dejah_thoris | [OOM] An Engineer's Challenge (For Adrian Shepard)

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[OOM] An Engineer's Challenge (For Adrian Shepard)

She'd taken copious notes on his specifications for modifying the Buell RS1200 motorcycle, and even at this late in the design phase, she was still muttering under her breath about how much more sensible a light-skimmer would be. But he'd been very clear. It had to maintain the original appearance and it had to remain in contact with the surface at all times.

She'd already converted the original engine to a radium drive, and now she was adding in additional features for speed, maneuverability and stability. He wasn't always going to be running on the smooth surface of pavement or even a moss plain. So it had to have inertial stabilizers. And it had to have certain aerodynamic stabilizers so that it remained upright and travelling in the indicated direction at high velocity. If that wasn't a challenge enough, he wanted to be able to do hair-pin turns and extreme course alterations at speed.

She'd already extended the capabilities of the onboard calculating engine to encompass the algorithms for these features. She'd added a force shield that would only deploy when required, which required sensors to anticipate the vectors of incoming threats.

Now, she was in the process of modifying a test body, and manufacturing parts to be fitted. She had the bike up on a test bench, stripped down to bare bones and with the radium drive already added in. She had grease up to her elbows and a nice big smear across her cheek. Her hair was piled on top of her head, speared through with a pencil. Beside her, there were several bins of parts and tools clearly staged to begin the retrofit.

Now all she needed was a pot of tea and some music and she'd be set. She wiped a rag across her brow, and squinted at the suspension units. She had a holo of the original bike up so she could refer to it, and she reached a hand over to spin it 360 degrees. Two fingers pinched and zoomed to blow it up so she could examine it closer.

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If there is one thing Shephard knows is unwise, it's disturbing someone who's up to their elbows in machinery. Either they'll get surprised and hurt themselves, or they'll get surprised and damage the equipment, or they'll just flip their shit in general at being caught off guard. You have to warn someone you're coming way ahead of time.

So he's gonna be knocking on the nearest available wall for quite some time as he gets closer to the garage-lab Dejah's set up. It's only fair.

"Is that you, Adrian?" she called, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "I recognize your manners from here."

"Now that ain't somethin' I hear all that often," Shephard answered. "Yeah, it's me. C'n I come in?"

Shit, if she was in the middle of something, he'd stay back until it was clear.

"Please do! I'd enjoy the company."

She zoomed out of the original holo and set it aside.

"Thank you kindly."

He'd made a point of leaving Mrs. Wilson at home. Dog didn't need to get under foot even if she was smaller than Woola by about seventy-five percent.

"Remind me to introduce you to my commander in chief sometime," he said, glancing around the workspace. "Ms. Vance don't do much with transports, but she builds'n designs robots. She'd love to see some of this."

"She's welcome down here, any time. I miss having a view while I work. It feels very strange, working underground."

She wiped her hands on a rag and shifted the test frame so he could better see. He'd recognize the previous modifications she'd made on his Buell, replacing the engine, but the CE was easily twice as big. The size of a small loaf of bread instead of just the size of a large apple.

"But I've always preferred working on machines that I can maintain with my hands. It's a very satisfying feeling. Designs are over there, if you'd care to take a look." She gestured at the other table.

"There's a fella who works here, does his work on his own bike in the gym," said Shephard. "It don't have a view, but it's above ground. 'Course, he works here, so that changes things some."

He nodded and headed over to the other table to get a better look at the designs. Most of his engineering knowledge came from hands-on work, but he'd been studying the living hell out of those books his wish from Brimstone had gotten him, and it was helping with the more advanced subject matter.

She came and stood beside him, leaning down to point as she spoke. "Calculating engine here, as before. Connected to the suspension systems, the inertial and aerodynamic stabilization, here. For maneuverability, I've designed an energy contact surface..." She turned, leaned one hip against the table so she could use both hands to indicate a sphere the size of one of the tires.

"It is a shield turned inside out, so that the force can be translated along the contact surfaces, generating directional thrust at the direction of the driver. Think of them as spherical tires. It will allow you to change course at incredibly high speeds without threat of rolling the bike."

"And if you do roll the bike," she turned back to the design again, "I've taken the liberty of incorporating another force shield that will deploy to mitigate the impact. Though with the stabilizers, it should take a great deal of chaotic motion to pitch you headlong from the seat. The outer shield also functions against smaller airborne debris when you travel at speed. It only activates when there's a threat, so there has to be a sensor array." Again, she tapped the drawing. "That's where most of the CE is devoting its cycles."

