Chapter 6 - The Secret Workshop
"Where do you do most of your work,
Jaylen?"
Wendell asked,
still holding the soda-can induction heater.
Jaylen looked at his mother,
who gave him a small nod.
"Behind the trailer,"
the boy said.
"I have a shed."
They walked out the back door,
past a small garden of collard greens and tomatoes.
The shed was a ramshackle structure made of salvaged wood and corrugated tin,
leaning slightly to one side.
But when Jaylen opened the door,
Wendell felt like he was stepping into a sacred space.
The walls were lined with shelves made of old crates,
each one organized with obsessive care.
There was a crate for fasteners,
a crate for gears,
a crate for electrical components,
and a crate for tools that Jaylen had mostly fashioned himself.
In the center of the shed was a workbench made of a solid oak door laid across two sawn-off stumps.
On the bench sat a project that made Wendell stop in his tracks.
It was a small,
three-wheeled vehicle,
no larger than a go-kart,
but its design was unlike anything Wendell had seen.
The frame was made of bicycle parts,
but the drive system was a complex arrangement of belts and pulleys connected to a series of old car batteries.
"Is this electric?"
Wendell asked,
his voice barely a whisper.
"Yes,
sir,"
Jaylen said,
stepping up to the machine.
"I found the motor in an old washing machine.
I had to rewind the coils to make it work with DC power."
"And the controller?"
"I built that from an old power inverter,"
Jaylen explained,
pointing to a box of hand-soldered components.
"It has regenerative braking,
too.
When you slow down,
it sends a little bit of charge back to the batteries."
Wendell ran a hand over the rough frame of the vehicle.
He was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar renewable energy company.
He spent his days looking at blueprints for million-dollar battery arrays and solar farms.
And here,
in a leaning shed in rural Alabama,
a fourteen-year-old boy had built a functioning electric vehicle with scrap and intuition.
"Jaylen,"
Wendell said,
turning to face the boy.
"Do you know how many people with PhDs are trying to solve the problems you've just worked through?"
Jaylen looked confused.
"It’s just physics,
sir.
The energy has to go somewhere,
so you might as well put it back in the tank."
Wendell looked at the boy and saw a version of himself,
but with a talent that far exceeded his own at that age.
He saw a spark of genius that was being smothered by the weight of poverty and a lack of opportunity.
If Jaylen stayed here,
he would eventually get a job at the local garage,
or the nearby poultry plant,
and his mind would be wasted on a life of simple survival.
The world would never know what Jaylen Tate was capable of.
"How would you like to see a real lab?"
Wendell asked.
"A place with 3D printers,
laser cutters,
and all the copper wire you could ever want?"
Jaylen’s eyes grew as large as saucers.
"You mean like on TV?"
"No,"
Wendell said.
"I mean my lab.
In New York."
Mrs.
Tate,
who had followed them out to the shed,
let out a small,
sharp gasp.
"New York?"
she whispered.
"That's a long way from Pine Hollow."
"It is,"
Wendell agreed,
turning to her.
"But your son doesn't belong in Pine Hollow,
Mrs.
Tate.
May you like
He belongs in the future."
***
