A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade by John Chu Page A

them to motors and actuators that he belted and wrestled into the design. Ritter’s body ached from the strain and sweat stung his eyes.
    The new design came together methodically. Teasing out what were parts of the barricade and what were phantoms of the library and archivist slowed him down. He jumped every time the tarp buckled under the strain of roiling Turbulence. Father would have been disappointed with how long it was taking him, but Father now led Camp Terminus, a day’s trip away.
    The cart and the library galloping to keep pace looked like toys hurtling toward a tangled swarm of glowing, variegated threads as intangible as the barricade meant to stop them. Ritter dismissed the tarp and braced against a girder. The barricade swayed and rippled, alternately squat and lithe as it untangled then dissolved threads lashing at it.
    The storm of Turbulence dimmed, its snarled mass thinned down to scattered individual threads. Turbulence swarmed around the library and cart. The library reared, its translucent tusks shoving threads aside. The library and cart passed through the barricade as though it weren’t there. For non-engineers, it wasn’t.
    Now, Ritter had to stop the runaway cart. He jumped off the barricade and slammed onto the cart’s hood. Deck gave Ritter an amused gaze through the library tusk visor of his helmet, then waved. Very little fazed Deck.
    Ritter’s hand found the crack between the hood and the body of the cart. An imagined knife jammed into a lever. The hood swung up, slamming Ritter against the windshield. Ritter reached around and pulled free a piece of tubing. The motor died and Ritter felt Deck engage the brakes.
    â€œNot quite, Ritter.” The sharp, stentorian voice came from behind, not from the cart.
    That voice had etched itself too deeply into Ritter for him to mistake it. However, his father was several orders of magnitude too important to respond to a new graduate’s distress flare.
    â€œFather?” Ritter stumbled off the cart then snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”
    Meeting Father was like crashing into the sandstone cliff that had erupted into existence while you weren’t looking. Father even looked the part. Thick shoulders and a general solidity settled on all engineers, but more so on Father. Even now that they saw eye-to-eye, Father still seemed to loom over him.
    â€œThis is how you should have redesigned it.” Father marched to the barricade.
    He coiled then exploded, tumbling from one girder to another. The tall, hulking figure climbed up the barricade as easily as he’d walked to it. He exchanged the end point of one hose with that of another. The wall’s jitter evolved into a slight sway. Turbulence actually seemed slightly more agitated.
    â€œDo you understand why this is, on the whole, a better solution?” Father leapt off the barricade then marched back. His gaze could have cut diamonds.
    â€œNo, sir.” If Ritter had said yes, Father would have asked him to explain. He’d learned as a child never to lie to Father.
    Father frowned. “But you at least see how it is in some ways a worse solution.”
    â€œWorse?” Ritter’s brow furrowed. The shelves of Father’s mind, as always, revolved around each other in complex curves that traversed hundreds of dimensions. Ritter had never seen a more intelligent mind.
    â€œRitter, all engineering is a matter of trade-offs.” Father closed his eyes, as if to master himself, then opened them again. “Have they taught you nothing at the academy?”
    This was a question Ritter was certain he could work out the answer to. If worse came to worst, he had a fifty-fifty chance.
    â€œRhetorical question, Ritter.” Father held up his hand. “Prepare a full analysis of the new Turbulence attack mode exhibited here and of the design deployed. I expect it on my desk tomorrow. You are now working on the overhaul of the barricade