  Joshua had patented two additional new technology upgrades for GD that year. When his bonus came out, it had shrunk from 1% of the profit base, to 0.75%. He ended up seeing a bonus of only F3,000 for the entire year. He finally got fed up after five years with General Dynamics and decided to start his own company. Placing his house, which he had inherited from an uncle he had never met, as collateral, he borrowed F750,000 and formed his own company. He introduced his first patent 2 months later. He had developed the idea several months before, but had kept it private, never researching it while at GD.
The first two months passed quickly as he spent almost 20 hours each day testing and improving his concept until it was ready. The DefGen had been patented, manufacturers located and signed, and the customer hunt began. The DefGen was a radical departure in technology. It was a pump that compressed water as part of the pumping process. The expansion of the water as it was forced through the pump generated a kinetic force used to drive a uniquely shaped turbine. The turbine shaft spun a highly modified dynamo and generated electricity in excess of that required by the pump to move the water. In effect, Joshua had invented a water pump that generated free electricity. Other liquids could be used, but the density and molecular properties of standard drinking water worked best.
A small capacitor stored an electrical charge that started the pump. Once the pump reached 2,000 rpm, the electricity generated recharged the capacitor and provided an excess power above that required running the pump itself. The pump, after the first 5 minutes to spin up, generated 96% more electricity than it used. Hating long scientific names, Joshua had taken his description, Dynamic Fluid Generator and created the name DefGen. Power companies, traditionally bound to coal or nuclear, suddenly had a clean source of power. Water companies had suddenly had the ability to provide power as well as water.
This had led to a round of mergers and changes in the utilities industry. Joshua had paid off his loan 2 months later and had been profitable from that time on. In addition to the royalties, he also provided consulting services for new applications of his technology. Anole Technologies had become an overnight success. Newspaper sand magazines heralded the DefGen as the biggest breakthrough in technology since the introduction on the Digilog computer chip in 2009.&nbsp; While the Digilog chip had changed computers from binary, on-off systems; the Digilog chips had added a third state, partial-on. With this new, trinary technology, computer speeds had grown exponentially without increasing chip speeds.
The ability to handle base 3 data had generated a new coding system made of 0s, 1s, and 2s instead of the old 0s and 1s. 1 megabyte of memory now held 25 times more information In the 6 years since he started Anole Technologies, Joshua had 12 patents in public use. He had expected to see his inventions improve society. If the cost of production was reduced, products became cheaper to produce and the consumer's EUs went further.
That was what he had been taught in economics. But the greed and avarice he had glimpsed at General Dynamics still controlled the economy. Costs in many areas had fallen 40% or more, but prices to the consumer stayed the same. Company profits climbed. Helping the public would not happen by making production cheaper. Perhaps making the maintenance or other costs lower would allow people to enjoy a better prosperity. If a car were going to cost F85,000 regardless of how much the manufacturing costs went down, maybe the key would be to make running that car cheaper.
So, he started work on his next project. Joshua wanted a car that did not cost an arm and a leg to fill up. After several false starts, he ended up returning to the source of his first personal fortune, water. There had been attempts to build a viable engine that ran by burning the gaseous hydrogen + oxygen created by electrically splitting water into its component elements. As early as 1920 and up to the 90s, people had tried. The problem was it always used more pure energy to get the hydrogen and oxygen out then burning them produced. Inserting a micro version of his DefGen allowed 90% free electricity to be used to generate the fuels for the engine.
What he finally ended up with was a slightly modified gasoline engine, with a micro-DefGen; it basically ran on water, provided 165% horsepower compared to a gas engine, and got 65 miles to the gallon. The major exhaust of the engine was water vapor, with other gases mixed in. No harmful or noxious fumes or byproducts. A 16-gallon tank would go 1000+ miles between fill-ups. Joshua tested it on his personal car. Originally bought on his company's first anniversary, it was a classic 1999 Lamborghini. After modifying it with a 4-liter V8 replacing the original 6.0 V12 (to make room for the micro-DefGen), it was still able to reach 223 MPH and now got 65 mpg!
He had been testing the car now for 2 months, constantly tweaking, adjusting and improving the design and computer calibrations. He felt he was ready to publicly release his invention. Joshua was currently documenting his latest tests and what changes it had created. He was also recording the ideal settings he had determined and all the related information. This was an important step, since it was how he organized his thoughts and findings in preparation for the formal application. Joshua stopped typing and reread what he had written. This journal allowed him to review the past and see if he was thinking objectively and correctly. For the past several days, he had been feeling like he was being watched. There was nothing that he could prove, or even put his finger on, just a feeling at the base of his skull. Joshua was not a paranoid individual. He was sarcastic, jaded and disillusioned with corporate America, but not paranoid. In the next few weeks, that would change. 
