Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Five: Brainstorming Our Way Past Constraints (Patreon)

Sarah Palmer ran her hands reverently over the Foldspace Generator. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“It’s nothing much. Just something to help me get home each night.”

“Home … Belessar, this is a stable transatlantic instantaneous two-way transit link. Even if it requires you to have a city designated as a base - whatever that is - by your power, even if you can only make one link in a city … you’ve duplicated, technologically, what we’ve only been able to do with Travelers. The implications are staggering.”

“I could cut assembly times for SURGE massively.”

“You could do a dozen other things as well… and if we can duplicate this, as you’ve suggested, it could be used everywhere. Just putting one on Skyguard would allow us to send them hundreds of tons of equipment every day.”

“Putting a gate on Skyguard wouldn’t help. If a foldspace connection has to link two gates separated by a shield, the shield’s control array needs to actively allow the connection – it’s like whitelisting an e-mail address. So unless someone finally discovers the control system for the planetary shield…”

“… no free spacelift, got it. There’s plenty of other applications available, though. What’s the power requirement if you don’t use MP?”

“It can’t run without MP. I’m hoping you can figure out a technological power source for it.”

“I hope so too.” Palmer sighed. “I think Gideon wants you.”

Gideon looked tired. Considering that he’d spent most of the day poring over my diary of  blueprints, I didn’t blame him. “This recipe you’ve got here for the synthesis furnace.”

“They’re called ‘blueprints’.”

“As long as they only work with your magic points, they’re not really blueprints, but whatever. If I’m reading this correctly, you need eight hundred kilos of fullersteel, one hundred kilos of hafnium carbide, several gravitic control arrays, and a multimillion-dollar supercomputer to oversee the whole thing - and four thousand MP.”

“Yes.”

“And the stumbling block is the MP, not the rest.”

“I have everything else. I only have 2208, and with hypercaffeine the highest I can get to is 2,352.”
“Any other way to boost it?”

I remembered a long-ago quest. “There’s a device called a mentacapacitor that could potentially boost it, but it’s impossible to build.”

“Impossible?”

“Well - immoral, at least.”

“Now you’ve got me curious. How does it work?”

I mentally summoned the blueprint of the mentacapacitor as I directed Gideon to the page.

SMALL MENTACAPACITOR

THIS DEVICE STORES MP FOR A SET TIME. THE STORED MP CAN BE DRAWN OUT TO POWER A SINGLE HIGH-MP USE ACTIVITY.

ONCE THE MP IS DRAINED, THE DEVICE FRAGMENTS AND CANNOT BE USED AGAIN.

CAPACITY: 500 MP. FILL UP BY DIRECTING MP INTO IT FROM YOUR NATURAL POOL.

NO. OF USES: 1.

REQUIREMENTS: ENGINEERING LEVEL 30.

COST:

HUMAN BRAIN TISSUE, 300 GMS. + NANOFIBRE WEAVE 100 SQ. M. + 1 COMPUTER + 1 SMALL POWER PACK + 500 GMS PLATINUM + 250 MP + 250 CP.

AS THE DEVICE REQUIRES BRAIN TISSUE FROM A SENTIENT SPECIES, -1 ETHICS FOR EACH MENTACAPACITOR CONSTRUCTED.

Gideon’s eyebrows went up as he read through the requirements. “You need … hmm. This is awkward.”

“It’s the reason I haven’t built any of them. Ripping out brain matter to power a device is a little too villainous for me.”

“I can totally understand your view. And you’d need four of them, which would be… more than one human being. You know, there are supervillains who wouldn’t be fazed by this.”

“I’d like to think I’m not one of them.”

“That is commendable, of course. I’m assuming that you’ve ruled out surgically excised brain tumours.”

“... wait, what?”

“You need human brain tissue, right? Brain tumours are diseased brain cells. Does a tumour mass work for a mentacapacitor?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. Where would we even get a removed brain tumour from to test?”

“Check with the NHS. There are a hundred thousand craniotomies carried out in the UK every year, I think the tumour goes in the category of medical waste.”

“Thanks. Are you okay?”

“I don't have brain cancer, Belessar. My father had a glioma; they operated on him a year ago.” Gideon paused reflectively. "Now that I think about it… we can get you a tissue sample to test."

"How?"

"Father decided to preserve the tumour mass. He had it flash frozen and stored as a little ball. Keeps it on his study table as a reminder of what he's overcome."

"Wouldn't it be weird asking him for it?"

"Not as weird as your conversation with the NHS if it works."