[ti]Flashback[/ti]Harder, Better, Faster, Drunker! [Sparks n Suni]

[Sundance]

Within the racing circuit, word sometimes traveled very fast, or not at all. It depended on what the word was. Gossip? Very fast. Anything that could help a racer get ahead was more often than not guarded very closely. But Sundance was not just a Racer, she was also a waitress with customer service experience, experience is listening to what was whispered and not meant to be heard. She heard the secrets.

There was one secret that would eventually spread far and wide, but while she could get in early she would. Apparently there was some hot new femme on the block, a couple of city states over, who specialised in body fabriations and modifications. A real up and comer who was just starting to differentiate herself from the masses. More or less, someone with skill but who was still, for now, affordable to Sundance's meager finances.

Sundance just like any racer was always looking for any edge to cut a nano from lap times, and Sundance had dreams of being the fastest.

Never much of an introvert, Suni had no qualms about making a call at the earliest convenience. Talking to strangers was her oil and air. She stood in front of her personal Holo-vee and made the call, and left a recorded message.

::Good day, I’m Sundance, I was hoping I could make an appointment. I am a Ccel racer looking for a tune or a performance boost to my systems and word has come by that you may be a real potential star. Thank you for your time.::

She hoped to get a reply soon. While she waited, she flicked back over to a beatz musikz video game.

[Sparkplug]

"Sparkplug! Why haven't the documents for the Anticyclus grant application been completed?"

"...because those are Insight's responsibility? The innovation board will be receiving the design information under his name."

"Excuse me? Insight has better things to do than fill in forms. I've tasked him with writing a supporting analysis of the suspensor tests. You can see the documents aren't done, can't you?"

"Yes. I can see that, sir."

"Then don't wait to be told, Sparkplug. Just do it. Earn your alt-mode exemption for once. Insight will want confirmation of document submission by tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

Sparkplug lowered her helm and stared at her workbench as the taller mech walked away. Only when she was entirely sure that he was out of audial range did she mutter, in a defeated tone, "That was my design anyway..."

Huffing a sigh, Sparkplug carefully saved the complex suspension armature design hovering over her terminal in grainy green 3D, then shifted her attention to the flat monitor attached to the bulkhead. Her workspace was crammed into a corner of the lab, and she had a tendency to bang her elbow when she moved if she wasn't careful. It was as well that she was small; a diminutive white-plated femme of fairly standard design, but one whose frame had a few unexpected flourishes in the elegant curling of her paneling around the hollows of her hover emitters.

Documents, documents... calling up the standard grant application, she glumly noted that almost the only populated fields were Insight's personal information relating to the design claim. Settling down to work, her fingers darting back and forth over the keys, she filled in all the missing information, reluctantly accustomed to the minutia of official forms. It was hardly the first time she'd had unexpected form-filling dropped in her lap.

It was late afternoon by the time she was done, hitting the confirmation key with a certain tired reluctance. Of course it was better that someone was going to work on the design than it just be ignored, but...

Venting softly, Sparkplug turned her attention to the 'incoming message' blinking in the corner of the screen, as it had been for a while. A quick rattle of keys, and the attached file opened. A slim flier that she didn't recognise appeared over the terminal, supplanting the suspension schematic.

::Good day, I’m Sundance, I was hoping I could make an appointment. I am a Ccel racer looking for a tune or a performance boost to my systems and word has come by that you may be a real potential star. Thank you for your time.::

"Scrap!"

Sparkplug scrambled to turn down the volume, leaning out of her little alcove and lifting onto the tips of her pedes to peer around the lab. The proper scientists had largely cleared out for the day, and none of the stragglers were near enough to overhear. Probably.

The very last thing she needed was for any of her superiors - and as the lowest ranked in the lab, there was no shortage of those - to realise she'd been doing off-the-books chassis rebuilds.

Still... 'a real potential star', huh? And a racer to work on! That sounded interesting.

