The Noble Queen-A Shadow Slave Fanfic

Chapter 843 843: Shimmering Spark

The bulb brushed Blaze's fingers as it was released from Brock's hand. It slipped from their grasps. The glass tumbled down, ready to shatter on the rocky ground.

"I've got it!" Teddy lunged to catch it, extending her arm to prevent all the hard work from going to waste.

But she was not fast enough. The fragile bauble fell within a centimeter of the ground and froze. Then it floated to Noble's waiting hand.

"That works too," Teddy stood and dusted off herself, "though not nearly as dramatic."

Noble smiled at the young woman. "I'll remember that for next time. Shall we try this again?"

The professor looked down at the object in her hand. Bulbs like this hadn't been used in the wealthier districts since before her parents were born, but the outskirts were a different story.

In those places where landlords didn't provide cheap, industrial lighting, the old, rudimentary light bulbs were still sold—their composition changing little from before the dark times. Their production had only increased during the Antarctic evacuation as the government used them in the tents and other temporary housing of their immigration centers.

The bulbs gave off light and heat, which were both precious commodities in the cold, dark winters of the NQSC.

Now that the outskirts were nearly empty and evacuation centers were a thing of the past, these bulbs were not in high demand. In fact, Noble wasn't even sure they were still in production.

The floating Saint had used her connections to locate a new one, buy it, and transport it two days before the Solstice. If she hadn't, Noble had resolved to go door to door in the empty dwellings of the outskirts to collect some.

'If this works, I still might….'

Noble floated the bulb to the waiting hands of her son.

He placed it in the hole at the top, which turned out to be an old lighting fixture, and turned the light until it was tightly secured.

Blaze climbed down.

"Did you connect the bulb to the shard via wire?" Fort studied the schematics.

"I didn't want that to be a point of failure, so right now the contact of the bulb is directly inserted into the casing." Blaze moved to collect the final part of his design.

"Oh, let me!" Teddy rushed ahead of him.

She picked up a metal canister and shook it from side to side. "What's this? Fuel?"

"In a manner of speaking," Blaze hoisted another container and motioned for all of them to follow suit.

They lugged half of the containers from the crate to the secondary pipe and set them down. Making sure the valve where the pipe met the main chassis was closed, he opened the first container and began pouring it in.

"Water!" Unlike the people in the suits, Teddy could smell the fresh well water. It was still cool and had been well insulated. "Did you draw all of that up yourself?"

"We have a pump behind the house, so we have been working on filling the jugs for a few days." Brock nodded. He had been trying to build up muscle mass, but it made lugging gear up to the volcano extra painful.

Blaze was too focused to say anything as he filled the pipe. He didn't want to spill a drop. Finally, the job was complete. He capped the final container and took a step back.

"What now?" Teddy twiddled her fingers in the air, toying with something only she could see.

"The water will travel down this side, hit the hot temperatures below, and immediately turn to steam. That steam will come up with enough force to push through the other pipe and move the turbine. Then, with a little luck, that energy will charge the shard and provide this world's version of an electromagnetic field. If that happens, then the bulb should light." Blaze crossed his fingers.

He attached a cord to the valve and ran it a safe distance away from his device. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be far from his catastrophic failure.

The rest of the group got behind him, all except Noble, who was ready to contain a potential blast. She nodded at Blaze.

"Whenever you are ready."

"Three, two, one…now!" Blaze pulled on the cord, but it wouldn't budge. "Seems it's under more pressure than I anticipated."

He tugged again. Brock joined him and then Fort. But before Teddy could join, which likely would have broken the cord, Noble intervened.

Using her telekinesis, she pulled the release and let the water flow.

Flow it did.

The gush of water drained into the chasm in a steady stream. A heartbeat passed before the water met the overwhelming heat contained in the fissure. Before it could ever travel low enough to reach the base and flow toward the lava, it turned to sizzling steam. The heated vapor shot up through the chasm and was caught in the wide bell shape.

It collected in the bell, continuing to push upward into the turbine. A low hum filled the air.

Noble held her breath. The water continued to pour, steam continued to rise, and the turbine continued to spin.

'Come on. Come on!' Noble wondered how long it would be before they knew if the shard was charging.

Surely there was some way to tell! The sound of the turbine was encouraging, but that alone did not count as a success.

If only Roan were here!

Noble hadn't directly asked him, but she was pretty sure he could feel the electrical energy in the air, or at least something like that to summon lightning at will. Surely Roan could tell her what was going on inside the device.

Or better yet, Roan could have charged the device himself with his lightning.

Though that would not have been a feasible choice for powering a whole city.

'It would have shown proof of concept, though. Or, at the very least, shown that the light bulb worked. I really should have tried it out before bringing it here. What if the experiment doesn't work just because the bulb is faulty?!'

Noble hadn't had any place to try it out at the academy, and she had been too excited to give it to her son to think about testing it herself anyway. Now a myriad of regrets filled her head.

A hundred what-ifs passed through her mind in an instant. This was why she was a researcher. She wanted to know!

But this moment was out of her control.

All she could do was stand, wait, and worry. The last one, she was doing enough for everyone.

Even Blaze didn't seem as concerned as she was. Sure, he was anxious, but he was excited, too.

Noble funneled some of his radiating excitement and let it influence her soul. She continued to hold her breath.

How long had it been? It felt like an eternity, but Noble believed it had only really been five seconds.

Five of the longest seconds of her life.

But then all the waiting ended as the last of the water emptied and turned to steam. The turbine reached fever pitch, and something amazing happened inside the bulb.

It was brief but unmistakable.

A single, shimmering spark!