Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

Ceres laid down a simple step-by-step short-term plan for himself:

First, help the town however he could. Second, gather enough supplies and equipment, preferably not from the starving town. Third, head to Rockhold City to find answers. Four, ??? Five, Find the truth!

“This should be good enough as a rough guide. As long as I stay on track and not get pulled into meaningless side nuisances, I should be okay,” Ceres said to himself, but deep down he didn’t truly believe it would be as simple as that.

Did he not say the same thing for the competition? Look where he was now, stranded in a foreign town. Perhaps he should stop being so narrow-minded and be more aware of the consequences of his actions.

“Regardless, the best thing is to get the instructor up and running so he can help out more in the town. Perhaps he could help me control my new body as well.”

Ceres didn’t have 100% control over his body. Though he retained basic battle instincts, he still felt slightly out of place every time he fought, as though he was wearing a skin suit. His mind was still locked in the image of the old Ceres from five years ago.

If the instructor regained his mobility with the new limbs, it would be a major step towards ensuring the town survives too.

Recalling the measurements he took from the instructor, he began to draw in his mind a simple blueprint for a prosthetic arm. “Seems like I would need to somehow melt the mawsie armour shell and pour it into a mould using the electric furnace.”

He walked up towards the electric furnace, which seemed to be an arc type. The graphite electrodes were still in place, and he noticed nobody has used it recently either.

“Did they forget how to use it, or they couldn’t find anything to melt?” Ceres chalked it up to the former, knowing that most likely the instructor didn’t know either, being more of a mercenary aimed at combat rather than mass production.

Luckily for Ceres, his time at the workshop back at Zone 17 made him aware of the theory of operation for the electric arc furnace, though he never tried it before.

All he hoped for was that the mawsie’s armour melting point was slightly above the average temperature of lava, to which the temperatures created by the electrical arc between the electrodes could melt it into usable metal.

“If I could properly melt it, perhaps I could reinforce it into something stronger than anything I’ve encountered on the surface so far. I need the additional protection.”

Ceres recalled the armour piercing bullets hitting him in the left arm during his fight with the Keepers and winced. Sure, he was naked then and the black scale armour did save him, but what’s to say that the enforcers wouldn’t pull out much more powerful guns and explosives.

Personally, it was in his best interest to try to equip himself with the best gear possible. He wasn’t going to rely on some iffy black armour that only came out whenever it felt like it. “Best to try and make an entire exosuit of my own if possible.”

However, with the current state of the armoury in the town, that was nowhere near possible without making it from the mawsie armour shell. Ceres shuddered as he recalled the shoddy spears all breaking or becoming blunt barely after a few thrusts against the mawsie.

This meant that designing the prosthetic for the instructor also helped him personally on the way to making an exosuit. He had never fully designed one himself, only building it from manuals or repairing it with an idea of its original design.

Ceres got a bit excited at the prospect of making his own exosuit from scratch, but he had to work on the instructor’s prosthetic first.

He checked out the old 3D printer. Naturally the town had previously used it to create weapons and tools, but he had no clue if it could handle the temperatures that the mawsie’s armour molten state could reach.

The workshop however had plenty of refractory metals and materials such as graphite crucibles that could easily handle high temperatures. A few sets of drilling machines, grinders and saws were available as well, so Ceres didn’t have to make an entire toolset from scratch, unless he wanted the tools to be made of mawsie armour shell as well.

“I can’t really design it properly without having a multi-terminal to display the blueprints though, I should go ask the instructor if he has one. Should probably ask if it's okay to use the furnace as well... Would the town’s power grid be able to handle the electrical consumption?”

Ceres headed back to the chief’s building, but when he tried to enter the staircase up to the chief’s office, an office girl stopped him from proceeding any further. Ceres recognized her as Rebecca, the one who showed clear hostility just a few hours ago.

“You can’t see him right now, he’s sleeping. If you need anything, just ask me or scram.”

Ceres’s eyebrow twitched, but he repressed his anger and asked politely. “Sorry, I need a multi-terminal that can project 3D images. I require it for the instructor’s prosthetics.”

