What Had He Trained Her Into?

"What was that about?" Gordon watched the three business representatives leave.

They walked out of the alley, climbed into a carriage on the main street, and swiftly disappeared at a speed that violated traffic regulations.

"People from Midas Industries." Sinclair sounded resigned. "They want the blueprints for my gun."

Midas Industries.

A manufacturing giant in Lundenim, with interests in everything from armaments and railways to shipbuilding.

"What kind of gun?" Gordon asked curiously.

"One that loads faster than any other gun of this era," Sinclair said mysteriously. "Suitable for soldiers and Essence Hunters alike... if the locking mechanism can withstand the chamber pressure of Silver Salt Bullets, it could become the standard weapon for the next generation of hunters."

Vera glanced at her sword.

The longsword said nothing, but the times might be starting to leave it behind.

"They want the blueprints for your new rifle? They could pay a fortune to buy them outright," Gordon said.

"That's different. I want an exclusive patent on this new gun," Sinclair said. "It's a gamble, too-a bet that I'm the first person in all of Logris to design this rifle. Then every gun sold will earn me money."

Having said that, Sinclair lost himself in his glorious vision of the future.

"Then you don't need to patent the whole gun," Gordon said.

Sinclair snapped out of his daydream and pinched his little mustache.

"Mr. Vick," Sinclair said dubiously, "I remember you studied in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Why would you take an interest in guns?"

"I don't know anything about guns, of course, but I do know how people will steal your money," Gordon explained.

"I'm all ears." Sinclair's expression grew serious.

"If you patent the entire gun, Midas Industries only needs to copy the locking mechanism, use a different firing mechanism, and change the stock's shape and the barrel's length. Then they can claim it's their own original design and mass-produce it without paying you a penny. If you take them to court, your son might live to see the result, and it might not even go your way."

Sinclair froze for a moment.

That was true. In fact, it sounded very much like standard practice for Midas's legal department.

He was interested only in craftsmanship and had little experience protecting the fruits of his work.

If the company played dirty, there really wasn't much he could do.

Gordon, on the other hand, was a man who never let a gold pound slip past him.

"Then what should I do?" Sinclair couldn't help asking.

"Break it down as far as you can," Gordon said. "You can patent the locking mechanism, the extractor, even the stock you designed and the new Source Substance ammunition. That changes everything. No matter how a factory alters the overall gun, as long as it uses a similar design, it has to send a payment to this address."

"Ah..." Sinclair nodded.

He had originally brought this up partly to show off.

He hadn't expected Gordon to identify the crucial point-one that might bring Sinclair enormous profits.

Naturally, Gordon understood these things very well.

A man who could sell one spider three times could never tolerate someone selling a technology only once.

"I understand." Sinclair spoke to Gordon with greater respect. "Once I invent that gun and make some money, I'll give you one."

"I'll look forward to it." Gordon nodded his thanks to Sinclair. After all, he would get a good gun out of it.

"Please, come in." Sinclair invited Gordon and Vera into the workshop's back room.

Gordon had expected a craftsman's home to be rather dirty, perhaps smelling of machine oil or containing half-finished devices liable to explode.

Instead, Sinclair kept the room spotless. A fire burned in the hearth, great logs blazing behind a brass grate and casting a warm, bright glow over the mantel clock, porcelain vases, and books. The aroma of delicious food filled the air.

He and Vera sat on a sofa upholstered in floral fabric.

Sinclair brought out strong tea and a beef pie, then opened a packet of butter cookies bearing the emblem of the "Style" food company and arranged everything neatly on the low table before his guests.

[Delicious beef pie. The most worthwhile death a cow ever died.]

The aroma wafted through the room.

Vera, however, didn't move.

She glanced at Gordon first.

That expression...

It was as though she were waiting for a command.

Sinclair couldn't help raising his eyebrows.

Gordon took out his "Health Management Record" and glanced at the clock on the wall.

"How long since your last meal?" Gordon asked.

"Four hours and twenty minutes."

"You can have seven hundred grams of pie. Judging by its size, that's half. Only two cookies, though. They're too high in calories."

"I just scared off three people. That used energy, too."

"You only said seven words. Negligible."

"I unleashed my killing intent."

"You can unleash killing intent?"

Vera glared at Gordon. Now Gordon knew that killing intent could indeed be unleashed.

"...Give Miss Cateret another two cookies," Sinclair interjected in time. "It's dinnertime, after all. I can't have people thinking the workshop is so poor it can only offer half a pie, and I'd rather my last job today wasn't collecting Mr. Vick's corpse."

"All right." Gordon allowed Vera one extra cookie. "The third goes under social obligations, not actual need."

"Fine." Vera took three cookies.

