So, I wanted to get this one out there as the second thing I write. Probably not updating super fast. And I'll admit the personified-weapons of Azur Lane won't appear for a while. Hope you still get some enjoyment out of it, and please send me feedback, always interested.
Making Prototypes
"Good morning Lt. Cmdr. Raeder." Corporal Burns always said my name in the German style. The staff here was so multi-national that his efforts were applaudable. But I was born in Wisconsin and spent most of my life in various places of the upper Midwest. To varying degrees my family had said our name a bit through our nose: Raider, like the black and silver football team.
I returned the salute and then nodded to the man standing by the entrance, "Morning Corporal. How has the night shift treated you?" I showed him my ID card.
The compound outside Los Alamos, New Mexico looked nothing like the days when J. Robert Oppenheimer ran the Manhattan project. Some of the old buildings remained, as a testament to that effort to unlock the power of the stars. But our new facility dwarfed them. 20,000 square feet of cleanroom, 10,000 of laboratories. A pair of three-story office structures. And the very spartan dorms that housed over 400 of us. The site had been selected less for its history and more for the same reasons it had worked out in the 40s. It was remote and isolated. The most important part of that was its distance from open water.
While he took the necessary time to look my ID over, he said, "Nothing of note tonight sir. Starting to get pretty cold though. I nodded, "Yeah, that's high desert living, cold nights come quick." Our pleasantries concluded, he said, "Retinal scan and you'll be good to go sir. Have a good day." "Thank you corporal." I placed my eyes to the scanner and got the green light in a couple seconds.
The guard buzzed open the heavy metal door. It slowly swung out. As soon as I passed, he pressed the button to close. Across from the entrance was the interior guard station. Two marines were standing to each side of the hallway, another two seated behind the raised desk to the right. I saluted them as well, "Morning all." Then continued past the elevators to the stairwell. Everything in the building was clean and grey or white with almost no odor beyond a faint hint of cleaning products.
I took the stairs two at a time while not holding the rail. I should hold it of course, safety and all, but never really bothered. Habits from adolescence are hard to ever really break. Reaching the third floor I headed to my cubicle. I was the only one in the office at 0630, but the night shift for Project Maida Vale would be in the cleanroom monitoring production. I dropped off my overcoat and beige hat. Checking my computer there was nothing of consequence in the overnight report. Production of the first batch was proceeding as scheduled. There were no special security bulletins for Siren activity or further geopolitical instability. That all taken care of I headed to the stairs and level 2.
Entering the cleanroom had become routine in the first couple months. Now I did it without even thinking. Wash and scrub exposed skin in the hall. Cross Antechamber 1 with the sticky floor and extreme blowdown to remove dust. Put on liner gloves and booties in Antechamber 2 and grab a bunnysuit and helmet. Put on nitrile gloves and the ensemble in the Dressing Room and activate the UPLA filter. Final blow down in Antechamber 3. Finally enter the cleanroom.
I went to my workstation to check on what my likely activities would be today. Prototype #3 would be my responsibility for 5 hours to lay down the next layers of radiation hardened sapphire, so everything was on schedule. And I'd need to prepare for Prototype #5. I had one of the easiest jobs in the cleanroom, but that was to be expected since my Ph.D. was so far removed from this environment and my primary purpose here was not manufacturing.
As a cybernetics expert, working in a cleanroom was not something I expected to ever do. My career before this war for the whole of the Earth had been in naval weapons research, specifically human-machine integration. I made use of and provided specifications for plenty of microelectronics, but never had anything to do with the manufacturing. But this effort was unique. Those of us brought in from all over the world were thrown into the largest cross-functional weapons program in history. While we were not privileged to all the information about the direction of the war, we knew time was not on our side. The damage done to the global network of trade has been nearly complete, that much was clear from the daily news. The classified projections we were privileged to suggested in no more than 24 months the damage to civilization would be irrecoverable and the inevitable "population correction" would be extreme.
