Week 21: Freezing fun for Ace and Pinkie

For the first few days of the week Ace was gone, by all accounts he was going back home to the WF for a few days on his once a month trip and always he came back from these trips with a Mule-Tech full of WF goodies. This was no ecception. He left late on Sunday night and didn't get back home untill tuesday morning, but when he walked through the doors from the garrage we was carrying a Mule-Tech full of goodies. After a quick stop off at his room to put a few things away Ace headed down to the Mechtronics lab with the bag. This week he had agreed to spend some quality time with Pinkie working on a pet project of both of theirs: The Freeze thrower.

In the lab Ace put the Mule-Tech down on the bench and opened it up. Inside were several large, heavy liquid canisters covered in warning labels and a locked carry case that was clean white with only the word EROZ branded on the side. Ace opened the chiplocked case and pulled out a new weapon, the first of its kind to be made on Earth. A sleek white and blue weapon that looked similar to a flamethrower but with two nozzles rather than a pilot light. Releasing a small catch on the top of the weapon caused the top to flip up reviling space inside for two canisters, one white and the other blue, which fit into colour coded spaces within the weapon. Behind the handle was a wheel, operatable by thumb, which controlled the tilt of the two nozzles and allowed the spray of chemicals to be directed at a shorter or longer distance. This weapon required a degree of precision more than a flame thrower as it was designed to mix two chemicals together and cause an endothermic reaction, robbing the target of its heat an causing the water in the surrounding air to rapidly crystallise. This was the Freezethrower, and it was this that Ace and Pinkie were going to pull apart.

Ace started work immediately, laying all the parts from his bag out on the table in a neat rows and checking that all the necessary tools were available, all the time waiting for Pinkie to reveal her presence.

*Pinkie was gradually becoming accustomed to meeting representatives outside of the interchange. Not enough to become complacent with location or profile, much less her route there but it had gone from being something weird and unsettling to regular occurrence with frightening ease. Pinkie's GUI informed her of the time and she stretched upwards donning Yuki and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Muletech of nutribars at her side, Pinkie descended, all the while scouring her mind for every sliver of information she knew about weapon repair and maintenance. Precious little revealed itself to her that she had not already recalled while examining Yuki all of the preceding evening/night. While Ace would be taking the lead in splicing the two throwers together and the freeze thrower was Positron and Ace's brainchild, Yuki was Pinkie's weapon and the solution to the problem presented by the cult. We'll find out if you are capable of taking down nanoswarms, will we not? In the meantime I could use all the fire power I can muster from you.

As she entered the workshop, Pinkie saw that not only was Ace already here but that he and Positron had perfected the freeze thrower's design. And while Positron had left his mark on the case and container, Ace had left his distinctive style on the paintwork of the freeze thrower. Pinkie only understood the bare bones of how the her weapon operated, But that is what we are here for as well. To learn. We do need to after all. Pinkie appreciated that the first thing Ace did with a weapon was field check the thing. She wondered to what degree they would have to ransack the thing in order to do what they were here to do. It was only at this point that Pinkie realised she was invisible. Fading in Pinkie waved one handed at Ace, as if she had intended to have been invisible as she entered and spoke.*

Good morning, Ace. I brought Yuki...... So, where do we start?

Ace smiled warmly at his fellow Agent as she faded into sight. The weapon she was carrying was similar in concept to the one on the table, however while the completed Freezethrower was white and elegant the prototype was black and blocky. It looked in all ways like it was a Tex-Taped together monstrosity, but it was Pinkie's taped together monstrosity. It worked on a similar principle, ony the two chemicals were held in a backpack, formally used for an industrial paint stripper, and sprayed out of two individually adjustable nozzles. What Pinkie wanted was for both weapons to draw from the backpack, however there was a slight issue with this.

"Yuki is... unique. Which presents up with unique challenges. Both of these weapons are calibrated to use a different amounts of pressure. The production model uses higher pressure and less chemical to perform the same task. If we want to run both off the same tank then we need to calibrate Yuki to use the same pressure as this one. The finished model is designed to be a self contained unit, so while we could run pipes out of the top of it it won't look very good. Perhaps we can hollow out the inside of the stock and run pipes through that. Hmm.”

“I think we should start here." Ace gestured towards the backpack. "Let's make sure it can dispense both chemicals to two different sources at the same time before we work on firing it." Ace considered things for a moment then headed towards the door. "Actually we shouldn't use the live chemicals to test this. We are likely to get things wrong. I'll mix up some backup chemical we can use to test.

Ace disappeared for a moment, plenty of time for Pinkie to have a quick fiddle with things, before returning with a bag of flour, a container of water and a few household cleaning products.
"I can't make Positron's special brew, but we can mix up something with the same sort of consistency and density. We can test with that."

We need to make Yuki operate a higher pressure, so would we need to do some body work? Depending on the difference in pressures the metal might not hold.

