He stared up at a surprisingly clean ceiling and wondered where the fuck he'd ended up. Discreet looks around showed that he was on a bed, in a barracks of a sort? The beds themselves were wall units, like cubbies, one atop the other, in rows. Each person had precious little space.
Well, he assumed person. A quick scan of his body showed that he appeared to be human, though his clothing made him think more of prisoner than homeless or janitor.
'What the fuck?' Sin said flatly.
Tsuna pulled a small mirror out of storage to get a look at himself. He did not recognize the face, though his outfit did have a number, stitched onto a long, horizontal strip. It was rather like a name tag on a military uniform, only uglier. It read: V-010134-22.
'I am not liking this situation,' Daemon said, 'at all.'
'Yeah,' he replied, 'I'm feeling a bit uneasy and I only just woke up. I think I need to disappear.'
'You seem to be wearing a tracking bracelet,' Ken pointed out. 'That needs to go.'
Tsuna frowned and stored the mirror, then examined the bracelet. It did not appear to have a conventional fastener of any kind. 'And I'm thinking that V on my number doesn't really stand for volunteer.'
Hayato snorted. 'Leave a clone, step Between, get that thing off—maybe a switching spell—and onto the clone… A convenient corpse would be better, one with a polyjuice disguise.'
Tsuna exhaled slowly, then formed a clone around himself. He stepped into his storage so he had more room to work with, then opened a window to λ15, to hunt down some polyjuice. (Sadly, the stuff did not respond well to stasis, nor did it have an exceptional shelf life, nor did he have a month to make his own.)
A calculated window gave him the opportunity to steal some of Barty Jr's supply before it had been doctored with Moody's hair. Into that went a quickly hacked off lock of his body's hair and the vial was given a good shake.
"I'm thinking we should import a body from there as well," Daemon said as he materialized into place.
He nodded. "Preferably of the same blood type, since polyjuice doesn't alter anything but the externals, really."
"And preferably a deserving civilian defect. No idea what the hell is going on in this dimension, but let's not hand over a body for them to autopsy that might give them more than they bargained for."
He nodded again and switched his window to Belmarsh in London to find a likely candidate.
Sin and the others materialized into place. Sin immediately set to figuring out what blood type Tsuna's body was while Tsuna hunted through the various cells at the prison, pausing each time to allow one of the others to get a blood sample and label them.
Thankfully, he had woken in the middle of the night, so they had time to find a suitable replacement.
An hour later they found a match, who was promptly dosed, killed through the window by Sin, then yanked into Tsuna's storage.
Hayato slipped a bracelet onto the corpse's wrist, then performed a switching spell to swap it for the tracking bracelet on Tsuna's wrist.
A minute later Tsuna's garb was adorning the sacrifice, Tsuna was dressed in proper clothing, and the corpse had replaced the clone.
"Now we just need to figure out where we are," Chikusa said quietly.
"I vote we keep windows open at any doors in that place," Ken said, "and wait for someone to open one. Slide through. It's gonna be a while yet, I expect. In the meantime, we can have breakfast or something."
"The other option is that Heul harmonizes through a wall," Mukuro said. "I vote for breakfast first, though."
His mouth quirked in a faint smile and he nodded.
xXx
Some time later he was alerted by Sin that someone had come in to check on the "volunteers", or whatever they were. A window was promptly zipped through that door the first chance available. The odd door and a minute later and they were all looking at a fairly spacious area. They were on the upper level, apparently. There were plenty of doors, but no windows anywhere, which was mildly disappointing.
There was a security station tucked in under the upper walkway, on a hallway of sorts leading deeper into the area. Promotional posters were up on the walls with testimonials from volunteers—which seemed a little odd to Tsuna when he gave it more than a second of thought. Were they there to "reassure" new volunteers? If so, why? Shouldn't people have been briefed beforehand?
Come to think of it…
"When we get a moment, someone needs to check this body's memories. Was he really a volunteer?"
"Will do, darling," Mukuro said.
There was no visible way down, but there was what looked like a hallway at one end of the upper-level walkway. 'Huh,' he thought. At the end of said hallway was two shafts, one illuminated with green light, the other with red. The red one was marked as no access.
"Grav lifts?"
"They must be. I don't see any stairs, at all," Chikusa said, who was staring at a different window.
"I'll try it," Sin said, then vanished from Heul's storage. He reappeared thirty seconds later. "It's cool. Feels a bit strange, though, not being the one in control of the gravity manipulation."
"All right," he said. "Let's scope out this lobby or whatever it is."
xXx
They were in a place called the Neuromod Division. On the ground floor was a directory. Except, it wasn't considered the ground floor. 3F had Neuromod Testing, Volunteer Quarters, and Fabrication. 2F was the Conference Room, Skill Recording, Security, Control Room B, and Research and Design. 1F held Observation, Testing Rooms, Neuromod Debriefing, Storage, and Simulation Stage B.
