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Core Beliefs – Chapter 34 - Ling Frazzled. A little before 10:00 p.m., Marcus stepped toward the critical care unit of St. Lemmons Hospital. After being dismissed by the staff three times, he called Joe. “The hospital refuses to give me any information, Joe. I’m not family.” Frustration saturated every word. “Give me the name of whoever is giving you crap, and I’ll fax an authorization document.” Joe could not remember ever being so pissed. It took another two hours of b

Core Beliefs – Chapter 33 - Crushed Thick layers of ice coated the windows of Matt’s Buick. It took thirty minutes of defrosting and scraping before he pulled out of the empty parking lot. The weather had deteriorated, adding new layers of ice to the roads. Matt listened to the radio for traffic reports, hearing of new wrecks and power outages throughout the city. Traffic stalled in places. Matt decided to try the freeway. There were no reports of wrecks on the stretch he

Core Beliefs – Chapter 32 - Last Day as Matt. On October 3 rd , despite the ice on the sidewalks, Matt went for an exercise walk. He kept to the grass where possible to avoid slick sidewalks and streets as fine sleet fell. It wasn’t a great workout, but Matt had made the effort. Once home, he opened emails, groaned at the spam, and thought that if someone could truly figure out how to block it, they could make a fortune. A message from Lucy asked if Matt wanted to cancel t

Core Beliefs – Chapter 31 - New Power It was October 2nd. The weather had turned nasty. A freak ice storm rolled through the Midwest. Chris, Suchet, and Doug fitted the acrylic globe with the superconducting neodymium magnets. Each lab-quality magnet was ring-shaped, encased in a thermally insulated housing with fittings for the liquid nitrogen cooling system. Each assembly was almost 8 inches in diameter and four inches thick. It wasn’t the reason Suchet had ordered the A

Core Beliefs – Chapter 30 - New Key-New Door Suchet, Chris, Doug, and Ellie had been working long hours at a frantic pace. They were so close to starting the next round of experiments that it was almost impossible to get them to stop before midnight. When he could, Charley was there helping. *** On September 2nd, Suchet confirmed they were ready to go. With the modifications to the beam generator complete, they could control every frequency individually. Suchet proposed th

Core Beliefs – Chapter 29 - Wheels keep turning. Charley, Chris, and Doug completed the steel building the first week of August. With the harvest done, Eldridge had time to help, and he and Elvin made a tremendous difference in getting things finished. The roof was on, everything was watertight, and they cleared the scrub from inside the building. The plan was to level the ground inside and pour a concrete floor level with the silo entrance. Doug, Charley, and Chris had n

Core Beliefs – Chapter 28 - The Party. Matt had been up to his ears in things to do when he arrived back in St. Louis. For over two weeks, he visited all the facilities, held meetings with the management teams and councils, and realized that he needed to fine-tune the management structure. Meetings with Marcus Corush led to a list of those people Marcus held in the highest regard. Matt concurred, and with a call to Joe, Matt arranged for the incorporation of another corpora

Core Beliefs – Chapter 27 - Prom Back on the farm, a very special day approached—April 26, a night that Ellie had looked forward to for months, and now, more than ever. It was prom night, and Doug was her date. Charlotte had helped pick her dress and personally escorted her to a salon for the full treatment—hair, facial, manicure, pedicure, and makeup. Once back at the farm, Charlotte and Marcy applied the final touches. Doug arrived in a limo, climbed the steps to the fa

Core Beliefs – Chapter 26 - Finding it all over again. Matt showed up at Lasticorp on Monday and was greeted with a ‘Hello stranger’ from Lucy. She ensured he was up to date on Lasticorp and forwarded messages from others who needed to see him. One of the people on the list was the tax firm that handled his personal returns. Matt wondered why the urgency but drove to their office that afternoon. It seemed the issue was record sales, productivity, and profits. Even though h

Core Beliefs – Chapter 25 - Ellie unleashed. On Monday, at 10:00 a.m., everyone gathered at the Elsberry house—that was everyone except Ellie. “Where is Miss Coblentz?” Suchet asked. “Sorry,” Doug said, “she didn’t have permission to miss school today.” “We need this lady here if we are to proceed effectively,” Suchet said, his eyes roaming the group. *** “Marcy,” Matt said over the phone, “Suchet and Chris insist that we need Ellie at this meeting. Would you be willing