Chapter Text
"Thank you again for coming. I know all of this is last minute, but I needed another engineer to help me comb over this weapon design. You're the only one I trust enough to help given how highly sensitive these plans are." Odette says as she holds open the door to the workshop for her friend. A short, Einstein-haired imp scurries in, balancing a bunch of poster tubes in his hands.
"Don't mention it Odette. You rarely ask much of me, so I knew this must've been important enough given how late you called me." Willikers replies as he lays down the tubes on an empty workbench just across from a computer desktop set up. Odette wheels over a whiteboard next workbench and then begins goes over to the desktop setup and logs in to open up the to open the CAD model of the weapon that had been sent over by Vox.
Willikers starts to open various tubes and unroll the mix of blueprints and schematics. Though he pauses as his eyes land on the logo printed in the corner of each of the large sheets. "Uh… Odette, why are all these plans labelled with Voxtek logos? Wait, is this why you said these were highly sensitive? You were able to steal them from Voxtek and we're gonna try and reverse-engineering it." He asks in flurry of questions with a slight smile. The thought of aiding in some cheesy spy-thriller plot seemingly perking his interest.
Her shoulders slump as she turns to him to explain the true breadth of the situation. "Unfortunately, we obtained these plans as part of a collaboration that my mother agreed to with Voxtek in order to build them some kind of weapon to aid in his war against Heaven." Willikers eyes widen as he begins to shrink up in worry. Odette tries to quell those fears by going on to clarify. "However I didn't ask you here to help with build this weapon, quite the opposite a actually. I needed your help to go over these plans to figure out how this weapon ticks. And knowing Vox's design process, find the flaws in the plan to use to convince my mother to not build this weapon for that screen-headed moron."
Willikers looks a little more relieved, "Got it, is there anything specific I should be on the look out for?"
"Honestly just checking the math of everything would be a good start. I can start with the main body of the weapon as even that seems out of the realm of possibility." He nods in response as the two both dive into the work of decoding and analyzing every detail of this weapon. With Willikers sits down at the workbench and pulls out some extra paper to start manually running calculations, while Odette begins studying the CAD model on the computer.
From a preliminary overview of the whole the design, the weapon proposed on these plans is nothing like Carmine Industries has ever built before. If she understood the parts of the plans she had read properly, the so dubbed 'Might Of Lilith' is suppose to be a a high powered angelic laser cannon that had the power to shatter the magical shield around Heaven. This was still very new, and more crucially unpredictable, territory for the field of angelic weaponry. Although, while Vox wasn't the first in this field. That title belonged to Sir Pentious, who had built and successfully tested a much smaller angelic laser as apart of his preparation for the defence of the Hazbin Hotel.
The thought pulls her attention away from Might of Lilith model as she starts thinking about Pentious. He had actually asked for her consultation on his design as she was the closest thing there was to an expert on angelic steel and its more exotic proprieties. "Now he would've been a help with deconstructing these plans, the only other person with actual hands on experience with this technology. I swear he was such an anomaly of an engineer, both innovative and stuck in the past…" She thinks before looking up from the computer as a little twinge of grief comes over her.
Despite her relationship with him not being that deep, usually nothing more than two experts who would talk about their shared field of expertise, she did miss him to some extent. Trying to get back on track after that bit of out of the blue remembrance of Pentious coming to an end, it reminds her of a crucial bit of information she forgot to give Willikers before he started his calculations.
Turning to look at Willikers, she grabs his attention, "Willikers you should pause on those numbers for a second." He looks up from the workbench to face her. "It skipped my mind given everything going on, but angelic energy has a few unique proprieties that makes more conventional calculations harder to do. I think I have some preliminary reports from a couple months ago that should give you the right figures for a baseline." She says while minimizing the CAD model of the Might of Lilith and starts searching through folders on the computer.
Willikers frowns a little hearing that he had pretty much wasted his time. That is only temporary as he goes on to inquire, "Ah… that explains why these numbers weren't making any sense." He glances back down at the paper before crumbling it up and throwing it away. Odette prints off few pages of the report and hands them over to Willikers, who takes care to read over all the data.
As his eyes drift over the paper he asks, "Where did you get all this data? Has Carmine Industries experimented with this tech prior to Vox wanting this weapon built?"
She shakes her head as she unminimizes the plans again, "No, it was actually independent inventor who actually pioneered a lot of the research around harnessing angelic weapon like this. Though he asked for my help as I was most familiar with the material science behind angelic steel. It was some of the experiments I ran in conjunction him that produced that data."
