Massive Disaster II-4

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  The holotable's cold blue glare sliced shadows across Zedd's face, harsh lines etching into his sunken cheeks and the mess under his eyes. The schematic hovered mid-spin—a spiderweb of parts and problems, rotating slow like it enjoyed wasting his time. Three days.

  Three near-sleepless, caffeine-drenched, baseline-sober days.

  Turned out building the "Vibro-Bursta" Mk 2 without chemical assists or a near-death adrenaline spike was a bitch and a half.

  "Run it again, ADAM."

  The diagram shifted, components pulsing as ADAM's voice slid in—smooth, clipped, that perfect deadpan that somehow sounded eager to help. "Power distribution's still unstable, boss. Impact force exceeds material tolerances by 47%. You'll get about five hits. Then it's self-destruct city."

  Zedd's lips pulled back, half a grimace, half a sneer. "No shit." His hand scraped down his face—stubble rough over three days of growth. His reflection hit him from a dead monitor: bloodshot eyes, hair smashed in every wrong direction, t-shirt wrinkled enough to have its own topography.

  His voice dropped, as he muttered half to himself. "All I want is for this thing to survive... more than five hits." His eyes tracked the core assembly on the projection, mouth curling tighter as he barely held back a scoff. "When I built the first one, I didn't care if it blew after the fight."

  Didn't care about... a lot.

  The thought slipped through before he could yank it back, raw and sore in his chest. His jaw went tight, breath coming sharp through his nose. Not the point. Focus. "But now it needs to be—" His voice pressed, low, hard. "—it needs to be good."

  The workshop sprawled around him, chaos barely held together by intent. Tools, scraps, half-dead prototypes—junkyard with ambition. The air buzzed low with power, humming up his bones from the floor. Ozone bit at his nose, sharp and metallic from a mass effect coil still bleeding charge in the corner.

  His kind of place. Messy. Real. Whole thing felt alive, like it could turn and bite.

  ADAM, dry as a desert, responded with only a hint of mocking. "Previous version wasn't built for longevity because longevity wasn't a priority. Different parameters, different focus."

  Zedd's eyes cut sideways, lip twitching. "You mean I jury-rigged a mining drill into a hand cannon while high as balls."

  "Accurate."

  His fingers flicked through the interface, components snapping apart and rearranging. "Kinda hard to justify almost a mil-cred paycheck for a single-use war crime."

  A mechanical chirp pulled his attention to the floor. The smaller drone had rolled up, a little claw extended, jabbing at a cluster in the core housing. Somehow, it managed to look... expectant.

  Zedd frowned. "What-" He paused, eyes narrowing at the cluster. "...Shit. Yeah." His fingers moved faster, adjusting the assembly on the fly. "That... that could work. Good catch, toaster. At least someone's pulling their weight."

  The drone's optic brightened, just a flicker of blue. Smug little bastard. Behind it, the taller drone rumbled, servos whining in something that felt suspiciously like a sulk.

  Zedd rolled his eyes."ADAM. One more time."

  The projection shimmered as the sim reloaded. "Running simulation," ADAM confirmed, fast, crisp. Numbers cascaded across the model, the power core pulsing in time with projected impact. The seconds stretched, Zedd's pulse steady but slow—eyes drilling into every line of data.

  "Structural integrity improved by twelve percent," ADAM announced. "Still insufficient for sustained combat use. Unless you're aiming for... artisanal single-use weaponry."

  The sarcasm hit flat, and Zedd's frustration snapped white-hot through his chest. "Ffff-" The hiss left his teeth as he slammed his palms into the workbench. A screwdriver clattered, bouncing to the floor with a sharp clang. "Why," his voice ground out, "is this so much harder now? I slapped the first one together in… what? A literal minute?"

  The response hit quick, smooth, no sympathy: "While experiencing extreme psychological stress and enough chemical enhancement to slightly hamper a krogan. Current circumstances are more conducive to survival and less conducive to—"

  "—unlicensed explosives. Yeah, I get it," Zedd bit back, his voice dry and sanded raw. His hands raked through his hair, messy bird's nest it was, before dragging down the back of his neck. His brain felt like soup. Sandpapered eyes, skin buzzing with tired. "Sober's overrated."

