Halfway through replacing the fuses in the last device, my mother came in with another for me to fix. “Might as well repair Bert’s while you are at it.” She didn’t give me a chance to say anything before she skipped out of the room. “Oh, and dinner should be about thirty minutes.”
While I was a bit annoyed to be handed yet another device to fix, the work went quite fast. Within a good ten minutes, all of the devices were fixed and reassembled for testing. One after another, I hit the power buttons.
The screens lit up in turn. However, unlike every other time they came on, the screens flashed a few times before a soft white bar filled the black screen.
System Recovery Mode:
Emergency Startup Detected.
Determining Cause:
Power Rail Failure.
Determining Current Status:
Cause Resolved.
Detecting Changes:
Power Rail Repaired.
Power Rail Check:
Fuse 1: 2.1F / 2.0F (WARN)
Fuse 2: 1.9F / 2.0F (WARN)
Fuse 3: 1.0F / 1.0F (OK)
Fuse 4: 0.55F / 0.5F (WARN)
Mana Cell: 93% Capacity (OK)
WARNINGS: Fuses 1, 2, and 4 are Non-OEM. Use with caution.
Continue bootup?
While the fuses were rated the same as those installed in the factory, the system flagged their tolerances as slightly off. Not enough to panic, but enough that the system made sure I knew about it.
Honestly, it was expected that they would be slightly off, given their ten percent tolerance. That being said, I was a bit stricter when it came to my devices. If any of them had measured more than one-tenth of a Flux off from their nominal value, I would have taken the time to replace it. No use risking our phones by rushing the job.
Out of the dozen fuses I had swapped, only 5 of them were spot on. The rest just barely missed the mark. And like the first, they all booted up fine.
I only bothered to unlock mine. Mostly because I didn’t want to see whatever unholy picture Bert had decided to plaster across his homescreen this week. The last time was bad enough. No one needed to see that. Even the thought sent a chill racing down my spine. So many teeth.
To my surprise, there were a couple of messages waiting for me when I powered on my device. Of course, they weren’t from anyone in the city. No one around here had a reason to message me directly. Well, no one but Bert and our parents. All of whom had no way to send me a message during my downtime.
All three were from a person at the academy. Someone claiming to be my advisor. Their claim of being from the academy was fairly easy to check, as anyone at the academy, student or not, had their academy ID number attached.
But how to verify they were my advisor? I nearly smacked myself as soon as I came up with the simplest answer. Why not just call the administrative office and get the information from them?
“Olympic Academy Administrative Department. This is Lorey speaking.” The soft tones were calming. Almost magically so.
“Yes,” I coughed as I forced myself to focus on my current task. “I just received a message and would like to verify the authenticity.”
“Sure, can I have your name and academy ID number, please?”
“Um, I don’t actually know my number. I received my offers a week ago and was still debating which one to take.” As I finished, I realized I didn’t answer the first part of her question. My name came out in a rush as I tried to get the information to her before she had to ask me a second time. “Eli Tazlin.”
“Thank you, Eli.” While I couldn’t hear her tapping on her workstation, I could imagine she was looking me up. “I am going to need to verify a few things before we can go any further.”
“That’s fine.”
“Now, since your pad and mana signature are not registered with our system yet, we are going to have to get a bit creative in this verification.” She took a second to look something up. “What departments offered you a sponsorship?”
Stolen novel; please report.
“The Machine Department and the Technical Department.”
“Good. Did you receive any other offers from the academy?”
“One for power testing.”
“And last question,” this one took her a few seconds to ask. “How did you first get your full test results?”
That was a bit of a trick question. While I had been given the test results in person, there were parts missing and others that were blocked off. “By message the day after my testing.”
“Thank you, Mr Tazlin. Now, you mentioned that you wanted to verify a message you just received?”
“Yes, I received a message from a,” I took a second to double-check the name. “Yosef Ulrick. The attached ID number checked out, but I have no way to know if he is my advisor or not.”
“I completely understand. Give me a second to check.” She took longer than a second to check, but that was fine. “I can confirm that Professor Ulrick is your advisor. He also looks to be at his desk. If you would like, I can connect you to him now.”
“Sure.” It would be faster to get this entire thing out of the way now rather than deal with the delay that messaging would create.
“Thank you. Transferring you now.” With that, the line clicked once. A moment later, the line started to ring.
“Technical Department, Professor Ulrick speaking.” His voice was harsh, but not in a mean way. His voice sounded more like someone who constantly used his voice to talk to whole rooms of people.
“Hi Professor, my name is Eli Tazlin.” I started.
“Ah, Janet and Henry’s boy. I see you got my message.”
“Yes,” the fact that he knew both of my parents threw me off for a moment. “I have a bit of an issue that I need help figuring out.”
“And what would that be?”
“As I don’t know much about either department, I cannot seem to choose between the two offers.”
“I figured as much. And honestly, I am a bit happy to hear that.”