Willikers puts down the report and turns to face Odette, he leans forward in his chair with a raised brow. "Oh that's interesting. Then why did you ask me to help if you know someone with more experience with this technology?"
There is a bit of dead air between the two before she answers with a bit more of her typical steely reservedness. "He was unfortunately among the sinners killed during the defense of the Princess Charlie's hotel."
Willikers tenses up a little, likely a bit worried he might've hit a sore spot. He starts stumbling over a apology, but Odette gets a head of him by saying, "That came out a little too sterile. Pentious was a frequent customer and occasional collaborator of ours, and I had the chance to work with him on a couple occasions. He was a bit eccentric and those egg minions could be a tad annoying at times, but he was talented and a nice break from the usual two-bit or crazed overlords I had to deal with on a regular basis." This seems to calm his nerves enough and on-top of that, there is a little spark at the mention of Pentious' name.
She thinks of ending it there, but she a little inkling of something compels her to share something a little more personal. "Its just… well a couple decades of immortality kills that part of the mind that can process mortality. While Pentious…" She struggles to say it, but feeling conformable enough around Willikers she gets out the words, "..isn't the first time I've had to abruptly confront mortality again. Its still something that is alien to have to consider a state of non-existence after spending nearly three lifetimes in the afterlife."
A silence sets in as Odette gives Willikers a chance to respond, if there even is a way to respond. She can see the gears turning for her friend and after a bit of time he does respond, "I don't know if this would help and might be dumb to say…" His voice quiet and meandering, but he does get to his point eventually, "All's that to say, I am here for you if you do need to talk about stuff like this."
Odette is a little shocked as that is far from the kind of response she was expecting from Willikers. Though it is comforting knowing that he is willing to look our for her in that way. "Honestly Doc, that means a lot and I'll differently keep that in mind." She thanks while giving a small smile and Willikers responds in kind. It's the first little moment of levity she has had in a while given how the past week has been a constant series of worsening events.
Recognizing the two had gotten a bit sidetracked from the pretty important reason they are here, she , "Right, we should get back to the task at hand. The sooner we know if this thing is even feasible to build, the better." Willikers nods with a determined look as the two turn back to their respective workstations to dive back into the plans for the Might of Lilith.
The hours begin to drag on as the need to be exhaustive when it came to analysing the plans does ware on both of their minds. The design behind the Might of Lilith is some of the most dense she has ever had to comb over, and she could only imagine the same applied to Willikers with the calculations. Its not fruitless as Odette does start to understand exactly how the weapon works. However, its a double edged sword as that understanding only confirms that the Might of Lilith is much more viable then first thought.
"These plans will call for nearly a ton of angelic steel minimum… However every bit necessary to shield and contain angelic energy. I'm surprised Vox actually accounted for that, yet this will drain almost our entire stores of angelic steel…" Odette thinks before rubbing her eyes as the strain from staring at the monitor and ever growing exhaustion is getting to her. "Actually… its weird that he was able to account for the more esoteric properties in these designs to such a degree of accuracy. It's almost like he got a hold of the experimental data from Pentious… Hell know thinking of it, if Vox got his hands on Pentious' design for his angelic laser it would explain how he was able to come up with these plans so fast."
The thought that Pentious would ever give his designs to weapon to Voxtek does briefly enter her mind. Though she dismisses the idea quickly, Pentious in the years previous had done some contract work for Voxtek, but the Pentious she had met with a couple of weeks before the previous extermination felt like a different person. No that isn't the right descriptor, he seemed more genuine to his true self. He had shown moments of the level-headed and talented inventor that was at the core of his overblown, public persona of as a wannabe overlord. It was always those brief moments that had made her appreciate the working relationship she had with him.
Odette lets out an exhausted sigh as she attempts to pull her focus back to the computer in front of her. "Ugh… Willikers better find something off with the voltage and current calculations. The main and auxiliary cables are designed to handle the projected values, though its the upper bounds and any unpredictable spikes could result in failure. Worse, Vox didn't plan any redundancies in to design… Wait…"
She clicks off the plans and opens up a simulation program and quickly sets up the perimeters to match the plans. Running it a few times over, it confirms her suspicion, "And that is a full blown cascading failure… One that should result in the laser not having the ability to pull enough power from the core to continue firing. Thus reducing it to an large hunk of angelic junk." Odette leans back in the chair as this feels exactly the kind of thing she was hoping for. Thought she notices there simulation is built with the perimeters that relate the Might of Lilith's continuous beam mode of fire.
