From: GAYNOR@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Jim Gaynor)
Subject: SIB: Looking for Mr. Goodwrench [2/?]
Organization: The Ohio State University - OCES
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 19:10:18 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.23

Yes, yes, I know that I really need to pick up on things - especially
with Blackjack getting rabid in Crimson's face. But the muse strikes me
when she will, and the lady has been quite fickle of late. Enjoy, all!

* * *

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about variable resistance servo
linkages, would you?" Sib asked.

[...] Thenomain nodded. "I know the basics, though I'm really not
a mechanic. If it's a cyber-electrical problem I can help. If not,
I'm sure we can find someone who can."

"That's great," Sib smiled.

The visual stimulous of Sib smiling at him entered Thenomain's nervous
system via organic optics, and travelled through neural pathways to be
processed by the portion of his grey matter dedicated to visual
stimuli. That portion of his brain, in turn, began sending messages
to other entities. His heartrate increased, capillaries dilated,
breathing became slightly shallow. The partially disassembled
cyberdeck, to which Thenomain was still jacked into, noted these
symptoms and corrolated those symptoms with known bodily states. 
Diagnosing Thenomain as suffering from the normal stress resulting
from a combat situation, it began to suggest battle tactics ranging
from unarmed combat to tactical nuclear strikes by directly inserting
the textual information into his visual cortex.

"Oh, shut up," said Thenomain, flipping the deck's power switch
and jerking the plug from his temple socket.

The smile melted. "Excuse me?"

"I was talking to the deck," Thenomain hastily explained, "it was
giving me suggestions for... uhm... suggestions for... Oh, never mind. 
Shall we take a look at your 'mech?"

"Ok," Sib replied as they began to walk over towards the shut-down
mechanical, "I've been getting erratic response from the left shoulder..."

* * *

Thirty minutes later Thenomain had come back to the bar for certain
parts of his disassmbled deck, and had used them to jury-rig an
interface to the mechanical's diagnostic systems. Sib sat at the
nearby table and sipped at her wine, watching with interest as the
decker alternated between tapping keys on his keyboard and fiddling
with the exposed circuitry of the 'mech's left shoulder.

Unplugging the jack from his temple, Thenomain disconnected the deck
from the mechanical. He gave the shoulder circuitry one more
examination, and then closed the access plate with a satisfied nod.

"There, that should do it," Theno proclaimed, "give it a shot and tell
me how it feels."

Sib stood up and clambered back into the harness of the mechanical. 
She flipped a few switches, then slid her left arm into the
manipulation housing on that side. Dorcas, the waitress, watched
nervously from a few tables over.

"Stand back," Sib warned Thenomain.

He prudently stepped back to the bar. "Gotcha."

Sib flexed her left arm, and the 'mech's huge left arm moved in an
exact duplicate of her movements. The time lag was negligible, only
perceivable by those whose reactions were already pushed beyond human
capabilities. She continued to move the arm, and the 'mech appeared
to be doing one-armed isometrics, kneeling there on the barroom floor.

Finally she brought the arm back down and pulled herself out of the
'mech again. As she stepped out, Thenomain came back into proximity
of the mechanical, trying to gauge Sib's expression.

"Well, did that do the job?"

Sib grinned at the gangly decker and, putting a hand on either of his
shoulders, leaned forward to kiss him soundly. Thenomain's eyes flew
open wide, then relaxed as he enjoyed this unexpected accolade.

Breaking the kiss, Sib was still smiling. "It works great," she said,
"no sign of delay or erratic response whatsover. What did you do?"

"Uhm, not much, really," Thenomain responded, catching his breath. 
"Hurm. Yeah. Uhm, you're still going to have to get it into a shop
somewhere. The left arm has four primary actuators, and four
secondary ones. The primaries do the grunt work, and the secondaries
kick in for finer manipulations."

"Uh-huh," Sib nodded, "and the servo linkage to the third primary
was out."

"Right." Thenomain agreed, his voice falling back into step as he
started gettting into the technical details of his little
accomplishment. "Well, the other three kept expecting number three to
pull it's load. It didn't, and the feedback loop eventually got back
to the motor processor, which used a combination of primary and
secondary actuators to do the work of the missing primary. That's why
the response time was so slow, because of the extra wait state
involved in the additional processing. So, I knocked out one of the
secondary actuators opposite the kaput primary, and gave the motor
processor a temporary program telling it that the left arm only has
three sets of actuators, rather than four. There's enough overkill in
the strength of the actuators that this fix should hold under all but
the most high-stress situations, and by having the motor processor
ignore the burnt-out actuator, you get back your response time."

"That's ingenious," Sib said.

"Well, one does one's best," Thenomain grinned, "but I do have one
question to ask. The malfunction looked to have occured as a result
of an overstress situation - you were pushing the mech too hard, too
fast. That's awfully hard to do in one of these mil-spec puppies. 
That's why I said you need to get into the shop. Whatever made that
left arm hiccup before will have no problem making the remaining
actuators go critical."

He narrowed his eyes and looked at Sib, trying to figure out the
origin of the blue markings on the slick grey of her bodysuit.

"Just what -were- you doing to push that 'mech that hard?"

Sib smiled her winning smile again, a little chagrin showing through. 
"I suppose you deserve at least that, after doing this repair job. 
Let me buy you a drink..."

* * *

Sib is Copyright 1992 by Jim Gaynor.  She's mine, but you can feel free
to jump into the story, such as it is.  Just be reasonable, and don't go
tromping all over continuity, else I'll ignore you.  Or worse.  >:-)

Thenomain is Copyright 1989-1992 by Kent Jenkins.  Used with permission.


---
   Jim Gaynor    | "Man-of-Many-Beeping-Sounds-and-Flashing-Lights" - KAJ
OSU/ACS/FMS/OCES | <gaynor@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu> or <gaynor.4@osu.edu>
ObDiscl:  Everything stated here and above is _my_ opinion.  Mine mine mine!
ObQuote: "Every devil I meet becomes a friend of mine." - Indigo Girls