His response confused me. “Why?”
“Believe it or not, most people who get offered a chance to come to the academy are given an offer from two or more departments. Instead of taking the time to come and learn what each department does and teaches, they make their decision before they even set foot in the facility. By the time they figure out the path they took wasn’t quite right, it is almost always too late to move to another department.”
“Surely switching departments isn’t all that hard?”
“While switching between departments is easy, you cannot join a department that has reached its capacity. Mostly due to the limited number of teachers and equipment allocated to each department.”
“So you are saying that it is first come first served?”
“Yes.”
“Which means I might not get to pick the department if I wait until later?”
“Well, yes. However, that is if you pick your department now and need to change later. As soon as you pick one, the other department can reallocate resources or send out an additional offer if it is early enough in the semester. Additionally, you might get an offer from another department as their slots open up.”
That all sounded a bit too convoluted. But who was I to criticize how the academy did things? I took a moment to think over my options. Finally, I asked him one final question. “How long into the semester do I have until I have to choose a department?”
“Eight weeks.” That was nearly twice the amount of time I had been told. Still, I wasn’t going to be mad about the extra time.
“Okay, I would like to hold off on selecting my department.”
“I will note that in your file and send you the information you need as well as your temporary room assignment.”
“Why would my room be temporary?”
“While most of this will be explained in your orientation, the campus is divided into various sectors. Inside each sector, there is a tower filled with department-specific classrooms, labs, as well as room and board for all those assigned to the department. Until such a time as you make your choice, you will be given a room in one of the guest rooms in the central tower.”
That was a weird way to do things, but what did I know? With a slight roll of my eyes, I moved on. “Now, with that done, how do I go about accepting the Academy Government offer?”
“Ah, I was wondering when you were going to ask about that.” He sighed. “When you arrive, come to my office, and we can get everything sorted then.” With all of that done, I took a few minutes to make sure everything was covered before finally saying goodbye and ending the call.
With that all done and sorted, all I had to do now was pack. Depending on how long the train ride took, I would be learning for sure if I had a power or not. The best part was that I wouldn’t have to pay the full price for the test. Even if I failed out of the academy, I would only be paying about half the cost. A bargain if you asked me. Especially when it would finally get the government off my ass.
A soft whoosh of air left me as I got up. My school backpack would be large enough for my clothes and such. It wasn’t like I needed a dozen different outfits and a whole assortment of products. Even if I knew how to use them, I wouldn’t bother to waste the money.
All of my spending money went toward bits and bobs that I could use for other things. Every bit of which I was bringing with me. Which meant I needed to find one of the larger suitcases.
Actually, make that two suitcases. Even if most of my equipment was broken, there was no need to waste what could be salvaged.
After throwing most of the equipment into the second biggest suitcase I could find, I stood in front of my workbench as I tried to figure out how to take it. Sure, there were probably better tables sitting in storage at the academy, but they were not mine.
Sadly, I couldn’t figure out how to get the thing to fit, and I highly doubted they would let me stow it with the rest of the cargo. Not without paying an absurd fee or three. Eventually, I had to give in to the fact that it wasn’t going to be making the trip. If I wanted any parts of it to come with, I would have to strip them out of the table and take them that way.
Hmm, now there was a thought. I didn’t have a portable setup yet. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to make one to use when there were no other options. Hell, if I did it right, I might even use it over any other setup. But what options would I want included?
While the main table had a computing unit, a wireless pad connection, a three-dimensional projector unit, and a mana setup, each used more mana than a battery could be expected to provide. Sure, I could find a place to plug into the grid, but if I was going to do this, I was going to design it to work as a fully standalone unit.
But what if I used myself as the battery? Yeah, that was not going to happen. At least, not for most things. For the short fixes that took ten minutes or so, that was fine. But any longer than that, and I would start to run low on mana.
Now that I thought about it, there were very few times I needed every function throughout a job. Most of the time, the projector was used for planning the workflow. Same with the computing and pad connection. So why not have them off when not in use? Wait, no, they needed to be completely disconnected to prevent their vampire tendencies. As for the mana setup, I would just need to make sure all my tools had their own sources of mana.
With most of the mana hogs dealt with, the batteries would last much longer. Even if it wasn’t long enough for a project, it was enough that I could make up the difference with my mana.
In better news, the need to fully disconnect the various devices would also allow me to add a bit of modularity. I just needed to come up with a way to connect all the pieces so that they would be interchangeable and able to be chained without issue. Fuck, with this kind of design, I would have no issue adding new functions as they were needed.
The problem with all of these ideas was that I had no time to work on the design tonight. Not unless I stayed up all night and worked on it. I doubted anyone would care if I slept on the train. I know I would prefer sleeping through the trip. Then again, I still needed to pull the various bits out of the table and finish packing.
Before I could decide on what to do, my mother yelled that dinner was ready. I would just have to figure it out later.
