Pavela looked at the blueprints.
"This is..."
"Your cha."
Dr. Lovelace said, her tone carrying a hint of—no, not a hint, but an unabashed sense of pride. "The codena hasn't been decided yet; I'll leave that for you to choose."
The cha on the blueprints was unlike any Pavela had ever seen.
It had two forms.
The first was cha Mode.
Humanoid, but sleeker and more fluid than a standard royal knight cha. The armor lines had no redundant sharp edges; the curvature of every plate looked as if it had been shaped by the wind.
There was a pair of folding structures on the back—not the clunky tal wings seen on previous experintal models, but a design Pavela had never encountered before.
"Variable wings."
Dr. Lovelace pointed at the structures. "In cha Mode, they fold away for storage so they don't interfere with close combat. Once deployed—"
She flipped to the second blueprint.
The second form.
Pavela's eyes widened slightly.
Fighter Mode.
The cha's limbs retracted, armor reorganized, and joints locked. The entire machine's exterior transford from humanoid into a streamlined—
Aircraft.
The Variable wings fully deployed, the cha's torso beca the fuselage, the legs joined to form the rear propulsion structure, and the arms tucked into the sides as auxiliary stabilizer wings.
The entire transformation process was broken down into seventeen steps on the blueprint, with precise timing marked for each—
A total of 4.7 seconds.
"From cha to Fighter, 4.7 seconds."
Dr. Lovelace said, "From Fighter to cha, 3.9 seconds. Mobility is not lost during the transformation process; the switch can be completed at any altitude and any speed."
Pavela stared at the blueprints.
Her fingers unconsciously tapped against the edge of her paper cup.
"Aerodynamic shape," she said.
Dr. Lovelace raised an eyebrow.
"You noticed?"
"The cross-sectional area in Fighter Mode is at least sixty percent smaller than in cha Mode."
Pavela's gaze moved across the blueprints. "And the sweep angle of the wing surfaces—it reduces drag. You've found a balance point between high-speed flight and low-speed dogfighting."
"cha Mode is for close combat and low-speed maneuvers, while Fighter Mode is for high-speed penetration and long-range raids."
"Two forms, two sets of tactical logic."
Dr. Lovelace's smile grew wider.
"Little Victoria said you were smart."
"She wasn't wrong."
Pavela didn't respond to that.
Her attention was completely captivated by the blueprints.
She saw the annotations for the weapon systems.
Conventionally mounted cha weapons, steam rifles, close-combat blades—these were standard configurations, nothing special.
But beyond those, additional weapon systems were integrated into the cha's body itself.
"What's this?" Pavela pointed at the annotations on both sides of the fuselage in Fighter Mode.
"Fixed Steam Pulse Cannons."
Dr. Lovelace said, "Exclusive to Fighter Mode. They use the airflow during flight for cooling. The rate of fire is three tis that of a conventional steam rifle; the downside is they can only fire forward."
"And this?" Pavela pointed at the structure on the inner side of the forearms in cha Mode.
"Retractable Close-Combat Blades."
Dr. Lovelace said, "Hidden within the forearm armor, deploynt ti is 0.2 seconds. No need to carry extra weapons, leaving the hands free."
"For ergencies."
"Correct."
Dr. Lovelace nodded. "You can't always be holding a weapon, especially during the transformation process where the hands need to participate in the structural reorganization. So, the body itself must have its own teeth."
Pavela was silent for a mont.
She looked over every single annotation on the blueprints.
The hinge design of the transformation chanism.
The slide paths for the armor plates.
The switching sche for the steam pipelines between the two modes.
The dual-mode layout of the cooling system—using rear heat sinks in cha Mode and wing surface induction in Fighter Mode.
The cockpit was located in the center of the chest, situated in the most protected area in both modes.
The design of the spinal interface—
Pavela's gaze paused there.
"This interface is different from the standard model."
"Of course it is,"
Dr. Lovelace said. "Standard interfaces are designed for standard pilots. You are not a standard pilot."
She picked up another blueprint, which showed the detailed structure of the interface.
"Ordinary spinal interfaces only need to transmit movent commands—the pilot wants to raise an arm, the cha raises an arm. But your interface needs to handle the additional induction of Return Power."
"The characteristic of the Path of the Fool is frequency switching. Your soul will slide between different Ways Back. [N O V E L I G H T] An ordinary interface cannot withstand this fluctuation; at best, the signal drops, at worst—"
"It burns out the pilot's nerves," Pavela finished for her.
"You really are smart."
Dr. Lovelace drew a few lines on the interface blueprint.
"So I designed an Adaptive interface. It doesn't lock onto a single frequency but adjusts in real-ti to follow your soul's frequency. No matter which Way Back you switch to, the interface can complete synchronization within 0.05 seconds."
"This feature is only useful for a pilot on the Path of the Fool."
"Put anyone else in there, and this cha is just a pile of scrap tal."
