TERRA EMPIRE: ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR

Episode 16: DISCOVERIES AT THE MACHINA FACTORY WAREHOUSE

Jordan does not know how often Lana visits this place because it seems like her friend memorized all the twists of the room with the alleys that are passable and those that are not. Not to mention when facing the door with access protection, whether using a number or a hand scanner, because it is not a barrier for him to pass.

Lana laughs at Jordan's astonished expression. The girl raised her hand, "That's thanks to my hand that was granted access."

"Well," Jordan was embarrassed, and he finally understood what Carl had done with all his words to Professor McQueen.

"I can look around to various rooms that are only allowed for ordinary people. I swear, what is allowed is less fun. Fortunately.." the girl tapped her index finger at her temple accompanied by giggling laughter. "... I remember Dad's access number for manual input."

"Is that okay for us?" Jordan asked with a worried tone.

"Safe! It's exactly where I want to show you that you can see what my father did at Machina Factory."

On the fourth floor, the two arrived at a large door bearing the warehouse on its display screen. Like earlier, Lana entered a number of numbers and a few seconds after the door shifted open. A cold chill blew from inside the room where Jordan's gaze was immediately pounded on what was stored inside.

There are some things parked like a car with a pair of doors folded in an upward opening position resembling the wings of a plane. Beside him were four drones that were twice the size of the drones he had seen and varied in shape, then a prototype of a folding bicycle that was modified to turn into a kayak, accompanied by paddles to allow it to glide in the water.

"What are these things?" Jordan asked with a sigh.

"This is all the result of Dad's thinking. It is in this place that my father created a future for mankind" Lana said proudly.

The girl pointed to the boats, "These boats helped many flood victims when there was a major flood in Los Angeles due to the Katrina typhoon attack. Dad modified it with a large metal tub that could hold up to fifty people, and it's still capable of pulling it."

"This drone is an early generation of drones that are now widely used by our farmers to oversee the land and help the production process such as watering and fertilizing crops in the fields. I heard dad also got orders from a lot of shipping companies to develop these drones as delivery crews in place of humans."

"You mean this drone that's going to deliver pizza to homes instead of humans?" comment Jordan.

"One of them is. The weakness of the drone is small. Enlarge the ability to carry a load of up to ten kilograms that's what Dad's working on."

"This car..."

"A flying car" Jordan nodded in understanding.

"It's Vector...The Vehicle Carried To Air. And as the name suggests, this vehicle is capable of floating in the air."

"Can this thing really fly?" Jordan asked once again while at the same time checking the car from the bottom up.

"Of course you can" Lana laughed. "We have one like this at home. If you play back to my house next time, I'll show you."

"Many people want a car like this."

"Not much more. The whole world is waiting. The traffic jams that occur on the streets of major cities in many countries make people tired of using ordinary cars. Dad's car has been targeted by two big companies to buy the copyright, namely Ford and Ferrari."

"Woww, seriously? How much do they offer?"

"Don't know the exact number only dad said it could make him have three more machina factories" Lana replied. "But there is no agreement because Daddy has not given up his copyright. He said he wanted to keep it in order not to be abused."

"Abused how does that mean?"

"I didn't really understand when my father explained, which is obviously something related to the possibility of disappearing car designs without having time to mass produce."

"If this type of car is produced, then the land-based cars produced now may not sell. I think that's what big automotive companies avoid. Make them better to buy the design and copyright with any nominal to then be eliminated, rather than let it be produced and actually threaten the continuity of their business."

Replace Lana who is fascinated to hear Jordan's explanation, "I think so."

"Are the items your father found, aside from the ones here, some are already in use by many?"

"There are about fifteen patents that Dad has released to the public. I don't remember anything. One of the things I remember was a drone used to help with farming, because I was asked to see a test while watering a farm in Kansas, '" Lana replied.

"Fifteen patents," Jordan murmured inwardly." No wonder Lana and her father live in a big, sophisticated house in an elite neighborhood in San Francisco.

