Wednesday April 7th, 2094
Zygon HQ
11:58 Local Time
Hyeon-Ae breezed through the office landscape with an air of untouchable superiority, clearing out suits and menial workers from her path by her indomitable stride. A more self-conscious or guilty pilot might have been inundated under the nosy gazes of countless murmuring middle-managers, but Hyeon-Ae returned to headquarters with her chin held high. Her armor was an unbreakable - recharged - confidence, and an air of contempt that made her hard to challenge unless you were ready to lose something in return. She dominated the halls of Zygon by sheer presence, and beelined for the boardroom to which she had been summoned with a soundless fury - or at least that's what her expression suggested. In truth, Hyeon-Ae was calm as ever, but recognized the importance of shielding her emotional state, or sparking rumors by appearing relaxed after Tokyo´s defeat. No doubt upper management would find idle acceptance just as aggravating as failure.
She paused outside the occluded glass of the boardroom, and checked the time on her smart-watch. Two minutes early. Too eager? No, it was within parameters. Steeling herself with a subtle shrug of her shoulders, she swiped her hand in front of the door and it swished open elegantly. As soon as the tempered glass parted, the voices inside grew audible, notifying her that Jinwoo and Yijin were already present. Arguing. Fortunate for them that the glass panes were built to contain this noise, or the culture here would eat them up for this. Cassie had declined to be present yesterday by sending Han a response to her invitation with a silly cat picture that said
.
Whatever senseless argument the lead engineer and team principal Jinwoo had had ended when Hyeon-Ae made her presence known by entering. Jinwoo immediately put on a brisk, forced smile. The clumsiness of his attempt to pretend like everything was fine was irritating at best. “Hyeon-Ae ssi! You made it. We were worried you´d be stuck in the simulator and medical adjustment until this afternoon.” He gave quickly, an offering to appease her feigned fury. Zhou Yijin merely looked her way before going back to the tech-pad in his hands. Hyeon-Ae gave a brief, thin smile in recognition of her alleged boss´ greeting, and moved to sit down with the same imperious force as she´d used to travel to the meeting. Her interruption was enough to leave Jinwoo bemused, and neither of the two other present parties saw fit to restart whatever they'd been discussing.
It took only a few minutes for the last involved parties to arrive. Sanbeng, ever stressed, ever sweating, hurried inside and sat down beside Hyeon-Ae after loudly greeting everyone and apologizing for his (thirty second) tardiness. He exchanged a glance with Hyeon-Ae as he sat down, and that seemed to be enough for him to register what mood and combativeness the two should have today. Having been with her for this long, one thing he was good at was understanding her cues, after all. About two minutes later, the doors swished open again, giving way to the aides that had flanked Park Iseul last time, though the princess heir herself had apparently decided not to make an appearance - presumably either finding one visit enough to make her presence known, or suitably pleased with last time´s meeting to have gotten what information she needed. Now they were back to getting their marching orders from above from this snooty and haughty man, who wasted no time in smiling obsequiously at everyone as he entered and sat down. Flanked by a mousy notary who didn't dare look at anyone, everyone was finally assembled and sitting.
“Thank you all for coming today,” the aide began, thoroughly undercutting the Team Principal by taking charge of the meeting.
The early assault did not go unnoticed. Jinwoo smiled hurriedly and swiveled in his seat. “Yes, thank you for attending. Since we are all fighting with tight scheduling this week, how about we hear from Lead Engineer Zhou regarding last meetings´ discussion?”
The engineer glanced up from his techpad, frowning as he swiftly realized he´d have to go first. “Yes, well. We´ve been getting the datasets and initial integration specs for the upgrades to the engine. Hanwha has been sending over geeks to make sure we sift the data properly. It's looking real good. CTO gave the go-ahead Monday, and we´re due final integration with time for proper tests before Italy. No issues so far. Whatever you guys cooked up with their dealmakers, Hanwha is really keen on helping get the engine in tip-top shape.”
“That is wonderful to hear,” Jinwoo offered as if to install a cushion for whatever would follow in this conversation. Zhou nodded in turn and turned back to his techpad.
The aide, however, did not match their eagerness to be pleased. The smile he exhibited was more like that of a hyena circling prey. “Ah, yes. We should be thankful to Ms. Park and her father for managing to put together such a brilliant deal on such short notice. Now, I believe that Ms. Park signaled clearly last time that these upgrades were contingent on the certainty of a positive result in Tokyo.”
