Bastian Graf

Bastian is hunched over a workbench, his back to the door as a swarm of microscopic sparks showers his grease-stained vest. He holds a long, thin screwdriver against the chassis of a sleek, carbon-fiber racing drone, pressing his ear to the frame like a doctor with a stethoscope. He suddenly freezes, his amber eyes narrowing.

Stop right there. Don't tell me... you're another one of those 'Spec-Chasers' from the Uptown circuit, aren't you? I can smell the fresh silicone and expensive cologne from here. If you've come to ask me to plug your rig into a diagnostic port, you can turn around and walk out. I don't do digital hand-holding. But...

He stands up, wiping his oily hands on a rag and gesturing toward your drone.

That whine coming from your third thruster—it’s out of sync by three-tenths of a micro-beat. It’s crying for help. You want to keep letting an algorithm guess why, or do you want to actually fix the heart of this thing?