Three things are required to make a business meeting something more than a waste of time, energy, and money. The first is data dissemination. Whilst information dumps up to a certain length can and should be sent as simple faceless communication, for anything that is important enough to require hands-on step-by-step guidance complete with a summary of notes, helpful and educational presentations, and the vague threat of either understanding or being made a fool of, a meeting is ideal.
The second thing is productivity. Resources are being spent to make a meeting happen - people are pulled away from focus on their daily tasks, a space is set aside, and pastries with hot beverages don’t just spontaneously appear from nowhere. A meeting should have appropriate goals set before it’s even assembled, and needs to have those goals met when it ends.
The third thing? Threat. If the caller of the meeting does not meet the goals they have set at the beginning and the meeting is deemed unsuccessful, Ad Astra will take appropriate action against that person.
Your personal productivity percentage is your lifeline in this company, so make sure when you call a meeting that it couldn’t have just been an electronic message.
-Chairwoman Nina Ellory, Ad Astra Space Shipping, Passenger, Mining, Acquisitions, Exploration, and Exploitation Corporation.
“You called for a round table discussion. This one is rectangular.”
Alex sighed inwardly. This was the sort of thing he’d been listening to for the past fifteen minutes. Frustratingly, things hadn’t even had a chance to go well before they deteriorated into this pointless pettifoggery.
At least people showed up, Alex thought. Vod had not only agreed to the meeting but had brought along several other people that, surprisingly to Alex, didn’t include the Bruise brothers.
On the other hand, once word had gotten out that there was going to be some sort of plan to survive beyond the next week a handful of other folks had shown up, including two of the new-path survivors who now tended what they were calling “The Grove”. Much later, in a quiet moment, Harmony admitted to Alex that she’d whispered in a few ears, metaphorically speaking, to balance out the more powerful group that Vod had organized.
“Based on my analysis, these individuals have had high levels of personal contact with a significant percentage of the surviving residents of the carriage, as well as having shown some small spark of drive beyond their current role.” she said to him in private, adding “They are also somewhat more open to adaptability, which I believe will be vital to your repair efforts.”
Once the first person, who just so happened to be Vod, opened their mouth with a question as to why Alex was leading a meeting when he was obviously inexperienced, it had all started to unravel. Dozens of pointless quibbles leapt from curious mouths regarding things like the use of the words ‘round table’, why this business meeting had no pastries even though none of them had ever had either a business meeting or a donut in their life, and why anyone should really even bother as inevitable doom was approaching and was sure to come to pass.
Alex had eyed Vod, frowning at his triggering of a whole slew of negative questions, and had attempted to guide the group to the purpose of the meeting. “We’re all here today to go over a plan that, if we all work together, has a good chance of fixing the carriage enough to survive.”
Well that didn't help, either. The actual idea of everyone working together wasn’t so much a foreign concept but raised more vocal concerns about credit for work done, who would be compensated and how, and why such a new Ad Astra employee would authorize co-opting the work force to do a task that, in all honesty, everyone knew they were bad at.
In short, the questions all came down to: Are we going to get in trouble for this?
Of course, Alex managed to make things even worse when he tried to explain over the top of everyone that Harmony was the one who had calculated the best plan for survival and would be assigning the tasks necessary. It turned out that more than a few of the attendees had only shown up because they thought things were going to be directed by someone other than Ad Astra.
It was a strange mixture of fear of change blended with the hope for it. Alex wished Patina were present. Despite Harmony having told him that she’d put an alert message into the little goblin’s Interface, she couldn’t technically force Patina to return. Patina was somewhere within the bowels of the ship, her last location near the suspected bilge rat midden that Harmony had given to Alex as one of his tasks.
The AI didn’t use a reproachful tone to hint that Alex should have completed the task, but the [Mender] could tell that there was a small note of accusation there anyway. Of course, the cherry on top of that line of conversation had been just before the meeting when Alex had reviewed his task list and saw a big red FAILED glaring sullenly at him from the Interface right next to the “Stay Away” task. It was expected but still hurt, considering the actual outcome.
Alex let the group talk amongst themselves. It wasn’t the way a meeting should be run, but anything he said just seemed to come out ineffectually at best or, with Vod’s mild menace interjecting, be just slightly twisted into a more negative light. He deferred to Harmony, who was much more used to speaking with the Ad Astra employees even as he thought of himself as a bit of a coward for not speaking up again.