"Sure do hope that computer ain't gonna need a whole lot of physical maintenance," says Shephard. "We c'n look after code pretty easy, but this is startin' to remind me of the schematics I've seen for Pi's central processing units, and that tends to make most of our people's eyes cross."

Dejah dipped her chin and gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Do you think I would provide you with a machine that you could not maintain easily?"

"Only if you thought it'd be a challenge," says Shephard. "Speakin' of which I ought to show you Borealis someday. Pi could-"

He stops, thinks for a moment.

"Shit. You know... shit. Uh. Sorry 'bout the language, but somethin' occurs to me."

She smirks, laughs under her breath. "Hmm? Yes?"

"Well," says Shephard, "Borealis has an on-board portal generator that ain't like nothin' the Black Mesa folks ever developed. Give her the right coordinates and Pi'll open a portal to places a Black Mesa teleporter can't reach. I ain't too sure if she needs a borderworld same as the Black Mesa folks do, but I'm kinda wonderin' if there ain't some way of workin' out a set of coordinates for Barsoom, seein' how the whole point of a lot of that portal shit was to git her to another universe altogether anyways."

Dejah blinked...

...and blinked again.

"You -- want to create a portal from your world to mine?"

She did not seem at all thrilled at the prospect.

"Not exactly," says Shephard. "Function-wise, Pi's just usin' that kind of thing to teleport. The portals don't last more than a second."

But he's not stupid. You don't last long in his line of work without recognizing subtleties of tone.

"'Course, now that I think about it, it ain't likely to be all that wise an idea for my end of the teleport anyways. Strikes me as the kind of thing you got to git exactly right the first time. Mind if we forget I said anything?"

She cocked at eyebrow at him. "Please, do not misunderstand my hesitation. If you would like to see the city of Helium, I would be more than happy to have you as my guest. It just -- I have heard the tales of what come out of your portals, and I do not wish to bring such ills down upon my world. I'm sure you understand."

"Too right I do," says Shephard. "My apologies- I was thinkin' we've been settin' up for trade and such with a lot of places on Earth usin' Pi's little trick, and my imagination got a couple steps ahead of my good sense. Popular opinion to the contrary, I have got some."

She smirked and looked at him with one eye.

"Says the man who wishes a machine that travels the speed of the wind while still in contact with the earth." Her tone was one of good-natured teasing, not malice.

"Remind me to tell you 'bout a fella name of John Paul Stapp sometime," says Shephard. "Man used to test how much G force a human could stand by strappin' himself into a rocket sled on rails. I ain't nothin' compared to him."

"Well, I suppose he thought he had no other alternative," she laughed.

She turned back to the bike, leaning to rest against the table.

"Honestly, what do you think?" She actually sounded a little concerned about his opinion.

"Honestly? I think I'm gonna have to come up with one hell of a way to thank you for this," says Shephard. "I worked my ass off just to git the original into workin' condition. It don't seem right not to put at least as much effort into bringin' her this far up to speed."

Dejah's demeanor relaxed a little at that. "You needn't thank me. I'm pleased I could help. And besides, I'll work out all the kinks on this test model and then make the upgrades to yours. And get myself a working-if-land-bound-vehicle out of the deal. Perhaps we could go for a ride together."

"Wouldn't say no to that," says Shephard. "Just to make sure there's someone on hand who knows what to expect during the test run. That don't never hurt none."

Somewhere an English teacher just doubled over with a sudden, massive cramp and has no idea why.

"Ah yes! The adjustment phase, I like to call it." She laughed again, an easy, content sound. "You'll do just fine. I will ensure that it runs as close to the original as possible, except when you -- need it to do otherwise."

"'preciate it, Dejah," says Shephard, "I surely do. I know it goes against your principles to keep it on the ground and all, but I just don't feel right if I ain't got somethin' familiar to stick to."

"It doesn't go 'against my principles', as you say. It just seems an unnecessary limitation to put on yourself. But I do understand you don't like to fly, so --" She wobbled a hand in mid air, "I work within the parameters you have set forth."

"And you're quite welcome. I'm enjoying having a project to work on that isn't a vast underground pumping station. Pumps are -- really quite boring, even when they are the size of a small house."

