milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Bonnie walked in clutching a clipboard that she was checking off as she went. Funding is a go, approval is a go, there were still things left to do, and she'd left all her dynamics books here. And her laptop. So she was there to do ... a lot of stuff, not all of them related to work, thank heavens.

She and her clipboard took a place at the bar, pencil sketching out possible hydraulics systems.

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"We should be the Milliways Tech Team," she laughed. "Or something. Taking comissions, one bar-tab at a time."

"And shunting the lower-grade tech work off to the dwarf- did you see that? Someone's built an actual forge back behind the bar and he's doing iron work now." Ray's expression got thoughtful. "Wonder how he'd do at body panels on a plain old metal car."

"Good question, but I might have to enlist his help." Bonnie chuckled. "That was a nice-sized dent that Karr gave Kitt."

Ray blinked. "When was this? I haven't seen the guys in a while- I was in my New York."

"After we came back," she explained. "For getting us into that situation in your New York. Karr gave him a nice wham on his door, and he's been sporting a bruise on his arm."

"Oh, okay." Ray nodded. "I'm pretty sure he'd have to take the body panel off to hammer it out, though. Would Kitt even allow that?"

"You're talking about MBS. Dents can't be hammered out without removing the MBS first, and that's... well. It can be done, but it weakens the metal beneath and makes the MBS less effective. It'd be easier to make a new door panel, or pull one off a Trans Am that's already made it to a junk yard. Especially since I don't want to explain that dent to his new tech. And I still have to reupholster him."

She paused.

"It sounds like a lot of work, but it's not really that bad."

"That's kind of what I figured. I mean, unless the guy has access to mithril, there's nothing I can imagine being done over an anvil that'd come anywhere close to factory original work." He shook his head. "Oh, well. It was a thought."

"Well, we can re-coat the door with MBS after I remount everything and tape around it. A double-coat doesn't hurt, but it doesn't help either. But the original door, or something like it, would be best. I sound so picky."

"Nonsense." Ray waved one hand. "Nothing manufactured is ever the same after it's been reworked, unless you're talking about the metal in folded-metal Japanese swords- and that technique was developed to compensate for crummy local steel, so it hardly counts."

Bonnie nodded. "But if I could just get one fabricated here, of the same material... Painting it and giving it an MBS coat wouldn't be any big deal at all."

"Well, yeah. The Bar probably does parts to order, or if it doesn't, you could probably arrange something with Seamus- he's got these funky future-tech fabricators like you wouldn't believe."

"That's interesting," she admitted, though she privately hoped that it didn't have any capabilities for MBS - or, worse, anything that would break down MBS.

"Hm. About that plane..."

She held up the little bit of aeroelastic. "No MBS?"

Ray looked at the aeroelastic. "Not unless an impact with an ordinary SU-37 Terminator in Russian airspace could punch a hole through MBS."

"...Russians? He was fighting the Russians? God." Bonnie shook her head. "But... I don't know, given the amount of reinforced concrete Kitt can plow through at speed..."

"And the Koreans," Ray noted. "Kim Jong Il isn't getting any stabler with time. Anyway, you're welcome to the sample. You'll be meeting him soon enough anyway."

"I'll head out there after I finish a little more planning and have a nap," she agreed. "With my laptop."

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