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pinkgothic:
For someone who had grown up back on Earth, it was always a strange feeling to be outside on Martian terrain, wearing a clunky space suit inside a cramped rover, the sky of pale ash suddenly so much more lifeless now that it was more obviously hermetically sealed away from one's lungs.
Somehow all of this was supposed to turn into a living planet, but for the time being all they were doing was sitting in a rover that cut through a landscape of inhospitable desert that, had they been exposed to it, would have poisoned them in record time.
Nyarai was driving. There weren't really roads - no one had bothered to make them - but there were, shall we say, beaten paths that were better to drive along than at random. The jostling, shaking and vibrating of their tin can was nonetheless a unpleasant, constant companion, and it took about an hour for them to reach their chosen outpost.
They were all aching by the time they got there, beset upon by mild bruises from the trip.
No time to rest, though. Nyarai rolled the rover into the garage air lock and triggered the cycle. There was always a chance it wouldn't work, but that was why they were all in their suits - it would have been an inconvenience, not a deal-breaker, to get out and use human-sized airlocks, leaving the rover exposed. If they couldn't fix an issue like that, it meant heading home without the assurance of two layers of insulation, which was risky, but probably hardly worth noting to her sorcerer companions given their professions.
Nothing went wrong, though, and as the inner door of the garage unlocked, allowing human access to the outpost itself, Nyarai took off her helmet and started to strip off the suit, revealing her slightly sweaty slacks underneath.
The joys of space life.
Nymphetamine:
Leila, for all her time so far on Mars, hadn't really been outside the main facility since she arrived. So there was a bit of quiet agoraphobia going on when they were out on the surface of the planet itself, no longer protected by a dome. Only these bulky space suits, and the rover that they had squeezed themselves into. No one had asked much why Leila was going, maybe she was just playing tourist. As inconspicuous as she could be, she had tagged along. It was a terrible ride, the whole way there. No fault of the driver, just the nature of the beast, as it were. Once they were inside the airlock, she could breathe a sigh of relief, comforted by the fact that there was now additional protection between her and the inhospitable atmosphere that lurked outside. Following Leila's example, she unlocked her helmet, pulling it free from her head with a grunt of relief and a deep breath of the recycled air. “Point me at the hot tub,” she murmured in jest, knowing full well that there was no such thing for the poor people that inhabitated Mars. As she began to shed her space suit, it was like each part of her legs and rear end were nothing more than pulverized hamburger after that ride. Bruised and battered, just the same as her fellows, she would not complain over this fact. Nyarai was already irritated enough with her for Leila to want to play it politely.
pinkgothic:
“Me first,” Mateo chuckled, peeling out of his suit a little more slowly than Nyarai, as though concerned he might break something in the process. Nyarai, meanwhile, waltzed to the back of the rover to check its cargo. They're brought a few blocks of materials, not to mention spell-casting implements, and she began to cart them through both open doors of the secondary airlock they could have taken in case of fault with the first, into the facility.
From the inside, the outpost was little more than a glorified bunker with an alien view. The thick glass - quite possibly more impenetrable even than the fortified walls - was facing into a direction from which the sun never shone, as part of its strategy of maintaining a steady interior temperature. It was so thick it was visibly tinging the whole view with a haze of colour. At the bottom, Martian sand had painted a dull gradient.
There was some heavy drilling material here, meant to be used outside on the regolith to retrieve samples, some tables, and a pitiful tank of no doubt recycled water. Any computer systems someone wanted here would largely have to be brought in - the electronics of this place were far from 'smart', laid out for sturdy longevity rather than convenience.
Of course, they were here for the sake of reducing the blast radius in case of catastrophic failure - not for the gear.
They had brought a laptop, though, and eventually, Mateo had stripped himself down and was setting the piece of precious technology down on a table, while Nyarai rearranged the furniture to place one of the smaller tables more centrally in the room.
No one had asked anything of Leila yet, but it was clear what she was here for - if either of them threatened to bleed out due to a miscast, it would be primarily up to her to do something about it. And if the spell went wrong and the entire bunker turned to pudding, well… once she'd cooled off and the sorcerers had decided they were ready, she ought to be at least partly suited up again, and have emergency breathing masks at the ready to give to her friend and his assistant, as fast as possible.
