Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

can’t put my finger on it. Maybe after I put other pieces together it will all fall into place.” He gave a little shudder and visibly shook off whatever he’d just felt. “Regardless, let’s stick to the task. I’ve got this cleaned up; let me look at the leg.”

Sato hefted the leg, grunting as he moved it to sit on the floor in front of him. With the same deft movements, he went about cleaning the damage away. It reminded Rick of the procedure known as debriding a wound. By the time he’d finished, Sato had amassed quite a pile of burned, bent, and otherwise nonfunctional parts. He leaned back on his legs and gave a sigh. “Done.”

“So you can’t fix it?” Rick asked.

“Oh, of course I can. I was just contemplating how to avoid this in the future.”

“It was a 20mm cannon,” Rick said. “The whole tank thing, remember?”

“Yeah, you warned me. I know, you handled the situation well.”

“You handled those four guys yourself. Do you remember how?”

“No,” Sato admitted as he pulled the duffle bag over again. “Sometimes I just…react.”

“You reacted the fuck out of those four.”

Sato nodded as he removed a box from the bag. It was no bigger than a large book, and of similar proportions. Sato touched a control on it and the device seemed to unfold and grow until it was almost twice the size it had been. A door opened on top, and Sato began dumping the broken components and bits of armor into it. The device made a humming/grinding sound.

“What is it?” Rick asked. He’d run it through his pinplants and gotten no matches.

“The closest analogy would be a manufactory.”

“I thought they were the size of a building,” Rick said.

“Or bigger,” Sato confirmed. “The ship manufactories in New Warsaw are the size of a battlecruiser.” His eyes unfocused for a moment. “There are some much, much bigger.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“I think so,” Sato said. “At least, I know about them.”

“What do they build with them?”

“All manner of things, I would guess. Not all good.” He gave a now familiar shudder and looked down at the tiny manufactory. “This device came to me along with the designs for your armor. I think it could do a lot more than this one can, if I eventually remember how to properly program it. Right now it can replicate the parts I need to put you back in order.”

“Amazing,” Rick said as he watched the machine work. Once the hopper was filled with the remnants of his damaged parts, it closed, and the machine sat on the floor, humming. “We were taught that a manufactory is an advanced 3D printer.”

“Oh, it’s far more. There are 3D fabricators at its core, but the mechanism is far more complicated. It can analyze, improve, even reconstruct items from a tiny fraction of the original. This machine is simpler in scope, while remaining as capable in scale.” It gave a beep and opened the hopper again.

“What’s wrong?”

“It needs some raw materials. I can talk to it via pinplants.” Sato got up and walked around, looking for something. The hotel room was small and only equipped with the basics. Sato stopped at an old, worn looking clothes iron sitting on a shelf affixed to the wall. He took it off the shelf and examined it.

“It probably doesn’t work anymore,” Rick noted, considering the iron’s cord was severed at the plug.

“It’s fine,” Sato said and carried the defunct appliance over to the bed. There he took tools from the duffle bag and quickly disassembled it into its component parts. Once he had the steel soleplate removed, he snipped the wires connected to its heating element and handed it to Rick.

“Can you cut this into pieces about 20 centimeters on a side?”

“Sure,” Rick said. He commanded his right arm laser to life, held the metal soleplate in his left hand, and aimed. “Cover your eyes,” he warned, and Sato turned away. He was only going to use 200 watts of power, but the Human eye could be severely damaged by as little as five milliwatts of power. He fired a precise cut, then another, and a third. With the soleplate smoking slightly, Rick used his hands to snap it into pieces. “Here you go. Careful, the edges are hot.”

“Perfect,” Sato said, and fed the chunks into the manufactory. “It needed raw materials.”

Thus resupplied, the little manufactory hummed along for a time before a door opened on the side and a part rolled out. Sato grunted in a satisfied tone and took the part to install in the severed leg. “This will take a few hours,” he told Rick. “How’s your power?”

“Below 30%,” Rick admitted. “Can I plug in while you work?”

“Sure, this is all straightforward. You want to sleep, too?”

Rick thought about it before answering. “I probably should. What about you?”

“Once this is done. Go ahead and rest. Just leave the leg over the side.”

“Okay,” Rick agreed. He removed the power cord tucked into his left thigh and attached a common power adapter. There was a plug next to the bed, so he hooked to it. The armor reported 1,200 watts of power available without stressing the circuit. It would take 92 hours at that level to charge. He programmed his pinplants for a five-hour rest. It would net him a total of three percent more power. Better than nothing, he guessed. Sooner or later they’d come across a high-power outlet, and he could recharge in a minute or so.

With the sounds of the tiny manufactory working and Sato humming an exotic tune, Rick reclined and shut off his visual receptors. He drifted off, reliving going to a concert by a 20th century cover band called Kiss with Jim Cartwright in their junior year and dreamed about popcorn.

* *