Damn thing is solid as a rock now! My hammer didn’t damage the sphere at all yet it melts into a pool of mercury. I need to see what makes this thing so...unstable.
Warrens picked up the orb and inspected it closely. His bones rattled as the orb vibrated in his hand.
“They all fear you, but I don’t see how you can be a weapon,” Warrens said. The orb vibrated until it melted down his arm.
“Gah!” Warrens screamed as he stumbled backwards and tried to shake the liquid metal off of him. The metal clung to his skin, molded into shape and hardened into a gauntlet on his arm that moved as elegantly as though it were a part of his flesh.
The gauntlet gleamed in the light. Warrens looked at the front and the back of his hand. The metal had molded itself into an intricate armored gauntlet and still bore a slight shimmer rather than a full-fledged vibration. He stared in amazement, until the gauntlet ‘melted’ off of his arm and reformed into a sphere on the ground.
“Damn it!” Warrens howled. He glared at the metal orb.
“C’mon, do it again!”
The orb vibrated like an idle engine on the floor.
Warrens picked up the sphere. “Please! Do it again!” The shimmering orb rattled in his hands.
“DAMN YOU, DO IT AGAIN!” He roared. His bellow echoed across the lab, and the orb melted in his hands and streamed down his arms.
“Finally!” He watched as the metal swirled around on his forearms and hardened into a pair of glistening gauntlets. He went to his journal.
The metal seems to respond to...thought. Wish I could explain how, but I’m not sure. If this thing breaks, I don’t know if I can figure out how to fix it. Would I have to imagine it being fixed? So many questions.
“This stuff is incredible. It moves as fluid as water, yet it’s as hard as…” Warrens paused. “I wonder how hard this stuff is...”
“Aauuurrrggghhh!” He screamed as he fell to his knees and pounded at the concrete floor with his fists. The gauntlets held, and there was a damning crater in front of him. He heard the door’s locks on the outside being unlocked one by one.
“Oh no,” Warrens whispered to himself. He willed the metal off of his skin. The metal released its form, dripped down his arms and pooled within the crater before re-forming into a sphere. He turned and grabbed his hammer right as the last lock was unlatched.
“What is going on in here?” Iboee screamed. His face was contorted into a mixture of confusion and anger as he glared at Warrens on the floor.
“Just tried to break it is all,” Warrens said breathlessly.
“Don’t break it, turn it into a weapon! Melt it down!” Iboee snarled.
“Yes sir. I’ll try that,” Warrens replied. Iboee turned and left, locking the ladder of locks behind him. Warrens looked around the room and noticed a small camera watching his every move. Or at least, made to look like it was watching him, otherwise Iboee would have noticed what Warrens did and eliminated him outright.
Warrens looked at the hammer in his hand. He placed his palm on the sphere and watched as the sphere melted into a pool of metal and reformed into a hammer that was a carbon copy of the one in his hand, save a metal handle instead of a wooden one.
“Incredible,” He whispered. He heard a vicious clatter outside of the door. With his concentration broken, the hammer inverted back into the vibrating sphere. He stood up and went back to his notebook.
Appears that the substance requires concentrated will. Otherwise, it becomes liquefied. Don’t think I’ll have to worry much about fixing it or melting it down.
Terror spread like ice through his veins as he realized that he wielded an object that could mold into any form from a mere thought.
“If this got into the hands of Iboee or Diallo…” He whispered to himself. He looked around the room in panic. He couldn’t break the metal, or cut it with a torch. For all intents and purposes, it seemed indestructible. The idea of a warlord getting their hands on this made Iboee’s claim true: that this was a weapon of the gods.
And Warrens needed to learn how to wield it.
Warrens arranged his new laboratory to have a small area hidden from the prying eyes of the cameras. If these butchers were going to keep him alive, then he needed to make it look like he was churning out new devices for this factory to produce. Easy part was, they wanted the same technology that he produced while in service to the Core and employed at Beckwell. This gave the weapons master time to experiment.
