Amelia’s Lab

“So, Red, do you still have a lot of suitors?” John asked on the way to Amelia’s lab with a smirk on his face.

“Haha, very funny.” Amelia stuck out her tongue at him. “I don’t have many suitors, Dad was just pulling your leg.”

“Yeah, I figured,” John started replying. “Wait, did you say many?”

“I mean, there is this one guy from a neighboring clan that doesn’t take no for an answer,” she stated.

“Oh?”

“Aye,” Amelia chuckled. “It’s been a while since I last saw him. Let’s just say that I was gentler with Frank and leave it at that.”

The duo started laughing as they remembered the look on the jock’s face.

“Hey, I thought you said we were going to your lab,” John inquired as they stopped by a door he recognized. “This is the door to your room.”

“Yeah, well, watch this.” She grinned while opening the door showing him the inside. “My very normal and boring room that hasn’t changed much since you last were here.”

The girl closed the door with them still outside. She then placed her right hand on the door making her control circle appear on it. When she rotated her hand, John heard a low click sound.

“Ta-dah,” she beamed after opening the door again, “welcome to my lab!”

“Holy shit!” John exclaimed, seeing a totally different room as the lights and appliances automatically turned themselves on. His eyes widened when five screens at the other end of the room flickered to life. “You have a computer with five screens? And that middle one is huge and curved too!” John babbled on.

“For fuck’s sake, John,” Amelia exclaimed. “Of everything you could spot first, it had to be the bloody outdated thing that’s at the opposite corner of my lab. Damn, Gaia chose the right nerd to give the Gamer Powers.”

“That’s outdated?” he asked incredulously. “Ouch,” he complained after she smacked him on the back of the head, losing 2 HP in the process.

“Can we please get back to my lab?” Amelia asked while pinching the bridge of her nose. John only nodded in reply as they entered her lab.

“This was a basic portable lab that I had remodeled for my own needs,” she started explaining and then took a key from her pocket. “It works best with this key when I want to access it from other places; all I need is a door with a keyhole and I have access to it. I don’t need this key for my bedroom door though, I had it altered to be able to access it with my powers. No one can enter here without my permission, the key and the door are encoded to me.”

“This place truly is amazing,” John stated taking everything in

“Thank you, John,” she said, giving him a peck on the lips, and then walked to a table with a drone on it. “Shut the door please.”

When he did as asked, John saw a yellow little dragon drawing on a poster on the door. “That’s an odd poster,” he noted, then read the writing on it: “Little Dragon, Talent Scout, Entrepreneur, Maker and Seller of ‘Stuff’ and ‘Things’, All Round Horny Brained Nice Guy.”

“Yeah, he’s an acquaintance,” she told him. “He gave me this lab for some work that I did for him. His only condition for allowing me to change it to this current configuration was for me to put that poster on the door. Before you ask, don’t worry about the horny part, our relationship is only a professional one.

“Let’s continue with the tour of my lab. I believe you’ve already met SR4L.” She pointed out to a drone sitting alone on top of a table in front of them.

“Hello, John,” it voiced out, lifted itself from the table and maneuvered as if bowing to the Gamer.

“SR4L?” John asked, recognizing the very drone that had saved him from the jocks and that had delivered Amelia’s bag at his house the night before.

“It means Superior Rotors For Lift,” Amelia explained with a smile. “It started as one of Peter’s jokes. Two years ago, I was tinkering with my drones, trying to make them more flight efficient to lessen the consumption of their mana batteries. Looking through catalogs, I kept complaining to him that I could make better specs on my own. ‘Mine is far superior,’ I kept repeating while discarding one rotor ad after the other. My brother then mock-challenged me with, ‘Then why don’t you perfect your own superior rotors for lift.’ I guess it stuck.”

“How does it leave your lab?” John inquired.

“Now that was a subject of much discussion between me and Aunt Margareth,” she answered. “Unfortunately, not everyone has a pocket space to store things, and my funds are currently too low for me to buy one. So, I keep it here. It flies out of the lab through that ceiling.” She pointed to the area on top of the table. “It only opens for the drone to leave, the exit is a space on the living room floor; I had to guarantee to Margareth that it wouldn’t just open without any warning. From there, it leaves through the doggy flap on the kitchen door.

“And this is my hive,” she pointed out as she walked to a smaller table. On top of it was a ceramic skep beehive. “Unfortunately, none of my bee drones made it back from their jock **** mission.” She sighed. “They didn’t have enough power to return home.”

“Sorry,” John apologized.

“Don’t be,” she reassured him. “I’ll make more once I get the parts.”

“What else do you have?” he asked.

“Right now, I am focusing on my smart particles project,” Amelia continued, escorting John to another table. On top of it was a strange bowl filled with what John thought was very fine gray sand; scattered around it were pages with strange writing on them and a device that John recognized. “My 3D printer works fine, but I need better precision for my prototypes.”

“So, how do these smart particles work?” John inquired.

