RIFTS Stories: The Techno Wizard
She sits motionless on her aircycle lost in thought.
A small red light begins to blink on the instrument panel with an associated binging noise produced by her psi-helm.
Woken from her thoughts she looks down to see what the cause of the error was, and felt overwhelmed with pride.
None of her contemporaries bothered with the extra little gizmos that she liked to install in her designs.
She loved the little things like this that made her machines act like regular technology.
For instance this little device was a kind of fuel guage that let her know when the PPE batteries were running low on her bike.
Of course she was trained to magically sense the levels of Potential Psychic Energy left in her devices but it felt nice to have her machines inform her instead of having to check for herself.
Especially with her habit of dazing off and loosing track of time.
She hopped off her aircycle and opened it's main engine compartment.
It's insides looked like something from a pre-rifts science fiction show.
All the guts of the motorcycle it used to be had been removed and replaced with magically charged crystal shards.
Each crystal served a specific purpose, one for turning the wheels one for adjusting speed one for the headlight and plenty more for all the little functions she liked.
She had been working on this bike for over five years now, slowly adding new features as she thought of them.
It was her masterpiece.
She could feel that the largest of the crystal shards was running low, so she placed her hand on it and focused her attention to recharging it with her magical will.
Of course all the other Tech-Mages made sure to call it PPE because of it's more scientific feel, and she agreed that was a clever name, but she preferred to stay honest with herself.
What she does with these machines is magic.
Naming new inventions was one of the best parts.
Like the aircycle.
This beauty could fly.
Sure it had to drive into a lay line and follow that natural wall of energy in order to fly, but it would still fly.
So she called it her aircycle, simple but really effective.
Or her psi-helm, she added a number of sensory spells to it's functions as well as a little bit of psychic protection, just in case.
The Telekinetic Pistol she carried at her hip was named by someone else, all tech-mage weapons were TK something or other, but it was still clever.
She did have all sorts of gadgets at her workshop that she named herself.
Devices that worked only because she fueled them with her own magic power.
Trying not to distract her concentration from charging up her bike she held her train of thoughts there for a moment.
Something... didn't seem right.
With the bike fully fueled and it's panels closed and locked she stood and looked around.
Where was she?
She had charged up the bike just this morning before going out, and for it to be low like this she would have had to have been using most of it's major functions for hours.
Then it dawns on her, the sun is setting, she's lost an entire day.
Whats more worry some is, if her psi-helm's gyro compass is right, she's miles from home.
And that cinches it.
She jumps back onto her bike and begins to drive it to the closest lay line.
This sort of thing has happened before, and she's built something just in case it happened again.
Her psi-helm displayed directions and range to a lay line that she recognized.
She rode her bike hard and fast to the line and then turned into it as if it were a road.
Rapidly the bike began to rise into the air.
Motivated by her concerns she moved to shut down any unused functions of the bike so she could pour it all into speed.
Then she sat back in the seat and let her mind wander until she was close to home.
One sure advantage to her aircycle, she could sit comfortably.
So many other tech-mages used those little one man glider things.
They looked stupid, and they were really uncomfortable.
This bike though was an old roadster, it was made so two people could sit on it comfortably for days.
Using it has helped her out on many occasions, she's even made some money driving or flying people from place to place with it.
Nothing quite like enjoying the work you do, and the fruits of that labour.
She let her thoughts work their way to some of her projects on the go.
She was concerned about the lost time, but she knew this would be a long trip, at least four hours at this speed, and there was no point worrying about something when you couldn't fix it.
She'd be home soon enough, and then she'd see what was going on.
The small town she called home was nothing special.
Some trucks drove through here and brought business to the shops, but other than that it was just the people taking care of themselves.
She liked it though, because it was a little off the grid.
Magic is very common in this day and age but several nations don't approve of it's use in their borders, especially not the Coalition.
If she was in their borders she would be hunted and killed for consorting with 'Powers un-natural.'
Her workshop sat near one of the gas stations in the town.
Not for the gas, certainly not, she was all the power her stuff would ever need, but for the parts.
It's all well and good to build a magical device, but if it doesn't have a sturdy shell to protect it's delicates you may as well not have built it.
This was home all right, and exactly what she needed right now.
She willed her psi-helm to send a signal to the garage door which opened smoothly as it always does, and drove her bike home.
Then quickly running over to a bulky metal box on a counter she flicked some switches and watched her newest device start up.
She had yet to test this thing, it had been a while since her last long black out, but she knew that if her own memory couldn't tell her what happened then a little magic just might do the trick.
She plugged a cord from the yet nameless device into her psi-helm and waited for the sensations to come over her.
Maybe auto-memory is a good name, she thought, as she willed the device to find a particular time in her history.
Most of the magic this thing used was beyond her, she had to get some help from a Mystic she knew to get all the post-cognition spells and mind illusions needed to make it work right.
Basically what it did though was take a subject, herself this time, and find a moment in their past and then play it back to them so they can see what went on.
