I walked over to the large topographical map pinned to the corkboard behind our main desks.

It was marked with dozens of blue pushpins, each representing a home currently connected to our local backup system.

“If you want a real story, Marcus, look at this map,” I said, tapping the corkboard with my knuckle.

Marcus walked over, ignoring my mother entirely as she tried to catch his eye.

“These are the people we actually serve,” I said, pointing to a dense cluster of pins near the water.

“They aren’t thinking about Stanford degrees or startup press releases.”

“They’re thinking about whether their medicine will spoil in the refrigerator tonight.”

Marcus leaned in close, studying the handwritten names and street numbers penciled next to each pin.

“This is Mrs. Gomez,” I said, touching a pin near the bottom of the map.

“She’s eighty-two, and her oxygen concentrator runs on our battery pack when the main grid fails.”

“And here is the community clinic on Fourth Street.”

“Our engineering team spent three days in the pouring rain last month setting up that connection.”