"Oh, uh, I didn't make much progress." Laveki turned to her blueprints, flustered.
Meanwhile, my head started spinning.
'What the hell? Why was she drawing me? Does she like me or something?! I'm not ready for a relationship after Laura!'
'Calm your ass, you don't know if she likes you, it could just be what she said, you have a drawable face.' Spirit pulled me out of my spiral.
'You're right, but what was with that face?'
"Hey! Ingen! You wanted my blueprints?" Laveki waved her page in front of my face.
"Yeah, lemme see." I took the page from her, she had done some doodles in the margins, but the helicopter's frame was done and she was starting on plating it for aerodynamics. "Looks good to me, keep it up, and no more distractions, alright?"
"Yes, teacher." Laveki groaned.
I turned on my heels and made my way back to my workstation, I had been inspired for no particular reason.
"Here's the plan, the sides of the airship are going to fold out and become helicopter pads," I said as I drew with a Thinkwrite.
After a while, I looked down at my page to check my work and noticed one, large, glaring flaw: The Thinkwrite drew out my thoughts.
"How old is Laveki? Did I eat today? Coffee is great. This project is hard. I think she's a little younger than me." The list went on.
"Oopsies!" I decayed the entire page, leaving no trace behind. "Let a little brain juice spill out."
I grabbed another page of drafting paper and started again, focusing my thoughts instead of letting them wander. Slowly the draft took shape, but then another stray thought slipped in.
"You're being distracted because you like her."
I atrophied the line away and drew manually, my steady hand along with many line-drawing tools finished the draft just as the sunset.
'Funny how a simple drawing can set off a wave, no, a tsunami of emotions, too bad the Speakwrite can't draw, would've saved me some time."
I made my way to the bath. Soon I lit the fire under the tub and lowered myself into the basin.
'What do I do now? Was I too cold?'
'You pretend it didn't happen, you were not that cold. You just ignored something she was flustered about.'
I thought about the day until my fingers got wrinkly and decided to go to bed. I slid under the covers and finally relaxed, then it hit me.
'How old am I? I've been on the run so long that I didn't keep track.'
[14 years and 345 days] (22 Earth years and 152 Earth days.)
My glasses told me before crawling off of my face at my command.
'Huh, these specs are so useful. Apparently, my birthday is this month.' I sat thoughtless for a while 'Hey, Spirit, do you think President Kursattle burned down the workshop?'
'No, he wanted you to work, and that was an expensive building. Plus the "terrorist" message was too slapdash, he would have been able to prepare if he did it. Go to sleep.'
'I guess that makes sense.' I started counting down from 200 and fell asleep before I hit 100.
********
I woke up in the morning with a clear head, a large cup of coffee, and breakfast.
"Morn' Ward." I made my way through the halls. "Morn' Devin"
I greeted people as I walked. Soon I reached my at-home workshop, right across from the kitchen.
"Alright, let's make this model." I formed a scale model of the airship with mock balloons made of air sacks integrated into the ship, there was no deck, the balloons were attached to it.
I stuck the model into the wind tunnel and took note of its turbulent areas.
'This is all good stuff for the airship assessment enchantment: Fly Glass.'
My Speakwrite kept up as I took notes. The scratch of quill on paper calmed me as I finished up.
"There, now let's redraft."
I scribbled and drafted like this for two days, when I wasn't using the wind tunnel, Laveki was or she was asking for another change to her model.
"Perfect." There was virtually no turbulence on the small model, but I theorized that there would be as soon as I made it out of wood instead of metal because wood is rougher.
"Hmm, up next I need to make sure it can keep upright at all times and serve as a solid base." I manipulated the ship for a while and decided on a gyroscope.
"Easy, Laveki, think your's could land on mine?"
She turned around and showed me her draft.
"Oh? Folding propellers? Impressive. I had Larry and dad improve upon the engine for me, so you probably want to integrate that." I handed her a blueprint of the improved engine and she integrated it in seconds.
"Wanna go turn this in with me?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure."
We made our way to the capitol building with our classified blueprints in compression spheres. The door opened for us at the president's office and we handed them off.
"Sir, if I may, I would like to make a proposal." I said before he could get back to work.
"What kind?"
"The kind that shoots a metal ball three hundred meters per second into whatever you point it at."
"I'm... interested."
"Talk to Devin, he knows all about the cannon and recently finished the formula for it's propellant."
'Laveki looks like she wants to say something.' Spirit announced.
I turned to my left and whispered in her ear "What do you want to say? You can say whatever you want."
Laveki, initially startled, decided that her idea was worth the words.
"I have been working on a purely Eneru version of his 'cannon' for a long time now, even before I got here. I would like to also submit a blueprint." She spoke confidently, but her face betrayed her true feelings.
"Trust me, the concept is good, she is a wizard with Eneru-operated machinery."
"Let me see it." The president reached out his hand and took the print from her. "I can work with these, I'll tell my workers." He paused and we all looked at each other for a second. "Well get going. You've got work to do."