Ryan checked the footage on the camera. Beginning, middle, end. Nothing missed. Kyle had done a solid job.
Patricia walked over, the surprise still visible on her face. "I have to say, I'm genuinely impressed. When I took this assignment, I wasn't sure what to expect. Now I'm fairly certain Aegis made the right call."
Ryan smiled. "I sent your leadership a partial set of engineering drawings last week. If they ran the numbers on the structural margins, today's performance shouldn't have surprised anyone. This is well within Scrapper's operational envelope."
"Clearly I need to read my own company's briefings more carefully." Patricia shook her head, smiling.
Ward clapped Ryan on the shoulder. "Well done."
Ryan addressed the group. "It's getting late. Everyone go home, get some rest. Tomorrow I'll be distributing technical documentation to each team. Your job from this point forward is to absorb that material until you can explain it in your sleep. The faster you learn, the more useful you become."
"Got it."
"No problem."
"We'll be ready."
The team dispersed with an energy that Ryan didn't fully understand. He didn't know Ward had spent the last hour giving them a pep talk while he was inside the cockpit. No matter. Results were results.
Ryan ate dinner alone in the dining hall.
The place was buzzing. Students with textbooks propped against salt shakers, cramming between bites. Couples sharing earbuds. Groups huddled over laptops, dissecting exam questions from the afternoon. The normal rhythm of a university at the end of term.
He'd barely sat down before heads started turning. No one rushed over. Ward had mentioned that the faculty had asked students to give Ryan space, and the request seemed to be holding. But the phones came out anyway. Discreet angles, quick shots, the universal body language of "act natural while recording."
Ryan didn't mind. Within minutes, his location would be on every platform. His parents would call to ask about the food. The students who'd filmed the Scrapper convoy entering campus last week had already given the story a second wave of attention. Every sighting, every clip, every casual photo of Ryan eating a sandwich in the dining hall kept his name circulating.
Summon Points didn't care about context. A blurry photo of a kid eating dinner was worth the same as a front-page article if it made someone say "Ryan Mercer."
He finished his meal, walked back to the dorm, and sent Kyle's footage to Chloe.
Her reply came in thirty seconds: "Who filmed this?"
"One of the research assistants."
Ryan thought for a moment, then added: "Male."
"Fine. I'll have it edited by tomorrow."
The video would go up on all platforms within twenty-four hours. Scrapper in full black armor, standing for the first time, walking in the new facility. While the story was still hot, while people still cared, while every view and every share and every comment meant another person saying his name.
The next morning, Ryan arrived at the office building with a handful of USB drives.
Fifteen researchers were already waiting. Kyle was practically bouncing.
"Are we starting for real today?"
"Something like that." Ryan held up the drives. "These contain technical documentation for the systems currently installed on Scrapper. You'll split into your pre-assigned groups and study the material relevant to your specialty."
He called the first group.
"Neural interface team."
Seven people stepped forward, Kyle among them. All of them had backgrounds in brain-computer interface research. The field was adjacent to what Ryan had built, but the technology was fundamentally different. Conventional BCI required surgically implanted electrodes to read neural signals with any useful precision. Ryan's neural link did it through external contact sensors, no implants, no surgery, at a fidelity level that made every existing BCI system look like a tin can telephone.
These seven researchers were the best the country's BCI programs had to offer. Getting them assigned to his project had apparently required significant institutional negotiation, because talent in this field was scarce and nobody wanted to give theirs up.
Ryan handed Kyle the first drive.
"The neural link is one of Scrapper's two core technologies. What's on this drive is the foundational theory and operational framework. It will not look like anything you've worked with before. Study it, internalize it, and come to me with questions. Deeper material will follow once you've mastered the basics."
He turned to the next group.
"Energy and propulsion team." Five researchers. "This drive contains the current power system specs and schematics. Familiarize yourselves with the existing setup. There will be a major overhaul coming, and you need to understand the baseline before we change it."
"Software and systems team." Three researchers. "Partial source code for Scrapper's operating system, plus the programming standards and architecture documentation. The OS is the other core technology. You'll eventually be collaborating with the neural interface team, so pay attention to the signal-processing layer."
Drives distributed. Fifteen researchers holding fifteen copies of technology that didn't exist anywhere else on Earth.
"Two weeks," Ryan said. "That's how long you have to get comfortable with this material. Questions come to me directly. And remember: everything on those drives is classified. Don't discuss it outside this building. Don't copy it. Don't email it. If you lose a drive, tell me before you tell anyone else."
They nodded. Every one of them was itching to plug in and start reading. Ryan could see it in the way they held the drives, fingers tight, the anticipation almost physical.
"Go."
They scattered to their respective offices. Ryan watched them go, then picked up the last item on the desk. Not a USB drive. A portable hard drive, heavier, holding significantly more data.
He carried it to Patricia's office.
"I need a favor," he said.
Patricia looked up from her laptop. "Go ahead."
"There's a technology on this drive that I need verified by an outside research facility. I've done the theoretical work myself. The math checks out. But I haven't had the resources to fabricate a prototype, so I need someone with the right equipment to build one and confirm the performance specs."
Patricia took the drive. "What kind of technology?"
"Think of it as a new type of battery. Except that 'battery' undersells it considerably. Small form factor. Enormous energy density. High output. Enough to power Scrapper at full operational capacity for approximately ten minutes without a tether."
Patricia's eyebrows rose slightly. Ten minutes of untethered operation for a three-hundred-ton mech from a battery small enough to fit inside the chassis. That was not a battery. That was a revolution.
"I'll get it to the right people today," she said. She was already standing, drive in hand, heading for the door before Ryan had finished nodding.
Today today. Not "I'll look into it" today.
Ryan stepped outside and stretched. The morning air was cool, the campus quiet between exam blocks.
He'd just handed over the designs for the plasma reactor and the ion battery.
Two technologies pulled directly from the system's completed Project One data. A reactor the size of a man's thigh and two batteries of similar dimensions, capable of sustaining a two-hundred-seventy-six-ton mech at full power for ten continuous minutes.
When the verification lab opened that drive and started reading the specs, there would be phone calls. A lot of phone calls. To a lot of people who were not accustomed to being surprised.
Ryan smiled, tilted his face toward the sun, and went to get breakfast.