After the prep day, I stay to supervise the process I helped create for Paolo to orchestrate with his new workers. I see some of the Odell units performing tasks that I’d like the workers to learn, so I suspend their automatic assistance unless the batch is in danger of ruining. Paolo instructs his men to man long handled scrapers to pitch the slurry that is stagnating on the sides of the masher bag into the machine.
After that, I watch Paolo show his team how to flood the mash with solvent, mix it and transfer it to the beds in sequence and then set the beds to recirculation while the first chemical conversion takes place. He then watches as the men do the same to the next two runs.
“That is the first stage, yes? Now we wait three days.”
“Paolo. In this apparatus, we flush the masher and the additive thumper with the transfer pump twice before we’re to add the chemicals to the next solvent. We do this now to prevent fouling and any incidental chemistry from occurring in the meantime.”
“Ayeee.” He palms his face, a gesture he got from me. “A step I am not used to.”
“I have no doubt you would have flushed it prior to adding more chemicals, but this keeps us from bringing down a run for cleaning just a little bit longer.” I kind of wish Dzartha was here for this, because it feels so wrong to correct Paolo since he was the one who helped me discover the correct process in the first place.
“It was what I was thinking, yes. Odell, please adjust timing reminders to fit an earlier flushing process.”
“Yes Manager.”
“Odell. Send me a note for each event of timing or process changes.” I say to the room.
“Yes, Owner. Would you like us to wait for approval before making the changes?”
“No, no. Manager Paolo is the man on scene. Unless the changes are dangerous to people, product, or property; let the man cook.”
“Understood, Miss Novarro.”
I turn to Paolo to make sure he is paying attention. The man is staring in rapt focus. “Paolo, while Odell can do much of the process autonomously. We will not be doing that until your workers can perform the process, or until you get a feel of the operation and either make enough tweaks to the process in attempts to optimize, or until you’ve filed enough reports that you feel the current process is optimal. This has a two-fold purpose: I want you thinking about how to make your factory better, and I want Odell to learn the effects of perturbations to the system so that he can learn to optimize in his own way.”
“I believe I understand, Quimica. I must understand this well enough to be confident in making it my own.” I smile widely and slap him on the side of the shoulder.
“Exactly that my man. Despite our odd beginnings, I am glad you are with me.”
“Your man for life, Quimica. You bring me opportunities. I will bring us money,” he says with pride and salutes as Dzartha does, rapping his fist to his chest twice. Gods, this man is both sweet and intense.
“A fact you have already proven! Oh, Odell. Once you think you understand the perturbations at each stage well enough to optimize, I would like a report showing said attempt at optimization. And this is not a competition by the way. This is a quest for knowledge from two separate paths.”
“Orders received, Owner.”
“Oh! One more thing for both of you. Don’t let anyone lower than my aether exposure level sample the uncut product. It will almost certainly cause a mutation, if not death. One part Nova to two parts regular, or one part Nova to one part non-cocaine cutting material is recommended.”
I send a note to that effect to Penny and Zia.
“Paolo, I would like to talk to you outside please.” I walk toward the loading docks, where Aria so graciously landed for a conference I want to hold. As I get to the ramp to the cargo area, I see Paolo exiting the factory, jogging to catch up with me.
“Quimica is so fast!” he says, putting his hands on his hips and looking at the ceiling while the hatch closes behind him.
“Alright, Paolo. This isn’t anything weird, but discussing your pay in front of employees is bad business.” He nods. “Alright then. I want to pay you eight thousand credits per year, with point five percent profit share from this factory, but you pay your employees and are responsible for hiring as you see fit. This is a change from just the salary Bev saw, because I want you to do the extra work of hiring the other personnel you need and managing their pay from the point five percent. This contract is re-negotiable if the scope of your job changes.”
“Am I responsible for hiring security as well?” he asks.
I shake my head, “No, that is a collective agreement between Astoria Chemical and me.”
He nods, “This feels generous, Quimica. My workers will also enjoy luxury with these wages.”
I chuckle at that. From the reports of where and how they were found, I don’t doubt it will feel like luxury. “Glad to hear. I’ll be staying through the end of this run, but other than me viewing, this is all you Paolo. Your plant, your team, you dealing with Marcella and whomever Astoria Chem sends to coordinate.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“I will not fail you.” He says, swearing with the core of his being that it be so. I feel, hells, I see a braided golden rope wobble as it connects between us, only to fade as the connection resonates between us.
Seeing the golden magic of my Track engage with something like an oath of service is odd and disquieting. Is it that I can see the bonds an oath is supposed to create? Or is it something more that my magic is creating?
Query Oaths of Service.
//Answer: Voluntary Oaths are devotions, often of service to a lord, Hero, or deity; that lend conviction to the swearer in exchange for fair treatment, favor, or other moral or social terms of recompense. Not all oaths end favorably, but they are intended to be beneficial to both parties.
That . . . is not what I expected. How do you respond to such a thing?
“I believe in you, and that my trust in you is not misplaced.” Did I do it? Is that what I was supposed to say.
