While Nick was shooting the breeze with Liam O'Shea, the rest of the federal leadership started rolling into the hallway one after another. Liam O'Shea instantly slipped into the role of a semi-host, methodically introducing each of the arriving high-ranking officials to him.
"Nicholas, step on over here, let me get you introduced. This is Deputy Director Randy Jones of the Naval Equipment Research Institute—the guy's an absolute legendary veteran within the ordnance system," Liam O'Shea said, pointing toward a sharp, grey-haired man in his early sixties.
"Good morning, Director Randy. Real pleasure to meet you," Nick said, quickly stepping forward to offer a firm handshake.
"Haha, what's up, Nicholas. I've been tracking your name across our intelligence briefs for a hot minute now, but our paths just never crossed until today. Seeing you standing here in the flesh, man, you really are incredibly young to be running a titan like Militech," Randy Jones replied warmly, giving his hand a solid squeeze.
"You're way too kind, sir. Seriously, just call me Nick—everyone on the project team does," Nick answered hurriedly. Whether you were evaluating the guy based on his sheer age or his massive contributions to defense engineering, he commanded absolute respect. In front of a heavy-hitter like this, if Nick didn't play the humble, sharp junior executive, who else would?
"Haha, sounds like a plan. Nick it is," Randy Jones laughed heartily, clearly liking his vibe.
Once they wrapped up the greeting, Liam O'Shea pointed a thumb toward a somewhat stocky, middle-aged man around fifty standing right beside them. "And this is Deputy Director Gary Gong from the Science and Technology Bureau. Nick, this right here is your literal direct oversight boss in the capital; you better make sure you stay on his absolute good side."
"Hahahaha, Director O'Shea, listen to the way you're spinning it! Our bureau has always done everything in its power to aggressively protect and scale our premier domestic tech firms, let alone a brilliant young innovator with authentic, undeniable talent like Nick here. He is precisely the kind of founder we want to build our long-term team frameworks around," Gong said, letting out a booming laugh as he traded a hearty handshake with Liam before turning his full attention onto Nick.
"Nicholas, our oversight committees have been tracking your trajectory over the past two fiscal years, and we are incredibly impressed. You've got to keep your foot completely on the gas, man. Guard against getting complacent or making rash operational plays, and keep striving to deliver these massive engineering breakthroughs. The agency is placing a massive amount of expectation on your shoulders. The federal government provides an ungodly amount of structural support for high-tech enterprises; if you ever run face-first into supply chain bottlenecks or operational hurdles, just flag it to our office in time, and we will mobilize our full resources to bail you out."
"Thank you, Director Gong. I really appreciate the backing," Nick replied, flashing a confident smile.
"Hehe, keep grinding, young man. The sky's the limit," Gong said, giving his shoulder a firm, supportive pat with a genuinely gratified look.
"Nick, let me get you connected with Chief Engineer Vivian Hyece from the 309 Aerospace Project. The exact millisecond he read our internal briefings on your new power cell chemistry, he completely dropped his current project parameters and hopped the first flight out to D.C.," Randy Jones interjected, introducing a tall, thin middle-aged guy in his late forties who wore thick-rimmed glasses and a crisp, deep-blue naval uniform.
"Good morning, Chief Engineer Vivian," Nick said, stepping forward to initiate a handshake.
"What's up, Nick," Vivian replied with a sharp, no-nonsense nod as they locked grips.
"Alright, looks like the whole roster is accounted for, let's get this roundtable seated," Gong called out, gesturing toward the main doors.
The group traded brief looks, then filed together into a massive, state-of-the-art conference room and found their designated nameplates. The entire room had been meticulously prepped by administrative staffers, complete with a massive red digital banner stretching across the main presentation wall that read: National New Lithium-ion Battery Technology Demonstration and Practical Seminar.
To kick things off, Gong took the podium as the official host from the Science and Technology Bureau, delivering an incredibly high-energy, enthusiastic opening address. Simultaneously, a handful of credentialed federal press pool photographers who had been cleared past security began snapping rapid-fire photos of the roundtable.
Facing the media lenses, every bureaucrat and military official in the room instantly adjusted their posture, sitting up completely straight and locking in a hyper-focused expression while pretending to scribble notes with their pens. Nick obviously didn't carry that old-school administrative habit, but he still kept himself totally anchored, listening intently as the opening remarks wrapped up.
