But before the final test, I took the vortex module in my hands. This wasn't just motor and blade assembly; this was a resonator, the key to the entire process. Closing my eyes, I turned it on. The hum built, and I, guided by hearing, experience, and Master Watchmaker's supernatural precision, began calibrating rotation speed. It was like tuning a musical instrument where instead of notes, physical constants. I sought that one, singular frequency at which reality would give way. 47.3 hertz. I felt the hum change, became deeper, acquired a vibration that resonated in bones. This was it. Proper calibration causing Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Cascade discharge. Self-sustaining plasma without a single magnet.
Now I could test it! I stood in the middle of the garage, took a deep breath, and flicked the switch on the vortex module. A quiet, building hum rang out, like the sound of a spinning turbine. Then I smoothly turned the rheostat knob. The nichrome coil on my arm instantly heated red-hot.
And then it happened.
The air around me hummed, vibrated. It distorted like haze over hot asphalt, then flashed with barely visible, shimmering bluish haze. The turbulent flow from the vortex module trapped ionized gas in a cocoon, forming a spherical barrier about a meter and a half around me. It was almost invisible, but I felt it, light static tingling on skin and a thin, high-frequency hum. Plasma, born from hair dryer and mixer, enveloped me in its protective field. I stood at the center of my own, pocket miracle.
By my rough estimates, on this battery the shield would last no more than a minute. But for that minute, it would deflect pistol bullets and slow rifle rounds enough that "Proteus" would handle them easily.
[Created electro-mechanical construct "Thermal Plasma Barrier Generator." Complexity: Normal. Received +200 OP!]
Protective device generating a barrier from dynamic plasma gradient created through thermal air ionization with resonant vortex.
The description was dry as usual, but the 200 OP pleased me. That the System didn't give a pioneer bonus didn't surprise me. This world surely had patents on plasma shock wave absorption. Not to mention highly developed races for whom working with plasma was child's play.
I turned off the shield and pondered. The technology worked. The barrier formed at a safe distance, creating an outer layer of ionized air that didn't contact the body. The inner side remained relatively cool. I could touch it from inside and feel only light warmth and static tingling. A principle eerily similar to Stark's shields from my meta-knowledge. But the construction itself... I'd gotten too carried away with modularity. Something on the sleeve, something in a pocket, something on the belt. Inconvenient, bulky, bunch of failure points. Ideally, all this should be in one compact belt device, and that could also be modular. But then the question arose about the power source...
"Hey, John, I'm back!" Peter literally burst into the house. He was glowing like he'd eaten not sour cream but a small sun. This completely didn't match his morning depressed state. "Whoa! What's this mad engineer production line?" he surveyed the chaos of tools and disassembled tech I'd created in the living room.
"Spill it, why so happy?" I answered question with question, setting aside the prototype.
"Ah, that obvious? Damn... Need to work on my poker face," Peter muttered the last part to himself, but I heard. "Well, if briefly... then MJ and I..."
"Decided to try?" I finished for him. Inside me, everything went cold with icy contempt. A girl whose boyfriend mysteriously disappeared this morning, the same day throws herself at his albeit former, but friend's neck. Maximally condemnable. No wonder her character in comics often caused, putting it mildly, hostility.
"Yes!" Peter exhaled happily, not noticing my mood. "She said that since Harry decided to break up with her like that, she won't suffer and will move on. And that she's liked me for a long time... well, and I like her too..."
"But we discussed this morning that maybe everything's not so simple? That it might be staged?" I pressed the sore spot, wanting to see his reaction.
"Nope, I checked everything!" he waved carelessly. "This boarding college really exists, they have a website, registration in Switzerland, all official. And Harry was enrolled there since early September. Apparently, he dragged his feet leaving, Norman didn't like it, and he went to extreme measures. But those are their family matters, who are we to judge them?"
I saw how literally a stone fell from his soul. Everything turned out so "simple." No conspiracies. The path to his dream girl was clear. I felt in my gut something wasn't right here. He checked? Did a five-minute Google search? Norman Osborn, billionaire and brilliant manipulator, his legend would be impeccable on the surface. But arguing with Peter, under the influence of a hormonal cocktail, was like teaching physics to a stone. Any word I said against MJ he'd take as an attack.