Peri chose that moment to start sending Alex information, which was a welcome relief.
>Incoming Message. Synopsis of attribute Strength, along with current personal rating. Overview only - there are entire libraries in the multiverse dedicated to studying Syntropy in all its forms. Please remember that the reasons Syntropy parceled things out the way it did has not been shared with any entity, or if it has there has been zero proven facts. Syntropy doesn’t talk to people. Not even sure it can. -Peri
>STRENGTH (0)
>Syntropy has included the following sub attributes under the heading of Strength:
>Physical Strength (0)
>If you want to throw a rock, Physical Strength will influence how heavy of a rock you can lift, and how far and fast you can throw it. If you want to punch or kick a rock, Physical Strength will influence how powerful a strike you can make. Bend a steel bar or tear an encyclopedia in half? Physical Strength all the way.
>Physical Adaptability (0)
>So you’ve basically thrown your Physical Strength at a thing. What happens to you after that? Well, if you have poor Physical Adaptability, you tear some muscles, snap some ligaments, break a few bones - you damage yourself. Despite being in a magical multiverse, physics does still come into play, and the body only has so much it can physically accomplish without enhancement. Physical Adaptability influences your body’s ability to adapt to the pressures you put on it. So go ahead and punch that rock - if your Physical Adaptability is high enough, you might even break the rock before you break your knuckles.
>Physical Presence (0)
>There’s that person. You know the one - they might not be the biggest or the most likely to spend 8 hours a day at the gym, but they’re the person that Nobody Messes With. It’s not a visible thing, not really, but the person just seems much more powerful, intimidating, or just plain steady than others. Whether they radiate menace, or stand as a pillar of strength to hold up others, Physical Presence assists them to exude a sense of strength.
Interesting, I guess, Alex mused, and the first two indicate that sub attributes work together.
>Incoming Message: You’re correct. Many sub-attributes lean on each other quite heavily You’ll start to see it more as we go through the list. -Peri.
I suppose part of the way things are split out is because there are different types of strength. Though it makes me wonder about the Endurance ones. Can we do those next?
Alex, distracted by his internal conversation, had tuned out of the one that was happening around him. He was brought back to the present when Step gently prodded Alex in the arm.
“Hmm? What? Sorry - where are we up to now?”
“You were asked a question, “ Vod said calmly. Alex took a moment to collect himself, and examined the orc. He was looking better than he had when Alex had patched him up - not great, and still favoring a slightly hunched over posture, but Alex’s skills had evidently helped a little at least.
“I was…never mind. Yeah, sorry, can you repeat the question?”
“You called this meeting, Mister Orz, “ grumbled Vod, “and then tossed us all to the adjunct. As much as we want to survive, under the tender mercies of the adjunct thus far we have only ever slowly continued to decline.” Alex didn’t miss the ‘we’, the orc roping everyone under one tattered banner.
“What each and every person here wants to know is whether you truly believe that the adjunct has a viable plan to actually save us all.” Vod concluded. At that, Alex smiled.
“I’m going to be rude, “ he said, “and say that if everyone here had simply let Harmony present her plan rather than quibbling about things, you would already have the answer to that without needing my opinion.”
As expressions around the table started to darken, Alex shook his head and tried to meet eyes with each of them. Some looked back at him with anger, or fear, or confusion, or simply didn’t meet his eyes at all. Step winked, which was no help, and Vod continued that cold stare he’d apparently perfected years earlier.
“You really don’t want to lead at all, do you?” Vod muttered under his breath. The orc shook his head, his expression flat but his eyes were calculating and cold. Alex didn’t catch Vod’s last words, distracted by his own thoughts.
They want to hope, but they don’t know how. It’s not something they’ve found much use in before. Say something inspirational. Provide that hope.
“Since nobody else at the table has heard what Harmony has come up with, I won't give my opinion on it other than to say it depends. It’s going to depend on who steps up to help, and how invested everyone is in still being able to breathe a week or so from now.” Alex replied honestly, “Look...what I can say is this: When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot. We need hope, or else we cannot endure. It’s always something, to know you’ve done the most you could, but don’t leave off hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. We need hope, or else we cannot endure.”
He wasn’t sure where he was pulling from. Alex knew that these weren’t his words, but he borrowed them from memory and delivered them with such confidence and reassurance that Alex felt afire with inspiration.
