Previous Chapters:
It’s Go Time! - Starting Party 6 PM
Boldly Going / Through the Rift / Arrival in Jaduvira - Stage 0
When the Hell are We!? - Stage 0 Campsite
Out of His Damn Mind - Stage 0 Campsite
One Hot Night / Letters from the Past - Stage 0 Campsite
Over the Hill and Through the Woods - Stage 1
May the Moons have Mercy on Them - Stage 1 Campsite
Helpful Friends are Helpful - Stage 1 Campsite
(Thank you to @Elizipeazie for writing this with me!)
Malavera groaned and covered his left muzzle with his left hand, a gesture very similar to a face-palm, but way less violent. “Well, I did tell them I was just as likely to scare all of you as Kaylie was,” Malavera said, shaking his right head. “I came over here to ask if everything was okay, seeing as, if we go just by the arrivals, it seems like you four had a bit of trouble out there.”
Realizing his height might be half the issue in being frightening, Malavera looked around, found a nearby tree stump, and sat down to continue their conversation. “If I’d known I would scare him that bad, I’d have let Kaylie come over. I mean, I suppose we could have sent the gentle giant, Jayde, but, well… He saw another team in need,” Malavera said.
Constantin was the first to speak about the team’s state: “Well… two people didn’t sleep all that much, a third is too mechanically inept to shift and i’m not used to breaching 55mph, given that i usually am sat in massive trucks…”, he explains, motioning to the respective people while doing so. Connor tries to explain his ineptitude soon after: “It seems like i am not yet fully accustomed to the delay caused by the auxiliary driver processing the input signal separately.” Tim immediately smiles at the thought of Connor’s arm basically suffering from high ping, whereas Valentin still is practically staring at the gas stove in the middle to avoid having Malavera in his focused view. He even goes as far as retrieving his haircut previously stowed behind his ears to sort-of hide behind it.
Malavera nodded. “I can understand that. I drive an ex-military truck myself, it’s about the only thing I’ve found myself comfortable in,” Malavera said, replying to Constantin. When Connor explained that he was dealing with signal delays, however, Malavera smiled. “If there’s one thing I know well, it’s high ping,” he said. “Did Kaylie ever try to tune that, Connor?” Malavera asked. “Or did she set it up and hope for the best? Because while I’m not overly familiar with Panthirian powered armor designs, I think the control modules are adjustable. Some people need a higher sensitivity. I mean, the other option is trying to get Jayde involved. He doesn’t understand our technology, let alone yours, but I’m… Well, I’m confident that he could do better than just a patch.”
“From what i remember Kaylie just put it on and left Connor to it with his internal signaling stuff…”, Tim remarks, looking over at the power-assisted elbow brace Connor is wearing. “Correct. The device seems to be optimized to react to nerve signals siphoned off of the skin. I have drastically reduced the signal strength to accommodate. Increasing it’s sensitivity would severely limit fine-motor-control, just like the unexpectedly high current input from the initial movement signal did.”, Connor explains, cycling elbow, wrist and finger movements a few times in the process.
Valentin, while still hiding behind the massive curtain that is his blonde, wavy hair, peeks over to Malavera. Constantin takes note: “Boy, i’ve seen waaaay worse shit in the military… No need to be a pussy about it.” The comment didn’t really help, as Valentin now felt insulted on top of being uncomfortable, even though he truly did not have any bravery or courage to speak of.
Malavera looked over at Constantin after he told Valentin he’d seen way worse in the military. “Some people just aren’t comfortable in some situations. I’d much prefer to have a lens, two computers, about 5 kilometers of network cabling, and a screen between myself and the lot of you, but we all have to face our fears sometime,” Malavera replied. “I’ll go get Kaylie to take a look at that brace, Connor. She’ll know how to tune it better.”
Malavera got up and walked back over to the rest of Team Shift Happens, getting Kaylie’s attention and mentioning to her, “Connor might need that armor frame tuned for him.”
