"There are a total of ten power switches and four separate circuit breakers. Not those cheap ones you used before, but proper, industrial-level breakers this ti," Chihiro explained as he gave us a brief tour of all the small changes he implented while I was convinced he would abandon the project.
"It's the kind you see in power plants, physically separating two conductors through a fully autonomous system. As for those knobs, the aim was to give the operator much finer control over the flow of energy, going from having the full might of the factory's power output on a single knob to having each of those knobs control rely a tenth of its full power. And as for the biggest change of all…"
Chihiro moved over to the window before pointing his hand toward the place where we all saw the disaster start.
The innermost chamber of the factory.
"We capitalized on there being a maintenance shaft running across the entire hall, allowing us to replace the floors at the funnel into…"
Chihiro hesitated for a mont.
"Dad?" Claire asked, slightly leaning her head to the side as she glanced at her father with slight confusion and curiosity.
'So it's not one of the faces she would regularly see him make, huh?'
"Tim, I hope this won't weird you out, but I kind of went ahead and reverse-engineered those Qi transforrs of yours before having a bunch of my trusted friends engineer the reverse of it," he revealed, shaking his head, which was still pointed at the innermost room of the factory.
"In other words, we took devices capable of turning electricity into spiritual energy and made them into tools to turn spiritual energy back into electricity. After building enough of them, we pretty much filled the entire floor of the factory's core with them."
I squinted my eyes for a second, struggling to find the angle from which this whole situation led Chihiro to openly give out an apology like that.
"Ah, you an it as in… the infringent of a patent or sothing?" I asked as soon as I managed to roughly figure out just what Chihiro was all about. "Because if yes, then…" I hesitated for a second.
And judging by the lack of protests and further explanation from Chihiro, I was right on the money.
"Then, while I do not endorse sothing like this, I'm not going to waste everyone's ti with a small issue like this," I stated with a shrug of my shoulders. "I an," I turned my eyes to the walls of the factory core, "if you didn't do so, we would have to spend ti and effort doing sothing similar right now, so it's all good."
In theory, it was a very bad idea not to chastise my patron over this issue.
The intellectual rights to my devices were the greatest source of my value. And if they could be ripped off so easily… then what use would I be for, except for coming up with new designs and having others implent them?
In practice, however, things were actually a lot simpler.
It didn't matter if my role would be limited to just designing the prototype. It would actually be a good thing if we had enough trusted and skilled artisans to take the burden of repetitive creation off my shoulders. Most of all, we were too deep in this whole thing for Chihiro to suddenly decide I was of no more use to him anymore.
That was the harsh truth. My inventions... or rather, the potential behind them was the reason why Chihiro first got interested in . It was what allowed Clarie to even bring my na up to him in the first place. Deprived of this quality, however, the situation could easily change.
'I know this might be naive or outright arrogant… but I don't think Claire would ever allow him to do sothing like this, though' I thought, stealing a quick glance at the girl before sighing and shaking my head.
"I take it everything should be ready by now?" I asked suddenly, eager to change the topic from one that was slightly uncomfortable to talk about.
"Don't ask ," Chihiro shrugged his shoulders before waving his hand at the control panel of the entire factory sitting re two steps behind us. "Just check the diodes, confirm vocally, and you're free to get everything started."
For all the remorse and sense of guilt that Chihiro displayed while apologizing, by the ti he hurried to get things moving, all of those parts of his expression were gone, replaced with his usual stoic look.
"On it," I nodded before pushing myself off the window's edge and walking over to the console to do a quick check.
Just as I assud, everything was ready. Or, at the very least, that's what the diodes on the panel's side indicated, with a series of green lights showing the status of each worker group connected to the project.
Then again, for a project of this scale, it was impossible to launch anything with just one layer of security.
"Testing, testing," I raised the microphone strapped directly to the panel before pressing the button responsible for its activation.
The jumping indicator of the received volu proved everything was in order.
"We will be launching the test in two minutes," I announced into the microphone, holding it up to my mouth while using my other hand to set up an automated tir on the control panel. "Vacate and stay clear of the operating zones!"
With this warning on my lips, I slamd the countdown button while simultaneously putting the microphone down.
Using the very sa channel I spoke through just before, the AI voice from the helper installed on the console now took over, diligently counting down from the ti I'd set while giving ti for the last few necessary preparations.
"Hey, Claire, could you…"
"Link with the analysis desk?" Claire finished my request before I had a chance to do so myself, smirked, and nodded. "Sure thing," she added as she moved to the back of the room, took a seat on a huge yet relatively plain sofa, grabbed one of the laptops prepared in advance, and placed it on her lap.
A mont later…
"Analysis desk is a go," Claire reported from her seat, raising her thumb to indicate her ssage in case I hadn't heard it properly. "All checks clear, all stations clear, all sensors are green."
'Is that everything?' I thought, quickly running through the list of devices installed in the factory and all the steps we needed to take in advance to avoid another disaster.
I ran through the list in my thoughts once, twice, and then a third ti, not leaving anything to pure luck.
The countdown continued, bringing us down to less than a minute before the factory's launch.
"Oh, before I forget, when it cos to those knobs," Chihiro approached the control console and pointed at the twisting knobs of the power control. "Until you max out the first three, we'll be riding below the expected energy usage. To a degree, we should be safe all the way up to the fourth. Beyond that, though…"
Chihiro bit his bottom lip before moving his hand a little further.
"Up to the seventh knob, we should be relatively safe. However, the spike will be visible in the control room of the local power grid, so this is where the risk of discovery goes from accidental to quite likely. But beyond that…"
Chihiro shook his head.
"Beyond that, we might as well be shooting fireworks, because everyone even remotely interested in what's happening will know."
I looked down, marking the knobs Chihiro pointed out in my mory.
"Let's hope we don't go above the seventh knob, then," I added, leaning down over the console and closing my eyes, waiting for the countdown to reach its end.
As the count neared its end, a new announcent blared out every second, in between the count itself, warning everyone to get away from the active operation zones of the factory.
…
…
…
As soon as the count neared its end, the warnings stopped.
After all, if soone was dumb or unlucky enough to still be near the danger zone, there would be no point in them running anymore.
A big diode lit up right in the middle of the control panel, indicating the factory… No, all of its inner components were now live. And all that was left…
I raised my hand to the first knob, taking a single breath and gulping down my saliva.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered… before twisting the first of the knobs all the way up to... the very lowest out of its ten possible settings.
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