It's stable?
Aaron, it's stable?
- What did you do to this thing?
- What?
- It looks like a dog digested it.
- Okay, that's the plate.
I rigged this into the box
so I could control the feed.
- I figured it's the easiest way...
- It's just controlling the box.
The plate stays the same.
What you do is you gradually feed it.
Okay. You hear that? How it's...
See, I'm not touching it anymore.
It's growing with its own momentum.
It's like a feedback loop,
and it just regulates itself.
And what you do is when it gets there,
you bring it back...
and there you go, it coasts.
It's stable. It stays like that.
So it works?
- Yeah, it does.
- What is that, like 10%?
It knocks another couple of points
by the time it reaches the peak.
You may want to come over here
and take a look at this.
Okay, what am I looking at?
- What are we pulling out of the batteries?
- Probably 24 volts.
- I mean, no more than that, right?
- Okay.
So your meter's jacked up.
That's what I figured. So I tried three others.
I got the exact same thing.
- I spent all last night...
- What was it?
I spent last night and a two-hour break
just double-checking everything.
There's something wrong here. We're not
pulling out more than we're putting in.
- Slightly more.
- Well, yeah, whatever.
It's not like a volt and a half
more than we're putting in.
It's probably the batteries.
They're cheap batteries, not regulated right.
That is weird, though.
You want to see something weirder?
Okay, let's go over this again.
Two batteries, right? 24 volts?
What are we pulling out of this one?
Just for fun.
Twelve volts.
- How about this one?
- Should be 12 volts.
So, what the hell is this thing?
It doesn't stay like that.
No, it winds down in a few minutes.
What does that?
I don't know. I'll tell them something.
I'll tell them we're spraying for bugs.
It should just be a day or two, anyways.
- Unless you want to bring them in.
- No, they have their work in there, too.
If Phillip finds out about that
he's going to have to take it apart.
- No. I'm just putting a little tweak on it.
- Yeah, I know. No, you're right.
Abe, it's my garage, okay?
It's not like they're paying rent.
There was value in the thing.
Clearly. Of that they were certain of.
But what is the application?
In a matter of hours...
they had pinned it to everything
from mass transit to satellite launching.
Imagining devices the size of jumbo jets.
Everything would be cheaper.
It was practical and they knew it.
But above all that, beyond the positives...
they knew that the easiest way
to be exploited...
is to sell something
they did not yet understand.
So they kept quiet.
The parties would continue.
Any birthday, anniversary, holiday...
maybe some obscure project launch.
It didn't matter. Any reason would do.
What was important is that Thomas Granger,
their last best hope of funding, show up.
If he left a little earlier than
they would've liked, he couldn't be blamed.
He was only there
to please his daughter Rachel.
And she was only there to please Abe.
What did you say
to Mr. Granger a while ago?
- Did you flip my burger?
- You can't call him Mr. Granger.
You have to call him, like,
Thomas or something.
- Go ahead.
- No, because he won't take you seriously.
- He thinks we're kids.
- Lf you call him Mr. Granger...
he looks at you like you're a 6-year-old kid.
He does it with me. It won't work anymore.
Abe had taken on the task
of quantifying and explaining the device.
But as weeks became months...
their enthusiasm became a slow realization
that they were out of their depth.
There he is.
I've been calling you all morning.
- Where'd you call?
- Your work and your cell.
I'm not there.
Really?
- March Madness?
- It's Carolina and Michigan.
- Who's up?
- I don't even know what.
Do you