“Are you sure you’re not going to run away with it? If you do, I swear the town will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. We only have a few left in this town, don’t break it.” Rebecca said suspiciously as she reached towards a locker, entering a pin before taking out a multi-terminal.

Ceres anger slightly soared even more from Rebecca’s lack of trust, but he too understood where she was coming from. “Thank you. By the way, I would like to use the electric furnace, but I’m not sure if your town can handle the energy draw from the power grid.”

“Wow you really ask for a lot huh? That’s not up to me, you’ll have to talk to the geothermal plant lady if they are ready to run.”

“Don’t you have a power storage device on standby?” Ceres was confused. His entire workshop on the surface was able to draw all the power he wanted – it was almost unlimited. In the event the power grid went down, he had his own power storage device that could keep him powered independently for up to thirty days.

“Flash news, genius surface-dweller: we’re poor and have outdated technology, thank you very much. Don’t even mention energy storage, even power supply is intermittent.”

Ceres wanted to say that relying on a single geothermal power plant was a single point of failure for the town, but decided against it. Maybe they had another backup in the event of a power failure. Ceres hoped that was true, else the barrier meant to defend against wildlife would be gone otherwise.

Rebecca pointed out to him on a map where the geothermal plant was, which was located near the end of the cavern. As Ceres walked through the town, the townspeople still eyed him warily, avoiding him wherever he walked.

Everyone had the same pale skin, a side effect of not having enough UV radiation from the local star. Ceres’s tanned skin was a dead giveaway that he was from the surface.

The closer he got to the geothermal plant however, the less people he saw and the stronger the smell of sewage got. The large chimney vents of the geothermal plant were bent into the walls of the cavern, no doubt releasing its pressure and dense gases into another cave.

At the front of the geothermal power plant was the control centre, with hardly any guards guarding it. Ceres figured that it was already hard enough to have enough combat-capable guards to protect the town, much less the power plant.

The control centre was a standard factory-like building, with large hallways and pipes running along the grey corridors. The scale of the plant was fairly large, and Ceres was certain that it could potentially provide enough power for maybe 10,000 people, but it was quite dilapidated.

Yet for all its size, Ceres could hardly find anyone working in the control centre. Most of the monitoring stations were empty, save for one room: the master control room. As he knocked politely on the door, it was opened by a young girl no more than six years old. Ceres wasn’t expecting a kid to be in the master control room.

“Are you an angel?” The girl asked innocently.

“What? No... I’m not an angel.”

“Then why do you look so different from a human? You’re coated in brown!”

Ceres did not know what to say. “That’s because... I came from the surface.”

“The surface? What’s that?”

Ceres did not know how to explain to the kid, when an older voice came from within the room. “An, stop bothering the newcomer. Come in, boy.”

The master control room could be described in one word: monitors. There were monitors almost everywhere – the walls, ceilings, floor. Most monitors were linked to a camera watching a specific part of the geothermal plant’s operation, while one specifically large monitor showed a huge number of graphs and charts detailing the production and consumption of different sectors in the town.

“I heard the rumours of a new surface-dweller in town. Did not expect you to be so young. Usually, they come in ragged and at the end of their life, or crippled and starving. Just like the town chief. You look very healthy.” The older voice was revealed to be an old woman with white hair in her sixties, though she wore a protective suit with her hair neatly tied into a ponytail.

A glimpse of her former beauty could be seen in her face, though it had been marred by age and stress. She crossed her legs as she sat on a normal reclining chair, while An ran around the room, looking at the different screens.

“Apparently I’ve already crossed the end of my life, if that’s anything to go by.” Ceres joked.

“So it seems. Welcome to the town, my name is Xi. I am one of the town’s elders. Thank you for saving Oswa and the town. Don’t listen to the others when they blame you for bringing the mawsie horde in the first place, it was bound to happen either way.”

“I still consider it my fault, and I’m currently working on a solution against the increased monster threat.”

“Oh really? I thought you were currently supposed to build new prosthetics for the instructor.”

“That’s just a stop-gap measure, I can easily go further than that. Without going into too much details, I can produce better gear and materials for the town. All I need is maybe a significant amount of the power grid every day.”