"Pumps," repeat Shephard. "What, for oil, or water, or some kind of gas?"

Oil doesn't seem likely, but mineral oil has other uses; water, well, Barsoom's not exactly a green planet from what he recalls, so maybe there's water down there somewhere; and gas- for fixing the atmosphere, maybe? It could be any of those.

"Water. There's an underground ocean we are attempting to coax back to the surface. Right now, it meets our daily needs for consumption and the atmospheric generators, but I would like to see -- a more obvious change."

Terraforming is tricky business and she takes it very seriously.

"Shit. Good luck with that," says Shephard. "Only large-scale change work I've ever seen bein' done on purpose like that's what the Combine were doin' to our atmosphere, and they used living creatures to do it. Bringin' up that much water's a hell of a job."

"It is," she agrees with a soft smile. "And for the longest time, we have relied on technology that was built by the ancestors. I've -- We've been making a concerted effort to update it to something far more efficient. More work for less effort. And I can't begin to speak to how much it helps that we no longer have active opposition to our efforts on the surface."

"Yeah, I know how that goes," says Shephard. "How long've you been at it, you don't mind my askin'?"

It's rough enough trying to get the human race back into a secure position on Earth with the Combine gone. Having to work with somewhere like Barsoom... yfgh.

"More than a hundred of your Terran years. It's a project in its infancy, but I hope to see it to its fruition some day."

She glanced across at him.

"Can you tell me about this ship of yours? The one that makes -- portals?"

"Sure," says Shephard, "although alls her technical documents'n operating manuals're back home just at the moment."

He scratches his nose briefly, thinking.

"Ship's name is Borealis, and she was built by a company name of Aperture Science for testing a whole lot of weird-ass shit. Portals, mostly. She's a high latitude research vessel and polar icebreaker. Three hunnert ninety-nine foot long, eighty-three and a half foot in the beam, thirty-one feet of draft. Nuclear powered- nuclear fission. Two reactors with two steam turbines drivin' six generators. Built for a crew of two hunnert sailors, officers, 'n Marines, plus fifty scientists, and she'll do six to eight months at sea without putting into port- that's if she ain't doin' the portal thing instead, that's a whole 'nother story."

"And this Pi? She is - her captain?"

"Naw. Pi's the computer controllin' the portal system," says Shephard. "Think I told you 'bout her before- the folks who built her didn't realize she was gonna go conscious on 'em 'til the whole damn experiment that killed her crew. Pi can't do much beyond the jump system'n a couple other related systems. Ship still needs a human crew'n captain."

"Oh yes, yes I remember now. I didn't recall her name, forgive me."

"Already done," says Shephard. "I got made captain when I asked Ms. Vance who the ship's CO was, seein' how we didn't seem to have nobody on our hands of a naval persuasion. I dunno if they have the same sort of thing on Barsoom, but Ms. Vance was of the opinion that the position ought to go to the one who cared enough to ask about it, which is how I wound up in the captain's spot."

Dejah's lips twitched. "I am familiar with the distinction between air, land and water services. My late husband was a captain in the Confederate Army. So, your -- I'm sorry, I thought your rank was Sergeant. Should I be calling you Captain, instead?"

Shephard runs a gloved hand over his face. "Far as I'm concerned it's Sergeant or Sergeant-Major as long as I'm on land," he says. "I ain't Navy by training. I might be ship's CO, but I ain't gonna make nobody call me Captain less'n them'n me're both on board Borealis and they ain't one of my Marines. Wouldn't sit right at all."

She chuckled in the back of her throat. "Fair enough. I prefer Adrian, anyway."

She turned back to the test frame, lightly touching his arm as she passed.

"I think I'm a week away from having a working test model, and then another week of fine tuning before I'm ready to begin retrofitting the Buell."

There's not many people in the world who use his first name. Shephard himself mostly just thinks of himself as Shephard. Even his family mostly uses nicknames.

Well, different strokes, and all that.

"'Preciate it," he says, and then, "Two weeks is fine by me. You need anything from me in the meantime? Spare pare of hands or anything?"

"If you like. Or you could run upstairs and get us something to drink?"

"That, also, I can do," Shephard says. "Got a preference?"

"I would say tea, but I suspect a six pack of beer is easier to carry."

"Li'l bit," Shephard allows. "I'll see what I c'n do."

"Thank you. I'll be right here."

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[OOM] An Engineer's Challenge (For Adrian Shepard)

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