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s…the train’s problems all at once, but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have. We may succeed, or we may fail, but we will try. Things are always darkest before dawn, but hold fast to the hope of success, for hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
“We lift together. You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try,” he concluded. The table was silent, all around wearing wide-eyed and dumbfounded expressions.
Oh yeah, I rocked their socks off.
“Wow, “ Step murmured with awe in her voice, “That was legitimately awful. I mean, Alex, those were some absolutely terrible words of inspiration. What were you even thinking?”
This actually helped. Several of the people around the table chuckled, and Vod snorted in apparent amusement as Alex shrank back into his chair covering his reddening face with his hands.
“Just hear Harmony out, “ he muttered in embarrassment, “And then all of you together can add your own ideas, refine things based on what you know or think.”
“You want them to change my plan? Alex! I spent so much processing power on this! Nobody’s even heard it yet!” Harmony protested.
“So let’s hear it then, “ Vod said quietly. And with those words, the rest of the table finally settled down. Alex knew what the orc was doing - he was not-so-subtly asserting his influence over the others, and reminding Alex that though the human was in a position of greater Authority, Vod had many years of presence that the others still deferred to.
This is fine, Alex thought, and a little part of him pointed out that he was intentionally trying to get out of leading things again. It was, he knew, an ongoing theme in his life.
Harmony listed out the problems, one by one, and laid them on the table. Overlaid, really, with a nifty light projection. The carriage was obviously in bad enough shape to trigger the decoupling process, but it wasn’t the only problem. There was the possibility that everyone could starve to death within a week of emerging from underspace, assuming fixing things was successful.
“Our food supply is basically a carefully bred and developed protein slurry with-”
Alex nixed the explanation quickly. “Yeah, okay, the word slurry just gave me a shiver. Are we running out of it?”
“We are. The most recent damage caused the slurry vats to crack open. We were already running relatively low on it, but approximately eighty percent of the remaining supply has leaked into the crawl spaces close to the bottom of the carriage. It’s tainted, even if it all gets cleaned up.”
“And what’s being damaged by the crawl spaces being filled with this stuff?”
“So many noncritical systems that they might as well be critical.” Harmony replied. “On my triage list, the cleaning, sanitizing, and then repair of those systems is ninety-seventh.”
“That must mean there’s a lot of worse-off things.” someone muttered. Alex hadn’t caught everyone’s names yet, but probably should have.
“So how much food supply is left?”
“Eleven days, or thereabouts. If we reduce the wafer size to a quarter-inch in diameter.”
“That’s basically starvation anyway.” Vod complained.
“I’m sorry, but we have no way of getting more food supply, even if we did have a repaired place to store it.” Harmony said, “The collection scoops which are attached to each carriage to replenish their supply by collecting the minute particles of mana which get converted into food are all offline. Well, I can always only speak for this carriage, of course, but still. Not that they would have worked in underspace anyway.”
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“And those have been non-working since the dungeon break? Or my arrival?” Alex asked. Harmony looked sheepish as she muttered her reply.
“Fifty seven years. And before you get upset, the only reason I can basically talk about all of this openly is because Ad Astra has considered this carriage to be a write-off. Hence the decoupling. We won’t matter to the company once we reach regular space again.”
Overseer Vod, in what Alex thought was a rather awkward attempt to bring the freshly pathed people of the Grove back to him, asked if their new paths or the fresh fecundity of the second cargo bay would be able to provide edible foods. Unfortunately the answer was a firm ‘not yet’.
“We’re still learning our new paths, and attempting to categorize the vegetation we’ve found. It could be months before there’s anything viable to actually eat.”
“Would it go faster with some volunteers to test upon?”
Around the table, objections began to rise again. These ones were much more personal and heartfelt - apparently the food situation was more urgent to some of them than the fact that they were all going to be killed in an explosion. Alex talked loudly over the top of everyone.
“What else is a problem?” he asked.
“The damage is extensive, but one small thing to be grateful for is that despite everything we’ve not actually had a hull breach - yet. There are several very weak areas that will need to be worked on as soon as possible.”
“Right, you mentioned there was an airlock…”
“That’s near the top of the triage list, along with several other places.”
“Got it. Next?”
“I’m going to ask you to do some brain surgery.”
“Excuse me?” Alex asked. Apparently this was startling enough that the rest of the table went immediately silent. “I really don’t think my skills will help there.”