Biting her lip, and taking another quick peek out at the quiet lab, Sparkplug stood in front of the terminal's pickup camera, and initiated a connection request.

"Hi there," she greeted the flier, smiling into the pickup. "You've reached Sparkplug, at the Armature Research Laboratory. You're looking for a performance boost, perhaps a partial chassis rebuild? I'm just a research assistant here-" the incredibly junior title was proving harder than a scraplet to shake, "-so I won't be able to help you. I especially won't be able to help you if you come over this evening to the address I'm sending, when the lab is empty. I'll be here. Coincidentally."

The bitter taste of the day was already washed from her tongue by her excitement. Another sneaky chassis rebuild, for an aerial racer this time? Oh, she couldn't wait!

[Sundance]

Sundance got the ping for an incoming call. “Green light go!” she announced to herself as she paused her game and switched over to holo-com. The face on the screen was a very pleasant looking femme, mostly clinical white and grey, with pretty green accents, and real friendly bright green optics. Green for go! Suni knew she was on the right track.

Sundance held back a giggle at Sparkplug’s innuendo, she liked this game. “Oh I completely understand if you’re just too busy.” Suni quickly pulled up the address on a mini screen-in-screen and quickly processed the cartography. The address was for another city-state but a close one. A few hours cruising was easy enough, almost a lazy A to B track through the skyways.

“I mean I definitely couldn't make the checkered flag if I left Kallis right now and rode the tail wind all the way there at a gentle cruise. I’m guessing that it would be a total waste of my En if I flicked over my file that didn't at all contain my full up-to-date specs?” Suni asked as she hit send. The grin she was trying to hide was as obvious as her blue racing stripes.

The file that would arrive in Sparkplug’s inbox was Sundance’s complete blueprints - she was constructed after all - along with full medical history and all the tuning and modifications she had undergone along the way. Some details, like names and clinics were nonexistent, but all the important info any techanic would ever want was right there. Sundance was far from the brightest diode on the circuit board, so she made up for it with diligence.

Of course she hadn't expected to get a non-appointment this evening, so she hadn't already asked Winglite to cover her shift at the bar that night. She did have the next day off, but she hadn't needed to not do anything to arrange that.

[Sparkplug]

The flier had a sense of humour! Sparkplug grinned as the other femme delved into the fun of the doubletalk, glancing down as a chime announced receipt of Sundance's complete diagnostic breakdown information.

"File received, for all the difference it'll make." With mock seriousness, she went on, "If I was going to be modelling your aerodynamic surfaces, something like that would be invaluable and save me a lot of time scanning you, but like I said, this will just clutter up my nice tidy file system. What to do, what to do. Guess I'd better get back to work. I'll be here late, after all."

Pausing, Sparkplug finally added, "Ping my terminal if you happen by for unrelated reasons. There's a back door. Anyway, sorry I can't be of help. Good luck with the racing."

Her hands danced across the keyboard. The comms stream closed, replaced with a three-dimensional view of Sundance's frame rendered in ghostly half-transparency that allowed Sparkplug to see the internal structure that lay beneath the plating. She was a lithe thing, optimised for low weight and sleek surfaces. Judging by her list of previous modifications, there wasn't going to be anything obvious to fix; no badly structured fins that were causing excess drag, or anything like that. Improvements would be either incremental, internal, or non-intuitive, requiring a distinct conceptual leap.

Or in other words, it was a challenge, and if she succeeded, she'd have once again proved herself better than the stuffy caste-forged that had never had to strive to be taken seriously.

Now that was motivation.

Calling up her research documents, the small femme began cross-referencing sections of Sundance's frame against papers she'd read, recent conceptual models, and her own as-yet unimplemented research - some of it registered in the names of others, some simply ignored or scorned. With a flurry of keys, she authenticated access to the lab's simulation engine and booted an airflow modelling system.

