Chapter 8: Open Mic

The Texas Grid Summit put the question on a banner over the stage.

WHO IS C. HARTSFIELD?

Three hundred engineers filled the hotel ballroom on Friday morning, with coffee in paper cups and name tags on their lanyards.

I sat in row twelve beside Jarrett in a cardigan, with my braid down and my heart going.

I had read the receipt half a dozen times in two days.

I had not told him what the last line meant.

He leaned in at the first applause.

"You can leave," he said. "Nobody would blame you."

"I'm not leaving."

"Then you're sitting in the audience."

"I hate stages."

"I know," he said, and his hand found my knee and rested there, big and warm and still. "That's why you're sitting in row twelve."

I didn't move his hand.

On stage, Desmond took the center chair in a navy suit.

Kiera sat on his left in emerald, her ponytail high, her gold cuff on her wrist.

The moderator asked her about the beginning of Lumen.

She answered it beautifully.

She talked about rivers and sensors and the way a grid is a body, and the room nodded along.

She was so good that it hurt to listen.

"Questions from the floor," the moderator said.

I stood up before Jarrett could say anything.

A volunteer ran a microphone down the aisle, and my hand closed around it.

Three hundred heads turned.

On stage, Kiera's hand rose to her throat.

"Thank you," I said. "I'll be quick."

My voice sounded smaller in the speakers than in my head.

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