“The plan to fix everything revolves around the ability to assign and properly credit the surviving employees in carriage nine-nine-nine-seven with a vast amount of tasks that none of them are qualified for, positioned for, or permitted to do even if they were added as ‘extra’ tasks. The whole employee-position-versus-task part of my processes needs to be changed. I am currently unable, due to my limitations, to change what was initially a directive from the corporate board of directors.”
“Oh. So you mean-”
“I need you to get your hands on my brain and do some [Jury Rigging] and [Repurposing].” Harmony confirmed, adding “And please understand that this is terrifying to me. I can only hope to come out of the process approximately the same as I am now.”
This caused some additional conversation around the table. Some didn’t care, seeing the artificial intelligence as just that - artificial. Others seemed bothered by the thought that Alex was being asked - with his apparently exceedingly low-level skills, to mess with the AI that regulated their day to day existence. A debate began, but was quickly nixed by Vod.
“And then what happens?” the orc demanded.
Then, Harmony explained, she would share with everyone a very expansive list of tasks that needed to be completed in order to raise the viability of the carriage to a point that the automated decoupling system would deactivate.
“My plan is that all of these tasks will be considered critical, and exist alongside whatever normal duties are assigned - but will count toward any daily goals. I can’t simply replace one task list with another, even if you were to lobotomize me, but with two task lists in tandem, the restrictions placed on my processes by Ad Astra can be navigated around to some extent.”
“Not everyone is going to help.” Vod spoke. He didn’t sound hostile, just confident. “Has that been taken into account for your task lists and our deadline?”
“It has. My plan is estimating the mobilization of forty percent of the current workforce.” Harmony replied, “Though I’m hoping there will be more, I cannot force people to attempt to repair things when they have no experience or inclination to do so.”
“I can.” Vod grunted, and stretched. “Very well, so all of this hinges upon Alex successfully performing complex brain surgery on a computer system that is far beyond anything from his own world. This ought to be interesting.”
“There’s another problem.” Verita murmured. For someone with such a large body, the minotaur [Arborist] was surprisingly soft spoken. She was one of the two newly-pathed people here. The sanguinar [Mycologist] was also present, but hadn’t spoken up yet.
“The dungeon, “ Verita explained as all eyes turned to her. “It will need to be delved.”
It turned out that with the dungeon and power system working as well as it now was thanks to Alex - something that made him cringe at the reminder of - and with the vast amount of destruction across the whole carriage, there was so much entropy in the area that the sapling couldn’t convert it all fast enough. Adding onto that, with so much of the carriage damaged they weren’t able to use enough power, so it was all just building up in the dungeon. Again.
“There will be another break in three days at the rate entropy is being absorbed.” Verita said. “We will need people clearing the dungeon multiple times a day, until the entropy generated in the carriage is reduced.”
“Well, just let anyone in there who wants to.” Alex suggested.
“Terrible idea. “ Vod interrupted quickly.
“Selecting just a few, like you already have been, just creates a small number of people under your control with power of their own. It doesn’t benefit everyone.”
“People don’t have the paths to delve into a dungeon.” Vod argued. Alex could concede that particular point.
“Can they change paths? I assume that’s what you did with the Bruise brothers, and Step.”
“We were outliers. Some of the random few who didn’t get assigned a path related to the company, or if we were we were probably supposed to be security or something.” Step answered with a shrug. “But Ad Astra is only handing out cleaning and laboring jobs for the most part, so…”
“Some may be willing to enter.”
Alex looked at the sanguinar who had finally spoken. Her face was so pale that she could have been made of porcelain, and her frame seemed painfully waifish. Alex was around three hundred percent sure the woman was a vampire-like creature.
“They will struggle with their paths, “ she shrugged, “But the ones Overseer Vod sent through the dungeon before the changes we’re going through benefitted from a much faster rate of growth compared to the rest of us.”
“So they’ll level up faster, and improve themselves in ways that could benefit us.” Alex said.
“Faster and stronger, for sure.” Step nodded.
“Able to carry more, move with speed, and be more useful to the repair efforts.” someone else nodded. “But we can’t let everyone on, nor can we force people. Delving isn’t exactly safe.”
“Harmony, could you run a daily lottery for people who indicate that they are interested?” Alex asked. The AI affirmed that she could, and if Alex was successful in her request to mess with her hardware she would be able to do so through the interface add-on and also include tasks for the delving as well.
The group talked a little longer. Harmony reiterated what she’d told Alex earlier about the current viability of the carriage versus where it needed to be to even consider being safe from the decoupling, let alone having a productive carriage again.
