The opening of the Symposium was as inanimate and mechanical as a well oiled machine, and Koyuki soon realized why Yuu Shirogane deserved the label of a logistical tyrant. The Zero Distraction Policy was not a policy by choice; it was implemented with a silent, iron fist which did not allow deviation.
The next four hours Koyuki was practically a kind of advanced buffer, keeping Yuu and the Great Hall out of the flux of dangerously unstable energy in the external world. She had to deal with three different emergencies: an exclusive professor whose specialized adapter would not be able to work with the local network, a last minute scheduling change caused by a typhoon that postponed a flight internationally, and a miscommunication involving catering that led to a total of seventy servings of inadvertent gluten.
During this time Yuu had been sitting in his corner against the entrance of the staging room, watching the flow on his silver tablet. He spoke very little, just sending brief text messages on the burner phone belonging to Koyuki: "Adapter problem: look at the protocol 3.4b (cable substitution matrix)." or "Gluten problem: replace emergency stockpile Z 7 substitute meals in the emergency rerouted ration list, check against database and speaker dietary restrictions.
Koyuki had originally intended to have her Gala run with a minimum of enthusiasm and a shared Google Doc and was somewhat charmed by the sheer organizational beauty of the system Yuu had. It was ruthlessly efficient. Each variable was provided with a protocol; each potential problem was planned on a solution. Yuu was not just setting up an event; he had created a closed system where variables were manipulated as opposed to just reacted to.
Koyuki came up to Yuu during a short twenty-minute networking break during lunch, holding the now empty burner phone. Stunning, Senpai, Professor Ito. The process of integration of real -time data was impressive, she noted, touching the hind part of a sterile white chair. And I was able to resolve the issue of adapters with the substitution matrix. It worked perfectly."
Yuu at last raised his head and his silver eyes would not look upon her with any warmth. With proprietary hardware, the success rate of Protocol 3.4b is 98.7. Expected outcome. But the speed at which you reacted to the catering service failure was 18 minutes and 40 seconds. Unacceptable."
Koyuki bristled. "Unacceptable? It was an outsourcing mistake of a commercial kitchen miles away! I was able to discover the issue, find the emergency stock, and deliver the meals to the green room. I think there is 18 minutes of excellent triage!
The acceptable time of failure of resource is 12 minutes, Yuu stated, involved in a push of his hair back of his forehead. According to the protocol of external catering failure (C 19 ), the vendor and client service agreement is to be cross-referenced immediately, and the fault is to be confirmed within three minutes and the response time within the contingency plan should not exceed four minutes. You were six minutes and 40 seconds late in your deployment. Such lateness is an actual opportunity cost to scholarly conversation.
Koyuki stared. By this he did not mean food, but numbers. His reality was made of nothing but quantifiable results and streamlined courses.
You mean that, then, if I were running a Christmas Gala and the cocoa machine went dead then I could have 12 minutes to get a replacement before the whole affair fell apart, she translated; trying to make his logic, so threatening as he was, simpler.
Something close to a grin blossomed on his lips, and died away as Koyuki was unable to perceive its entire substance. Having the likelihood of the cocoa machine malfunction at say, the rate of P ( failure ) 0.15 and above, indeed the contingency acquisition time should not be over 12 minutes, T max. But you are not conducting a Gala, Himekawa san. You are a Tier A academic Symposium. Look at the facts, like Professor Ito would say do it.
He took up his tablet, which indicated the end of the conversation.
Koyuki turned away, and at the same time was furious and interested. Her pink hair was well allied to the stark white walls, but her brain was on fire. She then realized just how valuable her three days had been: Yuu Shirogane was, in fact, no mere challenge to her sense of Christmas, he was an unwilling instructor, and taught her not to handle events in any sentimental way, but in cold, cold science.
12 minutes to rescue the cocoa. Koyuki took the burner phone and added a new contact record under a category that she named, GALA PROtoCOTS (Tier S). The next two days would be devoted not just to the service of his symposium, but to quietly examining and absorbing his techniques, in readiness to adopt a defense system on the level of Yuu to her own anarchic, glittering Christmas Fantasy Festival.