Chapter 36: Motherly Plots (Pt.1)

Carman awoke the next morning still holding hands with Ryuzu. She was reading a screenplay of a drama they had picked up at one of the bookstores in Fontaine. It was odd seeing her do so. She claimed when she bought it weeks ago that she had only done so to blend in, and had left it to collect dust on a shelf ever since.

However now she seemed to be reading it with a sense of mild of curiosity on her face.

Politely pretending to have just noticed his waking. Ryuzu said, "Good Morning Carman. How are you feeling? Do you wish to rest longer? If not, please excuse me I should go get breakfast ready as we are scheduled to meet Mr. Livre in an hour."

"No, Im still a bit tired, but we should meet with Livre on time. Punctuality is a virtue I wish to uphold, even when not convenient." Said Carman, some of his 40 something year old workplace mindset coming out.

As Carman got dressed in slightly formal wear, Ryuzu went to prepare breakfast, still reading the serialized screenplay.

Is this truly what the young ladies of Fontaine enjoy? Why did the salesperson say the citron vert was a main draw to the story? There has been no mention of green fruits.

Putting the book back into the shelf, Ryuzu put her pondering of the missing green fruits in the story aside and brought Carman's breakfast of a toasted Croissant, two fried eggs, some Bacon, and a steamed Sunsettia paired with a glass of water. Careful after the bath incident, Ryuzu dipped a strand of Carman's hair into the glass of water and swirled it around a few times before pulling it out when it had not dissolved.

"Carman! Breakfast is ready!" Ryuzu said, slightly raising her voice to ensure he could hear her level of hearing she could easily make out the sounds of Carman's footsteps as he walked around his room getting ready before he started walking down the hall to the main room.

"Thanks Ryuzu, I don't know what I'd do without you.." Carman said, walking over to Ryuzu to give her a quick hug before sitting down and starting eating.

Halfway through his meal, Carman's expression became contemplative, "say Ryuzu, do you know what material your gears are made out of? It's not a metal or alloy I am familiar with."

"That's because its an alloy of Grade 5 Titanium and Zuthercite. At a crude ratio of approximately 16:1." Ryuzu replied

"Zuthercite?"asked Carman.

"Ah yes, Zuthercite, atomic number 246. Has a half life of close to 2 trillion years. Discovered by Doctor Zutherstine approximately 50 years before Y's reforming of the earth. This post-critical element was able to be mass produced in the time of the reconstruction due to a breakthrough made by Y in creating gravitational anomalies that forced elements to undergo fusion." Said Ryuzu, dropping information that would have blown Carman's world out of the water like it was yesterday's news.

"First of all, why was this Zuthercite added to Grade 5 Titanium? Second of all what do you mean by post-critical element?" Asked Carman.

"Zuthercite is very dense and an thus an excellent insulator. Due to its nucleus's size it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to make it change states of matter. And when in a solid shape, Zuthercite is able to mend cracks in its material to the atomic level. This is due to its nature as a post-critical element, a post-critical element is one who's nucleus contains such a high number of particles that it passes a critical threshold causing there is a tangible force of gravity that helps stabilize it and prevent it from undergoing radioactive decay." Said Ryuzu.

Pulling his notebook out of his storage, Carman wrote these details down for future use before returning to his breakfast.

After finishing and cleaning the dishes they headed out to meet up with Livre. Following the side street to the workshop, Carman and Ryuzu quietly entered. Livre wasn't behind the register, but there were sounds of someone moving around in the back. Walking around the table Carman and Ryuzu went down to the workshop at the back of the shop.

"Livre, is everything alright?" called Carman.

"Yeah yeah, everything is great, got a large commission, some rich lady sent her son to order a custom toy as a surprise for her daughter." Said Livre as he waved over his shoulder from where he was sitting at the worktable. "If all goes well, I'll be able to pay off the rest of the loan I took to open the shop, and still have some money left over."

"That's great, what did they order?" Asked Carman.

"They ordered a kite sized dragonfly toy that could fly. Said they made some alterations to the reactor in order to get the power needed to generate the lift needed to raise the thing I to the air." Replied Livre.

"Oh? Could I have a look?" Asked Carman.

"Sure. I'm almost finished, just got to tighten a few screws, fill the reservoirs and do a test run." Said Livre

As Livre made the final touches, Carman looked over the blueprint. Something was off.

"And with this." Livre said, "the reactor will be able to fly up to 25 miles an hour. With this Carman, my long financial winter will be over."

"Wait!" Carman said, just noticed what had been bugging him "You don't see what's wrong with this, do you?"

"Oh? What's wrong with it?" Said Livre as he opened the panel used to start the toy. "I mean sure some parts look a little funny but that's because their overclocking the design of an old Gardemek Reactor."