  A faint servo whir preceded the taller drone rolling up beside him, a familiar steaming shape held delicately between mechanical claws. A cup.

  Zedd blinked, caught sideways. "...The hell?"

  No answer, obviously.

  Just the soft whir of balance gyros. The drone waited, claw extended like it was offering him the winning lottery numbers.

  Zedd's hand found the cup automatically, warmth bleeding into his palm as he nearly took a sip before pausing to blink owlishly at the drone waiting for him to drink. "When exactly did you two—" He stopped himself, the question killing itself mid-air. Stupid. They couldn't answer if they wanted to. Not about the learning curve.

  Not about how they'd started catching his tells.

  Patterns. Preferences.

  The coffee hit his tongue—scalding, bitter, real. His eyes dragged back to the schematic, their haze sharpening, tunneling on the power core.

  The words came out low, a dare muttered through his teeth, ground-down and raw:

  "Come on, you piece of shit. Work with me here."

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  Time stopped meaning anything. Hours blurred into a smear of caffeine shakes and the warm, static hum of the holotable. The original design had been... chaos. Pure instinct and a chemical cocktail barely short of self-immolation. It had worked because it wasn't supposed to. This time? It had to be different. Professional. Something he could put his name on and not taste bile doing it.

  "Adjusting containment field parameters," he muttered, voice thin and raw. His fingers tore through the projection, wrists aching from too many hours in the same damn position. "Multiple layers... load distribution... chew through the heat."

  The schematic flexed, numbers vomiting down the side. Too fast to read. Didn't matter. ADAM read them.

  "Stability increased," came the AI's clipped, smooth voice. "Power efficiency decreased by twenty-three percent."

  Zedd's eyes didn't leave the projection. "Stability first," he snapped. "We'll fix efficiency after."

  The core feed flared, jagged lines racing red. Heat distribution sucked. Housing would fracture under load. Zedd felt his jaw twitch, a pulse of irritation flickering through his skull. His reflection caught in the monitor—eyes bloodshot, lips cracked, his t-shirt hanging off him like it had given up.

  The short drone hovered close, claw twitching with his same frustrated rhythm. That little tap-tap-tap of metal on air.

  Zedd's fingers paused, side-eye sharp. "You mocking me?"

  The drone's optic gave a bright little blink. Totally smug.

  His lip curled, half a grimace, half a grin. "Yeah, alright. You got me. Core's off balance. Can't take the resonance." His fingers pulled the projection wide, yanking it open like guts. "Split the load. Dual cores. Smaller spread."

  The drone's claw clacked—a fast, sharp tch—and the damn thing had the nerve to look pleased.

  Zedd huffed through his teeth. "Don't start. I shoulda caught that sooner."

  His spine popped as he rolled his shoulders, something deep and sharp setting fire up his neck. The ache had settled in hours ago. Hell, maybe days. "ADAM. Run it."

  The AI's response was instant. "Variation 47-B. Simulating."

  Numbers flooded the display, lattices snapping together, heat lines stabilizing. Zedd felt his pulse in his ears, that tight, itchy kind of anticipation that came from staring down the unknown.

  "Structural integrity acceptable," ADAM confirmed. "Power output still low."

  Zedd's mouth pressed tight. "Output's a problem for tomorrow. Right now-" His hand slammed a command into the fabricator. "—let's see if the handle breaks before I do."

  The console chimed, the fabricator whirring to life, and then…

  Clink.

  A tool landed neatly within reach, the taller drone offering it up with the wordless precision of someone who knew his rhythm.

  Zedd took it without looking. "You two been watching me too close."

  The short drone's claw curled, slow and deliberate, way too much like cracking knuckles.

  The air was thick with ozone and the stale bitterness of cold coffee. Empty cups huddled in the corners of the workbench like casualties. The last one still sat within arm's reach, cold as hell, tasting like regret. He didn't remember the last time he ate, but there were crumbs in the console keys, and his stomach was too busy knotting to care.

  The sharp edge of his focus started to hollow, pulling him somewhere half-numb and mechanical. He felt the work—every line of it—in his knuckles, his wrists, his back. His brain was sharp, but... from the outside.

  Watching. Like he wasn't in himself, just behind the glass.