“Magnetism makes them stick together and my powers do the shaping of the structure,” she explained. “I got the idea from a presentation given by a mundane university professor, at the time she was only capable of making it work with one-inch blocks. I adapted with the use of my powers. It’s not perfect, because I can currently only make objects that are 30 cm at its widest. Do you want a demonstration?”

“Of course,” John replied.

Amelia brought up her control circle over the bowl and pressed some symbols. The particles quickly came together forming the shape of a superhero suit.

“Cool!” John exclaimed, taking in the details of the sculpture. “You’re right, it looks much smoother than most 3D printings. Where did you get this armor model from?”

Before she answered him, Amelia was focusing on the model making different parts of it move to show him more details. His reactions made her answer without thinking, “That’s one of the models of my Titanium John proje-” She stopped too late.

“What did you just say?” John asked, unsure of what he just heard.

“Yeah, it was kind of my last resort,” Amelia started explanation. Her face almost as red as her hair. “I couldn’t just give up on you, John. Even though my only contact with you was through playing games as Caile, I never gave up. Making a power armor for you was a way around my promise to my mom, she asked me, for your safety, to never reveal the truth about myself and the Abyss. So, I thought of the armor even though my clan most probably wouldn’t allow it.”

Once she finished her explanation, she turned off the smart particles and silently walked towards an area of the L-shaped lab. John followed close behind; his eyes widened when he saw the area of the lab where she stopped. Taking up the whole extent of the wall adjacent to her computer was a closet enclosed by glass doors. Inside, all manner of memorabilia of her parents were stored, from little nick nacks to weapons and finally to what John guessed were their wedding clothes. Her father’s belongings were to the left, her mother’s to the right, and a big family photo of when the twins were younger was at the center of the closet.

Amelia went over to her mother’s side and apologized, “I am sorry, Mom, I know it was wrong of me. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do anything too stupid before my time ran out.” After a sad sigh, she turned to John.

“As you might have guessed, these belonged to my parents,” she explained with a sad smile. “They are all their belongings that I value too much to keep in any place else.

“Well, except for this,” she added while opening a glass panel from her father’s side and then taking a basket-hilted sword from it. “This was my father’s sword. All that I know about it is that he got it from a trial of some kind but never mastered its use. He never used it much.

“Here, take it,” Amelia told him, presenting the sword.

“This was your father’s. I can’t do that, Amelia,” John tried to refuse the gift but seeing the determination in her eyes, he asked, “Are you sure?”

“Aye,” she answered. “Who knows? With your bullshit powers, you might just be able to wield it better than my dad.”

John took the sword and cast observe on it:

“Claitir,” he called out loud but nothing happened, not even a small change to the observe window. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

“Yeah, Daddy never discovered its full name either,” Amelia sighed.

John put his right hand inside the basket, the grip fit his hand perfectly. The felt and leather lining actually felt warm. He unsheathed the sword and took notice that its double edges were in pristine shape.

“Before you start swinging,” Amelia warned him, “let’s move this over there so you don’t hit anything valuable.”

John followed Amelia as she walked to the other side of the lab. She pushed some chairs and tables around to make more space.

“There,” she said as she sat on a sofa to observe him, “swing to your heart’s content.”

John stood in the middle of the space and swung the sword a few times taking into account its weight, balance, and how well he could maintain his grip on it. It was perfect. Until he tried to pair it with one of his shortswords. Claitir, as if refusing to be paired with it, quadrupled in weight and he almost lost the grip of it while trying to swing.

“Yeah, Daddy said it never felt right pairing it up with another sword or shield,” Amelia made another revelation. “Which is weird because this is a sword for Jacobite style fighting, but no dirk or targe that my dad tried worked well with this sword. I thought your powers could have revealed something more. It’s unfortunate. You can give it back if you don’t want it.”

“No, that’s fine,” John told her as he sheathed it back in its scabbard. “I’ll keep it. It holds well by itself, so I’ll use it as a back-up until we find out more about it.”

John made to store it but felt a lot of resistance from the sword. He felt more exhausted than he should have when he finally succeeded. ‘Holy shit, that took a lot out of me.’ He felt the need to sit down on the sofa.

Amelia positioned herself closer to him and then took his hand interlacing their fingers. “So, what do you think?”

“It might take some time, but we’ll find out more about the sword,” he answered, knowing it wasn’t what she was asking.

“Och, you wanker,” she exclaimed. “Come on, tell me the truth. I haven’t shown you everything.” She pointed at a door. “Over there is my storage system where I keep my books and spare parts. The computer is the same one I used to play games with you. The holo projector is not working, I tweaked it a bit too much…” She blushed at that last remark. “So, what do you think?”

“I think it’s great,” he answered truthfully. “How did you manage to afford all of this?”

“Thank you.” She smiled before answering. “Technomancers are quite sought after. I did some odd jobs here and there. I’ll probably need to do one soon. If there’s one thing about the Abyss, it’s that things are not cheap, especially fighting gear. Speaking of which, let’s see it!”

“See what?” John asked.

“I want to see what you used to fight the Bauchans.”

“Oh,” he replied, then stood up and equipped what he used.