Despite the many hours the two men had already invested in preparing the FundUp campaign, there was still plenty of work left to do. Before they could formally launch the fundraising effort, they needed a working prototype of the solar cells and the generator, too.

Garth had already researched extensively into manufacturing plans; in addition to the creation of their website and some initial connections with investors, this had been his contribution to their months of effort on their venture. As Garth reviewed the information he had compiled and made alterations, crunching numbers, Richard picked up where he had left off with prototyping the cells.

He was bent over the corner of the desk he had been allotted, a much smaller amount of space than Garth seemed to need for his keyboard and snacks. Around Richard were strewn his materials—pieces of glass, bits of metal, bottles of solutions. He had several small tools as well as a large, illuminated magnifying glass meant for working with miniatures.

I'll have plenty to occupy myself with until we can source a local gnome manufacturer to help with the prototype of the generator, he thought.

Then he thought, Is this my life?

"Gnomes are expensive," Garth muttered.

Richard huffed a laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. I don't suppose your new boyfriend is a veteran sculptor of lawn ornaments?"

"Nah, he's a doctor," Garth replied.

"Ah. Well, you could've picked a guy with a useful occupation."

"You'll have a different perspective someday when you are suffering from appendicitis and you need him to stick a tube up your butt."

Richard opened his mouth to retort before Garth's words had quite landed. When they did, he straightened in his seat and stared with narrow eyes at his friend, not certain where to start.

Garth spoke first. "Hey. I think we're live."

Still a few beats behind, Richard began, "Do you know what appendicitis—?" Then he stopped and raised a hand. "Wait. Your boyfriend is a doctor? You didn't think to mention this when you were refusing to let me call 911 to save your life last night?"

"Richard, I think we're live."

"Live with what?"

"With FundUp."

"What?"

"With FundUp!" Garth repeated more loudly.

Wincing, Richard said, "I heard you, but that can't be right because we can't be live with the campaign until we have a working prototype and we're not even approaching 'working prototype' territory over here."

"Well, I was just seeing what would happen if I clicked the button—"

"You what?"

"I thought it would be a preview or something! There's got to be a way to un-click. I just haven't found it."

"Garth, I thought you were working on the numbers for manufacturing!" Richard dropped his pliers and kicked against the carpeted floor. His wheeled chair rolled a few inches toward Garth. He kicked again. And again. When he reached Garth's seat, he nudged his friend out of the way to see the monitor. On the screen was the concept art Garth had created of a lawn gnome with his snazzy shades, his head tilted back toward an imaginary sun.

SOLAR POWERED AWESOME: RIGARTEK, read the title of the listing. LAWN ORNAMENTS THAT CAN POWER YOUR BLENDER!

"Are you serious right now?" Richard demanded. He pushed Garth's hand off of the mouse and scrolled down the page, looking for an option to do whatever the opposite of "go live" was called, but there was nothing. "Good God, you probably have to phone them up. That's on you. You launched, you un-launch with customer service."

He continued to scroll but found nothing but a progress bar, which would track their funding toward their goal of $200,000.

Bip.

"Woah. Richard. Does that say two hundred dollars?"

"Yeah."

"Two hundred dollars already?"

"Yeah, but—"

Bip.

"But nothing, now it's four hundred dollars!" Garth swiped the mouse back. "Woah!"

"We aren't ready for this. We haven't even proven our concept yet. We have to put the gnomes—we have to put the cells—we have to make the—the things!"

"There's time for us to make the things! We have time! And now we're going to have money! People are promising us money! Just the first tier, the early bird special, but..."

"Garth, this isn't—have you ever contributed to a FundUp before?"

"Sure I have. Where do you think I got my vibrating massage hat? But did I get a prototype of the massage hat before I contributed to the campaign? No. I did not. Because I would have just kept it and not paid money, like any red-blooded American would."

Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. "The prototype isn't for the customers. It's for us. It's so we don't look like idiots when we have to start shipping out solar power-generating lawn gnomes that don't exist!"

Garth spun in his chair to face Richard with a frown. "You don't have confidence in us?"

"Of course I do, but—"

"But what?"

"This sort of thing requires planning, Garth! It's not a last-minute road trip to Nebraska! It's a whole new product! It's new technology. A new company. A new business. Can you imagine the damage to our brand and, for God's sake, to our personal reputations if this thing fails? You can't just—just throw it out into the universe and hope it swims!"

"I find your lack of faith, and your metaphors, disturbing." Garth swept a hand toward the corner of the desk, where Richard had been fiddling with the internal workings of his solar cells. "We're practically halfway there. It's going to be fine. I know I don't need to remind you that somewhere out there is an alien in a cat suit who's trying to do this thing before we do."

"She wasn't an alien. We've talked about this."

"Yeah, we've talked about how she had Star Trek guns. You might be in denial, but she is definitely not not an alien. Or I'll eat my massage hat. We've always known they were out there, man, we just never expected them to be interested in our power and fuel tech here on earth. I mean, if I were an alien, I'd be way more interested in...I don't know, fro-yo shops and giraffes. But look: this just gives us more momentum to get that prototype together and then to produce a whole army of solar gnomes. Look, we have four hundred dollars worth of momentum now!"

Richard closed his eyes and sighed, massaging his eyelids. The thought of actually launching their FundUp campaign had been enough to give him a stomach ache in the days prior; now that it was out there, live, with real people's real eyeballs on it—with real people sending in their real money for something that technically didn't yet exist—he wanted to throw up. He could feel failure looming behind them, spreading its shadowy wings.

"Okay. Richard. Hey." Garth snapped his fingers until Richard looked at him again. "You're the one who's obviously never bought into a FundUp campaign before."

"Of course I have, I've bought games—"

"No you haven't. You've funded games."

Richard scowled. "That's what—"

"Shush. Shh." Garth pinched Richard's lips closed for a millisecond before Richard wrenched away with a grimace. "You funded games. You didn't actually pay any real money until the project was fully funded. Right? That's when they pull the dolla dollas from your bank account. So don't get all weird and guilty over a few hundred pretend dollars. Not yet. We have a lot of ass-busting to do to make it in time—dirty joke—but we can do this. We've got this."

"I can't believe you're not panicking. This is a moment for panicking, Garth. This was the biggest mistake of my life."

"Wrong. The biggest mistake of your life was marrying that vinegar-blooded witch, and you know it. This isn't a mistake! It just feels like it right now because of the risk of indelible failure and public ignominy." He grinned.

Richard groaned.

"Now," Garth said, clapping his hands, "Shut up and start working on the sciencey bit again so those things don't happen. I'm going to scour the Internet until I locate our finest local gnomery."