[TN:Here this week's chapters]
Why could Jackie, with just two clues—an aerodyne and a woman—be 99% certain that the one chasing them was Susan Flist, the same woman from fifty years ago?
That comes down to the special nature of aerodynes: within the city, they are an ultra-strictly regulated luxury vehicle, yet the cost of enforcing those regulations is not high.
Anyone who can brazenly pilot or ride an aerodyne across the city skyline is almost certainly either wealthy or powerful. The only exceptions are elite armed units such as MaxTac or corporate forces—
An unrecognized, illegal aerodyne appearing in the city is both conspicuous and fragile; just a few missiles are enough to shoot it down.
Thus, the ability to use an aerodyne is a symbol of social power, especially a privately owned one.
How could you believe that someone of such status would personally fly an aerodyne into a life-or-death mission?
And so Susan Flist is indeed an exception. This ultimate lone wolf is the only one among her peers of equal caliber who serves the New United States Federal Government. Because of her efficiency and unique operational choices, the federal government directly rewarded her with an aerodyne.
Beyond that reward, on a special mission like today—when it would be inconvenient for her to pursue targets in a Militech aerodyne—she uses her own. To outsiders, it simply looks like personal business.
A lone wolf executing missions in an aerodyne—across the American continent over the past decades, there has only ever been one: Susan Flist.
The vector engine technology of aerodynes does have a technical barrier, but that barrier is far lower than the social barrier required to allow them to exist in society. Given that constraint, many automakers choose to abandon heavy investment in developing vector engines and forgo building their own aerodynes.
After all, the number of the ultra-wealthy is limited, and the aerodyne market is narrow. Early entrants can easily leverage these advantages to establish monopolies.
But fugitives on the run don't care about any of that—
What do you think an internationally wanted criminal is?
Crack—
Jackie's large hand braced against the Kastek aerodyne, while V stood along its side, prying open the metal plating sliced apart by mantis blades.
Little Octopus carefully tore away the entire undercarriage.
This was the foundation of the Kastek hover vehicle.
[Muramasa: Kastek is a civilian hover car. Magnetic levitation is a refined, civilian-grade aerial technology. It generates an intense magnetic field through superconducting coils, interacting with the Earth's magnetic field to counteract gravity.]
[Muramasa: More comfortable, but clearly weaker in risk resistance. Kastek relies on vector engines for high-speed movement.]
Next, Little Octopus removed the four vector engines. Much smaller than those of a Chimera, each engine consisted of two thruster units connected in series.
The shell of Dumai's car had already been completely cut apart. Little Octopus hastily welded and fixed components in place, mounting the engines and fuel tanks onto the chassis while beginning the wiring.
[Muramasa: Compared to military-grade aerodynes, its vector engines are smaller and the body lighter—but this is clearly an enhanced version.]
[Muramasa: One is broken. Discard it.]
Muramasa's suggestion, however, was immediately countered by another voice in Leo's mind—
From another world, Dr. Toomes, inventor of the Vulture engine, had been dragged out of sleep in the middle of the night by Leo—and had no hope of going back to sleep.
[Toomes: Good stuff. It's damaged, but in your situation, you can consider a simple repair—use it as an emergency thruster.]
So right in front of Muramasa, Leo gave the engine a couple of knocks, cut open the chassis, and welded the thing directly onto it.
[Muramasa: If you want to die, I won't stop you. When you crash, remember to throw my processor core out first.]
[Leo: Keep going. The superconducting coil is damaged—how do we fix it?]
[Muramasa: You don't. Seal it up as best you can. You'd better hope the heat pump can keep it within operating temperature.]
[Muramasa: This is messy. The operating conditions are extremely unstable. I don't think your fuel will be enough.]
The Earth's magnetic field is weak, so to achieve magnetic levitation, an extremely powerful magnetic field must be generated.
If the coils are not superconductive, producing such a field would require the electricity of an entire factory, paired with a massive coil array.
Superconductors require specific external conditions to maintain their state. Instability means the anti-gravity effect of the magnetic field fluctuates, power consumption spikes wildly, and the vector engines must run at full output constantly to prevent them from dropping out of the sky.
And now, only three vector engines were still usable.
The remaining hydrogen–methanol-2 mixed fuel likely wouldn't be enough to get them out of Watson.
But Leo had always been good at cobbling together equipment from scrap—and what he had on hand now wasn't all junk—
In another world, the nuclear industry was thriving.
No sooner had Muramasa finished speaking than it saw Leo put on gloves and reach into his pocket—
Then pull out something that caused a literal processing lag in the AI's cognition:
A 40-centimeter-long rod of highly enriched uranium-235.
The lag was "physical" because radiation interfered with its sensors—but it was also beyond comprehension.
[Muramasa: ?]
"90% enriched uranium. We'll use it for power."
Entering familiar territory, Little Octopus began dismantling the scattered graphene batteries across Dumai's frame, along with the Chroni-titanium armor plates.
At 1.5 kilograms and 90% enrichment, the uranium was still within a relatively safe range; the nuclear reaction would not be overly intense.
But by adjusting external conditions and adding neutron reflectors, it could be pushed into a subcritical or even critical state—becoming a high-output nuclear battery—
What Leo needed was an effective neutron reflector and a casing.
With the battery materials removed, graphene itself was an excellent reflective material, while Chroni-titanium, as a titanium-based alloy, offered excellent mechanical strength and resistance to radiation damage.
Leo used tools to cut out the internal structures of the graphene batteries, discarding the active cores and retaining the pure graphene shells, carefully layering them over the fuel rod and securing it in place.
Little Octopus simultaneously picked up slabs of Chroni-titanium armor, placing them within the cabin to form a hemispherical core.
The clanging of assembly echoed like hammer blows inside Muramasa's processor.
What was happening had already gone beyond logic. Even for an AI that had existed for decades, processed vast data, and endured countless battles—
It felt its vision darken.
Nuclear fuel—anyone could recognize that.
A nuclear fission battery? Impressive—this was the first time it had seen someone attempt to assemble one on the spot.
But that wasn't what stunned Muramasa.
How could you just pull out a near-weapons-grade enriched uranium fuel rod from your pocket?
Just moments ago, your radiation levels were completely normal!
Muramasa, Dr. Toomes, and Leo—one familiar with local tech, one with mechanical design, one with nuclear science. With such a lineup, and only such a lineup, could Dumai be temporarily modified into an aerodyne in so little time.
The wiring was completed by Little Octopus. Leo looked at the fuel rod in his hand and shook his head slightly—
Jackie and V surely had no idea of its true value.
Leo, however, felt a strange sense of sentiment.
This was among the first batches of over-90%-enriched nuclear fuel produced through the tireless efforts of Atlas Corporation and the African Union—costing over two million dollars.
In another world, a robot under Leo's control had retrieved it from storage, completed a cross-dimensional transfer, and placed it back into a display case.
[Cross-Dimensional Material Transfer]
[Tech Points -1500]
[Current Tech Points: 20000]
It would eventually be sent to the African Union's Mineral Museum as a collectible.
The plaque read:
"Honor the sacrifices of the past, and welcome the prosperity of the future—may we never again pay for backwardness with our lives."
"Nicely written."
Leo inserted the fuel rod into the core. Little Octopus sealed it with the final plate—
The nuclear battery's temperature began to rise. Radiation and heat climbed rapidly.
The engines roared!
"Alright—let's see how we fare against MaxTac."