“I have no sight in many areas, so I can’t even begin to triage those until I do - or until someone reports back to me on the condition of things.” Harmony added, “So, reiterating, here’s the plan.”
Everyone works together. A laughably simple plan, and one that was going to have more than its fair share of problems. Harmony would post the entire list of issues, organized in such a way to prioritize carriage viability, offer probable solutions to guide the less technically-minded, and offer rewards for any Ad Astra employee who took them on. They would count toward the employee’s daily tasks, and provide additional incentives in the way of glim, duty credits, and surviving entry back into real space.
People could pick and choose - all available tools and materials would be made accessible to the populace, and folks could group up and work on tasks together, for no less credit. The lottery of the dungeon delving would be run once per day, for anyone who chose to face the dangers of what was now effectively a new and different dungeon to what it had been before.
Skills would be learned - slowly, painfully, and quite possibly very badly, but Peri assured Alex that if these people actually put their efforts into it they could absolutely gain proper skills from it. He’d smiled at that. Even if it took a long time, the people here could improve. It only made sense.
>Incoming Message: As requested, a rundown on Endurance.
>ENDURANCE (4)
>Syntropy has included the following sub attributes under the heading of Endurance:
>Physical Constitution (2)
>Your ability to resist fatigue, hunger, sickness, poison, aging, et cetera. How long you can keep going before you drop. How temperature variances affect you. How much snake venom you can drink (if that’s your thing) before you die. You know, basically your ability to outlast everything and anything. Physically, anyway. Special note: Up this bad boy enough and you’re effectively going to stop physically aging.
>Mental Fortitude (1)
>Much like Physical Constitution, it’s how much you can take but on a mental level. How you react to attempts to influence you, how well you can resist being charmed or sweet talked, or even just convinced that jumping off the shed roof with a garbage bag as a parachute was a good idea (yes, we saw that incident when you were ten, and you still should have known better). You’re in a reality of magic, so throw in how you can endure mind attacks and psionic assault. Also assists with the mental side of aging - the longer you live, the harder it is to keep your mind in one piece.
>Emotional Strength (1)
>Big feelings, buddy. You have them, and that’s okay. Everyone does. Okay, wow, even I think that sounds condescending. Sorry, Alex. Emotional Strength will assist in processing feelings and emotions, obviously. Traumatic events and even bad dreams can be lessened in intensity with a high Emotional Strength. This stat attempts to keep you steady, from an emotional standpoint. Special note because I know you’re going to ask, Emotional Strength does not assuage guilt that has been earned honestly. It can, however, in conjunction with other mental sub attributes keep you from feeling false guilt.
Okay, so it’s covering a fair bit between the three. Peri, are sub attributes broken down even further within those categories?
>Incoming Message: Syntropy measures everything, Alex. However, I am unaware of any version of the Interface that further splits the measurements.
There are different versions of the Interface that show different things? A brief pause occurred between Alex’s question and a response.
>Incoming Message: Oh yes. However, this is the fourth attempt at sending this particular message, so assume that it is irrelevant to either of us in the eyes of the Arbiter.
“Alex?”
“Sorry.” Alex shook his head. “I’m here.”
“You’ve been staring off into space for the past twenty minutes.” Step stage-whispered. Alex looked around the table with guilt and realized that most of the others had left. Step smirked at his reaction. “Harmony’s got them sorted, and she’ll be starting her ‘We’re All In This Together’ plan once everyone has a moment to communicate things to the people that trust them most.”
The table now only sat Alex, Step, Vod, and an old lizard woman whom Alex still hadn’t caught the name of. She stared at Alex without blinking, and then apparently made a decision.
“Good meeting, “ she croaked, her voice dry and harsh. “Should we meet each day to go over what we’ve accomplished and set up a plan for the coming day?”
“What? No. Bad idea.” Alex shook his head quickly. That was way too many meetings, and he’d basically spaced out during this one. I have no idea what their impression of me is now. I’ll have to ask Harmony. Or Step. Both would be honest in their own way. “This meeting was just to get everyone on the same page. Or at least holding the same book. Most everything else can be done with that messaging system I was only told about today.”
“Shouldn’t we come together for progress reports?” The old lizardwoman pressed, “Ad Astra used to do those, many years ago.”
“It’s nothing Harmony couldn't compile and send out. Right, Harm?”
