Specs (2) +21
Something was wrong.
It happened the very moment I fixed all my attention on that number and let the question form in my mind.
Hummm—
A buzzing ring suddenly exploded in my ears.
At the same time, a wave of dizziness washed over me, as though the world had tilted.
The voices of Manager Maeng and Schmidt receded into the distance, muffled and far away, as if they’d been sunk beneath water.
What was this? Anemia?
My hand, which had been reaching for my forehead, froze in midair.
It was an illusion.
A strange illusion unlike anything I’d ever seen spread out before my eyes.
The black-and-white letters and schematic lines printed on the proposal documents.
They began to wriggle as if they were living insects.
Sssssh.
The lines lifted off the paper.
No, more precisely, the information escaping from the paper was building a massive three-dimensional space in the air before me.
At the same time, a pitch-black void unfolded in front of my eyes.
Within that space, hundreds, thousands of lines and surfaces intersected at speed, assembling a giant machine in an instant.
A virtual Kank transmission.
That was impossible.
This... could do that?
My breath caught in my throat.
I hadn’t seen the actual thing. All I had was the proposal’s drawings and text.
And yet the illusion floating before me operated with the vividness of a machine that possessed real mass.
It was a flawless flow, like blue light being poured through transparent glass.
But the surprise didn’t end there.
Without my permission, another set of data stored in my head burst out of the darkness.
A rough, crude engine, but one with powerful output.
The virtual data for Hanseo Defense’s domestic XP-1500K engine, which I had taken apart and studied hundreds of times.
A power pack was, in essence, a combination of an engine that served as the heart and a transmission that carried that power to the wheels.
What Kank had proposed now was the transmission.
If their proposal was adopted, that perfect-looking German transmission would ultimately have to become one with our rough domestic engine.
And now.
This strange ability that had just surfaced inside me was trying to force that obvious causal relationship into existence.
Deep in the darkness, the crude shape of the domestic engine materialized in blue light and slowly moved toward Kank’s transmission.
Clack!
With a heavy metallic clang, the connecting shafts of the two giant machines meshed perfectly in my imagination, and the system came alive.
Vooooom—!
The domestic engine roared, hurling out an absurd 1,500 horsepower.
I stared dumbly, focused on the sight.
How long had it been? Ten seconds, maybe?
The domestic engine began to produce its signature irregular vibration, the kind that behaved like a bull gone mad in certain RPM ranges.
The energy of that violent vibration surged toward the input shaft of the Kank transmission.
And then...
CRACK!
······!!
I nearly screamed.
The blue glow of the smoothly rotating transmission jerked violently, and the shock absorber where it met the engine burst into black-red sparks and shattered to pieces.
A blast of sound like steel pipes colliding head-on hammered against my skull.
Then the illusion vanished.
What returned to my vision was the conference room.
There were the Germans, including Schmidt, Kank’s chief engineer, standing at the far end.
And our side—Hanseo Defense’s ground systems division chief, Director Choi, Power Pack TF lead Manager Maeng, and a few others.
“...Hoo.”
I tried to steady my breathing, feeling my heart pounding like crazy.
Questions were already rising in my head about what I had just seen.
That had definitely been some kind of effect.
It didn’t seem like a simple hallucination.
Because the vivid sensation and the red warning I had experienced when looking at real machinery had been reproduced exactly.
Was the system running a simulation from nothing but the drawing data and my knowledge, even without the actual machine?
And it was showing colors too?
Gooseflesh prickled all over my body.
If that was true, then the ability had evolved.
But I couldn’t jump to conclusions.
This was the first time I’d ever experienced it.
It could just as easily be an illusion born from my unconscious bias.
I needed to verify whether it was real, or whether I was simply too tired and seeing things.
“Then let’s sign it as is. There’s no reason to delay any further, is there?”
Schmidt was smiling the smile of a winner as he slid the contract toward Director Choi.
Manager Maeng clenched his fists so hard they trembled.
If things stayed like this, it would really be over.
We’d know once we checked.
I swallowed dryly and slowly raised my hand.
“Excuse me for a moment, Dr. Schmidt.”
“Hm? What is it, Manager?”
I spoke in English, not fluently enough to sound natural, but clearly enough.
Schmidt’s glare at me was full of irritation.