He slammed his notebook on the table. A hollow echo rippled across the room which reminded him of how alone he was. His grandma was locked up in a cell, isolated from anyone who could help her. Sealed in a place where he couldn’t protect her. His eyes burned in anger. He should’ve done more, he should’ve fought…
“No! Now is not the time!” He whispered to himself. “Now I need to figure a way out of this.”
Warrens placed the sphere on the table. He watched the orb as it hummed against the steel. “If the metal could resist the impact of a hammer, maybe it can resist…” He trailed off and ran to the door. He pounded against the steel slab until he heard the locks click and stepped back.
The door screeched as it swung open while Iboee waltzed in with a pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other. Warrens held the sphere up and placed it on the floor.
“Iboee, I need you to shoot that thing,” Warrens said.
“You learned what it made of?”
“Not yet. But with your help, this will further my research.”
“Fine,” Iboee replied. “Bullet or blaster?”
“Both. Bullet first.” The moment the words left Warrens’ mouth Iboee raised his pistol and fired at the sphere. Then he raised his blaster rifle and shot the sphere with a blaster bolt.
“Anything else?” Iboee asked.
“Yes, is there a chance you can get me a physics or quantum mechanics textbook?”
“What? Why?”
“This...metal has very strange properties that I as a mechanical engineer have never seen before. Although I have an idea, but I need one of those books to be sure. Or you can get me a computer that I can research on-”
“NO!” Iboee snapped. “You are here to make me weapons, not read! You work, make my shields better!”
“Iboee, I can fix anything, but in order to make this metal work I need to -”
“You figure it out soon Wahhens or your grandmommy not going to look so good. Dinner coming soon, but if you keep talking, dinner for her may not show up.”
Warrens swallowed hard. He knew deep down that with one hit he could knock Iboee out. Hell, if he hit hard enough he could kill the imp outright. However there were other men just outside the door, armed and willing to shoot him if he so much as gave them a funny look. His grandmother was in imminent danger as well. No, Warrens needed to bide his time and strike when the moment was right.
“Do you think you can find a handheld metal spectrometer so that I can analyze what this orb is made of? It’ll help me replicate it for you,” Warrens said.
Iboee glared at Warrens. Those dark, impish eyes pierced through the fiber of his being. He could feel the malice leak through, the urge to kill, the unquenchable bloodlust. Iboee’s eerie silence lingered like a bloodthirsty specter in the room, but Warrens didn’t utter a word.
“Very well, I’ll see what I can find,” Iboee finally replied. He turned and left the lab without uttering another word. The door slammed shut and the locks sealed Warrens in.
He ran up to the sphere. He looked at the humming orb on the floor which didn’t possess an indentation or carbon mark of any kind. The lead slug lied only a couple of metres away, pancaked by its effort from attempting to damage the sphere. He picked up the bullet, the sphere and placed both on the table. There was a slight burn mark from the blaster bolt, but that could be wiped away with ease.
Substance seems borderline indestructible. Bulletproof, blasterproof, but retains the heat from the blaster bolt. Don’t believe this will fa
re well if I wear it as armor. Wouldn’t wanna be roasted alive.
Warrens held a magnet next to the sphere. The magnet flew out of his hand and latched onto the orb.
Substance is magnetic. This leads to one of three possibilities of what it’s made of: Iron, Nickel or Cobalt.
Warrens looked up at the flickering fluorescent lights. His eyelids were heavy and his eyes were strained. He needed to rest. The day had been long, but he worried about his grandmother. In his mind he reasoned that if they hurt her, they had no leverage against him, but Iboee and his ilk weren’t reasonable.
Warrens crawled onto a steel slab that was acting as his bed for the duration of his captivity. His thoughts dwelled on his grandma. He wondered how she was doing, how the guards were treating her, whether they were feeding her. He tried to sleep, but it remained as elusive as the spirits of his parents. He prayed to all the heavens and appealed to the ghosts of his parents to protect Gladys.