...she was taking a risk here, and she knew it. Rendering time on the simulation mainframe, that she could explain away. And raw materials weren't under particularly close watch, if she manufactured some prototypes. But bringing a mecha into the lab and modifying them, or even constructing parts for insertion by others, that was an offence that could get her exemption revoked. She simply wasn't authorised to carry out that kind of work.

Yes, she knew that.

But if it was a choice between risk, and filing paperwork on behalf of the very mecha putting her down and taking everything of worth from her... then yes. Lay it in Primus's hands, scramble the lab footage, and hope for the best. That was the only way forward.

[Sundance]

“Good luck to you too, hope you meet all those pesky deadlines.” The call ended and Sundance gave a little whoop of joy. Practice lap down and he was ready in pole position. She spun on her left pedde and shadowed kickboxed the air to show it who was boss. The lithe flier with back to her vid game and closed it after saving her progress.

Suni skipped over to her smallish defrigerator, grabbed a cold cube and downed. She probably didn't need a top up but it never hurt with unknown tracks. A little memory jumped into consciousness and Suni went back to her holomap. Between here and her destination was a little shop known for certain delicacies. She didn't even have to consider the detour, it was now a checkpoint in her mind. She couldn't think of anything else she had to take care of so she headed out.

The little athlete lived in a mass-fab apartment complex - stacked cubes of bare essential living quarters. When sundance stepped out onto her balcony, the vast majority of her view was other balconies. She almost never used her front door. Checking that the balcony door locked behind her - it was a touch unreliable - Suni pinged her radar briefly to check for other fliers, and stepped off the edge. Even before gravity pulled her close, she had transformed and was headed up to merge into a skyway.

---

A small handful of hours and one checkpoint later, Sundance was fast approaching the address Sparkplug has sent. It was an impressive high class sector if she was to give commentary. No sketchy rustyard clinic this time. She thought she spied the back entrance mentioned.

::Howdy! I’m on final approach lining up on the back door.:: Suni radioed.

As she flew down close, Sundance applied her full air brakes, and flared her attack angle to come to a near complete stop. As she hit her stall speed, she transformed and touched down with her peddes lightly skipping.

[Sparkplug]

The hours after the vidcall passed in a blur. Sparkplug was never happier than when immersed in a project she could really lose herself in, and virtually stripping Sundance's frame to find hidden inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement was an utterly absorbing task. It was clear that the femme had been of a light, fast build originally, and she'd had work to improve her performance... but there was a world of difference between generic alterations, taking her frame closer to the average aerodynamic profile, and a customised rebuild fitted for her chassis.

It wasn't the first time Sparkplug had worked on a frame design for an aerial racer. The requirements formed a deeply interesting technical challenge, one on an extreme edge of the performance graph. It was the first time she'd actually get to put any of those design notions into practice, though: the council would never approve of cold-constructing a chassis for the explicit process of creating a racer - a frivolous waste of resources! - and so her speculative designs had languished in her personal storage.

Many of her other designs were probably doomed to languish forever. Not unless she began taking surprise calls of a similar nature from aquaformers, space-based long-range scouts, hover-based ground racers or tunnel-borers. Still, you never knew.

What she could do here and now was limited. Nevertheless, there were a few tricks she could deploy, and given a bit more time...

Sundance's signal came in: the flier was here. Drat. If she'd had just a little longer...

Rising from her chair, Sparkplug crossed through the dark, empty lab, small lights clicking on as she went past to leave a trail of illumination in her wake, and descended the zig-zagging ramps down to ground level. With her audials tuned to the highest sensitivity she could amp them to, alert for any other mecha staying late, she made her way to the rear of the building.

And there, on the exterior camera, was the very femme she'd spent the last few hours getting to know inside out.

The heavy doors thunked as locks disengaged, then slid back with ponderously oiled silence. "Good evening, delivery courier. Thank you for delivering those supplies at this late hour. Please, come in," the engineer recited, beckoning Sundance inside with a finger to her lips.