“Explain.”

Ceres began explaining his plan to create a new metal out of the mawsie’s armour to Xi, who was surprisingly able to understand everything.

“That’s an interesting plan, but it’s heavily reliant on the geothermal plant working non-stop. I’m not entirely sure if the plant can handle it. In fact, I’m not even sure if the electric furnace can handle it in the first place, with the way you’re going to abuse it.” Xi tapped her hands as she contemplated the next steps.

“I just arrived, so I’m open to suggestions. This is probably my first time attempting to manufacture metal manually as well, so I’m kinda of going in blind here.” Ceres wasn’t lying.

Despite his previous experience as an exosuit repairer, he always had the parts ready for him to use and replace. If he didn’t have the part, he could easily scavenge one from the trash yard or other defunct exosuits.

The existence of a metal 3D printer also made it easier for him to create parts on the fly, but this time he was trying to make it out of a ‘metal’ that he was not sure if it was workable or not. Would the 3D printer in the workshop even accept it?

“You should talk to someone who have used the workshop before to get a better understanding of its capabilities. Maybe he can also tell you the location of any ore veins and exotics that could be used to further strengthen the mawsie armour shell.”

“I heard the last person to use the workshop is away on an expedition?” Ceres asked.

“Yes, that’s Yan. There are still older people before her who have used it, like Zhang, another town elder. You can go ask Captain Kai to bring you to them. I’m not an expert at metal production and as far as I know, you’re probably the first one in the last 200 years insane enough to treat the mawsie armour as a resource, so you’re on your own there. Zhang used to be an expert at metal-making, but he’s currently fasting.”

“Grandma, what does insane mean?” An asked curiously.

“It means doing something different than what other people do.” Xi replied fondly, the six year old girl climbing up onto her lap.

“So is he an insane angel?”

“Probably.” Xi laughed as she tickled An, who tried to squirm out of the old lady’s lap.

Ceres forced a smile. “Well thanks for the compliment. I’ll inform you before I begin using the electric arc furnace."

"Sure, just contact me via radio and all will be good. On a side note, if you’re able to produce the prosthetic for the instructor, please produce a set for all the disabled people in the town. Most of those who are fasting now want to help the town out, but can’t due to their former injuries or disabilities. Producing more sets of prosthetics will help us a lot.”

“Of course, I will.” Ceres agreed readily. As much as he wanted to get to the surface, he was not comfortable seeing a society being helpless either and have no other choice to ration themselves. Ceres already decided earlier to not ignore problems that he came across if he could help it.

“An, see him out.”

“Yes ma’am! Insane angel, follow me!” The six-year old girl readily jumped out of the old lady’s lap, leading Ceres out of the control centre.

The walk was fairly awkward, with the little girl An humming a foreign tune as they strolled towards the exit.

“Do you enjoy your life down here?” Ceres couldn’t help asking the girl. He was curious as to how children felt about living in an enclosed subterranean town – it was extremely claustrophobic to Ceres, though he knew he had no choice.

“Down? Down where?” An asked confusingly, unsure of what Ceres meant.

“Sorry, I meant this town.”

“Yes, I have fun! Everyday I learn about new buttons and new monitors, it’s very interesting! I know a lot of people depend on Grandma, so I hope one day I can help people too and they can depend on me!” An replied excitedly, walking with a spring in her step.

Ceres noted she was much more optimistic than everyone else in the town that he had seen so far, but her happiness and go-lucky attitude warmed his heart.

He somehow associated the colour of bright yellow and soft pink to her, though he didn’t know why he recently has been associating colours to people.

He felt like there was a deeper story to how these people ended up in the town. He could see a slight resemblance from the townspeople among themselves, as though they were all related to each other.

“Are you here to help us too, insane angel?” An asked as they reached the exit of the control center. “I hope you help us, because I have heard of bad angels before! If you are a bad angel, I will get Grandma to punish you!”

Ceres chuckled. “Of course, I’m here to help! I am the best and smartest insane angel you’ll ever meet. There is no great genius without a mixture of insanity, you know?”

An cocked her head sideways: “But you don’t look smart to me?”

M.G.Driver

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