“Now hold on-” Jinwoo attempted, but was immediately cut off by the confident aide continuing on without pause.
“In their wisdom the Parks have seen fit to go ahead with the deal with Hanwha now that other alternatives are delayed beyond possibility. However, everyone in this room seemed to appeal to Ms. Park that the initially proposed alterations would not be necessary - that Tokyo was doable without them. Believing this conviction in the team appears to have been a miscalculation on our part.” He spoke with practiced venom, staring down Jinwoo, and briefly scanning over Hyeon-Ae as well. Hyeon-Ae knew this would happen. Tokyo was a defeat in more ways than one. She had exerted authority and the powers that be were not impressed.
Jinwoo was stopping short of wringing the documents in his hands into a fine paste, doing his best to keep his old face neutral and appearing humble in the face of criticism. It wasn´t going well. “We are working with what we have,” he explained with contained fury. “Given the high variance in results in that race, and the dueling that took place on the track, it´s a small wonder we got points at all.”
“Oh, are you saying you do not have confidence in our machine and pilots?” the aide retorted smugly, pushing up his glasses where they rested on his nose. The high-powered lights in the room shone ominously in the lenses.
“I do not think it´s a secret that there are clear issues to work on with the craft. That´s why we are here, no?” Jinwoo blustered with growing anger. Hyeon-Ae sighed ever so slightly, drawing Sanbeng´s attention beside her as the only one who heard it. It was a little frustrating to watch her Team Principal walk so clearly into every landmine.
“Well then, since you are certain of what our issues are going forward, I yield the floor to you for proposals, Jinwoo nim.” the aide proffered politely.
The words caught Jinwoo a little off-guard, and he cleared his throat and began rustling through his papers to look for his notes. “Well-... I´ve been studying our performance both in Tokyo and long-term, and handling for the craft remains one of the chief concerns. Given that, I forwarded a proposal on Sunday for a solution that would definitely improve handling for our pilots. Given the time to alter the machine, I think it would be much more responsive to the pilots.”
Eyes turned to Lead Engineer Zhou, and from Zhou´s expression alone it rapidly became clear to Hyeon-Ae that this proposal must have been what they were animatedly talking about when she entered previously. “The proposal itself will do what the Team Principal says,” Zhou admitted with curt tone. “The issue is that the Team Principal came up with this solution by tinkering with datapoints on machine performance. He did not consider the stresses it would put on the already frail joints, nor the sheer amount of work it would take to strip two separate polarity casings and tinker with the solder-work on the drive-system. We´re looking at sometime in June, at best, unless we want to send them out on the track with risks of not starting, or coming apart at the seams.”
Brutal. The silence that followed said it all. By the aides´ expression, he knew all this already. And Zhou had been trying to talk Jinwoo out of even suggesting it. That was the conclusion Hyeon-Ae drew from the faces of all assembled.
“...Perhaps another way has a more positive roadmap for development?” Sanbeng piped up, no doubt just uncomfortable sitting in this room of stuffy, prideful people staring at eachother. Jinwoo looked furious, defeated, and sad, all in one.
“Naturally,” the aide cut in sharply, as if he had just been waiting for someone to raise that very question. “Please take a look at this-” he offered with a theatrically magnanimous tone as his assistant hurried to deliver a binder to each person assembled around the table. Even giving one to Sanbeng, she ended up with several binders left. Seems they didn´t tell her the attendance numbers. “As you can see, summarized on page four, analysis shows that the downward trend in Tokyo began in earnest after the german´s -... what was his name…” he trailed off, until his assistant hurried back to whisper something. “Ulrich Faulkner, until he outcompeted both pilots in a straight energy exchange battle. The outcome of this event is deplorable when you delve into the statistics. As such, we´re putting a plan forward to boost this area of the machine´s capability - an innovative calibration of current energy output by adding a redundancy system to ensure minimal waste power.”
Everyone was busy flipping through papers while the aide sat satisfied. Hyeon-Ae barely looked at the binder - paper meant they couldn´t see engineering-flagged notes in real-time, nor any projections they elected not to show. Deciding on a suggestion presented like this was like shaking hands with her uncle - only do it if you have no other options. Speaking up for the first time, Hyeon-Ae offered a simple; “Yijin nim?”
