A gift for Suckmyuu as part of the DR Secret Santa 2017 gift exchange.
Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, glared up at the castle that loomed over her. What sort of pompous fuck would think that a crumbling ruin like this was a good place to set up shop? Well, Miu already knew the answer to that, since it was printed on the gold trimmed invitation that had dragged her out to this stupid castle in the middle of this stupid moorland.
'Professor Idabashi cordially invites Miss Iruma to Idabashi Castle and Laboratories for discussions of great importance,' the invitation read.
Well, that was vague as fuck. Well, if this Prof Idabashi wanted to bask in Miu's reflected glory, she'd oblige. It'd probably be worth the while – she'd at least heard of this geezer and some of the stuff he had invented – and anyway, she would only have to show up at this dingy castle, dazzle this sucker instantly with her beauty and wit, and she could be back in civilisation before evening. That was the plan, at least.
Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any way to get the drawbridge across the moat from Miu to lower and let her inside.
Instantly, Miu's mind's eye was filled with images and plans for mechanisms that could run under the moat and allow someone to lower the drawbridge from outside, assembled patterns of gears multiplying even the slightest amount of effort into a force that could bring the drawbridge down or lift it back up, while still being compact enough easily protect from the damp mud under the moat. It came together almost instinctively, as they always did. Then Miu realised that not everyone should be allowed through so easily; the gears were replaced by a nest of electronics, connecting a 'doorbell' on the outside of the moat to an array of video cameras, passing the footage through a neural network that would decide whether the person pressing the button should be allowed in or not. Obviously, a neural net like that would have to accept Miu Iruma and let her in.
Miu looked around again, but there was nothing like a doorbell or a hand-crank on the outside of the moat. Fucking moron must have forgotten to install one.
Luckily, a genius like her always had other options. Miu flexed her fingers across the controls located across the palms of her gloves and booted up the mechanical arms, trembling with pleasure as she felt them emerge from their slots in her backpack. She always wore them these days: pretty much ever since she had hammered out the last few wrinkles their increased strength had forced into the design. They were oh-so-beautifully useful in situations like this.
Manipulating the controls for the arms as smoothly as if they were truly part of her own body, Miu launched them across the moat and tore the drawbridge from its hinges.
o - 0 - O - 0 - o
After planting the mechanical hands on sections of the drawbridge's arch so that they could take the weight and provide mechanical advantage, Miu Iruma leapt across the moat and through the entrance to the castle. She landed on a carpet that ran along the centre of a great high-roofed hall; if it had been red, it would have been perfect for welcoming her.
Well, it would have been if the carpet had been flanked by a crowd waiting to fawn over her. As it was, the only person in the hall was an old man in a scruffy lab coat, bent double over a workbench at the very far end. He only looked up from the circuit board he was soldering together when Miu reached out one of her metal arms and smacked one of the marble pillars, the clang reverberating through the still, stale air.
The old man spun around and glared at Miu through tiny silver-rimmed glassed. "Who are you?… Iruma," he spat through his bushy and unkempt white beard.
"The gorgeous golden genius, Miu Iruma, makes her appearance!" Miu announced, drowning out the old man's mumbling. As she strode forward, she cast her gaze across the stained-glass windows and shadowed alcoves, not seeing anything worth paying more than even a second's attention to. "So where's this Idabashi geezer hiding? You his fucking lab assistant or something?"
The old man straightened his lab coat with one sharp snap-pull on his collar. "Insolent youth. You break down my door, barge in without my permission, and you fail to show even the slightest courtesy to your elders. I am Idabashi. And if there are even two working brain cells in between your ears, you would do well to show me some respect."
"What?! You, Idabashi?! Don't make me laugh! You look like your brain withered up a long time ago." Miu glanced up and down the man's body and sneered. "Let me guess: that's not the only thing that's withered off, am I right?"
The man just glowered at her.
"Damn, I guess you are Idabashi. So what the hell did you drag me out here for? Lemme guess: you're gonna turn over all your tools and shit to me so you can retire before you brain rots, right? That'd be just awesome. Like, I'd get far better use out of –"
"Quiet." Idabashi didn't raise his voice at all, and Miu was surprised to find her voice catch in her throat anyway. "I invited you here for one reason, Miu Iruma, and one reason only. To remind you of your place."
