The institute's right wing buzzed with a low tech hum, Granitz's sea a faint murmur beyond the steel walls. A week has passed since Dianne first arrived. Pierre sat in his office, tablet glowing with the cybernetic arm project's latest specs: organic tissue wrapped around a bone-like core, artificial nerves linked to a chip. Dianne's team had delivered much progress in a few days, her steady voice cutting through their nerves. Today, she'd lead a prototype test, and Pierre wanted to see her in action.
He adjusted his watch, a sleek wearable synced to the team's devices, including Dianne's. The institute used them to track focus and stress during high-stakes tasks, part of their collaborative workflow. No secrets, just data to optimize performance—Dianne had signed off on it during onboarding. Her current readings blinked: focus at 85%, stress low. Solid for a new lead. Pierre smiled, intrigued.
Down the hall, Dianne stood in the lab, tablet in hand, the prototype arm gleaming under LED lights. Its tissue, lab-grown and pale, flexed slightly, nerves firing via the chip. Thanks to the lab's latest technology on accelerating tissue-growth, her work progress is much faster. This institute hides such an advancement, even the research lab in the Kapital, required around a week to a month for muscle growth. This institute is incredible, she thinks. Her engineers—computer engineer tweaking code, mechatronics duo calibrating sensors, bioengineer checking tissue viability—huddled around. "Morning," she said, voice firmer than yesterday. "Let's test the nerve response." Her watch pulsed, syncing data to Pierre's feed. Focus spiked to 90%.
The test began. Dianne directed the computer engineer to run a motion script, her commands clear. "Adjust the chip's signal—smoother pulses." The arm twitched, mimicking a human flex. The mechatronics duo fine-tuned the sensors, their murmurs focused. The bioengineer nodded, confirming tissue stability. Pierre watched the feed: Dianne's focus held at 88%, stress creeping up as the arm stuttered. "Reset the nerve sync," she said, calm but sharp. The team moved fast, and the arm's motion smoothed. Focus hit 92%. Pierre leaned forward. She was good—better than her resume suggested.
"What is the current latency?" Dianne asked.
"25 ms!" The computer engineer read the record.
"We need to lower this to 12 ms" Dianne's firm voice. She asked her mechatronics to redo the fine-tuning of the sensors, and the computer engineer reviewed the transmitting algorithm. Dianne opened her laptop, reviewed the chip's source code, trying to optimize it, such that its brain's signal decoding and transmitting time are minimized. "Let's run again," she told the team. The cybernetic arm moved per her brain signal command.
"Latency time?" Dianne asked
"12 ms!, we did it" the computer engineer read out loud. Everyone in the team was yelling. Pierre monitored her feed: focus 80%, stress below 50%. Then he observed a sharp increase of her stress level to 75%.
"Agh!" a backfire signal from the chip sent against her brainwave signal through the wire. The chip was overheated and the surrounding tissue was damaged by the heat. "Are you alright?" her bioengineer asked. "The chip reaches its thermal limit, increasing the transmission rate causes thermal build-up in the chip." one of the mechatronics added.
By noon, the lab was a hive of quiet progress. Dianne's team ran a few more tests, each refining the arm's response. They still faced unsolved issues: thermal throttling, latency limit, tissue damages. Pierre monitored her feed closely: Focus 77%, Stress 90%.
"Lunch break," Dianne called, her voice tense. The engineers dispersed, but she stayed, tweaking a spec. Lunchtime, honey – a message from Markus sent with his photo and his lunch plate, perhaps taken by his subordinate. The message brought her back to reality, after losing in her mind of solving the puzzles. I miss you – she looked at the photo, rolling her ring. Her stomach growled. She stopped her thoughts at work and headed to the canteen.
Back in his office, Pierre reviewed the morning's data. The arm's prototype was ahead of schedule, its nerve-chip integration smoother than expected. But they face the barriers: Thermal problem, tissue damage. These challenges her leadership, and expertise skills.
