Murmurs of agreement buzzed throughout the room. It could work. Dr. Lawrence made direct eye contact with Nora as he took over the meeting. “We propose to take the slightly enriched Tubealloy from each of your plants and feed that into the calutrons in the Beta racetracks here at Y-12. We have modified the designs of those racetracks based on our earlier experiences with the Alpha units, and we are confident that we now have in place the design we need to achieve the desired level of enrichment.”

Nora nodded at him. She understood. It would be up to her girls to finish the job everyone else started. She would need her best operators manning the D units in the Beta buildings. Already, she was calculating the adjustments she would have to make.

General Groves moved forward again. “What we need from each of you, and from your people, is everything you’ve got, and everything they’ve got. Now is the time to bear down and squeeze out every ounce of enriched product you can. We’re counting on you. Your country is counting on you.”

The meeting broke up, and Dr. Lawrence hailed Nora over. “The Beta units are ideal for this purpose, Nora.”

General Groves joined them, along with Colonel Nichols, whose job it was to oversee all of the Reservation.

“Beta-4 is getting up to capacity,” the general said. “Whatever resources you need, you tell Colonel Nichols directly. Anything, do you understand?”

Nora straightened to her full height. “Sir, I’ve already been going through the rosters in my head. My plan will be to move my very best, most capable and consistent operators, over to the Beta buildings. Many of them already are there. I won’t have to do much shuffling.”

“Excellent. We’re going to need your girls to put in a lot of overtime. Do you think they can handle that?”

“Respectfully, sir, from the outset, the dedication and abilities of my girls have been called into question. They’ve been doubted, denigrated, and under-appreciated. And yet, they’ve gotten the job done without complaint. I’m here to tell you, sir, yes, indeed, I know my girls are up for the task.”

She blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that much, and yet, she thought she saw a ghost of a smile from Dr. Lawrence.

“Good,” was all the general said.

Nora checked her watch—6:00 p.m. In another hour, Mary should be home from her shift. If she could finish the latest operator schedule for next week, maybe they could have time to do something fun together.