Red grabbed the last bit of wire poking out of the central housing device. Using a pair of wire cutters, he snipped the excess wiring and dropped it on the table. Now came the hard part. He grabbed the remaining wires and began the process of connecting them. Two of the wires met, and with a pop, a spark bounced off his hand.
"Fuck!" He dropped the device and shook his stinging hand.
Vizim snorted, "I told you that was going to happen."
"Oh, screw off," Red clenched his fist, trying to force the tingling away.
"Why don't you use gloves? That is like step number one for this sort of stuff."
"Gloves make it too hard to properly connect them. Besides, getting a jolt once in a while isn't necessarily a bad thing." Reaching out, Red grasped the two wires and continued his attempt.
Vizim gave him a flat look as another spark lanced up his fingers, "I think I see how you got the way you are."
Cursing, Red redoubled his efforts and finally managed to connect the two blasted things. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a shaking hand and dropped back into the chair.
"You know they make gloves designed for that exact thing," Vizim waved his hands that were covered in a thin layer of leather.
Red scoffed, "Those things…They wouldn't be any help in the first place. With how skinny they are, why bother even putting them on at all?
Vizim just shook his head, "Who taught you how to engineer?"
"You already know the answer to that."
"Exactly my point! You should be getting advice from a professional."
"And you're a professional now, are you?"
Vizim coughed, "Well, not exactly, but I got my information from them."
"Uh-huh," Red replied unconvincingly.
Shaking off the lingering tingle, Red returned his attention to the device that was beginning to take shape between them. He had known his shielding device would be complicated.
He had been the one to design it.
However, he never really understood how time-consuming it would be to actually build the damn thing. Designing the systems had been a cumbersome endeavor that had taken him many years. He had made prototypes of the smaller parts of the design and tested each part individually.
However, he hadn't built the entire thing as one whole.
Forming smaller devices and little projects was his specialty, to say the least. Creating items with only one central function was easy enough, and most engineers could do the same. However, Red was especially good. He could throw these random things together easily and with very little time.
That didn't mean he couldn't build more complicated. He had built his own shockblasters after all, and they were anything but simple. Despite this, his shielding device was a whole different ballgame. He had to split it into many smaller parts, each of which needed to be meticulously designed and carefully crafted.
With a muttered sigh, Red finished spreading out a series of items on the table. He had needed to start somewhere, so that was what he had done.
One piece at a time, one step at a time, one part of the whole at a time.
That was how he would do it.
It was the only way it could be done.
The first part that he had started on was the central housing device for the core. From there, he planned to work outward and slowly add all the other necessary mechanisms, including the cooling system that Vizim had helped him design. Crafting a good housing design had been one of the most difficult parts of the entire project.
Although cores worked well in weapons like his shockblasters. They were often very cumbersome, and it was never practical to carry numerous cores around at once unless that was your entire mode of combat.
That was the problem he had to solve. The device needed to be small enough to use and not inconvenient to operate. He had needed to focus on practicality over something flashy like the massive shields used in ships.
As such, he had been forced to drastically modify the larger designs. In larger ships, they usually all had a massive central battery. This battery acted as the sole power source. If it went, then the entire system would collapse. Despite this, the battery protected itself against the immense firepower.
Its systems worked to emanate the power from the cores beyond a certain range. Theoretically, those systems could be made large enough to cover an entire island, or even something larger. All it would take is scaling the size of the central battery and the wiring used.
Unfortunately, this system would not work on the smaller scale. Many had unsuccessfully attempted it already with no luck. The main reason for this was the cooling system. To account for the smaller wiring, they needed an extensive system to prevent the device from overheating. That system would defeat the purpose of having a smaller device in the first place.
Due to all of these problems, Red had decided to redesign his own idea from the ground up. More accurately, he attempted to develop his own designs that would function just as well as the current ones. It had taken him a lot of time to accomplish it, but he now had something worth testing.
