Murder in the tower

Grabbing a small gear and stuffing it into a much larger machine resting besides the Celestial Engine, the large machine thrummed with a supernatural light as it slowly began awakening.

"It's alive!!!"

Steel beast that was the culmination of Ester and Eva's efforts slowly humming with life as a supernatural light akin to starlight began to sparkle within the confines of the machine, the glass portions of it glowing, the rest of the initially unmoving parts on the Celestial Engine began to crank to life.

Massive gears now gleaming with oil and a special coating meant to both lubricate the gears and protect it from Aether exposure, Ester wiped the metaphorical sweat off of his head as he began closing up the large gear box with a wrench, Eva's voice crackling into his ears.

And it was most probably due to the increase in ambient Aether in the air, but the interference was incredibly strong to the point that Ester could barely make out what she was saying.

"G-- --- --re d—e, --- --- ---- -on-, --- --- -uck –t"

"You don't need to tell me twice."

Rubbing his sore shoulders that had to carry several units of parts back and forth between the storage and the Celestial Engine, Ester opened the door and let the air hiss in around him, reaching the same air pressure as that of the world outside of space.

Decompression chamber now pressurizing the chamber so that air didn't suddenly surge in and attack him with a force capable of turning someone into a meat slurry, Ester double checked all of the signs before opening the doors.

After what happened last time they didn't properly pressurize the chamber…

Ester suppressed a shiver before positively ripping off the helmet, exposing his sweating yet admittedly handsome face to the world, gray strands of hair sticking to his forehead as Eva moved to help him.

"So how did communication prototype 52 work out this time?"

"Still lots of interference if there's no direct connection, but it's getting there albeit slowly."

"Was it able to transmit actual words without jumbling it all up?"

"Maybe? The interference around the celestial Engine was to much to actually make out anything, especially once we fixed all of the moving parts."

"That reminds me, I'm going to go get the star charts, what's todays code?"

"80085"

"…"

"Look, this time I swear it wasn't me." Raising his hand in surrender, Eva narrowed her eyes at him before shaking her head at the childishness that was Ester incarnate

"As if your previous passcode 800813 was any better." Replying to Ester, she moved to a locker set besides the entrance, manipulating the lock in front of it and taking out the several star charts within, unfurling most of them until she found the set she desired.

And in the time that this was happening, Ester made sure to follow through on Eva's actions, unclothing the rest his body and revealing a set of well-defined shining muscles riddled in small scars leftover from all of time spent in the Celestial Tower.

Small burns from the forge, scars from initial mistakes in Engineering, stitches from a minor disaster in the Crystal mines many of these wounds were old from when Ester was much younger, only matched in intensity by the size of the Nebula shaped birthmark covering his right arm ranging from his shoulder to his elbow.

And matching the energy produced by his uniquely decorated right arm, his left arm was entirely replaced by one made of metal, the gears and pistons constantly moving as blue flowed through the crystal-clear pipe veins and allowing it to move as if it was a biological extension of himself.

Much to Eva's disappointment however was that this sight soon disappeared underneath a new set of clothes as she finally sought out the newest star chart of their solar system, placing it on a relatively empty table alongside a stack of empty brown yellowish papers.

And following her, Ester wiped his face with a wet cloth, observing the star chart and comparing it to his watch.

"So what time of the day was this one? 12 at midnight of sometime in the morning?"

"…" Eva frowned

"Eva? Veil to Eva?" Snapping his left hands fingers in front of Eva, she soon replied.

"Why are their scratches on the arm Ester?" Looking closely at the bronze colored cybernetic, she frowned even further as she saw traces of blood on its fingers.

"And why is ther-"

"Oh how did that get there!" Hurriedly interrupting her and roughly wiping off the blood he made up an excuse on the fly. "That must've appeared there when I collided against that cat stealing fish from that nice fishmonger down the street."

Eva gave a dead stare at Ester while tracing the large scratch mark on the arms surface. "Likely story, and I assume that the same cat was able to scratch like a knife? Or is it that the fishmonger just oh so coincidentally was able to cut through an alloyed metal on accident?"

"Who knows? I mean, Rivera isn't exactly unknown for having rogue science experiments that could be cats."

"Shut up Ester" Eva snorted "Only children would believe that cats are good experimental subjects, Witches only take them in because they're good at detecting Aether leakage."

"Aren't you technically a child?"

"I'm a teenager you buffoon!"

"Ack!"

Bonking Ester on the head, Eva let out a long sigh before taking the arm from Ester.

"Anyways, you still have to give me an explanation otherwise…" Eva grabbed the scruff of his shirt and pulled him closer to her. "Tonight I'm sneaking into your room and making you bald."

"You can't do that"

"Why not?" Giving a challenging look towards Ester, he calmly replied. "Because then you'll make me ugly, and you don't want to work with someone ugly don't you?"

"Fuck, your right."

"Haha!" Giving a sudden burst of laughter, Ester moved towards his spot near the table, the artificial lamplight seeping in through the glass as he used his one fleshy arm to pick up a large bulky calculator, punching in several values in the meantime.

"So anyways, do you want the full story or the short version."

"The short version." Opening and placing small paperweights on the corners of the star charts plural, Eva took a look at the relatively recent one and began to make some calculations with references made to previous calculations.

Adjusting the paperweights so that he could actually work on the table without knocking anything over, Ester began "Well it went something like this…"

After speaking out his story and allowing Eva to listen to it, she couldn't help but butt in. "So wait, your saying that you broke Skinny Bones the fourth and just left him there to his death?"

"Yeah?"

Taking a glance at the calculations Eva had just made, he adjusted a few values until they looked right before looking at Eva inquisitively "Why? Did I do something wrong?"

