Chương 4: Doom ride
Jiang Liushi spent the rest of the day looking for the locations of appropriate vehicles to scan.
The next day, early in the morning, he started his journey around Jiangbei district and beyond. He was able to have a good look at emergency vehicles and construction vehicles by saying he was helping an aquitance with a school project about such vehicles.
Between talking to their crews and taking photos, he was able to touch the vehicles and have the Starseed do complete scans. He scanned a backhoe loader, an 8 wheel dump truck with 2 steering axles, an ambulance, a 6 wheels fire truck, a camping van and a motorhome and a hybrid SUV. He also went to several specialised stores to scan various machines and equipment.
With their blueprints in the Starseed memory, he started to make modifications.
His doomsday ride would be an 8 wheels drive off-road truck the lenght of a bus. It would have 1 axle at the front, 1 behind the driver cockpit, and 2 at the rear. Between the middle axle and the rear ones would be the living module. The last part of the vehicle would be the engineering module.
The chassis would be inspired from those used for fire trucks and dump trucks. It would also extend around key parts of the body, like ribs extending from the spine, to better support it. Because dump truck's bed were quite tough, their material would be used to make the body of the doomsday vehicle. That would make the vehicle quite resistant to impacts and bullets.
At the front of the truck would be a reinforced v-shaped plow to blast through obstructions, with an adjustable height to adapt to the landscape. That was for it that he scanned a backhoe loader, for the arms holding the plow. On top of the driver cockpit would be aditional lights, to not be hindered by the plow.
The driver cockpit would have 3 seats, though the middle one would be retractable to allow passage toward the living module, and the gear switch would be behind the wheel. It would have an on-board computer, and a tactile screen to access the different other functions of the vehicle, such as the copilote, security and entertainment systems.
The living module would be made for 2 people: him and his sister. It would have the entrance door, a micro kitchen, micro shower and toilet on one side. On the other there would be 2 seats with a foldable table between them, and 2 bunk bed. There would be various incorporated cupboards and drawers. On the roof there would be solar panels with protective metal curtains, and 2 horizontal wind turbines for renewable power.
The engineering module would have 2 parts. The first part would be right after the living module: a micro factory. A combination of machines such as a micro-furnace and 3D printer, to make small parts or equipment. At the back, mechanical arms with tools to help make, repair or modify big constructs such as other cars, fixed machinery or even buildings.
The vehicle would have 12 hidden cameras with thermal and infrared vision: 2 bellow, 4 on the roof, 2 on each side, 1 at the front and 1 at the back. There would also be 10 movement detectors: 3 on each side, 1 at the front, 1 at the back and 2 on the roof. They would be connected to the on-board computer copilote and security system. This way the blind spots would be watched, and if something or someone got close, he would be warned.
The Starseed was an impressive piece of technology with incredible capacities, but it was still limited by the materials available. With such limitations, it could still improve current designs for better efficiency with the same materials; harder, smaller, faster, stronger. The engine, computer, domestic appliances, medical machines, micro-factory and engineering tools would all be superior to their models.
Having finished the design, Jiang Liushi had to get the materials, and find a place to perform the refiting. A good place to refit would be a low security factory so he could use the high power electricity to support the Starseed with energy. A good place to get materials would be auto scrap companies, where they strip anything usefull before leaving the rest of the vehicle to be scrapped.
"Wait, do I even need to perform the complete refiting in a single go?"
He got an instant answer from the Starseed. It could be done in stages, since further modifications would be available with better materials and sufficient energy, it would be stupid to stay locked with the initial construct.
He decided he would rent a pick-up truck and use it as base. The first modification would be to turn it into a 6 wheels camping car, at least on the outside. He would be able to use it to get materials
and go to another place for the transformation.
He had 7 days left before the outbreak, just enough time to complete his Doomsday Ride. The next day, he went to a car rental company near his college. He rented a 4 doors pick-up for 10 days, for a little under 2300 yuans.
He also asked for a driver to bring it near his home. He didn't have a driver license, and was worried the would ask to see it if he tried to take the car himself. He knew how to drive, having tried with one of his aquitances' parent's car when they lent it to their son. He was able to get the hang of it within an hour. He still lacked knowledge of the driving code, but it wouldn't matter before long.
He waited until the evening to make his move. First, he drove to a power substation near an industrial area. The Starseed needed energy to work. The more energy it had the more it could do, or the faster it could do it. For his first modification, He wouldn't be able to transport the material to the refitting location. He would have to do it on site, thus, he needed extra energy to do it fast. He stayed there until midnight, thankfully having taken his laptop to not go crazy out of boredom.
After that, he went to the closest car scrapyard, which was 2h away from Jiangbei. He didn't use the front entrance, no. He made a hole in the metal fence at the other side of the complex, where there were no cameras, using the Starseed. He reinforced the body using the metal of the fence.
Jiang Liushi was amazed by the process. After parking the car against the fence, thin glowing green line appeared on his forehead. He saw them on the rear-view mirror. They descended to is neck, and he lost sight of them until they reappeared on his hands.
They traveled from his hands to the steering wheel, and expanded to the rest of the car, and to the fence where it spread on a area big enough for the car to pass. Then, he saw how the metal twisted around the glowing lines with very little noise, and retracted along the lines to merge with the body of the car, again, with very little noise. The whole process took around 3 minutes.
Once he got his opening, he drove inside the scrap yard, and looked for the vehicles with the best materials, the newer ones, but also a few older ones. He spent 3 hours in the scrap yard, first extending the vehicle to a solid 6 wheel kind, which took most of the time. Modifying the body to match an off-road camper was easier. He was able to scavenge some damaged engines to reinforce his own. After all, it was going to carry heavy loads to the refitting points in the future.
It was a little over 5 am when he left the car scrap yard, and it took him around 3 hours to get back to Jiangbei. He had to take a nap on the way, as he spent the whole night awake, moving around the scrap yard as he modified his ride. Then he had to find a place to park his pseud-camper, and then walk back to his appartment. At 10 am, after a quick shower, he was able to slip in his bed where he quickly fell asleep.
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