It didn't work by reading the memories in her mind though, cause she tried that before with a different device and there was nothing there to read. No, this thing used the magics to look back in time somehow.
Amazing stuff.
Aha, there's this morning.
--***--
She stepped out of her workshop on her way to a store to get some more screws and chewing gum.
There she was approached by a short thin man wearing light mega damage armor.
It was black, maybe even dead-boy armor, but it didn't have any of the tell tale rank markings, nor did it have the standard skull shaped helm.
No this guy wore it without a helm, which seemed pointless to her at the time.
He walked up to her with a confident but rushed pace.
He looked her in the eyes with a smile and talked as if they were friends.
"Hello darling, I've come to get your help."
Nobody ever called her darling.
"Sorry who are you?"
His smile widened.
"That's a good girl. I need you to pilot that fabulous vehicle for me."
"I'm busy."
She quickened her pace and tried to get past this guy.
As she did her psi-helm bleeped indicating some of it's defenses were being activated.
He stepped in front of her and any look of humour had left his face.
Now he seemed to be concentrating on her eyes, and he became demanding.
"No I really must insist. You see I have to move quickly and quietly and you're my best option right now."
He pointed back towards her workshop and motioned with his other hand like he was coaxing a dog to move.
"Go on, get your little vehicle ready, you're taking me where I need to go."
Completely shocked, she complied.
In fact from that moment on she did exactly what he asked.
She set him up behind her on the bike, drove fast to a lay line of his choosing.
And when they were in the air he even told her to activate a secret device on her aircycle.
One she hadn't told anyone about, ever.
The bike slowed down slightly and then vehicle, pilot and passengers stopped reflecting light.
Beams of light passed through them as if they weren't there, and as far as anyone watching would have seen they just vanished.
She was proud of the invisibility, very handy that, but his knowledge of it scared her, who is this guy?
When they reached the destination he had chosen, he stepped off the bike and concentrated on her once more.
Her psi-helm bleeped repeatedly as it tried in vain to protect her from his psychic onslaught.
He mumbled to himself as he worked on her mind.
"Now to keep you unaware of me, can't have you telling my chaser anything."
Then he was gone, and her bike began to notify her that it's PPE batteries were running low.
--***--
"Bastard!"
Enraged she spoke aloud to herself as she removed her psi-helm.
Must have been a mind melter, this thing can protect me from Psi-Stalkers but I've never tested it against a mind melter before.
"Bastard!"
Then a grim thought pulled over her, he acted as if they were friends, and she's lost time like this before.
"How many times have you used me like this?"
"What else have you made me do?"
A small red light begins to blink on the instrument panel with an associated binging noise produced by her psi-helm.
Woken from her thoughts she looks down to see what the cause of the error was, and felt overwhelmed with pride.
None of her contemporaries bothered with the extra little gizmos that she liked to install in her designs.
She loved the little things like this that made her machines act like regular technology.
For instance this little device was a kind of fuel guage that let her know when the PPE batteries were running low on her bike.
Of course she was trained to magically sense the levels of Potential Psychic Energy left in her devices but it felt nice to have her machines inform her instead of having to check for herself.
Especially with her habit of dazing off and loosing track of time.
She hopped off her aircycle and opened it's main engine compartment.
It's insides looked like something from a pre-rifts science fiction show.
All the guts of the motorcycle it used to be had been removed and replaced with magically charged crystal shards.
Each crystal served a specific purpose, one for turning the wheels one for adjusting speed one for the headlight and plenty more for all the little functions she liked.
She had been working on this bike for over five years now, slowly adding new features as she thought of them.
It was her masterpiece.
She could feel that the largest of the crystal shards was running low, so she placed her hand on it and focused her attention to recharging it with her magical will.
Of course all the other Tech-Mages made sure to call it PPE because of it's more scientific feel, and she agreed that was a clever name, but she preferred to stay honest with herself.
What she does with these machines is magic.
Naming new inventions was one of the best parts.
Like the aircycle.
This beauty could fly.
Sure it had to drive into a lay line and follow that natural wall of energy in order to fly, but it would still fly.
So she called it her aircycle, simple but really effective.
Or her psi-helm, she added a number of sensory spells to it's functions as well as a little bit of psychic protection, just in case.
The Telekinetic Pistol she carried at her hip was named by someone else, all tech-mage weapons were TK something or other, but it was still clever.
She did have all sorts of gadgets at her workshop that she named herself.
Devices that worked only because she fueled them with her own magic power.
Trying not to distract her concentration from charging up her bike she held her train of thoughts there for a moment.
Something... didn't seem right.
With the bike fully fueled and it's panels closed and locked she stood and looked around.
Where was she?
She had charged up the bike just this morning before going out, and for it to be low like this she would have had to have been using most of it's major functions for hours.
Then it dawns on her, the sun is setting, she's lost an entire day.
Whats more worry some is, if her psi-helm's gyro compass is right, she's miles from home.
And that cinches it.
She jumps back onto her bike and begins to drive it to the closest lay line.