Kaylie nodded, grabbed her kit from the back of the truck, then said, “Might need a computer. I don’t suppose you’ve brought that battleship of a laptop?”
“In the toolbox,” Malavera said. Kaylie opened the lid, then lifted the 20 pound military laptop out with a loud strained grunt.
“Fucking hell, this thing’s heavy!” Kaylie growled, switching it over to her left hand and shaking her right hand in the air with a grimace. “What the hell is in it, Mal!?”
“It’s custom made. I cut down a server board. Twin 8 core CPUs, 128 GB of ECC DDR3, and all the storage space I need locally, plus enough battery to run for 10 hours,” Malavera said proudly as he followed Kaylie.
“Damned tech-junkie,” Kaylie muttered, lugging Mal’s “laptop” over to where Team RK-Series Racing was. “So, Connor, you say you’re having signal latency issues? Serves me right for leaving everything set to their defaults,” Kaylie said, unraveling a wiring harness, plugging it into the serial port and the other end into the control module, then scowling as she tried to work with Malavera’s laptop. “Why the fuck does he have 5 COM ports? What the fuck is he even doing with that many serial… Twin Suns, this laptop is a mess,” Kaylie muttered. “Sorry, guys, had to borrow Malavera’s server-in-a-box. Only used it for a minute so far and I really, really hate it already.”
In the meantime, when Malavera went off to get Kaylie and some equipment, Valentin finally broke the silence for a moment: “I know it’s shallow, but fuck they’re scary to look at…” “Jesus you really are a wuss…”, Tim counters, treating the Shift Happens members as humans in very elaborate fursuits. Valentin just kept quiet, being annoyed at both Tim and Constantin as well as weary about stirring the trouble-pot too much in a completely foreign world.
Upon arrival of Kaylie and Malavera, Connor got to work. “Depending on applied current, the malfunction seems to relate to either sensitivity, latency or a combination of both. I discovered this when trying to change gear en route to this location.” Connor calmy explains, having to trust Kaylie fully for lack of a reasonable alternative.
Valentin manages to take a peek at “laptop”, which is basically an entire server in a suitcase. His angle and the computer’s construction doesn’t reveal much. The only things he can guess that it is immensely powerful and heavy. That raises one question: “Is that a PC? How do you keep that thing cool?”, Valentin mutters, barely loud enough to be audible, yet still directed at Kaylie and Malavera.
Kaylie nodded as Connor described his problem. “You’ve turned your signals down to stop overloading the controller, but this has introduced latency, yes?” Kaylie asked. “I can turn down the receiver’s sensitivity so you can run full signal strength again.”
Malavera, however, looked over as Valentin tried to figure out how his portable server stayed cool. “There’s a reason it’s as thick as it is, and weighs almost 20 pounds, Valentin. Copper heatsinks made for a 1U rack, high-performance fans with a custom fan profile meant to be quiet most of the time, but keep the twin CPUs cool when needed, and a little under-volting here and there to reduce heat without sacrificing stability,” Malavera replied. “That, and I insisted on a 19 inch full-HD 1080P display. When I built it, small 4K displays were too expensive. As for graphics, well… Let’s just say I’m glad I prefer older games, because the stripped-down workstation card in there isn’t great.”
Kaylie, meanwhile, was slowly turning down the signal sensitivity for the armor frame and having Connor recalibrate between each step, trying to see if things were getting better or worse.
Connor simply nods in agreement, followed by a direct “Yes” to hammer down the point even further. Her suggested remedy doesn’t meet an immediate reaction as Connor simply awaits instructions or the completion of the procedure.
Valentin was rather startled by the fact that Malavera actually heard him. He initially doesn’t answer until he receives a light punch to the shoulder by Tim. “Must be awfully loud under load. An array of 60mm fans may generate airflow, but also turns the thing into a jet engine acoustically…”, Valentin remarks, not much louder than before, but making a visible attempt at challenging his fear by at least looking in the vague direction that Malavera and Kaylie were sat at.