The company that ran the place appeared to be called TranStar.
Volunteer Quarters had those odd bunks (called Habitation Pods), a common area with pinball machines, ping pong tables, chess, tables for eating, communal bathrooms, and a small kitchen. Off the bathroom, at the end of the habitation pods, was a series of treadmills.
The testing area had a rather scary-looking chair inside a set of curving glass walls. The area itself was called Neuromod Installation and Extraction, in a room behind two "testing" areas. The touch-terminal outside it was a "Surgery Console" and had options for Neural Scan, Surgical Procedures, and Debrief.
"This place is giving me the willies," Ken said.
"I hear you," he said. "Let's check Fabrication."
It was in there they found floating machines. Unfortunately, if they revealed themselves and attempted to get a better idea of what the things were, an alarm might be sounded, so they pressed on. The machines were helpful in that they patrolled around and opened doors for them.
The Storage area had an odd little cube of a room inside it, a subset of space, with some kind of force field for walls. There were carts and shelving, all with odd cubes of some purple matter.
"What have we here?"
"Hey, in the corner," Hayato said, pointing at his window.
He redirected his attention to an odd, bulky machine tucked around a corner and facing another door. There was a large recycling symbol on it. The console at the center said "Place items in bin" and had an arrow pointing to the left. On the right was another bin, that one open.
"I'd like to test this, but there are cameras in here."
"We'll blind them, darling," Xeul said. "Just grab some detritus and give it a shot. And… Okay, try it."
Tsuna stepped Between, yanked a few odds and ends off one of the shelves, and added them to the bin. The console changed to show a header of "Recycler" and the message itself switched to "Recycle" with a box around it. At the bottom was the word "Results" and four images with numbers under them.
One looked like a plant sprout, one bars of metal, one almost like genetic code, and the final one like a pair of pliers or something. Tsuna reached out to touch the "button". The message changed to "Please wait" and the central portion of the machine started moving. Small cubes of matter dropped into the right-side bin. He grabbed them and stepped back into Between, to his storage.
A second later they were all examining the odd cubes.
"I want one of those things," Hayato said. "It literally broke that shit down and reformed it into cubes. But, what are the cubes used for?"
"I think we need to look around more. There may be a complimentary machine. This area is called Fabrication, which implies certain things," Daemon said.
"Yeah," he said. "We just don't know enough yet. We're not even done with a single department. Who knows what the hell else we might find."
Up another grav shaft was some offices. In one, on a whiteboard, was a listing: minerals, synthetic, organic, exotic materials.
"Well, that cleared things up," he said sarcastically. "But it might correspond to those four symbols. Onward, I suppose."
Back on the main floor, ignoring the Security Station that sat between the lifts and the lobby area, they headed down the hallway and found the Simulation Lab. Thankfully, the airlock-like area they encountered was like the one in Fabrication, with clear doors, so sending windows deeper was not an issue.
Below the walkway was a glass box, essentially. It looked like a small studio apartment, and someone was sleeping in the bed.
"We should probably return to this area once it's daytime, or whatever," he said. "If this is some kind of simulation…"
"Right. We'll relax a bit, keep an eye on things…"
xXx
The figure, a woman, woke up to an alarm. On the other side of a wall that, from the inside showed the view of a city, was a group of science types, observing. The figure, apparently named Morgan Yu, got up, checked their console, ate, got dressed in a futuristic uniform, then exited the "apartment". Down a hallway, past a repair woman, and into a lift.
When Morgan exited it all appeared very different. Through a door was (to them) what looked a stage, with a helicopter prop. Clearly it looked quite different to Yu. She boarded, the copter adjusted position on its dock, and walls started moving down or into place, changing the configuration of the area.
"This is fucking freaky," Hayato said. "And you can see, the inner walls. They're showing a city, and them flying."
Morgan "landed" on a completely different building (so to speak), TranStar HQ, and entered, ending up at the "TranStar Testing Facility" where she was greeted by a man wearing a similar uniform, one Alex Yu. Inside a booth was a drone wearing the same uniform, but in a different colour.
"I'm feeling shades of Star Trek here," Mukuro commented quietly.
Morgan was ushered off to do some testing, and it was then that they started to get an idea what these neuromod things were. Morgan was displaying some weird ass powers, and they were all due to the neuromods, apparently, like copying a talent in a Xerox machine and inserting it into someone else's head. Except, not normal things like piano playing or cooking. More like telekinesis and shapeshifting.
He looked at his Mists and cocked a brow. They nodded, smiling deviously.
"We just need to keep windows on these people, see where they sleep, and mine them," Xeul said.
"Let's continue exploring for now."