At 0655 I headed to the meeting space for the daily passdown. All of us standing around in our white suits and helmets switched to comm channel 1. The quality control review was going well until Prototype #9 came up. Their testing had indicated that sub-processing core 42A was now malfunctional. Looking at the plot they presented, the test computation pattern that was put through that core did not return the proper result. Though it did return a result. Commander Martinez immediately demanded, coming through too loudly in our helmet comms, "What happened to it? Why was this not identified last week?! We've spent an additional week's time and over $50 million dollars on it! I will send that information up the chain of command by 2 pm today. I expect some answers in time to make you all look somewhat competent." He sharply pointed at the lead of the QC team, "Lt. Cmdr. Laurent I expect a summary of what your team found and FIVE likely root causes in 4 hours."
The Frenchwoman's reply was obviously strained, her accent heavier than usual, "Yes, Sir. My team will dedicate itself to it. There will be delays on the analysis of Prototype #3 and #10." The commander replied quickly, "No Laurent, there will not. The night shift will remain to provide additional labor. Get it done. Each day for these prototypes and this facility is too valuable. Does anyone have suggestions for what might have happened to cause this?" He pointed angrily at the screen behind him.
One of the researchers I counted in my friends on this team, Lt. Cmdr. Orla Caird, spoke up in her lowland-Scottish voice. "I dunna have an idea without seeing more data sir. I'd like to assist the quality control analysis. No prototype is directly in my responsibility until this afternoon." The commander nodded curtly, "Agreed, help get some answers. We've lost 2 prototypes already. We promised we'd have at least 5 completed by the end of November. And let me know if any of your root causes could be reworked to salvage the unit."
He then turned to the lead engineer for EM lithography, Lt. Cmdr. Kaito Nishio. Another person I'd count as a friend here. "Nishio, how is the equipment status in your area?" To compensate for his thick accent of western Japan he spoke slowly and used as few words as possible. "All EML units are functioning. EML12 will require a source change tomorrow. All materials are on-hand." This improved Cmdr. Martinez' mood some. He went section by section getting the equipment review.
The lead for my section, Lt. Cmdr. Jones, reported, "RHS04 remains out of spec. The other 9 units are able to handle the load." Cmdr. Martinez was more irritated than yesterday about this, of course if I had to report that a third prototype might have failed, I'd be in a bad mood too. Yesterday the estimated 4-day repair timeline had been acceptable, today he said, the first part not actually being a question, "It will be ready no later than Monday morning? Correct? When is your next scheduled maintenance?" Lt. Cmdr. Jones was one of the more charismatic section heads, so working under his command was generally good. But I particularly respected that he knew when not to use that skill, he kept it direct here. "I will discuss how to ensure that with my team today. RHS08 is due for a piping and instrumentation clean on Tuesday. And RHS05 will need a chamber plasma clean and passivation on Thursday. Each will be unavailable for about 24 hours as a result." The commander did not press the issue furter and the meeting concluded without anything else of note so we broke out into section teams.
Over by our equipment we discussed our expected responsibilities. Lt. Cmdr. Jones ordered me, "Hal, go talk with the advanced alloys team, see when your prototype will arrive. Assuming you have 3 hours I want you and Lt. Yu to get a very detailed schedule together on RHS04. Find out how much room for error we have on that repair. I do not wish us to put the project in the position of either delaying prototypes or risking a failure because we run equipment past its maintenance schedule." He had learned that scheduling was something I had an affinity for, and Yu knew the procedures the best. I was confident we could give a good answer. "Aye, sir."
When the meeting of our team concluded I walked across the cleanroom to bay 9 looking for members of alloys. Their board indicated the Lt. Nilsson had Protype #3 on IVA02. I approached him slowly, watching to see if it was a good time for us to talk. When he noticed me he held up a single finger. I waited. The unit he sat behind was the size of a moderately large home refrigerator. The main chamber was glowing blue. The steel alloy piping and valves behind it disappeared into the floor to where the reagents were kept under extreme security.
