“How are we on the rebuild?” Leon asked as he watched Trey drive the race car around the track on the monitor.

  Next to him, Zoe pulled up a tablet, showing him the latest model of the maglev car body.

  “As you can see, the design itself hasn’t changed since we last talked, however, we still have the problem regarding the material.”

  “You mean the magnetic field interference?” Leon asked as he looked at the model. The car shell was adjusted slightly, making it more aerodynamic by shifting several car components around, but four areas near the magnets were marked in a reddish color. It was the risk factor, showing where the body interfered with the electromagnets’ levitation.

  Shaking his head, he gave the tablet back to Zoe.

  “It shouldn’t matter that much. The stronger electromagnets should be able to ignore most of the electrical field blockage.”

  “Still makes it pretty janky. Controlling that car at hundreds of kilometers an hour isn’t easy if your system works against you.”

  Leon clicked his tongue. “And he’s already outmatched in skill. He’ll never be able to beat Jade Kotova.”

  Walking to his laptop, Leon inserted the current data and materials into the graphical model. He tried substituting the components of the composite material, trying to get a better result, but unfortunately, the model wouldn’t change according to his edits.

  “You gotta be kidding me!” Leon cursed as Zoe watched him over his shoulder. She soon sighed heavily.

  “Don’t even try it. That model isn’t programmed for direct material changes.”

  “Why not?” He turned his head to lock her in the eye. “Isn’t that something pretty basic. Why is this software so ass?”

  Zoe scoffed in response. “Hey, doing a complete overhaul like this isn’t a common occurrence. We don’t have such a program ready right away.”

  “Then how do we get our numbers?”

  She tilted her head slightly before answering with a crooked smile.

  “We send our planned suggestions to the engineers of the team, and they run the numbers and build the model.”

  “No way,” Leon shook his head, getting up from his seat to take his things. “This is gonna take forever, especially when we don’t even have a clear idea of the materials yet.”

  “Hey, what do you think this is. Most of the changes are the result of trial and error. There aren’t magical tools available for everything.” Zoe countered, but Leon was already on his way out.

  She could only hear his parting words as his figure disappeared from the paddock.

  “I’ll create us a magic tool then, Zoe.”

  ……….

  Blightvale, Rusted Scraps & Parts.

  After Leon arrived at his junkyard, he quickly got to work. This time, however, he didn’t go directly to his workshop. Instead, he went out the back door to enter the adjacent half-acre of dumping ground for trash.

  Luckily, the old junkyard wasn’t just some unorganized heap of garbage.

  Old man Howard made sure to organize the dumping grounds into different areas with containers and large metal shelves for specific categories. The area Leon headed to was the one for electronic parts.

  The hidden nature of a junkyard was that beneath all that rubble, there was always something of use.

  After all, value itself is heavily subjective.

  What one person considers trash and throws away, another person finds the use in it and treats it like treasure.

  Leon was exactly such a person.

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  The electronics section had many boxes on five large metal shelves labeled for broken phones, laptops, smartwatches, and household appliances. Other categories included broken motherboards, processors, and hardware components, which all found themselves discarded after serving their purpose.

  Now, these old, broken parts would serve a new purpose for him.

  Going through each box systematically, one by one, he quickly separated the directly usable parts from those that needed repair before gathering the ones he needed and bringing them back to his workstation.

  Around an hour and a half later, he gathered a box full of parts and sat down at the desk, pulling out his laptop and tablet.

  He told Zoe that he would build a new program to quickly find the right materials to complete the composite construction of the race car shell without interfering greatly with the electromagnets' magnetic fields.

  However, simply building a program to run different materials into the model was too inefficient.

  What if a similar problem happened in the near future? What if he needed something more complex for other future projects of his?

  He would need to change and rewrite the program constantly for each instance, something the programmer in him was highly averse to.

  That’s why he had a different idea. An idea that served a greater purpose than just solving the current problem.

  Pulling up the planning software on his tablet, Leon soon got to work. He began sketching his idea, outlining the components and parts he needed, as well as the entire build process.

  As time passed and the sun vanished under the horizon, the plan was finally taking shape.

  “This is it.” Leon voiced out loud, taking a look at the big picture as he leaned back into the chair.

  “P.A.C.S.”

  Portable Analysis Computer System.

  The name was a mouthful of technical terms that simply described its purpose, so he decided to shorten it to PACS.

  In its essence, however, it was sunglasses, ones that seemed to be cut at the nose bridge, covering only one eye with an endpiece to stabilize it over one ear.

  A simple scanner.

  What would be added to this scanner, though, would be a highly efficient microchip along the frame that would connect to the AllNet, giving it the ability to scan materials, objects, persons and virtually anything by referring the entire AllNet as its source.

  At the same time, besides just giving information on what is seen and correspondingly scanned through the lens, it will also be able to make models and graphs, as well as access other software programs similar to a computer, as long as Leon pre-programmed its functions. After all, he didn’t have a complete keyboard available to do many different inputs.

  He was planning on fixing and improving some of these PACS functions and abilities later on, but initially, he would be satisfied if he could quickly scan different composite materials in the shell model to see if they would be usable at all.

  ‘This should be enough for now.’ He thought before turning around, facing the large box of parts. Moving over, he crouched down as he grabbed the first one, taking it apart from top to bottom, separating all electrical components.

  After finishing with the first one, he proceeded with the next, following the same routine after all the tiny parts were lined up in the room on the floor. Next, he spent multiple hours combining and assembling the best components into a prototype.

  “Too bulky.” Leon clicked his tongue, shaking his head. This prototype functioned like a pair of smart glasses, but adding the complex functions Leon required made the frame too bulky.

  It needed to look like a regular visual scanner in glasses form, but its functions should succeed regular smart glasses that have been in circulation for years now.

  So, he went back to work.

  Leon created more, better prototypes until the sun rose again, all the way up until it was late afternoon the next day. He didn’t even realize how much time had passed, nor did he notice the multiple messages Trey sent him after he didn’t come back to the apartment last night.

  At last, however, he finished a PACS model that he was satisfied with.

  To build all these prototypes, he had to go back to the electronics section of the dumping ground several times in order to find more extra parts, but in the end, it was all worth it.

  It was a simple design, with two plastic extensions to stabilize around the ear, leading to a slim frame with a large lens in the center to cover the left eye.

  The lens was the most unique, taken from an old pair of smart glasses that had sensors built in at the edges. Together with the microchip in the frame, it could send out requests to the Vulcan AI to process and complete more complex tasks than regular smart glasses, such as building graphs and models, or finish other requests that would be overlaid on the lens.

  Additionally, Leon added a small voice recognition sensor and an extra microchip at the frame extension to the ear so he would be able to give inputs without a physical keyboard.

  These three simple things, voice recognition for inputs, the Vulcan AI for complex processing, and the lens for output, made PACS a highly effective scanner and analysis tool that would easily be able to find the right composite materials for the car shell.

  Not to mention, Leon had a feeling that PACS offered much more in the future than just this.

  What he didn’t think, though, was that it would also lead him to a truth that should have better stayed hidden.

  ……….

  ‘Overcomplicating simple tasks is a programmer’s bread and butter.’

  ~~Dr. Benjamin Harpers’ Memoirs~~