Connor internally applied full signal power, but only directed minimal inputs at the device in an attempt to avoid flailing the arm around like a drunkard on the dancefloor doing the windmill. Initially, he more or less did exactly that, much to the surprise of all the others present. Subsequent cycles were much more muted though, until minute and accurate movement was achieved with Connors bottom-clamp value of signal power.
Malavera nodded. “Under full load, it’s quite loud, yes. I’ve got the fan curves set to try keeping the CPUs at 40C if possible. Out here, I’ve got the switch flipped to enable the 50C hold, where it won’t ramp up until it hits 50 degrees. Otherwise,” Malavera said, grimacing as the fans suddenly ramped up, making a racket for several long seconds before shutting down just as suddenly. “Otherwise, it’d sound like that all the time.”
Kaylie kept working with Connor, adjusting the signal sensitivity until Connor couldn’t verify any further benefits to the sensitivity being any lower. “Now, the other thing I’m going to try here is tripling the sensor polling rate. If you pick up any feedback during this, let me know, this is just a mild experiment to see if any improvements are made, but if you get a twitch or a jitter in the arm that you aren’t causing, I’ll try a standard double, and if it’s still a bit jumpy, I’ll turn it back down,” Kaylie said.
“I mean, the laptop’s nothing compared to my battlestation back home, but… Well, it’s not exactly practical to lug a whole server rack around if you don’t need it,” Malavera said. “I know a guy who buys up used business servers and resells the pieces. I occasionally put a notice out to him when I want something specific, and he usually gets back to me if he finds it. If you ever want a custom workstation, Valentin, just let me know, I’ll help you get all the parts. If you ever find yourself needing a mobile server, likewise, I’ll build one for you. Just, be aware, they’re not light.”
“Yeah, he’s not joking on that,” Kaylie said with a grimace. “This thing is killing my knees.”
“It’s made for my lap, not yours, Kaylie,” Malavera replied. “And even at that, it’s best used on a table. Or a desk. Literally any flat surface, really. On one’s legs is only meant for emergencies.”
Valentin over time became more at ease as Malavera and himself were talking about stuff he knew rather well, allowing a common topic that did not end in immediate weirdness. His rig at home was beefy by consumer PC standards, but by no means at enterprise or even server level. “My PC at home is a turd compared to what you managed to cram into a suitcase…”, Valentin admits while watching the happenings between Kaylie and Connor with interest, but minimal understanding of what actually is going on.
On his end, at some point, the control unit simply stops registering Connor’s min_input signal, which is then used as a reference point for the devices sensitivity. The polling-rate idea sounds good on paper, but leads to the affected joints mildly overshooting the desired position as the device reacts to the less-than-instant current drop of Connor’s signal. The double-polling rate seems to work fine.
“Sounds like you got your soulmate located, Val”, Tim jokes, nudging him in the process. Valentin’s answer is not verbal, but ends in him looking back at Tim with an expression of “Really? Yeah no…”. Still, the prospect of sourcing server-grade components sounds enticing enough to keep in mind: “I’ll keep that in mind once my Wi-Fi switch array plans take off, i guess…”
Malavera chuckled. “I do a lot of tasks that often require me to both have a relatively high amount of local CPU power, and also remain relatively mobile. If I’m able to set up a base somewhere, however, I just remote into one of my servers,” Malavera replied. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, fished a pen out of a different robe pocket, grabbed a business card for the person he often called up for server-grade hardware, flipped the card over, and wrote down an IP address, a username, and a password. “Now, keep in mind, these won’t be immediately active once we go back, but I’ll put it at the top of my to-do list to get the credentials set up. You ever need to get some serious work done, don’t bother with paying for cloud computing. This,” Malavera said, handing over the card, “will get you into Server 4. Kaylie occasionally uses it for video rendering, and to be fair, it’s overkill for that.”
“The last episode of Kaylie’s Garage took longer to upload than it did to render,” Kaylie admitted, looking over to them. “Whatever super-computer he’s got up there is impressive.”
