Chapter 762: Ala: Pro Max.
Meeting Ala Steward was like meeting the president of a country. She now had her own office, for one and a secretary! It was, quite hilarious. Just as it was hilarious that her office was now the biggest room in the lab building.
Ala had argued that she needed the square footage because she had too much stuff and no one dared to say otherwise. They didn’t even ask what ’stuff’ it was!
She had private security on her floor, six-armed superhumans that were paid for by the Quinns and six mutant ant sized robots that patrolled the building and floor in turns.
The security on her door was terrifying_ layers of body part scanners, retinal checks, and a voice-recognition system that seemed to judge you based on your tone. If you were nervous, you needed to explain yourself.
Sunshine made it through all the checks. The moment she entered the office; Ala slammed a button on her desk. "Ariel, close the blinds! Sweep for bugs! Total blackout mode!"
Sunshine looked a bit confused at the mentioning of her son’s name, "Ariel?"
Red lights immediately swept through the room like a silent disco from a nightmare. Sunshine stood perfectly still as the lasers passed over her. After a tense few seconds, a calm, male voice that was similar to that of Ariel filled the room: "No surveillance devices detected. The office is secure."
Sunshine exhaled, looking at the tiny girl who was now climbing onto an oversized executive chair. "Ala, don’t you think you’re being a little... paranoid?"
Ala looked genuinely shocked, her mouth dropping open. "Paranoid? aunt Suni, the Watchers can listen to us talk, mom told me everything! They’re equivalent to creepy neighbors with binoculars! Why aren’t you as anxious as I am?"
Sunshine leaned against the heavy metal door, offering a small, confident smile. "Your mother must have told you, that I already handled it. I mutated the Watchers’ frequency. You do not have to worry."
Ala squinted at her, looking entirely unconvinced. "How? You can’t just mutate an alien frequency, especially not a Xylas one. That’s like trying to change the color of the sun with a paint brush. How did you do it?"
Sunshine didn’t feel like explaining the repairman system living inside her head or what it could, Ala would want to access it all the time if she found out. She also didn’t dwell on the fact that the girl had named her security AI after Ariel. "I just did," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "Now, why did you drag me in here like another world is ending? what is going on?"
Ala’s expression shifted. The frantic energy died down, replaced by a heavy, somber focus. She reached into her spatial space and fished out the doom’s wand. She placed it on the desk between them.
The object sat there, small and deceptively simple. It emitted a faint, rhythmic purple light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Every time the light flared, the air around it seemed to ripple.
Sunshine felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She knew exactly what that thing was. Ala had described its potential before_ an object of mass destruction. She thought she had confiscated everything from Ala. Had the girl built another one?
"You remember what this is right?" Ala asked, her voice sounding very small in the giant office.
Sunshine stared at the pulsing purple light. "How can I forget," she answered in a clipped tone.
Ala reached into her space again and brought out another object. This one was smaller_ way smaller, about the size of a thumb drive_ but it pulsed with that same eerie, rhythmic purple glow. Sunshine leaned in, her curiosity piqued.
"What is that? A mini-me version?" Sunshine asked, poking at the air near the object.
Ala smiled triumphantly, her chest puffing out with pride. "I managed to shrink the Doom’s Wand’s output into a portable unit. I call it the Doom’s wand pro max." She grabbed her tablet and began scrolling through lines of glowing code with a flashy grin. "And here’s the best part: I found a way to use it without turning the user into a pile of ash."
Sunshine tilted her head. "I’m listening. How does it work?"
Ala picked up the tiny wand and held it like a prized trophy. "It’s all about the remote interface," she explained, tapping her tablet. "I’ve rigged it so you can set a precise timer right here. You place the wand where you want in like a city, set the countdown, and wait, when the timer hits zero? Boom! Total annihilation of an entire city into nonexistence, while you’re far away sipping a juice box."
Sunshine was genuinely impressed and very terrified. It was a literal ticking time bomb of pure prime core energy. She reached out to the system. "Is this thing actually legit or not?"
The system’s voice resonated in her mind, cool and clinical. [Analysis complete. The device is 99.8% effective based on current schematics. However, live testing would be the only way to verify the true margin of error. I can sync with the wand and trigger it on your direct command, bypassing the tablet if necessary.]
"Perfect," Sunshine said aloud, a smirk playing on her lips. She reached out and swept the Doom wands into her own space. Maybe she would put one inside a watcher and send it off. After triggering it, those ugly birds would all die out at once. She turned to Ala, "Good job, but I still don’t like you working on dangerous weapons or projects."
Ala beamed. She looked like a kid who had just been told her science project won first prize. Seeing Sunshine happy with her inventions was clearly the highlight of her day. She leaned back in her oversized chair, swinging her legs. "I live to please and I will stop when the war ends. Now, about the next rift repair. When are we doing this?"
"We’re leaving tomorrow," Sunshine said, her expression softening. It felt weird saying ’we’ as if it was a group task, when the girl would not be going with the team. Then again, as one of the weapons inventors, she was technically part of the team.
"Tomorrow? Okay, okay," Ala muttered, her brain clearly shifting gears back into ’genius inventor’ mode. "In that case, you need one more thing. I eavesdropped on the meeting and heard about our new troubles. I think I have just the thing to help."
She rummaged through her space and placed a small, silver ball on the table. It was etched with strange white marks that seemed to swirl like liquid marble. "This is a Shroud Barrier," Ala said, her voice dropping to a serious whisper. "Once you activate it, it creates a field that separates you and the team from the rest of the world. It’s a total ghost zone."