The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)

Nef had lost all comprehension of time. Neither he nor Yorin had a watch, but he doubted he’d check even if one of them did. There was just so much wonderful technology around Nef didn’t understand, but he wanted to.

Gods, did he want to.

He had to force himself not to ask, though, because they were currently trying to get close to one of the hovercrafts blocking the way home.

“So…you just happen to have a drone?” Nef asked as he watched the video feed from the drone in question with Yorin. It wasn’t like drones were expensive or uncommon—though a license to use them was now necessary because some assholes just had to have gone and ruined everyone’s fun—but it was still really random for Yorin to own one. Especially one that could handle Iritharian weather because, oh gods, it was cold and windy. Particularly in the south, or so Nef heard.

“Of course. I made it for the purpose of monitoring climate change,” Yorin replied, and Nef’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “And, perhaps…it’s quite fun to fly it.”

“Climate change?” What was Yorin talking about? There was no climate change. Unless he was talking about monitoring it for thousands of years. Which was just insane to Nef.

“Oh, yes, I forget you don’t know these things,” Yorin said with an apologetic shrug before focusing back on the large monitor in front of them. “The evolution of industry tends to be quite damaging to the environment. We went through it thousands of years ago, but thankfully a few generations before I was born my people managed to slowly start to repair the damage. Only to destroy half the planet with radiation later.”

Yorin paused for a moment, clearing his throat.

“Anyway, once your people started reaching the point of possible global environmental damage, Enor created a device to keep dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide, and other gases in check, and sent hundreds of these devices into the atmosphere. I never went up there to study them, but after Enor died, I decided to monitor their effectiveness.”

Nef just blinked at him and stared for a moment before shrugging. Better to just accept this information. “Okay then.”

“You no longer have anything to fear,” Yorin said. “Relioth, as deathly afraid of anything to do with nuclear fusion as he is, made sure the world would turn to alternative sources of energy. And with the reserves of coal as low as they are, it was not difficult, I imagine.”

“Right, my only worry now is death by an army of cars,” Nef joked half-heartedly. His smile was more a grimace as his heart clenched. They could see them now, and there was a ridiculous amount of them. Four or five in a row, lining the coast as far as they could see. There had to be hundreds at least.

“I don’t think calling them cars is accurate,” Yorin commented, bringing the drone ever closer to the blockade as he narrowed his eyes. Nef really started wonder how close Yorin wanted to get because there was no way someone of the people driving those aircraft wouldn’t notice and shoot the drone down.

Nef looked at Yorin again when the Eternal mumbled something, frowning with worry in his eyes. This was definitely good news. Definitely.

“Something wrong?”

“These…. The designs of these aircrafts, they are definitely Enor’s,” Yorin explained. Something in the Eternal’s voice made Nef very uncomfortable. He swallowed and crossed his arms.

“And what does that mean?”

“Possibly nothing, beyond the fact that they are most likely very well made,” Yorin replied, tapping one of the aircrafts on the screen, which apparently made the drone scan it because a second later a 3D model of the aircraft appeared.

“Yes, definitely Enor’s. Intriguing,” Yorin said, tapping his chin.

“Or maybe disturbing,” Nef muttered to himself. The less he heard about Enor the better—the guy was scary, and Nef was ecstatic that he was dead.

Or he sure hoped so, anyway.

“Hm, yes,” Yorin replied, making Nef blink in shock. A second later he remembered—right, amazing hearing. “But this is very odd. They should have attacked by now.”

“Can’t they just be waiting for more backup?” Nef suggested, studying the aircraft which was slowly spinning around on the screen. It did look pretty alien—a round, black hull with one large engine in the back, and three small ones on the sides and the top. And that was all. There were basically no distinguishable features. Enor apparently could have used a designer.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Yorin said, still staring at the screen. “But do they truly need it? This isn’t only a few individuals, this is an army. And the only thing they are doing is keeping the inhabitants of Irithara from leaving the country? It’s just…odd.”

“So they’re definitely waiting for something,” Nef summed up. “Where did these people even come from, anyway? There’s way too many for Eternals, right?”

Yorin’s frown deepened as he looked at Nef again and hummed. “You are correct, that is odd as well. I suppose they could be mortals, but why would they join Eternals? Not to mention that Eternals who would be interested in doing something like this generally do not want to work with your people.”