Retracing her steps, Sparkplug maintained her careful silence, and it was only when she stepped into the deserted lab on the third floor that she vented a little sound of relief. "Okay. Whew. You can talk now; I've futzed the local footage buffer. As I said on the call, I'm Sparkplug: welcome to this highly illegal and unwise tour of ARL. I haven't had long to work, so it's fairly preliminary, but I think I've got some options for you that you're going to enjoy."

[Sundance]

Internally Sundance was right now an energetic dervish. Outwardly she had had all the calm of a delicate breeze caressing a dustbunny. The thought of being clandestine added excitement to the thrill of getting modded. Sundance followed Sparkplug, walking in a confident professional manner as though she absolutely belonged there. The two femmes were nearly equal in height and roughly shared a similar build. Sundance found Sparkplug's green highlights quite tasteful in their contrast from the dominant white. She had zero doubts now, Sparkplug was indeed going out of her way to help the flier, and quite possibly because she genuinely wanted to.  The situation wasn't clear to Sundance because the word on the winds had not mentioned Sparkplug doing under the table contracts. Still, it was what it was and there were some rules she was willing to bend to help her performance in the races. 

Glaring with undisguised curiosity at all the shiny equipment in the third floor lab, Suni dropped any pretense of professional detachment. She knew better than to touch anything however, so she held her hands behind her back, clear body language that she knew how to behave around equipment more expensive than her apartment.  

"I honestly wasn't expecting anything more than a confabulation, anything more and we're on the wings of victory." Sundance pulled her optics off all the expensive looking tools to speak directly to Sparkplug. "By the winds! I bought some snacks from Torus." Suni playfully announced. She brought her hands together and then separated them again drawing an aluminum foil bag from subspace stamped with the bold white logo of Torus. "I hope you like meta-crystal frosted O'nuts, they're kind of my goto. You're not going get in a hurricane of trouble are you?" Sundance asked Sparkplug with concern. 

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's first impressions of Sundance? Pretty darn favourable. The flier was obviously excited, but kept her mouth shut until told it was safe, and despite her visible fascination with everything around her, made it clear by the way she stood that she understood to touch nothing. It was nice to not have to look up to see the other femme's optics, too.

Oh, and snacks. Snacks sealed the deal for sure.

"I will take any risk for a tasty snack," Sparkplug replied with mock solemnity, then shrugged a shoulder. "Honestly? I shouldn't do, if I'm careful. Don't worry about it: that risk is on me, and I wouldn't have not-invited you here if I wasn't willing to take it on. I'd rather take a chance on some worthwhile work than file paperwork until the next golden age rolls around."

Of course, if she did get in trouble, 'hurricane' would be an inadequate term for the tidal wave of disaster that would crash through her life. But as she'd said, the risks were hers.

Taking an o'nut from the bag, Sparkplug turned and moved over to a wide, broad table studded with holoemitters that turned it into a seriously sizable visualisation tank. Yet another tool that she never got access to unless she waited until the most unsociable hours. Biting into the snack she held, she typed fast and one-handed into the control terminal for the tank. Various cluttered designs and displays shimmered into existence in midair, then slid out of the sides of the projection field as she dismissed them into local storage.

In place of the previous images, a fully life-size three-dimensional holo of Sundance flashed into existence in midair, laid out horizontally as though on a recharging slab. The image shimmered, then broke into three copies side-by-side: the left-most displayed her internal components, the right-most just her outer plating, the central display showing the two combined with ghostly translucency. Various internal components lit up one by one, extracted to float in mid-air over the holographic copies of the flier's chassis. Shifting lights and colours played across Sparkplug's faceplate as she worked.

"Alright. Hope you don't mind if we get right into it. I do want to get to know you better, but let's save that for when we get outside. I haven't had long to work on your requirements, but there are three broad categories of improvements we can work on here."

She gestured upwards. The floating components lit up: actuators, rotary motors, and Sundance's central fuel pump. "Here's category one. There is definitely room for improvement in your basic components. I can see you've upgraded some already, but we can do better. I can manufacture parts, but you'd have to find a proper surgeon to install them. Someone discreet."