A couple minutes later he turned to face me, and we switched our comms to direct mode. "Lt. Cmdr. Raeder, should I assume you want to know when this prototype will transfer to you?" I gave a single nod, "Yep, want to be sure I can work on finalizing the maintenance schedule for our down unit." He coolly answered, "My responsibility for it will conclude at 1140. Expect 90 minutes for analysis because of the excitement this morning. Some delay is inevitable. You should get it thirty minutes late at 1330." That concluded our chat from his perspective, and he returned to monitoring his unit.
The morning passdown had put everyone on edge. The alloys team was typically strained more than others though. The few milligrams of insanely pure iridiuim and rhodium organo-complexes they used each day represented 15% of the materials cost of the project. And those elements were in short enough supply that the price would probably continue to increase. I turned off my comms after a "Thanks." and headed for my work area.
On the way back I noticed one of the prototype transfer units leaving bay 7 overhead. The partially formed cube inside would occasionally have tiny flashes of iridescence. This was primarily in shades of blue like the alloy processing unit Lt. Nilsson was operating, but I know there were some brief spots of purples, golds, and silver-greys. Sometimes I swear you could see a whole rainbow for just a millisecond.
I found Lt. Yu waiting at the section collaboration table. We switched to private comms and set about crafting the schedule for RHS04's repair. It took about three hours to lay out what we figured was 53 hours of work. So assuming inefficiencies of about 50% we would still have the unit operational on time. The only potential snag was the lower plasma source. We only had one spare at the moment, if that one did not work out, our schedule would not mean shet. We typed up a memo with the schedule and the important parts called out and send it off to Lt. Cmdr. Jones. I then spent about 90 minutes running the pre-work checks on RHS06.
Just before 1130 there was an expected tap on my shoulder. My stomach told me it was about lunch. Turning around I confirmed it was the last of my three friends here, Lt. Cmdr. Julius Nessler of Kiel. I gave him a thumbs up and then two fingers to indicate the time I needed to complete my equipment checks. He nodded and headed for the exit. After confirming the piping diagnostic I put the equipment in stand-by and headed for the exit myself.
Getting out of the cleanroom gear was done in a separate set of rooms from the entrance. I found Orla in there as well. She was a taller-than-average woman, coming in at five-foot-nine. She had hazel eyes in a heart-shaped face and thick, wavy brown hair falling as far as her chin. She had played field hockey growing up and was the most fit of our bunch. We left the building in silence. It was a dry and sunny day. Orla tanned surprisingly well for a Scot. A very fortunate trait to have at 2,200 meters in New Mexico.
On our way to the mess I asked her, "So, did you help Laurent out?" She nodded and replied confidently, "Aye, though the gates and or gallium arsenide teams aren't gunna be happy. We think it's a cascading leakage fault." My device physics knowledge wasn't great, but I knew enough to say, "That won't be solved by rework, will it?" Orla shook her head, hair swishing. "Nae, it be fucked. That's three confirmed losses in 6 weeks of operations. And by far the costliest." "Well, fuck. The stress here is about to increase."
The canteen was situated between the towers of the two dorms. The food was passable. The time out of the bunnysuits and talking face-to-face was great. I grabbed a toasted roast-beef sandwich and well-salted chips. Orla chose the chicken salad on rye. We both chose water. Reaching the end of the line we scanned the large cafeteria. Our group tried to keep to the east side of the building. Orla spotted Julius' first, "He's there by that sad tree." She was right, the foliage in here looked very sad.
Julius Nessler was a suitably tall thin German with straight, short, sharp hair the color of old wheat-straw atop a rectangular head. He was the youngest of us at 32 and his brown eyes showed it. He liked hamburgers. A lot. He had them many ways. He ate burgers with or without cheese; one condiment, mixed condiments, or no condiments; seemingly random combinations of vegetables. But always burgers and Pepsi. His expertise was artificial intelligence. And he had been researching that in the German military before the war brought us all together here. In the prototyping facility he worked on the non-silicon semiconductors team. Like me he was being put to use in manufacturing support while still taking time to devise ways to use these prototypes we were making. The two of us each did three days in the clean room per week.