The smile on his face, and the slight sparkle of gold along our link seems to think I did okay.
“How did I let you get so serious on me?! Paolo!” I have Aria open the rear hatch for me, with the distinct impression that she finds my embarrassment fascinating.
He chuckles at my outburst and stands to leave as the door opens.
To my surprise, Aria chimes in. “Kimber, you have a consultation at Summer Farms on Astoria in three hours.”
“Thanks Aria. And Paolo, just because I’m going to see you in three days, doesn’t mean you can’t contact me for something important before that.”
“So you say, Quimica, pero, I don’t think many things are so important as that.”
“Bah!” I scoff before having Aria tilt and scoot the man off my shuttle.
/Thanks Aria, I would have otherwise forgotten that I have a promise to Penny to keep./
***
“Kimber, sweetie, you’re not trying to propose to Penny. Just make her booze and she’ll like it.” The owner of Summer Farms tells me.
“Francesca, I want it to be unique. Something that puts a personal spin on this whole thing. What other catalyst could there be?”
She groans again. “You’re the alchemist! All I can tell you is that the enzymes don’t change! Even using Silverwheat, something I created from local grasses, the alpha and beta amylase perform the same functions at the same temperatures on starches that are present in every grain. Even the silicon-based starches from Hevershet-5 break down this way.”
So, the brewing phase isn’t going to change. What if there’s something I can do in the still phase? That is my expertise in this situation.
“Do you have a bench I can use with a heat source?” I ask.
“Still plus bench or just clean bench?”
“Oooh. The first please.” She leads me over to her still, she shows me a variety of mobile tables in a common shop with a drain and lets me just mess with it. I cart over the 400L of Silverwheat and Glifunga Berry (the aether infused berry that makes her and my favorite juice) beer--that I crafted with the PhD Botanist that runs the place—and load it into the ten gallon still. Don’t get discouraged, Kimber, this is the test apparatus.
I pay to transfer some alchemy glass to the table I selected and work on building the material for my catalyst column that I typically build for infusions. To my surprise, while I pop a chew for pep in selecting catalysts, I am reminded that even for my energy chews and balms, there is a side note on blood and the vitae of life that always acts as a catalyst, changing a work in sometimes unpredictable ways. There’s the hook! There’s the unique experience.
I rig an alembic to a heat source with some gelatin, soda, a few solvents and a heat source. When the mix reaches 25C I open some wrist and drip a few ‘cc’s of my swirly blood into the device. I select a removable column inserted into a hot-water coil and then wait ten minutes for the mixture to homogenize under heat and then I add an acetic acid solution to make the blood-soda foam into the column and cook into a stable, porous filter.
Bringing my core slug of catalyst filter made from my blood over to the distillation column, I rig the porus material to have the hot distillate drip over the material and cascade over subsequent sponge filters until the temperature of the final stack is at 20C. The filters I made only make it through about 100 of the 400 liters of beer. I smell each of the jars that the distillate was drained into, refusing the top two and the last one of each beer batch and mix the middles together.
The mix I get is delightfully red with diaphanous silver swirls.
What if you used an ink catalyst?
Tova, where were you an hour ago? Good idea though, let’s put on the machine.
Four hours after I started, Francesca is glowering at me, but I have two different containers full of 100L of specialty booze.
“Summers, if I buy you dinner will you stop glowering?” I accuse.
“Fuck no! I want the booze you bitch!” I step back in shock, wondering what to do until I finally realize the look of unbridled curiosity in her eyes. The chuckle that escapes me is unkind, but I tap a tumbler for each of us for my concoctions.
I slide her glasses over and she immediately studies them. I shrug and decide to do the same.
Did I just make a beverage and an ancient horror? Hells yeah!!
I sip the purple tinged engraver’s drink and feel a smooth, cream-like texture that reminds me of berries in the summer wind. Moderate weight, full body, diaphanous notes of caramel and loganberry. Very pleasant.
The second is like walking into an Indian restaurant and signing up for eleventy chili’s of pain. My mind tried to separate into parallel minds just to process how bad I messed up. While the liquor wasn’t actually spicy, it filled my veins with fire and consequence. The blocks of success and the sluice of despair seem omnipresent as I wonder why this didn’t identify as a poison.
“Empress’ sodden beard, that is probably the most offensive thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. Kimber, it feels like it should be killing me, but I suddenly want to perform chemistry.” Not that I would drink it regularly, but if the description of the drink is correct, I would drink it in a pinch.
“Leave the bottle of the purple stuff, take the beer, and get out of my lab,” the Botanist manages to choke out.
“I’m so sorry Dr. Summers, I . . .”
“OUT!!”
I pay to transfer the tank of beer to my shuttle and scamper off the farm. I’ll have to buy new alchemy apparatuses, but no way am I going back in there.
/Hey hon, I have some Alchemy I want to accomplish tonight. Is there a place you would allow me to set up a work space in our place?/
\One of the rooms you haven’t been in yet is already set up for you. It’s only fire resistant though, so don’t go crazy\