Pavela set down her ice cream cup.
The cup was already empty.
She looked at the cha on the blueprints that didn't yet exist.
The streamlined silhouette of Fighter Mode.
The slender form of cha Mode.
The folding Variable wings.
The blades hidden in the forearms.
An interface that belonged only to her.
Her heart rate quickened slightly.
Just a little.
"...What about safety?"
she asked.
Her voice was calm.
But Dr. Lovelace clearly heard sothing, because the corners of her mouth curled up.
"You're tempted."
"I'm asking about safety."
"You're tempted."
"Dr. Lovelace."
"Just call Yana."
"Dr. Lovelace, safety."
Dr. Lovelace—or rather, Yana—laughed out loud.
That laugh was very similar to Victoria's.
Bright, unabashed, and carrying a slight hint of having gotten her way.
"Every hinge in the transformation chanism has triple-redundant locks."
She pulled back her smile and began to answer seriously. "If any one lock fails, the other two can independently maintain structural integrity."
"The steam pipelines use a segnted isolation design; a rupture in a single segnt won't affect the overall power supply."
"The cockpit has an independent ergency ejection system—if everything goes to hell, it can at least eject you alive."
"The dual-mode switching of the cooling system has undergone 1,372 simulation tests with zero failures."
"As for the spinal interface—"
She paused.
"That's the part I spent the most ti on."
"The algorithm for adaptive frequency synchronization is brand new, with no precedent to reference. I spent three days deriving the mathematical model and another two days on simulation verification."
"Theoretically, it is completely safe."
"But between theory and practice, there is always a pilot's life in between."
She looked at Pavela.
"So before you sit inside, I will run at least five hundred full-process tests using the simulation system."
"Every link that could possibly go wrong must go wrong in the simulation first."
"Then I'll fix it."
"Then it'll go wrong again."
"Then I'll fix it again."
"Until I can't find any way for it to go wrong."
Pavela looked at her.
That sa earnestness appeared in this woman's eyes again.
The sa earnestness she had shown earlier in front of the cha wreckage.
Pavela suddenly understood sothing.
Those dead pilots—Finn, Ingrid, and all the people whose nas she hadn't ntioned—
Dr. Lovelace rembered every single one of them.
Not as data.
Not as 'errors to be eliminated.'
But as people.
She rembered Finn's bad jokes.
She rembered Ingrid's Cat.
She rembered every person who had said, 'Doctor, I'm ready,' before sitting in the cockpit.
And then she turned those mories into every line on the blueprints.
Every redundant design.
Every safety lock.
Every instance of 'I won't let the sa thing happen again.'
Pavela lowered her head.
She looked at her empty hands.
The hands that had been treated.
Hands without old injuries, without scars, perfectly clean.
She hopped down from the experintal table.
When she landed, her movents were much lighter than before.
Her body really was better.
So much better that she herself was a bit unaccustod to it.
"Dr. Lovelace."
"Yana."
"...Yana."
When Pavela said the na, her voice sounded a bit awkward.
She wasn't used to addressing soone older than her, with a higher status, and who had even pinched her face, by their first na.
But Dr. Lovelace—Yana—was clearly very satisfied, because her expression instantly switched from'serious scientist' back to 'oversized golden retriever with excess energy.'
"Hmm?"
"Thank you."
Yana blinked.
"Thank for what?"
"Thank you for rembering them."
After Pavela said this, she turned and walked toward the hangar exit.
She didn't look back.
But she could feel that gaze behind her.
Warm.
Like the feeling of ice cream lting and running over one's fingers.
Yana's voice ca from behind, filled with a smile:
"Pavela."
"Yes?"
"When you co tomorrow, rember to eat breakfast."
"You're too light; the calibration baseline for the Center of gravity compensation system is about to fall out of the effective range."
Pavela's footsteps paused.
"...I'll consider eating an extra piece of bread."
"At least three."
"Two."
"Three, plus a glass of milk."
"Two pieces of bread, one glass of milk—final offer."
"Deal. But if your weight hasn't increased by at least half a kilogram in a week, I'll have the chanical arms feed you."
Pavela thought of the silver chanical arms that had reached out from all directions during her treatnt.
Her pace noticeably quickened.
"Three pieces of bread."
"Plus milk."
"Plus milk."
Yana's cheerful laughter echoed behind her.
Along with the chorus of "ows" from the Cats.
Pavela stepped into the elevator, and the brass gate closed behind her.
The elevator rose slowly.
She leaned against the frosted glass gas lamp, looking up as the shaft walls receded downward inch by inch.
Pale blue light from the arc lamps slid across her face.
A cha that could transform.
A cha that only she could pilot.
A cha bought with the lives of countless predecessors.
Pavela closed her eyes.
The elevator's steam chanism emitted a steady hum.
The corners of her mouth curled up slightly.
Who could resist the temptation of a transforming cha?
No one.
At least, she couldn't.
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