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[engineers]

⭐️ PRE SERIES
- No wonder I'm different from everyone else. Everyone like me is here.
- In all the years I lived there, it only snowed once.

⭐️ BOOK ONE
- The destruction of Beijing Beta

⭐️ BOOK TWO
Encouraging HJS - "What makes you think you can decide what's defective and what's correct?" (CH 29) combine with her operating the mech ("My old man was humoring me. Here. A noise filter. Try it." CH 41) + ("Girl, clear out slowly. Slow down, don't be nervous. You're the most talented student I've ever seen.. JSH stops the mech, CH 41)

"Young man, can you fix that screen?" (CH32 -33)

Stopping the riot with the sight of Beijng-B. "Listen to me. Listen. To. Me."
"Sc...scan for me." (CH48) + "Stars can be reborn, but what about you?" (CH 49)

⭐️ BOOK THREE
Conversation with Foucalt - Don't try and fool me with those words of yours. (CH 61, P19 - P20)
The Space Station funeral (CH 65:57)

"Rescuing" LJH from the city ladies (Ch69:84) + Fortune Telling

"Are we just animals in your eyes?!" - William Yu, the Rainbow Virus (72:102)
"Zhanlu... give LBX full administrative access." (78:144)

"Lin Jingheng, did you know you're a heartless piece of garbage?" (79:154)

⭐️ BOOK FOUR
- Turan and the sedative / the death of Lin Jingheng

⭐️ BOOK FIVE

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huang jiangshu | what's defective, and whats correct? part 2

[engineers]

[ but as it turns out, that wasn't the end at all.

its months later when you've landed on the trash space station full of refugees that you come to call home. though you settle into an uneasy life there, the worst comes to fruition as if lin jingheng practically predicted it - the fleet of prince cayley, the very person who destroyed your home planet, has found the space station and intends to raid it to its core. the ragtag team on this space station has been preparing for this. you, your students, and every pilot of this ramshackle army rushes to arms to create the defensive shield you've poured painstaking hours into creating through a mental network. you have barely enough pilots to make it work - barely enough trained people, let alone pilots, but this place has become your home, and you're as determined to protect it as you have since the first day you landed here.

you are in a flurry as you try and help people into mechs. you and huang jiangshu stay on the ground, and you lock yourself into mission control, fingers flying over the keyboards of your computers as you help direct mechs into their positions, as new pilots lock into the mental network, and it seems like it's going to work. you need bodies; you hand huang jiangshu a little trinket monoeye hawk gave you, once, a noise filter she can connect to keep anyone from digging into her brain too much, from hearing the people around her and she climbs into a mech. you tell her a story, about when you were little. about the misconception of vaccuocerebrals. about your own experience - about how youcouldn't even pilot your body, let alone a mech, and you tell her the symptoms. it's not a disease. it's the way bodies connect with mechs, and you know it. your body is like hers - the crushing feeling of tinnitus, the way it feels like the network punched you in the gut. you had to learn, but with the noise filter, you did. you practiced, and you learned.

she seems okay with you piloting her in the silence, in the moment of trust built between you, and clambers into a mech. it's going to be fine. but - but.

connecting to a neural network is terrifying, and takes a tremendous amount of mental strength. a pilot, young, barely twenty, begins to panic as he locks into the network and it takes over the function of his brain - he completely loses control of the mech right as it starts to take off, and it's going directly towards the thermonuclear power station you created to keep the space station itself on line. you grit your teeth and start moving like a conductor, pulling lines of coding and hacking into the system of the mech as it barrels down the launch area and straight towards the power station - and through your sheer hacking prowess, you're able to abruptly change the direction of the tracks and send the haywire mech with the unconscious pilot up instead of out.

but up isn't enough. it rockets forward, smashes through the atmosphere without any indication of slowing, and you realize in horror that it's going to crash into the carefully positioned mechs that are barely holding onto the soon to be created defense shield. they're all barely synched. one single mistake, one off mech, one crash and it could destroy everything, and you can't get there fast enough to hack into the neural network itself, you're managing things on the ground, and you turn on your personal device, slap down a number, and bark in huang jiangshu's ear. ]

Xiao Huang! I need you!

[ she startles. she's sitting in the cockpit of a mech, just as a body moreso than as a pilot. unable to sync, she was just going to be piloted by someone like monoeye hawk. you know this is risky, but you know, you know - you plead, now, turning your voice to encouraging into her ear, ] You've learned this before. I need you to take over that mech!

[ huang jiangshu makes a noise like a startled animal, and you watch her, terrified for her, heart pounding in your chest, barely breathing, as she starts to reach out. the out of control mech rockets upwards, and you think, come on, you can do this, come on, come on, i believe in you, come on. you watch her flounder as you desperately reach out for her mech, because if she can make it to the out of control mech and make it stop, you can help stabilize them both.

you can feel her. you feel the way she rushes into the mental network like she's swinging a beer bottle, and your heart rushes with pride, and you hear her tiny, stop reverberate across the conjoined network. another pilot hears her, too, and yells - Stop it! in tune. another, another, another, until two hundred voices unite together. over their fear. over their despair. over the impossible situation, the trash space station moves at one.

Stop it!, they scream, at the mech that's gone wrong. in a rush of human voices and human spirit, they grab the weak voice of huang jiangshu and they lift her, up, up, up and you see your opportunity and you latch on.

your network compatability is much higher than huang jiangshu's, and if you overload her, you could kill her, could break this tiny, fragile consciousness as she desperately tries to stop with the entire space station behind her. but these kids, they're your responsibility. they're your entire life, and you will never, ever, ever let anything go wrong, for as long as you can. like threading a needle, you push your compatability to exactly fifty percent, so you take the mental load she's struggling under and offer a helping hand, and you say, as calmly as you can, your heart swelling, stopping yourself from sounding choked up as your voice rings out as gentle and kind as the beams of the sun. ]

Xiao Huang, don't be nervous. Clear out slowly. You're the most talented student I've ever had.

[ she takes a sharp, shaky breath, and you feel her agree. you feel her move. bit, by tiny bit, her mental connection drops away, and you fill the space, picking up each piece of slack she hands you with her trembling hand, and with your expertise and her initial skill, the mech finally slows to a stop.

the whole space ship goes silent, and then - in a burst of cacophony, the crowd of people below and the pilots above burst into cheers and sobs, and you fall back into your chair, smiling so hard your face hurts, as huang jiangshu safely disconnects from the network, wipes the blood from her nose, and beams at you from across a camera's feed. ]