Chapter 341
Getting back to the speakeasy was a bit scuffed. I had to leave Mira at the nuclear cooling towers to fly off with the boxes, kick the boxes into the Aether once I was somewhere hidden, and then go back and pick her up. It was a waste of about twenty minutes. That was fine though. I wasn’t in any particular rush.
The mask of Corvus was just a mundane mask, though I wasn’t expecting much. It’d make a nice trophy or display piece to remember him by. The coin actually had an interface prompt.
| Coin of Commerce
Corvus’s prized golden coin.
- Attracts Commerce |
Once we got back, I had Mira help me clear out a corner of the backrooms. They were getting more and more crowded, almost to the point they looked like scrapyards with how many varied parts and pieces were scattered around. I just didn’t have the space to get organized. Not yet anyway.
With my autominers blitzing away, it was only a matter of time till I could clear out of the speakeasy and run the final preparations for it. Aside from buying out the building, getting food and drink was the last thing on my agenda for the place. It was already completely repaired and ready to go.
“Thanks for helping today.” I pulled my poncho tighter around me. It was kinda cold down in the speakeasy. Usually I didn’t notice since my machines were running and generating heat, but there wasn’t a heater wired into the basement.
”Sure.” Mira stretched out and scratched at her skin right around the Shift ExoCore. “Not like I had anything planned today.”
”Does, uh, does it irritate you?” I motioned to her forcibly implanted chrome.
She followed my gaze and just stared at the back of her hand for a moment. The metal underneath her skin flexed, sticking out sharply against her skin. It left her skin just over her palm and stuck out sharply all along her arm. “It used to. Nael gave me some medicine to help.”
”I’m sorry—“
“We’ve been over this, Shiro.” She sighed and gently patted me on the shoulder. It was stupid, I was supposed to be the one comforting her, not the other way around. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I—“ I cut myself off. I should’ve noticed quicker that something was wrong back then… what’s happened, happened though. There was no changing the past. Even the eidolons seemed to be completely incapable of messing with time.
I summoned out my canteen to take a long drink of water. The cold, pure water helped clear my head in a far healthier way than relying on Cold-Blooded for everything. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself. “Want to see something cool?”
Mira took the not so subtle conversation change in stride. “You know I do. What is it?”
”Something I’ve been working on in my free time.” One of the many things, actually. I led her down the rappel line to the newly mined out cave.
My cute little autominers had been extremely busy while I was out and about. The cave had expanded to about the size of three shipping containers. Crazy to think just a year ago I lived in a place a third of this size. The walls of the cave were perfectly smooth from where the laser mining beams worked away at them.
Several of the autominers smoothed and polished out a pillar that would later support the warehouse sized cavern… whenever they finally got around to expanding that far. I looked around, checking for structural stresses. Thankfully, my calculations had been flawless so far and everything still looked stable.
“Woah, been busy Shiro?” Mira walked around the space and watched one of the miners work away at the cave walls.
”Don’t stare too much or it’ll blind you,” I called while checking out the charging ports. The connectors for where my bots plugged themselves in were a little worn out. They weren’t the most stable walking around, so the ports were all scratched up. It was purely a fault of the autominer’s intelligence.
“So they, what, suck up the rock goo and deposit it over here?” Mira moved over to a stack of compressed bricks of stone set up near the back wall.
“Chek.” I had the bots dump slag into a compression chamber, and then create those. I dunno what I was going to use them for, but I’d figure it out. “Helps keep this place cleaned up.”
”What are you gonna put down here? A tank manufactory? Oh! Or are you going to make a badass mecha?” Mira looked more excited about it then I did.
”Um—none of that.” Making a mecha did sound intriguing. I had so many projects to do before then, though. “I just need more space. And the backrooms of the speakeasy I want to turn into private booths.”
I still had a dream of making the speakeasy a merc dive. I was worried the troubleshooter act would completely kill independent mercenaries and force everyone into agencies, but that was just short-sighted of me. Of course mercenaries, known for loving freedom, wouldn’t all flock to agencies. Only a small portion did, in fact. There was still room for merc dives, fixers, and all that good stuff.
”It does look like a mess.” Mira picked up a compressed stone brick and tossed it into the air. She caught it and then repeated the process a few more times before setting it back down. “Those are hefty. You planning on making a vault out of them?”
”Nah. Even basic mining lasers can cut through those.” I’d need to add some chemicals or something to reinforce them. “Besides, I don’t really want to get into construction.”
”Fair, fair…” Mira looked around the cave one last time. “You have anything else today?”