Back in the lobby (or 2F) there was a wide door that had "Talos One" in the upper right corner. To either side were lighted displays which read "TranStar Lobby".
They had to wait for a worker to open it to get through themselves, but when they did…
The hallway they emerged into was relatively normal, though Tsuna was getting the idea that whoever had designed the facility was in love with Art Deco, not that he could disagree with the preference. At the end, however, they all gasped.
Right there in front of them was the moon, taking up half the view.
"Are we in fucking space?" Ken muttered. "On a space station?"
"Holy shit," he said, then floated his window at double speed to get past the "glass" walls showing space itself. Once beyond that point it was still space. "We really are. We're in space."
Sin suddenly cackled, causing everyone to stare at him instead of the glory of space and super-huge moon right in front of them. "Can you imagine Verde's reaction? He'd be beside himself with excitement."
"You know," Daemon said, his gaze switching back to the view. "They had to have gotten that one recycling machine from somewhere—presumably Earth. What say we acquire a few for ourselves. Shift one over to Verde, see if he can duplicate them? They may come in handy down the road."
Tsuna nodded slowly, thinking that was a fine idea. "We still need to see if there's a machine that uses those cubes, though. A fabricator, I would imagine. Okay, we need to keep exploring. Once it gets late enough, you can mine some minds to find out exactly what these neuromod things really are. And… Well, let's just see what more there is to see here."
The Lobby of the facility, which had massive window walls made out of who knew what, displayed space, the moon, and other parts of the station. They could see tunnels, so to speak, connecting various sections, and they were labeled on the outside, which led them to believe that spacewalks were not out of the question.
Windows were sent down the gracefully-curving staircase to get a better idea of where they could go, and Xeul perked up on seeing a sign for a Shuttle Bay. "Now that's an idea," he murmured, sharing a look with Daemon and Mukuro.
"Yes," Daemon said.
"Jan-ken?" Mukuro's eyes were gleaming with excitement.
"Okay," he said, "but no one is stowing away on a shuttle until we have more information. It would be neat to be able to step back and forth between Earth and this station, though. Someone leave a window there so you can slip through the next time someone opens that door, and we'll keep on."
The "ground floor" of the lobby held a small museum of sorts, a division called Psychotronics (or at least the entrance to it), another Security station, Employee Orientation, a normal lift, restrooms, and open lounge areas. The lady at the station on the back side of the lift looked bored to tears. She might be a receptionist of sorts considering she was facing the Shuttle Bay entrance. The Security Station, its windows opened to that short hallway, had scanners of some kind there so that all who transitioned to or from the Shuttle Bay would pass through them.
Of definite interest was the Executive Offices on the third floor. Two smaller, which were of little immediate interest, and one for Morgan Yu, the woman currently playing guinea pig in the Neuromod Division.
There were two machines in there, though Tsuna had been forced to harmonize his way through the door while his Mists kept the personal assistant, one Jason Chang, oblivious. One was a recycler, but the other was a fabricator.
"I really want some of those," Hayato said.
Tsuna shot his Storm an indulgent look, and redirected his window back outside the office. Through the Teleconferencing Center opposite the entrance to Yu's office area was a walkway to the Hardware Labs.
"Good morning, Talos," a female voice sounded over a hidden PA system. "A reminder that passengers scheduled for departure on Shuttle Inception, destination TranStar Seattle Facility, should be in the shuttle bay by no later than 2pm."
His Mists all looked at him expectantly. Tsuna let out a slight sigh and nodded. "Only one of you."
They immediately huddled to play jan-ken and Xeul smirked with pleasure when he won. "I will remain imperceptible, darling," Xeul assured him. "As soon as I have a good view of the landing location, I will open a window so you can all see it, then return."
Tsuna nodded. "Well, no. While you're there, find out where those machines are being manufactured, so we can acquire at least two of each. We can drop a set on Verde and see what he makes of them. And, since one is a fabricator, I expect there must be fabrication plans we can acquire, either at the manufactory itself, or here on the station."
"So while we're exploring this place we can look for plans," Sin said.
The others nodded, though Chikusa said, "I noticed, during that simulation, that Yu had a device. Others may have them as well. Fabrication plans may not be tangible things."
"Digital blueprints only?" he mused. "We'll find out more along the way here, but, Xeul, also check into that. If you see those devices, grab some. Maybe there's a way we can use them, or use our phones to interface with these alleged digital plans."
Xeul nodded. "I'm going to keep a window on the shuttle bay entrance, then, so I can slip through the second one of the people here does. No idea if I could follow with a window from here to the planet, so I'll Edge while inside the shuttle."
He nodded. "Not worth the risk to try just the window and have it fail for some reason. Once we all have a window on that shuttle facility, at least we'll be able to freely step back and forth if necessary."