Nymphetamine:
She was intent on making herself useful. And if that meant doing a bit of grunt work, than she was ready for it. Finally shucking out of her suit, she got it straightened out neatly and then returned to the main room where Nyarai was moving the table. If it was a large table, Leila would rush over to help her move it without a word, though it appeared as though Nyarai had mostly gotten it into place by the time she was there. “Is there anything I can do?” Free up the sorcerers to their own business, while Leila made sure the first aid supplies were well within reach in the main facility.
pinkgothic:
Nyarai pulled a few cheap chairs that the facility had to offer into a lazy triangle near the laptop, gesturing for the others to sit. “Let's talk about what we're about to do,” she suggested. “Mateo, you're her teacher, put it into words she's going to understand,” she prompted.
Mateo slipped down into a sit, twisting partly toward the laptop, dispelling a cute fractal screensaver. It might have been the first time Leila had ever seen one of those, really - it had been decades since anyone needed a screensaver, after all. The application in the background was still largely opaque to her, some kind of bespoke sorcerer note-keeping tool overflowing with jargon. “Let's see,” Mateo commented. “So, in layman's terms, the idea we're pursuing here is basically a step where we disassemble the atoms into their subatomic components before trying to modify them. We think it'll be easier to do this destructively. So… ah, imagine a square piece of paper that you want to turn into a smaller square. Rather than cut off the edges, you first shred it into smaller pieces, then, like a puzzle, you put those smaller pieces together until you have your smaller square and some extra components. Then you burn the rest.”
Nyarai was nodding along mildly, not interrupting her friend, quietly opening up a suitcase with their sorcery toolset as Mateo explained the methodology.
“Then our analogy breaks down, because we want to increase the size again, except this time we do it directly and see if it works. We've done non-mass-preserving alchemy in the first step, we've just obfuscated it, so in the second step we're doing another non-mass-preserving alchemical spell to see if it will take,” he mused.
“Do you want to tell her what can all go wrong, or shall I?” Nyarai interjected.
“I mean, we've been over the categories of possible errors–” Mateo began in a casual objection to repeat himself again.
“Right,” Nyarai cut him off, though her voice was gentle as she did it. “Bleeding to death, or habitat integrity loss. Let's go through why, though, I want Leila to understand the forces at play a bit more.” She glanced across at Leila with a stern, but now almost motherly expression, like someone teaching a child an uncomfortable truth. “There are several possible breaking points here. The first is that the sequence of spells has not been done before, otherwise we'd not have to test them out.
“Of those spells, the most crucial one of the sequence has not been tested before, it's one the algorithms think exist and we think it's plausible it does. It happens to be the one where we… 'disassemble' is the word Mateo used, I believe, where we disassemble the atoms. This is an immense amount of energy we're playing with - particle accelerator amounts of energy, except multiplied by the mass of the chunk of matter we're working on. If physics protests enough, or rearranges the pieces before we can move on to the next step of the spell-casting, it might well be about as friendly as a chunk of TNT exploding in our faces.
“Mind you, we don't think that's likely, but we still think it's about 20% likely, which is much more than any margin of error you'd usually want.
“The next issue is that this is a sequence of four spells. The fourth isn't time critical, so we can let our bodies heal up before we try it, but the others are. Between the two of us, Mateo and I are going to mess up three arms. At least one spell will be cast with something other than our dominant hand to draw it… unless you want to help out.”
There was clearly more in her list of things that might go wrong, but she was pausing to give Leila an opportunity to say something.
