“You know I’ve never used one, right? I’m open to the idea of using one, but I won’t bet my life on something I can’t use properly.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m not stupid. I have a good reason, let me get to it.”
After fiddling with the two cases’ holeless locks, he flipped the both of them open. The cases’ interiors were molded and velvet-lined to contain their contents and their contents alone, and were so densely warded it was tangible. It was not by way of paper talismans, but through protective glyphs embroidered directly into the lining, and that was just the visible layer.
Besides the audible hiss of air rushing in, Krahe also felt a more esoteric form of the same phenomenon, like the stuff inside had just come into existence the moment the seal was broken. Within the larger one was a set of partial body armor. Front and back plates for the upper chest, bracers and shin-guards with quarter-spheroid extensions to partly protect the middle joints, and sizable flat plates that she guessed had to be shoulder guards. It looked like extra plating that would be issued to some corpo death squad to wear over their standard armor. All of it was a dark, matte metal.
As for the smaller case, it contained a belt in the same starkly utilitarian design. Some of its curves, tubes, and exposed mechanics gave off the impression of an overgrown dregsteamer belt. It had two distinct slots; one contained something already, a metal cell of some kind with a readout marked as “Full”, while the other, on the belt’s left-hand side, was a clearly-marked slot for a voidkey. Well, to call it a slot was generous. It was a circular recess about ten centimeters across and no more than a centimeter deep, its interior filled by twisting, etched patterns, while its perimeter was outlined by the word VOIDKEY repeating over and over, stamped straight into the metal. On the inside of the smaller case, she noticed a thin, plain-looking dossier. The only text on its exterior was smack dab in the middle. Three words.
PROJECT BLACK SUN
The combination of roughshod construction and razor-sharp design had already set off alarm bells in her head. The ominous classified dossier only made her certain that she was right.
“It’s…” Garvesh began.
“A prototype?” Krahe interrupted.
“Yeah. A real, bleedin’-edge prototype. Not like that Silver Slip Key I’ve got on display. Straight from Kristoffen Heavy Ironworks. Y’know, the folks that make the dregsteamers. The “Black Sun Project” is their answer to the lucrative mid-ranker market. Idea is you start off with a dregsteamer and then buy one of these when you “make it”. They want their special catalyst to adapt to the user at first coupling, and then have it re-adapt to any new souldregs the user decides to introduce. Ambitious if nothing else.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“And the armor?”
“Part of the coupler system. It’s a support framework for the suit to form around, supposed to make the end result more resilient… They also haven’t been able to make the coupler work with a full-construct framework. It was either compatibility grafts for the user, or this framework. You’re supposed to be able to customize the supports in the final version, y’know, get your own custom armor fitted to it and shit, ‘least that’s how they plan to advertise it so they can upsell the users on overpriced premium supports.”
“Not my problem,” Krahe shrugged. “What is my problem, though, is that using a dregsteamer is bad enough. I’ve seen the state Casus ended up in. What’s the catch with this one? Is it the same side effects as a dregsteamer, but even worse? I can cope, but I’d rather know that the crash is coming.”
“High cognitive strain factor and Throughput requirements for the performance, the catalyst doesn’t even respond to eight out of ten testers, the prototypes have a habit of just burning out within a handful of uses, or even if you push them too hard. This one uh… Let’s say it “had some quality control issues and got sent off for inspection”. If it responds to you, I’ll make the call and my friend will have an “accident that destroys the unit”. Hold on, I’ll plug it into the diagnostic unit.”
The unit was a chunky box twice the belt’s size with a projection eye and black cables coming out of it, one of which was connected to a similarly cubular unit with a small thaumine fuel cell - a power source. The others, Garvesh cautiously plugged into an out-of-place port on the prototype coupler’s belt, connected to the main unit with a thin cable.
As he did so, he continued speaking in a surprisingly enthusiastic manner: “I figured it would work for you, since you’ve got that funky new spine. You’ll be fine if it doesn’t, it’s not like… Uch, this one really doesn’t want to go in… There we go. As I was saying, it’s not like the Silberblut Coupler, at worst you’ll get a splitting headache and detransform. They worked out the aneurysm problem three iterations ago. Put on the framework armor while I set this up.”
Krahe did as was asked of her, finding that besides belts, the armor also had quite complex internal frames that automatically shifted to fit her. She couldn't help but smile. This - all this, from Garvesh’s spiel to the bleeding-edge prototype - was bringing back a slew of memories. She couldn’t help but notice the asymmetry in the bracers and the shoulder-plates. The right bracer had lighter plating in exchange for a socket of some kind, while the left bracer and shoulder plate were both substantially chunkier, with the left bracer almost forming a small shield.
“Alright… Just a few more…” Garvesh rumbled under his breath. The lizard finally managed to get the diagnostic unit to flicker from a continuous downpour of readouts to a single floating message:
AWAITING TEST USER
“Now pull your key and slot it into the belt. You haven’t had it in for long so it shouldn’t be difficult to extract.”