“Relatively recent purchase, actually. And not quite a super-computer,” Malavera replied. “But it is the first time I purchased a full rack sight-unseen from a closing business. Got everything but the drives, and I handled that mess myself.”
Kaylie, finally satisfied that she’d adjusted Connor’s arm-frame to the best of her ability, said, “Unless Malavera thinks he can do a bit more on this, I think we’ve solved it. Might still have some issues, but it should be a lot more sensitive now.”
“I’d rather not mess up your hard work, Kaylie,” Malavera said. He watched as she disconnected the harness, then handed him back his laptop.
“By the way, why do you have so many serial ports on that thing?” Kaylie asked.
“Running three different 3D printers at the same time, and still having one port spare for the CNC machine, and one additional spare in case I’m messing around with something over serial,” Malavera admitted. “I know USB is capable of that, but… I like the old school serial port.”
“Also, seriously, Mal, you don’t have a graphical user interface on that thing?” Kaylie asked.
“I do, but I rarely use it. There’s nothing wrong with running everything from the command line,” Malavera replied, chuckling. “Plus, it means that everything looks the same for me, regardless of whether I’m on Mobile 1, Server 1 through 5, or, well… SC 1.”
“SC 1, Mal?”
“I bought a supercomputer, okay? Haven’t even gotten it set up yet. And no, it’s not top of the line, it’s about a decade old.”
Valentin quietly accepts the business card, reading both the contact data of that businessman and the credentials for the server on the back. “Well thanks, i guess…”, he replies as he stores the card in his pocket.
Connor, upon removal of the equipment, goes to work doing his intricate calibration procedure. He pulls out the recently gifted Tigrilan Crown and said coin effortlessly rolls around the fingers of his left hand, eventually sailing straight to the other, where it is caught safely. The process repeats multiple times and in various combinations, the coin going back and forth, up and down and around the fingers of either hand. The right hand was still slower than the left due to the added external size of the harness assembly, but the fluidity and coordination was equal to the fully functional left hand.
“Seems to be working”, Constantin notes. “Yeah. Good job!”, Tim chimes in as well in a cheerful mood. Even Valentin was smiling ever so slightly at the commendable work in augmenting unknown technology to restore functionality.
“Thank you for your assistance.”, Connor says to both Kaylie and Malavera as he puts the coin back into his pocket, cycling the joints the traditional way to make sure that this performance wasn’t a fluke or anything.
Kaylie smiled. “You’re welcome. I know, I should’ve done this before, but, well, I didn’t think about that after I got things working. I thought maybe you’d adjust, but didn’t realize I should have adjusted the hardware to fit the new user. I mean, you did amazingly well for having Kayden’s profile still loaded in there.”
“Hey, all I did was provide the hardware for Kaylie to work on it, and checked in on you guys after that stage,” Malavera said. “And, Valentin, you ever need tech support, contact me if you can. Doesn’t matter with what, I’ll help if I can.”
“Seriously, he’s good,” Kaylie said. “Last time a friend of ours needed help, he spent three days awake brute-forcing the encryption key so the guy didn’t lose data to some malware.”
“A day and a half, Kaylie,” Malavera replied.
“Yes, and those are Khalan days, with a 48 hour day/night cycle,” Kaylie responded instantly.
“It wasn’t a big deal. And to be fair, I made Hunter do most of the work.”
“Doesn’t a Class 10 AI have better things to do than brute force an encryption key?” Kaylie asked.
“If my battle-station were fully operational, yes, Hunter would have better things to do. As it stands, a Class 7 could take over all the duties and have processing power left to spare. I convinced him to take it on as a bit of a puzzle, how fast can he come up with the key to decrypt this file. It took him a little over a day and a half,” Malavera replied. “And, between you and me, I think he might be above a Class 10, given how fast he got the answer.”
“Or someone used a shitty algorithm,” Kaylie said.
“Well, that’s possible, too,” Malavera replied, shutting down his laptop, closing the lid, and getting up so he could follow Kaylie back over to the Bricksley.
”