Going to readjust the perimeters of the simulation for the charge-shot mode of fire, she pauses to yawn. That coincides with a wave of exhaustion washing over her. Taking a moment to reorient herself, her eyes drift to computers clock and finds its a little past midnight. Looking over her shoulder, Willikers is silently scribbling out pages of calculations by hand. Though he does seem to be slumping a bit over the desk, likely fighting off exhaustion too.
As she stands up to stretch, Odette figures it would be good for the two of them to have a small breather to avoid complete mental exhaustion. She excuses herself and leaves Willikers to continue working as she walks across the empty and darkened workshop to the small break room she knew had an older drip coffee maker. Around fifteen later, to returns the small island of light in the warehouse with two mugs of coffee.
"Hey Doc, thought we could use a little bit of a pick me up. You take your coffee with milk and sugar still right?" Odette says as she extends the mug to him.
He accepts before responding with, "Yep and thank you for this." Odette takes her seat across from him and takes a long swig from the mug as Willikers begins taking sips from the mug.
Odette leans forward in the chair, with the mug held with both hands, and asks, "So how have you been with working through the plans?"
Willikers sets down the mug on the workbench. "It's not looking good because everything seems to be in order. If the estimates values listed in the designs can actually be met by the functioning weapon, we have a lot to be concerned about…" His fretting trails off, only a blank stare off into the distance remains.
"Like what?" Her grip on the mug tightens, the vague and ominous phrasing not helping her ease her nerves in the slightest.
"Like powerful enough to instantly vaporize meters of reinforced concrete. I know it shouldn't be this surprising as you had mentioned the use against Heaven… I just thought the magic side of things would be a much heavier aspect to consider. Yet…" He looks over his shoulder at the mess of papers and shutters, "This would be raw destructive power on a level I've never seen before. It sounds strange, but I'm in the middle of reading this book about an American scientist and the creation of the atomic bomb. I can't help but see parallels here between the Might of Lilith and the bomb…"
More then anything before, that comparison makes her blood run cold. Building anything for Vox's cause made her feel sick from the beginning. Yet if what Willikers says is correct, and he usually is, they were building him a weapon of mass destruction. It only steels her resolve to make sure this can't go forward. She goes silent with a look in her eyes like she is elsewhere in the moment.
Willikers tries to quell some worries by following that up with the best news he can offer. "Hey… this could still fall apart due to the lack of a clear source for all of this power." Willikers sets down his mug and looks through the stack of paper.
Odette raises a eyebrow and a little bit of relief is felt hearing that from him. Of course the model had made mention of the source of the power, but she didn't have the technical background to be able to glean any more insight into it. "Right the core, I couldn't make heads or tails what an angelic reactor could even be."
In one smooth motion, he pulls one of the blueprints that displays the chamber that the core would be housed with. "That's exactly the problem I'm having. There are no details other than the dimensions of the so-labelled angelic reactor in all of these plans." He explains as he holds up the plans with on hand and points with the other. "The only idea I had to how the reactor works is that it somehow combines the exotic properties of angelic steel and existing designs for an compact nuclear reactor. Past that, it's either infeasible or something completely new… " Willikers trails off again, worry in his voice clear to hear. It is hardly helped that his reasoning brought up the topic of the Might of Lilith possibly being nuclear to begin with.
He tries again to find a good angle to look at the situation again by adding on. "Maybe this is a bluff on his part like you suggested…"
There is no reaction from Odette as she just takes a second to process and consider everything. Downing the rest of the coffee in her mug, she sighs and responds with her thoughts on the situation, "You know Willikers, I want so badly to agree with you there and that this whole weapon is just Vox bullshitting another product into existence for a power-play." She gestures to all the paper on his workbench and the computer with the model still pulled up. "The issue is, barring the asterisk of the power source, everything here actaully looks possible with the current design. And not to give him a single iota of undue credit, but this is too much effort even for him for it just to be a bluff…"
With that said, Odette's words hang in the thick fog of dread and worry shared between the two engineers. What was suppose to be a chance to refresh their minds before diving back into their work has just left more turmoil then before. "Let's… let's just get back to the work okay?" She murmurs before turning around to face the monitor and dive back into the simulations.