Red bent down to adjust a set of wires he had begun laying out. He had been extremely lucky to find all of the parts he needed on this island. Not to mention, Zara had essentially given him and Vizim free rein to do whatever they wanted. They both were taking full advantage of it.
Vizim had been spending far less time in the engineering room than previously. However, when Red asked for his help, he had been eager. This was potentially a moment that could change everything across the seven seas after all. Despite this, Vizim still hadn't been around very much.
His friend had been spending an increasing amount of time with the other sailors. Red wasn't surprised, not after what had happened to them all. To top it off, they were now being required to guard a fort that could be attacked at any time. This was not the job any of them signed up for. In that regard, he was closer to Vizim than Derrin.
While it was true that the three of them had been thrown into the situation headfirst, Derrin had already begun acting as if nothing had happened. To him, it was simply another day in his life.
To Vizim and himself, though, this was totally new.
Red didn't have anyone to relate to, not really. Vizim, though, could talk with all of the sailors. They were as close to family as he had after all. That was more than Red could say.
"Are you going to have dinner with us tonight?" Vizim asked suddenly.
Red glanced up at him, "I've been kind of busy the last few days. I should be able to complete the prototype by the end of the week if I can keep up the same pace. Going to dinner again would delay me."
Vizim raised an eyebrow, "It would be hard to finish if you end up starving to death beforehand."
Scowling, Red asked, "What's the real reason you're asking?"
He shifted uncomfortably, "Well, it's just…I figured you shouldn't be spending so much time alone. You know not after what happened."
"Oh, please. I'm perfectly fine."
Red didn't add that it had taken days to finally stop seeing nightmares of the dead pirate. He could still envision the gruesome scene when he closed his eyes. It was impossible not to.
However, he had finally begun to take control of himself again. Zara's words had been a measure of comfort. The man's death had saved plenty of lives, even if not directly.
"You know that's not true, and the best thing would be to spend time with people. I know that helped me."
"Fine. I'll be there. I'm sure you'll keep bugging me until I do."
Turning back to his work, Red began attaching the central wiring to form the section that would house the core. If he were to eat with the rest of the sailors, then he needed to redouble his efforts for the remainder of the day.
His design had reworked most everything from the bigger ones. He had been forced to do so without a reference point. There were still many similarities, but overall, he was trying to rely on very different principles than traditional shields.
While other devices focused on the core themselves, Red knew this wouldn't be enough. That was the reason he had added a recharging feature to his guns after all.
Instead, he had designed a system that had never been done before. Well, that might have been an overexaggeration. It had never been done by anyone he'd known. Granted, that wasn't a lot, but he figured that if it had already been done, then everyone would be doing it.
He had designed his shielding device to connect to the wearer's heart. That wasn't exactly true. There was no actual connection present. Instead, it accounted for a person's heart, and that helped the system run properly. It didn't require a person to be very strong, either; that was the best part.
When activated, the device would summon a shield surrounding the user. That shield would drain the core, but wouldn't push any overexertion onto the machine. However, once it began taking fire, the device would truly begin to operate. Vizim's cooling system would kick in to try to keep the device stable. However, it was inevitable that it wouldn't be enough in most circumstances.
That's why Red had designed it to allow the wearer to enhance their body to counter it. The system itself was far more heat-resistant than the larger machines. Then there was Vizim's cooling device. In addition, the person using it could use their mist as a layer to insulate against the aggressive heat. It was still dangerous, of course, but it would be better to get burned than die.
That wasn't his only change, either. He had also designed the shield to absorb energy where possible. Blasts from shock weapons and strikes from mistblades all came from essentially the same source, just in different forms. The shield accounted for this and attempted to absorb some of the energy. It wasn't possible to save it all, but even a small portion of it could be enough.
However, all of this was only great in theory. The only way to actually know if the systems operated correctly would be to test them, and that required a finished prototype.
"Less than a week now," he told himself, "Less than a week."