The Suit-Maker

My imagination ran wilder and I remembered an old cartoon where the heroic pilot of an advance mech could activate a huge magical shield in front of his mech whenever he cross his hands before his chest. No one had ever managed to make that fantasy a reality but with these cards I could. Battlesuits and mechs with gigantic force fields? That would change the face of war overnight! I could be famous! I would considered a genius! I…no, it wouldn"t be that simple.

I caught myself before I went further. As I thought about it more, I realized there were several obstacles to my idea. The first being that I had no idea what the cards were. The System called them Protection Talismans but what are they exactly? They do not belong to any form of technology that I know of so that means the cards are really magical in nature or some sort of secret technology invented by some unknown person or group. I honestly don"t know which I preferred.

I"m no bomoh so if the cards are magical in nature, I"m cooked. However if they are some sort of cutting edge technology, then the chances of me legally using them were between slim to none. Organizations that spent years and billions of credits on new technology don"t give them out for free. In fact, there"s more chance of me being able to use them if they are magical! The irony of the situation was laughable.

I also kind of doubt I could just weld the cards onto the Maid and expect them to work. If it was that simple, the streets would be filled with vehicles sporting the cards. I foresee a long period of experimentation before being able to get the cards to work. That bring me to my second problem; I only had eighteen cards left and I have no way of getting more!

I got the cards from the System and thus far the rewards from the System had been varied with no rhyme or rhythm to them. There was no guarantee the System would reward me with the cards again. My mind drifted to the question of whether there were other kind of cards out there.

"Stay focus Tobias!"

Scolding myself for getting distracted, I got back to the problem. There is also the question of how I would get the suit certified if I did manage to install the cards. I mean if they were magical, then there is the question of how the SOFS would certify a magical item. If the cards are cutting edge technology, then I face the problem of having to wait. New technology always take longer before certification and that was if I managed to get permission to use the cards. It"s not as if I could provide the SOFS with blueprints and spread sheets of the cards on my own.

I guessed when the time comes, I shall have to wing it a little.

That was the moment when I realized I was going to install the cards into my suits. Subconsciously I had already made my decision. In fact, I probably already made my decision weeks ago. Why else would I spend so much time on the cards?

"Well, at least I don"t have to worry about making my suits stand out."

If I could incorporate the cards into my suits, they would be one of a kind but for that to happen, I need to know more about the cards. I need to know their composition as well as how they are made. The problem of incorporating the cards into my suits would come after that. I would also need a steady supply of the cards for experimentation as well as production. The problems keep piling up but I was undaunted. In fact, I was kind of excited. I now have an idea for the future, of how the future of my workshop and my future Battlesuits would be like and that"s fills me with excitement.

Excitement that was making me lose my focus. Smiling widely, I took a deep breath to control myself. The plans for the cards are the future. I can"t use the cards now and right now I have a problem I need to deal with. I went into my "Cyborg" mode and concentrated back on the Maid of Orléans.

I used Dive to call up all the Grade 1 parts, then filtered them so that only the defensive parts reminds. I wasn"t impressed with what was left. The defensive parts that could help the Maid the most would slow it down and that was something I was keen to avoid. I spent the next two hours on the Dive combing through all the parts available before deciding that this was not going to work. I wasn"t willing to make the trade-off of slowing down the suit. The option of abandoning the Maid was there but I was not ready to admit defeat. I went through the list again for an hour before my internal alarm rang.

It was time for lunch. Since I was going nowhere, it was good timing.

After locking up the workshop, I decided to take the long way to the Alexandra Food Centre. I need to clear my head. I pa.s.sed the long workshop building where all the small repair shops were located and was greeted by several people. I had become known after Latiff"s article was uploaded and could be considered a minor local celebrity. Although I wasn"t the friendliest person you will ever meet, my mother had taught me to be polite and I gave the obligatory h.e.l.lo, welcome and thanks to everyone.

I"m no social b.u.t.terfly but a simple greeting wasn"t hard and I could fake friendliness with the best of them. Besides, I do enjoy these walks. Seeing all the different vehicles at the shops was a joy, especially the old vintage vehicles like the land-based motorbikes and cars. None of the aged vehicles could compare to the old transports I saw in LoW of course but it was still fun to see them in real-life. I stopped in my tracks.

Old transports in LoW? I found myself thinking of the various old transports in LoW and how few of them were left in real-life. Much like the Steambot, no one manufactured them anymore but in the game, I had seen all kinds of clockwork and steam-powered transports like the clockwork horse, steam-powered jetpacks, and clockwork carriages. It was a day for crazy ideas as another one came to me.

If I can"t successfully change the Maid to be more offensive or better defensively, then how about changing it in another way. I could add a function that the suit currently do not possess. I looked around and saw a mechanic working on a beautiful motorbike. LoW don"t have motorbikes but it does something similar; the clockwork bicycles!

I imagined adding wheels to the Maid for travel but quickly dismissed the idea. The idea was interesting but it wouldn"t work. Having wheels may increase speed and travel distance but it would lower the suit"s evasiveness. It"s hard to make sidesteps when you are on wheels. Then my Jumpbot came to mind and I remember how I managed to merge two different kinds of technology into one. I began to wonder if I could do something like that to the Maid.

However the Maid is a clockwork Battlesuit, so how do I add it to a clockwork bicycle? Is it even possible to merge these two wildly different idea in one? A smile appeared on my face as I then ponder a most useless question; what do you call a clockwork Battlesuit that could transform into a clockwork bicycle?