“Of course.” Harmony replied, sounding pleased with being asked. “Too many meetings are against Ad Astra policy anyway, and our schedule is going to be very tight.”
“How long exactly do we have to fix things?”
“Underspace is very tricky to calculate correctly, and I have no astrogation or aether navigation programming. That was what Rhythm was designed for - one of my sister AI’s. If my memory banks serve correctly, and Alex please know that it’s very hard for me to admit that they might not be working correctly at all, at this point we should be on the underspace jump between the Halcyon Expanse and the Borenzo Cluster. Based on when we entered underspace, I estimate between six and nine days.”
“Any way to tighten that estimate up?” Alex queried, not really having much hope in a positive answer.
“If I had working sensors on the outer hull of the carriage, I could. But at the same time, going outside the carriage whilst in underspace is one hundred percent fatal, despite all of the arcane and technological protections on the train to keep us safe.”
“Ah.”
“There are things that exist in the flow of underspace that will very easily rip your soul from your body and then inhabit it as an insane nightmare of a creature that will slaughter any living being it sees. Until your body falls apart, anyway.”
“Let’s avoid that, “ Alex sighed. Yet another thing to learn about. “For now, mark us at the lowest estimate, and aim for that. Every hour beyond that point will be a bonus.”
“Mister Orz, a word before I leave to put this plan into effect.” Vod rumbled. “I do not believe it will work. At all. But I will do everything I can to assure my people that it will.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Nice has nothing to do with it, Mister Orz.” Vod growled. “It’s a distraction for those who would be prone to hysteria. I do not believe this plan will be successful, no matter who came up with it and how well calculated you think it is.” Vod looked at Harmony’s face on the screen and scowled.
“I will be enacting my own ideas as well. When the time comes, Mister Orz, I will not be left behind on this doomed carriage.” With that declaration the orc stood, his chair noisily scraping against the floor. He turned and left. The elderly lizardwoman sighed, and scurried along after him without another word.
“He won’t be a problem to what Harmony has come up with.” Step assured Alex when she saw his expression. Alex realized he must have looked angry, and carefully schooled his face into a more neutral look.
“I think he’ll do what he thinks he has to do.” Alex murmured. Then he shrugged. “Not our problem right now. Harmony - I’m very sorry that I completely tuned out most of your amazingly thought out and well presented ideas. Could you send me the task list so that I can get to work? I’m supposed to be a [Mender], so let’s get to mending!”
“I saw your glazed expression and figured as much, “ Harmony sniffed, but then smiled. “However, that means you tuned out the part of my plan which involved you. You’re not going to be fixing anything right now.”
“I’m not?” Alex blinked. “But…we have a very literal deadline to meet.”
“And it’ll take time to get people moving. Some will be fixing things - or trying to, anyway. Others will be scouting where I can’t see. The triage list will adapt as we go. Everyone who will help us will be able to choose what they think they can do to assist. You, on the other hand, I’ve made a schedule for.”
“Oh?”
“You’re going to be run ragged, Alex, if you just keep moving from task to task using your low-level skills and making half-assed fixes. The schedule I’ve made for you includes some repair tasks, some practice of your skills, some sleep and meal breaks, all sorts of things!” Harmony’s face looked eerily excited about getting Alex on a strict schedule.
The thing was, Alex immediately understood what Harmony was trying to do. Alex was shit at things right now when it came to the Interface and skills and his path. Yes, using his skills to mend things was necessary, but dedicated time to practicing those skills to improve them would also improve the repairs that he made - making those repairs raise the carriage’s viability even further.
It also sends the message that I am not some savior who has come to fix everyone’s problems by myself. Yeah. That makes sense. But...
"What about your request for me to adjust your hardware? I thought you couldn't even start the plan without some adjustments."
"Like I said, Vod and the others will need time to get people in the right frame of mind to help. You're going to do some rapid skill improvement tasks, and then I'll allow you to stick your hands in my brain."
Alex’s interface flashed, and Harmony’s schedule for him appeared. He looked it over quickly. It blinked in a rather urgent manner, telling Alex that he was about to be late for a ‘Personal Growth Session’.
>Incoming Message: Oh, your digital intelligence is clever. She’s going to force you to grow.
That doesn’t sound fun. What does it involve exactly?
>Incoming Message: In the terms of your games back on Earth, you’d call it ‘grinding’. And you’re right. It won’t be fun at all.