Ravens of Eternity

182 Working Hard, Pt Miko followed old man Reeve further into his shop, and noted how much of it was in utter disarray. Parts were scattered all over the shelves, on tables and desks, the floor, any open surface, really. And seemingly at random without a discernible order or structure to their placement.

The parts themselves were in varying degrees of usability. Some were outright broken, while others barely had a scratch. The one thing they all shared was that each part was relatively clean.

At the very least the old man, or someone else, had the sense to keep the parts spotless.

In utter contrast to the scattered parts, the workshop’s tools were hung along the walls with an absolute order to it. Various wrenches hung next to each other from largest to smallest. A variety of multitools were inset into the wall, their overall silhouettes had been cut out to fit exactly that tool.

Also unlike the parts, the shop’s tools looked well-worn and comparatively dirtier. Some even showed signs of oxidation, though none were egregiously rusty.

Interestingly enough, Miko didn’t spot a single tool out on the floor that wasn’t in use. She realized that the old man was meticulous with the tools he worked with, but careless with the parts he worked on. And yet, he didn’t seem to take as much time to clean his tools as he did the parts.

The contradictions nagged at her.

It especially got to her when she thought back to Szereth’s and the Admiral’s labs. Theirs were immaculate and orderly in comparison to the one she found herself in now. If a tornado swept through either of their labs, Miko believed they still wouldn’t be as chaotic as Reeve’s.

But she had to admit it had its charms in its own special way, much like the old man himself.

.....

“So, uh, Raijin was it?” he asked. “What’s your disciplinary focus?”

“That is interesting,” she replied, “most comment on my age first, and here you are asking about my focus.”

“Sounds like they’ve got a bias problem. I’m more interested in what you can do.”

“It is a refreshing question. In any case, I have not yet determined my focus. But I am perhaps most interested in understanding photonic and gravitonic particles for now.”

As they talked, Reeve glanced over a number of parts on a table. While he browsed, he nodded his head as he absorbed her words. At the same time, he picked up a part, looked it over, realized it was the wrong one, then put it back down elsewhere.

“Two of the seven funamdental forces of the universe,” he said. “I’m impressed. Understanding one is hard enough, but two...”

“I ultimately wish to study all of them,” Miko replied. “Especially dark energy.”

“Woh, how brave of you! So you plan on being a physicist researcher or something, then? Is that the focus you wanna go for?”

The old man spotted a part out of the corner of his eye and hopped over to pick it up. He turned it over in his hands, and nodded as he realized he found what he was looking for. It ended up somewhere in the folds of his clothes as he hopped back along the path he was walking.

Then he headed towards the back of his lab with a slight spring in his step.

“I do not believe I will ever have a final focus,” Miko replied. “I will probably go through many of them in my lifetime.”

She realized that having a potentially infinite lifespan meant that focusing on a specialty was completely infeasible. Given enough time, she had the potential to learn everything there was to know.

The thought of having nothing left to learn shook her, so she put it aside for now. That was a problem that was too far away for her to care about.

“Mm, yes,” he replied. “I can relate. I’ve changed focus seven times in the past four decades.”

“That explains the state of your lab,” she said quietly.

“What was that now?”

“Nothing. Why do you ask what my focus is anyway?”

“No reason,” he replied. “Well, okay, there’s a reason. I’m bored! I haven’t gotten to talk to a real engineer in a long, long time. Last time was, oh, two years ago? Over in Settlement Burrav, I think? ”

The old man suddenly looked up, glanced around, then leaned in towards Miko with a whisper.

“Oh, and um, there’s my apprentice,” he said, “but he isn’t an engineer quite yet. Don’t tell him I said that though. He gets demoralized way too easily. He’s having trouble grasping a few of the fundamentals, but he’ll get there. Eventually.”

He then went back to walking normally without missing a single stride. He opened the double doors to the other half of his vast lab, where a partially disassembled drone hung suspended in an antigrav field.

The tables surrounding the drone were covered in various parts and tools and electronics.

Unlike the contradictory disorder in the rest of the lab, this special bay seemed to be filled with a normal sort of disorder.

Miko sighed in abject relief.

“This is what I need help with,” said Reeve. “Nothing fancy, just plain old drone mechanics. Gotta take it apart, clean it up, and put it back together. And before you say anything – it isn’t just one. We’ve got about four dozen of these fellas out there that need servicing.”

Miko waved her baton at the drone and pulled down its schematics. It curiously looked just like her weapons platform drones, except much older. Once she reviewed its technical capacities, she realized it was exactly that.

Same manufacturer, same product line, even. Only this one was at least three generations older and had parts that were hard to get on the open market. In fact, their designs were so outdated that they could almost be called antiques.

“All you need is someone to help you fix these?” she asked. “Why not put your apprentice to task?”

Reeve sighed deeply.

“I did say he had a bit of trouble with the fundamentals,” he said. “Drone maintenance is one of them. And yeah, I know it’s kinda boring, but these things are important to the settlement’s defenses. Keeping them in shape is really high on the to-do list. And my to-do list is absurdly long.”

“What is your apprentice doing now?” she asked.

“Oh, I think he’s dealing with the settlement’s dew condensers this week. He’s good at simple machines, that’s for sure. He knows how to keep those condensers in top shape.”

