[center]A Collab With |[@Sep]|[/center]

Lambada-Röntgen was led down into a meeting room. The Zetan was a fairly archetypal example of his kind… If one was to take the time to look underneath the friendly frontal presentation. Although skin was stretched across his body, he was much closer to Eta-Theta than he was to any of the men and women around him. 

He thumbed the emergency button of the briefcase idly, making sure not to depress it. The name of the project was a challenge for the ECU (although the Zetans doubted they had been infiltrated,) the exact specifications were not. Should at any point he be compromised, that button would detonate the datapad within the briefcase instantaneously, and it was done manually, not through electricity. 

Before he began, he wanted to make sure such secrecy was appreciated by Lorne. “Know this,” he said, simply. “The briefcase I am currently carrying holds extremely sensitive documents to the Zetan Consciousness. Exposure of these documents by the Lorne Administration will not be appreciated.” ‘Tolerated’ had been deemed too harsh. “They are not to go further than this room until explicit permission has been provided.”

Mackenzie nodded along to the new Zetan sat across from her. The hour was late, and having been recently promoted to the man in charge of the [i]Endurance[/i] she had spent all day designing the refurbishments. The [i]Endurance[/i] now sat apart from the rest of the meeting place, with free shuttles to and from the meeting place. Various suites and executive lounges… were being worked on. As well as monitoring stations, exchange rooms, and demo rooms to show off what was on offer.

It wasn’t finished yet, but once it was it would be a true marvel. All she had to do was somehow convince each nation, other than the Zetans, to allow Lorne to make individual business deals with the various companies that existed within their nations.

That however was an issue for another time.

“We believe very strongly in client confidentiality, especially with our new neighbours.” She flashed her brightest, and yet genuine, smile. “What have you got for us?”

Röntgen unlocked the suitcase and took out the datapad carefully. He opened the datapad, opened up the [i]Battleship Archimedes[/i] blueprints, and set them down. 

It was big. Long, primarily, with vast amounts of space for the reactor (which had been erased from these plans,) and the Macrocannon (which didn’t feature, only the tremendous amount of empty space it was to fill.)

He handed it over slowly, analysing Mackenzie’s expression as she looked at it. 

Mackenzie wasn’t a technician or an engineer. She didn’t know the exact requirements looking over the plan, she didn’t know how it would go together, what pieces would attach where and what kind of resources would be required.

What she did understand was that it was big. [i]Really big[/i] on par with the size of [i]Arcadius[/i] back home, possibly even bigger. The difference was that it was all built around something central, something that was absent from these plans. “So, I assume you’d like to contract us to build the frame for this-” she looked at the name of the blueprint “-Battleship Archimedes?”

“Indeed. As it stands, Zetan heavy industry has been decimated by the war, and we’re dedicating effort towards the Arks in order to leave Zeta for good.” This was the one place he could openly mention that. “But, we still would like certain things constructed. We also have plans for a new set of defensive systems that we’d likely require your help with to construct, but… For now…” He gestured towards the tablet.

“Project Archimedes.”

Mackenzie nodded along to the Zetan. “I’m sure we can accommodate the request; we certainly have the capabilities. Now, since we have yet to try and implement some form of universal currency, now comes the bartering, what can you do for us?” She flashed her kindest smile.

“From what we’ve heard, you rely heavily on automated systems for much of your work, and have a strong reliance on robots. Without slighting the no-doubt fantastic work you have come up with over the years, Zetan computing technology is superlative- nobody in the meeting place has been able to come close, from what we can ascertain. We’d be happy to assist you in any way you require when it comes to that field of expertise. In addition, should anyone in your nation require or desire cybernetics, we can arrange for a facility to be sent to your system.”

Mackenzie crossed her arms, a look of contemplation upon her face. “We’ll come back to the computing aspect momentarily. Talking about cybernetics, would it be possible to somehow reinforce bone and muscle structure? Say, allow our people to comfortably be on a planet with normal gravity for prolonged periods of time?”

Röntgen smiled. “Reinforced bone lattices. Muscle-density enhancers. Organ enhancers, to make sure your heart and lungs can keep up with all that extra demand. Spinal replacements. Zetan cybernetic development is intimately tied with the need to overcome mankind’s relatively fragile limitations. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do the same with you.”

Mackenzie smiled politely back, scribbling a note on her tablet. “We won’t consider this part of our official negotiations for now but it's certainly something we may look at establishing in the future. There are some of us who would relish the opportunity to go down to a planet's surface and breathe real air for a change.” She handed over a tablet. “If you could transfer some specifications for the systems and networks you could help us implement onto this device it would be appreciated, at which point we can come to a formal agreement. In the meantime-” She sealed up the Project Archimedes blueprints. “-I’ll have these transferred back to the [i]Ring[/i] so our engineers can start preparing the facilities required.”

And with that, the largest part of Project Archimedes was underway.