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Overnight
Part of a series about Contrei Alvarez & Adelaide Neumann
⊷ DIRECTOR FILE 1 | ⠧⠽⠞⠁⠇
2824
VYTAL FACILITY 01, MT. NABETHEA, ERIOS
PROJECT RSX
The RennSport Experimental was not a racing craft in any competitive sense.
It was a tool. A controlled environment disguised as a vehicle. A testbed for the next generation of RennSport HSRL propulsion development that Vytal had been tweaking for years.
The project - eventually labeled 'Seire' by the rest of the team - was Adelaide's proposal, drafted in the early months of her tenure as Technical Director and green-lit by Contrei without much rumination. Seire was straightforward on paper: use a highly-modular performance-ship chassis as a live environment for iterating on propulsion hardware, rather than committing untested systems directly to Arctara AG's race platform. It was less risk and gave faster feedback. A philosophy that, frankly, neither of their fathers had ever really subscribed to.
The engineering team assigned to the Seire was a rather small one, and most of them kept the factory's standard hours. By early evening, the bay would typically empty out - datapads powered down, tool carts stowed, lights dimmed to save power. The mountain cold pressed through even the thickest of windows, and the only sounds left were the ambient hum of test equipment and the occasional metallic pop of hull material contracting in the drop in temperature.
And sat at the dimly lit worktable were Adelaide and Contrei.
It wasn't really a scheduled thing between them. This just naturally became the routine.
Adelaide had a habit of running her own reviews after the team cleared out; a second pass at whatever had been logged during the day, without the noise of thirteen other people in the same space. Contrei had his own reasons for staying; the way he schedules his time had a way of leaving the actual work for the hours no one was watching. He'd started sharing the bay with her by accident, weeks prior, and neither had made anything of it. Not like the deliberation was needed. There was just the ship, and the work, and the two of them.
Tonight, the focus was on the stellarator coupling geometry - a long-standing nuisance in the current build that had been generating small instabilities at the upper end of the power range. Adelaide worked close to the hardware, her prosthetic arm braced against the hull as she reviewed the thermal telemetry on her panel. Contrei was cross-referencing the morning's test logs against the previous two, looking for whatever it was they had been consistently missing.
PLUSO TECHNICAL NOTE - RSX BUILD STATUS, 2824-XX-XX
The RennSport Experimental [RSX.1 - SEIRE] was at its fourth hardware revision by this point, having incorporated learnings from the first three as incremental changes rather than full rebuilds. The HSRL developmental work [PROJECTARCTURUS-DEV.4] ongoing at this stage concerned stellarator-type microfusion regulation. This is building on Vytal's core Stella-type MPT architecture while pushing into configurations that no production unit had been certified for yet. Seire's data would inform the next generation of Arctara AG's race platform, as well as Vytal's wider roadmap.
Contrei
"Session three's reading diverges from session four at the same timeframe. Two minutes, forty seconds. Every time."
Adelaide"Minor mounting issue on the secondary field module. We adjusted the bracket between sessions."
Contrei"So the bracket fix introduced a new variable."
Adelaide"It fixed what it was supposed to fix. The new variable is separate."
Contrei"...sure. So then we're looking at two issues, not one."
Adelaide"We've always been looking at two issues. The bracket was just louder."
Contrei"Would have been useful to know that before we spent a week on the bracket."
Adelaide"The bracket still needed fixing."
Contrei"Yes, I'm not arguing that."
Adelaide"It sounded like you were, Rei."
Contrei"I was just noting the timeline."
Adelaide"The timeline is fine."
He made a note. She returned to the panel. The mountain wind came through somewhere in the upper structure of the facility, barely audible, more felt than heard.
The work stalled - as it sometimes does - on something that required a part they didn't have on hand. Adelaide closed the panel without much thought and sat down against the base of the scaffolding, the polished floor cold through her uniform. Contrei pulled up a stool from the nearest workbench and sat a few metres away, pouring two cups from the thermos he'd started keeping with him.
