Dan growled in frustration as the electricity running through his palms and into a pair of metal rods grounded out with a flash of ozone. He’d forgotten how frustrating developing a new spell was. By now, he could cast all of his favorites as if they were second nature. He simply thought of the effect he wanted, and the nanites in his body did the rest, triggering muscles and mana pathways to enact the spell.
Looking at the metal bars, he sighed. The voltage he ran through them was more than the thin strips of metal could take, melting and bending them until they were no longer parallel. Even the slightest imperfection would ruin the spell, likely the cause of his previous failure.
Concentrating on the rods, he converted some of his mana to metal mana in an attempt to smooth them out. It worked, after a fashion. The two metal dowels flopped in his hand like freshly cooked spaghetti. Frowning, he laid them on the floor and stretched them tight before relaxing the flow of mana.
He picked one of the strips of metal up and tapped it on the ground with a satisfying clang. At least this time, they hardened properly without turning brittle and shattering into a cloud of sharp, metallic slivers. That’d been fun to clean up.
Once again, he ran an electrical current through the two rods. He could feel the interaction, just out of his grasp, as the flow of electricity created the barest hint of Lorentz force pushing forward. He seized on the sensation, trying to imprint it on his memory. After all, the goal was to replicate it without the need for metallic tools and props.
Another flash of electricity lit up the gymnasium, forcing Dan to drop the metal with a hiss as it superheated and scalded his hand. A knock at the door drew his attention.
“Come on in,” he called out, activating his thermal rune and picking up the metal to soften and smooth it once again.
Jennifer poked her head in through the door and made a face at him in the dim light of the ship’s gymnasium.
“I know I haven’t had a chance to shower or put on makeup in the last couple days,” she quipped, “but you don’t have to be so upfront about it.”
“What?” Dan cocked his head at her before glancing down and realizing that the metal rod in his hand had been magically softened, hanging limply like a length of rope from his loose grip.
“Jesus Christ, Jennifer!” He blushed, pulling the metal taut before hardening it. “I’m doing research here; there isn’t any need to be crude about it.”
“I heard you swearing, and I figured you could use a distraction.” Her face lit up with a smile in the dim light. “That said, whatever you’re doing right now looks pretty useful. I know that you keep telling us ‘it’s a secret,’ but if you can figure out a way to alter the properties of metal, that’ll lead to some fun tricks against tanks.”
“Honestly,” Dan picked up the other chunk of metal and softened it. “You might be onto something there. I’m currently working on mixing electrical and metal mana to simulate electromagnetism, but turning armor into sludge might be more useful against other humans. Won’t do much against the Orakh, though. Most of them run around practically naked and use their claws and teeth as often as their weapons. Half the time, I think their axes are more prop than tool.”
“What are you trying to do in here, anyway?” She asked quizzically. “I know you’ve been all hush hush, but it’s been almost a month and a half. I figure you at least owe me a hint of some sort.”
“A railgun.” He grunted, setting the two strips of metal down side-by-side. “Fairly simple in theory; you just need two metal rods like this. If you run a current through them and let the electricity arc from one to the other, it produces Lorentz force, which allows you to propel an object perpendicular to the current. Unfortunately, replicating the process with mana seems destined to drive me insane.
“Apparently, you need to mix lightning mana with metal mana.” He frowned, staring daggers at the two strips of steel. “I’ve succeeded in merging the mana, and I can create the electromagnetic forces I need, but it hasn’t really gone anywhere yet. I just keep losing control of the interaction before it gets anywhere.”
“That’s an interesting idea.” She nodded. “I still think that turning peoples’ guns into noodles would be a more useful trick, but being able to fire a magic cannon from your hand does have an appeal of its own.”
“Guns aren’t really a threat anymore.” Dan shrugged. “That said, the final Orakh we fought was definitely a problem. I have multiple spells for dealing with crowds. Now, I need something to deal a whole hell of a lot of damage to one target in a hurry. Between spellshields and the sheer size of some of the more powerful Orakh, I’ve definitely begun to notice the hole in my arsenal.”
“That reminds me.” She snapped her fingers. “The actual reason I came down here is that Sam’s finished analyzing and reverse-engineering the Orakh’s gauntlet. It’s basically a crude rune. As far as we can tell, it doesn’t use the same ‘alphabet’ as the elves, and it’s nowhere near as refined as their enchanted gear, but it works. She wanted you to come down and look at it, see if it could be adapted for mass production.”
“Mass production?” Dan asked as he stood up, grateful to leave the troublesome metal behind. “Like, as an enchantment?”
“Apparently.” Jennifer shrugged as she led the way toward the officer’s mess that they’d converted into a lab for Sam. “I don’t really get the ins and the outs of it, but it sounds like the Orakh have solved the stability issues of spellshards by pouring a ton of mana into it. We both know that a lot of the new recruits are months away from learning any useful spells, but at the same time, they’ve earned quite a bit of mana in the previous battle. With any luck, we’ll be able to put that into good use and let them fire off raw bolts of mana to complement their more conventional arsenal.”