"Got it," I squeezed out a semblance of a smile. "Well... congratulations, I guess. Love-schmove, happiness to the newlyweds, all that."
"Thanks, John!" the embarrassed youth beamed.
"As for this engineering chaos," I nodded at the parts laid out on the floor, steering the conversation where I needed. "To put it briefly... I assembled something interesting here."
I told Peter everything. Well, almost everything. Told how after he left, a wave of inspiration hit me, how my hands reached for work on their own. How I wanted to assemble something simple but practical that would solve the rifle caliber problem for "Proteus." About the System, skills, and Martian engineer's memory I naturally stayed silent. But about the plasma barrier concept itself, I told in detail. His reaction mattered to me. The reaction of a true Genius. Peter silently listened, approached my prototype, walked around it from all sides, carefully examined connections, touched the cold vortex module casing. Then he looked at me, and in his eyes was a mix of shock, admiration, and absolute bewilderment.
"Ho-ly shit!" he pronounced slowly, clearly syllable by syllable, as if tasting the word. "You. With. A mixer and hair dryer. Managed to induce Rayleigh-Taylor instability?! John, this crap can't always be stably reproduced in lab conditions with millions of dollars of equipment! And the funniest fucking thing," he laughed nervously, "is that it works! It obeys all the laws of physics I know! This isn't a 'black box' like the muscle stimulator! So how the hell is this possible?! How do you know about resonant frequency and quantum tunneling?! You said yourself you don't know jack about pure science!"
Good question. Fortunately, over recent weeks I'd thought a lot about this, and I had a legend ready. Maximally plausible in this crazy world.
"Look, Peter. There's Tony Stark, there's Reed Richards, there's you, after all. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people whose intellect allows them to create incredible things," I started from afar, choosing words. "I think it's a kind of superpower. Super-intellect. I once read a book about costumed heroes... so there, such people had a separate category of powers. It was called 'technopathy.' Intuitive understanding of technologies."
"And you?..." Peter skeptically arched an eyebrow, but I saw he was listening.
"Yes. I suspect something similar awakened in me," I spoke as if I'd just come to this conclusion. "It started a couple weeks ago. I desperately wanted to make things with my hands. First origami, then the Potato cannon and PVC crossbow... And then 'recipes' started appearing in my head. Intelligence Elixir, muscle stimulator... I didn't fully understand their logic, just followed internal instructions. But today, after a pretty serious headache... something greater awakened in me. Not just a recipe. A full layer of knowledge in engineering and physics that seems to be decades ahead of modern science."
"And you, using this knowledge, assembled a plasma barrier?" Peter pointed at my creation.
"Correct. I don't fully understand the principle of my 'power' myself," I surveyed the electronic junk on the floor. "But I look at this trash and see... see ready devices. And so far I'm insanely happy with this."
"I bet!" Peter muttered enviously. "I'd also like to be a natural-born genius like Richards or Stark, instead of poring over textbooks."
"He doesn't understand," I thought. "He IS a genius. A real one. And I... I'm just using cheat codes."
"By the way, since we're talking about intellect," he perked up. "Are we starting work on the Elixir?"
"Yes. But not here."
"The institute lab is occupied until evening," Peter spread his hands guiltily. "I can work there on personal projects, but if I bring you now, it'll raise suspicions."
"Well, then we'll go there in the evening," I shrugged. "And until then... we can assemble something else. My hands are itching."
"Ooo!" Peter's eyes lit up with genuine scientific excitement. "Got any ideas?"
"Too many," I smirked. "But since the defense issue is temporarily solved, I think we should work toward mobility. How about..." I once again surveyed my "warehouse" of components. Several microwaves... their magnetrons. A couple old vacuum cleaners... high-RPM turbines. Yes. This was it. "...Gravity boots?"
"What?!" Peter literally jumped in place. "You're saying something like that can be assembled from this junk?!"
I looked at the mountain of trash that in my head had already transformed into a scattering of most valuable resources, and remembered one character from cartoons. A character who, being a pickle, assembled an exoskeleton from rat bones.
"You can't even imagine what else can be assembled from it..." I said quietly, and steel confidence sounded in my voice. "Even I don't fully imagine yet."