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Bonus Chapter
Ryan took a few days off.
Not voluntarily. Lisa insisted. Tom backed her up. Chloe threatened to delete his browser history if he didn't take a break, which was an empty threat because his work computer wasn't connected to the internet, but the sentiment was clear.
So he compromised. Mornings in the workshop answering questions from the teaching team and the research assistants. Afternoons out with his family.
The research team noticed the difference immediately.
"Is it just me," one of the assistants said, flipping through a thick notebook of handwritten lecture notes, "or has Ryan been way more patient the last few days? He used to explain something twice and then tell us to figure it out. Now he'll walk through it until we actually get it."
"His family's visiting. He's in a good mood."
"That girl with them is really pretty. Is she his sister?"
"Do NOT say that to her face. Or his. She's his classmate. And that's all you should call her."
"Why? What happens?"
Someone pointed to the corner of the workshop where Kyle was organizing cable spools with the haunted demeanor of a man who'd learned a painful social lesson.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
The workshop door rolled open. A cargo truck reversed inside.
Patricia jumped down from the passenger side and started directing the unload. Crates. Dozens of them. Then dozens more. They kept coming. A second truck replaced the first. More crates. The corner of the workshop filled up, then the wall, then a second wall.
"What is all this?" Kyle abandoned his cable spools and wandered over.
"Everything." Patricia was checking items against a printed manifest. "Every remaining component on Ryan's procurement list. Plus additional items purchased from the project budget."
She looked up. "I've already notified Ryan. He's on his way."
The research team and the teaching professors gathered around the growing mountain of crates. Nobody touched anything. Ryan had made it clear early on that components were unpacked in his presence or not at all. But the curiosity was physically painful. Several of the female researchers were flexing their fingers with the reflexive energy of people who'd opened a thousand online delivery packages and couldn't stand seeing sealed boxes.
Ryan arrived fifteen minutes later. He walked through the workshop door, saw the wall of crates, and his pace visibly quickened.
He pulled out the printed manifest and began cross-referencing with Patricia.
"Holographic display system. Four projector units plus the imaging processor and dedicated computing hardware."
"Confirmed."
The team crowded closer. The holographic projectors were small. Smaller than anyone expected. Each one was roughly the size of a security camera, sleek and compact, nothing like the commercial holographic projection systems that required large screens, darkened rooms, and projection film.
"Those don't look like any holographic technology I've ever seen," one of the professors said.
Ryan didn't explain. They'd see the results soon enough.
"New cockpit frame?"
"Confirmed."
The cockpit frame sat in its crate like a piece of modern art. A large circular ring with a half-sphere structure attached to the back, open at the front. It looked like an oversized hanging chair from a furniture catalog. This was the gyroscopic mount, designed to keep the pilot level regardless of the mech's orientation. When Scrapper rolled, flipped, or tilted, the pilot would stay horizontal inside the rotating frame. No more being thrown around the cockpit during aggressive maneuvers.
"Sensor radar array?"
"Confirmed. Designed for the head housing."
"And the reactor?"
Patricia led him to a separate section of the floor where several objects had been placed with noticeably more care than the rest. Foam padding. Shock-dampening cradles. The kind of packaging you used when the contents were irreplaceable.
"Two plasma reactors," Patricia said. "Originally one was ordered. You requested a second unit. Both delivered."
The reactors were beautiful in their simplicity. Cylindrical. About the size of a human thigh. Reinforced outer casings with subtle blue light pulsing through seams at the top and bottom, like something breathing. They looked like oversized batteries, which in a sense they were. Batteries capable of output figures that would make every energy lab in the country weep.
"And the ion batteries?"
Patricia pointed to eight identical cylinders arranged in four pairs nearby. Same form factor as the reactors. Same blue glow through the casing seams. Each one had a carrying handle on top and a rectangular display panel on the side, divided into ten segments. Fully charged: all ten segments lit. Half charge: five segments. A simple, intuitive readout visible at a glance.
"Four pairs. Eight units total. Originally one pair was specified. You added three more. The reactors and batteries together consumed nearly the entire remaining project budget."
She checked her tablet.
"Starting balance: thirteen million. Current balance: two million, thirty-seven dollars, and twenty cents."
The room went quiet. Eleven million dollars, spent on ten cylindrical devices that together weighed less than a hundred kilograms.
The research team looked at the reactors. Looked at the batteries. Looked at Scrapper, lying on its back under the gantry crane, three hundred tons of black steel.
Looked back at the ten small cylinders on the floor.
"Those are going to power... that?" Kyle pointed at Scrapper, then at the cylinders. Back at Scrapper. Back at the cylinders.
Nobody answered, because nobody believed it either.
Ryan picked up one of the ion batteries. It was light. Absurdly light for something that was supposed to help move three hundred tons. He turned it over in his hands, watching the blue light pulse through the casing seams, reading the fully-charged display.
Eleven million dollars for ten devices that looked like props from a science fiction film.
If they worked, Scrapper would never need a power cable again.
If they worked, President Calloway owed him ten million dollars in supplementary funding.
If they worked, everything changed.
Ryan set the battery down gently and looked at his team.
"Let's get started."