Tsu'na said she found a place to work on the gasoline, so we headed out after the Tuesday night diner shift to camp. It was a beat-up building in what looked like the edge of an industrial area. Not a lot of cover for a tent, so we set up in some trees about a mile away with plans to hoof it in in the morning.

In the daylight, the building looked more than beat-up. It looked like it might have been a small factory or machine shop, but something had torn right through the middle of it. The owner apparently called it a write-off, gutted it for anything useful, and left it to rot.

"What might have done this, Husband?"

"Wild guess? Maybe an F2 tornado."

"Eff two?"

"They come in categories. The stuff we saw in Eorzea would compare to F1. F2's bigger and might tear through a building that doesn't have a lot of internal support. They go all the way up to F5...I hear some of those can be a mile across."

Tsu'na stared at me with wide eyes. "Do those happen often?"

"The really big ones? Not too, I think. The smaller ones, there's places where they happen kind of a lot. Needs big flat areas for the winds to get up to speed."

"Tornado Alley."

"Yeah." I studied the bisected building. "Guessing someone got unlucky."

The remaining sheet metal walls were well-corroded. Windows were up high, with maybe half the glass remaining; someone might've thought it a personal challenge to throw rocks that high up. Slightly surprising not to see any tagging, but I guess graffiti artists would have to actually care to go out that far.

The inside (for certain values of "inside") didn't have much to show. The smashed-out middle was flat and empty. The remaining "wings" had a couple crossbeams, one of which had some chain hanging from it. What looked like the remains of an HVAC system, which may have fallen from the roof, lay in a heap on the floor. A few empty cabinets hung on the walls with their doors open. A corner was closed off with chain link caging, probably for storage, but nothing was stored in it now.

Another corner was closed off as a room...guessing that was whatever-this-was's "office". A cheap but heavy desk remained in it. The opposite wing had a long metal worktable. That was about it for furniture.

There was broken glass on the floor, but it was flat and clear, so likely from the windows. No bottle glass. No beer cans or other trash. Which seemed kind of odd. Sure, the building was roof-deficient, but still, vacant building. Concrete floor, so it's not like someone would fall or anything. So why was no one using it as a hangout or shelter?

"Hey!"

We turned to see a man in a sky-blue shirt, black pants and a beige cowboy hat. He had a gun, but it was still in its holster with his hand resting on it. I didn't see a badge.

"This is private property!"

I smiled and held up a hand. "Hey, sorry, we were just hiking by and saw this. What was it, a tornado?"

"Don't know, don't care. Get lost."

He had a patch on the arm of his shirt. I guessed he was a rental. "They pay you to guard this place? Seriously, what's there to guard?"

"Less talking, more walking."

We walked. Mr. Guard followed us out of the shell and out into the parking lot. I turned back to the building. "See, I was just telling my wife this had to be an F2. Not like I'm an expert or anything..."

"F1," muttered Mr. Guard.

"F1? Really? They can do this?"

"Skinnier. They're movin' fast, they can tear right through something like this. F2 woulda taken the whole building down. Y'ain't from around here, are you?"

"East coast. Guess you folks know tornadoes, huh?"

"Yeah, we get enough of them."

He was still gruff, but at least he was letting me engage him. I turned to Tsu'na. "Cider?" She brought out a bottle and opened it for me, then another for herself. I gestured to the building with my bottle. "And they're not fixing it or tearing it down? Just leaving it there?" I saw his eyes following the bottle and paused before drinking. "Hey, you want one?"

He accepted the bottle, a little startled when he touched it. He took a slow sip and closed his eyes. "Oh Lord, that's good on a day like this. How you keepin' it cold?"

"Insulated fanny pack."

"Maybe I gotta get me one of those."

Tsu'na handed me a fresh bottle. I asked, "So how much are they paying you to guard an empty shell?"

"Fifty a day."

"Side job?"

"Retiree."

"Nice." I sipped my cider and gazed at the building. "You know...we could really use a place like this..."

"You wanna buy it?"

"Nah, can't afford it. But we've got a line on some corn oil and we've been thinking about developing alternative fuel..."

"Like corn ethanol?"

Oklahomans really know their tornadoes and their gas. "Like that, yeah. Course, it's not the sort of thing we want to do in our garage, but a place like this where there's, like, nothing to burn..."

"'Cept for the part where it's private property."

"Yeah, there's that." I looked around the parking lot and saw a faded blue SUV not too far away. "That yours?"

"Yeah...?"

"Looks like a fifty dollar gas tank you're driving around."

He eyed me suspiciously. "Sixty."

"Huh. Well, tell you what...we're still working out the process, but when we get it right, the first two tankfuls are yours. What do you say?"

"What part of 'private property' are you not getting?"

"The part where it's not yours but the gas will be? You can come by and have another cider too."

"And what if you start a fire?"

"Is there anything there that can burn?"

He looked at me. He looked at the building. He looked at his car. He looked at me. "Three tanks."

I tried to look resigned. "Three tanks."