Miu froze; her advance along the carpet faltered. "Eh? Ugh, really?" she whimpered. Her 'place'? What the fuck did he mean by that? "Right on top, you mean? I'm the Ultimate Inventor! The best inventor ever. I was chosen –"
"You were chosen by politicians," Idabashi interrupted her again, "who wanted to pretend they were interested in the sciences; by bureaucrats who wanted to fill quotas and by media 'personalities' for reasons that are…" He pursed his lips. "… entirely shallow. I was not consulted on this, and neither was any other eminent and accomplished engineer. But before you mock me, heed this. How long do you think you will keep that trifling title of yours if I raise even a single word against you?"
"'A single word'? What's it gonna be: the a-word? The s-word? Don't say… not the f-word?!" Miu blustered, but inside her mind was racing. Could Professor Idabashi really snatch her Ultimate-ness away from her? Shit, he probably could. Miu had no idea how the Ultimate selection committee worked, so probably could pull some strings. If she got demoted before her time, before she could show the entire world her greatness… fuck.
"I would merely have to tell them the truth," Idabashi continued, "That you are a crude, insolent lout who would tarnish this country's entire history of invention and development if you were allowed to represent it. That you cannot be trusted with the resources they intend to give to you. That you are a mere hack, undeservingly elevated by fluke, and that if those trivial contact lenses of yours had not become so inexplicably popular with the plebeians you would still be languishing in obscurity."
"Oh, come on!" Miu had to think and talk fast, if she wanted to stay the Ultimate Inventor. Clenching the hands on the end of her metal arms into desperate balled fists, she said, "It's not like I understand that shit with the eye-drop contact lenses either. They should have been looking closer at my real inventions: ones that could make them more productive while in bed! But if they're gonna be such dumbasses about it, might as well pocket and get on to the good stuff, right?"
"Hmm…" Professor Idabashi paused. Light glinted off his glasses. "A trial, then. A challenge, to see if you can convince me that you are capable of earning the accolade you wear so lightly."
"Neat: a challenge! So, what's it gonna be, old geezer?"
Idabashi clasped his hands and stared over them. "I will have quarters prepared for you. You will not have the time to sleep –"
"Shit! I do my best stuff while sleeping!"
"– or any other vulgar activities," Idabashi continued, "The challenge is this. You have until dawn to invent, design and produce a new device. I will not attempt to instruct you on what this device should be capable of: I doubt a girl as flighty as you is capable of following a specification. But you will do your utmost to ensure that it impresses me. Do not disappoint." Idabashi pressed a button on the workbench behind him. The workbench, the circuit boards it carried, and Professor Idabashi himself all retracted into the back wall and vanished from view.
Miu laughed, her voice reverberating off the smooth stone walls of the entrance hall. She'd already persuaded Idabashi to set her a challenge for her Ultimate title, so she was practically halfway there. Shit, this was going to be fucking easy!
o - 0 - O - 0 - o
Miu sighed, collapsing onto the bed as she arrived at the room Idabashi had let her have. She'd been guided there through the castle by a trail of pink LEDs that had lit up a few minutes after the professor had left, running along the floor all the way. At least this medieval shithole had conveniences like that. So it wasn't getting frustratingly lost that made Miu sigh, nor was it a lack of amenities like proper plumbing or heating.
Miu sighed again.
The reason she sighed was that she still hadn't worked out what the fuck she was supposed to make.
Seriously, what would a decrepit geezer like that find impressive, anyway? He'd probably hate everything Miu invented just because Miu invented it; obviously he was too closed-minded to see the grandness of her priorities. Usually a challenge like this would just mean that Miu would have to produce a perfectly modular invention, filled with every upgrade her infinite genius could imagine so that it could do anything. That always impressed. But how the fuck was she supposed to do that just using the tools she'd brought with her, selected so they could fit in a single small backpack – one mostly given over to containing her retracted mechanical arms and all their mechanisms? And if she had to do it all during a single night… Idabashi's challenge was – meant to be – fucking impossible!
Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, was going to have to cheat.