“I could perhaps help you with your tasks, but I do not think that is wise.”

Miko looked around again at the sheer chaos of his shop, and realized that it had gotten that way through the sheer overwhelming workload the old man had. The settlement looked as though it was running well, but clearly there were cracks in the seams.

If they lost the old man for any reason, the entire settlement would no doubt fail.

“After all,” she continued, “you will still have too many tasks, even after I leave. Instead, I propose that we build you a mechanical assistant instead. Perhaps it will help you stay organized.”

“Are you making fun of my workspace?” said the old man.

“No, of course not. Well, alright, maybe a little. It is as though one of your machines exploded, and it ended up everywhere. How you are even able to find what you need is a miracle to me. It is chaos.”

“It might be chaotic, but there’s beauty in chaos. At least, that’s what they say.”

“Engineers need to be efficient, not beautiful.”

She then walked up to the partially-disassembled drone and looked at it up close. Just like the Spirit of Amelia, it had been well-worn over the decades. Dirt had been caked into the seams, and there were small dents and scratches all over its armor.

But it still stood strong despite the abuse it had endured over time.

“Do you have anything newer than this?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, this is the best we’ve got,” he replied. “All of ’em are the same model, but this one happens to be in the best shape. Don’t blame me, alright. It was all the budget could handle. The fact that we even have as much as we do is kind of a miracle.”

Miko sighed, then activated her cottonball drones. She realized that she had a lot of work ahead of her.

“Disassemble, clean, and organize,” she instructed them.

They hovered around the weapons platform drone, and began to strip it down using focused antigrav fields. They took off panels and parts with exacting precision, and laid them in an orderly matrix along with the rest of the parts on the tables.

“Does that mean that the other settlements may not even have security drones?” Miko asked.

The old man’s face turned to a frown as he thought about it.

“Yeah, unfortunately,” he replied. “Most were only able to buy a third as much we were able to. Some weren’t able to get any at all. Poor bastards. I hope they never get attacked by anyone.”

Then the old man was suddenly struck by something – a thought more so than anything physical. His mouth gaped as what the cottonball drones were doing sunk into his mind.

He stepped right up to them and watched up close as they dismantled his drone with absolute precision.

“Hold on,” he said. “How’re they doing that?! Antigrav fields only affect the attraction of objects within the field – it can’t do fine motor movements. Like unscrewing a bolt or undoing clasps! And yet your little drones are doing just that! It’s absurd!”

“I am playing with compounded graviton wave modulation,” Miko said. “This would never work with one graviton emitter, but many in conjunction with each other can do this. Each one generates different gravitational wavelengths using beams of different widths. This allows the fine-tuned movements you are seeing.”

“I-I can see why you’re interested in the fundamental forces. If you can do this with graviton emitters, then I can’t wait to see what you can do with electromagnetism and photon particles.”

“It is best that you do not. Perhaps, for the preservation of your own ego.”

The old man was utterly speechless at Miko’s statement. How hurtful!

It didn’t take very long for Miko’s cottonball drones to fully disassemble the drone. After they had removed all of its parts, they worked to reorganize everything into an orderly matrix across all of the tables.

One picked up parts and placed it into the second’s holding field. Meanwhile, the third would pull out parts in the field and place them back onto the table. But in a much more efficient layout.

As they did so, Miko was able to study all the parts and see how it all worked together.

“Do you have any spare antigravity modules on hand?” she asked. “I think I might have seen one when we walked through your main workshop.”

Reeve scoured his memory and recalled a number of antigrav modules he had worked on, then nodded resolutely.

“I can count at least a dozen,” he answered. “They’re all older models, of course. Not sure if they even work, but... hopefully they do. How many do you need?”

“At least three,” said Miko.

“Help me find ’em. They’re scattered around.”

“Of course they are.”

The two of them immediately went back out to the main workshop floor and began to scour the many parts littered everywhere. It took the both of them at least ten minutes to find a mere handful of them, which grated at Miko just a little.

Too much time was wasted trying to find these things.

“How do you manage to create anything when you cannot even find what you need?” she demanded.

“Maybe that’s why I haven’t created anything in a good long while,” he replied. “Been stuck on maintenance duty for... I don’t even wanna reveal how long.”

By the time they got back to the old man’s drone, hers were already done with their reorganization. The two of them added their antigrav modules to the pile, which the drones quickly went and reorganized.

Miko also added a number of other random parts she had found to the parts matrix, though she organized them in herself.

.....

“I hope these antigrav modules still work,” she said. “I do not want to assemble the drone only to have its most critical parts fail.”

She picked one up randomly and observed it keenly.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” said Reeve. “I mean, I haven’t activated these in months. I did just put these three through my powerflow tester, and they seemed alright. But that’s a far cry from a deep scan.”

“Perhaps we should recycle and reprint these instead,” said Miko. “It might take longer to complete, but it will be more efficient.”

“Um. About that. My, uh, printer has been busted for a while.”

Miko slapped her head with her palm, then wiped it down her face in frustration. Dark clouds hung over her head as she sighed deeply.

“You are the most disorganized person I have ever met,” she said. “Forget the defense drones. Forget the assistant drone. We need to deal with bringing your printer back online first.”