When we got to the table Orla spoke first, "How's today's burger Julius?" While we sat down he nodded in a way that conveyed reasonable contentment, "I may have put too many pickles on it. But it is cooked better than many others recently." She shook her head and said, "Too bad it's the last one your ever gonna have." He eyed her suspiciously, took a sip of his Pepsi, and asked playing up his accent, "Vhat have you done?" She continued, "Nothing, but Prototype #9 likely has a cascading leakage fault, and that's the gate or the source and drain." He waved his hand and puffed some air out the side of his mouth, "Bah, I haven't seen #9 in three weeks. It will be hard on the team, but my burger rations are safe."
Kaito arrived then. He was the only member of our little group that had not been in the military before this, and he was not drafted. He had volunteered to join the day after Tokyo, to try and protect and avenge his homeland. Looking at him you could feel his eyes used to be brighter, his walk lighter. That one day had been counted as hard years for his spirit. His brighter side, and his dimples, still came out when we played retro video games from the turn of the millennium at night. He was the same size as Orla. His round face had added some definition under military life. His hair on top was right at the regulations limit, full and dark. He styled it traditionally when he had to go in the cleanroom. But as soon as he was done for the day the styling product went in and his hair looked like characters from some of the games we played. He was determined, and absolutely brilliant with calibrating, controlling, and aiming electromagnetic radiation. His contributions to the precision manufacturing we were doing were immeasurable. He had a bowl of tomato soup, bread, and a bean salad for lunch.
We settled into eating with idle chit-chat. Eventually Kaito got serious and stared down Julius. He measured the German man and said, "There is something you are hiding." Julius smiled and after a deliberate short pause he said, "You are too insightful my friend. Yes, I have a date tomorrow." We all stared at him. That kind of fraternization was certainly not encouraged. The silence hung in the air a bit until he said, "The analyst from Senator Defoy's office." I was the first to speak, "Wow, you talked to her for all of what two minutes? Did you run into her again?" Julius smiled, "I did. And with an extra two minutes of her time I secured her last evening here. We will be getting tacos and beer. And in town too."
I leaned back in my chair, saying perhaps a bit jealously, "Impressive, Julius. I believe you are the first of us to have a real date since we got here." With that he leaned forward, "Hal, you are certainly an attractive enough man that some dating success would be possible. But you never talk about any women. Or men. I would love to be your, um what the term, wingman some time."
I could feel myself pulling in some in some, wanting to protect the vulnerable parts. I said as much as I was comfortable with, quietly. "Women. And there are reasons I don't trust myself there anymore." I got a bit bitter and added, louder, "Maybe next time I'm drunk around you I'll say more."
Julius asked, confused, "Hal, did I say something wrong?" Orla then tried to step in, "Maybe we don't need to . . ." I put up a hand. "He's fine Orla, it is an uncomfortable subject for me, has been for years now. But nothing any of you did. You are the best friends I've made in many, many years. Now isn't the place to talk about it. Maybe on a hike or something."
The rest of lunch passed quietly. I felt guilty. As we were about to finish Kaito said, "Let us go see the black cubes. Help us focus for the afternoon. And maybe find an idea for how to use ours?" I looked at my Seamaster watch, an old relic. I had 25 minutes. It was enough time to visit the analysis and cybernetics lab and get to the fabrication building. Turning to Kaito I said, "Yeah we have time, but just the cubes. Not the bodies." Everyone agreed with that.
We jogged across the quad to the labs. The security scan went efficiently. And I escorted the gang back to the storage room. The bodies were kept in a room on the opposite side of the hallway that bore a striking resemblance to an old movie, predating even my birth, about an alien invasion, "Independence Day". A fully armed marine stood to each side of the cube room. In the storage room each cube was contained in its own locked, reinforced, transparent aluminum case, placed on a mass sensitive pedestal, behind two layers of weapons resistant glass. Where the ones we made were mostly clear and occasionally gave off various colors, the light upon each of these almost vanished into the black mass. There was the faintest hint of what I thought was a violent violet. I knew looking at these took each of my companions back to when the Siren War began fourteen months ago.