Nef tried not to be offended by that. And he failed. Damn, stuck up Eternals. “So….”

“Except for Enor, Mereria, and Relioth are the only ones known to have created more Eternals. And I don’t see the two revealing the knowledge to anyone. Not to mention that I am not confident Relioth or Mereria actually understand the process. They most likely simply stole Enor’s machines.”

Nef breathed out a little. Okay, good, so this didn’t have to mean what he thought it meant.

“Well, if someone out there knows how to make more Eternals, that’s still a pretty big problem, right?” Nef said, running a hand through his hair.

“Indeed. But we need to focus on one problem at a time,” said Yorin, looking back at the model of the aircraft. “I don’t think destroying these aircrafts will be difficult, but their numbers are very large, and that is their strength. It’s difficult to estimate how powerful their offensive weapons are, but either way, we will need those EMP generators. That should send them to the ground. Now the obvious problem is that the Eternals inside won’t die from that, so soldiers on the ground will have to take care of them.”

And so they went to work constructing a generator.

Nef actually knew how to make a tiny one—enough to ruin someone’s phone or laptop perhaps. And he had made and used it, but only once, because afterwards he had gotten a long lecture from Alor because it was illegal. Actually, it was entirely possible Alor found out about it through Luxarx or some of their contacts, and he was the reason Nef hadn’t gotten arrested back then. Huh.

Either way, the construction of this generator was much different from what Nef had been expecting. He’d thought they’d make use of the mess of wires and technology strewn around the lab, but apparently not. Or at least not in the way Nef had expected.

“Behold,” said Yorin dramatically as he gestured to a device in the corner. It was a large cube of glass and wires that looked vaguely familiar. “A modified Umbra synthesizer.”

Oh, so that was why it looked familiar. This was the same kind of device that made the Umbra armor.

“How is it modified exactly?” asked Nef, leaning towards the relatively small device when compared to the original.

“Well, it’s a cube,” Yorin said, continuing only after receiving a bitch face from Nef. “And it’s actually portable and therefore much more practical.”

“But it can do the same things the Umbra version can,” Nef continued, and Yorin shrugged.

“Well, yes, I suppose. I didn’t claim they were major modifications,” Yorin said, sounding almost defensive now. Nef resisted an urge to snigger. “Anyway, this will create the generators for us. Using the materials around us, naturally. We need to create a model for the synthesizer to copy.”

So they went back to the monitor, and using styluses they quickly began creating the inside of the generator, putting together a whole lot of magnet wire, Eternal motherboards, and what Nef assumed were some kind of batteries, but he’d never seen anything like them before. Thankfully those were always added by Yorin afterward, though. Nef was actually surprised how easy it was to create with this software, whatever it was. Yorin had probably developed his own for this exact use.

After adding a remote controlled on and off switch, they were done with the inside part, and then they added some metal plates to hold the whole thing together as well as protect the mass of vulnerable wires.

The final shape was a pyramid, and a plastic one at that so it didn’t interfere with the magnet wire. But the plastic wasn’t regular plastic—it seemed to be the same material the Umbra armor was made off, as Nef found out once the device was synthetized in the box.

It was also smaller than Nef had been expecting, the tip of the pyramid only reaching his waist. Not that size always implied effectiveness, but still…. Wouldn’t bigger be better in this case? That synthesizer could apparently create basically anything, maybe in several pieces they could then put together.

“Thank you for your help,” said Yorin, giving Nef a small smile as he momentarily looked up from the mass of wires and scrap metal he was stuffing into the back of the synthesizer. “I’ve…missed collaboration.”

Nef just raised an eyebrow at that. “No problem. I’m kinda surprised at how easy this was, honestly.”

“Well, it is a simple machine, if very powerful. If we had time, we could design an EMP gun instead, but alas, we don’t.”

He proceeded to create two more of the EMP pyramids, grabbing them and heading towards the ladder.

“We just gonna make three?” Nef asked, which made Yorin freeze.

“Well, yes,” he replied, turning around. “I can’t expect you to carry more of them. After delivering these, we can go back later and create more, though I am running a little low on materials.”

And then Nef connected the dots. Yorin was going to transform. And he was expecting Nef to hitch a ride on his back while holding onto the EMP generators. Without falling off and to his death. And they would be heading into what was basically going to be a war zone.

Well, Nef had tried to stab Irif just a few days ago—how dangerous could this be in comparison?