Nymphetamine:
There was quite a bit to absorb with what Nyarai was telling her. And while Mateo had gone over the risks before, this seemed dialed up to an eleven. Though, to be honest, she had anticipated that given that they were having to go to the outpost in the first place. She had her tablet out, and a stylus, taking some notes down of what Nyarai was saying, not just the risks, but the spell's components, the chains of spells. Leila had probably had hull breach protocols drilled into her upo her arrival on Mars, so she at least understood that. First aid was a valuable skill wherever she was, so she was confident that she'd be able to patch them up before either of them bled out. Her role there was clear. The dangling invitation to help out meant sparing one of them their dominant hand, which was probably best considering what they were doing. Commited to helping out, she nodded. “I'll help. You can use one of my arms.” It just seemed like a calculated risk in addition to all the other risks they were calculating their survival on.
pinkgothic:
Nyarai was quiet for several awkward seconds, processing Leila's comment, perhaps trying to gauge whether she was just being polite and ought to be rebuffed. Then the long moment passed and she nodded in acknowledgement - no 'thank you', not yet, just an acceptance of the joint fate.
Then she resumed her monologue: “The other issue that might happen is the destruction of residue. That, again, is a lot of energy – more likely to result in a catastrophic implosion than the first step. Less guided obliteration has been done, but this will need to be specific to subatomic particles, which is a slight change to the grammar of the spell.
“Which brings us to the last issue. We're in uncharted spell territory. We've slaved over the theory of this for a while now, but at the end of the day, one of the steps might turn out to be a complete dud, nevermind the usual potential of simply messing it up. I hope that, if it happens at all, that it happens early and we don't have to abort halfway through the sequence, since otherwise we'll have two problems, but if it happens at all, someone is going to be losing a lot of blood quite quickly. Even if you act fast, you might not be able to save that person.”
Nymphetamine:
There was a chance of dying, in so many different ways. Exploding themselves, bleeding out. None of these fates were pretty. But the least she could do, after nosing her way into this experiment, was help them in some way. If that meant offering up her own blood, then she seemed committed. As committed as she was when she had talked Mateo into teaching her sorcery in the first place. Nodding, she tried to process her thoughts. Nothing in life on Mars was ever uncomplicated, nor guaranteed. “I understand what you're saying. I'm here to help, in whichever way you guys deem best. You're the experts, as far as you can be an expert in sorcery…”
pinkgothic:
Nyarai eyed Leila with some mild scepticism, as though inherently suspicious of yea-sayers. Then she leant over to the table, grabbing a small block of silicon, turning it in her fingers as though it might reveal something to her, before glancing back at Leila. “If you do offer your arm,” she said. “You can't wear a space suit. If this place depressurises, we're all dead.” It wasn't a complaint - evidently, she was just making an observation. Leila could help either by being able-bodied if there was a breach that didn't also kill them, or become part of the spell-casting, not both.
Nymphetamine:
It was clear as day on Leila's face that she hadn't really thought of that particular detail. Her face was drained of colour, and her eyes widened a slight bit, just enough to be noticeable. Lips pursed into a frown. But a slow nod followed. “I understand.” It was a terrifying situation to be in. “If you think it's best that I remain suited and ready..” Trailing off, she just nodded again, firmer this time in her resolution to help. “We'll cross that bridge when we get there.”
pinkgothic:
Nyarai shook her head, albeit with a mild expression. “No, Leila, you need to start making your own decisions,” she said, with a motherly firmness.
Nymphetamine:
It was a bland look that she favoured Nyarai with. “I'll remain suited and available for first aid. It seems more prudent than offering up an extra arm, especially given the dangers that are all around us.”
pinkgothic:
Nyarai nodded, her expression almost painfully neutral.
It was Mateo who broke the encroaching silence, glancing at his official sorcerer companion: “I could cast the final spell on your arm.”
Nyarai snorted in amusement. “Oh, so I'll be the one with two wrecked arms?” she said, faking her outrage for five seconds, before resolving with: “Yeah, of course, that makes sense. I don't think I've had someone else cast using my body before.”
“We do know it works,” Mateo reminded her.
“I know, but it just feels wrong,” she added, shrugging one shoulder listlessly, but cut off her own argument with: “Better than casting with a mangled arm, though.”
“Practise the glyphs?” Mateo offered.
“We're both sick of practising the glyphs,” Nyarai summarised.
“So…” Mateo mused. “We… start?”