Experimentation Log: Day 5
I received the spectrometer and have run the orb through a battery of tests. It appears that the sphere is composed of not only of titanium and nickel, it also contains gold, silver, mercury, lead, silicone, carbon and a variety of other alloys. What’s also curious is the range of materials are contained within. There’s plastic polymers so sophisticated, we haven’t even begun research into them. What I can’t understand is the random melting of these assorted materials.
Perhaps the vibration is the key…
Iboee stormed into the laboratory. His eyes betrayed fury. They were glassy, drug-crazed and malicious. Warrens willed the sphere into a shield which could be worn on the shoulder.
“Mista Wahhens you lazy piece of -”
“Iboee, I am so glad you’re here!” Warrens cheered. “I was able to figure out the composition of the sphere and replicate it into this shield for you to produce.” Warrens tore out a sheet of paper from his notebook and scribbled down a list of metals and their amounts.
“Here are the materials you’ll need to produce your own. They’re mostly carbon, which is what a majority of that orb is made of,” Warrens lied to his captor. “I’ll get the instructions to produce these with the printers.”
Warrens watched those bloodshot eyes. Iboee’s drug-induced haze had him teetering on an edge. He would either praise Warrens as a genius, or shoot him on the spot. Warrens readied himself in case the imp was feeling violent.
“About time you produced something. Next time, give us guns,” Iboee said as he snatched the materials list out of Warrens’ hand.
Iboee turned to leave.
“Can I see my grandmother...please?” Warrens asked. Iboee whipped around, his glassy eyes on the verge of shattering.
“You make demands from me?” He snapped.
“No sir! I just want to know if my grandmother is okay!” Warrens realized that he had pushed too far. Making requests from a drug crazed man, what was he thinking?
Iboee held up his pistol.
Warrens hid behind his shield.
Iboee fired a round which struck the shield with a dull echo. He fired, again and again, laughing maniacally until his pistol clicked from being emptied.
Warrens looked around. There were pieces of lead scattered nearby, bullets which failed to pierce his shield.
“Oyyya-yyaaayyy!” Iboee screamed. “Your shield work perfectly Mista Wahhens!” He laughed as he sauntered out of the laboratory.
Warrens felt the harsh sting of defeat well within. He wished he could be near his grandmother. Help her. Comfort her. Instead he had been shot at by his captor while hiding behind a shield.
Warrens walked to his workbench. “Let’s see what you can really do,” He muttered to himself. He placed the shield on the table and held his hand over the metal. When he opened his eyes, the metal had morphed into a pistol. He grasped the pistol on his hands and searched for an ammunition clip. The empty clip he found slid into the pistol perfectly. He pulled the trigger, and recognized the sound of an empty hammer immediately.
“Maybe I do have a prayer,” He said to himself.
Experimentation Log: Day 8
Been able to “call” the pistol for three days in a row now. Just need a loaded clip to test if my gun will actually fire. I’ve also noticed that the metal never vibrates while in a form other than the sphere. There we also limitations to what it can change to. I’ve been able to make this metal into a shovel, armor plates, a gun, bullets, a spear and a few other simple machines, but that is all. I cannot explain what causes this. Need to analyze the orb in depth to knock out this problem.
“Okay. Different tact, time to switch things up this match,” Warrens said to the throbbing sphere in front of him. He reached to the sphere and pictured an engine block and all of the components contained within. The amorphous metal separated and formed into the differing components, creating an engine block before his eyes.
The sound of the clicking locks broke Warrens’ concentration, and he released the metal back into its primary state.
The door opened, and Iboee walked in. His eyes were clearer now, but his brow was covered in sweat.
“We’re moving out. Pack up. I’ve got more factories for you to inspect.”
Warrens nodded, picked up the sphere and walked out with Iboee. The guards were holding Gladys, who didn’t look like she’d eaten well.
“Jackson!” Gladys screamed when she saw her grandson. She tried to break away from the guards, but they restrained her.
“C’mon Iboee. Let me see her. She can’t hurt them,” Warrens argued. Iboee flashed a look of irritation, but nodded for the guards to let her go. She ran over, still in her nightgown and hugged her towering grandson.
“Alright, enough. To the train,” Iboee ordered.
