With a flash of light and a loud pop, the thumbnail-sized circuit board shorted and began to smoulder. Hissing tightly in frustration, Dak threw his micro-torch down hard onto the work bench's battered plastic top. The clatter quickly drew the attention of his friend Chin, who was working behind him.
"Dak!" the wiry engineering tech exclaimed with a frown as he turned away from the robot torso he had been working on. "Why'd you do that, man? That micro-torch is a 250 credit piece of equipment!"
"If I break it, I'll just build another," Dak growled without turning around.
Chin's eyebrow climbed at that. Normally his friend was cheerful and relatively easy-going. Today, however, ... he could almost feel the tension rising off him.
"Alright, buddy, you've got my attention," he said, turning around on his work stool to face Dak's work station. "What gives?"
"Just nervous, man," Dak said after a slight hesitation. Sighing, he pulled the circuit board out of the tiny clamp array holding it in place. He gave it a quick look before discarding it into a nearby bin.
"About what? The micro-torch? Bud, you're the best engineer and inventor on Honeywell and could macgyver a micro-torch out of tin foil and a glow stick if you needed to. But you're never this careless with gear or clumsy."
Dak sighed again as he turned back to his bench.
"It's Governor Crail. Rather his daughter, Jela," he said, tossing a colorful pamphlet over to a curious Chin. Catching it, he looked down.
It was a press tour announcement, the kind politicians handed out to build crowds at each stop. This one detailed the governor's visit to the western mining communities that dotted the shore of the Silicate Sea, Honeywell's largest desert. Including Dry Well Station, their hometown.
"Think she, um, I mean, he'll want to come see the shop?" Dak asked.
Chin shrugged nonchalantly in an attempt to reduce his friend's anxiousness as he dropped the pamphlet onto the work table.
"Don't know why they would, bro," he said. "Yeah, it was your phased mag field invention that let the mining stations on the western plateau finally come above ground for the first time in a decade, no longer afraid of the metallic mist storms. And sure, that harmonic filter you made, the one that used ultrasound to eliminate even the finest metallic dust in the air, wiped out metal lung disease forever." He shrugged again.
"No reason to visit with you at all there, man. None."
"Not helping," Dak said with a grimace. "Like, what do I even say if they do visit, Chin? Hi, I'm Dak Bennett and my inventions make it possible for human life on Honeywell?"
"Yeah, I'd stay away from that particular icebreaker, bro," Chin said with a wry smile. "Any time you remind a politician that you've done more to improve local conditions than they have, they tend to get a little ... antsy."
"Then what, man?" Dak asked, clearly concerned. "I seriously can't talk mag fields with Jela, erm, I mean, the governor."
A wry smile found its way onto Chin's face. Could his gifted friend be any more stereotypical? Genius inventor with the social skills of a pylon, especially when it came to girls. Knowing him, Dak would try talking mag field flux variances and zero tolerance balancing systems with the pretty Jela Crail. Who just happened to be only a couple years younger than the young and gifted inventor.
Before he could say so, however, there was a commotion at the shop's entryway. Both turned and watched as several powerful looking men in dark weather cloaks and body armor stepped inside.
"You two stay where you are," one of them ordered in a hard, flat voice, favoring them with a steel-eyed look that warned of mayhem if Chin and Dak chose to disobey as another pulled some sort of scanner from a hidden pocket. He calibrated it then held it up in front of him for a moment before looking at the speaker.
"It's clean," he reported and the speaker lifted a wrist comm to his mouth.
"We've secured the workshop, sir. You and your daughter can come in now."
A heart beat later a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man with silvering hair, bright green eyes and a square jaw stepped in, his weather cloak well-made and expensive. He immediately pasted on a photo-perfect smile upon seeing the two young engineers sitting at their work stations.
"Ah, and here are our two young innovators now!" he boomed in a parade-ground voice, obviously speaking to a hidden video recorder.
"Dak Bennett and Chin Lo, master engineers and members of our esteemed Tinkers Association!"
As the man spoke, a slender young woman slipped between two of the dark cloaked bodyguards to come to stand just behind the tall, silver-haired speaker. With her head mostly covered by her weather cloak's hood, they couldn't tell what color her hair was. But those bright green eyes and flawless beauty made her this man's daughter. And considering his level of personal protection, this man could only be Governor Thad Crail. He confirmed it a second later.
"Allow me to introduce myself, boys." He stuck out a large, powerful hand. "I'm Thaddeus Crail, Governor of Honeywell."
"Governor," Dak gravely replied, taking the big man's hand and doing his best not to wince when he found his fingers getting crushed by an iron grip. "Welcome to Dry Well Station."
"Thank you, Dak," Crail said with a well-practiced smile. He dropped the young man's hand to take Chin's in another crushing grip.
"It's been an interesting visit so far," he said, giving Chin's hand a shake before dropping it to look back at his daughter. "Jela wanted to see the western stations for her birthday and I was only too happy to oblige. Especially when it meant coming here and meeting you, Dak."
Chin glanced over at his friend and wasn't surprised to see the young man dumbfounded by Crail's blunt announcment. Sincere or not, it was the exact thing that would trigger the kid's social awkwardness. But before he could move, Dak was turning stiffly back to his work bench to scoop something up with his hands. As he did, the young inventor spoke.
"As you know, governor, Dry Well Station was built to mine the rare earth we call 'rhombidium', a discrete metallic molecule that retains the properties of a metal even though it lacks the covalent bonds allowing it to form a lattice."
'No, man!' Chin silently shouted, barely stifling the impulse to put a palm to his face. 'Don't talk science!!'
Indeed, Crail was looking somewhat confused by Dak's quickfire explanation. Jela, however, was peering intently forward, her eyes wide as she followed the young inventor's every movement and word.
"Honeywell was the metallic heart of an ancient gas giant before cataclysmic events stripped away most of the atmosphere, leaving just enough behind to make it breathable." He turned and began to walk back towards the mystified Crail and an intent Jela, cradling the object from the work table in his hands.
"Being mostly metal, the planet continues to be subject to powerful magnetic and graviometric forces that create unpredictable planet-wide weather that, like the metallic mist storms, are quite dangerous. However, those forces have also granted strong intrinsic properties to the rare earths found here. Like how easily rhombidium is manipulated by a focused magnetic field."
Alex held out his cupped hands. Nestled in his palms was a small creature that looked like a large-eyed gecko made out of silvery metal, its gleaming purple orbs solemnly regarding the two Crails.
"With the proper field strength and application, I can use a magnetic field to force rhombidium to assume the shape of almost anything. Like my little friend here."
Stepping forward, he extended his hands towards Jela, who had stepped around her father to get a closer look at the small creature. When she looked questioningly at him, he smiled and reached out and took her hand with his. Then he was letting the creature walk into her palm before letting go.
"Guided by a Titan pico-AI and a Bennett mag field projector, it can reassemble its rhombidium body into whatever you need," Dak said. "Like a comm bracelet."
With a silvery blur, the gecko became a gleaming bracelet on Jela's wrist, its eyes the control studs.
"Or PCD." Another silver blur and it was a smart device in Jela's hand.
"Or even all-weather armor."
This time the silvery blur became a fog that, for a moment, hung around Jela's entire body before, in a shimmer of light, it formed head to toe body armor, complete with built-in air filter.
"Amazing!" Jela breathed, looking at Dak with wide eyes out her suit visor.
Dak smiled and bowed his head.
"My gift to you, Ms. Crail," he said.
"Now that's a birthday surprise worth having, Jela!" Governor Crail broadly declared with a smile.