Flying Fusion Fortress

In my world, there is a bit of an urban legend that there is a flying bomber with a fusion power plant.  It's a curious rumor, because it ascribes both great competence and complete incompetence at the same time.  There are many rumors, but the most reliable one is that the famed water powered car was actually a form of cold fusion that was immediately confiscated by the government to keep the economy from going berserk, but it was still apparently appropriated for many interesting government projects.  Supposedly flying saucers really use the fusion engine found from this car, rather than Roswell or other reverse engineered alien technology.

But at the same time, hundreds of billions of dollars have been sunk into "Project Patience" which is often nicknamed "Project Pitiful."  The planes were supposed to be able to fire lasers into Soviet air space causing targets to be destroyed untracably.  Eventually, they were also supposed to be able to destroy enemy missiles or counter the Soviet Orbital Attitude Control Lasers.

But no one has ever seen it in action.  There were all kinds of rumors about it being used in Jade Spear and Magic Helmet, in fact some people believe that it had a critical element of turning this war against the Republic of Texas....but leaked documents also show that it doesn't actually work.  More rumors speak of a small renegade group of rogue scientists that actually have an operational version of the spy plane, but they won't share the details on how to replicate it with the contractor.

But who knows?  Still, even if it actually works, it is the most expensive weapons platform in history.  And I can't help but wonder...wouldn't forty years be enough time to figure out how to make something like fusion work for the economy? Or are some people so obsessed with their secrets that they insist on keeping things the way they want to be.

Every time I look over the wasteland that is East Texas, I have to wonder if war is really worth it.  Still, better here than exported around the world I suppose....