The streets near our shop were practically clear of debris. Shards of glass glittered in the sun as it edged toward its peak. But the closer we got to Main Street and the wall, the more debris littered the place. Though, judging by how people were starting to make their way out of their buildings and clean up, the streets would be cleared as fast as possible.

  If for nothing more than to allow the various vehicles to get through. Not that I expected any group to send in anything to help us. Any vehicle they sent was likely to be here to collect anything we managed to harvest.

  Still, the debris was bad enough that we had to loop back a few times when something blocked the way. Collapsed walls and half-demolished buildings were tossed to the side by people who didn’t seem to care who they hurt, so long as they got the monster they were targeting. They didn’t even care to clean up the leftover effects of their powers. While some powers left little to nothing behind, others did.

  Shards of ice turned a whole street into a sort of art piece. Modern architecture meets geode, with a dash of monster added in. The ice caught and twisted the sunlight that hit them to cover the mess with rainbows of light.

  I smelled the dead things before I saw them. Stabbed and frozen to death, the pale monsters were already being harvested by a group of people. My feet stalled at the sight. While I had seen a few monsters in various videos and images, they paled in comparison to the thing in front of me.

  From what I could see, the creature was a Super Naked Mole Rat. I know, it is a stupid name, but I doubt the people that first encountered the things cared about finding a cool name. Not when they dug under the various fortifications to get at the tasty pieces of meat inside.

  But that was dirt. Hell, the things had a hard time digging through gravel. And with most of the land around here comprised of solid stone, there was no way to get inside. Sure, they could try to climb the wall, but they were considered weak to the weakest land creatures. To some, they were little more than a snack. Yet there was a whole herd of the buggers here in front of me.

  “They sure are ugly, aren’t they?” Bert said from next to me.

  He wasn’t wrong. I gave him a nod as I was a bit afraid that more than just words would come out of my mouth if I tried to say anything.

  He must have noticed something because he gave my shoulder a gentle shove forward. “We should probably keep up with your parents. Don’t want them to do all those tests without you, now do we?” He knew just what to say to get me moving, as I didn’t hesitate to jog after the two of them.

  Luckily enough, other than a few cracks and broken glass, Main Street was untouched. Even the building that housed the testing chambers looked perfectly fine. Without power, but fine.

  A pair of rocks propped the double doors as a dull thrum pulsed from somewhere deep inside. It was the weekend, yet the place was empty. The holograms that typically filled the air, each showing a different scene or game that one could rent a room to play, were without power. Teens, families, and everyone else who came here to play games on their off time were missing. Without all of that, the place just felt dead.

  Not that either of my parents seemed to give a damn. My mother was the first through the doors, only to stop and hold up her bag as she used the other hand to gesture down the darkened hallway. “Why don’t you three go get set up while I talk to the owner.”

  Without breaking his stride, my father wove around her as he spoke. “Our reserved room is number seven.”

  Knowing that she wouldn’t be off to get the backup on until someone took her bag, I took the thing. Not expecting just how heavy it was, I let out a grunt as I tried to tighten my muscles enough to keep whatever was inside from smashing to the ground. With a duck and shuffle, the straps of the bag landed on my left shoulder.

  Given the heft, she didn’t just bring a few of her tools. She probably brought any tool and machine she thought she might need. For all I knew, she also had a mana source. The bulky things were little more than a centralized place to put mana batteries. They served to constrain and regulate the mana flow so that no machine found itself with too much or too little. Well, so long as it had mana to provide that is.

  Just as my foot moved toward the hall, Bert reached over and twisted the bag off my shoulders and onto his. Not bothering to say a word as he practically danced down the hall. While I doubted he meant it, the casual display of strength was a subtle reminder that I was less than him.

  No power meant I had no hope of using my mana for more than charging things. No, using it to strengthen my muscles. No spells. No abilities. Nothing more than what a base human was capable of doing.

  The slap slap slap of my shoes hitting the floor echoed around me as I chased after the two of them. The deeper I went, the darker it got until I either had to stop and wait or light the place up myself. Lucky for me, while my pad didn’t have access to anything useful, it still gave off enough light to see by.

  With the dull light of my pad screen, I managed to catch up to the two idiots who seemed not to care that they couldn’t see in the dark. It was the light of my pad, and its dull light, that caused the two of them to stop what they were doing and look up at me.

  Bert stood at a table, carefully unpacking the bag of goodies, while my dad had entered the simulation chamber itself. From the looks of it, he had found a table at some point and moved it into the center. A table in which my project now sat.

  “Come give this a look over.” He waved at the thing. “While I know what most of it does, I have nowhere near your or your mother's skill and knowledge on this kind of thing.”

  Well, if I was being honest, neither did I. This was my first time working on such a device. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to grab anything from my mom’s pile of stuff. What mechanic worth their salt left their shop without at least one tool?

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  For me, that tool was my multitool. Designed by yours truly. Or, at least the base design had been mine. Both parents took that design and gave it their own little twist. Adding tools that I had no use for or things I couldn’t have built without their help. Then we took a small vacation to build the thing, teaching me every step of the way.

  That week together produced a tool the width of my palm and maybe half as heavy as a similar-sized piece of iron. At a gesture across its surface, a handle popped out. With its removal, the various bits stored inside became accessible. Now, how to both check over the thing while keeping the light where I needed it?

  Before I could ask for advice, the low thrum raised in pitch as the lights in our room flickered to life. My mother always seemed to have great timing. Pad back in my pocket, I started to undo the central cover. Fingers slid across the various connections as I gave each a small tug to verify they were well connected.

