World's End bar

[MacRory's Irregulars]

Kayla and Brodie

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The bar's door opened up, letting in a group of station workers carrying crates, followed by Kayla and Brodie. The workers stored the crates in the corner of the room and left, while Kayla and Brodie made themself comfortable - if one could actually do this on a simple metal stool - at the makeshift bar. Kayla opened them two cans of beer, while Brodie was setting up a simple holoprojector. He took the beer with a nod of greeting, took a swig and then turned the projector up. The space above the bar was suddenly filled by projection of several schematics, diagrams and component lists. He studied it for a moment, to make sure there’s no glitches, and then he turned to Kayla.

“This is what I have in mind. You think it’s possible?”

Kayla examined the projection, rotating it around to see all the details, before letting out a sigh.

“I don’t know man. It should be possible, it’s not like you’re trying to invent something here, all of this is tried-and-true tech, installations like these are on pretty much any planet you can name and few of the richest stations too, but it’s also highly specialized. The sensory field generators alone would probably cost more than the budget you have for your entire department for a year, and it’s certainly way over the budget you have for the End. And have I mentioned you need a license from the manufacturer to even be able to buy them?”

Brodie shrugged. “I know. That’s why I’m not even considering using them or any other of the original components. Look at this,” he said, as he tossed away the diagrams, picked out one of the schematics and enlarged it, sticking the relevant component list to its side.

“None of the ‘highly’ specialized components is really that. You said it yourself, it’s tried-and-true tech. What’s really special about it is the way it’s connected and utilized. The computerware is probably the most valuable piece of it all, the ‘highly specialized’ and ‘precisely calibrated’ components are just a load of bull. Sure, they have to be top tier quality, I won’t deny that, but otherwise it’s just a marketing stunt to milk the rich.”

“Really? Because it sounds to me like you’re way too confident. You're trying to replace a purpouse built components with general purpose ones. Even if you’re right, what makes you so sure you can pull it off? You’d have to reverse-engineer the designs you don’t have, not to mention repurpose components from a ton of manufactures who were never supposed to be used together?”

She pointed at a specific place of the schematic.

“See this? Your design runs a signal from an industrial grade optical sensor suite from Ageira, to an optronic chip made by one of Kishiro’s subsidiaries, while sideloading data from Daumann’s military grade motion sensor fields, all through a single bus.”

Brodie looked at the particular circuit Kayla just described, his expression a bit less enthusiastic than before.

“And… that’s a problem?”

Kayla stared blankly at him for a few seconds.

“Brodie, mate, there’s not a single off the shelf bus that’s going to work with all three. You’d have to make one with built-in power converters and you’d probably have to write custom firmware just to make those three talk.”

Brodie considered Kayla’s words and then flashed a smile at her.

“So, you can do it right? I’ll make the designs, you’ll figure out the kinks in them and we’ll make one hell of an interactive holo-cinema and gaming room in one, what do you think?”

“What, me? What makes you think I’ll be interested in something like that?”

Brodie’s smile widened.

“Because it’s a bloody challenge, that’s why. Or am I wrong?”

Kile blinked with She laughed.

“You bastard, you were planning this from the start weren’t you? You knew those components won’t work together without some serious re-engineering. You baited me!”

“Bait you? Me?I would never!”

“Well it worked you sly piece of warehouse rat. Now, show me the rest of the schematics. This can’t be all, this would barely be enough to track people’s line of sight in the holo-field, how do you want to handle the other sensors? And why do you need this particular force field generator?”

The conversation took off. Brodie explained his ideas, Kyla dismantled them and then they rebuilt them together for the better part of the evening.

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