*Pinkie's eyes rapidly examined every inch of both the throwers comparing how structurally sound and airtight they looked as well as calculating how much pressure they could probably handle. I am not smart but I am sharp. I would have more burns if I had not learnt about pressure. The prospect of carving out the new throwers guts so that they could plug in pipes had a certain appeal to Pinkie, that weapon was not hers yet and it would be a educational to see its insides. While the class was smaller, this felt very much like learning medicine from Sosie. Pinkie felt almost as if she was getting the practical side of machine work, and wondered if she could learn all she needed to know that way. I'll learn enough.*

Right.

*Since Ace had momentarily left her to her own devices, Pinkie decided to act on his instructions and began unscrewing the back off of the pack eventually prying the outer casing loose. Pinkie cast her eye over the tubes, connectors, pipes and valves inside quickly tracing the route of the chemicals. If they were going to be successful they would have to re-route at least half of the liquids and construct another feeding mechanism on the other side. Pinkie ran her hand along the frame as she considered the problem, the same problem Darya, Ace and Positron had already solved, how the keep the fluids separate until they entered the thrower. The new thrower. The only difference here was that while she already had the groundwork laid out in front of her, Pinkie and Ace would have to work around what was already built. Tearing it out completely and rebuilding would be tantamount to just buying a production model. Not an option. Pinkie spared Ace a questioning look as he returned with household chemistry reagents, then nodded at his explanation.*

Then we'll need to drain the mixture to start, keeping it isolated and test the substitute mix before we begin work on the second side. It looks like the simplest thing to do would be to divide up the feeds into low sections then shove everything over and build all this on the other side. It would be heavier and squashed but I do not see a better solution.... Won't the back pack need to be recalibrated for pressure too?

*Despite her response, Ace's comment had raised more questions than it answered. Pinkie had worked with Napalm for years and while it was true she was not able to mix it herself she had thought Ace would not be satisfied without that skill. Apparently not. I would need to know more about chemistry before I could interrogate Positron then.*

Ace was pouring things into other things and only half listened to what Pinkie had to say.

"Hm? Oh, sure. Yeah, we'll need to do those things. Let me just... get this. Oh, no. That's all wrong."

Ace pored chemicals into each other, and added thickeners then poked the surface of the liquid. He sloshed around one of the blue containers and poked the liquid inside.

"This won't do. Hmmm, this is harder than it looks..."

He spend a few minutes mixing things together, occasionally throwing containers away before he declared victory and stood back. He now had two drink bottles of liquid, with different drink labels. Each was the approximate consistency of the chemical it was to represent, without having the same reaction when combined. They should do well enough.


Ace took a step back and came over to have a look at the progress Pinkie was making in dismantling the weapon. He stood there watching for a few moments then breathed in deeply before speaking.

"That's some mighty good work you're doing there Ms. Pinkie." He looked at her uncomfortably for a moment. "Listen, I didn't every really apologise for what happened the other day. At breakfast. I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. I forgot about the 'frame and... I saw how uncomfortable you were. And felt it too. You are one strong lady, Ms. Pinkie! I'm... not sure how I forgot; it just felt so... natural, I guess. I don't know why it scared you so much but... I'm sorry I upset you. I hope we can still be friends."

*Pinkie rolled her eyes at Ace barely listening to her ideas. Well of course not dear, he clearly already thought of them and thought them too obvious to mention. It is not his fault that you are slow. Pinkie barred her teeth at the thought, her jaw very obviously clenched whether out of stress or to relive it, it was hard to say. Apparently the first round of testing fluid was not up to scratch however and Pinkie waited, patiently with only a single eyebrow raised to mark her impatience, until Ace had two bottles of presumably something less than liquid death. Pinkie nodded unconvinced as Ace complimented her on her work and then froze as Ace started to apologise. A couple of sentences into Ace's speech Pinkie began drumming on the side of the dismantled backpack, each finger left small intents to mark its passing. These grew steadily worse with each beat until a little while after Ace stopped speaking. There was a pause before Pinkie turned her head to look up at Ace, her expression locked in its usual unreadable and unmoving state.*

...It felt natural?

*Pinkie stood up from where she had been crouched over the backpack and carefully stepped around it, placing it between herself and Ace. Pinkie gestured towards it, indicating for Ace to try out his new mixture. Pinkie could not stop herself from looking over Ace for weapons, hidden or obvious, and places where his flesh looked particularly soft and yielding. Pinkie shook herself mentally and focused instead on Ace's eyes.*

“Yeah, natural. Like...”

Pinkie’s new behaviour didn’t pass Ace by. Internally he was worried that, once again, he had said something wrong and there was something very unsettling about the way she was looking at him. He met her gaze but quickly turned away and started unhooking cables, flushing liquids and pouring things into other things. After a moment of uncomfortable silence he spoke.

