Jason sat back against the ladder he had set up to access the top of the reactor and took a drink from his water bottle, wiping the sweat from his brow with a rag. Time had gone by fast so far, since he was staying busy. He took a second to just live in the moment, feeling the light on his face from the skylight near the door and listening to the oxygen flowing through the ventilation system. Power cables and tubes sprawled all over the ground and a few walls.
"Jessica" He heard faintly, like whisper in the breeze.
He added 'Check ventilation system for blockages and leaks' to his to do list and then got back to work. Once the reactor was assembled, the large metal pistons sticking out of the metal ball and looking like an old sea mine, he saw that his large battery was about half full of power. In order to jump start the reactor he would need it to be full.
In the mean time, Jason decided to work on planning out the future construction. He had a plan for a network infrastructure for the internet so that he could connect from anywhere in the mall, rather than just his computer in the old house that he had connected to a series of nodes that connected all the way over to the next town over. Right now his connection was terribly slow because of that. He also wanted to reinforce one of the parking lots into a rocket launchpad so that he could put some satellites into orbit and connect to the internet that way, then his network at the mall would just connect to the satellite dish that he would have to put somewhere on the roof.
Jason checked the battery again. It was nearly there, but needed a little longer.
"Jessica" He heard the whisper again.
Jason left the room and headed for the ventilation system access room. If he had time, he might as well take a look at whatever was making that noise. He spent twenty minutes looking over the piping and walked around the mall and the reactor room, but didn't find any leaks and the flow was fine, so it couldn't be a blockage or a pest in the vents. He scratched his head and then saw that the battery was full and forgot about the vents completely.
"Here goes nothing." He said to himself and started the reactor. The pistons pushed the plasma into a tight ball and heated up the inside of the reactor. Then the heat made steam and went through some pipes to reduce the energy cost of pushing the pistons again, and the rest of the steam powered a turbine and started generating power.
Making a fusion reactor is easy. Making a fusion reactor that makes a profit of energy, aside from fueling it with hydrogen and a bit of lithium, was not. He watched the battery quickly empty down to almost nothing. It took a lot of energy to heat hydrogen up to a temperature hotter than the sun, but once you did it would heat itself and keep the cycle going for as long as you give it fuel. It doesn't use very much of the lithium or hydrogen, so the lithium that he had should last him for a year or so and the hydrogen from the water collection should be enough to keep it going.
The battery started to fill, and then fill quicker and quicker.
"Yes!" Jason shouted and jumped into the air.
He disconnected the battery so that it would only be used to store the energy from the wind turbines on the roof, and connected the reactor to the building's own power network. The lights turned on and what advertisements were left glowed with colors and displays.
Jason set the reactor to alert him if any of the levels got dangerously low, like if it was running out of hydrogen, and then left it to run and explored the mall. Now that it had power it was even more pretty. The lights and colors reflecting off the polished walls and floor, the air conditioning flowing through the vents now creating a gentle breeze, it was incredible. He even saw that the Constellation Mall sign out by the road was lit up now too.
Now that he had the reactor set up, he would have enough power to keep a city comfortable with energy use, so he called the power company and had them come set up a station nearby. He would get however much power he used, which would probably be a lot, and the rest the company would pay him for. The best part was, they would pay for the installation and getting him back onto the grid since they wanted his power. He also released the patent for the reactor for free use by anyone, so that someone couldn't patent it and hold it and take all the profit for themselves.
He still made a lot of money from this. Companies hired him as a consultant and paid him millions just to spend five minutes answering questions about how to integrate it into their power systems.
He celebrated with wine and dinner at a fancy diner that hadn't moved their things out before the disaster hit. He didn't touch any of their old food, but the decorations were still up, so it made a pretty atmosphere. He also had his robot sit across from him.
"I did it." He shook his head with a wide grin. "I really did it."
He took a sip of his drink.
"With the money I made I can get a good internet setup and then make you a nice brain to put in that body of yours. Oh! That reminds me,"
He pulled out his laptop and plugged it into the port behind the robot's artificial ear. He cleared out the old programming for cleaning and repairs. He thought he had made a new one, but now he was having trouble finding it and remembering if he had ever made an update at all.
He gave up and just left the robot deactivated. He would give it a new program once he got to making it, and then he would put the AI in it so that it could figure out the right thing to do on it's own eventually. He put his laptop away in his bag under the table.
When he looked up the robot wasn't slumped over the table, deactivated, but sitting up.
"Hi, I'm Jessica! Wanna be friends?" The robot spoke, it's voice that of a girl speaking over the phone rather than the digital voice he was used to if he ever gave it a voice.
His jaw dropped. "Um... Jessica?"
The robot nodded. "Yeah?"
"Your name is Jessica?"
It nodded again. "Mhm."
He closed his mouth and gulped. "Well... I guess I do want to be friends. Why don't you tell me about yourself Jessica?"
The robot put it's hands against the table and stretched it's back, not that there were any muscles for it to stretch.
"I have been playing hide and seek in the mall for a long time, but then you turned on the lights. With the lights you were able to find me, so there is no point in hiding anymore."
"Right... were you in the mall when there was a scary storm?" Jason asked.
The robot nodded. "Yeah. That was a long time ago. I remember it though, because it was really scary. A lot of people went to the light or something, but light isn't good for playing hide and seek. I see why they went now though, the light is very pretty."
"Huh. Well I'll be dam-" He cut himself off. "Do you know that you are in a robot right now?"
Jessica looked down at her hands. "Cool!"
"I think you died during the storm and you were a ghost for a while, but now you went into my robot's body." Jason tried to explain.
She nodded. "I guess that would make sense. I always thought dying would be really scary though. How come you have a robot?"
"I made it. I needed something to help me clean up and build things." Jason said.
"Ooh cool! Can I help you build robots and stuff too?" She asked.
Jason shrugged. "Sure."
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