Xeul swapped his window to focus on the shuttle bay after a quick smile.
"I've been thinking," Ken said. "If we ever end up in another Naruto world. Things we could do differently."
"You mean aside from immediately hiding that Naruto is the Kyūbi's jinchūriki?" Hayato asked.
Ken nodded. "I mean, we already have the hideout worked out, so we could do that quickly enough, though we'd need it more for other people rather than us. Same for the Hyūga. We know what works and how to do it. That's over in a night. And same with the Uchiha, so long as we get the right night, not that it ended well for Sasuke."
Tsuna bit his lip as he continued to watch his window, taking in the basic layout of the lobby area of the station and where various things were placed. "We don't even know what we prevented, aside from the plans of the Akatsuki, though that alone may have been enough."
"We could consider shoring up the other children in Naruto's class. Tricking them into becoming more skilled."
"Or forcing whoever is in charge of the academy curriculum to wise the fuck up and teach them properly," Hayato said.
"And in theory, kick Sasuke around enough that he's forcibly introduced to the concept that he isn't top dog," Sin said.
Tsuna scowled. 'That'd mean I'd have to work even harder at ninja skills, on top of probably having to go through rigorous chakra control exercises.' "And my fellow sacrificial students?" he asked, smirking at the others. "After all, Sin and Daemon already had a turn. Who would step up the next time?"
As expected, his family members, Sin and Daemon aside, all went a bit pale at the thought of having to play students for a good seven years, plus potentially being stuck on a team without Tsuna.
"Something to think about."
xXx
Xeul stowed away on a shuttle when the time came, after a nice lunch cooked up by Tsuna and Sin. The rest of them continued to poke around the station.
"Let's check out that Psychotronics place," Hayato said. "I can't imagine touring the power plant or air quality will be all that interesting."
"The name alone is kind of disturbing, so yeah."
It took a while of waiting, but eventually one of the workers obligingly opened the doors for them and let them send windows through. At first the place wasn't so bad, but then again, it was also a lot of going down a switchback set of stairs.
It was when they hit the bottom and moved forward that "shit started getting freaky" in Hayato's words. After going through another one of those huge doors and down a hallway, then through a circular door, visible was a circular room with a pit in the middle. In the pit was some odd structure that went up to support … something. The walkway circled that pit.
Russian writing was on some of the panels on the walls, spelling out Kletka.
On the far side was a central raised walkway with a tube of sorts around it, like a tunnel, with a security station off to the right. Beyond the walkway was a large circular plaque of patterned metal and had "Talos Station" engraved on it, along with a representation of the station itself.
To either side of it were rooms labeled "Clean Room Preparation", differentiated by sex, which amounted to bathroom areas, complete with shelf upon shelf of towels and supplies, sinks, mirrors, plus shower and toilet stalls. Beyond those was another airlock-style structure, so they skipped the windows to the other side and up the grav lift to the "Atrium".
A central raised walkway with capsules to either side was visible. Two large capsules were on each side, each with a hatch controlled by a touchscreen. A large sign in between them read:
! CAUTION !
Equip psychoscope prior to viewing
Specimen contained within: Typhon Anthrophantasmus
To the left was the "Director's Office". They could see a recycler and a fabricator through the windows, but there was someone in there, so they couldn't just barge on in in person. The man was watching something on a viewscreen.
Tsuna's brow went up as he watched … a space walk? The view, presumably from a suit's camera, was aimed at what looked like a satellite of some kind. Something floated away from the thing, then blossomed into a four-limbed thing that flew over to the space-walker and … attacked? The person tried to fend it off, but their helmet was struck and shattered, and then the video ended.
Playing on the other screen was a different video. The same satellite was shown, but within what was probably the confines of the station, as it was contained in a room not unlike the one they had already passed through, with Kletka written on one of the wall panels of a circular room that surrounded a pit the satellite hung over.
One of those four-limbed things appeared—a typhon of some kind, presumably, shaped somewhat like a chromosome—then another, coming from within the satellite. A third appeared, then what looked like a fight. A fourth appeared, almost as if one of them had divided.
"I don't have the first fucking clue what's going on here," he muttered as three of the typhon scurried out of sight, while the last one drifted away from the satellite and morphed into a new shape entirely, complete with plenty of glowing, sparking yellow light.
"So, aliens," Hayato commented with admirable calm.
"Which explains this station," Sin said. "It was probably built around that satellite so they could research these lifeforms—or whatever they are."
"Right," he muttered. "Moving on."
He sent his window back out and over to the end of the area. The label above the door read "Containment Access". Through there was where it got really freaky.
The room had doors to either side (Labs A and Labs B), but up ahead was filiments of amber-gold light, shaded with red, suspended in yet another circular room. On moving the window closer they could see doors to either side again, one labeled "Live Exam, Morgue," and the other "Material Extraction".
