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Ryan left Kyle in charge of the pilot training and followed Patricia to the supply warehouse.
The first shipment had arrived while the triplets were getting acquainted with Scrapper. A single piece of equipment, large enough to require its own truck, now sat in the center of the warehouse floor.
The liquid neural connection device.
It was roughly the height of a person, and it looked like nothing Ryan had ever seen in any laboratory. The central unit was the connector hub: a dome-shaped structure bristling with sensor spines like a mechanical sea urchin. Beneath the spines, dozens of cylindrical chambers hung from fiber-optic and conductive cable leads. Some chambers were glass. Some were specialized alloy. All of them were empty, waiting to be filled with the reaction solutions that made liquid neural transmission possible.
Next to the hub sat the signal processor, sealed inside a featureless metal housing with only a few data ports and ventilation slots visible. A utilitarian box that contained computing power purpose-built for neural signal integration.
A monitor and keyboard station was attached for real-time observation. During a drift connection, all neural data would stream to this display, letting the operators watch the process unfold in measurable terms.
Three sensor caps hung from the connector hub on articulated arms. They were simpler than Scrapper's full-coverage helmets. Each one resembled a skeletal hand designed to grip a human skull, with signal amplifiers and receivers positioned to cover the brain's primary functional regions. Below each cap, a curved neck cradle and an oblong recording module completed the assembly. The recording units were the four-dimensional quantum recorders, capable of capturing the full drift experience for later analysis.
"Any issues with the transport?" Ryan asked, powering on the main unit.
"Factory-tested before shipping. Everything checks out."
The monitor lit up. Initialization screen. No connection software loaded yet. The hardware was ready. The brain was empty.
"I'll need a few days to write and install the connection protocols," Ryan said. "The code has to match the hardware specs exactly. One misaligned parameter and the signal processing falls apart."
Writing a complete neural connection operating system from scratch would have taken most teams months. Ryan would be transcribing from the system's existing codebase, which reduced the task to a matter of days. Fast by any standard. Routine by his.
"A few days works," Patricia said. "The triplets need that time to finish their Scrapper familiarization anyway."
Ryan headed back to his quarters and started coding.
The next morning, the facility's rhythm was beginning to solidify. The five recruited BCI labs had received their assignments. Each lab focused on a specific aspect of single-pilot neural connection: signal stability, transmission fidelity, operating system refinement, AI-assisted command interpretation, response latency optimization.
None of them touched multi-person connection. That research was restricted to Ryan's inner circle: the fifteen senior specialists hand-picked from across the five labs. They were the only ones cleared for the drift program.
Reeves and Cross ran into each other at the cafeteria around noon. Both looked like they hadn't slept well. Both were carrying tablets loaded with neural link documentation that they'd been reading until their eyes burned.
"The multi-person connection theory is solid," Reeves said between bites. "I can't find a flaw in the framework. But the engineering challenge of building the actual equipment is beyond what our combined labs could produce in any reasonable timeframe."
Cross nodded. "Agreed. If he'd asked us to build this system from the ground up, we'd be looking at years of development. Maybe a decade."
Reeves paused. "You don't think he's already built it."
Cross looked at him.
"He built the neural link for Scrapper by himself when he was thirteen," Cross said. "He built a plasma reactor that every energy lab in the country said was impossible. Are you really going to bet against him having the drift hardware ready?"
Reeves thought about this. "If he already has the equipment, then what does he need us for?"
"Data collection. Experimental oversight. Institutional credibility. He needs experts who can run tests, interpret results, and publish findings that the scientific community will take seriously. He's the inventor. We're the validators."
It was a humbling realization. But it was also accurate.
An aide appeared beside them. "Doctors, there's a meeting in the conference room. Tomorrow's experiment."
Reeves blinked. "What experiment?"