Chapter 3.1: Prototyping

Minkus had thought Penny’s tenacity at research was enough to rival his most advanced peers back in Metrica. That, however was only the beginning. If she was persistent in research, she was downright obsessive in work.

It was several days into the golem-pack project—a term only used by Minkus and Eddie when Penny wasn’t paying attention—that Minkus realized things were dramatically different when the engineer worked on something personal. Now that she’d begun work on her project, Penny only ever came out from behind the curtain to eat or relieve herself, both of which were happening at increasingly longer intervals.

Most days Minkus was invited behind the curtain at some point to help her solve some new problem with the intelligence core. She consulted him, when there was something to which he could actually contribute, but she always made the final decision and performed all the work for herself. Until summoned and after being released from duty, Minkus helped watch the counter while Eddie continued work on Sigmund’s turrets right beside Penny.

Her attention split between the two projects during the day, Penny had taken to carrying on with the personal one late into the nights. Every day, she was hard at work when Eddie and Minkus arrived and hard at work when they left, and it seemed the only way to ever get her attention was to physically stand between her and her worktable. By her own nonchalant admission, she hadn’t even been sleeping in her own bed since the first day of actual work. Each night, when exhaustion finally overtook her, she simply passed out on a stack of blankets she’d laid on the workshop floor, only to rise a few hours later, before either the boy or the asura arrived at the shop. Minkus had seen this behavior in a handful of asura before, and it concerned him just as much in her as it did in them.

Early one morning, after that first week of labor, Minkus arrived at the shop at the same time he always did, only this time he found Penny excitedly talking at Eddie beside the counter. The clockwork bird sang its song as he entered, and Penny paused her chatter just long enough to see him.

“Biggie, you’re here!” she exclaimed, moving quickly toward him across the room. The goggles draped around her neck swayed with each rapid step. “It’s about time. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Minkus smiled, glad to see his friend appearing social again, then he looked at Eddie. The boy’s wide eyes screamed of being overwhelmed.

“Hi Penny. It’s nice to see you out. What were you waiting for?”

She brushed the stray lock of hair out of her face. It fell back down. “For the first test! I couldn’t start without my team, even though you did take your sweet time in showing up.”

Minkus raised an eyebrow. “But, this is the same time I always—“ He trailed off, his eyes meeting Eddie’s. Penny had already spun around and headed toward the back of the room, where the curtains were pulled open.

“Hey, Eddie,” she said over her shoulder, “go close the shutters and lock the door.”

Minkus shrugged and followed behind her, climbing up on a box beside the work table on the other side of the curtain. On one side of the table were the two power supplies: the one for the intelligence core and a second to fuel the mechanics. They were wired across the table into the squatty steel structure that would one day be the interior of the pack but was, for now, exposed to allow the team to see what happened inside.

It was a creative design, but the device itself was an odd-looking piece of equipment, almost skeletal. At the top of the steel structure was what was left of the intelligence core, repackaged in its casing. Beside it the golem’s visual receptor sat aimed downward at a pair of parallel conveyor belts lined with clockwork clamps that held a variety of tools for the test. In theory, as tools were taken in by the dispensation mandible that extended in and out of the lower right side of the pack, they would be recognized by the visual receptor, mounted on an empty clamp on the first belt, and shuttled back and forth between the belts until placed in the appropriate location for that tool. Then, when dispensing a tool, the system simply worked in reverse.

Penny rubbed her hands together, leaning over her creation as Eddie rejoined them. “OK,” she said, “both of you know the schematics, so you know what’s going to happen. It’s just tools, so there shouldn’t be any big surprises. Biggie, you watch the readings from that intelligence core. Eddie, keep an eye on the power systems.”

Both nodded.

“OK, Eddie, flip the switches.”

Minkus turned. “Are you sure we don’t want to activate the core and monitor it before trying everything? I think that’s how we did it in—”

“No, Bigs. Don’t worry so much. Everything’ll be fine. Eddie, flip ‘em!”

The asynchronous hums of the two power supplies began the moment Eddie turned them on. They gained pitch as each one approached full output. As the power and magic flows increased, the reading panel they’d bartered off a traveling trader began to light up, each group of glowing asura glyphs reflecting the activation of another core system. Penny kept a close eye on the clockwork mechanics, as they began to rattle and buzz. Everything seemed to be going exactly as expected.

A grin stretched wide across her face as Penny pulled her goggles up. “OK, let’s do this. Are the voice recognition and interpretation systems online?”

“I believe so,” Minkus replied. “Everything— appears to be working.”

“Here goes nothing.” Penny looked directly at the device and raised her voice. “SP-1, ratchet.”

The belts sprung into action, transferring the ratchet from belt two to belt one and spinning it into position alongside the mandible, which grabbed the tool and slid it out the dispenser slot. The three exchanged excited glances as Penny reached out to take hold of the tool, but as she grasped it, Minkus’ reading panel lit red.

“Penny?”

“What is it, Big?”

“What did you do about the friend-or-foe matrix?”

She still had her hand on the ratchet.  “What?”

“You know,” Minkus replied. “The page I added to your notes. That one you didn’t ask for.”

“Oh, that? I didn’t do anything about it.” She pulled the ratchet from the device’s grip and stood back from the table, gently waving the tool as she continued. “I told you. It wasn’t important. Why?”

He turned to face her, his eyes widening in the red glow of his flashing monitor. “Because— I think it just marked you as a foe.”

“That shouldn’t even be poss—” Her words fell away. The belts had begun to spin again.

The mandible grabbed a wrench from the belts and propelled it out the dispenser at Penny. “Ow! What in Torment was that?” Penny exclaimed, rubbing her ribs.

“Looked like a three-sixteenths,” Minkus replied.

“Look out!” Eddie interrupted, pointing.

A rubber mallet cycled into the mandible’s reach. And just as quickly as the last, the tool was a projectile narrowly missing Penny’s left leg.

With each item launched, the kickback moved the frame around the table, changing the angle of the next shot. In a short few seconds, the project had become a maniacal weapon, flinging tools around the workshop like an angry toddler with a troll’s throwing arm.

The frame turned toward Eddie, spinning a large pipe wrench into position.

Minkus saw it happening, suddenly hyper-aware of everything in the room.

A blue flash enveloped them, concussing the humans with a force that drove them back across the room. As he slid backward into the counter, still on his feet, Eddie watched the wrench flying at him with wide eyes. It stopped only a few inches from where he’d been standing and sent a blue ripple through the air as it ricocheted in the opposite direction and slammed into the back wall. Another tool shot out of the device. Again, this one bounced away midair, with an azure flash. Then another.

As another clicked into position, sparks suddenly flew in all directions, a cloud of smoke plumed from the power cells, and everything went silent. The room settled as one more t-square fell off the wall.

Penny, still standing, shook her head. Suddenly aware that she was several yards back from where she had been at the work table, she surveyed her shop. There were a few misplaced tools and broken crates, but nothing bad. The most notable change was Minkus, shrouded in smoke and standing over the power cells with a hatchet buried two inches into the tabletop between his feet. That, and the translucent-blue energy field spanning the width of the room.

Penny stepped slowly toward the scene with an outstretched hand. “What in Grenth’s name did you do?” she burst.

At the sound of her voice, Minkus turned around, still straddling the hatchet embedded in the table. “I— don’t worry. It’s just the cables. Nothing else is broken.”

Penny wasn’t looking at him. “Not that,” she intoned, her hand just inches from the wall of light. “This. What the hell is this?”