"This is fucked," he whispered.
The huge sign next to the window at the center—which was clearly a view into the same room they had just seen on the video—said:
Current Specimens Under Observation:
Typhon Cacoplasma: Mimic | Currently in Chamber: 12
Typhon Geneocratic: Weaver | Currently in Chamber: 1
Typhon Dysmorpha: Poltergeist | Currently in Chamber: ?
! Psychoscope Required: Proceed With Caution !
Kletka Containment Chamber
! Chamber under constant observation
! Keep containment door secure at all times
! Always wear your Psychoscope
"Right, what say we go look at those labs before we check out the two doors here?" Daemon said.
"Yeah…"
Backtracking a little and heading upstairs showed experiment setups, with a mimic contained in a glass-walled area with three capsules, along with three buttons to push. A scientist type pushed a button, revealing a flask, and the mimic inside morphed into a flask.
"Right."
Another experiment was testing a type of light source and its effects on another mimic in "Lab B-3 Typhon Nightlight Testing". Another button was present which, when pushed, set off a brilliant blue-white gaseous light thing on rails. As it moved to one side, the mimic would follow.
"I suppose that could be like a grenade?" Ken said. "In case of an outbreak, throw one to distract them and sneak by or kill it, somehow?"
One of the offices had a whiteboard.
Project Cobalt
Human/Typhon Cell Fusion
first phase has to include cerebral division cells have to be split before they can be fused
"Okay, so, yeah, they're working on fusing those aliens with human beings," Hayato said, a profound look of distaste on his face.
There was an airlock at the back, presumably leading to the exterior of the station.
"Makes sense why they'd have a morgue in here, then, I suppose," Chikusa said.
Live Exam had a large glass-walled box almost up against the side wall—the same wall that bordered the containment of the satellite, with a touchscreen terminal in front of it. Grav lifts to the Morgue were opposite.
"Anyone getting the feeling they put the 'volunteers' into that box and unleash a typhon on them to see what happens?" Ken asked.
The door leading onward had three labels: Containment Access, Material Extraction, and Gravity Utility Tunnel System.
"You know what? I've seen enough of this area for the moment," he said. "It's upsetting my stomach. Let's pull back and either wait on Xeul checking in, or go visit the Hardware Labs instead. I don't really want to be here if they start up one of these experiments."
Everyone nodded, so Tsuna stored his window and hunted down the UNO deck.
xXx
Quite a while later Xeul finally checked in via window. "Gods that was boring," he said. "Nothing to do but sit there and wait. Anyway, as you can see, I am on Earth, so if you want to take a breather from the station, come join me."
Samsara exchanged looks, then nodded and stepped over.
"We should find a library, amongst other things," Chikusa said. "See how history differs. Or a bookstore, whichever. And some cash."
"Already got that covered," Xeul said. "It's amazing how many shifty people you can find in transport hubs."
"Where are we, anyway?"
"Fuck if I know. I've never been to Seattle," Xeul said.
A short time later they had hailed a cab and were driven to a bookstore. They rifled through the history section, grabbed a bunch of likely-looking books, paid for them, then caught a cab to a hotel. Daemon convinced the poor clerk on duty that there had been a mix-up with reservations and they were shortly given keys to a suite on the house.
"Ah, a real bathroom," Tsuna said, making a beeline for the tub. "Ooo! And it's even deep enough to soak in!"
xXx
"So, apparently JFK didn't kick it when that assassin attacked, and the US and Russia were friendly for a while, which is decidedly odd," Chikusa reported.
"Well, we can store those books in the λ27 section," he said. "Now we just need to find out where the manufactory is for those machines, and those devices. I don't imagine TranStar had their local offices right there at the shuttle facility."
Xeul shook his head. "I did swipe a few things from the reception desk. I'm sure there's an address on one of these things…"
After ascertaining where they needed to go, they arranged for train tickets via the front desk, then settled in to relax for the remainder of the day. A long train ride later and they were at TranStar's main manufactory and had windows going everywhere, trying to locate their storage and anything that might hold fabrication plans.
"Got it," Daemon said. "Well, the storage area, anyway." He shifted position so everyone could see the warehouse, revealing a whole lot of crates, each labeled with a number, either an ID or a shipping manifest. "Unless we can crack that touchscreen, you're going to have to harmonize inside these things so we can see the contents."
He nodded. "We should wait for nightfall for that. Find any cameras so we can cover my activities."
"Can you harmonize while invisible?" Ken asked.
Tsuna blinked. "I have no idea. I'll test it shortly. Anyone see anything that might be those devices?"
"There are some smaller crates on those shelves over there," Sin said, "but for all we know those could those weird medbay machines, the ones with the floaters."