Another flick of her hand. The rightmost image of Sundance's frame plating lit up yellow. "Cat two. We can work on your plating morphology. I could maybe install some plating mods; I've done it on myself, but it's a risk for me to do it here. If you've got a regular mechanic, they might be better suited to retrofit you with the parts I can have extruded."

Lowering her hand, Sparkplug nodded at Sundance as a whole. "Lastly, category three. Software. Your autonomics are running on subroutines that are fairly old, and totally generic. Stuff that works for any class of mecha. I've got some updates and some custom functionality I could install in you; faster reactions, more precise actuator control. Might make you run a little hotter, but it'll be worth it. So. What do you want to talk about first?"

Her tone was brisk and businesslike, but an undercurrent of excitement, of secrets shared, tingled at the boundaries of her field. Her lips curved into a conspiratorial smile, optics as vivid green as go-signals.

[Sundance]

Sundance took the second O’nut from the bag, biting down carefully to avoid crumbs in the sterile office. When Sparkplug brought up the full scale holos of herself, she murmured appreciative noises between mouthfuls. Truthfully she found a morbid fascination in seeing herself so displayed three ways, it was a far cry from any mirror. Sundance wasn't sure anyone was supposed to see their own internals displayed in front of them for dissection.

I do want to get to know you better, but let's save that for when we get outside.

“I think I’d rather like that too. It’s good to know the techanic who might dig around inside me.” Sundance replied with a cheerful tone, her optics still locked on the projections. She examined each of the three holo clones of herself. Stopping at the middle one, Suni touched the holographic forehead of her twin. “Boop.”

Sundance paused in consideration of everything just offered by Sparkplug. “I think...it is safe to pit my software for now. You’re absolutely right about the ye olde autonomics but I’m kinda already over clocked on the regular.” Suni said sheepishly pointing to her own head. “I’d need to replace this before I can handle faster reflexes, plus the extra heat costs En two ways, generation and dispersal. I need all my En.”

She walked back over to the right most display with the plating outlined. Sundance knelt down to closer at detail around the head. “I’m gosh darn cute is what I am!” She stood up facing Sparkplug and put on a mock pose, hand on thrown out hip while pointing at the head of the hologram. “Right there is my money maker.” She grinned. “But...could you change these holos to my other?” Sundance inquired referring to her alt-mode.

The aerodynamics of her root-mode weren't a significant factor in winning races, any improvements there might only earn her a couple more tips as a waitress.

[Sparkplug]

A mild flicker of disappointment touched Sparkplug's field, though she merely commented, "Sure about the system update? That was the one thing I had the kit to do today. Still - let's have a look at category 2, then, the airframe."

Finishing the o-nut with a dainty bite, Sparkplug touched the controls again. The display in the holo tank flickered, Sundance's root form replaced by the triangular shape of her aerial configuration. "I've been testing new configurations of your outer plating for aerodynamic performance, through mutation testing. In essence, that involves semi-randomly permuting your shape several times, comparing the simulated aerodynamic performance, then blending the best performers together and re-randomising."

The glowing holographic form above the table split into several smaller copies, each shifting and changing rapidly. "This approach allows for discovery of unusual aerial envelopes that linear iteration wouldn't explore. By harnessing the lab's primary simulation engine, I've run through a few thousand iterations so far."

Shifting forms blurred past like the pages in a flipbook, strange curls, twists and hollows growing, evolving, fading and merging. Finally, the images stabilised with just two copies of Sundance remaining, floating side by side.

"Pruned down the morphologies to this. On your left, that's you as you are now. On the right, that's the endpoint of the current process. Given more time, I could probably refine it a bit." Subtle back-facing spikes now jutted back from the ends of her lifting surfaces, the leading edges refined, shallow dips and curls introduced into the plating to guide airflow over her. At a gesture, a field of numbers flashed up beside the modified form. "Projected performance with the modifications. I think you'll like the numbers."

