"This should be pretty impressive if it works."

"It'll be a lot more impressive if it doesn't, and a fuck sight louder too."

"True. We need to add a failsafe to it, I believe."

"Instead of a fail dangerous, you mean?"

"Ideally, yes."

"OK. What about if we do this? If it goes horribly wrong, it'll disappear up its own spatial fold. That should contain any unscheduled rapid disassembly event pretty effectively."

"Excellent idea. Hmm, if we tweak it a little, the energy release from any catastrophic failure will actually power the failsafe, which should keep anything from escaping permanently. And it won't cause any other external problems, it's entirely isolated from the external world except for the power connections. Amy, are you certain your new design can handle this much energy?"

"I am, that bizarre superconductor Linda and Taylor came up with is absolutely perfect for this. My power nearly fell over when we worked out we could use it in a biological system. It was practically giggling to itself most of last night."

"Your power is pretty weird."

"Says the half-demon crazy girl."

"Yep. So just think how weird that makes you!"

"Shut up. And how likely is it that this thing will fail at all, never mind catastrophically? You're making me nervous now."

"It won't fail, Amy, we're both certain of that. But we're not taking any chances with the lives of our friends."

"Nice to know."

"I thought so."

"OK, it's ready. Let's fold it up, then spin it up."

"Done."

"How are you pumping energy into it?"

"We can simply form the flywheel with as much kinetic energy as you want. This prototype is running at four million RPM, which is a nice round number."

"Will that be enough energy for what I want?"

"..."

"What?"

"You really need to learn some more advanced math, Amy."

"What Taylor is trying to say, slightly crudely, is that the energy storage of a one ton EDM ring flywheel five meters in diameter turning at four million RPM is just over one hundred and fifty two gigawatt-hours."

"That sounds like a lot."

"It's quite a lot, yes."

"Approximately enough electricity to run New York city for two weeks."

"Huh. OK, that should do it, I guess."

"If you need more than that you're probably doing it wrong. And we'll need some much more over the top power control systems. This setup will give you a couple of hundred kilowatts continuously, which should do it as a test. We can play around with the configuration during the initial tests. But it should be more than enough for any practical version of what you're making."

"OK. I've added enough biological capacitor storage to power the whole thing for at least ten minutes even if we lose all the flywheel power as well, just in case. And it can give a huge boost if needed."

"Sounds good. All right, this thing checks out. Here you go."

"Cool. How long will it take before it needs recharging?"

"At the maximum configured power output?"

"Yep."

"Just under eighty seven years."

"..."

"Oh."

"Long enough?"

"It'll do for now."

"You look a little stunned."

"I keep getting shocked all over again at the things you and your lunatic demon pull out of nowhere."

"It's what we do."

"Apparently. OK, let's get the skeleton finished. And we're going to need a lot more onions."

"Lisa ordered a truckload of the things last night, they should turn up tomorrow morning. We should probably work out a better source of biomass. Pity your power seems to have issues with any organic material I produce."

"Yeah, that's a little weird, but it just looks confused when I try using it, then sort of shrugs. I guess it's not alive enough, somehow. Doesn't matter, onions are cheap enough and no one seems to notice. Any vegetable would do, but they seem slightly more efficient for some weird reason. It won't tell me why."

"Perhaps it just likes onions?"

"No idea. Doesn't matter, anyway. We've got enough in stock right now to get enough of it done to test out the conversion system, anyway. I can link it into Ianthe for that. We'll finish it tomorrow night."

"OK. Then take it for a good long test run."

"Sounds like fun to me. I can hardly wait. And I have some really cool ideas about some modifications to it when we get the basic system finished. I'll need you guys to help me with that, though, it's way beyond anything I can calculate. It did lead to some interesting thoughts on upgrades for Ianthe and Metis, though. Look at this."

"I can see where you're going. I like it."

"As do I. Good work, Amy. It has some interesting possible applications for us as well. We've been considering something not dissimilar but it's slightly fiddly to arrange and we haven't really had the time to sit down and work out all the details with recent events. Perhaps we should take the time now, it could be very useful."

"Damn right. I can see all sorts of possibilities for this. And you know that the boys are going to start giggling like schoolgirls when we show them. They'll want to have a play too."

"Fine with me, we need to talk to them about new Family members anyway. And we're going to have to think about bringing Linda into it soon as well. But I want to see how her power does with the neural mods before we tell her the rest."

"It's having an effect even without her knowing, isn't it?"

"Pretty sure, yes. She seems to be working steadily more efficiently as time goes on. I think the amplifier and other mods have had at least as big an effect on her as on the rest of us. It seems to show that we're thinking on the right lines."