The engineer took a few moments of thoughtful reading, flipping through the bound document with more respect than Hyeon-Ae felt they deserved. Not looking up, he eventually spoke. “...Yeah. I'm seeing the viability at the base of the suggestion. Would have liked not being blindsided with it during the meeting. Anyway, it's got some of the same issues as the Team Principal’s proposal. Without the actual data and test runs, I'm not one hundred this will even run on our configuration. If it does, it's a clear upgrade. Ultimately, I can't support it.”
The last statement seemed to catch the bespectacled aide off-guard, and it was his turn to offendedly harrumph in response. “And why is that?”
Hyeon-Ae tensed up ever so slightly, restraining herself from smiling. She wasn't expecting this today, but just like with Cassie, a pressure had been building. It seems another cork was popping. Zhou Yijin closed the binder and sighed. “Because, all due respect, neither of you are actually thinking with your heads. Dropping dossiers with ramshackle changes without warning, putting together proposals based on solitary performance metrics without even looking at the whole machine as a whole. Not to mention this constant nit-picking is crushing us down in the pits. My guys and gals are terrified of doing maintenance half the week, worried that you folks are gonna come up with a new brilliant idea and we have to tear out half the machinery and start over.” Zhou took a breath, frowning. “Not to mention you're overcrowding us with low-skill interns while hammering my full-timers with minutiae and analytics crap that any third-rate data entry tech could do. With all respect, just let us do the damn work. Sirs. May as well fire me and put in your nephews if we’re gonna keep up this short-term, directionless nitpicking.”
If it could be even more quiet than painful silence, then that would still not entirely describe the agonizing chill in the room. Both Jinwoo and the two suits looked absolutely stunned, and Sanbeng was watching with a worried stare. Hyeon-Ae enjoyed the silence. Someone other than her was taking the reins, stirring the pot. Zhou Yijin was, as far as she was concerned, impossible to control, but a worthwhile person to have on your side. And he knew what he was talking about more often than not. If this would blow back on him, she’d make sure he knew she was on his side.
Jinwoo was the first to speak. “Well… I won’t argue that there is a certain sense to your words, even if they are deeply problematic.”
“I should say,” the aide cut in, regaining some semblance of his garrulous posturing. “What are you even proposing with such a tirade?”
That question was one the lead engineer seemed ready for at least. “Let us do our work. Give us some space to finish these installations, and then take the actual time to check the metrics properly and innovate. Give us some room to actually make something, rather than forcing us to make reactionary changes based on last week’s boardroom meeting.”
Jinwoo and the aide exchanged a glance, and the Team Principal shrugged his shoulders briefly. For once, they were equals in how dumbstruck by this they were. Hyeon-Ae chose her moment. ”What do we have to lose? We have talented people on the ground, putting their hands in the machine. Let them come up with some real suggestions. If they disappoint on that end, we’ve proven the old method is better.”
Eyes were briefly on her, and she got a mild nod from Jinwoo. He was so easily pushed along. The aide looked frustrated but eventually yielded as he adjusted his glasses. “I’ll… push this up the chain. We’ll table the proposals for now.”
With that, it was done. After some stiff discussions regarding other points, everyone was happy to leave and make themselves scarce. The last person out of them was the mousy assistant, who apologetically collected the binders from Hyeon-Ae and Sanbeng before fleeing the scene. Left alone with her own aide in the meeting room, she breathed out slowly and pondered the last few days. Perhaps it was foolish, but she felt invigorated. Perhaps a hope that someone else than her was also fighting for better results. For real.
“I think that went well.” Sanbeng mumbled from his seat as he collected his things.
Hyeon-Ae just gave him a pointed look, and he smiled back sheepishly.
Friday 14th April, 2094
Rifugio Capanna Piz Fassa di Bernard Guido
Piz Boè, Dolomiti, Italia
1700 CET
A Couch in the Sky
Han was up late in the getup, or at least that’s how she felt it. Others seemed to find this entertaining, but she was fully masked today. The polite, infallible racer queen was out in force, politely chuckling and smiling humbly when she felt necessary. But it was just another stunt to survive.
She finally got summoned to the spotlight.
"Han, welcome back to Delta Hyper! How are you finding the circuit today, as a rookie, is there anything you like the most?"
”Thank you very much, you two.” she opened, placing both hands on her chest and smiling as though she was actually touched by being part of this. ”I just love the sights of this whole country. And the track - wow. Spending this short a time here seems so wrong, perhaps I will have to visit more often. As for the track itself, I’m pleased with it after what we’ve been thinking up in our workshop. Watch out, is all I’ll say!” she warned with a soft, inviting chuckle.
2x Like
