Once she was inside her room with the door closed, she twirled around and flopped onto the bed. I passed the Nora test. The thought made her unaccountably happy. Maybe I’ll see her on the floor tomorrow and I can thank her for coming out tonight. She frowned. Don’t be silly, Mary Elizabeth. She never even acknowledges that you exist at Beta-2 beyond checking your work.

Still, the notion that she might be in proximity to Nora again so soon made her heart flutter happily. See you tomorrow—maybe—Nora Lindstrom.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nora, Del, and Chauncey Starr, Y-12 operations manager and Dr. Lawrence’s liaison, sat around a conference table in the administration building on the campus. They’d gone around and around on the issue of whether or not they could afford the time necessary to send the coils from the giant magnets back to the manufacturer, Allis-Chalmers, for cleaning and repairs.

“I’m telling you, if we shut Alpha-1 down now, we’ll be so far behind the eight ball we might as well hand a win to Hitler, because the Germans surely will beat us to the finish line.” Chauncey’s face was nearly purple with anger.

Nora gripped the edge of the table to keep her hands from shaking and gritted her teeth. I am not going to give in. I’m right. I know I am. Still, she was treading a fine line. Technically, she had no say here, since the issue only tangentially involved her cubicle operators. Del shot her a warning glance that she studiously ignored.

“And I’m telling you, my girls can only do so much. If we don’t take this step now and shut that operation down so that the coils can be properly cleaned, we’ll never get the level of production we need out of that plant.”

“Stand down, both of you.” General Groves swept into the room, followed closely by Dr. Lawrence.

“Sir.” Nora, Del, and Chauncey stood simultaneously.

“Sit, sit.” Groves threw down a thick manila folder, and the papers within cascaded out onto the scarred wood. He took a seat at the end of the table. Dr. Lawrence pulled up the chair to his right. “Dr. Lawrence and I have gone over all of these incident reports you’ve compiled.” He indicated the now-messy pile of documents.

Dr. Lawrence picked up the conversation thread. “We’ve looked at this every which way. We’ve tried the minimally invasive approach, but the truth is, we believe the coils are shorting out because of rust and sediment in the cooling oil.”

General Groves leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “The only cure for that is to remove the coils and send them back to Allis-Chalmers.”