Chapter 60 — Building the Future
The afternoon sun slanted through the half-open car window, casting golden stripes across the leather seats. Dust floated lazily in the light, glinting faintly like tiny sparks. Bai Xia sat quietly, hands folded in her lap, Stella beside her, eyes glued to the city streets as they zipped past.
She had given the Stella an address, and now the car moved with a gentle hum toward the outskirts of the city, where the old factory waited. Inside her mind, everything was already prepared. All the tools and parts she would need were sealed in her space — precise, neat, gleaming faintly even under the dim afternoon light.
With a thought, the air inside the car shimmered subtly, and one by one, the items appeared before her:
1. A soldering iron — slim, polished, the tip gleaming like a mirror.
2. A multimeter — simple, unassuming, but precise beyond the tools anyone in 1995 would see.
3. A set of tiny screwdrivers — silver-handled, magnetic tips that caught the faintest reflection.
4. Small boxes of chips, wires, and screws — ordinary to the untrained eye, yet impossibly advanced for the time.
She crouched, inspecting each item carefully, whispering to herself under her breath, checking for even the slightest flaw.
From her space, she also retrieved a few older, salvaged parts: a broken camcorder lens, a cracked circuit board, a few worn metal frames. These she would use to make her work seem less like magic and more like hard labor — ordinary items that would anchor the extraordinary in reality.
By four in the afternoon, they arrived at the factory. The building crouched at the edge of the city like a relic from another era — walls gray with age, windows smudged with dust, the air thick with the scent of oil and heated metal. Sparks leapt from welding torches, and the hum of machines filled every corner.
As Bai Xia stepped inside, a few workers looked up from their benches. Some frowned at the sight of a young woman in a school uniform carrying a leather bag. The foreman, a broad man with streaks of gray in his hair, squinted at her approach.
> "You're looking for metalwork?" he asked cautiously, wiping his hands on a rag.
> "Yes," Bai Xia replied, her voice calm but carrying a quiet certainty. "Something small… a camera body. It needs to be precise."
From her bag, she produced a folded piece of paper and spread it on the workbench. The sketch revealed the camera's design: the body shaped like an old-fashioned square model, rounded edges, a thick lens ring. Inside, the layout was unlike anything anyone had seen — lines and boxes that hinted at technology far beyond their time.
The men leaned closer, puzzled.
> "What kind of camera is this? Film?" one asked, eyeing the sketch skeptically.
> "No," Bai Xia said softly, tapping the paper. "It captures light differently. You could call it a new kind of camera — one that stores the image inside itself. No film required."
A few of the workers exchanged glances. Someone chuckled nervously.
Bai Xia smiled, unbothered by their uncertainty.
> "Don't worry," she said. "I've already handled the small components. I just need the shell — metal, sturdy, and a little old-fashioned, like those cameras from Japan. I'll manage the wiring myself."
She opened her bag again, letting the soldering iron, multimeter, and tiny screwdrivers slide onto the table. Each gleamed faintly under the dim light, appearing both ordinary and impossibly precise.
> "You brought your own tools?" the foreman asked, suspicious but intrigued.
> "I built them myself," Bai Xia said lightly. "Had a friend send me the parts. They're simple, efficient — nothing extraordinary."
The man's frown eased slightly.
> "You'll need a power line and a table cleared," he said. "We'll set it up for you."
By late afternoon, she was at work. Her hands moved with quiet precision, connecting tiny wires, aligning the camcorder lens into the silver frame, soldering with care. The workers watched, sometimes stealing glances, sometimes muttering among themselves. There was something hypnotic in her movements, a quiet certainty that suggested she already knew the final shape of the camera.
She drew on two skills she had purchased from her system — Engineering and Mechanics. Both had cost her a large number of experience points, but each move now felt effortless, each connection perfect.
When the sun dipped lower, painting the factory floor in molten gold, Bai Xia rolled up the blueprint and tied it neatly with string. She called the foreman over.
> "Here," she said, handing it to him. "This is the frame design. I need the shell in two days. Leave the internal details to me."
The foreman studied her face, curiosity flickering behind his eyes.
> "You're sure this will work?"
Bai Xia smiled, slow and secretive.
> "If it doesn't," she said lightly, "then I'll just build another one."
One by one, she packed her tools back into her bag, each vanishing silently, and walked toward the exit. The factory's sounds faded behind her — the sparks, the hum, the clatter — replaced by the distant hum of city traffic and the whisper of evening wind.
She didn't look back. The blueprint was in their hands, and the first steps toward the future had already begun. Soon, light would be captured in ways no one in 1995 could have imagined.
And as she stepped into the cooling dusk, her mind was already racing, imagining the moment when the first Modern Age Camera would awaken, the first glow of memory born in a time that had never dreamed of it.