She must have been tired. I’d never seen her give up on a power trip before. Though, I also hadn’t seen her get into a useless peeing contest before either. She had a lot of authority and wasn’t afraid to flex when needed, but she usually wasn’t one to argue when a simple solution was present.

Soon, guards escorted Stratt and me through the cold, gray walls of the prison.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” I said.

“I don’t like little dictators in their little kingdoms,” she said. “Drives me crazy.”

“You can bend a little once in a while.”

“I’m out of patience and the world is out of time.”

I held up a finger. “No, no, no! You can’t just use ‘I’m saving the world’ as an excuse every time you’re a jerk.”

She thought it over. “Yeah, okay. You may have a point.”

We followed the guards down a long corridor to the Maximum Security Unit.

“Maximum security seems like overkill,” she said.

“Seven people died,” I reminded her. “Because of him.”

“It was accidental.”

“It was criminal negligence. He deserves what he got.”

The guards led us around a corner. We followed along. The whole place was a maze.

“Why bring me here at all?”

“Science.”

“As always.” I sighed. “Can’t say I like this.”

“Noted.”

We entered a stark room containing a single metal table. On one side sat a prisoner in a bright-orange jumpsuit. A balding man in his late forties, maybe early fifties. He was handcuffed to the table. He didn’t look anything like a threat.

Stratt and I sat down opposite him. The guards closed the door behind us.

The man looked at us. He tilted his head slightly, waiting for someone to speak.

“Dr. Robert Redell,” Stratt said.

“Call me Bob,” he said.

“I’ll call you Dr. Redell.” She pulled a file out of her briefcase and looked it over. “You’re currently serving a life sentence for seven counts of culpable homicide.”

“That’s their excuse for me being here, yes,” he said.

I piped up. “Seven people died on your rig. Because of your negligence. Seems like a pretty good ‘excuse’ for you to be here.”

He shook his head. “Seven people died because the control room didn’t follow procedure and activated a primary pumping station while workers were still in the reflector tower. It was a horrible accident, but it was an accident.”

“Enlighten us, then,” I said. “If the deaths at your solar farm weren’t your fault, why are you here?”

“Because the government thinks I embezzled millions of dollars.”

“And why do they think that?” I asked.

“Because I embezzled millions of dollars.” He adjusted his shackled wrists into a more comfortable position. “But that had nothing to do with the deaths. Nothing!”

“Tell me about your blackpanel power idea,” Stratt said.