Chapter 342
Belle lowered the phone and pointed limply at her screen.
“I did five pages,” she sniffed.
Isolde looked. Five pages out of five hundred.
“Keep typing,” she said.
Wednesday arrived with a grey drizzle that matched the mood in the main conference room.
It was the Weekly Tech Review. Arland sat at the head of the table. The room was packed with engineers. Isolde sat to his right, her notebook open.
Belle pushed the door open and breezed in five minutes late, dropping into the seat on the left, directly opposite Isolde.
“As Liaison,” she announced, smoothing her skirt, “I need to understand the product in order to sell it.”
Arland rubbed his temples. “Fine. But stay quiet, Belle. This is technical.”
𝖠𝗱𝖽𝗂𝖼𝗍i𝘃𝗲 𝘀to𝘳𝗶e𝘀 o𝗇 gа𝗅𝗻о𝗏e𝘭𝘀.𝗰o𝗆
The lead engineer, a quiet man named Ken, stood and projected a schematic of the new drone stabilizer onto the screen.
“We’re having oscillation issues at Mach 0.8,” Ken explained. “The airflow is causing a vibration in the tail rotor.”
Belle raised her hand without waiting to be called on.
“Have we considered integrating a beryllium alloy into the wing struts?” she offered brightly. “I read a market report that said it’s the new gold standard for aerospace composites. It would show investors we’re using cutting-edge materials.”
Silence.
The engineers looked at her as though she had just suggested building the drone out of cheese.
“Ms. Escobar,” Ken said, choosing his words carefully, “beryllium is notoriously brittle under high-frequency vibration. It would increase the risk of catastrophic failure, not reduce it.”
Belle flushed pink. “I’m just brainstorming! There’s no need to be rude.” She turned toward a woman in a business suit near the door. “Susan, from marketing — you see the value in a positive PR angle, right?”
Susan nodded hesitantly. “Well, from a branding perspective—”
“Not now, Susan,” Arland said flatly. The marketing head fell silent immediately.
Belle pivoted to lecturing the room on mindset and manifesting success.
Isolde tapped her pen on the table.
Tap. Tap.
Sharp, like a gavel.
“Stop,” Isolde said.
She stood, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a black marker.
“The problem isn’t the materials,” she said, studying the schematic. “It’s the gyroscope latency.”
She drew a complex circuit modification over the projection, her hand moving with practiced speed.
“Route the signal through a secondary buffer here.” She drew a line. “It cuts the lag by two milliseconds. The vibration is a feedback loop from the sensor delay.”
The engineers stared at the board, running the mental calculations.
Ken’s jaw dropped slightly. “That would actually work.”
Belle shot to her feet, furious that the room’s attention had shifted.
“You can’t just draw squiggles!” she snapped. “I’m the strategist! I know what the market wants!”
Isolde capped the marker and turned to face her. Her expression was cold and completely without emotion.
“Define ‘PID Controller,’ Belle,” she said.
Belle froze. “What?”
“It’s the fundamental component of the system you’re trying to sell,” Isolde said, stepping closer. “Define it.”
.