  A bundle of cables found their way into my free hand halfway through. I didn’t have to even look at them to know what they were for. My mother told me. “Hook those up to the central board. I will get you the mana monitoring cables in a second.”

  As always, the woman was well ahead of me. While we could run the test without these, if something went wrong, we needed some sort of monitoring equipment attached to see just where and how. Only with that information could we have a hope of getting this thing to work before the end of the day.

  A few of the wires had pass-through connectors that were easy to attach, while others were small alligator clips. Each of which were a pain in the ass to attach, mostly thanks to the location of their test points. Still, I managed to get everything attached and the rest of the wires tested in fairly short order.

  “Okay, give the system a check,” I called to my mother. A soft glow, no more than a shimmer really, twinkled off the board as I heard various buttons and switches being hit.

  “The readings on the left wing look a bit off. Go ahead and reseat it.”

  I waited for the glow to vanish before reaching my hand into the cavity. The connectors stuck a bit, but with some gentle persuasion, I got the two different connections apart, checked the pins and sockets before reconnecting everything.

  As soon as my hands left the cavity, the board lit up once again. Her proclamation that the system was working came a minute later. So, without further ado, I left the simulation chamber to join them in the control space. What I saw surprised me.

  Most screens I had used were projected as holograms, and judging by the strips running along the windows, this place had them, but they were not on. Instead, the windows themselves acted as our screens.

  Seeing my confusion, my mother shrugged. “The backup generator here is barely enough for a single room. No need to overtax it with holograms and such. Plus, these old things worked before, and they were just sitting here. Might as well use them.”

  Jesus, I knew this place was old, but old enough to have physical screens? From what I could tell, they were actual glass-and-metal displays. Hell, they might even run on electricity instead of mana. But were they antiques or recreations? So many questions, but they would have to wait. From what I could see, we were ready to start our tests.

  “Honey, enable the testing protocols.” At her command, my dad tapped a few buttons. The screens went from a warm blue glow to an orange and black crosshatch. Another tap and the door to the chamber hissed closed. Loud thunking noises and whines announced the chamber's status as sealed off.

  The only connection the test machine would have to the outside world was our cables. Though not that they could really be used to get out. The passthrough system prevented much more than the signals allowed from getting through.

  Next came the soft grayish blue hue of the shields as they climbed the walls. It was the single largest power draw of the whole test rig. Not that there was a chance we would run without it. If the device exploded, the shield would limit the damage to superficial at most.

  A button on her console slowly pulsed a soft yellow as it waited for her to press it. “Here we go.” With her words, she pressed the button. The pulsing color changed from yellow to blue as the device was given the order to start up.

  Every screen around us flickered. Boxes and windows vanished as tables and graphs took their place. From mana monitoring to stress readings. I tried to keep an eye on the central core’s mana usage while also watching the device for movement.

  Each time the readings spiked, I jumped in excitement, only for them to fall once again. While I knew this was normal, it didn’t make the situation any less annoying. Surely the system could finish its first boot a bit faster.

  Finally, the usage spiked higher and higher. Doubling the highest spike before plateauing out. “Looking good so far.” My mother murmured. “Now to see if it can take off.”

  A series of soft mana pulses washed over everything as it tested each lifter unit. Eventually, it gave one last pulse and lifted off the table. More than one hand slapped my back as we each celebrated the success.

  It wasn’t the prettiest or the most efficient flying device out there, but it was the first I had worked on, and it was working. With a tap, my mother told it to move on to the next phase of testing. Following the command, the drone slid from side to side, forward and back, up and down, to verify that it could.

  Another tap, and it ran through the sensor test. They worked perfectly. A third tap and a pair of small tubes stuck out of the wings. While the magazine was empty, the soft puffs of mana showed that the system was doing its job.

  With that, the basic systems worked. Now came the hard part. The soft intelligence circuit. It wasn’t a true AI; those were outright banned. And for good reason, given how much mana changed everything it interacted with. No one wanted a rogue system to decide they needed to die.

  And nothing. It should have at least turned and given the place a full scan. It didn’t. The drone simply sat there. Well, hovered there, but semantics.

  “Is the smart chip running?” I asked as I scanned for it in the sea of information.

  “According to this,” she pointed at the box on the opposite side of her. “It is taking in mana, but nothing else.”

  “Damn.” It was so close. But of all the things to fail, it had to be the most expensive and complex parts. Worse yet, it wasn’t something I could just fix. I would have to take the central system apart to get to the chip.

  “Now,” she gestured to another screen. “It could simply be in a sleep mode. How about we have the system generate a simulated creature for it? That should be enough to wake it up.” With my nod, my dad started to type into the screen near the door. Within moments, a Whisper Silk Moth Spider crawled out from the corner of the room.

  While it was the size of my hand and lacked any fangs, its ability to fly and generate razor-sharp silk threads made it an annoying pest. Lucky for us, they preferred to live near swamps.

  Silent as death, the spider leapt off the wall and onto its target. The drone didn’t so much as rock when its passenger landed on it. The spider latched a thread to the top. Using it as an anchor as it dropped off the back. With a flutter of its wings, it made a loop around the drone and started to use the anchored point to pull the wire taut.

  With a sigh, my father tapped a button, and the spider vanished. “Well, think about it this way, at least you know the majority of the systems work.” My father wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make the thing hurt any less. I wanted the whole project to work. Sure, they could have used it to send me to the academy, but I wasn’t going to use that as a reason to want so much of my time to have been a waste.

  Switches flipped as my mother started to shut everything down. “While we pack all of this up, I think it is time that we had that talk.” Oh, those dirty… There was no way they were going to let me get out of this little chat, were they?