For a brief moment she entertained the idea of going to Derek and asking him to help her acquire a few things, but she (prudently) didn't. The less time spent in contact with Derek the better--he was disturbingly manipulative and surprisingly sneaky (even though he was almost eight feet tall).
Richard asked, "Do you have a time estimate?"
"Not yet, sorry," Nell said. "I don't usually know until I've been working on something for a few hours. I've made holographic projectors before, but never ones that could intercept broadcasts from the future."
"Yeah, there's no way that could be easy."
"You do okay. What was on the future news?"
"Not much," he sighed. "The 2018 line of cars looks really cool though. Someone got in a wreck, so there was a major story about that.
"Oh, yes," he recalled. "The 2013 news had a thing on The Afterdark."
"Did they catch him?" Nell wondered aloud. The Afterdark, the man Nell knew better as Derek, was a super villain.
"No," said Richard. "Even in the future he's a trouble-maker."
Nell snorted at the understatement. The Afterdark was a trouble-maker if you considered bank robbery, assault, homicide, arson, and high treason to be mere trouble. She had a tenuous relationship with him at best. It was her job, after all, to build weapons for him. There was no other life for Nell but that of a mechanic, and because she was so young there was no work except work where she was payed under the table. It turned out that the only people in the world who needed a genius like Nell to engineer for them were super villains looking to one-up their nemesis.
Richard asked, "Do you have a time estimate?"
"Not yet, sorry," Nell said. "I don't usually know until I've been working on something for a few hours. I've made holographic projectors before, but never ones that could intercept broadcasts from the future."
"Yeah, there's no way that could be easy."
"You do okay. What was on the future news?"
"Not much," he sighed. "The 2018 line of cars looks really cool though. Someone got in a wreck, so there was a major story about that.
"Oh, yes," he recalled. "The 2013 news had a thing on The Afterdark."
"Did they catch him?" Nell wondered aloud. The Afterdark, the man Nell knew better as Derek, was a super villain.
"No," said Richard. "Even in the future he's a trouble-maker."
Nell snorted at the understatement. The Afterdark was a trouble-maker if you considered bank robbery, assault, homicide, arson, and high treason to be mere trouble. She had a tenuous relationship with him at best. It was her job, after all, to build weapons for him. There was no other life for Nell but that of a mechanic, and because she was so young there was no work except work where she was payed under the table. It turned out that the only people in the world who needed a genius like Nell to engineer for them were super villains looking to one-up their nemesis.
