d always known that any type of fire protection would involve his father’s fabric. But to be faced now with the reality gave him a punch to the gut, because anything having to do with his father gave him that reaction.
“Yes.” No use denying the obvious. There wasn’t anything better. He should know—he’d spent years in the university trying to invent something better. “But the military has his stuff locked up tight. He can’t sell it to anyone else without risking prison.”
Nero shook his head. “He’ll give it to you. To his son.”
Josh snorted. “No, he won’t. He didn’t give the stuff to my brother, Bruce, and Bruce is a firefighter.”
Nero wasn’t listening. He had tapped the keyboard again and was watching his entire team survive. Josh sighed, his heart twisting in his chest. This was too much for his trainer/lover/alpha. He should have brought it to Captain M first. But he’d been so happy to have finally figured it out that he’d naturally gone to the one who cared the most. The onehecared about the most.
“Never mind,” he said as he pushed up from the bed. “I’ll go talk to—”
“I’m thinking,” Nero said as he grabbed Josh’s arm. “How do we deploy this? Is it just a digital arrow-like thing, like here?”
“I’ve got the specs.” He clicked on his design. “I put the compound on a lightweight structure. Think of it like a cone-shaped shield. Carry it to where you want it and plop it down.”
“Like a small shelter.”
“Yes.” Josh clicked over to some graphs that Nero didn’t bother reading. “You said you felt the buildup in energy right before the blast.”
“Yes. I was already shifting then, but it definitely took a few moments for the blast to go off.”
“This is a picture of what it looks like when Wiz shoots off a fireball. See the readings build here? My guess is that the right equipment can see the blast coming as much as twenty seconds before it goes.”
“Twenty seconds? A werewolf can cover a lot of distance in that time. If I can warn them ahead of time, then they can get behind the shield.”
“Exactly. Then the worst of the blast will shoot over everyone.”
“And your father’s fabric will keep us alive through the heat.”
Right. Except that they’d never get their hands on the fabric, but rather than repeat what he’d said before, Josh focused on the other complications. “Then there’s all the normal fire blast problems, plus a zillion other problems I haven’t thought of. But this is the beginning—”
“How long? How long do you need to get these shields built?”
