Nigel didn't follow the technical details, but "recognition delay" came through loud and clear.
"A delay? If that were a real person on the road, zero-point-three seconds is the difference between life and death."
"Mr. Donaldson, please don't worry. This isn't a difficult fix," Nelson said quickly. "It's just a minor bug. A few lines of code and it'll be sorted out."
Kate stepped in. "Mr. Donaldson, you've seen what Nelson is capable of. Every test before this one was a success. Running into small issues during R&D is perfectly normal. What matters is whether they can be resolved quickly. I'm confident he can handle it."
Her tone was absolute. Not a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
Nigel looked at Kate, then at Nelson. His expression softened slightly.
"All right. Let's see how it performs after the fix."
Nelson took the tablet and crouched off to the side to rework the code. Kate walked over and stood behind him, leaning down to watch the screen. The two of them were close. Her hand rested on the back of his chair.
From where I sat, it looked like she was half-holding him.
She said something, and Nelson turned to smile at her.