Brian was deep into an engrossing conversation with the sharply dressed director of HR when he felt a tap on his arm. It was Ian, of course. "Two minutes."

"I know, I'm on it." As if in response, Brian's watch beeped. "See, that means it's show time. Lovely meeting you," he added to the director. He shook her hand, adjusted his tie, took a deep breath and headed over to the podium.

As he set up his notes, his eyes skimmed the hundred or so people in the room, now beginning to take their seats. Many were faces he recognized from Engineering. His own team was already seated in the front row, probably sweating. He was glad at least one of them liked public speaking. The only thing making him nervous right now was Mr. Oliver. Brian knew how to handle engineers and businessmen, grandmothers and military officers (and military officers who were grandmothers), but this man was a legend. As such, he was completely unpredictable. The rumors often contradicted one another. And this was just the man Brian needed to impress. Well, him and three others.

Brian looked at his watch again and scanned the room. It would be rude to start without them. "Welcome, everyone. If you would please be seated, we'll be starting as soon as everyone has arrived." He glanced at Mr. Oliver, whose eyes were fixed on the only door to the room.

At 2:30 p.m. and twenty-seven seconds, three young people in bright colors walked briskly into the room, trying to hide that they were out of breath. Everyone else stood and applauded briefly. The teens smiled awkwardly before sitting down in the front row. Now Brian could begin.

"Again, good afternoon and thank you for being here, Mr. Oliver, Wind Ninja Rangers, department heads and other friends. This is the quarterly research report for tech team number five, colloquially Team Lathe. We have some really exciting developments to tell you about, so I'm going to jump right in with a little background, and then move on to our methods and results. We intend for this to be a brief talk followed by a question-and-answer time.

"This"-he changed the slide to a photo-"as we all know, is the Dark Fortress: the spacecraft and base of Astronema. In 1998, with the defeat of the UAE, the Dark Fortress was claimed by Earth and very quickly repurposed by ConGlamCo into the Terra Venture. During this refurbishing process, ConGlamCo personnel essentially gutted the ship, stripping it of all but its most basic life support and propulsion systems. Everything that they took out of it was boxed up and donated to the California state universities for research purposes.

"Unfortunately, the technology was so foreign and advanced that the professors couldn't make sense of it. The universities loosened their security measures, allowing graduate students access to the artifacts. One of these students managed to make off with all of the ship's data cards, along with anything that looked like a power source, and sell them to an extraterrestrial contact. This is how the Psycho Rangers' data cards ended up on the black market in 1999. Investigation into this theft was slowed by that student's departure on the Terra Venture, and he was only recently brought to justice.

"Early this year, SPD Sirius was able to recover some of the power sources and data cards that were sold, and return them to us. In another stroke of luck, Karone and her husband made a visit to Earth soon afterwards, and we were able to get their help on understanding the ship's databases. The work of Team Scanner on the Quantrons' programming also came in handy. There are vast amounts of information that have been opened up for study.

"So today, after a long, collaborative effort, we are proud to present the first major development in Ranger technology proceeding from this research: a lightweight, low-cost, low-maintenance blaster that provably performs at least as well as the currently popular models, with zero effective recoil. That last part may seem physically impossible, and it certainly was by the means we had available five years ago. But the Dark Fortress made use of a new branch of physics that not only makes this possible, but could be groundbreaking in every area of engineering."

Brian couldn't help but pause for a moment to admire the picture of a blaster on the screen. Ian had done a very good job on the slides; Brian made a mental note to thank him later.

"Our blaster makes use of a new power source, a substance that our materials experts call destabilized eucite. Believe it or not, many monsters naturally produce this substance. Their bodies can combust the eucite and release the energy from that reaction in a steady stream. Our enemies have often designed weapons based on this biological structure, and now we can, too.

"The problem with eucite is that it's a solid at room temperature, and even at the body temperature of most monsters. To get the most efficient reaction, it must be heated to a liquid or a gas before oxidizing it. But that requires a lot of energy in itself, and once it's a liquid or a gas, you don't want the stuff anywhere near you. It's white-hot and it could explode at any second. So their bodies actually contain the eucite in a special organ away from the main body, and they heat it to appropriate temperatures over time so that it's ready at any time. When they need it, they start the chemical reaction and channel it out."

Several people in the audience looked confused. This was probably not the presentation they expected. Brian could see that Mason, Wind Red, was about ready to fall asleep. I'll have to get to the point soon, he thought.

