Chapter One - Feed the Machine


    Chapter One - Feed the Machine


    The bigger they are, the more theyll make fall.


    Or something like that.


    Look, I dont exactly read a lot of books, alright?


    --Three Swipes, Comment about the unveiling of the Domus, 2052


    ***


    Im heading home, Gomorrah said.


    I glanced over to her. Just like that?


    She shrugged. Well see each other in a few hours. The security around the church is tight, but its not tight enough to stop a full-on invasion. I have a few hundred points to spare.


    That actually sounds like a decent idea, I said. I glanced at the museum. The interior had been torn apart already, with workers crawling all around the inside moving junk into containers and others bringing in new materials. If I recalled correctly, the renovations would take a week or two.


    I could probably speed that up, considerably.


    The problem was that I could only do so for the topmost floor.


    I stared around. The museum was the shortest building in sight. Only 13 floors tall. Most of the buildings around were twice that height, some more distant buildings were considerably taller than that.


    Cat?


    I spun around to face Gomorrah. Sorry, head in the clouds, I said. I might do something similar here.


    Youll want to reinforce the floors below too, Gomorrah said. Keep that in mind.


    Right, I said.


    She nodded, then awkwardly tapped me on the shoulder. Well, Ill be seeing you in a little while. Try not to be late.


    I chuckled. Yeah, dont worry. See you at the meeting.


    She nodded back, and took off towards the edge of the landing pad. The Fury showed up almost the moment she reached the edge, the door sliding open so that she could slip into the drivers seat without having to miss a step. The car tipped away from the building, then shot off through the city.


    Myalis, I said.


    Yes?


    Reinforced titanium walls, designed for warships, a type of lightweight concrete made to endure extreme wear and tear, and transparent panels made of realigned crystal matrices. The entire thing would be quite difficult to damage.


    I started walking towards the head contractor. Send the blueprint to Lucy, get her input on things. Shes got more of a head for that, and more time too. Tell her its important. I flagged the older guy down and he jogged over, an eager smile on. At the same time, I sent a text to Raccoon, telling her to meet me in a few minutes.


    The contractors head bobbed up and down as I explained things to him. He seemed a little worried, but eager to do whatever I told him to do, which was good enough for me.


    Nearly the moment I was done with the guy, I got two texts. One from Raccoon, telling me shed be up in a minute. The other was from Lucy. She wanted to know if things were alright.


    I sent her a quick things are okay, talk later while I stepped into the museum.


    I paused and looked down at myself. My armour had changed to be an offensively bright yellow. Uh, I said.


    Youre supposed to be wearing a high-visibility vest within the construction site. A helmet as well, but yours is of greater quality than OSHA-standard requires.


    So you made my armour turn yellow? I asked.


    It fits the requirements.


    Its bulletproof, I said.


    Which also complies with security standards.


    Why do you even care about those? I asked.


    I dont. I just wanted to paint a yellow cat on your back.


    I sighed. Some things didnt change. Youre such a pain in the ass, I said. I couldnt help the bit of humour that snuck into my voice though. Myalis was probably trying to destress me a little.


    The interior of the museum was a mess of torn-down walls, stacks of materials and piles of trash that hadnt been picked up yet. The far end of the space wasnt so bad though. I found some security cordon-tape blocking access to the room where Lucy and I had placed the matter reconfiguration machine.


    It still sat pretty in the end of the armoury, big and shiny and... next to a row of stacked blocks?


    I walked over to the blocks and knelt next to them. They were about ten centimetres long and two thick and wide, little rectangular blocks of different colours with letters engraved on their sides: Fe, Co, Cr. There were some little numbers too, but I glossed over those. Some of the blocks were clearly canisters too. Were those gasses?


    It seems that Racoon has been busy.


    What are these? I asked. The stacks were actually pretty large.


    Elements. Purified and reconstituted into usable blocks for material printing. Theyre one of the possible end results that the reconfiguration machine can produce. An easy way to store metals, essentially.


    I stood up and took in all the stacks of blocks. Some were by far more common than others. How much time had Rac spent feeding the machine?


    Well, thats something.


    ***