“Yeah,” she said, but kept nodding lazily a while longer. “Yeah, let Leila finish getting suited up again, I'll make sure we've got Tincture… maybe you can set up the experiment.” She thrust the cube of silicon at Mateo.
Nymphetamine:
She didn't interrupt their conversation, as it was quite important, but now that she had settled to be the paramedic and repair engineer should anything happen, she was determined to fulfill that role. So back in the suit she went! Already getting her gear on, she was stepping into the spacesuit, pulled it up over her shoulders. Fastening it up, she left the helmet off but was going to keep it on hand nearby.
pinkgothic:
While Nyarai mixed the ingredients for the alien ink, Mateo rearranged furniture. The chairs were moved aside again. He hovered over the smaller table that Nyarai had shifted to the centre of the room, considering its surface, using some kind of implement he'd brought with him to check something about it - maybe whether it was really aluminium - before giving a small huff and moving it aside again. “Yeah, it's a aluminium-silicon alloy,” he said, by way of idle explanation. “We don't want to cast on that.”
Instead, he crouched down on the ground, touching fingers to the dust, bringing that up to his face with some curiosity, then shaking his head. A moment later, he was taking a second block of material - a chunk of iron - and setting that down on the ground, before placing the block of silicon onto it. …that sure was one way to ensure there was no silicon in the supporting surface.
Then he was at his laptop, reviewing notes. “Silicon to aluminium,” he said, a review for himself and Nyarai, and new information for Leila. “One more electron from the outer shell, but the shell configuration is the same. We'll be removing an electron from 3p, and a proton from the nucleus. Neutron count stays the same. So the elimination procedure is two up quarks of forty-two, one down quark of forty-two, one electron of fourteen.”
About at that moment, Nyarai finally looked down at the two material cubes. “Seriously?” she said, gesturing at the tiny tower.
“Do you have a better idea?” Mateo arched a brow.
Nyarai grumbled something under her breath, but it evidently wasn't a better idea, lest it would have been considerably more intelligible.
“We can sit on the ground,” Mateo suggested.
“Ooh, like around a campfire,” Nyarai commented sardonically. Hopefully nothing would actually catch fire. Mellowing out again instantly, she glanced across at Leila, and smiled with an obvious spirit of adventure. “Ready?”
Nymphetamine:
Watching in fascination, Leila was quiet as she got everything arranged to her own liking, well away from the sorcerers' set up. Their suits were left open for ease of quick dressing, and the respirators were lined up nearby. She had the first aid kit opened and the most pertinent objects arrayed out on one of the rejected tables that Mateo and Nyarai had moved out of the way. Once she had everything to her liking, she could pay attention to what they were doing, the new information welcomed. It broke down to some hard science-y information, as all sorcery seemed to, but she understood most of it, in the broad strokes of what they were attempting. Sitting on the edge of her chair, quite literally, she watched in curious silence. “I'm ready! Let's get this show on the road!”
pinkgothic:
That said, Nyarai passed a sorcerer's pen to Mateo and the medical pen for the nerve blockers. Mateo was asking “You counted–?”, but Nyarai cut him off with ”– the milliletres in accordance to the runes, yes.” Another thing that could potentially go wrong, however unlikely given the years of practise sorcerers had in being careful with their craft.
“And this is the right pen for me?” Mateo checked. “Yes,” Nyarai confirmed, holding up another in her other hand. “This one's mine and you're not getting it,” she said, with a dark playfulness. “Yours has enough for the third spell, too.”
Mateo frowned mildly, considering the trade-off in his head - either they'd have to refill between spell two and three, or there was a risk they'd have Tincture in a sorcerer's pen that wasn't being used, possibly for hours. But it wasn't a truck of the stuff and he wasn't quite paranoid enough to care. “All right,” he said. With a flick of his hand, he turned his laptop off and leant to push it as far to the wall as possible, then settled down into a cross-legged sit on the bare floor, the two pens first in one hand, then rested in his lap.
Two almost simultaneous jabs later, and the sorcerers had applied their nerve blockers. Then the both of them worked on their runes, a quiet, studious-looking sequence of gestures. If Leila had no prior context, it would look like simple body art.