Going Home, Part 09, Interlude, Pekin

Eric opened his eyes, and glee looked back at him. He turned around and admired his workspace. The prickling was silent. He didn’t need it, not anymore. When he was ready for it, the diagram would just come, but for now all he wanted to do was take in the space.

His eyes fell on his tools, scattered on the floor, and he cooed.

He went to them and set them in order. How magnificent they were, still new, barely any scratched on them, waiting, demanding to be used.

He picked up the larger cross-head screwdriver and caressed it. “Oh yes, we’re going to do great things together, you and your friends. Amazing things.” He put each of them in his pockets. Why waste time with a bag when he had pockets?

He stood. Now he was ready.

Goal.

A Builder always started with the goal. No one had taught him that. He’d just always known it. You bent your tools and materials to the goal, not the other way around. So, what did he want to accomplish?

Leave this room.

He focused on the door, and its diagram appeared, clear lines marking it, showing him the hinges on the other side. Numbers appeared, formulas working out the thickness based on the sound when it closed and when he tapped on it. Three-quarters of an inch, they said.

He couldn’t kick that down.

He chuckled. Why kick it down? Where was the fun in that, the art, the ingenuity? No, it would be much better to burn it down, melt it.

He grinned. Yes, he had his goal. So what did he need? Heat.

He looked around. What did he have that could serve that purpose? He chuckled and looked up. Yes, that would be perfect. Incandescent lights generated ample heat.

Next, he had to amplify it. The best way was to reflect it over and over until it became as hot as the sun. The mirror over the sink would do that.

He needed a way to direct the beam. He looked at the sink. Pipes would do.

The diagram built before his eyes, and it was magnificent in its simplicity. He set to work.

The pipes were copper, so he had to disconnect them from the sink and pull the straight line out of the floor. That almost brought the project to a stop, but he wouldn’t let something as minor as a pipe in concrete keep his invention from existing.

He almost wrenched his shoulder out, but the pipe finally came out, that end jagged where it had broken. For a moment he felt pride at this show of strength, then he noticed the corrosion. It had broken a long time ago.

He didn’t dwell on that. The important thing was that he had the component for his creation.

He broke the mirror with his elbow and picked up the right sized pieces. The material to adhere them inside the tube was found under the sink. Old wads of chewing gum stuck to its underside. He pried a few off and popped them into his mouth, chewing while he kept gathering what he needed.

To reach the light, he had to move the cot under it, and even then he barely reached it. “Really,” he grumbled. “Is it too much to ask to have a proper stool? How am I supposed to work in these conditions?”

The whole mount came off easily when he slipped a screwdriver between it and the ceiling and applied leverage. “Amateurs.” No anchors, just screws in concrete. Those idiots were lucky it hadn’t fallen down under its own weight. He pulled on the electrical cord and the brackets holding it popped off.

He placed the bulb at the flush end of the pipe, and found he had a new problem. It was too large to fit in. That wouldn’t do. He needed the inside the pipe, so the light would reflect off the mirrors and be intensified.

He shook his head in annoyance at the delay. Now he had to take the time to reshape the bulb. At least he already had what he needed for that. A heat source and a way to amplify it.

He set pieces of the mirror around the bulb and let the light bounce back and forth until the rubber of the electrical wires close to the mount began bubbling. He used his jacket to protect his hand and made the bulb narrower. He had to reheat it twice more before it was narrow enough to fit in the pipe, and the mount made the perfect end cap to keep the heat contained.

Putting the mirror pieces inside the pipe took time, but it wasn’t difficult. He put some of the gum at the back, use the needle nose pliers to put them in place and applied pressure to make sure they stuck. He added enough pieces to the part of the mount that would be exposed to the light to protect it. It wouldn’t do for that to be the first thing to melt.

Now came the interesting part. He had to make himself a switch. That was easy enough, but it meant he’d be working in the dark. The light had to be off while he inserted it in, otherwise the beam would make holes everywhere and warn his captors of what he was doing. It wouldn’t do to have his genius interrupted.

He placed the tube before him, closed his eyes and ran his hands over it. Superimposing the diagram to serve as his template.