With a couple of clicks and bit of typing, she readjusts all the perimeters on the simulation to the Might Of Lilith's charge-shot. She sets the simulation to run and watches it run, yet unlike before something much worse reveals itself. "No, no, no, this can't be right…" She thinks while yanks the mouse to the side as she goes to check that all the perimeters are set correctly. Everything seems to be in order and she goes to run it again, producing the same catastrophic results. Her heart starts beating as adrenaline drowns out all the exhaustion in her body.
Her eyes grow wide as she runs the simulation over and over again, trying to convince herself that what she is seeing can't be possible. Every simulation produces the exact same results and she tries to find some other source of error to invalidate the results. She gets up from the desk and rushes over to Willikers' workbench, "Willikers, assuming the reactor can produce the power stated in the plans, does all the other math about the power of the laser check out with the schematics?"
Willikers turns to looks at her and he spots the slight jitter in her hands. "Uh… As far as I can tell… it does… did you find something?" His eye flickered as the tense aura coming off Odette permeates to him.
Odette just tenses up and covers her mouth. Taking a deep breath she tries to mask her dread as she responds, but there is no hiding after what she saw on the simulations. "I did… however it isn't one that would disable the weapon... It would be catastrophic." She trails off and figures she needs to be sitting down before explaining what the simulation had told her to Willikers.
"Okay, you're aware of the mechanisms of how the charge shot for the weapon functions, right?"
"Yeah, it pulls angelic energy from the core, and compresses it in the chamber of the main body of the weapon. Before it awaits the fire order from the user." Willikers answers, fear still demonstrates his expression. However the gears in his mind do start turning to see what Odette is getting at.
"Well I found a point of failure within the chamber, well multiple points of failure actaully. Its the primary and auxiliary release cables. Given how volatile the angelic energy is, especially when under such forces of compression, the release cables allow some of the excess energy to flow out and disperse into the system to allow the energy buildup remain stable. The issue is that the cables breaking point is only just above the amount of energy each will have to bare when active. So it only remains stable due to a very precise environment that must be maintained. " She pauses to breath as she spouted out that entire paragraph in one breath. Willikers has slowly nodded along thought her explanation so far.
"Now say there is an unexpected fluctuation in the energy levels or some other problem comes up and causes one of those cables to fail. What do you think happens to that precise balance?"
Willikers doesn't even need a second to think as he seems to have enough pieces to solve this cataclysmic puzzle. "It's thrown off, the energy starts to flow though the remaining cables. Which in-turn causes them to overload, fail and then only increase the strain on the remaining cables until every single one fails…" The true horror begins to dawn on Willikers face.
"Correct… and with no where for that excess energy to disperse from the chamber in a controlled manner, it becomes increasingly unstable. Pressure builds at a much faster rate and surpasses the max PSI that the chamber is designed to handle. Angelic steel is a wonder material by all accounts, but it has it limits. And when that pressure builds to a point that it cracks the angelic steel lining of the chamber… all that compressed, volatile energy has to go somewhere. In short…" Her point comes to its sickly destructive end. "Boom."
Willikers has both of his hands resting on his head as his face is stained with dread. Just audibly enough for Odette to hear him, he mutters, "The force of that explosion would easily be measured in kilotons. Turning the Might of Lilith into an angelic atomic bomb…" Odette just sombrely nods as he finally gets on the same page she is after viewing the simulations.
A deafening silence sets in between the two as adding any more insight. Willikers sits hyperventilating a bit as he seemingly tries to prevent a full blown stress spiral. A tiny part of Odette feel validated for just knowing off a pure gut feeling that building this weapon was a bad idea from the beginning. Yet there is no time to revel in who is right and wrong here, no this is the time to act before things are too late.
Steeling her resolve, she stands up again and goes over to Willikers. She kneels down and puts a hand on his shoulder as she tries her best to calm her friend down. "Doc, I know this is a lot but you gotta stay with me." The slightly glassy eyes of Willikers look up at her. "What we need to do now is triple check everything and get all of that information to a digestible form. Because Satan be damned, this has to convince my mother that building this weapon for Vox could lead to apocalyptic consequences."
"You're right… we need to stop this…" He says while slowly nodding in agreement. With that said, the two return to their stations to burn the remaining midnight oil they have in themselves.
Right before diving back into the work in full force, Odette thinks, "This has to convince mother, I mean its the largest smoking gun I could've asked. If it doesn't…" She shutters and can't bring herself finish the thought before she just chooses to focus on work.