A Week To Prepare

"This is fucking boring." Said a boy with slightly long black hair who was looking up at the ceiling.

He was leaning back in a white armchair inside a luxurious room, staring at the ceiling as he repeatedly pressed the button on a pen. He had been doing this for some time now, Quagmire was standing in front of a small table where there was a notebook with several torn pages.

"One more for the trash." he said with an angry expression as he tore up another page and tossed it into an already overcrowded trash can.

It had been a week since the class in which Professor Ana announced the Mirian competition, Quagmire, being more unlucky than anyone, was one of the 3 people chosen to represent the veritas group in the individual modalities.

He and the others were tasked with thinking and creating something innovative for the next 4 weeks, one of which had passed and Quagmire was thinking about nothing but big projects. Quagmire was well aware of the nature of the people behind the government curtain and had no intention of providing technologies that would benefit them much.

Not only was it an extremely difficult task for someone as ambitious as Quagmire (when excluding his personality), but there was also the problem that he was trying to understand the inner workings and other goals behind this competition, which was supposedly an homage to Mir.

"I think every project would be great.'' Said a female voice.

Quagmire then finally regained consciousness, erasing the conflicting thoughts from his mind with a snap. In front of him were Olivia, Mary, Samuel and Alice who were picking up the papers from the floor, smoothing them out so they could undo the wrinkle. The four were impressed with the creation prototypes proposed by Quagmire, as incomplete as they were, they still contained perfectly placed details and drawings that conveniently explained to anyone reading the document.

''What's your grade point average, anyway?'' Asked Mary.

"It's 40." The boy replied unconcerned, he had already got used to his friends' questions.

However, as soon as he said this, Mary who had a paper detailing an incomplete design for a watch (which by the way was similar to the one he wore on his wrist) looked at him, hoping he would say it was just a joke.

"That was some kind of prank, wasn't it?" - Olivia asked, surprised.

"No, it wasn't." Quagmire replied a little annoyed, trying to concentrate.

The room suddenly fell silent, everyone looked at Quagmire, who was trying to focus on a new project similar to a previously proposed bracelet. The four soon stopped collecting the papers from the floor and went to Quagmire's side, there they saw the design of a long silver bracelet with a black triangular symbol that had a notation with huge letters written 'Black Quartz' on the side.

The idea was simpler than the initial one, this time being just a bracelet that would project small charges into the space around it, causing a reaction similar to an electric field that would cause a repulsion around the wearer. The bracelet's battery was protected inside the Black Quartz compartment (which they thought was just for decoration) and operated through a process of oxidation (loss of electrons) and constant cycles of reduction (gain of electrons). The battery operated similarly to a lithium ion battery and was also rechargeable.

''One more failure. One more big shit!'' Said Quagmire, taking the notebook and making a gesture with his hand that looked like he was going to throw it away.

However, as soon as he made the gesture, Alice and Olivia both grabbed his hand and shook their heads from side to side. Quagmire came to himself and sighed deeply, hoping to try to calm down a little.

"This… This is just amazing!" Alice put her hands on her head as she said this.

"It's a simple idea, but very utilitarian." Olivia and Mary said at the same time.

"It's cool." Samuel said, nodding his head in agreement with everything the others said.

After finally calming down, Quagmire looked again at the notebook in his hands. Having listened carefully to the comments of the others, he decided that he would introduce that equipment, perhaps with some minor changes and improvements in the process.

"So that's it, right?" he asked, seeking approval.

"Yes, I have no complaints about that," Alice replied for the group.

The boy closed the notebook cover as she replied. Afterwards, he patted his pants and shirt, cleaning up the dust and the pieces of paper that were stuck to his clothes. When he finished, he placed the pen dangling from his right ear and the notebook under his left arm, assuming an upright posture.

"Well I need to get to work ASAP."

"If you have any issues, just get in touch with us," Alice said with a hint of concern in her voice.

Quagmire nodded, leaving the other 4 behind in his room and heading out into the hallway in search of the lab room, where he would finally begin work on the invention that would at least guarantee him some kind of affinity with the agency.