This sort of thing has happened before, and she's built something just in case it happened again.
Her psi-helm displayed directions and range to a lay line that she recognized.
She rode her bike hard and fast to the line and then turned into it as if it were a road.
Rapidly the bike began to rise into the air.
Motivated by her concerns she moved to shut down any unused functions of the bike so she could pour it all into speed.
Then she sat back in the seat and let her mind wander until she was close to home.
One sure advantage to her aircycle, she could sit comfortably.
So many other tech-mages used those little one man glider things.
They looked stupid, and they were really uncomfortable.
This bike though was an old roadster, it was made so two people could sit on it comfortably for days.
Using it has helped her out on many occasions, she's even made some money driving or flying people from place to place with it.
Nothing quite like enjoying the work you do, and the fruits of that labour.
She let her thoughts work their way to some of her projects on the go.
She was concerned about the lost time, but she knew this would be a long trip, at least four hours at this speed, and there was no point worrying about something when you couldn't fix it.
She'd be home soon enough, and then she'd see what was going on.
The small town she called home was nothing special.
Some trucks drove through here and brought business to the shops, but other than that it was just the people taking care of themselves.
She liked it though, because it was a little off the grid.
Magic is very common in this day and age but several nations don't approve of it's use in their borders, especially not the Coalition.
If she was in their borders she would be hunted and killed for consorting with 'Powers un-natural.'
Her workshop sat near one of the gas stations in the town.
Not for the gas, certainly not, she was all the power her stuff would ever need, but for the parts.
It's all well and good to build a magical device, but if it doesn't have a sturdy shell to protect it's delicates you may as well not have built it.
This was home all right, and exactly what she needed right now.
She willed her psi-helm to send a signal to the garage door which opened smoothly as it always does, and drove her bike home.
Then quickly running over to a bulky metal box on a counter she flicked some switches and watched her newest device start up.
She had yet to test this thing, it had been a while since her last long black out, but she knew that if her own memory couldn't tell her what happened then a little magic just might do the trick.
She plugged a cord from the yet nameless device into her psi-helm and waited for the sensations to come over her.
Maybe auto-memory is a good name, she thought, as she willed the device to find a particular time in her history.
Most of the magic this thing used was beyond her, she had to get some help from a Mystic she knew to get all the post-cognition spells and mind illusions needed to make it work right.
Basically what it did though was take a subject, herself this time, and find a moment in their past and then play it back to them so they can see what went on.
It didn't work by reading the memories in her mind though, cause she tried that before with a different device and there was nothing there to read. No, this thing used the magics to look back in time somehow.
Amazing stuff.
Aha, there's this morning.
--***--
She stepped out of her workshop on her way to a store to get some more screws and chewing gum.
There she was approached by a short thin man wearing light mega damage armor.
It was black, maybe even dead-boy armor, but it didn't have any of the tell tale rank markings, nor did it have the standard skull shaped helm.
No this guy wore it without a helm, which seemed pointless to her at the time.
He walked up to her with a confident but rushed pace.
He looked her in the eyes with a smile and talked as if they were friends.
"Hello darling, I've come to get your help."
Nobody ever called her darling.
"Sorry who are you?"
His smile widened.
"That's a good girl. I need you to pilot that fabulous vehicle for me."
"I'm busy."
She quickened her pace and tried to get past this guy.
As she did her psi-helm bleeped indicating some of it's defenses were being activated.
He stepped in front of her and any look of humour had left his face.
Now he seemed to be concentrating on her eyes, and he became demanding.
"No I really must insist. You see I have to move quickly and quietly and you're my best option right now."
He pointed back towards her workshop and motioned with his other hand like he was coaxing a dog to move.
"Go on, get your little vehicle ready, you're taking me where I need to go."
Completely shocked, she complied.
In fact from that moment on she did exactly what he asked.
She set him up behind her on the bike, drove fast to a lay line of his choosing.
And when they were in the air he even told her to activate a secret device on her aircycle.
One she hadn't told anyone about, ever.
The bike slowed down slightly and then vehicle, pilot and passengers stopped reflecting light.
Beams of light passed through them as if they weren't there, and as far as anyone watching would have seen they just vanished.
She was proud of the invisibility, very handy that, but his knowledge of it scared her, who is this guy?
When they reached the destination he had chosen, he stepped off the bike and concentrated on her once more.
Her psi-helm bleeped repeatedly as it tried in vain to protect her from his psychic onslaught.
He mumbled to himself as he worked on her mind.
"Now to keep you unaware of me, can't have you telling my chaser anything."
Then he was gone, and her bike began to notify her that it's PPE batteries were running low.
--***--
"Bastard!"
Enraged she spoke aloud to herself as she removed her psi-helm.
Must have been a mind melter, this thing can protect me from Psi-Stalkers but I've never tested it against a mind melter before.
"Bastard!"
Then a grim thought pulled over her, he acted as if they were friends, and she's lost time like this before.
"How many times have you used me like this?"
"What else have you made me do?"