"Uh, maybe these?" Chikusa said, pointing at his window. The crates he was looking at were much smaller. "There's that cargo station outside with tracks back to the shuttle facility. The other set I'm not so sure about."
"Maybe if we find the production lines we could tell what each thing is being packed in," Hayato said.
While they were doing that, Tsuna acquired a few things from a hardware store in a previous dimension and set about testing that idea. He turned himself invisible and tried to harmonize through the door he had propped up. Thankfully, the spell was not one interrupted by actions (such as opening a door or picking something up), so it did not fail the second his hand started to sink into the wood.
"If they have heat sensors," he muttered, then paused. Could he harmonize while Edging? "Well, first, let me see if this works properly."
Five minutes later he was through the door and still invisible, so he tried the second option. Unfortunately, as he was not exactly in the real world (for a subjective definition of real considering how many full and sub-dimensions he had access to), he could not interact on the level he needed while Edging.
"It was worth a try," Sin said at his downcast expression.
"Yeah. Just need a way to hide my heat signature. But I can still get into one of those containers after midnight."
"Illusions work against cameras," Xeul said, "so they might also work against heat sensors. Most places don't even bother with them, but I suppose it could be different here."
"I'm gonna look around for a security center," Sin said. "If I can find that, we'll know what they check for."
A sensible course of action, indeed.
"I'm not seeing anything I'd recognize as heat sensors," Daemon said, "but who knows? This society is a lot more advanced than anything we're used to."
"Found the production line," Mukuro said, "or at least one of them. It's either fabricators or recyclers."
Tsuna moved closer so he could see his Mist's window. "The ones near the end don't seem to have the recycling symbol, so…"
"You know," Hayato said, "these guys are all wearing those wristbands. What are the odds they don't even bother to use heat sensors, because they're tracking everyone with those? I would assume any exterior defenses also use those as a medium, if they're what I think they are."
"Okay," Sin said, leaning back a little. "Security appears to be strictly camera-based. Those terminals of theirs also function as a link to the wristbands, allowing them to tell what part of the complex anyone is in, assuming they're registered. The same would be true for the station. I expect that any, ah, volunteers are fitted with a wristband and logged in and out, depending on where they are, so this tracking system can keep an eye on their movements, just like any normal employee."
"What the hell is that guy doing?" Ken asked, pointing at a fellow who was holding what reminded Tsuna of a Nerf gun in the form of a crossbow of sorts. "Foam darts?"
"I suppose that's one way to blow off steam at work," Xeul muttered. "Hang on, those things can activate the touchscreens. As soon as the room is empty I'll have to do some checking. Better a foam dart than fingerprints."
xXx
That night, about a half hour after midnight, when what guards there were on duty were not exactly glued to their monitors, Daemon took care of keeping them disinterested.
An invisible Tsuna stepped over to the warehouse and started working his way into one of the shipping containers. Five minutes later he could see the interior (thanks to a quick spell to provide light). A recycler was stashed inside.
He stepped back out and checked the numbers on the side, then headed over to the next one to check. Several hours later they had worked out the pattern of the identifiers, which meant he could check out those smaller containers. The smallest of them did have those devices inside, which was good, while the somewhat larger crates were either those machines they had seen in that one medbay or touchscreens with their accompanying hardware.
"All right, so, we should take a dozen each of recyclers, fabricators, and computers, plus a box of those devices. Then we can get in touch with Verde to see if he'd be willing to reverse engineer the stuff. Since we've been using my storage as our home…"
"Mine has the library," Chikusa said.
"I will," Hayato said, opening a window to show his. Given how many flames the man had it was a colourful place. It was shortly sporting quite a bit in the way of acquired goods, and everyone stepped over so they could crack open the crates.
"If nothing else, if we get them working, the crates themselves can be recycled," Sin said.
"Well, let's see," he said, then opened a window to λ10. "Sorry to bother you, Ki-san," he said, "but I'm open to suggestions as to food as repayment."
Reborn gave him a warm smile and said, "Banoffee Pie."
"Huh, okay, I can do that," he replied.
"So what's up?"
"We need a location for Verde. We have some tech here we've acquired and want to see if he can reverse engineer it. Recyclers, fabricators, and devices that we think interface with the fabricators in terms of fabrication plans. I'm hoping that in exchange for him being able to market the stuff on your end, we'll get versions we know how to adapt if need be, and work up a library of plans."
Reborn's brow went up. "Recyclers? Fabricators? Like 3D printing?"
"Something like that. We dumped a bunch of stuff into a recycler, hit the button, and it converted all of it into cubes of material, organic, mineral, and synthetic. There was a fourth, exotic, but that's a story in and of itself. If you can get us a picture of where Verde is, we can explain to the both of you at once."