“It’s like... you know with cybernetics, good quality cybernetics, they wire them up to your nerves and once you are used to them they just... work. Like how you don’t think about the moves involved with drinking a cup of coffee, you just drink it? Well, the cyberframe hooks up to.. to the brain.”
Ace watched Pinkie carefully out of the corner of his eye to make sure she wasn’t getting too uncomfortable, not that is it easy to tell what Pinkie is thinking most of the time. “So it’s like coffee. In fact it’s not like wearing armour at all, even though it looks like it. The ‘frame is coated with receptors so I can feel touch and pressure and wind, same as with my skin. Better even, because the senses are magnified and improved.” Ace stopped his glances at Pinkie and even stopped what he was working on, holding things in the air as eyes glazed over slightly. “It doesn’t feel like armour, there is not resistance. You don’t move your arm and push against the metal, which moves the motors. I just move my arm and my arm moves. It feels like I’ve just got stronger. Faster. Better. It just feels... well, Natural.” Ace’s attention snapped back to what he was doing and he continued working as he glanced back up at Pinkie and then back to the partially dismantled weapon on the table. “Of course it took some getting used to. It used to feel wrong, like my brain wasn’t working properly. Even my thinking was sluggish, which is why I was practicing, and I think it’s a combination of brain interference and the ‘frame. I just forgot. I’m sorry.”

*Pinkie could not accept what she was hearing, in fact she could barely stomach it. Had Pinkie been visible when Ace looked back up at her, she would have looked distinctly ill even through her strange complexion. It is like SKIN to him!?.... He and Positron and everyone else who pilots one of those things, does it with their mind!? The hell would happen if Comoros built one? Or a hundred!? Pinkie shook herself, banishing the images both imagined and real alike, from her mind. Pinkie did not know what Ace was saying about cybeernetics, since her internal A.I. was entirely devoted to monitoring and checking up on her cybernetics, but the comparison made her shudder. Something about how causally Ace associated the the small augments, the enhancements with being encased in a steel machine sent chills through Pinkie and she was not even sure that was possible any more. And he forgets, they forget that they are.... wearing...those things!.... wo-would he buy those like we buy cybernetics? Pinkie stared down at Ace and although her face returned to her usual expression, the enormity of the mistake she had made settled over her consciousness. Pinkie reached into her jacket, drew and unfolded her butterfly knife in one smooth motion and...
....
...flick, twirl, twirl, flick.*

Let us talk about what we are here to do. Now that we have the substiute fluids, shall we make a start putting everything together.

*It certainly did not sound like a question and Pinkie's voice seemed.... more measured than usual, more tightly controlled. Pinkie stepped around the table so that she could see what Ace was looking at, and so that she wasn't where she had spoken from. She remained as far away from him as she could be however, and did not fade in.*

((succeed by 11 on stealth, in case you were wondering))

Ace had tried to apologise and Pinkie had responded oddly. As Ace continued to try to explain he was growing increasingly worried that he was just making it worse. This would not be the first time that Ace had made things worse while trying to make things better. Then Pinkie was gone. She did that quite often, seeming to prefer invisibility to actual human contact, and Ace wasn't much good at talking to people either so he felt he somewhat understood. Nevertheless her disappearance hurt. She didn't seem to have accepted the apology at all, instead refusing to comment on anything Ace had said and instead focus on what they had come there do to. Still, something didn't feal right. Ace wasn't comfortable with knowing that Pinkie was around and that she was looking at him. Then he noticed something, barely on the edge of his perception. Somewhere behind him, not too close but not too far, there was a faint noise. A slight clacking, almost like... almost like a knife. (Pers+Obs pass by 11. Lucky roll. Or possibly not.)

Ace's eyes went wide and his body rigid as his combat reflexes kicked in. Somewhere behind him was an invisible woman who might be very annoyed with him and had just pulled out some sort of switchblade. Ace in the 'frame had seriously upset her, for whatever reason, and she was acting oddly moments before disappearing. How much did Ace even know about Pinkie? Other than her fascination for weaponry. His right hand moved slightly towards his gun, ready to draw it if nessisary. As he spoke he was clearly very nervous about this situation.

“Yeah, that’s right. Put things together. Uh. Uhhh. Is, is everything alright Ms. Pinkie? ”

No, not really Agent Nizky but I am dealing with it. Working with my hands will help, that is all. So, either tell me or show me which pipe goes where or what we do next. Then tell me about yourself and.... what you think of all of us. While we work.

*Pinkie's voice came from right behind Ace this time, the air distrubed by the flick and twirl of her knife, accompanying Pinkie's words. Pinkie could see and hear that Ace was perturbed, but could not work out why. She had certainly not done anything unusual. Interesting that you, a pilot and mechanic, immediately turns to your gun. The first resort. Does the WF do that to everyone, or does the gun do that? Pinkie moved past Ace, standing on his right and once again exaimed Yuki and her... little sister. Her butterfly knife slashed and twirled through the air with increasing ferocity as Pinkie became frustrated with her inability to put the pieces together in her head. I will need these things in my hands, my tools and time.... lots of time. And that is why Ace is hear, to tell me either what or why and then I can figure out the other for myself while we work. Pinkie retrived her hybrid kit with her left hand, continuing to run through the twists and twirls of her knife automatically. She leant in to get a better look.*