Gordon cut open the pie. Thick gravy spilled out from beneath the flaky crust, releasing the scent of onion and black pepper, and he gave Vera half.

Vera ate quickly, though no longer with the jaw-dropping speed she once had.

Once she had finished eating and drinking, Vera laid her sword across her knees and sat upright, pretending to doze.

She looked as though she were exercising restraint-or eating the remaining half of the pie in her head.

Sinclair made Gordon some tea.

As he leaned closer, he couldn't help lowering his voice.

"Forgive my impertinence," Sinclair said, "but how exactly did you manage that?"

"I'm a doctor, and Miss Cateret is my patient. Monitoring her diet is part of her treatment," Gordon explained.

"...Really?" Sinclair looked skeptical.

"Yes. He manages my health and daily routine to keep me from abusing Source Substance powers and medication," Vera said.

"See? Perfectly reasonable," Gordon said.

"He also checks my wounds and examines my eyes and limbs. Sometimes he orders me to lie down. If I move around, he holds me down," Vera said.

Sinclair's hand stopped pouring the tea.

"That's treatment! Medical care!" Seeing Sinclair's expression grow increasingly strange, Gordon hurried to explain.

"If I behave well, he rewards me, too. Just like earlier, when I got an extra cookie," Vera said in all seriousness.

Good heavens!

What had he trained her into?

Sinclair's expression froze.

"It's not as though I'm bullying you," Gordon said hastily.

"I never said it was bad." Vera looked at Gordon.

The room grew even quieter.

Sinclair cleared his throat, unwilling to hear any more of this increasingly delicate conversation.

"All right, all right." Struggling to keep his composure, he gave a discreet nod. "I know. Those who know, know."

"...Have you made anything lately, Mr. Sinclair?" Gordon changed the subject.

"Of course." Sinclair gratefully took the opening. "I made that sorrowful Source Substance into a collar that brings up criminals' painful memories and sold it to the Lundenim Police Station. Whoever wears it keeps remembering their saddest memories, the ones they're least willing to let go of. The patrol officers love it. They think it works better than punching someone repeatedly in the stomach."

"Excellent, excellent. That's what we call civilization."

"Also, I used a Source Substance with a rather peculiar aspect to make a burst bottle and gave it to a famous hunter on Wycliffe Street."

Gordon nodded.

Who knew which lucky soul would get hit in the head with a bottle of failure at the most crucial moment of their life?

That was the charm of spiritual craftsmanship.

It could turn Source Substance unsuitable for assimilation into products humanity needed more.

Madness, sorrow, failure, corruption... swallowing them only caused trouble, but throwing them at someone could turn a profit.

Sinclair was clearly an expert.

"In that case, I have a commission." Gordon slowly unfolded a blueprint.

[Your blueprint. It depicts a big, terrifying toy.]

Once the paper was unfolded, a trace of a craftsman's solemn concentration finally appeared on Sinclair's face.

This blueprint...

It outlined a device Sinclair had never imagined.

It included an elliptical central chamber, a pair of secondary chambers on either side, a liquid inlet, a drainage valve, a pressure gauge, a sampling port, an observation window, an insulating layer, and a complete mechanical assembly that made the chambers simulate contractions...

Sinclair didn't ask what it was for first.

The drawing was simply too good, too clean.

The lines were straight and the curves precise. Sinclair had started practicing freehand circles as a child, and only now could he consider himself accomplished.

Yet every circle on this drawing was just as good as Sinclair's.

Most frightening of all... the drawing appeared to have no corrections. It had been done in a single pass.

"Who drew this?" he couldn't help asking.

"I did."

"With what instrument?"

"A pencil."

"What brand of drafting ruler?"

"I didn't buy one. Saved the money."

"So this was drawn freehand?"

"Yes, yes," Gordon said.

A hint of respect rose in Sinclair's heart, and he studied the blueprint again.

It felt as though the artist already had a precise image in his mind, and the pencil had merely transferred it to paper. It was an extraordinary skill.

He nodded.

"Mr. Vick, if you ever need a job, you can come here and draw blueprints for me," Sinclair said earnestly.

"The salary?"

"Thirteen gold pounds a year."

"Too little." Gordon rejected it immediately.

Sinclair couldn't help feeling a pang of regret.

Only then did he turn his attention back to the drawing itself.

Gordon had worked hard to label everything and make it look as much like a respectable piece of laboratory equipment as possible.

Nevertheless, Sinclair finally fell silent.

On closer consideration.

Looking at the "structure capable of automatic rhythmic reciprocation" and the "oddly well-defined tubular passage"...

His first thought was...

Was Gordon trying to invent the world's first automatic masturbator?