There were two.
One from James and one from the DOD. She deleted the one from James and opened the other.
A quick skim had her dancing. “They agreed. They agreed to everything.”
“Congratulations. What kinds of things do they want you to build?”
That sucked a tiny bit of the joy out of it. “One of them is the project I was working on back in Sacramento.”
“The one the asshole tried to peddle?”
“That’s the one.”
“Can you tell me what it is? Or is it a secret?”
Tansy smiled. She trusted Sam as much as she trusted her brother Joe. And that meant she could tell him anything. “I can tell you the overview, just not the technical details.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Pretty sure I wouldn’t understand them, even if you did.”
Tansy doubted that. “I’m working on projecting a hologram with solar panels.”
He frowned at her. “That’s not what I was expecting. I was thinking more James Bond and Q.”
She nodded. “They want some of those too, but the solar projection is the priority.”
Sam continued to frown. “I don’t get it. What are they going to do with holograms?”
Tansy moved to the dining table and waved him over. “I’m working on making the hologram appear concrete. When you look at one, you usually see an aura. I need to eliminate that, and I want it to have depth and dense opacity.”
“English.”
“I want it to look real. Indistinguishable from its surroundings.”
Sam frowned at the objects on the table. “Is that possible?”
“Not yet.”
Another chuckle. She loved making him smile. Especially with the dark cloud currently over him.
“What’s the solar panel connection?”
Tansy waved at the roof. “Most buildings are difficult to conceal from above. They’re usually set in clearings. Even one like this has enough of a clearing around it that it’s easy to spot from a plane or helicopter. I want the hologram to cover the clearing and match its surroundings.”
Sam looked from her to the ceiling and back to the table. “And these bits and pieces can help you make that happen?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Most holograms are obvious from at least one angle. And they all require a fair amount of power. I’m trying to use the energy from the solar panels to run a continuous hologram. It would conceal the clearing and the building to the naked eye and there would be no obvious power drain to track.”
“Taking hiding in plain sight to the next level.”
“Exactly.”
Sam picked up some of the glass she was experimenting with and twirled it in his fingers. “And the asshole tried to sell it. Without it being complete. Without having a clue how it might work.”
Tansy wondered briefly about the latest email James had sent. Probably another plea to allow him to collaborate. Which meant he wanted to take credit for her work. And profit. Which was likely his primary motivation.
“Any more contact from him?”
Always to the heart of the matter. “None that I’ve opened.”