Orion stared at the holographic diagram floating on his monitor. The fusion reactor design from ITER was beautiful—elegant physics turned into engineering reality. But it was also massive. Complex. The kind of thing that required buildings the size of stadiums.
He needed something better.
"Rene," he said. "Before we can build anything, we need a way to test our designs without wasting time and money on physical prototypes. I want you to develop simulation software. All-in-one research platform."
"Specifications?" Rene's voice came through the earbuds.
"It needs to simulate everything. Material synthesis—how atoms bond, what properties we get. Engine designs—how plasma moves, how magnetic fields contain it. Genetic structures—how DNA expresses, how proteins fold. Chemistry, physics, biology. If we can model it mathematically, the software should simulate it."
"Understood. This will essentially be a virtual laboratory."
"Exactly. I'll help with the architecture through the BCI. You handle the heavy computational work."
Orion closed his eyes. Let his mind connect with Rene through the neural interface.
Information flowed both ways. His understanding of physics and mathematics from the library merged with Rene's computational power. They designed together—human intuition and machine precision working as one.
The simulation framework took shape. Mathematical models for atomic interactions. Fluid dynamics for plasma behavior. Quantum mechanics for material properties.
Hours passed. Orion barely noticed.
His enhanced body didn't fatigue like it used to. The breathing technique circulated exotic energy through his cells, keeping him sharp. He worked through the night.
By morning, they had it.
"Simulation software complete," Rene said. "I've designated it ORION—Omnidirectional Research and Innovation Optimization Network."
Orion smiled. "You named it after me?"
"The acronym was convenient. You also gave me RENE—Recursive Evolutionary Neural Engine. Shall we test it?"
"Yeah. Load a simple material simulation. Let's synthesize... I don't know. Diamond. See if the physics matches reality."
A virtual laboratory appeared in his mind through the BCI. He could see individual carbon atoms. The simulation started—atoms bonding in tetrahedral structures, building crystal lattices.
The diamond formed exactly as it should. Perfect atomic arrangement. Properties matched published data.
"It works," Orion said. "Now let's use it for something real."
He pulled up his fusion reactor plans. The design from ITER was good, but had massive problems, one for example, the heat conversion.
Traditional fusion reactors were complicated. They worked like this:
Normal reactors were like taking the sun, putting it in a metal box, outside the box is cup full of water, using the heat from the sun to boil water, then using the steam to spin a turbine (basically a fancy fan), and finally converting that spinning motion into electricity.
Steam turbines were ancient technology. Think of a pinwheel you blow on as a kid—it spins when air hits the blades. Steam turbines worked the same way, just bigger and with steam instead of air. The steam from boiling water would hit huge metal blades, making them spin. That spinning motion turned generators that made electricity.
It worked and humanity had used it for decades. But it was inefficient.
You lost energy at every step. Heat from fusion → steam → spinning → electricity. Each conversion wasted some of the original power. Best case, you kept maybe 30-40% of the fusion energy.
"That's stupid," Orion muttered. "We're creating temperatures hotter than the sun, and we're using it to boil water like a kettle."
"Agreed," Rene said. "The conversion chain is inefficient."
"What if we skip all that? Convert heat directly to electricity?"
"Thermoelectric materials. They generate voltage when one side is hot and the other is cold."
"Exactly."
Thermoelectric materials worked on a simple principle called the Seebeck effect. Heat one side, keep the other side cold, and electrons flow from hot to cold, creating electricity.
Like a battery, but powered by temperature difference instead of chemicals.
Current thermoelectric materials were garbage though. Best commercial ones converted maybe 10-15% of heat to electricity. Some experimental materials hit 20% in labs.
Still way worse than steam turbines.
"We need better materials," Orion said. "Pull up the data on advanced thermoelectrics."
Information flooded on the monitor. Materials science. Quantum physics. Nanostructure engineering.
The problem with thermoelectric materials was simple but brutal:
To work well, they needed three things:
High electrical conductivity—let electrons flow easily Low thermal conductivity—keep hot side hot and cold side cold High Seebeck coefficient—generate lots of voltage per degree of temperature
But materials that conduct electricity well usually also conduct heat well. Like metal—great for electricity, terrible for maintaining temperature differences.
It was like wanting a door that was open and closed at the same time.
Current materials could only achieve two properties at the expense of the third. Scientists had been trying to solve this for decades.
Orion dove deeper into the library knowledge. Found research on something called "phonon-glass electron-crystal" materials.
Phonons were basically sound waves at the atomic level—how heat moved through solids. Electrons were electricity.
The ideal material would act like glass for phonons (blocking heat) but like crystal for electrons (conducting electricity perfectly).
"Can we design something like that?" Orion asked.
"Loading ORION simulation now," Rene said.
The virtual laboratory appeared. Orion started building materials atom by atom.
He tried different combinations. Bismuth telluride—a real thermoelectric material, but not efficient enough. Added skutterudite compounds. Created layered structures at nanoscale.
The key was engineering at the atomic level. Make the material block heat vibrations while letting electrons flow freely.
He designed a superlattice—repeating layers of different materials, each just a few atoms thick. Metal layer, insulator layer, metal layer. Over and over.
At that scale, quantum mechanics took over. Electrons could tunnel through the insulator layers like ghosts passing through walls. But phonons couldn't—they scattered at the interfaces.
It was like building a road for cars (electrons) with speed bumps for trucks (phonons). Cars sailed through smoothly. Trucks got stopped.
Hours blurred together. Orion worked obsessively. Designing, simulating, testing.
His enhanced brain processed thousands of material combinations. ORION ran simulations in parallel, testing each one virtually.
The next day, Cassia knocked on his door. Brought food. Asked if he was okay.
"I'm fine," he said. "Just working."
She'd look at him with concern but didn't push.
Finally, he found it.
The simulation showed a material with impossible properties:
Electrical conductivity: 10,000 S/m (excellent) Thermal conductivity: 0.5 W/mK (terrible—which was good for this) Seebeck coefficient: 450 μV/K (outstanding)
He ran the efficiency calculation.
80.3% heat-to-electricity conversion.
Orion stared at the number. Ran it again. Same result.
"Rene, verify this. Make sure the simulation is accurate."
"Running verification protocols... Physics models validated. Material properties confirmed. Efficiency calculation correct. The design is viable."
Eighty percent efficiency.
Current thermoelectric materials topped out at 15%. This was more than five times better.
This would change everything.
"What's the composition?" Orion asked.
Rene displayed the formula. Layers of bismuth telluride doped with antimony, alternating with skutterudite compounds containing cobalt and nickel. Each layer exactly 15 atoms thick. Specific crystal orientation. Precise doping ratios.
"Is it difficult to manufacture?"
"Surprisingly, no," Rene said. "The layering can be achieved through molecular beam epitaxy—a standard technique in semiconductor fabrication. The materials are relatively common. Cost would be reasonable at scale."
Orion pulled up the fusion reactor design. Started redesigning it around the new thermoelectric material.