Sparkplug took a step back from the controls, looking over at Sundance with a serious look on her faceplate. "With some time, so it doesn't cause a suspicious drop in raw materials, I can print new plating and substrate sections for you. I can fit them, but it's likely to get me noticed if I use a surgical bay here - I've got no cover for accessing those facilities. If you can find someone to refit you, that'll do. If you can't, but you can find a decent restructuring bay, I can refit you myself. It's down to you how you want to handle this, and if you want to go ahead with these exterior mods at all."

The white-plated techgineer politely raised her brows. In all truth, she'd rather do the fitting herself, make sure it was right, but this was Sundance's frame. No matter how interesting the technical challenge, the subject/patient/client had to come first.

[Sundance]

Sundance only partly followed the big words flowing fast from Sparkplug. Mostly because they flew over her processor, but also in part because the vision of the flickering holograms also held her enraptured. She understood the gist however of what was said and knew of the process in passing even if she didn't fully understand it. 

"That's some gosh darn smooth thinking you got on the breeze." Suni whispered appreciatively. Speaking her thoughts aloud, she continued her commentary. "Resembles Revelocity more than a bit. Those lines there...that will help on the twenty third turn out of Vector Nine..vortice generation is down, not bad, not bad...less yaw control..maybe run the software afterall for that to compensate...excuse me." Sundance pulled out from subspace her own data-pad. She flicked through projections and brought the course map from her last race. with deft flicks of her fingers she enlarged sections and brought up recorded telemetry. 

Peering between the new numbers Sparkplug had generated and her own, she started making fast calculations on her pad. "So...efficiency is up here by that much, gives me five seconds gain on that vector..." Suni started muttering as she processed the overall expected speed increase with the improved aerodynamics. After a couple of minutes she had a calculation for a new lap time should she fly with the plating design offered by Sparkplug. 

"I'm looking at a performance of three point zero minutes clipped off a seventy two minute lap time...well heck, that would blow me up to fourth place on my checkered flag." Suni whistled with enthusiasm. "That's a gosh darn heck of a gain." The little flier turned to face Sparkplug, one hand on hip and the other waving around her datapad and wearing a huge grin. "Yeah sure I know a place, cost a finger to rent, but it's good. Truth be told, I'd rather the designer, I.E. your race stomping self to do the work on me, you understand what the result is supposed to be. Plus those lines are just simply Podium! But...I would be red flagged if I didn't first also hear your complete cat one pitch." 

Sundance knew in her core there was also so much that could be done with her components. A basic customer service design served her well in endurance but not top end thrust and efficiency. With aero and clean power combined, there was a chance she could even win for once.

[Sparkplug]

Cocking her helm curiously as Sundance pulled out a pad of her own, Sparkplug moved around the projection tank to peer over the flier's shoulder as she worked on calculations of her own. It was always really interesting to see specialists in other fields work, exercising knowledge she simply didn't have, and so she watched with bright, inquisitive interest as the other femme flicked back and forth between calculations and maps of an unfamiliar sky course.

"That does sound good! I'll admit it; I'd have been nervous handing off the plating to another mecha to install. It's important to know where you're going with a complex resurfacing job, and some of the surface-level detail isn't intuitive. I've only got the envelope shape for now, but given time, I'll refine it, then use your schematics to break it down into forms suitable for your transformation sequence. That's always a worthwhile skill to practice."

Consulting the terminal for the holo tank, Sparkplug entered a few quick commands. Sundance's aerial configuration moved to the centre of the display, splitting again into her external plating to the right, and her internal systems to the left. Actuators and engines began to pulse in soft green. Such displays of the underlying mechanisms were a little taboo in polite society - no true sophisticate would carelessly expose their inner workings - but as a frame designer, the engineer was utterly inured to it.