He separated the wires apart and cut one of them. The only thing still visible to him was his diagram, showing him what he needed to do. He peeled the insulation off the ends of that wire and replaced it with some of the gum.

Carefully he inserted the bulb in the tube until the mount was against the pipe and used what was left of the gum to hold it in place and aimed the whole thing at the door.

He smiled; this was going to be fun.

He took the gum off the two ends and brought them together.

The room exploded with intense light.

Eric kept his eyes on the door where the inch thick beam was melting a hole through the metal. He had to move it slowly; the beam needed two seconds to fully melt it. The next model would be made with two half pipes, that would let him position more mirrors inside and increase the beam’s strength.

Once at the edge, he made himself a hole large enough to pass through, then shut down his tool. He insulated the ends of the wires again and blinked in the near complete darkness until the spots went away. It also gave the metal time to cool.

Outside, he noticed the body on the floor. A woman with part of her body cut off; from the middle of the belly and up to her head, which was partially burned off. She’d been human and had stood in the way of the beam.

How stupid of her. Didn’t she know how dangerous this thing was? She’d been first hit in the stomach and had fallen down. Hmm, this meant his tool cut flesh much faster than metal. Good to know.

Diagrams appeared on her body, letting Eric know she had things he could use. Half a dozen of them.

He took a step toward her, and his tool pulled him back. He frowned at it. Why had it done that? He tugged, and it wouldn’t come. He pulled harder, and when that didn’t do any good, he yanked as hard as he could.

He stepped forward, unbalanced by the motion as the mount came off and fell to the floor, breaking the bulb. He was confused for a moment, then followed the electrical cable inside the room and to the wall. Oops, he’d forgotten where his power had come from. He dropped the pipe.

While this was an inconvenience, the corpse had more toys for him to use, and really, what use would a tool be now, he had a new need.

Goal: A weapon.

He pulled the gun out of the body’s holster; she didn’t need it anymore. Not that he’d use it. A gun was so below him, but it offered him a base to make something better. He considered what he was holding and smiled as a design formed over it. Yes, he’d keep the theme that had gotten him out of the cell.

This would be a masterpiece.

The diagram called for a heat source. He wouldn’t use the gunpowder for that, for one thing, lasers were light based, not purely heat, and the gunpowder was needed as the power source.

Looking at the body diagrams appeared around it, indicating what she had in her pockets. She had a phone, just like everyone had these days. The screen generated light, but it would take too long for him to make the adjustment needed to get only a small portion of it to fit in the barrel.

She had a flashlight. That was perfect, and the bulb was already small. He took it out of the breast pocket and studied it. The bulb wasn’t incandescent, it didn’t even look like a bulb. The diagram became bigger to reveal a chip between two metal wires.

He smiled. If only he had better tools, this design had so many possibilities. Well, once he was out of here, he’d have to see all the wonderful things he could get this light to do.

The gunpowder allowed him to be mobile. The explosion would be the energy used to power the laser, but it had to be absorbed and converter. That was a simple concept, a coil would do it.

That proved more difficult to procure than he’d expected. At a glance, he could tell none of the electronics of the body had such a thing, so he had to resort to patting it down, pulling any items that weren’t advanced enough to register to his sight.

He found it in the form of a click pen in the inside pocket of her jacket. It had a spring that pushed the head of the pen back inside when it wasn’t needed.

He took off the slide, placed the bulb in, reusing some of the gum to hold it in place. On a whim, he decided to add a capacitor between the bulb and the coil. It would collect all the energy and release it in one powerful blast, instead of a constant lower-power beam. He pried the capacitor out of the phone.

Since he had mirrors, he added some along the inside of the barrel to increase the intensity of the beam even more.

The coil went behind the capacitor, and he put the slide back on. His laser gun was done. Just one thing to do and it would be ready to use.

He used her knife to pry the lead tip off every bullet in the cartridge, it contained seventeen of them. To be safe, he did the same with the four other cartridges she’d had. He wouldn’t have to worry about power for a while.

He placed one of the cartridges in the gun, pocketed the rest, pulled the slide and stood. All he needed now was something to use it on.

And as the good mother providence was, a man in black body armor rounded the corner and stopped. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Eric pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

There was a muffled ‘paf,’ then nothing. And then a ball of light exploded from the end of the gun and traveled the corridor.