Finally, the floor was cleared for him to take the mic, and matching the serious, calculated tone of the officials before him, he spoke clearly into his desk mic: "I am incredibly honored to be sitting at this roundtable today for the New Lithium-ion Battery Tech Demonstration. Speaking as a representative for the private tech sector, having our internal laboratory research formally recognized by the highest regulatory bodies in the country is a massive milestone for our entire firm."
"We are fully committed to coordinating flawlessly with every federal department present to ensure this verification and real-world deployment strategy executes seamlessly."
"Our primary operational objective is to transition this power cell chemistry into scaled commercial manufacturing as fast as humanly possible, delivering an uncompromised upgrade to the public grid and consumer tech landscape."
Clap, clap, clap, clap... Following a crisp, synchronized round of applause, the satisfied press pool packed up their camera gear and exited the secure zone, allowing practically everyone left in the room to let out a collective sigh of relief.
When the cameras were actively rolling, even weathered federal directors like Liam O'Shea and Gong couldn't help but look a whole lot more stiff and politically constrained.
"Alright, the media theater is out of the way, let's officially kick off the briefing. Everyone should already have the complete technical dossiers and our internal laboratory verification logs sitting right in front of them. Next up, we're going to have Engineer Dye from our bureau's Technology and Quality Control Division run through the comprehensive stress-test reports for the committee."
A sharp middle-aged man in his thirties wearing a crisp grey agency uniform gave a quick nod, gesturing for his assistant to dim the overheads and boot up the main projector array.
"Thank you, Director. The exact second our quality assurance lab received the official patent blueprint filings for the new lithium-ion architecture submitted by Militech Technology, we immediately spun up a high-priority testing pipeline to stress-test the core chemistry. We also established an active data link with the New Energy Division over at Militech's hardware labs to secure multiple physical production prototypes for destructive physical evaluation."
"The metrics currently projected on the main display capture our live, empirical lab findings. Take a look at these curves."
Tracking the eyes of the roundtable as they locked onto the telemetry charts, Engineer Dye continued his breakdown: "To be completely transparent with the board, when our technicians pulled the initial data sheets off the sensors, we flat-out refused to believe the numbers. The performance curves across every single operational parameter were simply too damn perfect to be realistic."
"To ensure there were absolute zero errors or calibration anomalies in our reporting, we ran the entire battery through multiple iterative blocks of destructive testing and ambient stress cycles. We even convened an emergency panel of external solid-state chemistry experts to run parallel theoretical verifications on the underlying physics."
"This entire secondary evaluation run executed flawlessly, and we managed to extract an even more granular set of metrics than the initial baseline. This deeper dataset explicitly proves that our testing curves are completely stable, demonstrating near-zero statistical variance or volatile drops under continuous load."
"These combined datasets confirm that the performance of Militech's new battery architecture completely obliterates existing commercial lithium-ion standards across every single operational metric."
"In fact, it systematically engineered away the most fatal flaws plaguing current battery markets. For instance, look at the thermal runaway thresholds: the structural safety on these cells is insanely high. Even under extreme thermal duress, the anode shows zero structural degradation, completely eliminating any risk of swelling or catastrophic explosive failure."
"We literally subjected a fully charged cell directly to an open furnace flame, and it simply burned down intensely without triggering a single pressurized blast."
"Furthermore, the material composition scores incredibly high on toxicological evaluations; the internal chemical matrix relies on heavily sustainable compounds, making it exponentially cleaner to manufacture and drastically simpler to recycle at scale."
"The hyper-specific breakdown of the chemical degradation limits is fully detailed on page fourteen of your packets; feel free to review the charts."
Hearing that cue, the entire room shifted their focus directly to the hardcopy manuals resting on the conference table. Heavyweights like Liam O'Shea and Randy Jones pulled out their reading glasses, methodically flipping through the technical annexes.
"Is the geometric layout of this cell overly complex? What are we looking at in terms of scaling the automated manufacturing lines and total capital cost per unit?" Randy Jones asked, his eyes still buried deep in the technical schematics.
Hearing the question, Engineer Dye shook his head slightly, shifting his focus across the table. "The internal matrix is undeniably more dense than a standard off-the-shelf lithium-ion cell—that's the core reason they were able to collapse the physical footprint while scaling the capacity. However, the macro-level assembly architecture remains incredibly streamlined, which is perfect for high-speed, automated production lines."
"As for the exact manufacturing workflow requirements and the localized bill-of-materials cost projections... I believe I'll have to hand the mic over to President Nicholas to give the board a first-hand breakdown on those specifics."
The second Engineer Dye stepped back from the podium, every single set of eyes along the massive roundtable instantly snapped around, locking straight onto Nick.