Jacob moved to his workbench, his large extra room littered with tools and things that he knew he would need to do what he was planning. Looking up at the wall, he eyed the blueprint for his new pistol, which he had yet to come up with a name for. Something quiet and deadly… but he wasn’t too worried about it quite yet… the name would come to him, likely while he was building it. Still, the first step would be to get all the pieces the right size to perform their function, maintain structural integrity, and fit into the small handgun that he was creating. It was pretty large, to be honest, but some of the parts had to be compacted because he was putting a lot of stuff unto it.

The first thing he would tackle would likely be the hardest, and that was the forward receiver. It would have the integrated suppressor to make it very quiet and have no flash even in the darkness, a muzzle break to keep the weapon from having too much recoil, and the small SmartScope Lens, which would be able to feed a direct link to any video device with a 4x optical zoom. The SmartScope could be added a bit later, but the other parts would have to be forged into the receiver, and thus, he needed to make a mold. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to do this part without some very precise measurements, and as such, he had bought a relatively large device that could sculpt the receiver using digital blueprints. The only thing was, he had to do each individual piece, one at a time. He had spent countless hours on his computer using the CAD (Computer assisted drafting) program, getting the contours of the barrel and all the associated parts just right so they would provide the function they needed.

According to his math, everything was lined up right, but it wouldn’t be truly perfect until he tested it, which involved some risk. The smallest glitch or detail that was off, and the weapon would lock up and blow up in his face. He had numerous ways to make sure that didn’t happen, but it was never a 100% guarantee that he would get away unscathed. But then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Time to get started. He lifted one of several blocks of gunmetal, a form of carbonized steel that he had bought several of to ensure he had spares available for when he mucked up, and gently placed it into the holding arms in his machine. He had inspected the machine several times, both physically and with his ability, to ensure that it was in proper working order, and it wouldn’t be responsible for messing up his project. Any error would come from his design, not the machine. Sitting back, he looked at the screen, and gave a silent hope to the machine that it would work on the first time. Chances weren’t good for him though… he was still learning this new CAD program, and using it for a firearm was tough.

He hit the ‘Begin Sculpt’ button on the screen, and turned to watch. Instantly the block was locked into place forcibly with another pair of arms, and it began to slowly spin. A pair of drills, diamond tipped, began to spin at high speeds and shave the metal off the outside of the block. This process would take a while, but he didn’t care, he sat there and watched and monitored and willed his creation to come to life in the form of cold, hard machinery. If he could just get this right, it would open the doorway to making all sorts of other firearms, and possibly other types of equipment. His mind began to idly think of the different things he would try to make… but he also knew some of it was going to require military grade schematics… not his home-made variety. He didn’t have a degree in the required fields to make the body armor he wanted, he needed someone who knew what they were doing to work on that for him. Maybe he could get Captain Green, his old commander, to see who he could talk to. The man still owed him a favor, after all, when he stopped him from stepping on a landmine back in Kandahar several years ago.

Regardless, Jacob slipped his consciousness into a state of Zen, where time itself was no longer a factor, but his senses were expanded and monitoring everything around him. This allowed him to monitor the store, as he could hear the audio feed from the lobby which was vacant at the moment. His mechanics, as it was a working day, were in the shop working on a few oil changes and little stuff, and he could turn his head if he wanted to watch that, but his eyes were pointed in the general direction of the weapon being crafted slowly, watching the shavings fall away and give birth to what was looking like a perfect piece of machinery.

Jacob waited patiently as the machine worked it's magic, and took the moment to place his hand on the edge, and check it's performance. He normally liked to do the work himself, but not only was the machine currently running so it couldn't be worked on, but this was too important for his eyes not to be able to see what was happening. He melded his hand to the machine, his skin taking the texture of the machine as well as it's color. Normally, it would only give about a centimeter of his skin the effect, but because of his ability to be in private, as well as the fact that he was focusing his mutant ability as hard as he could on this machine, it took about an inch, making most of his hand metallic and blue.

Everything was working correctly, and the one small part that was not quite tightened all the way from the factory was promptly and firmly tightened with his ability. That affirmed in his mind, he broke contact, which was odd this time... because of the depth of his meld, it felt like his hand was a bit sticky, and didn't want to separate from the metal. That was a little concerning, but nothing too horrible. Still, he made a mental note not to try to meld to that point anymore... he didn't want to wind up getting stuck to something... and he didn't know what would happen if he did. Nor did he want to, to be honest.

Jacob then turned his attention away from the sculptor, he moved over to the components of the SmartLink scope that was going to install into it. He picked up the customized glasses he had ordered... they were very expensive, and actually were capable of projecting an image onto the lens from the inside. It also received the feed wirelessly, and the battery that ran the length of the arms of the glasses that helped keep it on his head would last for an hour of continuous use... more than enough time considering he had applied the settings to only turn on when the video feed was requested using a button on the handgun. He wanted to do something more discreet, but it wasn't possible with the way the technological limitations were set. Maybe if he had a friend who did stuff with advanced electronics, but he didn't have a connection like that yet. Lots of people were considered good acquaintances to Jacob, but that was one field that he hadn't quite tapped anyone in yet.