"You didn't think to bring him with you? I mean, that's just free raw materials, you said that he was going to sell your organs and splicer arm on the black market if he got the chance to right? I don't think the police can say anything if we just say self defence."

"Despite the guy being clearly drunk and not in the best state of mind, I don't think the police are going to buy that excuse when I gut him for his organs and sell him on the black market, at that point its not self defense but murder."

"Well…" Shrugging her shoulders, Eva took out a new piece of paper, sketching out a rough diagram of a circle in the middle surrounded by several rings with balls stuck into them.

"If what you say is correct, I doubt that Skinny mac fucked face is going to be eating from anything other than a straw."

"Was that overboard?"

"Oh no, if I had the chance I would've made sure that he had no mouth to even drink with again."

"…" Mentally praying for the poor fools who would be foolish enough to catch her ire, Ester realized that he was the fool and began making mental arrangements for his funeral.

"Out of your daydreams mister." Snapping her fingers to bring Ester out of the Ether, he belatedly reacted and continued to adjust the celestial engine within.

"Yep."

"Stupid smart idiot."

"I plan to be smarter in the future."

"If you plan to be smarter finish all of these calculations for me so that I can return to my tinkering."

"Like a wise man said, the future is not the present."

"And following that quote, if you can't handle today, you can't plan for the future."

"Quoting the Pope are we?"

"Quoting half of the pope are we?"

"I hate you."

"I love you to."

"Good talk."

"Indubitably."

Chuckling in unison, both Eva and Ester high fived before taking the star chart and bringing it to the previous station that Eva was previously at.

But instead of the several red lights that initially dotted its surface telling a story of a stupidly high number of consecutive failures, all the lights were now in the green and spoke of a story of a world where everything was working.

Of course, until they adjusted the machine to the current status of the solar system it was nothing more than just working without any of the intended results coming out of it.

After all, if it was just a mirror image of the solar system than it was just an expensive museum piece that should be in an actual museum than there was the way more economical path of using a model instead of this gigantic monstrosity of engineering that was way to fragile and important to be adjusting as they pleased.

Of course, the fact that the Astromancer Guild were currently using two hired hands instead of people who were taught to do their jobs really understated the importance of the work that they were doing.

'Well, I guess it isn't that important since anyone worth their salt would at the least have access to the important data allowing them to make inferences themselves.'

Touching the dashboard, Ester began flipping several switches and adjusting nobs and moving the rings of this miniature solar system made one to several magnifications of one to align to the current state of the planets.

Eva joined him in his adjustments, moving the rings and manipulating the orbs on said rings until they matched the star charts which resembled the solar system as it should.

"Planetary orbits aligned along present pathways, now adjusting them to match future pathways."

Golden rings spinning around swiftly within the vacuum in a manner that should resemble the future that the planets would take, Ester began flipping several switches and lit up various lights on the dashboard.

"Turning off the lights and blacking out the windows now."

"Yep"

Slapping a button on the wall, the glass pane in front of them visibly darkened to the point that without special instruments seeing clearly past it was near impossible.

"Artificial Starlight on"

Feminine hands flipping a switch, Eva blinked in mild surprise at the brightness of the artificial starlight suddenly surrounding the miniature solar system, influencing the Natural Aether with similarly artificial Arcane and cosmic pressures onto the planets below.

Of course, following it up, Ester turned on two things. "Fake Gravity and Antigravity field on."

Simulating the effects of gravity in a zero gravity environment, Ester licked his dry lips as visible sparks started to cover the planets now affected by both gravitational and arcane pressures, realizing something he forgot.

"Turning on Electromagnetic cores."

Planets in the miniature solar system now spinning with the help of the iron cores stuffed into their bodies, the number of sparks covering the planets immediately subsided as the magnetic field offset the intense effects of the gravity concentrated arcane pressures.

"You're an idiot for nearly causing a miniature void situation." Eva slapped Ester's head.

"Teehee."

Eva slapped his head again, Ester giving his foolish grin in return "Don't you dare teehee me you smart idiot, you forgot to turn on the glyph's responsible for atmosphere."

"As someone as smart as you, I aspire to not be as smart as you."

"…What? What does that mean?"

Turning away and manipulating a few of the knobs on the dash so that he could resolve the mistake and rectify what few sparks remained on the large planetoids, Ester smiled in satisfaction.

Before hurriedly looking at the checklist to see what else he may have missed since its been an entire year since he had last been in the room, as Eva continued to puzzle out the statement

"Did you just give me a backhanded compliment?"

"What made you think that?"

"You said you didn't want to be as smart as me, but I just called you a stupid smart idiot and I also said…"

"Figure it out yet?"

"Have you figured it out yet?"

Feeling a chill crawl up from the base of his spine and knowing where exactly it was coming from, Ester calmly replied. "Yes"

"What did you figure out?"

"I'm going to die the moment I get away from the sensitive equipment."

"I see that you are finally not as smartas me."

"I try."

Flipping another switch to turn on the Helio sphere in the middle of the celestial engine and making sure to not get blinded by the artificial sunlight as it fended off cosmic radiation from similarly sized celestial bodies, Ester glanced at Eva as she cleaned her hammer with the cloth he had just put down.

Smiling brightly as she wiped the hammer meant to beat steel into its proper place, Ester tried to remember what material his left arm was made of.

'Oh yeah, it's made of metal softer than steel.'

Turning around and staring at Eva as she gently put down the cloth and advanced towards him, Ester prepared to meet the Architects.

"I really should write a will."

"What a coincidence." The hammer in Eva's hands glistened underneath the fake sun and starlight seeping through the darkened glass pane.

She pressed a trigger on its handle, lighting up its head in blue light as various exhaust pipes protruded from behind it. "I think that you should write one right now!"

+++

Tree