Lena grinned, a flash of white in her dirt-smudged face. She wasn’t here for forgiving . She was here because the XDRIVE’s adaptive traction algorithm was supposed to be the future of planetary rovers. The problem? The lab’s flat concrete floor couldn’t replicate what the brochure called “chaotic heterogeneous terrain.”
Then: “Lena… the torque sensors just logged a new stability curve. We’ve never seen that pattern.”
She didn’t drive the wheels. She conducted them.