章節 64: Right Place To Be
She hadn't expected much conversation along the way, but circumstances conspired to deliver her a guide that sounded less like an official of the One-Light Directory and more like a member of one of those gossiping cliques she'd passed in the residential scraper's lobby.
In the words of the Prime Beacon, she was "a real chatterbox". Whatever that was. They didn't pass a meter without some new comment, inquiry, addendum, or change of topic stealing her focus from her head. From the important stuff in there.
The supervisor was leaning to the right and almost clipped her shoulder against the corner as she led Pa-5. The cause was of course her lack of awareness for their surroundings. She found Pa-5 much more interesting.
"...and if there wasn't any chance of it becoming even stranger, she had to go and add herself. If you ask me, the second time should've been plenty warning, even for someone with as few damns to give as her." She eyed Pa-5. "Sorry, do you mind my verbal liberality?"
"Not at all, sir," she reassured the supervisor. "I don't know much of the circumstances between the two of you, but it sounds like you know what you're talking about." The simple praise made the supervisor swell under her skinsuit. She caught mutters of "she knows it too" and "as I thought".
A crashing din of activity beyond another door obscured whatever came after. Though the door and walls around it looked thick and insulted, the clangs, squeals, and heavy thuds had no complications pushing past like they were traveling through water. The supervisor placed her band into a scanner and then gestured for her to mirror her. Once they were both confirmed and permitted to pass, the door slid up, admitting them past the threshold.
Pa-5 was reminded that just because the complex she was in wasn't anywhere the size of the one storing a Titan, that hardly meant it was lacking in size. The latter had to be rotund and all-incumbent with its internal and external dimensions on account of its purpose. It dwarfed this complex in scale, but further down, there were plenty of other scrapers that wouldn't hold a flame to the one she was in.
Before her eyes, a dozen lines of engineers worked to assemble WAVs. They were closest to the start of the process and could see new endoskeletons descending from gaping slots in the ceiling. Dozens came per second, and it gave the notion that the mad rush would overwhelm them to find all the endoskeletons a place between the moving lines.
The supervisor gripped her arm and pulled her through the first lines, now silent. Even if she droned on as usual, she would no longer have space empty of background noise to monopolize the air.
In here, there was hammering, smacking, drilling, rolling, whirring, firing, smashing, crashing, banging, thudding, squealing, and those were only the sounds Pa-5 seized from the frenzied air and identified before ordering her HUD to disconnect her audial nerves from her receptors. She'd learned from last time, but it displeased her to note her hands still shook. It was a grand improvement, but not enough for her. Not yet.
She bumped into the supervisor, who turned back and pressed her back a little. She mouthed, "There," and pointed at a trio of engineers clustered around a circled bend in one of the lines.
They alternated between marking certain endoskeletons with red lights, strapping on faux pauldrons for measurement confirmation, and directing overhead cranes to remove some of the WAV endoskeletons from the line. She didn't see where the cranes relocated them, disappearing back into the hatches in the ceiling.
The supervisor offered a friendly thump. She struggled to keep a cough inside her chest, made harder by how it burned. It was a light blow, but a blow nonetheless. One of the engineers noticed her and waved her over. When they were close, he mouthed, "Pa-5?" She nodded and waited as his eyes glazed over.
One of the two remaining engineers still working looked over her shoulder and shouted something at him, but his eyes remained locked onto hers until a communication notice flashed on her HUD.
The words bypassed her ears, registering within her head. He skipped the introductions to run her into it as fast as he could. At the same time, he dragged her back to his place, positioning her next to him.
"Those two," he gestured at the pair before him in the lineup, "provide stress testing for different layers of the base. I attach negative space to leave open for shoulder plates later down," he pointed further down the line, "and you're going to confirm if the exoskeletons have enough space in the schematics for each one for the plating that others will attach before the shoulders."
He tossed a screen at her. "You have experience modifying and repairing WAVs, so that should translate well to making them. I'll leave this communication open, so if you have questions, ask me. Nothing is too stupid with production efficiency on the line."
Each exoskeleton stopped in front of her for a ten-second interval, giving her ample time to trace her eyes along the custom schematic of each before finding or failing to find the same traits on the real thing in front of her. If every cordoned-off block of space on the screen had a visual match, she let it pass.
If it didn't, she summoned one of the cranes hanging above them, awaiting use. She passed eight before finding one that didn't match its schematics. There was a centimeter-deep discrepancy on a groove beneath the left knee joint. If left unattended, it would allow ample space for the musculature tendons that hooked there to wriggle and come undone with time.
The part of the WAV with the greatest potential for damage or mishap wasn't the plating, the complex wiring, the injection systems, the assistive programs, or even the exoskeleton itself. It was the artificial musculature. On account of needing to be both pliable and flexible, each thread used was dozens of times more frail in structure than scutumsteel.
The engineer that acclimated her to their small alcove kept an eye on her for the first few dozen exoskeletons they worked on. After that, she saw his smile and him returning his full attention to his work.
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