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Bella's on her way to kill a witch.
It usually hits Port Angeles, inspires arson, and then if allowed spins off a familiar that does the same in Forks. She's tracked it back far enough that she can reliably head it off before it makes that fellow set that apartment building on fire as long as she hops in the car without doing her hospital exit paperwork. If she's lucky, this time she's early enough to nab it before it lights up the bakery, too.
...The fuck is that? It's not usually there.
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onceandforall
onceandforall
"I might want one of those, too," she says of the tool. "What's it doing?"
"It causes molecules within [0.03 inches] to be rearranged within that area, within some safety parameters. This will cause most substances to be seamlessly joined but is not recommended for use on very different materials. The original deal was for the scanner only, however, do you have any objects that I might find useful?"
onceandforall
"You're much higher tech than us. I don't have anything safe to handle that - hm. Do you want me to catch you an alien? They're, well, individually safe to handle, although if they decide to come after you in quantity I can't guarantee that will go well."
"Is this alien sentient?"
onceandforall
"Yes, but they consider themselves interchangeable, don't practice any form of self-defense, and claim not to experience emotions, plus they're pretty evil, so I wouldn't feel a speck of guilt about handing you one. Also they're fluffy."
"What would the alien be useful for? I don't like pets. I can construct another joiner and power source but it will take several days and some reasonably rare materials, I need something useful like silver or [D-fuel] or titanium. I could take new seeds if there are crops I haven't encountered before, but sentient aliens do not qualify as livestock."
onceandforall
"Okay, no alien. I can get you silver and titanium but it'll take me a few days."
"And your supposed world-ending event will not happen within a few days? In exchange for a joiner, I want at least [27 pounds] of silver or [190 pounds] of titanium. Purity is not an issue, if you can only find 90% silver I will count it by mass of the purified metal."
onceandforall
"The world-ending event is going to happen in about a month. And if you don't need it pure I can get it much faster. Before I go on metal collecting trips for you, anything else I might want to trade for?"
He describes a long list of tools. The metal-purifier is not detachable from the ship. There is a handheld plasma cutter capable of cutting foot-thick steel in moments, with computerized safeties. His body armor is made of 'armasail' which could stop the plasma cutter cold despite being a light, breathable fabric. There are various scanners - The longer the range, the more specialized. Inertia suppressors are the size and weight of a 2-liter bottle and allow for high G-force maneuvers without tearing the ship apart. He has a 'reshaper' the size of a refrigerator which takes almost any material as a base and works like a very high precision 3-D printer.
onceandforall
She wants the plasma cutter. And the fabric. And all the scanners - and she wants to know more about the inertia suppressors - and she wants a reshaper.
"I can get you just about any amount of silver and titanium if you don't need it pure or in any particular shape."
"I can get you just about any amount of silver and titanium if you don't need it pure or in any particular shape."
The inertia suppressors are badly named. What they really do is attempt to distribute any external force evenly over all the atoms within their range - A spaceship equipped with inertial suppressors can accelerate extremely rapidly without crushing itself. However, they're really designed for spaceships. They require external power and don't like things entering and leaving the sphere of influence. Things such as air.
"I can only take so much weight in my cargo hold. If we're going to be trading so much stuff, I want your reasons for thinking the world is going to end on top of metal and anything else you offer. The joiner and plasma cutter are simple and cheap compared to some of the rest of these things. Especially the armasail and reshaper."
"But if you can get so much metal, I would also like some gold, platinum, osmium, thorium, and [::::]. And... I have processed a list of this planet's crops. I will consider the first one hundred viable seeds from the list of things that sound new to me, as valuable as twenty pounds of silver."
"I can only take so much weight in my cargo hold. If we're going to be trading so much stuff, I want your reasons for thinking the world is going to end on top of metal and anything else you offer. The joiner and plasma cutter are simple and cheap compared to some of the rest of these things. Especially the armasail and reshaper."
"But if you can get so much metal, I would also like some gold, platinum, osmium, thorium, and [::::]. And... I have processed a list of this planet's crops. I will consider the first one hundred viable seeds from the list of things that sound new to me, as valuable as twenty pounds of silver."
onceandforall
"Last metal didn't translate. Seeds I can get unless you want weird ones. You know, the trouble with information is that I can't take it back if you renege on the deal. I want something up front before I spill that, or at least to handle the first part of the transaction in objects."
"You probably don't have [::::], then. I propose exchanging the joiner and cutter and scanners for some seeds and some of each kind of metal, then you tell me why the world is going to end and any other dangers I might find relevant and I attempt to verify this, then if there is sufficient evidence that your information is reasonably complete and honest we perform the rest of the deal."
onceandforall
"If you decide you don't believe me will you let me borrow the other stuff for just a minute?"
"I'll let you use the reshaper for a few hours under my supervision, but how would borrowing armasail help you in any way? It's near-impossible to manufacture, I doubt you can learn to make your own."
"If I decide not to believe you, you can take a look at some armasail. With your new scanners, even. I'm just warning you that armasail is weird and you probably won't learn anything useful."
He hands her the generic scanner. "I loaded the list of seeds in the scanner's onboard computer. Do you need instructions on how to use it?"
So he provides them. It takes a certain mental state, but when she achieves the link, she'll feel... An extra sense, almost like having eyes/hands/nose on the back of your head and on the soles of your feet and ten feet thataway and a hundred feet in the air...
It's not visual, or tactile, or auditory. It just... tells her things, like, that tree is cylindrical and rough-skinned and has smaller cylinders of something slightly different inside it. It only tells her the shape of things, not their color or temperature or softness etc.
Like eyes there is a sort of blurred peripheral awareness of everything in range, but you can only really focus on one thing at a time. Also, anything inside Nick's ship is an indistinguishable blur.
It's a bit overwhelming at first.
It's not visual, or tactile, or auditory. It just... tells her things, like, that tree is cylindrical and rough-skinned and has smaller cylinders of something slightly different inside it. It only tells her the shape of things, not their color or temperature or softness etc.
Like eyes there is a sort of blurred peripheral awareness of everything in range, but you can only really focus on one thing at a time. Also, anything inside Nick's ship is an indistinguishable blur.
It's a bit overwhelming at first.
onceandforall
It's pretty cool.
"So I'll go get your swag and be back in a couple hours?"
"So I'll go get your swag and be back in a couple hours?"
"Deal. By the way, if there's any specific tech you want that I didn't mention feel free to ask. I can make you more tools in exchange for helping me get to some D-fuel once I make the D-fuel scanner. No guarantees if you want something impossible, but I'm good at tinkering."
onceandforall
"There might not be any fuel," she says. "I'll see if I can think up a wishlist, but you know more about what you have than I do."