“Up in the workshop. I have a bunch of stuff to work on.” There were far too many projects I’d left on the back burner. A few of them I was still just waiting to work on. The hover bikes I just got the final parts for, though otherwise I was ready to start on them. I needed to weaponize the Dragonflies too. Oh! And her Drop Chutes before I could forget again.
“Nice… then I’m calling a cab. Pa wanted to eat out somewhere with me.” She waved a hand and moved back to the rappel line. “Call me if you need me.”
”Have a good time.” I stayed down and watched my autominers work for a while after she left. I had to make a few repairs on them from unexpected stress on their limbs, but other than that they were good to keep working.
I headed back up and got to work on the simplest of my issues—the Dragonflies. For a long time now, I’d wanted to create a variant of my little drones that could be used for more than just intel gathering. And, since I had basically no production price thanks to Transmutation, I didn't have to worry about them breaking.
That all together gave me the idea for Fireflies, the newest variant of my Dragonflies. I started with the basic shape of my Dragonfly, though I reworked the backend of them. The tail antennae shrunk drastically and I reworked the model to have a chamber instead.
I would’ve liked to create the next level up of the Aether Imbuement crystals, but the array wasn’t something I could make quite yet. I’d need to consult with a Magi or Adept for that. It was fine though. I could make do with chemicals instead.
First thing on my list of changes to get the Fireflies into shape was reworking the explosive blend for my thermite grenades. Back when I pulled Tornado Arm’s research, I learned quite a few things. My original mixture looked so very crude beside their notes and concoctions. They weren’t even doing anything magical. They just made small adjustments I never tried. Granted, I never got too much into the chemistry side of things.
I restarted the process and adjusted some of my chemicals. I made the blend a lot smoother to control the particle size, worked with a different stabilizer, and changed the primer to a compound that would burn much stronger.
Down in the Underground range, I started to test everything without fear of burning down my workspace. I didn’t even bother with the actual body of the Fireflies for now. This stage was all about perfecting the chemistry, so they didn’t matter all that much. I worked with Transmutation and my canteen to create dozens of small batches and spread them across old chrome to take notes on how they burned.
Most batches were obviously off. Some didn’t ignite at all, some burned too fast or slow, and some didn’t cling to the target. A few were close, but even just the smallest adjustment threw everything off too much.
The primer was the biggest issue. It was better and hotter, but if it was set off too early or late it threw off the rest of the stuff. Getting the stuff right was like wrestling with a stubborn bear. Too much powder and it slagged instantly. Even just a fraction too much oxidizer, and it fizzled out before it could do anything. I kept at it, adjusting the ratios and running tests again and again until I could get a stable formula once more.
Several hours later, I allowed my auto-rappeler to carry me back up to my workshop with the new thermite in a sealed container. It was bound with a liquid instead of a putty, which played perfectly for my canteen. This batch burned brighter and held temperature longer, which meant I could use smaller amounts for a similarly strong effect. The stickiness of the compound wasn’t as high, but the extra punch would make up for it. The Fireflies were meant for precision strikes anyway.
I ground up a set of freshly produced crystallized fire and added it into the mixture slowly. The fine power blended evenly into the past and significantly boosted the ignition. Or that was the hope anyway.
With the new compound, I encased it into my latest micro drone design. This one got a bright red stripe along its shell. I wanted zero confusion about which drone carried a payload and which didn’t.
Issues almost immediately cropped up on the mechanical side, because of course they did. For the thermite to have enough compound to work with, I needed a much larger chamber. That meant cutting out a lot of features and parts of the dragonflies.
By the end of the process, I ended up with a fatter Firefly drone that lacked a lot of the detection and chips that the original Dragonfly model had. That was fine though. I could send both types together and use the Dragonfly to guide the Fireflies.
I took a finished one and booted it up. The derpy looking drone buzzed into the air. I guided it along the path back toward the Underground and slammed it into one of my targets down there. As soon as it made impact, the improved thermite compound inside ignited and burned into a brilliant flare of light.
It looked good. I’d have to field test it, of course, but there were several things I could see used for. Fighting was obvious, but even infiltration could be made much easier with precision thermite burns.
I cleared off my work table and turned my attention back to other things. Thankfully, with this project, I already knew what I was doing. I quickly got to work assembling a new set of Drop Chutes for Mira. They were slightly bigger, but otherwise I didn’t modify them too much. I did want to make them hover capable at some point using the power cells I swiped from that T7 armor vendor, but that was for a later time.
I closed up the shop and headed back to my apartment. I took my time cleaning up and getting myself ready. Tonight, I had a particularly important meeting. One that I’d been looking forward to for a long time now. Once I was set and ready to go, I got back on my bike and headed for my good uncle Kuzo’s place with contract in hand.