The train was as Warrens remembered it. Wood paneling, gold trim, crystal glassware, all the fine trappings reminding someone that they’re inside the railcar of a lost King from a lineage praised for enslaving a continent.
“Did you serve in the Unification Wars Iboee?” Warrens asked as the group took a seat.
“We all deed,” Iboee replied. “Diallo and I were part of the 721st, the Africa Corps, and this one time, we were ordered to ambush this group of rebel scum and they poopoo themselves when we attack!” Iboee cackled. “They begged for mercy, but Diallo order us to hack them to pieces!”
Warrens felt his stomach churn. He also felt Gladys pushing against his shoulder. “Excuse me,” She finally said. Warrens slid out of the seat to let her by. She covered her mouth and rushed into one of the bedrooms on the railcar. Warrens tried to follow, but one of the guards blocked his path.
“Let me go to her. Please!” He pleaded.
“Aye, let him go. Nothing he can do here,” Iboee said. The guard stepped aside and Warrens went into the bathroom.
“I can’t stand it! I can’t stand these savages any longer!” Gladys cried.
“Grandma, I’m getting you out of here as soon as I can.”
“No! I don’t want you working for these monsters a minute longer!”
“Grandma, they will hurt you if I don’t follow orders.”
“I don’t care! Better my life than the countless millions they’re killing all in the name of some dictator!”
“Grandma, I can fix this. I can make everything right.”
“HOW?!”
“I am making a weapon. One that will-”
“What good is another weapon, even against them? You’re no better than they are Jackson!”
“But Grandma-”
“But nothing Jackson! I can’t even look at your right now! Get out of here!” Gladys screamed as she waved her hand. Warrens’ heart felt as though a burning dagger had plunged through and was being twisted. He’d never seen his dear grandmother so upset. He wanted to fix the situation, but he didn’t know how. Humans weren’t like an engine with gaskets that you could pull out, clean or replace. The intimidating mechanic sheepishly turned around, exited the bathroom, and le
ft his grandma to cry in peace.
Back on the train, the wilderness outdoors turned from savannah to jungle within minutes. Warrens stared out the window, trying to admire the scenery. There was a deafening silence aboard the train. Iboee leaned back and rested his eyes while the guards stood on silent watch over Gladys’ in the bathroom.
The skies split and sheets of rain hammered against the train. The brakes squealed and the railcar began to slow down. Iboee jumped from his slumber and looked around in panic. “Go find out why we stopping,” Iboee ordered one of the guards. He walked in the stride of a disciplined soldier into the sleeting rain.
The guard talked to a man in civilian clothes, who brandished an assault rifle and made choppy gestures in his attempt to portray a warrior. Their conversation was brief. The guard turned around and marched back onto the train. His heavy boots clicked against the laminate and he stopped before Iboee, his face a neutral canvas.
“Well?! Out wit it!” Iboee yelled.
“Dey’s want tribute,” the guard responded
Iboee became infuriated and jumped from his seat. “S’cuse me Mista Wahhens,” Iboee said as he barged through the aisleway. He drew his pistol, marched outside and screamed in an ancient tongue at the armed civilian. He waved his gun around, and got right in the man’s face.
The man mouthed a string incoherent phrases, which only ignited Iboee’s short fuse. He stepped forward and shot the man under his jaw. Warrens’ heart erupted in his chest.
Iboee came back in, and stomped his way through the train. He stopped to speak with the guard. “Tell the engineer not to stop if there are any more jungle bandits demanding money!” He hissed. “Tell him to run dem over!”
As they rode through the villages, Warrens recoiled at the carnage that ravaged the landscape. Diallo, Okafor and Akiloye’s forces had left a visceral wound on the psyche of Africa. People walked with crutches on only one leg, and children cradled bloody stumps where their hands used to be. As far as the eyes could see there were innocent people maimed and disfigured by the brutality of this new civil war. It was as if an ancient hatred had been suppressed beneath the surface for centuries, and the fall of Enai unleashed this monster upon the continent.
Horsemen United: Horsemen Origins Books 1-5 Page 16
