Reka's Point of View
Brad was only able to relax once final grades were in for the year. As she held his sleeping form Reka ruminated on her past behavior. Far too lax, she concluded.
Her boyfriend had gotten hurt because she wasn't proactive enough. Threats to his happiness would have to be anticipated and removed in advance, or better yet prevented entirely.
Now that Alex was out of the way, the department was short-handed and quite desperate so Reka could pick her own schedule. Naturally, she would be supervising as many of Brad's classes as possible: senior design and the nuclear fusion elective at a minimum. Furthermore, he'd be working directly under her at Stardust City this summer, operating the fuel injection machine as they tested different confinement crystal geometries.
Brad will never leave my sight, she thought with satisfaction.
Unfortunately, her magic box was running low on charges just now, what with need to punish the warlock in a timely manner. That whole operation had been hasty, and she nearly ran out of vials of Brad's seed to fuel her magic. Thankfully, she had just enough to puppet the soulless husk that was once Alex Kagan's body and order it to march back to its chambers like an automaton. It wouldn't do for the body to be discovered anywhere near her.
The electronic surveillance that proliferated this world was likewise problematic, but once Brad explained to her how it all worked it was not much effort to create a few blind spots so there would be no record of Alex coming or going.
Reka clutched Brad a little tighter. One more year, my love, and then we move on to the second phase.
All too soon, his eyelids fluttered open and a new day began. It was back to Stardust City for both of them.
Crystal confinement fusion, just a dubious theory until recently, was about to be tested for true. Every engineer there, Reka included, spent the day working with the thinking machines, generating unique geometric models that were supposed to contain and facilitate a sustained fusion reaction.
Reka named her thinking machine Galiban, after her butler at the Black Tower, an adequate servant if she recalled correctly.
"So this is what you do all day?" Brad asked.
The crystals were still being fabricated so he had nothing to do. The other engineers looked at her askance for keeping her boyfriend close at hand while doing design work, but none dared complain. These were not fool warlocks like Alex Kagan, but wizards and sorcerers with some sense, at least a sense of self-preservation.
"Indeed, I prompt Mr. Galiban here with a preliminary design and a list of specifications or parameters then faithful Galiban returns to me a series of proposals for review," she explained excitedly.
Ah, discussing magic with Brad is fine play. Everything was sweeter with him so near. Her boyfriend was coming along nicely in his development as a scholar and Reka could tell he mostly understood what she was speaking of.
"How do you choose between them?"
Reka smiled at his curiosity. "I take a few of the proposals that look promising and run simulations. Working at this level of precision requires an immense amount of numerological calculations, which Galiban can mostly handle, but there must always be an engineer to provide direction and keep the thinking machine on task."
Her boyfriend laughed. "You mean the AI gets distracted?"
"Exactly," Reka confirmed. Brad was so insightful. "The thinking machine is an agent of my will, but my will must be constantly clarified, lest resources are wasted computing irrelevancies. It is a ticklish process, but Galiban has been well-trained. He is as obedient as you," she said warmly.
Brad blushed, clearly taking the compliment in the spirit it was intended. "And what is your will now?"
She snaked an arm around his and pulled him close. "You know about the engineering tradeoffs, yes?" she asked quietly.
Brad nodded.
"A recursive lattice, I think, something that strikes a balance between stability and strength. My design focuses on stability to start. If the crystal can't hold together then all is lost, but I've tweaked the design just so. The crystal will collapse in an orderly and predictable fashion, binding the fuel more securely the longer the reaction goes on."
Reka knew she was stretching the physics of this world to the uttermost limit, and had little hope of success. Even so, she was confident her crystal would last much longer than her peers. Magical reinforcement of the crystal would be necessary for a long-term workable configuration, and charging her box would take time. Perhaps by the end of summer she might make a serious attempt.
A week later they were ready for the first real tests. Other crystals failed as she knew they would, either losing their structure instantly or failing to trigger a reaction at all.
On Friday it was finally Reka's turn. The great wizard Professor Rosen made a point of attending.
"No luck so far, but I think our brilliant Ms. Fekete can do better!" Rosen bragged about her to another senior wizard.
Reka was honestly flattered. She didn't know the wizard held such a high opinion of her.
Brad was wearing protective gear, a radiation suit that obscured his face, but thankfully his form was still visible as he stepped into the heavily-shielded reaction chamber.
"Test crystal forty three, begin fueling process," came a mechanical voice over the speakers.
Her boyfriend loaded a machine that held her crystal in suspension before impregnating it with deuterium, the chosen fuel.
"Exit the reaction chamber, prepare for neutron bombardment," said the same mechanical voice. Brad looked weary. They'd been at this all day, one crystal after another, and it had to be sweltering in that armor. Well, temporary discomfort was better than leaving him somewhere without her. Who knows what could happen?
The engineers gathered around the monitors. Despite everything, Reka felt nervous.
Brad left the chamber and the door sealed behind him.
Reka kept her boyfriend in her peripheral vision while observing the reaction chamber power up.
"Begin neutron bombardment."
Calling it a crystal was a bit of a misnomer. The crystalline angles were no more visible to the naked eye than those on a single grain of salt. It looked more like a speck of dirt, charitably called "stardust" by the people here.
Advanced machinery hummed and it seemed as if nothing happened for a time. Could she have made a mistake?
"It's vibrating," Dr. Rosen observed hopefully.
The vibrations were subtle at first, barely visible, but before long the speck was jittering and pulsing with manic energy.
"Heat is being generated," said a scientist at a console.
All was going as Reka expected. How long would her crystal hold out?
Not gradually but instantly the speck turned into a point of light that would've blinded them had they been observing with naked eyes.