And this girl was so humble for not showing off what she had. Jordan believes Allen and his friends do not know who Lana and her family really are, if they know maybe Lana has become a popular girl in school.

"Oh, you have to look at that one.May-may they still keep one in this place."

The girl did not answer. He was busy searching here and there, revealing shelf after shelf lined along the wall on the right side of the room covered in white tarpaulin. Only after being on the sixth shelf did Lana get what she was looking for.

"Well, here it is..."

"What's that?" jordan asked to look at the ves vest Lana was wearing.

"Try to hold my body" said Lana. Jordan did as he was told, his hands holding the girl's shoulders. "Now pull me."

"What?" ask Jordan.

"Pull me hard" Lana said.

Jordan thought maybe this ves vest was some kind of tool that would make the wearer heavy and unretractable so the girl needed to demote him. Therefore after clutching Lana's shoulder, the girl pulled hard towards him.

What happened next made Jordan shocked not dumbstruck. He felt something stinging like electricity, flowing to his fingertips, sneaking through his nails and breaking through the finger bones into his arms, elbows, shoulders, and up to the neck.

The stronger the pull he did to Lana, the sting arising from the safety vest was getting stronger so that in the end Jordan had to remove his grip. Regardless of the grip it actually produces a very strong thrust, which makes Jordan thrown backwards.

The teenager was thrown to the floor. Fortunately his head was not hit by the tiles. Lana who was also surprised to find how the safety vest she wore had such great strength suddenly panicked. The girl screeched as she ran up to Jordan...

"Yes, God.. Are you okay, Jordan?"

The guy groaned, trying to get up in a sitting position, his hands moved several times to reduce pain, especially those at the fingertips, "It feels like he was hit by a truck."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know they had increased the power until it was so terrible" Lana said.

"What the hell is that for?"

"This vest is a development of a SWAT unit bulletproof vest that is usually made of kevlar material and only to dampen the thrust of bullets fired by criminals. With this vest, even a snot cop can defend himself from criminals who are good at fighting. "

"Yeah, I can imagine that. Interesting vest," Jordan nodded as he stroked his still tingling arm.

"It's this kind of vest that a lot of cops are now wearing out there to help them protect themselves."

"It's not just the police that need it. I also need Allen and his friends to one day throw tantrums and gang up on me again." Jordan said original to make Lana spin around.

"Hey, what are you doing in this place?" suddenly the security officer rebuked them. His face looked puzzled, perhaps because he did not understand why two unknown teenagers could be in the storage shed. But when he recognized Lana's face, the security guard was relieved. "I didn't know you were coming here tonight, Miss McQueen."

"Dad said President Tramp would come tonight, so he invited me to meet him."

"Oh, huh? Oh, so maybe that's why I saw a lot of people running around in this place two hours ago. Surely they're Secret Service, busy combing this place to make sure it's safe" the security guard responded. "And if it's not wrong, he may have arrived here because the gala event only started five minutes ago."

"Oh, really? Then we should go back downstairs, "Lana then reads the sign on the left chest of the man. "Thank you for the notice, Mr. Fish."

"By pleasure, Miss McQueen."

After the death of Lana and Jordan who returned downstairs, the security officer shook his head to see the behavior of the only girl one of the top officials of Machina Factory. Already several times he saw the girl wandering in this place, only this time accompanied by a guy.

Maybe it's her new boyfriend, and like kids that age, Lana must have brought that guy here just to show off. He murmured, "Based on wayward children. It's like going in and out of a facility like this."

Fish was just about to re-lock the storage room door when a security guard approached from the direction of the alley behind him, "What's the condition out there?"

Suddenly the officer shot Fish with a muffled gun until the man was killed that very second. The self-styled security officer contacted his comrades through a communication device, "The whole fourth floor is safe. I'm just gonna set the explosives at the last point."

From his earphones, that person got a new command, "Pair immediately. The gala dinner started five minutes ago. Fifteen more minutes we go in and kill Target number one."

"Rogers. Accepted."

***