He handed one over. She took it without looking up.
They had known each other for over twenty years by this point; since a Neumann-hosted gathering in 2803, when they were both still being shaped by the institutions and families they'd been born into. Much longer before either of them shared a leadership role or a project as rushed as the name it inherits. But, describing it bluntly, their friendship had been an unlikely one in the beginning. Contrei talked easily and often. Adelaide did neither. But she had always been willing to listen to him, and somewhere along the way he learned to read the things she didn't say.
Contrei
"Alano told me he's starting to recognize the ship by sound. From a distance."
Adelaide"He's been here for three test sessions. The signature is consistent."
Contrei"I think he meant it as a compliment."
Adelaide"I'm aware."
Contrei"He's good, by the way. I looked at his lap data from Tuesday's testing session. His lines through Bethea's second sector are cleaner than anything we had from last season."
Adelaide"He's adapting to the power curve faster than expected. I had to recalibrate the feedback dampening after his second session."
Contrei"Is that supposed to be a complaint?"
Adelaide"It's an observation. I'd rather recalibrate for a pilot who pushes the system than one who doesn't."
For a while, they paused, watching the mountains outside. Somewhere on the lower slope of Nabethea, the ambient light of the facility's exterior array would be the only thing interrupting the dark. Inside the bay, the overhead lights had auto-dimmed to their nighttime setting, leaving the space lit mostly by the cool glow of standby monitors and small work lamps.
Contrei
"Do you ever think about what we'd be doing if the companies weren't what they are? If your father had decided to do something else."
Adelaide"No."
Contrei"Well, I do. Sometimes. Not as a complaint. More as... I don't know. Curiosity, perhaps."
Adelaide"I think I'd still end up working on something like this."
Contrei"Propulsion systems on a frozen mountain at twenty-two hundred hours?"
Adelaide"The propulsion systems. Not necessarily the mountain."
He laughed. Quietly - the way he does when something genuinely lands. She didn't smile, but the posture of her shoulders loosened by a fraction. Standard and characteristic of her usual terseness.
Contrei
"I got a message from the Stuttgart facility. They want us down for a tooling review."
Adelaide"I haven't been back since the handover."
Contrei"Four years. I know."
Adelaide"...I don't dislike Stuttgart."
Contrei"That's a very specific thing to clarify, don't you think?"
Adelaide"I grew up there. Most of it is fine, anyway. I just don't have a reason to go back unless there's work."
Contrei"There's work."
Adelaide"Then I'll go."
The tea had gone lukewarm. Contrei refilled his cup anyway.
Contrei
"Can I ask you something?"
Adelaide"You usually just ask."
Contrei"I guess. When we were in Yeles, back in 2803... at the Collective event, I think. You didn't want to be there."
Adelaide"I was twelve."
Contrei"I was fourteen and I didn't want to be there either, for the record. My father kept introducing me to people who looked at me like I was a footnote on his resume."
Adelaide"Yours too?"
Contrei"And I remember; you hid behind a support column for forty minutes. I found you there."
Adelaide"I wasn't hiding. I was reading."
Contrei"Alone? Behind a column...?"
Adelaide"The light was better there."
Contrei"Ada."
Adelaide"...it was a bad hiding spot. I know."
He laughed again; a bit longer this time, and she let it go on without interrupting it. That was one of the things about Contrei - his laugh was never at anyone's expense, even when it probably could have been. She had noticed that early on.
Contrei
"Do you actually enjoy the Collective events now, or is that also diplomatic?"
Adelaide"Some of them."
Contrei"Pray tell. Which ones?"
Adelaide"The technical reviews. The ones where there's an actual agenda."
Contrei"And the dinners, I suppose?"
Adelaide"The food is fine."
Contrei"You always say that. Is it actually fine or are you being diplomatic?"
Adelaide"...the portions are small."
Contrei"There it is."
By the time they finally packed up the 'studio', the facility had been dark for hours. The part they needed would arrive in the morning. The initial problem would still be there. So would they.
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