Anton Chernozorov
Deep in his private chamber, away from the prying eyes of everyone save perhaps ARESTEVE, the aging technician Anton Chernozorov was immersing himself into his work. The talk with the Doctor left an impression on him. The impending disaster was terrible; the intended countermeasure was, perhaps, even worse. He could not stand by, merely following orders, if there was the slightest chance he could find another way.
"Я не позволю... каким-то... грёбаным законам физики... стать причиной гибели стольких людей!"
He'd spent several days - almost a week - locked up in the workshop, furiously assembling something. Welding, riveting, rolling sheets of steel and aluminum. Putting together something that he hasn't seen... for a few centuries at least, chronologically.
"There. Готово."
The final bolt was in place. The power lines, connected. The eight metric tons of sensors and processing equipment, powered up and standing by.
"Ну что, зараза ты моя ненаглядная. Here we are again."
The last time he'd seen the device, the improved copy of which he was now standing beside, was, coincidentally, one of the last things he'd seen before waking up in the barracks of the Paracelsus' Sword. That was immediately before it exploded, burying Anton in burning rubble, however not before Anton was able to observe something far more spectacular.
The device, the mangled visage of an inside-out jet turbine mated to a tokamak reactor, assembled from pieces of industrial equipment and spare parts, and using nothing but simple electricity... was putting out more power than was being put into it. Several orders of magnitude more. Granted, it was putting it out in the form of a concentrated electromagnetic stream, which was at those exact moments melting the metal skeleton of a nearby apartment building, and setting its several hundred residents on fire. But it worked.
This time, he was ready for surprises. He took every possible precaution, reinforced the device in all areas he considered weak, replaced his DIY gear with properly constructed components. He didn't know what the device was going to do, exactly - with the changes he'd made, and the numbers in his head potentially not entirely correct, the result could be something unexpected - but he was sure that he could handle it. All that was left was to power it on.
The device was set to iterate through combinations of electromagnetic fields in a set pattern, gradually adjusting them, and reporting to Anton's wristcomp whenever there was an anomaly. He'd know the moment something happened that was worthy of his attention. Hopefully, he'd know about it sooner than the device blew up.
The thought that the whole experience could be brought on by stasis dementia crossed Anton's mind, briefly. But he dismissed it. Insane or not, he wants to do this. Real or not, the experiment has to be made.
Anton approached the control console and keyed in the command. When the program signaled ready, he reached for the master switch, and, perhaps a little too dramatically, slammed it down. The power converters hummed into life, and with a deep, reverberating oscillation that could be felt by anyone with metallic components, the apparatus in the center of the chamber began churning through its primary function.
The experiment has begun.