Ward opened the laptop.
"Here's the broad strokes," he said. "First — the materials list you gave us. Everything on it. Guaranteed."
Ryan nodded. That alone was worth the wait. The neural link rebuild, the upgraded actuators, the custom chip arrays — all the components that had been out of reach were now on the table.
"Second — and this is where it gets unusual — MIT isn't recruiting you directly."
Ryan raised an eyebrow.
"Your profile is... complicated. You're fourteen, you're the most famous teenager in the country, and — I'll be blunt — you have a personality that the administration described as 'not conducive to institutional integration.'"
"They think I'm difficult."
"They think you'd last about three days before you told a department head to go to hell and ended up on the news."
Ryan grinned. "They're not wrong."
"Which is why the structure looks like this: a defense contractor affiliated with MIT's research ecosystem will establish a dedicated project, with initial funding of ten million dollars. MIT contributes separately — three million in supplementary funding — as an academic partner. You work within the project while enrolled at MIT as a student. When the initial funding runs out, you apply for the next round based on demonstrated results."
"Ten million to start," Ryan said. "That's tight."
"It's tight because the materials list is being sourced separately. The ten million is operational budget — lab equipment, personnel, facilities. The expensive stuff on your list is already being procured through defense-industrial channels. That's not coming out of the project budget."
Ryan recalculated. With the materials handled independently, ten million in operational funding was more than workable. Especially with MIT's three million on top.
"Not bad," he said.
"You're welcome," Ward said dryly. "Now — you're going to ask about exam scores."
"I wasn't, actually."
"You should. This entire arrangement is predicated on you getting into MIT through legitimate admissions. Can you?"
Ryan looked at Ward the way you'd look at someone who'd asked if water was wet. "Professor. I have an eidetic memory, doctoral-level knowledge across twelve disciplines, and I built a functioning mech in my garage. I think I can handle the SATs."
Ward held up his hands. "Just checking."
The conversation should have ended there. It didn't.
"One more thing," Ryan said. "Actually, several more things."
Ward's expression shifted to the particular resignation of a man who'd learned that "one more thing" from Ryan Mercer meant at least twenty minutes of additional negotiation.
"All research results and progress milestones — I decide when they're made public. Timing, format, channels. My call. As long as I don't leak classified technical details, I have full authority to film, document, and publicize my work however I want."
Ward stared at him. "You want media rights."
"I want the ability to keep my name in the public conversation. If I disappear into a classified lab for five years and nobody hears from me, that doesn't serve anyone's interests." Especially mine, Ryan didn't add. The Summon Points required visibility. No visibility, no points. No points, no Project Three.
"And patents," Ryan continued. "The neural link and every other technology currently on Scrapper — I developed those independently, with my own resources, before any institutional involvement. Any future technology I develop within the project where I'm the primary contributor — I want shared patent ownership, with commercial licensing rights retained on my side."
Ward set down his pen. "Ryan. You're asking a defense contractor to share patent rights with a teenager."
"I'm asking a defense contractor to share patent rights with the person who invented the technology they're funding. There's a difference."
"The standard arrangement is that project-funded research produces project-owned IP."
"The standard arrangement assumes the researcher shows up with nothing. I'm showing up with a working neural interface and a forty-foot mech. That's not 'nothing.' That's the entire reason this project exists."
Ward looked at the ceiling for a long time. Then he pulled a USB drive from his pocket and set it on the desk.
"The preliminary cooperation framework is on here. Review it tonight. Tomorrow morning, their legal team will call you to negotiate the specifics."
He stood up.
"You know," he said at the door, "when I came to Texas for an academic exchange, I expected to attend some seminars, eat some barbecue, and fly home. Instead, I've spent two weeks negotiating a defense contract with a child who outmaneuvers me at every turn."
"I appreciate your flexibility, Professor."
"Goodnight, Ryan."
The legal call came at nine the next morning.
Ryan took it in his bedroom. Chloe was on the floor beside his bed, playing a mobile game with the sound on, her character dying repeatedly to what sounded like a low-level enemy. Ryan ignored her.
The negotiation took two hours. By the end, both sides had a framework they could live with.
The project would be formally designated as Small-Scale Single-Pilot Mech Research and Development — bureaucratic language for "make Scrapper better." All technologies developed within the project where Ryan was the primary contributor would be co-patented between Ryan and the contracting entity.
Commercial licensing rights stayed with Ryan. He could take any co-patented technology to market with the contractor's consent, retaining eighty percent of direct revenues. The contractor got twenty percent of direct revenues and full rights to use all project technologies in their own non-civilian products — meaning military applications were theirs to deploy without royalties.
Both parties had veto power over technology transfers to third parties. Both had confidentiality obligations. Neither could share technical details without the other's consent.
It wasn't a perfect deal. In a normal world — one where a scientist was an employee drawing a salary — these terms would never have been approved. But this wasn't a normal world. The scientist in question had arrived with mature, functional technology that didn't exist anywhere else on Earth. He wasn't applying for a job. He was bringing the product and negotiating terms for its continued development.
The contractor's negotiators understood this. They didn't like it, but they understood it.
Ryan could live with the consent requirement on commercialization. As his influence grew — as each project got bigger and more public — the contractor would have less and less reason to block civilian applications. Technologies like holographic displays had far more value in consumer markets than on a battlefield. When the time came, the math would speak for itself.
The deal was signed electronically by noon.
By the following week, a company called Aegis Industrial had been formally established as the project's corporate vehicle. MIT contributed its three million. The defense contractor funded the rest. Equipment procurement began immediately.
And three days after that, a convoy of flatbed trucks pulled up outside the Mercer house.
They were there for Scrapper.
Ryan stood in the driveway and watched a crane crew begin the process of extracting a forty-foot mech skeleton from a sheet-metal workshop that had never been designed to hold anything larger than a riding mower. The operation took four hours, required the partial disassembly of the workshop's rear wall, and drew a crowd of neighbors who filmed the entire thing on their phones.
Scrapper, horizontal on a flatbed, strapped down with industrial chains, rolled out of Crestfield, Texas, for the first time in its existence.
Ryan watched it go.
It would arrive at a proper facility within forty-eight hours — climate-controlled, reinforced flooring, restricted access. A real lab. With real materials. And a budget that didn't require his father to mortgage the house.
He went back inside. Sat on the couch. Opened the system.
Project Two: twenty-four percent.
Still climbing.