"Category one. To begin with, better actuators will give you faster response times and more accurate movements on your aerodynamic surfaces. Those are pretty much just things we have in stock for building test components. Your engines can be upgraded with higher-spec motors, but I'll need to print new alloy housings for them to fit into your frame. As for your fuel pump, that I could sink some time into and whip up something with higher efficiency that'd fit into your existing chest housing." She looked up from the holo tank, over to Sundance. "I can fit most of that into legitimate research work, if I take my time with it. No one ever checks how much of the post-test prototypes get properly recycled."

In the background, most of the lab lights had shut off again as they failed to detect movement, leaving an island of light around the holo table. Drumming her fingers on the terminal, Sparkplug paused thoughtfully for a moment, then went on, "I could fit actuators with the plating. Maybe engines, too. You'd have to find someone else to refit your fuel pump, though. I can build a cold frame from scratch, but keeping a living spark safe and stable while live-swapping a core component like that - no way. That's a surgeon's work. Might be a bit extreme for you; again, your call. Don't think I'll mess with your autonomic coding today, either, I was tempted to give you a tangible improvement before we leave, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Best to run some more simulations first. So. I think that about covers it."

The displayed holo shifted under Sparkplug's guidance, simplifying down to the resculpted form of Sundance's aerial mode, components glowing from within as though her frame were made of cloudy glass. "Any questions?"

[Sundance]

Sundance really wanted to say "I'll take it all!" Every option on offer would help her placings. All of it together would almost guarantee a podium finish, or at the very least a competitive edge. What Sparkplug could do for her, would tangibly be open to everyone soon enough. Suni knew the uber elite were already deploying every technical advancement money could buy. The racer wanted it all, and she wanted it now! There was however the issue of shanix, resources, time and techanics to involve, and a waitress didn't earn slag. "All this you showing is making me hot and fast." Sundance idly said to herself.

The flier once again went back to studying her holographic double. She stalked around the table to examine the line, and internal structures, humming tunelessly as she went. "I'd like to table the fuel pump for now. I will need to boost at some point absolutely, but something as deep as that, I want it totally legit, and with a surgeon I can totally trust, which i dont have right now. Engines are a solid maybe depending entirely on the balance of efficiency, and if you can fit them." Sundance stood straight to face Sparkplug. "Autonomics, actuators and aerodynamics, the triple A of agility." Suni tapped her right fingers against her right thigh in thought. 

After a moment she lifted up her datapad and maximized the screen size. As it was a refurbished SingSong Starcluster, it wasn't impressive. "I'll show you to help articulate what I'm thinking." Suni brought up an aerial view of a particular section from her current Ccel track. "This section right here is a legit shortcut, not many racers can take advantage of it however 'coz its a gosh darn hecking forkscrew of wing twister. The thrill is, if you can make it fast enough, you can not only gain a position, you can gain prestige, and that my little nitro is sponsorship and shanix. All of which I need if I want to threaten the podium." Sundance paused to think some more.

"If I slide you the precise cartography for this section of track, could you process my current and improved theoretical numbers with just the three A's? And then smash that against my processor to see just how much I need to clock?" Overclocking in itself wasn't dangerous in small bursts, but too long and Suni would start to risk damage. Sundance didn't know of any ways to safely boost her mental performance, aside from the obvious of total processor replacement, and that was just not on in winds. 

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug grinned at Sundance's delight, the flier's enthusiasm mirroring her own. Putting her knowledge to work in a novel field of frame design was exciting! The decision to put aside modifications to the energon pump in order to focus on a narrower range of system upgrades made a lot of sense, and even if custom-building a fuel pump would have been fun, the work necessary to install it was kind of prohibitive.

For now, at least.

Moving beside the other femme to get a clearer look at the datapad as it was held up, Sparkplug hummed to herself, her field alight with curiosity. She'd never looked into the specifics of any given aerial raceway before, and matching the twisting course with the aerodynamic readouts she'd compiled for Sundance's modified frame geometry sounded interesting.

