“Finally you are here,” McCro Alexander opened the freshly assembled door, “can you just be a little early before everyone leaves?”

“Not with this giant suitcase,” Tann claimed, “nice door by the way.”

“Thanks, I bought it,” McCro grunted, “so how’s the turret?”

“Got a few problems,” Tann laid the case onto the ground and unlocked it. Loci walked over with magnifying glasses that are attached to his like a pair of goggles.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Loci screamed as saw the turret, “HAVE YOU BEEN SHOOTING SAND?”

Unlike before, the gun breech was no longer polished, along its surface, billions of scars left by the rotation and firing wore down the paint as well as the metal itself. Thanks to the overheating from firing, some of the rubber washers had melted and gun powder dust diffused into the air through the gun barrels.

“HA-CHOOOOO” Loci sneezed after the powder enter his nose, so he turned around and picked up a used face mask (Used for soldering), “damn it, all the dust.”

“What rounds did you use,” asked McCro Alexander, he took a can of pressured air and tried to clean away the dust in the chamber and the barrels.

“Titanium Core AP shells,” replied Tann, and took out one of the shells from her pocket.

“You don’t need to bring it here!” McCro said, then he turned to talk to Loci, “This might be a problem.”

“Ummm…” Loci thought for a while, he walked around the machine in circles, “maybe our rpm setting is a bit too high.”

“Exactly,” Rosy entered the conversation, “I told you that 6500 shots per minute are too much for the military-grade chambers and barrels.”

Loci sat down on a tiny chair beside the turret, “I didn’t expect the this to happen with just 500 more rounds more than the standard value.” He grabbed a screwdriver and opened the chamber’s cover, revealing the inside.

“I do agree,” Loci sat back after observing the inside, “the rotations are wearing out the breech. However, you do know that the world’s highest fire rate weapon can fire one million bullets at a time.”

“Good luck getting that much funding,” Rosy jeered, “besides, that is just a prototype made by North Köloñ.”

“I’ll think about it…” before Loci finish, Tann interrupted suddenly, “Since I’m responsible for breaking it, how about I’ll be in charge of repairing it? Just give me the blueprints and I’ll figure it out?”

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“No...Actually…”Loci peeked at Tann, and nodded, “I’ll send you the stuff later, and, McCro? Can you get Tann the tray of rubber washers, wait how about let's try out the stainless steel washers this time?”

“Sure,” McCro went aside to the tools stool.

“By the way Tann,” Rosy walked close to Tann, “we decided to put you into team B for the turret competition.”

“Wait what,” Tann was caught by a surprise and didn’t know how to respond. At the same time, Loci explained, “ Since they lowered the standards so all the university students can join, so I decided that this year’s project will only be the turret competition for all students. We have formed two teams: A & B. Team A will Rosy, I, McCro and Jach, who have…”

“Decided to head home,” McCro followed Loci’s sentence, “Team B will be led by a new guy Isaac Hook, since Rosy is already enough for Team A, you’ll be helping them out as the programmer, there are also two other kids named Sheila Terminal and Viscosy Floyd.”

Tann stepped back nervously, “who are those people?!”

“Isaac is a smart guy, he has about 40% of my ability,” laughed Loci.

“But just as annoying,” Rosy muttered, “the other few seemed interesting, but I don’t think they’ll be much help.”

“Wow,” Tann hit Loci on the head with foam cylinder, “you want me to carry a newbie team?”

“Please.”

“Fine,” Tann take the washers from McCro, “then you better give some mechanical help to my team then.”

“Okay, okay,” Loci repeated while leaving his eyes closed, “but can you follow me for a bit?”

“So you finally decided to show me that ?” Tann asked.

“Here we are,” Loci unlocked four mechanical locks with four different keys, and dragged open the heavy door that seemed bulletproof, “let me start the light.”

Loci reached down to an old fashioned power generator that requires a person to manually turn a handle to kick start the petroleum combustion generator. After a few tiring cranks, Loci finally stopped his physical exercise and stood up. By the bee-like buzzing of the generator, the filament lamps connected in series across the ceiling brightened up the room.

“I was expecting something more sci-fi,” Tann giggled as she noticed the ancient equipment around the room.

“Well, that’s all the stuff I can get from the school legally,” Loci walked towards the centre of the medium-sized room, “but not all the things are from the school.” At the centre with something covered by a big piece of cloth. Instead of revealing the object under it directly, Loci put on a pair of medical gloves and a face mask, and handed another pair to Tann, “Pull these on, just make sure you won’t damage the sensors on the artificial skin.”

Finally, Loci took a deep breath and pulled away from the cloth. Tann’s eyes widened by what she had seen. At first, it seemed as if a young girl was sleeping on the chair, but on another glance, the rest of her body below her neck were bundles of wires, some transparent, some coloured and some filled with liquid.

“She is…” Tann started, “breathing…”

“Amazing isn’t it?” Loci said proudly and pointed at the neck of his creation which vibrates slowly like an actual respiratory organ.

“Why…” Tann walked closer to the creation, “…can I touch her?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Loci said.

Slowly, Tann put her finger on to the face, she pressed down lightly and she could feel the elastic, yet strong and mescal like structure beneath the artificial skin.

“Can she feel it?”

“Of course,” claimed Loci, “these super advance artificial skin are like real skin, and it can regenerate by Nano-fluid.”

“Nano-fluid?” Tann looked at Loci curiously.

“Ta-Da,” Loci walked towards a cylinder hanging on the wall and opened a small valve on it. Suddenly, a thick black liquid poured into his palm. Tann walked closer to the liquid but suddenly something made the hair on the back of her neck stand. The liquid’s unnatural flow pattern looked familiar, too familiar.

“These are metallic liquid that can react electrical signal,” Loci didn’t notice Tann’s expressions well and continued to explain, “according to the signal, it can shape, colour and even hardness.”

“Where did you get all this stuff?” Tann asked her the most important question.

“Ummm…” Loci studied Tann cautiously, “Can you please give me some time to answer your question?”

“NO!”

“Fine, fine,” Loci gave in, “here is the address. ” He took a sticky note on the wall and handed it to Tann.

“Thanks,” Tann folded the paper in quarters and hid it into her pocket, “so, what’s her name? Mary?”

“Mary,” Loci spoke romantically, “That’s all the artificial skin I could obtain, only if…Nevermind that, well, this body is the same as a normal person. She has every human sense on her artificial skin. Her eyes are real…human eyes…that I bought at that place…and I attached the neurons with a high sensitive signal fibre so they should work the same as the real ones…”

“Tell me,” Tann asked, “what are you gonna do with her once I program her to act like a random living being?”

Tann’s question made Loci’s system stop, he looked at her blankly and words finally came out of his thin lips, “I…I…really don’t know…”

“Aren’t you gonna date her or something?” asked Tann.

Loci looked down at the ground, “but I want to be chosen by her free will.”

“But you are her creator?” Tann looked at her watch, 7:50 pm, “Maybe next time.”