I forced down my pounding heart and spoke as politely and carefully as I could.
“Your proposal is so excellent that it left me with one question. On page 34, the torsional stiffness value of the input shaft—18.5 MNm/rad—is unusually high for a production tank, isn’t it?”
“Oh?”
Schmidt’s eyebrows twitched.
He seemed a little interested now that some mid-level manager had accurately picked out the proposal’s core specification.
“You have a good eye. That’s right. We maximized the stiffness with a special alloy to withstand extreme torque. It’s one of Kank’s points of pride.”
“I see. Impressive.”
First I praised him, then I carefully tossed out the bait.
“But, Doctor, there is one concern. If stiffness is that high, doesn’t vibration absorption drop? The simulation results in this proposal... were they tested using only Kank’s standard German engine?”
At my question, Schmidt’s brow narrowed slightly.
“Of course. Don’t you need to test with the most perfect engine to get the most perfect results? I don’t understand why you’d ask something so obvious.”
The instant I heard his answer, the last mist of doubt in my heart cleared away.
It was proof that the terrible red destruction my ability had shown me was one hundred percent real.
Testing only with their standard engine was an admission that they had not considered even one percent of our engine’s irregular vibration.
A rigid shock absorber, built to match the smoothness of a German engine and strengthened to the extreme.
Once that met the wild, rough vibration unique to our engine, it wouldn’t absorb the shock—it would resonate and blow apart.
So the thing I’d just seen really hadn’t been an illusion.
For whatever reason, my ability had evolved one step further, and because of that, I’d caught a variable the Germans had failed to account for.
I bit my lip and barely held back a laugh.
The old man who claimed to be the world’s best had just confessed a fatal mistake with his own mouth.
“I see. Then, Chief Schmidt.”
I closed the proposal and folded my hands on the table.
There was no need to be cautious anymore.
“What happens if you mount that perfect transmission onto our domestic engine, which has irregular vibrations?”
“What did you say?”
I looked Schmidt straight in his blue eyes and drove the nail in.
“I think the crankshaft would twist, and the damper would be torn to pieces.”
Silence fell.
Dr. Schmidt’s expression warped.
It was plain he felt insulted.
“Ha! Ridiculous.”
Schmidt slammed the table.
“You’re just a manager. Do you understand the weight of what you just said? Our Kank simulator is on par with a NASA supercomputer. And you’re accusing us of compatibility errors? We already plugged in the extreme vibration conditions of your domestic engine.”
At his heated voice, Director Choi and Manager Maeng flinched and looked at me.
Their eyes were telling me to take it easy.
But I already had the answer sheet in hand.
I had nothing to fear.
“A supercomputer may calculate well. But if the input is wrong, there’s no way it can produce the right answer.”
“What—”
I stood and walked over to Schmidt.
Then I pointed my finger at the damper coefficient formula displayed proudly on the tablet screen, packed with complex equations.
“This nonlinear damping coefficient algorithm looks perfect. But only at room temperature.”
“What did you say?”
“Once the engine’s internal temperature rises above 120 degrees, the oil viscosity drops sharply. Your formula is missing the variable for high-temperature viscosity loss altogether, Chief.”
Schmidt’s eyes began to shake.
I delivered the killing blow.
“This isn’t a problem caused by our engine. It’s a design that will blow the damper even in a high-temperature environment like a desert. Your supercomputer couldn’t even catch such a basic error?”
“That’s nonsense! That variable is already integrated into the coefficient—!”
Schmidt shouted and hurriedly started manipulating the tablet.
Even as he denied that he could have missed it, his fingers moved frantically.
He adjusted the simulator’s temperature condition to 120 degrees and hit enter.
BEEP— BIK!
Damping overload.
A bright red warning window appeared on the tablet screen.
Inside the simulation, the virtual transmission was breaking apart exactly the same way it had just done in my head.
“······Mein Gott.”
Schmidt dropped his glasses.
The blood drained from his face.
“Hah...”
Manager Maeng’s mouth fell open as he stared at the screen beside him.
Even Director Choi, who had been trying to stop me, rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Schmidt couldn’t say a word.
He only stared blankly at the tablet screen, half out of his mind.
How long had it been like that—maybe a full minute?
“Ahem.”
It was Director Choi’s dry cough that finally broke the silence.
