Ryan had been expecting this part.
Before the professors could start their goodbyes, he pulled a portable hard drive from his pocket and tossed it lightly in his palm.
"Neural link theory. Foundational principles and a design overview. Nothing classified, nothing that lets you build one — but enough for your team to understand what they just witnessed and start formulating research questions."
He held it out. Holloway reached for it. Ryan pulled it back half an inch.
"Once we have an agreement."
Ward chuckled. "You've been carrying that in your pocket this whole time, haven't you?"
"I like to be prepared."
Ward looked at the other professors, then back at Ryan. "Listen — we believe you. The test was definitive. But the people who sign the checks weren't in the room today. Getting institutional approval, funding authorization, lab allocation — that takes time. We're talking about a research program unlike anything MIT has stood up before. There's no template for this."
Hartley, who usually ran hot, was unusually gentle. "What Doug's saying is that this situation is unprecedented. In the entire history of MIT, no one has ever done what you've done at your age. There's no existing process for recruiting a fourteen-year-old with technology that exceeds every national defense program. We're building the process as we go."
"How long?"
"A couple of days. Maybe three. We'll call you the second we have something concrete."
Ryan handed over the hard drive. Holloway took it like it was made of glass.
The group started filing out. Ward paused at the door, turned back, and said something Ryan hadn't expected.
"Your workshop isn't secure."
Ryan looked at him.
"Sheet metal walls. A padlock. No surveillance, no perimeter. You've got technology in this building that foreign intelligence services would kill to access, and your security is a combination lock from a hardware store." Ward nodded toward the six remaining volunteers. "They're staying."
Ryan blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Four in the workshop. Two with you. Around the clock until we get the formal arrangement in place."
Ryan looked at the six men. They looked back with the patient neutrality of people who'd already received their orders and were waiting for the civilian to catch up.
"Their food—" Ryan started.
"Is not your problem. They're provisioned."
"And if your timeline slips and this takes longer than a couple of days?"
Ward was already walking. "Then they stay longer. Goodnight, Ryan."
The convoy of black SUVs pulled away. Ryan stood in the driveway and watched them go, then turned around to find two of the six soldiers flanking him at a respectful distance.
One would be in the living room. One on the roof.
The roof.
Ryan looked up at his own house. His parents' house. A three-bedroom ranch in Crestfield, Texas, with a patchy lawn and a mailbox that leaned slightly to the left. And now it had a trained soldier on the roof.
He went inside.
Tom and Lisa came home from the shop forty minutes later.
Tom opened the front door, stepped into the hallway, and found a man sitting in his living room who was not his son, was not his wife, and was built like a refrigerator with a crew cut.
"WHAT IN THE—"
"Dad. Dad. It's fine."
Ryan appeared from the kitchen, hands raised in the universal gesture of please don't have a heart attack.
It took ten minutes to explain. Tom and Lisa sat on the couch, processing the information with the dazed concentration of people being told their house was now a military installation.
"So the government," Tom said slowly, "sent soldiers. To our house. To protect... Ryan."
"To protect Scrapper and the technology. I'm included by proximity."
Lisa was already past the shock and into the implications. "If the government is sending soldiers to protect it, then it's real. It's really real. I mean — I knew it was real, I saw it move, but this is—"
"This is 'the President of MIT called on a Saturday and cleared his calendar' real," Ryan said. "Yeah."
Tom leaned back on the couch. He was a machinist from Crestfield, Texas. He fixed things for a living. His biggest professional achievement was a custom camshaft he'd milled for a ranch owner's vintage Mustang.
And now there was a man on his roof.
The next day passed without a call from Ward.
Ryan checked his phone every hour. Nothing. He called Ward in the afternoon — "We're working on it. Almost there. Sit tight." — and resigned himself to waiting.
The soldiers were professional and invisible. The four in the workshop stayed in the workshop. The two assigned to Ryan rotated shifts without being asked. They ate MREs from a supply bag and declined Lisa's offer of pot roast with the polite firmness of people under specific dietary orders.