"Now, here's what makes this remarkable: The eucite is actually stored in another dimension." A few people perked up, or at least looked suspicious. "Now that I have your attention, let me clarify with an example. Suppose we had a two-dimensional monster living on a piece of paper, like the one in this slide. He could store this material off to the side, stuck to what we would call the front or back of the paper, even though he himself can only move about on the surface of the paper. Similarly, our three-dimensional monsters have this organ 'off to the side', so to speak, in a fourth dimension - or I should say, another three-space that intersects with this one.

"Do you see what this implies? Other spatial dimensions exist. As far as we can tell from the Dark Fortress' databanks, Astronema believed this space to be entirely empty, making it safe to store things there. The possibility of nearly unlimited storage space is revolutionary on its own, provided we can figure out how to transport items from one place to another. For now, we know how to channel explosive energy across a narrow path in this new direction, and that's what allows our new blaster to work. The wielder doesn't feel any of the weight of the fuel that it uses, and that fuel doesn't need to be compressed into a small space. It uses cheaper materials than current models, and our manufacturing department tells me that even the tricky part of pushing the fuel compartment into the other dimension would not be beyond our means of mass production. Depending on how much we're willing to invest, we could have these in every current Ranger's hands in as little as a month.

"But perhaps even more importantly…" Brian paused slightly, hoping that would sink in. Yeah, more important than cheap, efficient weapons, even more important than Rangers. "Our research tells us that any number of distinct three-spaces may exist within at least five new spatial dimensions, and for all we know, they may be inhabited. This is a brand-new frontier, and we must be incredibly careful in how we go about exploring it. For the time being, we have confirmed with probes that a particular three-space, two feet from ours and the size of the earth, is empty and safe for our blasters to use. It is the recommendation of Team Lathe that the policy-makers of the Hexagon make a high priority of regulating further research and development in this area.
"Thank you for your time. As we like to say around here, every win is a team win. Many people in this room and some without contributed to making this happen in the timeframe that it did, and I expect that this discovery will, in time, make all of our lives better."

The audience applauded, slowly. The rest of the tech team took their cue and came to the front of the room. "Thanks again," said Brian. "We will now be taking questions." Some people began murmuring to each other.

"Do you have a projected manufacturing timeline?" asked Mr. Oliver.

Brian froze, but Ian stepped in. "Yes sir, it's in our appendix slides." Brian looked at the slide thumbnails and, sure enough, there it was. He put it on the screen and Mr. Oliver looked it over, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

Laura, the Blue Wind Ranger, raised her hand from the front row. Brian smiled, barely able to keep from chuckling. "Yes?"

"I see that you have projected dates for the availability of this weapon to the Hexagon in general. When do you think it could be available for widespread production?"

Brian hesitated. "What do you mean by 'widespread'?"

Laura pushed up her glasses, looking closely at the screen, not at Brian. "The Silver Guardians, for instance, could make good use of these, along with the new Mariner Bay rescue teams. What are your plans to distribute this technology, or sell it?"

"Laura." She turned around immediately at Mr. Oliver's voice. He was looking directly at her. "What is the first principle of the Power?"

The rest of the room got quiet. "The first principle of the power is to use it appropriately - not for personal gain, but only to serve the people," she recited.

"That's right. That means we have to keep tight control over the power that we have, so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. We will want to think carefully about each decision involved in distributing weapons. And those are decisions for the administration, not the tech teams."

"I see." Laura turned slowly back to face the screen, still not looking at anyone.

Brian swallowed. Why did that feel so tense? "Any other questions?" he asked.

There was a pause. "Yes, I have a few," said a man toward the back of the room, "but they're mostly implementation questions, so I'll catch up with you later."

"If that's all there is, I'll let you all go, then," said Brian. "Have a good rest of the day." The crowd got up and began to disperse.

Brian turned to look at his team, who all looked like they had indigestion. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Mr. O looked like he wanted to roast us alive," said Barbara.

"Nah, that's what he always looks like," said Ian, rubbing her shoulder. "If he really has a problem with us, we'll hear about it in our next review."

"Either way, I'm glad it's over. Drinks are on me."

Brian grinned, but even as his spirits lifted, he caught a glimpse of the Rangers leaving. Mr. Oliver had an arm around Red's shoulder, telling him something urgently that Brian couldn't hear. The tension was real, and it had little or nothing to do with his tech team, though it might have had something to do with the new discoveries. What have we done?