Her girls… Soon, they would be sitting on these wooden stools, in front of the complicated-looking knobs, dials, gauges, and meters simultaneously controlling voltage, ionization, and source heating. They’d be producing uranium-235, which Nora now believed could be the fuel for an atomic bomb, all the while not knowing or understanding a whit of what they were doing. Her job was to make sure they did that job well.

Nora put her hand to her solar plexus. The burning sensation was back. It was the same feeling she used to get right before an important exam. Don’t panic. You’ll succeed. They’ll succeed. It’s not like the fate of the world rests on the outcome here or anything. Except that she suspected it might.

Don’t stand here paralyzed. Do something practical.

Nora exited the building and made her way to the classroom where the Berkeley Boys were training her girls. One look at the girls’ faces told her their explanations and instructions were far too complicated. After standing in the back of the room for an hour, she knew she had to intervene. On a break, she pulled the trainers aside.

“This will never work if you keep prattling on over their heads.”

“What are you talking about?” Berkeley Boy A asked.

“Watch.” Nora walked to the front of the class. She told herself this would be a lot like tutoring the young boy down the street who’d needed help with his science lessons. Break it down into its simplest form. Tell them only what they need to know to do the job well and get the desired results. “Hi. I’m Nora. You gals will be seeing a lot of me. How many of you came to CEW because you wanted to make a difference and help us win the war?”

Every girl’s hand shot up, and Nora smiled.

“I thought so. Me too. It’s my job to help you succeed. I know you’re itching to get at the real thing, but while construction is underway, we need you to master these dummy models. She indicated the mock cubicles in front of which each of them sat. “When you get it right in here, you’ll get it right out there. The most important thing you need to focus on is keeping the needles on the meters on that panel on the left, between this point, and this point.” Nora drew a quick sketch of the meters on the blackboard and used vertical lines to indicate the desired position of the needles.

“If a needle goes too far to the right or too far to the left, use the knobs on the panels to make a correction until the needle is back in the ‘good’ zone. Don’t worry. After a while, you’ll know which knob to turn, how much, and in which direction without even thinking about it. Heck, you’ll be doing this in your sleep.”