Reborn did a slow blink, then made use of his Leon phone to place a call. "Yeah, Verde, gonna need an image of where you are right now. Heul wants to talk. …Right, okay. …Should be just a minute after he sees the image. See you shortly." After he hung up he checked his mail and opened the attachment, which turned out to be a video.
Tsuna zoomed in so he could get a good look and watched as Reborn let the video play. "Okay, cool. Hang on a second." He pulled up another window, this one open to Verde's location, then a third which windowed between Reborn and Verde, so they could all quite comfortably see each other. (In the time between his venture into the hallowed halls of Hogwarts and the present, Tsuna had become "better" at handling cross-dimensional windows, and it was no longer so tiring.)
"So, here's the situation," he said, then explained where they were and what they had encountered thus far. "We're hoping that you'll be able to reverse engineer these things, and ensure a power source. No idea how power hungry they are. And of course, the devices which may or may not be used to hold fabrication blueprints—which we're still trying to get our hands on some so you can figure those out, too."
Verde nodded. "Of course. I'll have to set aside a lab for all of it, but yes, I'd be delighted to try my hand at figuring out highly advanced technology. You said the year is 2032, so I should be able to get some exceptional data from this, not to mention ideas."
"How soon should I check back?"
Verde hummed thoughtfully. "Give me one week, then keep an eye on this location. I'll have something ready by then and can give it my full attention."
"Awesome. And while I know this is like sending a sugar addict into a sweets shop, I still want to know if there's any particular foods you might like as a thank you."
Verde hummed again. "I am partial to that cheesecake you make. It's simply divine."
He nodded. "I'll make you one, then. It'd be better if I had a look at the inside of your refrigerator, though, so I could shift it straight there."
"Certainly," Verde said, then started to walk, the window following him. A short time later they were in a rather utilitarian kitchen. Verde popped open the fridge long enough for Tsuna to get a good look, then closed it.
"Perfect. A cheesecake will be delivered and we'll check back in a week."
"Later, you two," Sin said with a wave.
Once the windows were stored (which was always a slightly weird thing considering he often did so from within his storage) he moved over to the kitchen area to get started.
"So for now we can continue to try to track down blueprints," Daemon said. "There's no point in just opening a window to a week from now Verde time if we don't have any."
"Well, while Sin and I work on this…"
"Of course, darling."
"Oh look, an employee sleeping on the job," Mukuro said. "I wonder what would happen to him if his device went missing?"
"Maybe it'd be a better idea to get one from someone who isn't a grunt?" Hayato said.
"Probably, now that you mention it. We can always open windows into HQ, find someone to follow home, preferably from a design team or something. Or one of the workers up on the station."
"Let's try both."
xXx
A week later (for λ10, anyway) Tsuna opened a window to the lab they had spoken to Verde in. The man was soldering something. Tsuna solved the issue of startling the man by shifting a fragrant piece of apple pie to a nearby table, so that the scent would hopefully clue the man in that check-in time had arrived.
A few minutes later Verde pushed up his mask and took a breath, then pivoted. "Ah."
"Hiya! If you don't want the pie, feed it to a minion or something."
Verde nodded and picked up the plate and fork, and started to eat, then walked out of the room, clearly expecting them to follow (so to speak). A short time later he entered a new room, a fairly large one, that was mostly barren.
"This should do nicely," he said, then shifting in a half dozen each of the recyclers and fabricators. The crate of devices (which they had learned were called TranScribes) had a full gross, so he shifted over a dozen of those, too, plus one that they had loaded up with the blueprints they had managed to get their hands on (Mukuro had gotten lucky enough to find a terminal with all sorts of blueprints on it they could download to the TranScribe, so he had loaded up nine of them.)
Verde practically quivered with excitement on seeing the tech and started eating faster.
"Let's say … I check back each week? Or do you think a fortnight would be better?"
"A week," Verde said. "By then I should have a more precise estimate of how long this will take me and can adjust check-in times accordingly."
"The device with the green tag on it has a set of the blueprints we were able to recover, so you have something to work with from that end."
Verde nodded, his eyes glued to his new toys. "I will see you in a week, then."
"All right. Have fun."
"Oh, I intend to."
Tsuna stored the window and grinned at his family. "Well, he's in heaven."
Sin nodded. "I would say you should probably deliver food regularly to his kitchen, but you'd have to keep a window open the whole time to see when he did manage to surface long enough to deal with base needs."
"Too intensive," Xeul said with a shake of his head. "However, Heul could check in every six hours or so, just to see what he's up to, and figure out when he's headed for a meal."
"And since I can open a window to when I want…" He nodded. "Yeah, that'd work. Or I cook something now, and check while I'm doing it, until I hit a point where he's practically in the kitchen. Shift over the food. That alone would give us an estimate as to how often he'd take a break."
