# Pastebin WNmcX9Vv 12:50 PM Ade timidly walks into Engineering, clutching her notebook and drumming her fingers on its spine. 12:50 PM REEEEDACT THAT 12:51 PM Ade sits in her office, various equations written up all over the whiteboard that takes up the entire back wall of the office. She's taking a break to get some feeling back into her eyeballs. 12:53 PM <@Orionbasher> Three hurried knocks on her office door! 12:57 PM Ade peers through the glass window on the front of the door, before noticing it's Zhou and opening it! 12:58 PM "Ah, Zhou, you're the man I wanted to see. Come in..." 12:58 PM ⇐ Smaugnolia quit (IfYouDie@Canada.you.die.in.real.life) Quit: Leaving. 12:59 PM <@Orionbasher> Unshaved with a thin mustache and sparse beard, zhou can be seen wiping his blackened hands on a soot darkened rag. Dressed in his work overalls and a t-shirt it takes a while to notice ade has addressed him. 1:00 PM <@Orionbasher> "Oh what a coincidence. I was just thinking of seeing you as well." He steps in 1:00 PM "Well. You did knock at my door, that probably implies you wanted to see me... want some tea or something? You don't look too well." 1:03 PM ⇐ LilySleep quit (no.w@r.but.the.class.war) Quit: Connection closed for inactivity 1:03 PM <@Orionbasher> " No. I'm pretty well hydrated. I've just been working. So would you like to begin or should I begin?" 1:03 PM Ade glances at the equations on the board: they are indeed the famed Zhouquations. "I think you should begin." 1:07 PM <@Orionbasher> 4df+5 pdef 1:07 PM Orionbasher: pdef: 5 (4df+5=+, -, 0, 0) 1:08 PM (p-pdef?) 1:08 PM <@Orionbasher> Zhou pauses, staring at the equations on the board 1:08 PM Soulless|Clean → %Soulless|dreamin 1:13 PM <@Orionbasher> "Impact dispersion for varying materials. 10% carbon steel, 20% carbon steel, and so forth. The other set..... impact for dispersion for varying shapes. With 0.5 degree differences. I'm impressed you've managed to replicate them to this degree." 1:13 PM → Smaugnolia joined (IfYouDie@Canada.you.die.in.real.life) 1:14 PM "Head like a steel trap. I don't forget that easily, especially not numbers or formulae." 1:15 PM "Only thing I haven't yet managed to figure out is what you were trying to do with them, if you'll mind me asking..." 1:18 PM <@Orionbasher> " you just work backwards until you eventually get there. There aren't many equations relating to parabolas anyways. As for what. I was trying to make a shield." 1:20 PM ⇐ Elisabean quit (Sexiest@Little.Peanut.Ever) Quit: Connection closed for inactivity 1:20 PM Ade twirls her marker pen around her fingers. "A shield. That'd seem consistent enough with what I found, and it'd certainly fit with what you told me about trying to... fix things up." 1:21 PM "Body armour would certainly throw quite a few more complications into the equations, so I can see why you'd pick that particular form of defensive equipment." 1:25 PM <@Orionbasher> " it's a symbol see? An icon to replace what we lost." 1:25 PM <@Orionbasher> Zhou's eyes grow wide whilst saying this 1:25 PM "...lost?" 1:27 PM <@Orionbasher> "The anchors Miss Heathfield. We need more measures. And I just thought we had lost everything until I found this." Zhou digs around in his satchel and produces a small blackened folder 1:28 PM "I'm assuming that's what left of the documentation?" 1:32 PM <@Orionbasher> " only the very first line of the equation." Zhou opens the file grandly to reveal a mostly burnt piece of paper, save for a line done in typewriter print 1:32 PM <@Orionbasher> An equation 1:33 PM Ade squints at it. 1:33 PM 4df+5 Science to try and puzzle out what the hell this does 1:33 PM AidenEldritch: Science to try and puzzle out what the hell this does: 4 (4df+5=-, 0, -, +) 1:35 PM <@Orionbasher> Something something hume 1:36 PM Ade has a 0 in Academics so that reference goes waaaay over her head 1:36 PM wooooosh 1:36 PM <@Orionbasher> "If you can make it through at least a tenth of these workings. We'll be set for a while." He pushes the folder towards her 1:38 PM "...So you're asking me to reverse-engineer the anchors from this one equation?" Ade contemplates. "Might be possible. I'd need to do a lot more research on what they did and how they worked... but what's this got to do with your shield?" 1:46 PM (Orionbasher bby are u slep) 1:46 PM <@Orionbasher> "Do you really think I'd stop at a shield?" 1:46 PM <@Orionbasher> (No fran I am working) 1:46 PM <@Orionbasher> " we need a symbol. We need something special." 1:47 PM ⇐ Aphex_ quit (~null@B5C33713:1993BABD:F65405BA:IP) Connection reset by peer 1:49 PM "When you say something special..." Ade twirls her pen more frantically this time as she conjectures. "Do you mean... weaponising the anchors? Salvaging the technology from the anchor and... merging that into the shield somehow?" 1:50 PM <@Orionbasher> " exactly! If the anchors simplify actualised the math, would there be other ways creating the same effects?" 1:52 PM "If that's what you're proposing, then... Hm. First order of priority would probably be stabilising it, making sure the numbers and the shield don't explode like the last time we tried out the anchors. After we actually work out what made them tick in the first place, of course." 1:52 PM <@Orionbasher> " the maths is going to be most unconventional I suspect. We might be working out of the confines of euclidean math as we know it" 1:53 PM <@Orionbasher> "I only need you to finish a fraction of the entire process." 1:55 PM If Ade had glasses, now would be the time to push them up the bridge of her nose and make them sparkle for no real reason. As it stands, all she can do is break into a wide grin. "This might not end well, but I'm always up for taking risks." 1:55 PM She sticks out her hand. "I'm in." 1:59 PM <@Orionbasher> " I knew could count on you." He presses the folder firmly into the palms of her hands 1:59 PM <@Orionbasher> "Well I must get going, I need to keep working on my end. If anything strange happens when you're working on the equations, try to keep people away from knowing." 2:01 PM "Will do." Ade starts rubbing off the old equations from the board and setting down the new one, happy to get to work on something new for once. Something new and very interesting-looking.