Chapter Seventeen: Part Three
Looking like the epitome of elegance, they took a moment in the hallway to prepare themselves before joining the gathering. Natalie squeezed Dom’s elbow, noticing the way they brushed against each other at hip and shoulder as they floated in, arm in arm.
Natalie saw that others of their extended family had registered some of the same signs. Dom smiled back to her before turning to place a hand on the arm of a man in a group. ‘Ladies and gentleman, may I steal David away? David, can I introduce you to Senator McMahan? Laurel, you wanted to meet Natalie…’
Dee watched Giselle carefully timing her visits to each group just as Kate had taught her. Edison winked to her across the floor, recognising the efficiency with which Giselle had picked up Kate’s role, and Dee nodded back to Edison. He nodded to her again in Kate and Rick’s direction. Dee looked and smiled widely.
When Mason saw his son standing with Kate on the wide entry step, he tapped his glass and called the room to silence. ‘My friends, may I present to you two people I am incredibly proud of? That handsome young man over there is my son, Ricardo Myers. The beautiful lady on his arm is Ms Catherine Jones, someone we already love for many, many reasons. She and Ricardo, along with two other gentlemen, are significantly responsible for the reason we shall now move to the back garden before we lose the afternoon’s light.’
Surprised by the warmth of Mason’s introduction, the heartfelt smile that Kate shone at him melted everyone who saw it. A strobe flashed rapidly as a camera captured Kate at her most radiant, framed by her beaming beau. Looking across, she recognised the first paparazzi photographer from the evening of the opera. ‘Hello David, It’s nice to see you again.’
The paparazzi’s eyes showed his captivated surprise at Kate’s recognition. As his face turned bright red, all he could do was nod and stammer out that he was here at Dom’s request.
Rick took his cue, walking with Kate into the centre of the throng, shaking hands and greeting people. The trick was simple; all they had to do was keep moving. With Edison’s and Dom’s subtle help in creating space for them, they just kept walking on, leading the crowd into the rear garden.
When everyone had congregated in front of the curtained device, Mason and Dominique stood in front of the gathering with Madison and Tyson. Kate had not seen Tyson until now and her heart skipped a beat before Rick leaned to her ear and said, ‘Yes, Eric is supposed to be here as well.’ Her hand squeezed on his arm in response.
Mason spoke to the assembled gathering, his voice clear and deep. ‘A few months ago, we were approached by some scammers trying to sell us a piece of bogus technology that was proposed to purify badly contaminated water, using only solar energy. This was until a very clever person caught them out and exposed them for the con-men they were.’ A murmur ran through the crowd. They had not heard this story before, and in these circles, anything new was interesting.
‘Like most convincing scams, their basic sets of ideas were not without some elements of merit. My clever son saw that immediately. Our beautiful lady, Catherine,’ he said, indicating Kate, ‘is a gifted engineer. Between her and Eric; where is Eric?’ he said looking around. Spying him, he pointed, ‘Eric!’ The crowd gave Eric a polite clap as he nodded and waved shyly. ‘Between Catherine, Tyson here, Eric and Ricardo, they identified the elements that had merit; found inspiration from those ideas, and applied some brilliant innovation. The end result is this.’
The curtains opened, revealing a metal box that looked curiously like a shipping container with the top two-thirds of its long sides opened upwards along hinges running along their top edges, and supported on both sides by heavy struts. Vertical sheets of rigid, curiously rippled material and small pieces of machinery filled its internal space. The crowd gave some nervous applause, not quite knowing what it was that they were looking at.
‘To explain the details would take a very long time,’ Mason said to the crowd. ‘Instead, let us fast forward to the executive summary.’ He whipped a cloth off a large table, revealing 160 glasses filled with water, arranged into a long 8 x 20 rectangle.
‘What you are looking at was captured directly from the air, today. Each glass holds 325 millilitres of pure drinking water, making fifty-two litres in all. This is a humidity-trap. It effectively harvests clean water from atmospheric humidity. It will be effective in many areas that typically receive little useful rainfall. Fresh, drinkable water is becoming increasingly hard to source for many people. Climate change means that air will get wetter, but that useful rain will become rarer. This is the first viable and sustainable water technology that takes the leap into that future. Our future.
‘These humidity-traps are modular and scalable. Each full-scale unit, three times longer than this one, will produce enough water to sustain 50 to 60 individuals plus some domestic stock. Despite their size, they are robust and very economical in installation. They have minimal running costs and require only basic and essentially unskilled maintenance.
‘Many communities have copious amounts of heavily polluted water, but no drinkable water, often due to illegal mining or unscrupulous farming practices. These people might live beside a river, but they might as well live in a desert. As long as these humidity-traps receive four hours of good sunlight, they will produce at an enhanced rate, doubling the efficiency seen today. Even on the cloudiest day, they will produce about half of their full potential output.
‘As soon as we’ve made sure every last efficiency we can find has been wrung out of the design, we will be sponsoring the emplacement of these where they are needed most. We need to promote this program at community and government levels.’
Before the crowd became too unfocused, Dom took over. ‘This is where you all come in. Of all the people Mason and I know, you are the ones who can do the most to make this happen quickly. We need direct sponsorship of production, and we need political leverage to cut through red tape to see these units delivered to the communities that need them most. Between us, we can change the quality of life for many people and offer them a future.
‘Let’s make our way back to the house and enjoy our blessings? Well done to the entire team for what they have achieved in just one month. Please, let’s all do everything we can to make this happen. Mason and I will talk to all of you over the course of the evening.’
Enthusiastic applause broke out. The idea was painless to everyone, attractive to some, and worthy of close attention to most. A number of people turned to congratulate Rick and Kate. Eventually the whole gaggle drifted back to the house, encouraged by some heavenly aromas that were wafting to them from the kitchen.
When the evening was over, Kate could not remember what she’d eaten or what had been in her glass. The excited congratulations and words from dozens of strangers meant nothing to her beyond her abstract awareness that people were being nice to her. Her mind was afire and acutely aware of how much more she wanted of Rick, not just physically, but in every possible way. Dom saw the pair to their car when Melissa’s desserts were distracting the crowd, knowing that the company of others was not on either of their minds. Before he closed the door, he said, ‘Truly well done. I love you both. Good night.’ Dom closed the door and tapped on the roof twice to let Harold know that he was clear to go.
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