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Node identifier: unknown scrubman: i’ve got a Dollu Mor engine (version six) that’s clocking in at about 125.3 vuls. it’s not bad, but i think it can do better. any recs for speeding things up?
fluffyfluffycake: this question has ‘pinch’ written all over it pinch: if you’ve got a Dollu Mor 6, i’m assuming it’s got a fuel regulator made by the same manufacturer. swap it out with the Ek-530 from Hahisseth instead. it’s not cheap, but it’ll shave off a good 20 or so vuls. now, theoretically, you COULD strip out the modulation grid and hot patch the fuel lines straight into the forward intake valve. that’s illegal, but that’s your call. if you don’t know what you’re doing, at best, it’ll be a hackjob piece of junk when you’re done. at worst, it’ll blow up in your face. done right, though, it would speed things up considerably. but again, you’d never get license approval with that kind of rig. i’m not saying you should do that. i’m just sharing information.
scrubman: thanks for explaining! can anybody else back this up?
fluffyfluffycake: if pinch says it’s good, you’re good.
JANE 23, AGE 10
A breathing mask. A wall vox. A light panel. Jane 23 was doing good work that day. She stretched her neck and her hands. They were tired, which meant work time was almost done. She looked into her bin. Ten – no, eleven items left. She looked up at the big clock on the wall. Yes, she could get eleven items sorted in half an hour. She would finish her bin, go exercise, get a meal cup, have learning time, then go to bed. That was how days went.
She stopped knowing how days went one second later, when something went real real wrong.
There was a loud, tearing sound, so fast and angry she almost couldn’t hear it. Then she actually couldn’t hear. She couldn’t hear anything. Her ears hurt real bad.
Everything went white for a second, but for a long second, long enough for her to see a few Janes get knocked out of their chairs as the white flash filled with dust and pieces and blood.
She sat up on the floor. She didn’t remember how she got there. She didn’t remember falling. She started to yell for help, but then she saw something that made her forget how to make words. Maybe it was because she couldn’t hear. Maybe it was because the air had been knocked out of her chest. But all she could think about was what she could see.
There was a hole. A hole in the wall.
Jane 23 sat all the way up.
There was a big, broken hole in the wall. And there was stuff on the other side.
Jane 23 did not understand what she was seeing. On the other side of the wall, there were not more walls. There were huge, huge piles of scrap, but far away, and the floor in between her and them didn’t look like any floor she’d ever seen. Above them, there was a . . . a ceiling. But not a ceiling. It didn’t look touchable. She couldn’t explain it. There was a ceiling that wasn’t a ceiling, and it was blue. Just blue, for a long, long way. Blue for ever. She felt like she was going to throw up.
Girls were screaming. She could hear again.
Jane 23 looked at the room, and understood the things she saw in there, at least. There had been an explosion. Jane 56’s bench was gone, all the way gone, just a smear of burnt wet stuff on the floor. She wondered what had been in 56’s bin. Probably some dangerous scrap that the little girls missed while cleaning. A bad engine, maybe, or something that still had fuel in it. She didn’t know.
There were dead girls around the smear. She’d seen dead girls before, but never so many, never all at once. Some weren’t dead, but looked like they should be.
Her arm felt wrong. She looked down and saw a metal shard stuck deep. Jane 23 was scared. She’d been cut before, but she’d never bled so dark.
The living girls kept screaming.
Jane 23 got up and ran through the mess, past things she didn’t want to see. Jane 64’s bench wasn’t far, but she couldn’t see her. She made herself look at the pieces on the ground, trying to tell if any of them belonged to 64. She almost threw up, again. Her mouth was dry. Her arm was wet, getting wetter.
‘Sixty-four!’ she yelled. She yelled so loud it hurt.
‘Twenty-three.’ A hand grabbed the end of her pants. ‘Twenty-three.’
Jane 23 turned. 64 was under a bench, holding her knees. Her head and face were bloody, but she was awake and living. She was shaking, though, so hard Jane 23 could hear her teeth click.
‘Come on,’ Jane 23 said. ‘Come on. We need to go to the med ward.’
Jane 64 looked at her. She didn’t move.
‘Sixty-four,’ Jane 23 said. She reached out, took her bunkmate’s hand, and pulled her up. ‘We can’t stay here.’ Blood ran down Jane 23’s other arm, dripping onto the floor. Everything was spinning and scary and loud. ‘Come on. We have to find a Mother.’