Daemon looked at Sin. "Any idea what he would appreciate most?"
Sin looked down in thought, (presumably) trying to remember mealtimes with the man during the time they were being bamboozled into becoming flame batteries. "Nothing especially sweet. He went more for plain fare, so steamed vegetables should be okay, boiled potatoes. As for meat, he seemed to favor chicken. Mild to moderate spices or herbs. But that was only when someone else was doing the cooking. On his own? He'd suck down a protein shake or whatever took the least amount of time to prepare, like simple sandwiches."
Tsuna sighed, but he admitted he was a bit biased when it came to things like food. "I'll start with something fairly simple, see how he reacts to it."
xXx
A week later Verde's time and he was properly checking in again. Verde had managed a connection between one of the terminals and one of his own computers and was busy tapping away at the keyboard.
That was something sorely missing on the terminals, in Tsuna's opinion, as the touchscreens just couldn't give the same kind of tactile and audible feedback as a good old-fashioned mechanical keyboard. Boop boop boop just didn't do it for him.
As before, he shifted over a fragrant piece of apple pie and fork to alert the scientist that they were "connected".
Verde's nose twitched and his fingers slowed, then he looked to the side to see the offering. After snatching it up he turned around so his face could be seen.
"Verde," Tsuna greeted. "How are things?"
"Coming along nicely," Verde said after his neat forkful of pie. "And I thank you for the meals. They were delicious. I have managed to interface with their technology—the terminals, to start—and anticipate that I will have no difficulties doing the same with the recycler, fabricator, and the device, though for now I have transferred the fabrication plans to the terminal so that I can put copies on my computer and pick them apart."
"Some of those we expect will be impossible to fabricate due to the need for exotic materials," he said. "We kept an eye on things up at the station and our fears were realized. They released a mimic into a cage with one of their so-called volunteers."
Verde leaned forward.
"The mimic sucked the life out of the man, then split off another three mimics, like mitosis on speed or something."
"Fascinating. And then I assume they would kill one or more of them to gain materials for the recycler to convert to exotic materials."
Tsuna forgave the man for not appearing to give a damn that humans were dying in the process. For all they knew, all those so-called volunteers were hardened criminals who had no business polluting the gene pool, so why not use them for testing? If they weren't defects, well…
Verde pushed up his glasses, the light glinting off them in a stereotypically evil way. "Well, it is not something I'm going to worry about. Some of these blueprints will no doubt be useless, such as the psi hypo and the neuromod. I must also say that these neuromods are quite distasteful. Being able to simply imprint a lifetime of work into the brain of some random person is most vexing."
"As I'm sure is the plot of many a sci-fi novel, I expect that TranStar is well on the way to starting an apocalypse," Sin said.
Tsuna hummed. "Yeah. It's one of the times when I'm hoping I die a hilariously stupid death early, just so we're not caught up in it."
"We can always hide in your storage," Daemon said.
"Yeah, but then imagine just how insanely stupid my death would have to be," he pointed out.
Verde chortled quietly, then had another bite of his pie.
Tsuna rolled his eyes. "How long before you think you'll have a better handle on all this? I don't know when or where it will come in useful to us, but I'd feel better knowing it was. On a side note, if you can make it fabricate larger objects, think about how much simpler it would be to get additional things for your labs. Just toss a bunch of junk into the recycler, fabricate a new electron microscope or whatever, or an MRI machine…"
Verde paused, seemingly lost in sheer adoration for the picture Tsuna was painting. "Check back every two weeks. I won't say no to more food, but I do understand that you have things you must yourself do, and keeping me fed is not likely a priority."
Tsuna shrugged. "Don't be surprised if food appears in your fridge regardless. Or a portion of whatever meal we're having. You're doing us a favor, even if you'll be getting quite a bit out of the venture yourself. Even if we do get bounced sooner than expected, it's not like I can't continue to keep in touch to see how you're getting on with those things."
"All right, then. I will continue my research and expect to hear from you regularly. And once I've gotten the transfer down smoothly, I can set up a machine that will allow you to move blueprints to and from those devices, including any I come up with. Flash drives are a dime a dozen, after all."
"Will do."
xXx
They were back on the station when it happened, when Tsuna got that sense of impending doom he would be helpless to avoid. They had been carefully cataloging the contents of the Hardware Labs, acquiring all sorts of goodies to pass on to Verde, when a running experiment in the Combustion Lab section went awry and blew out one of the exterior walls, causing a breach to space.
He was pushed out—having been there in person so he could manipulate one of the terminals—by the escaping air, with a heaping of explosive force from the accident, and had his head damn near ripped off by the jagged edges of metal.
When he checked back later, after awakening again, he saw that the body he'd been inhabiting had zoomed through space to score a bullseye on the T logo of one of the orbiting TranStar billboards.