Killing Time OST – 6c – iCraft Cool Tools

<< 6b – iCraft Cool Tools

Lorelei went straight from her chemist lab to her bedroom as soon as she was done mixing her compounds. By then, I had put together my third attempt at the twenty feet long collapsible track. Not that she acknowledged my work despite the space it took in the lab. I recognized her speedy strut pretty quickly; she had been calm for too long and only exercise would allow her to concentrate again.
I expected her to head for the pool but when the water flow in the pipes told me she stepped in the shower to wash away chemical residue, I knew she had another type of exercise in mind. Sure enough, a distinctive clatter crossed the lobby an hour later: Lorelei had stuck heels under her favorite boots of butt-kicking. I could only hope whoever she’d bring back would contain his excitement until they reached her bedroom. When the action took place on the first floor, whatever the room, I heard a bit too much. I couldn’t casually play any music for fear of the flavor-of-the-night hearing it through the floor and asking questions.
And putting on earplugs – or an old headset to listen to music – just reminded me of the thing I avoided by covering my ears. It certainly didn’t help that I had been stuck here for six months.
I wished she was a guy… maybe not: I would be jealous instead of lusty.
Fortunately, according to Lorelei, a year, a new face and a fake ID chip would suffice to make me completely disappear – or rather “put me back on the map”. The guys of the inner city she hired to deal with all that knew their stuff. They requested at least a year to build up a new identity so that things like the bank account, phone bills and all that jazz didn’t take effect on the same date. A part of the paper trail was fake of course but I would have one year of “real” payments and money fluctuation; way more than any investigation would dig up unless I got in really big troubles.
In the meantime, I paid my dues by crafting cool tools, like this pulley system I should begin to test right about now. It was harder to concentrate without implants to help you. My thoughts never wandered that much when I was hooked on tech.
No, Vexx, implants equal evil.
I screwed the track to the ceiling and mounted the pulley on it. With the rope firmly in my hands, I sprinted along the rail. The pulley slid well but not as smoothly as I wished.
“Oil is messy so what can I do with you?”
I decided to work on the AP2G2 until a viable solution came to me which incidentally happened once I melted the wax to reveal the rubber structure. I disassembled the whole pulley system and lay the track across two counters. I browsed the shelves of products at the far end of the lab for a petroleum-based solvent and thinned a portion of wax.
“Let’s clog your pores, shall we?”
Using an old rag, I spread a thin layer of oily wax on the inside portion of the track. The mixture melted under a minimum of heat but had a waxy – non-messy – consistency at room temperature.
“Perfect.”
I inserted a small heater unit powered by one of my miniature batteries in the core of the wheels that attached the pulley to the track. It should produce enough heat to turn the wax into lubricant. Sure, this solution didn’t allow for endless back-and-forth on the track but I seriously doubted Lorelei planned to run along the building just for kicks.
“Let’s test it again.”
Despite a fair amount of internal complaining. working for Lorelei had its perks; an endless supply of gadget to play with, free lodging and food, an upcoming rebirth and – my favorite part of all – the testing of custom-made assassin props. Once the pulley system returned to its place on the ceiling, I spent a good fifteen minutes playing Tarzan; my contraption worked so well I could lift my feet off the floor and keep rolling forward once I had built momentum. When I grew tired of swinging about, I unscrewed and re-waxed the track before scrubbing off any DNA and folding it for transport with the rest of Lorelei’s stash of tools.
Lorelei rarely congratulated me so I allowed myself the silliness of a happy dance. Compared to fun of the pulley system, finishing AP2G2 suddenly felt like torture, especially when Lorelei’s return cut off my music; she had a button on her keychain that automatically closed the secret door between the house and the basement, and killed my PA system. Thankfully, Lorelei and her disposable companion made it to the second floor.
Still, as soon as the polishing of the AP2G2 was done, I locked myself in my apartment for some anger management activity-and-dash-or-mental distractions. I busted my ass going through the training program Lorelei’s personal trainer developed for me. I hated it like Nathan Blode’s damned security systems but since muscle enhancers weren’t an option anymore and I couldn’t bear to see myself go weak and saggy-ish, I really didn’t have much of a choice.
As I crunched and push-upped, one thought went round and round between my ears: “When you’re done, you can plug in your virtual reality system and have zombies eat lead.”

7a – Hunting >>