I quietly turned my gaze to him.
My role as an engineer in proving the technical flaw ended here, and from this point on, it was business.
It was Director Choi’s turn.
“Chief Schmidt. Thanks for the supercomputer demonstration. As for the fatal flaw our engineer found... you’ll need to take it back to headquarters and review it internally.”
“N-no, we can correct that immediately—”
Director Choi cut Schmidt’s excuse off gently, but firmly.
“Unfortunately, we’ll have to scrap the proposal to purchase defective hardware wholesale.”
It was a death sentence.
Schmidt’s face turned ash-gray.
The moment he returned to his country and reported that he’d lost a contract worth trillions of won because of a basic thermal variable calculation error, his career would be finished.
Looking at Schmidt sinking into despair, Director Choi quietly cast out a hook.
“However.”
“······?”
“That transmission-response control logic you were so proud of. I do recognize the quality of that algorithm. If your side is willing, I’d like to purchase that software module separately. What do you think?”
Wow. So that’s why he was a division chief.
I could only marvel inwardly at Director Choi’s offer.
It was a cunning move that gave me chills.
Refuse the German hardware, save trillions in budget, and instead buy their algorithm—the one that worked its magic in 0.15 seconds—at a bargain price and graft it onto our domestic transmission.
Minimize cost, and still squeeze out performance better than the German original.
It was the most perfect picture possible.
Cornered, Schmidt hurriedly reached out.
“We’ve never sold the software separately, but...! I’ll speak to headquarters. Yes, we’ll review it positively!”
Situation over.
The contract worth trillions was overturned, and the engineers from Kank, the company that claimed to be the world’s best, filed out of the conference room with gloomy faces.
The moment their backs disappeared completely and the door closed—
“Hwaa...!”
Director Choi roughly yanked off his tie and sank back into the chair.
“Man, I thought I was going to die from the tension! I thought my heart was about to burst, Baek Manager.”
His booming voice made it hard to believe he was the same Director Choi who had been coldly pressing Dr. Schmidt just moments earlier.
Then he sprang to his feet, strode over to me without warning, and thumped my shoulder hard enough to make a popping sound.
“Nice work! Really nice work, you punk! Hey, did you see the look on those German bastards’ faces? That’s years of indigestion gone, just like that!”
“Ah, no, sir. You wrapped it up perfectly, Director—”
“What are you talking about? I just put my spoon on top of what you’d already fed me. This win is one hundred percent yours.”
Director Choi grinned from ear to ear and counted off on his fingers.
“I already got direct approval this morning for the performance reviews that Manager Maeng, Deputy Director Song, and Director Kang submitted. Your promotion to director level is locked in. And I’d bet the bonus approval’s already gone up to Finance by now.”
“...Bonus?”
I’d expected the promotion, of course.
But a bonus too?
At my reaction, Director Choi burst out laughing.
“You can look forward to it! Do you have any idea how much budget you just saved by having those German guys by the throat? The numbers are going to be on a whole different level. Right, Vice President Kang?”
The place Director Choi was looking toward.
There, seated among the attendees since the meeting began and never saying a single word, was a man closing his laptop and rising to his feet.
I felt my spine stiffen slightly.
Kang Jihun, Executive Director.
He was the working-level top officer who led the Strategic Planning Office, the direct division of our company’s owner, Chairman Cho Seunghyun, and the chairman’s right hand.
I hadn’t expected him to come just because Director Choi called for him, but I hadn’t imagined a heavyweight like that would show up personally.
Executive Director Kang adjusted his glasses and walked toward me.
Before I knew it, I straightened my posture and faced him with a slight tension.
“As the rumors say, Manager Baek Gunwoo. Or should I say, soon-to-be Director?”
“...You’re too kind.”
“There’s no need to be modest. The chairman has already been paying attention because of your recent results.”
“The chairman has...?”
Executive Director Kang nodded and smiled meaningfully.
“Yes. And after an event like today, I’ll have to report back again. I’ll tell him that Hanseo Defense, or rather our ground systems division, was hiding a treasure.”
“······.”
“As Director Choi said, the compensation will be solid. You can look forward to it.”
Leaving behind a light bow, Executive Director Kang walked out of the conference room.
Watching his back, my heart began racing again.
A bonus...
Could I really look forward to it?