The chair held up a CD file. “The official report indicates the fire was a direct result of your invention overheating.”

“The official report, congresswoman, was prepared by the same investigative firm who cleared British Petroleum in last year’s oil rig explosion in the North Sea.”

“Why is it, Dr. Wallace, that every inventor who fails to produce a working model of their so-called ‘new energy technology’ always has a conspiracy story to tell?”

“My story’s real. So is the security tape of my safe being robbed, which we posted on YouTube—until the network was ordered to remove it. I guess triple-X videos are fine, but energy systems corrupt the minds of our youth.”

The audience in the galley stood up and applauded.

The chair banged her gavel for quiet. “Does anyone have a question for the witness? The chair recognizes the junior congressman from Montana.”

Justin Willems nodded to his colleague. “Thank you, Ms. Chairman. Dr. Wallace, I’m impressed by the Vostok, and I’ve always supported alternative energy. The problem you seem to have is credibility. Sex scandals, accusations of financial abuses. Even your partners, the Tanaka Institute, have been named as defendants in a series of lawsuits—”

“The Tanaka Institute is an investor, Congressman Willems. The Taylor family runs an aquarium that features the most dangerous predators that ever lived. Sometimes accidents happen. But Jonas Taylor and his wife, Terry, are good, moral people who I’m proud to be associated with. As for my own credibility, none of the accusations made about me are true. This is all part of a disinformation campaign that began two years ago, shortly after we made a technological breakthrough that allowed us to adapt the Vostok power generator to motorized vehicles, directly threatening Big Oil’s stranglehold on the transportation industry.

“A short time later, unsubstantiated rumors were circulated on the Internet and various news organizations that I had used investors’ monies on lavish trips to Beijing, which wasn’t true. Then a former associate went on a news show and accused me of rape, which led to her giving birth to her daughter. She sued me for $20 million. The woman’s attorneys were paid from a private offshore fund. The DNA evidence acquitted me, but my reputation was soiled. Weeks after the trial, I began receiving death threats and had to hire a private security team. The paranoia helped to end my first marriage.