"No drugs. No cookin' meth or anything."

"Just gasoline."

"And don't get caught by someone who ain't me."

"You ran us off, we snuck back in. Totally not your fault."

"Don't make me regret this. Don't make me lose my job."

"We'll keep an eye out. Don't worry."

We clinked bottles in agreement. His name was Leon. I gave ours as Stan and Tina. I didn't understand the serious look Tsu'na gave me.

She did have a concern. "I did not see a bathroom in the building."

"Crap. Guessing that was in the middle."

Leon pointed south. "Shell station a half mile down."

"Yeah, that works. Okay, we'll be back with our stuff tomorrow and get to work. Pleasure doing business with you." As we walked away toward the gas station I turned back and waved with a smile. "Three tanks."

We could have gotten started right away, but that would have involved Leon wondering how we pulled equipment out of our asses. So we found the gas station, got soft drink chasers for our ciders and Returned to Wyatt. The diner kids weren't thrilled with my selection of Earth, Wind and Fire that evening, but I was feeling festive.

So, after another night camping near the shell (we were going to be making gasoline in a building shell...would it be our shell station?), we got to work yesterday morning trying to devise the recipe.

There were two hard parts. One was adequate visualization and conceptualization of exactly what we were trying to do. The Eorzean Alchemy process for making muddy water into distilled water is obvious: you want water without mud in it. The process for going from corn oil to gasoline should have been similar, but what exactly were we filtering out? And how to visualize it in order to visualize gasoline as something that doesn't contain it?

The other problem was what aetheric aspect was involved. Most Alchemy recipes use water shards, including turning latex into rubber. I shied away from this idea because neither corn oil nor gasoline mixed with water, but Tsu'na leaned toward it, comparing the water aspect to the liquid state of matter rather than water per se.

I also thought that since we were making flammable liquid it meant fire shards should be involved, but it needed to be a delicate balance to not produce, say, nitroglycerine, or highly unstable jet fuel. At least, unintentionally.

So we labored. We wrote, we tried, we failed, over and over. Most of our trials produced nothing; some produced thick, viscous and decidedly non-flammable sludge. We kept track of the recipes in case it was sludge we'd ever have a use for, like perhaps a form of axle grease. Strongly corn-scented axle grease.

It was frustrating. It was tiresome. I was getting annoyed, but it looked like Tsu'na was getting pissed. I remembered the determination she'd show when trying to get an experiment right and the celebratory affection she was up for when she did. At this rate I wondered if we were getting a second honeymoon.

Leon stopped by, making his regular rounds. The first time he came he insisted on seeing what we were working on, so I brought him to the workbench and showed him our alembics and a paint tray full of sludge. Apparently satisfied we weren't cooking meth, he accepted a cider and left us alone for most of the day.

In the afternoon I brought a cider out to him in the parking lot. I probably stank of corn oil...good thing we were wearing our crafting gear and could switch out of it as soon as we were done. As I drank he asked, "So...how long's this gonna take?"

"Dunno. We've never done it before. I mean, chemistry, yeah, but not this particular chemistry."

"Cuz I dunno when the owner's gonna wanna come by or something."

"What's he even doing with the place?"

"Something 'bout insurance, they said. Mighta been people got hurt when the twister came through, and they gotta settle."

"And in the meantime this is frozen assets. Gotcha. You'd think if it was a going business they'd at least try to repair or something."

"Jobs been disappearin' round here. They mighta sent the whole thing off to Hindustan or whatever."

"Yeah, maybe. Well, at least it means we..."

I saw the yellow light splash across his face before I heard it.

BOOM

I was frozen in place. I took a deep breath, forced a smile on my face and raised a hand. "I should probably check on her. Why don't you wait here?"

I turned and walked -- I did not run -- back to the building. Leon looked panicky, but he stayed behind...smart man, thinking one explosion wasn't the end of things.

Tsu'na was steadying herself against the workbench when I got to her. I'd seen her Fierce pose in Eorzea when she needed to face someone down. This wasn't that. She was furious. Smoke was shedding from her, as were bits of her clothing. We recover quickly from damage, so once she had some time she'd be fine, but her crafting gear was singed. I was glad her hair wasn't on fire.

"Are you all right, my love?"

"Cotton."

"Cotton...?"

"A lot of cotton."

"For the recipe?"

"For clothes." She grabbed the front of her hempen crafting doublet and yanked; it was burned enough that it came off easily. "Better crafting clothes. A lot of clothes. I will make your gasoline. I do not care how many gearsets I need to burn to do it. It will not defeat me!" She breathed heavily. "What was it you called this in Eorzea?"

I smiled. "A point of honor."

"Yes. This is a point of honor. Where is cotton?"

"Caddo County. Southwest of Wyatt, toward Oklahoma City."

"We leave tonight."

"Yes, my love."

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"I just think it's cute to see you all fired up about this."

She glared at me. I just smiled.

"Perhaps I will laugh at that tomorrow."

"Yes, my love."