Paul examined the little moving parts of his latest little gizmo. It was a new feature to be added to the Atomic Dictator gun that would allow it to be modified to accept both traditional ammunition and the new age stuff too. He removed his thumb from the side of the box that held all the moving parts that he was examining so closely. The casing and its inner components slowly drifted into the air and all the little cogs and gears separated and moved on their own. The wires were rooted to the casing by bindings and soldering. Paul fell back into a comfortable, leather swivel chair and joined his fingers by the tips, his hands over his chest. There was something missing. The transition from projectile chamber to power pack wasn’t smooth enough.
Paul glanced over his desk, noting the worn adult novel, the assortment of screws, screwdrivers and various other little pieces and the half-eaten, now brown, apple. His eyes did a second scan and his gaze lingered on the novel. It was battered and old, and some pages stuck together. He didn’t like to think about why they stuck together but merely chose to accept the fact they did, it was easier that way. He sighed and used his feet to propel himself backwards to the opposite side of the room. He opened a little refrigerated compartment and withdrew a canned liquid. He ‘popped’ the lid, thinking how onomatopoeic the word “popped” was. He would have to put that in some form of poem, or at least he would if he wrote poetry.
The dimly lit room was suddenly given a second eerie glow by the light from the little fridge that kept all his food and drinks. Paul took a sip from the can, contemplating how terrible for his health all this junk food and these caffeine boosting drinks were. He sighed loudly, standing up and scratching the back of his head before stretching. He had deadlocked himself in his room to get this project done but his idea wasn’t working out right. At least there was some chance of a visit from one of his clients. He wasn’t sure who but they always did deals through encrypted networks so he had to try and learn about their little habits to know who it was. He had only realised it lately and was already having trouble trying to notice these habits.
Sighing once more, Paul stood in the centre of the room and watched as the glow from the refrigerator slowly disappeared behind the door. The door was fixed a sort of magnet mechanism that was designed to slowly pull it back to a closing position. It was a shame that his cooling system knowledge wasn’t exactly great and these were one of the types of machines he didn’t design or make on his ship. It saved money and his alternatives were normally more efficient. There was also a special little circuit board inside each that was hooked up to everything. It was then linked to a system that meant it could be accessed from anywhere else on the network. Paul always integrated it as a sort of kill switch but it could be used for a number of reasons. Most of which involved the situation where his ship was taken or he decided to “root” for a specific side. With about 30 minutes, Paul could render any weaponry he created useless.
Of course he wasn’t making, as many sales as he would like and even if he disabled all his technology that would still only be a minor fraction of each sides machines, including weaponry and defence systems. Paul smiled slightly, turning and approaching the door. His iris was scanned and he used the numerical pad to override his deadlock. His fingerprint was scanned for confirmation of the override and he was out into the brightly lit hall. The artificially light-blinded Paul’s sensitive eyes and he had to blink several dozen times before the world slowly came into focus and he could go about what he had planned to do. But, unfortunately, being blinded had dazed him and any thoughts he had had were now scattered in many different places of his brain.