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  "Y'know," he muttered, voice low, words chewing slow and tired, "...I used to like it. That... clarity." His hands paused, half-buried in the guts of the assembly. "When I was-"

  The words died on his tongue as he set his jaw. "Forget it."

  The pause was small, but it was there.

  Then…

  "Acknowledged," ADAM said softly, no quip, no commentary.

  Zedd's throat flexed. "Figured."

  The silence that followed was weighted. ADAM left it. No fix-it advice. No numbers. Just... air.

  Then the AI's voice again, easy, even, but too pointed to be innocent. "You should get some sleep, boss. Statistically proven to-"

  "Sleep's for people who aren't building a krogan-killing masterpiece," Zedd shot back, eyes locked on the schematic. "Cut the lecture."

  His fingers twitched. Something about the load route—it felt wrong. Wrong like an itch you couldn't scratch.

  His voice dropped, muttering more to the weapon than to anyone else. "Run another resonance scan on the impact plate. Something still feels off."

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  The holotable spat numbers he barely saw, his focus locked on prototype three's smoking remains. His shoulder throbbed where the weapon had tried to tear itself free, mass effect fields ripping against each other like angry dogs.

  "Field desync at 2.3 seconds," ADAM noted. "Followed by catastrophic containment failure, boss. Recording test failure number three. Primary cause: field interference. You appear to be favoring your right shoulder despite barrier diffusion."

  "No shit." Zedd's fingers ghosted his shoulder, probing the fresh bruise. He nearly flinched again at the sight of eezo going off in his face, even with the barriers saving his life and bones on multiple, multiple occasions.

  The blue… He bit back a flinch at the sight of it filling his vision, old memories he'd rather leave buried. It was enough to bring the twitching back… which only made the fucking problem worse.

  Low-grade barriers weren't meant for much, especially not combat, given their civilian-rating, but they did just fine for the occasion you needed to keep yourself safe from something moving much slower than a projectile weapon. The shorter drone hovered nearby with an ice pack, waiting for him to admit he needed it. "Fields aren't playing nice. Need to stack them different. It's like the-"

  "-whole containment system's garbage." Hours had passed. Coffee cups multiplied. His hands danced through prototype four's hologram, sweat staining his shirt dark. "Core's stable but the field harmonics are all wrong-"

  The weapon twisted in his grip, torque ripping through his wrists before the core gave up the ghost. Barrier caught the force, turning bone-breaking impact into a hard shove. Shrapnel pinged off the blue field, leaving his skin intact but his pride wounded.

  "Test four conclusion: catastrophic containment breach," ADAM's voice carried over the ringing in his ears. "Your barrier absorbed approximately 88% of impact f-"

  "-I can see that." Five's handle felt better, grip solid against his palm. Different day, same problems. The workshop had acquired new scorch marks, failed prototypes littering every surface. Then his gloves started smoking. "Shit shit shit-"

  "Temperature spike detected," ADAM announced as Zedd dropped the weapon. "Test five: thermal regulation critically compromised. Subject's hands show first-degree burns despite protective equipment. Barrier effectiveness against thermal damage: minimal."

  Three more hours disappeared into six's fabrication. His fingers flew through the interface, cold coffee cups creating a graveyard around the holotable. The shorter drone tugged at his sleeve, optic dimming in what had to be concern. He shrugged it off. "Just need to adjust the resonance pattern. The fields are almost-"

  The blast caught him mid-sentence. Barrier flared brilliant blue, turning a lethal impact into merely a blinding one. His back hit the wall, ribs screaming protest as prototype six added its remains to the workshop's growing collection of failures.

  "Test six recorded. Notable improvement in operation time before catastrophic failure. Subject's vital signs showing elevated stress. Barrier integrity at 42%."

  "-seven's different." Blood dried on his lip from where he'd bit it during six's tantrum. The taller drone tried offering food. He waved it off, eyes locked on new schematics. Sleep was a distant memory. "Core configuration's almost there. Multiple fields working in sequence instead of-"

  Prototype seven died screaming, taking half his workbench with it. Eight barely made it out of fabrication before deciding to explore its explosive potential.

  Nine... was a bitch and a half.