He kept walking, ignoring the fact that people now didn't direct glances of curiosity in his presence, but of disgust, as they backed away from the boy as if he was going to infect them with some kind of disease or pass on some kind of unknown germ, that was potentially deadly.

However, Quagmire thought that following their logic, if this were really true, they would already be contaminated as Alice and the others were constantly contacting him and people were always around the group of the 4, therefore, there was a meaningless or unscientific logic behind it.

As he continued to think about these 'idiot' problems, Quagmire finally came to a room that had a large sign with special letters saying 'Laboratory'. Upon entering, he came across several people inside the room who incredibly ignored him, focusing their attention completely on what they were doing.

The boy quickly chose a free table in the lower left corner of the room, where there was an all white wooden table with some equipment on top, such as a modulator, laboratory flasks, huge screens with a computer and several other state-of-the-art items. Quagmire took a white coat and put it under his clothes, to avoid unnecessary burns and/or bruises on the skin.

As if it were something extremely simple, he turned on the computer and operated it with such mastery that it seemed that years had never gone by without handling such equipment. Accessing an application that allowed him to model mockups in 3d dimensions, he spent a few minutes doing this from the notes and drawings on the notebook pages. The screen soon showed a shiny silver metallic bracelet with a nice triangular shape in the middle, made from Black Quartz.

Pleased with the result, Quagmire soon opened up another space in the app, which allowed him to work within the 3d model of the bracelet he had previously created. There he began to work on the parts that made up the equipment, which would allow it to function well.

Silver wires mixed with copper were seen in the inner regions of the bracelet, these were connected to the main power supply of the bracelet, which was the battery protected by the Black Quartz compartment.

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Several hours passed and everyone had already left the laboratory, going to their dorms to sleep and leaving to return the next day, but a light could still be seen in the lab at dawn. There was a boy with black hair and red eyes, wearing a completely white lab coat over his clothes.

The boy had spent hours modeling the 3D model of his invention and was now studying improvements that could be made with the help of the computers' built-in help system.

"Uuh" He yawned lightly.

Quagmire had not yet touched any equipment other than the computers, seriously considering ways to improve the bracelet system and make some modifications that would limit it, which would make it only slightly beneficial to the agency.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands, then grabbed an extra-large cup of coffee he'd bought at the cafeteria earlier and took a long drink. Quagmire had finished the main parts and thought of some important things. He decided that it was better to leave the improvement and modification of the equipment for later.

He then thought that it would be better to concentrate on preparing the materials needed to make the bracelet, heading towards the reservoir of materials that was inside the laboratory, near the table where Quagmire was.

Upon arriving there, he took several materials such as copper, some flexible and reinforced rubber, quartz that would undergo a chemical process to acquire the proper color and finally an acidic solution to subject the copper to leaching (a process in which copper is subjected to an acidic solution, becoming copper sulphate).

There were devices that, once the relatively simple chemical processes had been completed, could be used to make his job easier, like a machine that would transform copper already in the form of copper sulfate into wires of 99% pure copper.

With the complicated parts of the process resolved, Quagmire placed the materials in the respective machines responsible for the rest of the work, just waiting for the result to come out. After a few minutes, the materials were ready and Quagmire went to receive them right away, assembling the processed parts of the bracelet one by one and interconnecting them in a very meticulous way, which showed that the boy had experience with the process.

Some time later, Quagmire having assembled much of the bracelet, took the battery and quartz (which had already become the boy's color of choice), using the modulator to safely manipulate the compounds inside the battery. When he finished the entire process, he closed the power supply compartment with the triangular shape of the Black Quartz, having finally completed his first 'real' prototype bracelet.

"Vermillion, that will be your name." The boy said as he held the bracelet very close to his face.

"Phew." He sighed in relief, placing the bracelet in a small brown box with pillows inside.

He put all the equipment in its proper place and saved the files on a flash drive he took from his desk drawer, turned off the computer and turned to leave the room.

"That's it for today." He said in a low voice, finally heading to the dorm to rest.

The boy knew that tomorrow would be another day of research.