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

Chapter Four

It took another hour for Sato to finish fabricating the parts to complete and reattach Rick’s right leg. He would need to find some of the carbon fiber/nanotube armor to make it as resilient as before, but it was attached and working. The diagnostics showed 92% of previous capabilities.

The round that had caused the damage was a tungsten carbide penetrator with a depleted uranium core, likely a remnant from some conflict in the last century. The frustrating thing was that a CASPer would have shrugged a single round like this off, because its armor was both thicker and had the advantage of a stronger internal structure. Sure, a half dozen 20mm penetrators to the chest would make hash of the armor and the user. However, a single round would be nothing.

“I need to think of something to deal with overachieving attacks,” he mumbled to himself.

The repair completed, Sato went over to the room’s nominal desk—nothing but particle board with a cheap office chair from FedMart. He put the mailbox on the floor, lest it collapse the flimsy office furniture. It was tough enough to hold his toolbox, which he put down and folded open. He dearly wished he’d had room to take a more comprehensive selection. There were less than a thousand various tools with him, not even a corner of his former lab.

The mailbox was in surprisingly good shape, considering that the building around it had been burned down and then survived the crazy battle with the punks. He yawned and began checking out the lock. His screwed-up memory kept overlaying images. Some made sense; some didn’t. The box was the right one; he was sure. Both the numbers and type matched. There was no memory of the key, though, and it was an impressive one. Clearly the drop had been more than just a casual mailbox. Maybe used by organized crime as well, which, considering the neighborhood it was in, made sense.

Picking the lock was out of the question. It wasn’t a skill he was proficient at, and the lock was far too complicated. It was easier to go at the structure itself. The hinges were hidden on the inside of the frame, of course. He could see the points where they entered the sides, and this told him where the pins must be.

Sato selected a little pinpoint laser and linked his pinplants with it. The device had a maximum of 500 watts with a tight beam. He slid on a pair of tiny goggles, dialed the beam as narrow as he could, and tested it against the metal. It took several seconds of holding the invisible beam of the infrared laser to start melting the box. Sato checked the power usage through his pinplants and shook his head. It wasn’t cutting fast enough to show results before the battery went dead.

He replaced the laser and searched the toolkit for other options. After a second, he selected a little device he used for dissecting tough metals. A hyper-tough carbon-carbon blade. Its spine was a tungsten Inconel alloy, and the edge was molecularly hardened with a fusion torch. They were experimental, and he’d only brought two with him. He’d labeled them fusion knives.

Sato stared at the tool for a second, considering. Rick’s arm lasers had enough power to cut into the box; they were also powerful enough to set the interior on fire. The fusion knife wouldn’t set the interior on fire, though it could still destroy whatever it contained if he wasn’t careful.

He shrugged, switched to a different kind of goggles, and slipped on some protective gloves that extended to his elbows. Sato bared his teeth as he clicked the power control and brought the fusion knife to life. In a fraction of a second, the blade progressed from a buzz, to a whine, then past his audible threshold. The edge blurred and began to heat the air. Sato blinked at the effect, as he couldn’t see the edge of the tool anymore.

He didn’t have time to admire the beauty. Being very careful not to get the blade anywhere near his body, Sato slid it into the metal at the point of the hinges. The steel cut like butter with a screeee! sound. Tiny bits of metal spalled from the box, one penetrating his left glove and biting into his wrist.

He hissed at the pain without stopping. Once the blade was halfway in, he moved it a centimeter sideways and was rewarded with a popping from the box. Not wasting any time, he slid the blade back out and plunged it into the other end of the hinges. This time it took a little effort to make the device penetrate, and even more to slide it sideways. Scriiiiing was the sound this time.

The box lid lurched and popped completely from its frame, catching Sato by surprise. The heavy steel hit the side of the fusion knife, and the blade exploded. Spraaang!

Sato jumped and flinched away as a chunk of the blade embedded in his goggles, and another tore along the back of his arm like a serrated blade. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed, focusing on the little piece of fusion-hardened steel penetrating his goggles millimeters from his eye.

He pulled off the heavy gloves and examined his wounds. The wrist cut was shallow, but bleeding worse than the gash along his arm. The latter was painful and luckily didn’t result in any metal embedded in his flesh. They also weren’t bad enough to warrant nanites, which was good, because he didn’t have a lot of the little healing machines.

The basic medkit provided all he needed to patch himself and clean up the blood. Again his hands moved with practiced ease, though he only remembered going to the medics a few times he’d hurt himself on New Warsaw. His injury taken care of, Sato cleaned up the remnants of