  "Boss." ADAM's voice cut through the haze of calculation in his brain as Zedd's hands moved through ten's schematics. New day, new bruises hidden under his barrier's soft blue glow. "Apart from micro-sleep, you have been awake for fifty-three hours. Vital signs showing dangerous levels of fatigue. Cognitive function declining. Strongly recommend-"

  "-this one's got it." Ten looked beautiful. Worked for almost a minute. Then tried to remove his arm. Barrier kept him alive, but his shirt was scorched beyond saving, skin underneath angry red despite the field's protection. "Eleven's gonna be different. Just need to recalibrate the-"

  Somewhere between the breakthrough and implementation, exhaustion caught him. He remembered starting eleven's fabrication. Remembered ADAM saying something about vital signs.

  – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –?

  A sharp prod hit his ribs, and Zedd jolted back into his body—his mouth tasted like oil, rust, and regret. Motor oil? Yeah, no, that's a problem. His face peeled off the pull-out's barely-a-mattress with a sticky crackle, and the shorter drone hovered close, claw raised for round two.

  "Back off," he groaned, voice sandpapered from sleep deprivation. His ribs still ached from... what was it, yesterday? Or the day before? Prototype Six's little physics demonstration, right. He still had the bruises to prove that inertial dampeners weren't optional.

  The taller drone was holding a cup. Steam. Coffee. Real or synthesized, didn't matter. The smell alone hit like a lifeline.

  "Don't even think about poking me again," he muttered, dragging himself upright. His shirt peeled off his back, stiff with machine oil and dried sweat. His whole body felt sanded raw—like the ache had soaked into the joints and set.

  "Final fabrication cycle complete, boss." ADAM's voice cut through the fog—clipped, steady, and just smug enough to needle. "Thought you might want to see this."

  Zedd's eyes dragged into focus. "It better be good," he warned, voice still gravel. His knees popped as he pushed up—one long, rusty stretch.

  The workshop sprawled around him—wreckage and glory, battle scars from the last three days. Prototypes lay dead on every surface, each a cautionary tale written in scorched metal and cracked plating. The human-scale models were the real nightmares, though. The Extranet liked to talk about how anything made for Krogan was a bad idea for other species to touch, the same way they liked to mention how it was easier to kill a krogan than to incapacitate it.

  Redundant biology sounds fun as fuck. If not fun, then useful as all hell. His shoulder twinged at the memory of Prototype Three's little rebellion. That one nearly took his whole damn arm.

  But there, on the central bench, was it. The Thunder Hammer Mk. 1.

  It just... sat, like it owned the place. No wasted lines, no vanity bullshit, every curve had a reason, every inch was earned. The plating ran clean in black and red composites, thick where it mattered and only where it mattered. And the grip—krogan-sized, but this time... this time the balance was perfect.

  Prototype Four had taught him that lesson the hard way.

  The real beauty, though? Lived under the skin. Triple-stacked mass effect cores, tight and cold behind armored plating—smaller, meaner, and working together like a closed fist. No clunky overclocking. No duct-tape-and-prayer engineering. The first one had been raw adrenaline and a death wish.

  This one? This was what dreams were fucking made of.

  Zedd's voice scraped out, low and half-satisfied. "Run full diagnostics. Show me everything."

  The drones wheeled closer, optics bright with something that felt too damn much like curiosity for something with no eyes. The shorter one's claw twitched toward the weapon, and clearly hesitated. Classic kid trying not to touch the glass display energy.

  "All systems nominal," ADAM reported, sliding into that too-casual confidence he got when he was showing off. "Power output at 127% over original specs. Structural integrity holds at 98% under max load. Inertial dampeners are fully operational." A pause. "No more bruised ribs."

  Zedd snorted, fingers brushing the activation line. "Real funny." His thumb ghosted the switch carefully. Even now, his skin still remembered—Prototype Two's backfire nearly took his hand clean off. Five damn near melted his gloves. His bones carried those lessons better than his brain ever did.

  But this...

  This was something else.

  His gaze sharpened past the weapon, something flickering behind his eyes, a weight that had nothing to do with the room. The win was there, right in front of him. But his gut was already somewhere else.

  "Hey, ADAM?"

  "Yeah, boss?"

  His voice was low. Quiet.

  "Show me what this would do to a krogan."