“They do need their mana for the suits.” Dan frowned. “Those things are pretty heavily enchanted to lighten them and make them more resilient. I don’t want the troops blowing through their mana to make a lightshow, then getting stuck without adequate mobility.”
“Hey,” Jennifer said, opening the door to the lab, “you’re the boss. Sam just wanted to talk it over as an option.”
Dan strode into the lab after her. Unlike his gym, the lab had been rigged for electrical lighting in addition to the more ubiquitous and dimmer mana-fueled lights. A server in the corner powered a network of three different computers, each with their own orbit of half-disassembled equipment and analysis tools plugged into them. In the center of the room, a table held a partially disassembled suit of power armor covered in bright yellow labels.
Sam stood next to the suit, speaking into a tape recorder as she picked through its guts with her gloved hands. Despite the door closing behind Dan, she didn’t look up, too engrossed in her work to notice the new presences in her lab.
“You know your System can just take notes for you, right?” He called out as they crossed the room toward her. “There really isn’t any need for you to waste a hand on a tape recorder.”
He winced as she jumped and whipped around, eyes wild. It took her almost a second to recognize him and calm down enough to speak. Even then, he couldn’t help but notice the slight tremor in her hand as she reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes.
“And you know that you can customize your in-System username from <User>, right?” She bit back before grimacing. “Sorry. It’s just that you surprised me and-”
She exhaled deeply, a novel written in the new wrinkles on her face and the bags under her eyes. “I’m not great with surprises lately,” she continued flatly. “The tape recorder reminds me of how things used to be before…”
She trailed off, eyes losing focus for a second. Dan coughed to regain her attention, trying to ignore Jennifer fidgeting uncomfortably next to him.
“Before all of this,” she snapped back to reality, a weak smile on her face. “Things are getting better day-by-day, but it’s been hard. I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person, a survivor. I figured, if I could survive growing up with homophobic parents upstate, I’d be able to take anything psychologically.
“The last couple of months have been one unpleasant truth after another,” Sam took off her elbow-length rubber gloves before stowing away the recorder. “Going from confident and self-motivated to the point of being a borderline narcissist to an anxiety-ridden wreck has been a bit of an adjustment for me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dan smiled reassuringly, cocking his head. “Actually, what was that about my username?”
“I still can’t believe you were the first one to crack, Sam.” Jennifer rolled her eyes. “I still had my money on it taking another five months.”
“Seriously?” Dan looked back and forth between the two of them. “What the hell?”
“You do realize that you’re the reason Abe won, Sam.” Jennifer crossed her arms. “Like always, he’s going to be absolutely insufferable.”
“Shit,” Sam replied, cracking her first genuine smile in months. “You’re right, he’s going to be absolutely awful.”
“I’m glad everyone’s all cheerful and buddy-buddy,” Dan interjected, “but I’d really appreciate it if someone actually told me what’s happening right now.”
“You haven’t programmed in a personalized username in the System.” Sam shrugged sheepishly. “You know, how my name is <Sam the Great>?”
Dan frowned, trying to avoid looking at Jennifer as she did her hardest to hold in her laughter. “I thought that just happened on its own? Do you mean it hasn’t been projecting my name to you guys when I would send messages?”
“No.” The genuine warmth of Sam’s face as she chuckled diffused any anger Dan might have had over the situation. “Just check your status screen, it lists your username as <User.> How would it even know what to call you when you’re sending messages?”
This time Jennifer did break down laughing. It wasn’t a polite titter, either. Dan was pretty sure she was crying as her body rocked, her hands on her knees.
“At first, no one noticed.” A smile pulled at the corners of Sam’s mouth. “You weren’t talking to anyone through the System, so we didn’t get a chance to see your username. I guess we just sort of assumed that you’d figured out how to customize your name on your own, until you started sending out messages with the default username. At that point, it kind of became an inside joke for the rest of us. Abe even started a betting pool for how long it would take you to notice.”
Dan shook his head, letting out a laugh. “Do you mean that this entire time, literally for years, I’ve been the only person that didn’t know how to set my own name?”
“Yup,” Jennifer interjected, wiping a tear from her face. “And, I do have to say, this conversation is exactly as hilarious as I thought it was going to be.”
“Well…” Dan shrugged with a smile. “I’m glad I could add some levity to the situation. Now, Sam, Jennifer said that you had something to talk to me about regarding the Orakh’s gauntlet?”
“Of course.” She waved Jennifer and him over as she sat down in front of one of the computers, booting it up to a schematic image of the glove. “Now, I have some ideas for incorporating these runes into the powered armor. We’d have to make an adaptation for each soldier based on their own affinities, but I have some ideas about how to incorporate it into the entire runescripting structure of the armor’s enchantment as a whole.”
Dan leaned forward, his years of electrical engineering bubbling to the surface as Sam began displaying images of the interlocking runescripting. Silently, he wished he had some more coffee. It was going to be a long night.