Today's canteen serves Kibbling, a fried fish coated with bladders – Elena's favorite food. She even added the menu during Dianne's welcome party. Elena asked Pierre to have it with her. Now he was sitting with her at the counter bar looking out to the Baltic Sea. Elena enjoyed her Kibbling so much, she said it gave a sense of her hometown. "How is our subject progressing?" she asked. "She encounters barriers," Pierre answered boldly. "Her progress is very fast, faster than your PX-project" Elena teased me. While the two were talking, Dianne came behind. "Mind if I joined you" Dianne asked. Elena turned to her "Dianne! Come and sit with us" she answered with a big smile. Pierre wondered if this was her acting or coming from her true self. Dianne sat beside Elena and put down her tray. She slowly forked her tuna salad. Rolling tomatoes. "What's wrong?" Elena noticed the strange. "It's just … something bothering me" Dianne replied. "My project, the cybernetic arm, is struggling" Dianne continued " We have managed to reduce the response latency below 12 ms", "That is incredible, DIanne" Elena praised her. "But it did not last long, the chip was heated up and sent a backfire signal, surrounding tissues also damaged. " Dianne was full of stress. " For now, refresh your mood, and brain, Dianne" Elena tried to cheer her up. " Thank you, Elena" Dianne thanks her but still barely touch her lunch.
"What about using an AI model to analyze human motion and categorize it?" Pierre asked, eyes looking outside the window, while eating kibbling. Elena turned to me, and Dianne. "This can reduce the processing load, if the brain wave matches then it can generate the signal pattern to match with the motion data." he continued. "Yeah, I and the computer engineer wrote down the code, it helps reduce the latency time. But the processing load is still larger than the chip" Dianne added. "Sounds like it is the hardware problem" Elena raised. "I think so," Dianned added. "Tomorrow may I come to your lab?" he asked. Elena was surprised. Dianne's eyes opened. Elena was now narrowing her eyes and staring at me. " It is fine, Pierre, I will solve it with my team" Dianne shook her voice, her eyes slightly looking at Elena's displeased face. "Elena, you come too," he added. She was now blushed and nodded. " If you can solve them by today, I and Elena will gladly observe its first launch" he said with a smile at the end. " Exposing yourself to high-level of cortisol is no good in the long-term," Pierre added, lifting my tray up and walking away.
In the afternoon, Elena knocked, entering with a coffee. "I never thought you were interested in Dianne that much," she said, sitting across from him. "Her work, not her," he replied boldly. "Her code on predicting motion algorithms is fascinating." he said, "She even reduced the latency time below 12 ms, below human perception" he continued. "What she needs is the appropriate hardware that can handle heat and return high precision signals" he continued. Elena listened closely. "I get your point. But the data densities over such a short time is massive" Elena said. "Even a desktop computer requires a cooling method." she added. "You are right, and even if she uses an external computer to process the signal, the latency will be increased due to the transmission time," he added. "What are you trying to say?" Elena questioned. "She needs a chip that can transmit data from one to another, instantly at any distance." he answered.
Back in the room, Dianne just came back from work, she felt her brain was burning. She and her team still could not solve the thermal problem. The tissue was also burnt hardly and need replacement. The current benchmark without catching a thermal threshold is 20 ms. Close enough to the highest human perception at 13 ms. Pierre and Elena would come tomorrow. She wondered how two scientists could help her in practical science. She looked at her married ring, wanted to hear some lovely words or received comfort from her husband.
(Bzzz) a notification from her tablet. She looked at the clock. It was 6pm now. Time for her video calling with Markus.
"Hello, honey!" Markus' face popped up with an usual smile. She replied to him. "What wrong, a tough day?" He asked with a worried voice. She forced a smile "rough day, dear, we managed to get the first prototype but problems remain" she said.
"You and your team will certainly go through it, honey. You are the best" his words tried to cheer her up. "Thank you dear, but I do not know what I can improve anymore" she said, "it's like i hit a wall" she said, voice unstable, tears building. "Honey, calm down, you are doing good," he said with a smile. His smile added nothing to her mind right now. "Perhaps, you just need a little change of vibe" he said, "what do you mean?" She asked. "You know, honey, it's been a while since last time," he said, lowering his voice. She now realized what was the meaning of his word. "Not today, Markus" she rejected him with a slightly irritated tone. "C'mon, Dianne we had our agreement and you agreed on it" he lifted up his voice, tense and loud, the tone that scared me. "Alright, I will do it" she said. Adjusted camera, closed her eyes, hand motion. Dianne thought that her motion was not different from a robot. Received command, performed action. Emotionless.
After her call with Markus ended, an emptiness, quietness, and loneliness surged into her. Tears bubbling again, she cried.