Richard Cole was Blackwood's director of engineering, a broad-shouldered man in his mid-50s with silver hair and the confident, easy manner of someone who had spent decades being the smartest man in every room he entered. He was also in Victoria's estimation, the backbone of the RS7 program. She trusted Richard. She'd trusted Richard for 7 years. She watched Daniel say something to Richard.
She watched Richard's expression change. And then Richard turned and walked quickly toward her. We have a small situation. Richard said, his voice low and controlled. What kind of situation?
The maintenance tech over there. He tilted his head slightly without turning around is claiming there's a problem with the balance system. Victoria looked past Richard at Daniel, who had stopped walking and was standing very still near the robot's base, holding his composition notebook open. What kind of problem? Nothing credible.
He has no business being on this floor today, and I've already told him that, but he's being persistent. Richard's jaw was tight in the way it got when he was managing his own frustration. I didn't want him to become a distraction. Handle it, Victoria said. We're 40 minutes out.
I tried. He's asking to speak with you directly. Victoria took a long breath. She handed her tablet to her communications officer and walked across the floor toward Daniel. He saw her coming.
He didn't move, didn't fidget, didn't put on the kind of apologetic expression that people usually wore when the CEO walked toward them. He just stood there with that composition notebook in his hand and waited for her with the patient. Settled stillness of a man who had said everything he was about to say many times before in many different rooms to many people who hadn't listened. She stopped in front of him. She looked at the notebook.
She looked at his uniform. She looked at his face. I'm told you have a concerns. She said it wasn't a question. It was the sentence of a woman who had already decided how this conversation was going to end.
Yes, ma'am. Daniel said. He had a deep measured voice. Not loud, not aggressive, but the kind of voice that fills space without effort. I've been tracking the balance systems performance data for the last 4 months.
There's an issue with the current version of the ABC algorithm. Someone removed the override protocols from the failsafe layer, and without those, the system can't compensate. When the load distribution shifts above a certain threshold, you'll see about two maybe 2 and 1/2 minutes of clean operation before the instability becomes visible, then it'll cascade. Victoria looked at him for a moment, and you know this because because I've run the numbers. He held up the notebook.