The meeting quickly devolved into everybody talking at the same time, excitedly shouting ideas about what we could use the cold fusion tech for.

It took Michael several tries to get it back under control before he finally managed it.

“Yes, I understand we are all excited about the possibilities, but let’s calm down, ok? And speak one after the other.”

Slowly, the furor slowed down, and then Michael pointed at Alena to go first.

“What exactly are the limits of those cold fusion things? How small can we make them?”

While she looked at Michael, the question was clearly directed at me, so I answered:

“Quite small, I think. We should be able to make one into a cube with around 10cm edge length. That would produce around…” I sent a message to Warden to calculate the power of those small CFRs, and then read her answer:”… 3.7kW, for around 4 hours. Naturally, it will run longer if less power is used.”

Kenneth nodded slowly.

“So, roughly the size of a battery pack for power tools. And those are generally around 500 Watthours, not the 14.8kWh of this pack. I assume the re… charging? Well, the recharging is quick?”

I sighed.

“Refilling. And that depends. You need substantial pressure to get enough distilled water into it. We would need to sell a specialized tool to do it, but after that… a couple of minutes maybe.”

“So… if we sell them as replacements for those battery packs, they would run for nearly 30 times as long as the real battery packs and would be ready for use after a couple of minutes instead of half a day… sounds like a good product for workshops, either professional or hobbyists.

Maybe we could design a few disruptor-based tools as well.”

James rubbed his chin.

“We could also create something like a grav pallet jack. Heck, that would help us in manufacturing as well. Well, in some places at least.”

Michael nodded at James before Naveen spoke softly:

“I think we all realize that the obvious use case is weapons as well. With this technology, energy hand weapons will finally become viable. Heck, I can only imagine the first time a grunt uses a handheld grav gun.”

I shook my head.

“Not possible. Remember, the grav gun needs the grav vortex. And a handgun with a 100m long ‘barrel’ is just stupid. And thanks to the pretty blue shining vortex, the only realistic application, sniper rifles, are out as well. But you could get something like a scaled-down Chalybs Imber, or a plasma cannon… maybe we could make a handheld PAC as well.”

“I thought more about a laser, you know?”

I could not suppress a sigh.

“What is it with lasers that has people so hot on them? Lasers are anything but suited for infantry. You need to put the beam on the same spot for several seconds to burn through armor. Or flesh. I mean, sure, we can build them if you really want to, but they are essentially useless.”

Only then did I notice his smile, and realize that he had pulled my leg on it. Well played, Naveen, well played.

He then continued:

“The other obvious use cases for cold fusion are power packs for power armor and our bots. The military ones as well as the industrial ones. We should also integrate a few of them into the Valkyre, and any other vehicle we develop.”

That let Tiffany pipe up:

“Yeah, maybe we can get rid of all those stinky fuel-burning cars now?”

Only for Maynard to wince and shake his head.

“I would prefer we didn’t do that, honestly.”

That made Tiffany look at him astonished.

“Why wouldn’t you want that? Those cars are a pest.”

“Because they produce carbon dioxide. And we are already precariously close to the lower limit of it. Much less, and it becomes seriously dangerous.”

The expression on Tiffany’s face was actually pretty funny, even though the topic Maynard was talking about was rather serious.

It was perfectly accentuated by her “Huh?” though it was obvious that she was not the only one not understanding what Maynard was talking about, as Marcel posed the question:

“Why is it becoming dangerous?”

Maynard sighed and then answered:

“Plants need to breathe too.”

“So what? There’s enough air around us. The algae tanks work just fine.”

For a moment, I was convinced that Maynard would scream at Marcel, but he held himself back, and after a few moments, answered only somewhat tensely:

“Plants don’t breathe oxygen. They breathe carbon dioxide. And they suffocate if the percentage of carbon dioxide is too low. And that is bad™.”

“Why? Do we honestly need all those plants?”

I rolled my eyes and snarked:

“You like to breathe, right?”

“Uh, yeah, but I breathe oxygen. Carbon dioxide is toxic for me.”

“Want to make a guess where all that oxygen you are breathing comes from? Come on, I give you three guesses.”

“The algae tanks? Come on, everybody knows that by now.”

“And the algae in the tanks are what?”

“Algae? What are trying to get at?”

“The algae are plants, you…”

I cut off before I said what I really wanted to say.

“The point is that if the CO2 levels fall below the critical limit, all the plants will die. When they die, the animals, including us humans, will use up the oxygen, and there will be no algae to replenish it.

There will also be no base of the food chain. If the plants die, we die.”

“But… I thought the algae tanks would keep the atmosphere in balance.”

Maynard shook his head tiredly.

“No, they keep the CO2 from building up to toxic levels and the oxygen levels to fall below the point where we can survive. Since the panic about CO2 in the early 21^st century, we have taken steps to reduce it. Unfortunately, those steps have been too successful.

We use atmospheric CO2 to generate the fuel that our cars burn back into CO2. We also use it to generate carbon for our industry. That is the reason why I vetoed us using sequestered CO2 for our carbon needs, and instead buy it from the space miners.

Shit, I would almost suggest that we capture a C-class asteroid and burn it piecemeal in the atmosphere.

Or mine for methane-clathrate in the oceans and burn that. Anything to push the concentration of CO2 up.”

Maggie stapled her fingers.

“Maybe we should try to get the next ICSC to work on it. It is the interest of all of us to make sure we survive.”

That caused Jessi to snort bitterly.

“Dream on. The bigwigs of the big corps only care for themselves. And they can survive in space habitats just fine.”

“But their customers can’t. Neither can their employees. Or their servants. If they don’t take care of Earth in that aspect, they won’t be bigwigs for long.”

Michael’s calm statement cut through the argument like a hot knife through butter, and he continued:

“We will introduce the topic, and I am sure we can count on Vandermeer at least to support us. After that, we will have to work on convincing the others, but it should be possible. In the interim, can we import CO2 from Venus?”

Maynard thought for a moment and then shrugged.

“Should be possible. We would need to build an orbital refinery around Venus and then have it shipped in frozen form. I think the C-class asteroid is the better option. Cheaper and more effective.

That is unless all the big corps help with the Venus plan.”

Michael nodded.

“Kenneth, I think that falls into your resort. Can you take care of it?”

“Sure, should be no problem. Just expensive.”

Alena snorted.

“We can afford it.”

After that, Michael brought the meeting back to the topic.

“Now, I am sure there are many uses for the cold fusion system. Many more than we can think about now. But I want to work with the various car manufacturers to bring affordable hovercars to the market.

And I want to build hoverbikes. Marcel, Maynard, can you take Vivian’s prototype and make it sexy?”

Marcel shrugged.

“Sure. Should be no problem. But… one question. I get that you are a bit grumpy because you can’t use your invention, but this is a bit extreme. Why are you so down about it.”

I rolled my eyes before I answered him:

“Because it is the closest we can come to being able to fly in the real world.”

“Flying? What about it?”

“Yes, flying. Don’t tell me you have not used the VR to try flying?”

When he and most of the others looked at me blankly, I rolled my eyes again.

“Seriously, you haven’t tried it yet? Why the heck? Whatever, you should try it. And the point here is that the old proverb ‘only flying is better’ is just true. And I wanted to fly in the real world. Not just in VR.”