CHAPTER 90: THE GEAR GLASS

"Perfect. Show me the results," Liam said, his voice steady even though a knot of anticipation twisted in his chest.

The assembler obeyed. A soft hum rippled through the barren Dimensional Space, and from its control console, a holographic display bloomed into the air, and lines of text cascaded down.

Liam leaned forward instinctively, his eyes scanning the figures as they compiled into an output list.

Output:

Silicon (Si): 142.6 kg

Aluminum (Al): 91.3 kg

Iron (Fe): 73.4 kg

Titanium (Ti): 31.8 kg

Neodymium (Nd): 22.5 kg

Europium (Eu): 9.6 kg

Lutetium (Lu): 6.8 kg

Trace Rare Earths (Y, Tb, Dy, Gd): ~8.2 kg combined

Platinum Group Elements (Pt, Ir): 3.9 kg

Uranium/Thorium (U/Th): 1.1 kg

...

...

Total Elements Outputs: 33

Total Mass Output: 411.2 kg

***

"...."

The numbers swam in front of his eyes. Liam’s throat tightened.

"Four hundred... eleven kilograms?" he muttered, blinking as though the text might vanish if he looked again. "From just the slab and a handful of dust???"

His voice cracked on the last word.

He knew the assembler was insane — he had read about it, absorbed the knowledge from the omni-science package. But knowing it in theory was one thing. Seeing it, watching reality itself disassembled and rebuilt atom by atom... that was something else entirely.

The slab had barely weighed more than 50 kilos. The dust he’d scooped up earlier? Nothing, just grams. Yet here the console was, telling him he had over 400 kilograms of perfectly refined, transmuted elements. Not ore. Not compounds. Pure elements.

Liam dragged a hand through his hair, pacing around the machine in disbelief.

"Sir, are you surprised by the result?" Lucy’s voice came gently from the laptop perched on the desk.

"Surprised? Lucy, I’m stunned," Liam shot back, shaking his head. "I expected something useful, maybe a dozen kilos of iron, aluminum... some trace rare earths. But this? This is borderline impossible. Just how insane is this tech?"

"I completely understand your reaction, sir," Lucy replied calmly. Her voice carried a curious mixture of pride and professionalism, like a teacher unveiling the answer to a riddle.

"The molecular assembler is, by all measures, a terrifying machine. On Earth, refining even a few grams of rare earths or semiconductor-grade materials requires massive industrial plants, colossal energy expenditure, and generates mountains of toxic waste. Yields are low, precision is limited, and even the best efficiency rarely crosses one percent. Humans dig tons of rock for grams of usable material."

The holographic display flickered as Lucy continued, as if syncing her words with the data.

"But this device doesn’t refine the way humans refine. It doesn’t smelt, crush, or leach. It disassembles at the atomic level with perfect precision and zero waste. Every proton, neutron, and electron accounted for. Every atom re-used. And more — transmutation is on the table. If a sample contains 18% iron but you need cobalt or gallium instead, the assembler simply rearranges the protons and neutrons until the right element exists."

Her tone softened. "And the reason it can do this? The cheat factor, as you like to call it: zero-point energy. The assembler has access to an infinite well of power drawn from vacuum fluctuations. So unlike Earth, where energy cost is the bottleneck, here there is no bottleneck."

Liam stopped pacing and rubbed his temples.

He knew all of this already. The knowledge foundation had explained it to him. He understood it logically. But logic and reality were two different beasts.

This machine wasn’t a supercomputer or a next-gen prototype. It was alchemy made real.

And the result wasn’t just impressive. It was terrifying.

The total output — 411.2 kilograms — was enough to make hundreds, maybe thousands of units of his planned Gear Glass devices. All from a single rock and a pinch of dirt.

It made Daniel’s careful procurement channels, the shell companies, and the risk-laden raw material sourcing... look like child’s play. Why bother smuggling rare earths from Earth when his private dimension’s dust was already richer than the planet’s most jealously guarded mines?

Liam exhaled slowly. "No wonder the assembler costs so much. But now... now I see it. Compared to what it can do, it’s dirt cheap. Hell, if governments even knew this thing existed..."

He trailed off, his mind painting the image: armies, spies, corporations, even nations bleeding themselves dry for a shot at this technology. Billions? Trillions? They would pay, fight, and kill without hesitation.

A single assembler could make oil obsolete, gold worthless, nuclear arsenals irrelevant. It could unravel economies, topple empires.

And he had one. Sitting in his private, unreachable dimension.

Liam clenched his fists, steadying his breath. He couldn’t afford to keep losing composure every time the system dropped a miracle into his lap. He needs to adapt.

"Alright," he said at last, his voice firmer. "Now that I have enough, I can start creating the Gear Glass. But let’s be smart about it. I’ll make one unit first. A prototype."

He walked back to the obsidian table and dropped into the chair. His pulse was still racing, but his mind was already shifting gears.

"Lucy," he said, leaning forward, "we have work to do. Big work."

"Yes, sir," Lucy replied, her voice steady and ready. "What are we working on?"

"It’s a device. A device that will change the world," Liam said quietly, almost reverently.

And then he began to explain.

***

The blueprint of the Gear Glass unfolded in words first, then in sketches, then as a full holographic design rendered by Lucy on the assembler’s console.

The idea was simple, deceptively simple: a device that looked no different from ordinary sunglasses. Lightweight. Stylish. Inconspicuous. But beneath that mundane exterior, it would pack the punch of the most advanced computer in human history.

It would be VR and AR combined, but seamless. Direct retinal projection fused with neural visual overlay. The user wouldn’t just see augmented reality; they would live it, as if their brain itself had become the display.

Navigation? Eye-tracking and micro-expressions, mapped flawlessly. The lenses would read the slightest flick of the pupil or twitch of a brow. Intent would flow directly into the system via neural interface — thought-based interaction. No hands, no scrolling. Just willpower.

Motion capture? Not just arms or head gestures like Earth’s primitive VR. Full-body mapping, down to the individual fingers, tracked and mirrored perfectly.

Connectivity? Not Wi-Fi. Not 5G. Not even fiber. The Gear Glass would be the first device to hook into the quantum ecosystem Liam planned to build. A private, unbreakable network faster than anything Earth’s infrastructure could even dream of.

And all this... in a frame no heavier than ordinary sunglasses.

But Liam wasn’t blinded by ambition. He knew power without restraint was a curse.

"Precautions," he said firmly, cutting into the blueprint draft. "This thing is dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. We need safeguards, both for me and for future users."

Lucy’s hologram pulsed as she listened, recording every word.

"For starters: layered authentication. Multi-factor security keyed to neural pathways authentication and retina scan. If stolen, it’s nothing more than a pair of lenses," he said, and continue listing more precautions.

Hours blurred into days inside the Dimensional Space. Liam and Lucy worked tirelessly, sketching, coding, refining.

Liam dictated specifications while Lucy simulated outcomes, adjusting the design in real time. Every choice was tested — lens curvature, micro-projector angle, neural electrode placement, even the alloy of the frame.

By the end of the fifth day inside the Dimensional Space — barely five minutes Earth’s time — the blueprint was finalized.

The hologram above the assembler shimmered one last time, resolving into a sleek, jet-black frame with lenses that seemed to drink in light, platinum pinstripes glinting faintly along the arms.

The Gear Glass.