"Oh me, oh my," she murmured. "Now that's a challenge that I'm down for. You might have to make sure I get this right by comparing my projected figures for your current configuration to what you've experienced; I've never done this kind of performance mapping before. Still, still, you're going to need to focus on minimal viable turning arc and acceleration to get through this, top speed isn't really the determining factor here... maybe if we got ambitious, and worked for some variable geometry..."

Her words trailed off as her thoughts outpaced them, brow ridges drawing together in a frown of concentration. Maybe the fitness criteria for the iterative mutation algorithm needed updating for higher emphasis on agility, and a re-run from scratch to see if the outcome diverged from her initial specs. That was always the trick with such algorithmic design tools, getting the criteria right. The course would require rapid, sharp movements of the aerodynamic control surfaces, too...

"...the actuators would need to be stronger than I thought. Back pressure from the airflow is going to stop them moving if you need to adjust course this violently. Maybe..."

Sparkplug shook her helm, surfacing from her thoughts. "Okay. Fuel pump aside. Pretty sure I can kit you out with new motors, but you'll have to make sure the bay you rent has a decent supply of local anaesthetic, or you'll have an uncomfortable time of it. It'll be a long procedure to refit your plating anyway, so you might need to rent for a couple of days and have some time off. I think you've got the wrong idea about the autonomics, though."

Tapping the base of her helm, the engineer went on, "I'm talking - let's say you want a sudden burst of power from your engines. You don't consciously speed up the rate of your fuel pump; your autonomics detect that there's an increased demand, and accelerate your energon flow rate. But those reflexive changes aren't tuned for speed, they're fairly slow, and that means you burn energon, then have a dip in power due to the shortage in your lines, then the pump accelerates to compensate."

Sparkplug gestured a rising line with a sudden dip before the line recovered and rose again. "Subtle gap in your engine response, see? I can update your systems to pick up on high-requirement signals to engines and actuators and slam that pump into high gear at the same time, so the energon's there when you need it. Pretty much every reflex you've got can be tuned to work faster, too, including the micro-adjustments of your control surfaces that keep you flying smooth and level. Don't need to overclock you for that, the system just needs to be optimised. I can overclock you to tighten your conscious responses, but you've already had a bit of that, and I honestly wouldn't push you any harder than you're already running."

Conscious that she'd ran off without letting Sundance get a word in edgewise, Sparkplug leant back against the edge of the table, her fingers glittering where they intercepted the holo field. "I can work on all this. Give me the cartography details, and I'll have something better customised for your needs."

[Sundance]

"She likes the challenge?" Sundance posed with hands on hips and wore a mischievous grin "I'll ride with that!" The flier quick flicked a few files over to Sparkplug's end, using a deft digit to drag and slide icons on her datapad. "I've given you three files, the raw map data for sheer number crunching. There's a file with all the course notes and commentary, it is heavy reading but I highly suspect you'd process it faster than I can fall." Sundance chuckled. "The last is the pure vector history of every racer for every race for this one track. It's a mess at first glance until you realise no racer can maintain perfect mental discipline and perfect lines for the entire solar cycle...well...the uber elite do, but that's why they're the uber elite." Sundance waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't fret over variable geometry unless you've got a stockpile of ununtrium just sitting around for the components. On the balance, the extra complexity and stress isn't worth the potential gains until resources for a full frame becomes a non-issue. As for the engine and autonomics responses, just make sure the algorithms are smooth. In practice, a clean ramp in power being easier to control outweighs the pure joy of maximum thrust on demand. This is about endurance." Sundance paused her own rant to clear the vents. Her mouth usually outpaced her processor, and Sparkplug was giving her so much to process

Sundance started ticking off items on her fingers. "Bay time is actually fairly easy, easier than getting time off work." Sigh. "I will fly you up I think on the full agility package, you've sold me! I'm going to have to burn some serious En to adjust but that's just racing for you, practice, practice, practice. Yes to the motor upgrades too please, it's irresistible, and y'know, while you're already going inside my plating, why not." Sundance shut her datapad and spun it on the tip of one finger. "So these reflex upgrades, how well will they improve my juggling?"