The man fell down with a foot and a half wide hole in his chest.

Eric brought the gun’s diagram up. Where had the delay come from? Heat, light and electricity traveled fast enough there shouldn’t have been one. Numbers appeared around it, all supporting his thought, until he looked at the capacitor. Of course. It needed to accumulate all the energy before releasing it. That was where the second and a half delay was.

Did he want to sacrifice the power to regain that delay?

Eric looked at the dead man and smiled. No, he didn’t. He quite liked the current results.

Goal: leave.

He looked left and right. Which direction? He’d come from the right, so it made sense to head left. He tried doors as he walked, looking for one that was unlocked, both in the hopes it led outside, and to gather more material. He didn’t waste any power blasting them open. He had a limited amount of ammo and he preferred keeping his gun for more important things, like killing enemies.

He’d almost reached the dead guard at the intersection when a muffled voice called for him behind the door he’d just tried and stepped away from. There was someone in that cell.

Eric continued walking. They weren’t germane to his goal.

As he bent over the body to search it, he had a sense he should go back. That he was missing something important.

He grabbed the flashlight for the bulb. He didn’t know how long they could survive the intense energy, the cell phone gave him more capacitors.

He had to go back.

Eric shook his head. No, he had to go forward. That was where his exit would be. He searched the body for a pen. If it had a shorter coil, he might be able to shave off a few fraction of a second between pulling the trigger and the blast. Every fraction counted after all.

He started giggling.

There was someone he had to save.

His laughter stopped. What was wrong with him today? He was the only person he needed to save.

The guard’s pen didn’t have a coil. That had been waste of time.

Wasn’t the person he had to save a child?

Eric stood. What did that have to do with anything? Child or adults? All they were was bags of chemicals, and chemistry wasn’t his thing. He couldn’t do anything with that.

The urge to turn around and go to that door became stronger. And he ground his teeth. This wasn’t his goad. He was a Builder. That was all he had to do build things, and he couldn’t do that to his full potential here, there wasn’t enough material.

He had to leave. That was all that mattered.

He didn’t move.

He looked at the intersection. The guard had come the left, so—the image of a boy sprawled on the floor, covered in blood appeared in his head.

Eric rubbed his temple. Why was he so distracted? What had he been thinking of? Right saving the child.

“No.” He wasn’t some do-gooder. He was a genius. And he had to share his creations with the worlds.

So, the guard had come from the left.

He saw, and heard, a young girl huddled in a corner, crying. Patches of fur had been pulled off her, and the skin was bruised underneath.

Eric screamed.

“I need to concentrate!”

He was beginning to realize that whatever was afflicting him wouldn’t stop until he’d saved that random child. He ran the numbers in his mind. He’d been stuck here for fifteen seconds, fighting himself. He could go to the door, blast it open and let the child out under five. Then he’d be able to get back to his escape.

He’d never thought his own mind would make those kind of demands of him. Hadn’t he had enough of orders in the army? Build this, build that. Make something to end the war. Well, he had, that should have been enough for one lifetime, shouldn’t it? His mind better leave him alone after this.

The door was metal, three hinges on the right, the knob on the left. It needed a key, but Eric didn’t care about that. He had a master key.

He took a step back, aimed and pressed the trigger. A second and a half later there was a flash of light, then a half a foot hole in the door and wall. The knob had been vaporized.

That was interesting; the hole was smaller. That meant the ball of light expanded as it traveled. He would have to run tests to find out the ratio, and if there was any power loss as that happened.

Eric covered his hand with the sleeve of his jacket, and still felt some of the residual heat. He grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled the door.

“There, it’s open,” he said to himself, and whoever was in the room.

No one moved. Well, that wasn’t his problem. He’d opened the door, freed whoever was in here. A circle of charred concrete at the back of the room caught his attention. It was a little larger than the hole in the door.

He looked at the wall behind the body. No charred anything. He had his confirmation that energy dropped as the ball became larger. He stepped into the room to study the burned circle, and noticed a small form cowering in a corner.

“The door’s open, scram.”

The small form raised his head, and gray eyes filled with fear locked with Eric’s.