"That's good, although it's also worrying."

"Tell me about it. We need to talk this over with Lisa again pretty soon, and Randall and Kevin as well. And Danny."

"Hope his trip is going well. He seemed in a good mood when he called me earlier. He's definitely staying overnight again, he's driving back tomorrow and should be here by lunch time."

"Glad to hear it. Yes, that's right. A little more. OK, now do the other side. This joint needs to be like this, see?"

"I believe it would work better if we modified it slightly, like this, Amy."

"Hmm… yeah, that actually is better. My power agrees, and is a bit annoyed it missed it. Me too."

"You're still learning, I have the advantage of rather more experience than either of you."

"I guess there are some benefits to age."

"Quite."

"She's being snarky again."

"She wouldn't be Amy if she wasn't, Brain."

"True."

"Wonderful. It's coming along pretty well. Let's get the basic musculature in place and cover it up, then I can make some temporary neural tissue to control things for testing. I want to make sure the electrovore converter system works before we go any further. We'll need a load of the superconductor as fine fibers as well, like this. Damn, my pen's died."

"Here."

"Thanks. OK, like this, see?"

"Easy enough. How much?"

"Um… let's start with about five hundred feet and put it in the hard way to get things going. Once I see how it works, I can redesign it and you can make it in one shot, that'll be easier and more reliable."

"All right."

"You know, if this does indeed work..."

"Of course it will work. I'm a professional."

"...as I was saying, when this works, which of course it will do since it's being designed by a professional, I can foresee some more peculiar comments than usual on PHO."

"Ah. I thought about that. Look."

"Oh, very nice indeed. Most effective."

"I got the idea from one of those stupid Bond films from Aleph. My version is horribly misusing some fairly normal biological structures, in a way that made my power get very interested. Works pretty well, doesn't it? The big problem is resolution, I don't think it will work close up. But at a distance it should do the job. I'm going to have to think about it some more and see if I can improve it."

"We do have the cloaking technique available."

"I realize that, but it's useful to have a backup. That reminds me, Taylor, I need some more clothes that fit my tail. I've got the rest of my normal wardrobe in the truck, can you copy them and make new ones?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Good thing that Assassin's cloak is so ridiculously effective, no one at home has a clue. Mom has been washing my pants for weeks and never noticed the tail sleeve."

"Bet she'd look confused if she did!"

"God, don't even joke about that. She'd go nuts. And probably blame the Family for corrupting me."

"Which is ironic considering it was as much the other way around as anything."

"Yeah. But I doubt she'd see the funny side."

"Well, we'll deal with that when we have to. Hey, any idea why Vicky is still wandering around looking and smelling like she's worried and confused?"

"No. I guess I'll just have to come out and ask her. I didn't want to add to it and was hoping she'd work out whatever it was that was bothering her if I left her to it. She was distracted by the Coil thing for a while, but today she was back to being weird. Not as bad as before though."

"Dean was smelling concerned again as well."

"I noticed. We're going to have to tell him something sooner or later or he's going to end up running in circles whimpering. Poor bastard."

"I like the guy, I don't want to drive him nuts."

"Why not, you're driving the entire city nuts on a daily basis."

"Thanks."

"Not sure I meant it as a compliment..."

"I choose to take it as one. But what I meant was that Dean knows enough to get a lot more confused than some random citizen. You can see he's desperately trying to figure out how to ask what the hell is going on. Ianthe made him look really puzzled."

"I know. It was both funny and a little cruel. Didn't mean to upset him like that. He's one of the good ones. What do you want to do?"

"Not sure. I know you don't want to let him know about what you can do. And I agree, it's dangerous for you, and possibly for him. I guess we'll have to work out some story that makes him happy."

"I somehow doubt we can actually make him happy with any story we can come up with. True or not, he's going to freak out."

"It's a difficult problem. There's no immediate requirement to enlighten the lad, though. He's clearly more than prepared to keep quiet about it, as he promised, and unless we somehow manage to convince him we're a threat I doubt that will change. He strikes me as a man of his word."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. I'm just a little worried about the state of his mental health."

"Fair enough. We'll ponder the issue."

"All we can do. OK, go get the rest of the onions and I'll get the converter set up."

"Ath the mithreth commandth."

"Stop limping you bizarre excuse for a friend! And you can stop laughing as well, you're not helping, you mad demonic nuisance."

"My apologies, Amy. As always I am profoundly thankful for my current situation, it is endlessly entertaining. And I suspect Lisa is going to have a surprise when she sees this."

"Probably, yes. Then she'll want one of her own."

"Undoubtedly. She's said as much in the past."

"She can have the next one, this is mine. OK, pour those in and we'll get started."