The transport to Muir's hospital had been boring. The new chassis they'd mounted the system on wasn't as maneuverable as her... Ashlie's old body. She had to keep reminding herself that it was Ashlie's, not hers. The boxy structure resembled a small network rack mounted on treads with cameras mounted on it. The cameras were really only for navigation. She could mentally watch what she liked from an entertainment standpoint when she had time. She never had time. She contemplated the latest iteration of implant plans, sorting through the data she understood and trusting Doctor Zhou on the rest.
The middle-aged woman in scrubs and a lab coat, Doctor Zhou, watched her for a bit, before clearing her throat. "What do you think?"
"I think... the bandwidth throughput is insufficient to improve the transfer odds. The rest looks good though. I like the compact design." The vocalization over the speaker was a bit tinny and she adjusted the settings.
Doctor Zhou sighed, "We've asked Stark Industries if they have some new data transmission material, but they're pushing back, saying they don't have anything and even if they did, we already have their top-of-the-line publicly available material."
Natalie didn't have eyes to roll at the moment, but the thought of the gesture made her cameras rotate in a small circle. "So they have something and they're not ready to part with it." She pulled up the image of the new device on a screen. "What if we shaved off this housing? Replaced with with something more flexible." The image of the device altered to show the changes. "That would allow us to place more transmission material in the device."
"What if that flexible housing ruptures? You could end up with shards in your spinal column or worse."
"If I don't have more bandwidth, I might not make it at all. Not without wrecking my nervous system. Look, we're already talking about putting a tap next to the base of my brain. It's not as if there isn't already a ton of risk." She kept the intonation in the speaker purposely flat.
Doctor Zhou didn't look happy about it, but finally nodded. "Very well. I'll see what we can come up with. We'll review the data again as soon as we have something."
"Sounds good," Natalie said as Doctor Zhou got up and left. Natalie rolled over to the wall, a manipulator arm awkwardly plugging her batteries into the wall. Might as well make good use of the time.