Lisa was offended. Tom thought it was hilarious.
What did arrive, unexpectedly, was Chloe — bearing news that Ryan hadn't been tracking.
"Someone else wants to buy Scrapper," she announced, letting herself in through the back door to avoid the soldier at the front.
Ryan was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, phone on his chest. "Pass."
"You don't even know who it is."
"Don't care. I'm not selling."
"It's Apex Heavy Industries. They make construction equipment — excavators, cranes, earthmovers. Their CEO is apparently on a plane to Texas right now."
Ryan sat up. "A construction equipment company wants to buy my mech."
"They think Scrapper is an industrial machine. Because of the excavator bucket hand." Chloe was grinning. "You know YouTube has been calling Scrapper a 'construction mech' for a week, right? There's a whole meme about it. Someone edited your test video to include a hard hat on Scrapper and a job application for a demolition company."
"They think my Jaeger-class neural-linked combat platform is a backhoe."
"A very large, very expensive backhoe. They're offering fifty million."
Fifty million dollars. Ryan had to admit — for a fraction of a second — the number landed. That was real money. More than Tom would earn in three lifetimes. More than the workshop, the house, and everything the Mercers owned put together, multiplied by ten.
But it wasn't enough. Not for what came next.
"Tell them no."
"They're already in the air, Ryan."
"Then they can enjoy the flight. I'm not meeting with them and I'm not selling."
Chloe shrugged, started to put her phone away, then stopped. Her eyes went wide.
"Oh. Oh, this is good."
"What?"
"Meridian Motors just made a counteroffer. A hundred million."
Ryan stared at her. "Meridian. The electric vehicle company."
"Yep."
"The people who make sedans and pickup trucks want to buy a forty-foot neural-linked mech."
"Apparently they see synergies with their electric drivetrain platform." Chloe was reading from her phone, mouth twitching. "They posted it publicly. Their official Twitter account just announced a hundred-million-dollar bid for Scrapper and tagged you."
Ryan took the phone. Read the post. Read the comments.
"Meridian Motors buying a mech??? are they pivoting to giant robots??"
"2020 is officially the wildest year on record"
"This makes me think of that company that offered $500K a week ago... lmaooo remember them?"
"What company?"
"Exactly."
"Imagine being the Marlin Technologies PR guy right now. You tried to debunk a real mech for clout and now your company doesn't even have a Twitter account anymore"
"Someone check on the Marlin CEO, he's NOT okay"
Ryan scrolled past. The Marlin comments were everywhere — the internet had turned Marlin Technologies into a punchline. Their corporate accounts had been deleted. Their blog post had been archived and reposted as a cautionary tale about premature debunking. The PR manager who'd orchestrated the whole campaign had reportedly been fired, though no one could confirm it because Marlin had gone completely dark.
Ryan almost felt sorry for them. The operative word being almost.
"Tell Meridian no," he said, handing the phone back.
"A hundred million dollars, Ryan."
"I know what it's worth. The answer is no."
Chloe caught his eye. She'd known him long enough to read the calculation happening behind the flat expression — not indecision, but confirmation. He'd already decided before either offer arrived. The mech wasn't for sale at any price, because selling it ended the story, and the story was what generated the points.
"Your loss," she said, pocketing her phone. "I would've taken the hundred mil and retired to Hawaii."
"You're seventeen."
"Early retirement. Very trendy."
Ryan lay back down and stared at the ceiling. His phone was silent. Ward still hadn't called.
Somewhere out there, a construction company CEO was on a plane to Texas to buy a robot he thought was a fancy excavator. An electric car company had publicly committed a hundred million dollars to a technology it didn't understand. Marlin Technologies was a smoking crater. And six soldiers were guarding a sheet-metal workshop in Crestfield while the President of MIT cleared his calendar.
All because a kid built a robot in his garage and put the video on YouTube.
Ryan closed his eyes and waited for the phone to ring.