"Inventing the Future"

Author's Note: Jaming just tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You're not going to just leave it like that, are you?" So, here you get to see Meredith's more logical side come into play. In the course of writing this, I realized something; if they were ever to get too much caffeine, they'd be bouncing off the walls.

"Chapter 15: Speculations"

Jaming had never been much of a tea drinker, but when Meredith offered him some chamomile, saying it always calmed her nerves, he accepted. He watched her for a bit as she prepared it, then looked down at his hands. He was a doctor of technology, not medicine, but even he could tell that she had done an almost professional job of it.

"Where did you learn how to do this?"

She gave him a funny look, and asked, "What, make tea?"

"N-no, I meant the bandages. It seems like you may have done it before."

"I have," Meredith's expression suggested that she might be hiding something. "I used to fall down a lot. You take sugar, right?"

"Two, please..." Jaming looked back down at his hands. He knew that he would probably find out eventually, when she was ready to discuss it, so he let the matter drop. "Would you like some help?"

"Nah, I've got it. All you do is boil the water and let it sit. Nothing to it."

When the tea was ready, Meredith brought it over and set one of the cups down in front of him. She knew he didn't like to be fussed over too much, but she had to say it anyway. "I'm really sorry, Jaming."

He reacted pretty much as she expected, by wincing a little and shaking his head. "Yes, well...It is what it is."

She touched his shoulder, and began again, "Jaming, I..."

But he turned in his seat and gently removed her hand from his shoulder. It wasn't a rejection; he held her hand between his for a moment. "Meredith...please. I know you mean well, but...there's really nothing anyone can say. I...don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there, but...I'll be all right. Really."

Meredith seemed conflicted, as if what he was asking of her went against her very nature, but this was what he wanted and she needed to respect that. She nodded, sipped her tea, then leaned back in her chair a little, still holding her cup. She was trying to think of some way to change the subject, one that wouldn't seem out of place, when Jaming began to speak again.

"I just can't figure out why. I've eaten, slept, and breathed Aeroharmonics for so long that I barely even need to refer to my notes anymore. I succeeded once, so I know I can do it again. It should have worked." Jaming held his teacup between his hands, letting the warmth from the ceramic heat his hands through the bandages. He no longer appeared anguished so much as mildly frustrated, and the analytical side of his brain seemed to have kicked in. "What did I do differently that one time?"

Technology was not Meredith's forte. It always seemed to involve math, something she had never excelled at, but she could see a pattern there. Griffon seemed to be the single anomaly in this common thread of failures. From what little Jaming had told her, she knew that Griffon possessed great magical power, and as she thought about this she frowned.

"When you made the one that worked, where did you get the materials?"

"Hm?" Jaming blinked, unsure how this was relevant, but he answered her readily enough. "Some of it I found, and some of it I happened to already own. Much of it was provided by Griffon, though. Some soldier or other would bring the item I requested and leave it just outside of my old workshop. High quality stuff, too. But nothing that can't be found by anyone who bothers to look. Why?"

She almost seemed embarrassed to be offering suggestions about such matters, but she continued anyway. "I don't know, I just wondered if...Well, when you started up the platform earlier, it started to work. Exactly how similar are magic and technology?"

Jaming did not want to think about his most recent failure, and he tried not to show that doing so put him in a sour humor. Besides, he was intrigued to know exactly where her train of thought was going. "In many ways, they're one and the same. Technology can replicate certain things that magic can accomplish, and vice versa. They can even be..."

He trailed off. His eyes widened a bit. But he wasn't sure if what he now suspected was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Were you going to say 'combined'?"

"Yes..."

"Well..." She shifted in her seat, turning to face him. "I wonder if some of those materials weren't...what's the word I'm looking for...I wonder if they weren't tampered with first, or treated somehow. I saw that platform rise off the floor before...well, yes. It worked. But something is out of whack. You just haven't found it yet."

"Yes, yes, I know all of this," he sounded impatient, but he wasn't intentionally snapping at her. His thoughts were beginning to race, and he was having trouble keeping them in one place, so much so that his 'politeness filter' had shut down. And he wasn't being completely accurate; he had never before suspected magical tampering, but he didn't think to clarify. "But that doesn't change the present situation."

"Bear with me for a minute," Meredith held up a hand, looking almost as animated as Jaming himself did when he was on to something big. "Suppose those materials were tampered with, and suppose the purpose was to get rid of that instability?"

Now he frowned. He wasn't sure, but he felt like he had just been insulted. "Are you saying that without Griffon, there is no hope of success? That I'm incapable of-"

"No, no, no!" Meredith waved her hand as if fending off mosquitoes, irritated by his continued interruptions. "I'm saying that maybe whatever was used to level things out-"

"If that's what happened."

Meredith was truly annoyed now, and she actually put her hand over his mouth. "Will you just stop that for a minute? I can't hear myself think!"

Jaming, wide eyes peering at her over the top of her hand, nodded like a little boy who had just been reprimanded by a teacher.

Satisfied, she removed her hand. "Where was I...Ah! If magic and technology can each do many of the things that the other can do, maybe the effects of whatever Griffon might have done using magic can be replicated by you using technology. You haven't found the problem yet, but that doesn't mean that you won't. It exists, and you can find it. The platform did work...for a little bit. Maybe, instead of trying to do the same thing every time, hoping that this one will be 'the one', you should compare your latest attempt side-by-side to the one you left back at Shigura Village. I'm sure it's still there, though the sand crabs have probably made a home out of it by now..."

"Meredith!"

The sudden, explosive use of her name startled her badly, and at first she thought that she had gone way too far and angered him, but the next thing she knew he was holding her by the shoulders and wearing such a wide grin she wondered if he had taken leave of his senses. "Wh-what?"

"I think you might be on to something!"

"You...you do?" She blinked, more confused than ever.

"Yes! I hadn't even considered that, but it fits." His hands moved from her shoulders to her cheeks as he laughed a bit giddily. "It fits! Oh, I could kiss you! Or, well..."

She kissed him instead, and and stroked her hand down his cheek. She didn't want to get his hopes up too high, because if it didn't work the fall back to earth would be even worse than this last one had been. "There's no guarantee, though..."

"Of course not. There never is."

Unseen and unheard by Jaming and Meredith, three ghostly figures hovered at the back of the room. Two of them, a male and a female, stood as a couple. The other, a male, stood nearby but a little apart from them.

The female ghost slipped her hand into her husband's and offered up a rather smug grin. "Told you so. Sometimes he just can't see the forest for the trees. I knew she'd get to him somehow."

"All right, wife, you win this one." The male, who resembled Jaming strongly in body if not in facial features, rolled his eyes. Then he turned to the lone male ghost, and asked him, "What do you think?"

Watching Meredith with a look of paternal tenderness, the other replied, "I think our children are good for each other."

The ghost of Jaming's father nodded. "I concur. And I commend you on the daughter you raised. Bringing him out of his legendary funks is no easy task, but she reacted admirably."

The ghost of Jaming's mother nudged him. "Big words, dear."

"All right, then; she knows when to be kind, and when to give him a kick in the pants!"

The three laughed as they rose, unnoticed, through the tree house ceiling and disappeared into the ethers.