The morning sun shined a beam through the curtains and an alarm clock buzzed in a simple hotel room. Zachary, who had been sleeping, turned off the buzzer and slowly stretched his way out of bed. Taking a shower and getting dressed for the day, he departed his room taking a bag with him. He worked his way up the tower to the skyway bus terminal, stopping along the way to buy a cheap takeaway breakfast meal.

From the bus on the skyway, there were panoramic views of the marvellous city of Sovereign, with its towering, elegant buildings and web of roads. However, Zachary was more interested in the glimmering blue skyway beneath his seat, which had been the subject of his masters. He, along with a team of other masters students, had been endeavouring to find a way of allowing vehicles to travel upside-down on them without scattering their occupants and cargo throughout the vehicle. A gravity core, although it could solve the problem (and already has for very very high-class carriages), was out of the question on a matter of cost. To substitute, Zachary had found a way to simulate the desired effect by means of a kinetic core embedded alongside the polarity cores. The design was yet to be implemented throughout the grand city of Sovereign, but proposed skyways were considering it.

Soon the bus stopped at a terminal by the university, where Zachary disembarked. The reason he was here in Sovereign, as opposed to his residence in Argos, was to perform some research for his thesis on a novel propulsion system for shuttles. At present, shuttles use kinetic cores to propel themselves by brute force. However, this method leaves a lot wanting in terms of efficiency. This is where Zachary is investigating- means to efficiently and cheaply propel a shuttle. So far, in his preliminary research, air and polarity cores have been found to improve propulsion provided by kinetic cores. With the theory in hand, he has come to Sovereign to access facilities which would allow him to put that theory into practise.

Zachary entered a lift and descended to the lower floors, where he proceeded through a door and into a mechanical workshop. Several other people worked inside, constructing and tinkering with their own projects, making use of the sophisticated tools available to them. Zachary found a small crate addressed to him, which he opened to find a selection of metal parts, some electronics and a few cores, along with a piece of paper which was the receipt. He smiled to see that his order had come through on time. Inside this crate were the materials he needed to create a prototype miniature shuttle engine. Using a trolley to move the crate over to the workbench he had reserved, he got to work on fabricating a working machine from this collection of parts and his own notes, which he had in a notepad he had been carrying in his bag. It was like a hands on puzzle, and he loved those, so he was quickly engrossed in his task.

He was interrupted by the man working on the bench next to him, who had decided to strike up a conversation. "Did you hear of the recent explosions in the core mines?"

Zachary nodded. Core mining had always been risky business, but the risk was rarely from the cores themselves. On their own cores are rather stable. It takes special conditions to get a core to release its energy. "I have. It is a strange occurrence. Cores don't normally explode unless prompted."

The woman on the bench in front of him chimed in. "It has been..." she hesitated, choosing the next word with care, "suggested that these explosions are caused by the Ancient Cores."

Zachary chuckled. "Those myths? Even if they are real I doubt they are what the legends say they are." He held up his wind core and the casing for it. "My guess is that they've come across some hybrid of a core and this metal. Such a core would likely be very unstable. The size of the explosion need not be from a core of legends. Even this puny little wind core would flatten everything in this room if it exploded. Just imagine what would happen if a full vein of cores went off? And in a shaft mine it doesn't take much to bring it down on you." He put the core back down. "Of course, the final verdict lies with the corologists." And with that, he returned to work on his engine.