"Exactly, and this is a toy not a Gardemek, also I don't see any Cryosteel or liquid cooling systems." Said Carman.

"Well obviously it's been altered to fit the needs of the design. And it's made out of sturdy enough materials that a coolant system wouldn't be needed. I'm the experienced Clockwork engineer here, just watch and learn kiddo." Said Livre as he started the machine.

The reactor roared to life, the annihilation reaction swiftly building in heat, ripples in the air above it.

"Ok... That's bad... That's very bad." Said Livre as he tried to pull the emergency stop only to have the speed the gears were spinning at to swiftly grind through the break. "Crud, Ryuzu, Carman someone get the door."

Livre swiftly picked up the parts of the toy that were still cool enough to touch, and lifted it while running towards the entrance of the shop. Carman ran some quick calculations in his mind about the time it would take for the reactor to melt down given the percentage of Pneuma and Ousia being fed to the core and decided there was time to take a look at the blueprint of the reactor for a few seconds noting the construction down for future use. Before following after Ryuzu and Livre.

As he ran to the front, Carman saw Livre bending down over the toy on the pavement.

Pulling out a few gallons of water from his storage, Carman used Hydro Manipulation to move it through the air and split it into two streams. One wrapped around Livre and pulled him away from the machine, and the other enveloped the toy and dragged it towards Carman.

"Carman? What are you doing?!? I was about to make it fly up. It's about to blow!" Yelled Livre, surprised by the water pulling him away from the small winged bomb.

Carman bent down and stuck his hand into the water, touched the toy and stored both the toy and the water around it at the same time, making them both disappear.

"You'd get in trouble if you had launched that thing into the air. The guards would have had to take you in, it is illegal to launch explosives inside the city, the only exception is fireworks but those need to be scheduled in advance. Your welcome." Said Carman his voice becoming amused at the end as he remembered a scene from a popular TV show that paralleled his current situation.

"... Thanks. But how are you doing this and where did the thing go?" Said Livre pointing at the water floating in the air.

"Oh that. Well they kind of have the same answer..." Carman said as he glanced around seeing the small crowd of people that had gathered due to the commotion. And pulled out a small ornate metal pendant with a deep blue gem in the center.

//

In order to understand why and how Carman has a "vision" we will have to go back to a few months ago. You see, being able to manipulate elemental energy without the use of a vision is a very rare ability especially among humans. Thus it would be to nobody's surprise that many organizations would fight to bring that individual into their folds.

Carman, who wanted to fly under the radar for the most part, naturally did his best to hide his Hydro Manipulation ability, lest it rouse Fatui's interst in him again.

So he did his best to make a fake vision on his own, he had Ryuzu make sketches of the dimensions of the different visions around Fontaine. After some crossreferencing, Carman came up with an initial sketch of a vision he would wear. It would be a Pneuma orientated vision, obviously of the hydro element. He was able, with some difficulty make an alloy that wouldn't corrode which matched the color of the casing of a silver Vision.

The problem lay within the gem, while he had access to plenty of dark blue gems, some even infused with the hydro element, due to his raids on Vasher's bases, he couldn't figure out how to get the Hydro symbol on the inside of the gem while keeping it clear.

This was due to his lack of knowledge of and tools involved in gem cutting. Thankfully during a raid one evening, Carman found information on a contact in Fleuve Cendre who was a broker for a jeweler who specialized in counterfeiting. This particular broker was popular and had a reputation for getting the buyer what they wanted, assuming of course that they had enough Mora.

Apparently Vacher's lackies had been ordering Fake Visions through this person to boost their intimidation factor.

So Carman wrote a letter and had Ryuzu drop it off using Mute Scream so the broker wouldn't be able to trace who had sent the letter. The letter had instructions on where to leave response letters and Ryuzu periodically checked the locations, activating Mute Scream in another area of the city and running to fetch the letter if the signs were present, and run back into the apartment or the secret tunnel before she deactivated.

This routine proceeded for a couple of days getting all the details straightened out. After a few weeks, Ryuzu came back with a fake Hydro Vision.

//

"When did you get a Vision?" Asked Livre.

"A few months ago. I dreamt about a giant clockwork robot, one that could be piloted by people. The city was being covered in water, and the robot was being used to save people. I woke up and wanted to bring that robot to real life and when I opened my sketchbook there it was." Said Carman.

After a few minutes of discussion, Carman and Livre walked back into the Workshop.

"By the way, who was it that placed that order? We are going to need to bring up the fact their order was a deathtrap when they come to pick it up." Asked Carman.

"Oh I'm not sure who the mother is. But a young blond boy, looked few years older than you, really shy, couldn't really make eye contact poor fellow, said his name was Freminet." Said Livre

-to be continued