July 5th, 2074
She takes a deep breath.
Out here, east past the park, there's a field of flowers and a wide stretch of open sky. Here it's almost impossible to hear the sounds of the city (although she can) or smell its multiple odors (if the wind is right, she can catch a few scents) or be distracted by the routines of the people who live there. Out here she is far enough from the hotel to concentrate, and out here the space is unfinished and waiting.
She lets the breath out, and lets her eyes fall closed.
The asteroid is almost entirely hollow: not like an orange peel would be without the fruit inside, but like an ant's nest is hollow. The mines have weakened it, changed its structure. Deep where there should be a core of metal and rock, there's more air than almost anything else.
Out past the empty field, she can feel the protective dome dipping into and back out of the rock. It feels like a shimmer, like the tickle she gets from the lightning running through the walls of the hotel. This place is so delicate, the inside of the asteroid almost filigreed, and she wonders if anyone else knows just how unstable it really is. One good hit and the whole thing would implode. Too much force and the dome would shatter. She's learned force and torque and the properties of leverage from the badgermoles and she knows that the asteroid would not be able to survive large-scale Earthbending. She knows that there aren't many Earthbenders who would be able to confine themselves to the safe amount of work.
Fortunately, she knows exactly what she's doing.
She sinks into her horse stance and then hops, landing firmly on the soles of both feet, and feels the field sink beneath her. Levels of silt and earth and rock solidify, crammed together to create a long, hard oval. She lifts her hands, fingers outstretched, and pulls, and at either end of the oval, levels of rock jut up, layering themselves long and low until three rows appear. She wipes one hand all the way across the ground before her, and the grass and flowers disappear in a cloud of dust and a long quiet rumble. When she puts her hands on her hips, she surveys her work: a garden-sized oval, about twenty feet long and fifteen wide, sunk perhaps two feet into the ground, with steps, each about five inches high, at either end. Kneeling, she places a flat palm on the shifted ground and feels for the structure beneath, then nods at the intact emptiness now some ten further feet beneath. It's no more damage than a building foundation, and with considerably fewer mistakes made.
It'll do for now. Wiping her hands, she gets to her feet and climbs up the freshly-made steps behind her. Training is hungry work, and somewhere in the hotel she just knows that there's a robot more than willing to help her out.
Out here, east past the park, there's a field of flowers and a wide stretch of open sky. Here it's almost impossible to hear the sounds of the city (although she can) or smell its multiple odors (if the wind is right, she can catch a few scents) or be distracted by the routines of the people who live there. Out here she is far enough from the hotel to concentrate, and out here the space is unfinished and waiting.
She lets the breath out, and lets her eyes fall closed.
The asteroid is almost entirely hollow: not like an orange peel would be without the fruit inside, but like an ant's nest is hollow. The mines have weakened it, changed its structure. Deep where there should be a core of metal and rock, there's more air than almost anything else.
Out past the empty field, she can feel the protective dome dipping into and back out of the rock. It feels like a shimmer, like the tickle she gets from the lightning running through the walls of the hotel. This place is so delicate, the inside of the asteroid almost filigreed, and she wonders if anyone else knows just how unstable it really is. One good hit and the whole thing would implode. Too much force and the dome would shatter. She's learned force and torque and the properties of leverage from the badgermoles and she knows that the asteroid would not be able to survive large-scale Earthbending. She knows that there aren't many Earthbenders who would be able to confine themselves to the safe amount of work.
Fortunately, she knows exactly what she's doing.
She sinks into her horse stance and then hops, landing firmly on the soles of both feet, and feels the field sink beneath her. Levels of silt and earth and rock solidify, crammed together to create a long, hard oval. She lifts her hands, fingers outstretched, and pulls, and at either end of the oval, levels of rock jut up, layering themselves long and low until three rows appear. She wipes one hand all the way across the ground before her, and the grass and flowers disappear in a cloud of dust and a long quiet rumble. When she puts her hands on her hips, she surveys her work: a garden-sized oval, about twenty feet long and fifteen wide, sunk perhaps two feet into the ground, with steps, each about five inches high, at either end. Kneeling, she places a flat palm on the shifted ground and feels for the structure beneath, then nods at the intact emptiness now some ten further feet beneath. It's no more damage than a building foundation, and with considerably fewer mistakes made.
It'll do for now. Wiping her hands, she gets to her feet and climbs up the freshly-made steps behind her. Training is hungry work, and somewhere in the hotel she just knows that there's a robot more than willing to help her out.