"It's giving off tremendous energy now, fusion reaction confirmed," another scientist said after checking some instruments.
"A star is born," Professor Rosen said in awe.
None dared speak as the little speck of stardust kept radiated power. The deep magic of this world was wondrous. Something so small, and yet her little crystal was burning hot as hellfire.
One minute, two, five, it showed no signs of stopping.
Had Reka managed it without magic? Surely not.
As if the little crystal lost confidence in itself due to Reka's doubt, it flickered and guttered out just past the fourteen minute mark.
The whole control room broke out in cheers.
The wizard Rosen hugged her and Reka was too shocked to be offended. "Reka, that's a controlled fusion world record, and you didn't just break it, you shattered it! We're fast-tracking your PhD. You might get the Nobel prize for this! We're so fucking close! Just keep iterating this summer."
Everyone was jumping and dancing and calling her a hero. Normally, Reka hated heroes, but she'd allow it, just this once.
When they retired to their chambers that evening Reka could sense Brad's exhaustion so she merely pleasured him with her mouth. As he cried out her name and spurted Reka was about to swallow it all like usual, but something stopped her.
Her boyfriend wasn't "pent up" anymore. The life force in his seed was so much richer, more concentrated, like he was content with everything in his life and wouldn't change a thing.
Brad was happy...
Reka shuddered, blinking away unshed tears that clouded her vision. She had tasted the truth.
Brad would do anything for her. His love was complete. She should've realized this sooner. When fresh from their lovemaking Reka's body positively crackled with power, her boyfriend's potent seed infusing her with overflowing energy. It was different now, not only a difference of degree but of kind. The substance of her boyfriend's life force was pure love, undiluted, overwhelming.
She could use this. There was power in this seed, power greater than she could've imagined a year ago. Reka would have to apologize to Julie; there would be no need for rats any longer.
*******
Brad's Point of View
His girlfriend was now the queen bee of all Stardust City, and funnily enough, that meant that he had to get used to people kissing his ass. Nobody questioned them anymore, no funny looks, no slick comments about how Reka never went anywhere without him. It was just the default state of affairs.
Reka had been so much more clingy and possessive since the Alex fiasco, and a weird part of Brad actually liked it. People went out of their way to give his girlfriend anything she wanted and it really warmed his heart that he was her first demand. More people referred to him as "Reka's boyfriend" than his actual name but it fit somehow, like it was who he was always meant to be.
Work wasn't his favorite, but it was actually the closest thing he'd done so far to his time in the Navy. Brad was operating machinery for long hours while being tired and uncomfortable. If there was anything he had experience in, it was that.
There was something that was bothering him, though. Reka went to the bathroom every time after they had sex. She didn't used to do that. Did he stink? Was he gross to her? If he was she wouldn't want to make love at all, right? He took a shower every night. What more could he do? Well, this was Reka they were talking about. She never said no, and by unspoken agreement neither did he. It was probably nothing. Reka was just working hard, maybe needed a little alone time to decompress.
Her notes looked crazy. "Is that Hungarian?" he asked over her shoulder one day. Her AI assistant had loaded up all these weird symbols. Brad thought Hungarian was written in the Latin alphabet.
Reka looked taken aback. "Ah well," she stammered, "it's a unique form of notation I've been teaching Galiban, helps to model deep ma...physics issues."
He could only chuckle. Naming her personal AI was the most Reka thing ever.
On the fourth of July the whole team had a party. The affair took place at Oppenheimer Park, yes, named after that Oppenheimer. Stardust City looked like a real city now, with some twenty thousand permanent residents, big enough to have things like public parks. They had a grill set up where Dr. Rosen was flipping hamburgers and hotdogs and there was a cooler full of Tecate.
Tecate was his beer brand. A shipmate and one of his few friends back on the boat was a Mexican guy who introduced it to him. Honestly, it was the only beer Brad could drink now. He was never the type of guy that thought he was too cool to drink anything but dark, bitter beer. No, beer should be drinkable, Brad thought.
This was Reka's doing, he knew. She was so thoughtful like that. While his mind was on that...
No way.
A crew was putting up a display of wreaths and America flags and, it choked him up when he realized, him.
They laid out a framed picture of Brad, years younger, in his spotless white sailor suit. He remembered that day, the first day he was really proud of himself, the day he graduated Navy Nuclear Power School.
Some sixth sense alerted Brad that people were watching. Somebody was playing Anchors Aweigh on speakers attached to a cellphone. Reka approached, all smiles, holding a long box.
"Happy Independence Day, my love," she said warmly, handing it to him.
It was a scale model of his old boat, the USS Jimmy Carter.
He was really trying to hold back tears right now.
Always attentive, Reka took the gift back and set it down lightly on a nearby picnic table before pulling him into a deep kiss. People cheered and he heard about a dozen cameras go off.
In the back of his mind Brad remembered that his girlfriend was a big deal. The people taking pictures were journalists that had been following them around since Reka's crystal had broken all those records. He hoped he wouldn't look too uncool when the photos were posted online.
The next day was a test day like any other. He secured the crystal, loaded it with fuel, and exited the reaction chamber, all quite routine now.
Hey, wasn't that Reka's crystal?
Brad stuck around, excited for his girlfriend's second attempt.
For a while it was just the same, vibrating, lighting up, giving off energy, no surprises.
Nobody was talking. It went on and on.
"It's not stopping," said a distant voice.
"Twenty minutes, no change," another added after a few more minutes of waiting.
"It's not stopping," somebody else said with greater emphasis.
Whispers became murmurs. Murmurs became a buzz. A buzz became a roar.
"IT'S STABLE! IT'S STABLE!"