a Tale Among the Stars

Chapter 2: The Project

William slowly reduced the speed to his land cruiser as he approached his home. Piles of scrap metal, makeshift homes, and dirty people all drift away in his peripherals as he hovers past. None of them pay him any mind, he doesn't have anything to steal. So he had no difficulties getting to his warehouse at the edge of Io's acidic ocean. It was beaten, weathered, and full of holes the size of trucks. However, the rest of the building as pristine as the day it was built, and he had set up his home in one of the better spots. So, he hopped off his land cruiser and slowly led it inside, parking it by his sleeping pallet and holo-m2 communications and entertainment system.

"Well at least it's still here."

He leaned the land cruiser against the wall and sat down in his pallet, taking the package that Lily had given him and setting it on the ground.

"Oh man," he said excitedly, taking out his plasma knife. He carefully cut the prohibitor on the top of the package and opened the package very carefully. Inside. Sitting there on the floor, was a Crylian Crystal processor. Extremely expensive, they are the devices that manage to extract energy out of the Crylian Crystals.

William stared at the processor for a moment longer, caressing its smooth surface. He could finally start his project, truly and finally start. He had the materials scattered around him, and tools, outdated as they were. Still, they were good enough for his purposes.

"Let's get started!" He exclaimed, grabbing scrap metal from the ground. Soon, sparks flew as he began welding all the useless scrap metal into usable shapes. A small forge burned beside him, a spare Sulfur stone the fuel to melt down the smaller useless parts. His makeshift welding mask protected his eyes, but just barely. He slowly and carefully attached wires to the frame of his contraption. Soon, a shape began to form. A giant circle of wire and metal, tesla coils on either side, half finished. Standing back, William couldn't help but feel accomplishment. He was nowhere near done.  he knew that. However he had made tremendous progress in the time that he had worked.

"Hell yeah." He whispered, setting down his tools. Nothing was as satisfying as relaxing after working hard on your passion project.  So, William blew out the forge. The molten metal inside slowly began to cool, turning from white hot to cherry red. Carefully he hung up his tools. After all, if left them on the floor the rain would eat through them. Or the lake would somehow come to get them. Either way he didn't want to leave things up to chance. So he covered his tools in a acid resistant tarp and laid down on his pallet. Looking over at all the bits and pieces he managed to put together into a coherent peice he was...content. For the first time in a long time he was content.

William opened his eyes slowly as the sun rose over the horizon, illuminating the surface of the planet sized moon. He yawned and groaned as he sat up. Luckily today was his day off, so instead of getting ready for work, he grabbed his tools and got back to work on his machine. The sun rose slowly as he built up his machine. He finished the tesla coils first, welding the edge of the wire to the bulbous top. Ten he worked on the main machine, weaving more wires into the frame. Soon the gigantic circle looked like a clown had had a party and wrapped the frame in silly strung, complete with loose ends.

"Well, " William said as he bit into his Shmeat™️ sandwich, gazing upon his horrific amalgamation of scrap metal and extra parts.

"It isn't pretty. But it's getting there..."

However, just as he was about to begin again, he heard a bang on his doorway. Turning, he looked towards the hole in which he called a doorway (to be honest it was just a hole but it felt more homely when he called it a doorway) and peered outside. A cloaked figure stood there, ominously staring at William.

"Who are you?" He shouted, raising his blowtorch. He was ready. Homeless people tried to evict him from the warehouse frequently, claiming that they deserved it more than he. However this was not one of those times. The cloaked figure raises its hands in defense and slowly pulled down its hood. Beneath it was Lily, her face grinning nervously.

"Its just me." She said, her voice shaking slightly.

William didn't even know he was holding his breath until he let out a sigh of relief.

"Lily what have I told you about standing around without introducing yourself?"

Lily grinned sheepishly as she walked inside and rubbed the back of her head.

"Well, I like to seem ominous. Plus you DID break my precious BB-224 unit."

There it was. William had known It was coming. Sooner or later anyway.

"You already said it was fine."

William picked his blowtorch back up and got back to work.

"Well," lily walked closer and watched over his shoulder, pulling down her own RayTech goggles to shield her eyes. "It IS fine. But that doesn't mean I can't berate you. At least after work."

William sighed as he turned off the electricity to the blowtorch.

"Yeah yeah I know. Did you at least bring the parts I asked for?"

Lily reached into her jacket and held up a small 400 petabyte processing chip.

"Yes I did," she muttered, slightly in awe of the chip.  "I dont know what the hell you need with so much processing power though William...."

William turned and gave her the 'really?' look as he took the chip out of her hands and inserted it into the side of the gigantic frame.

"Oh well, you'll see when its finished."

Lily huffed as she turned and began to walk away.

"I know you dont like surprises but I really can't tell you." William turned to talk to her but she had already left. He hoped that this didn't affect work. However, it was getting late. So maybe she just went home. So, dreading tomorrows work, he laid down on his pallet and shut off all the power to the warehouse for the night.