"Wait, I could have vetoed the name he gave me? I don't even watch this nerd shit."
— Rick 'Redshirt' Stuart
“Now…” Synapse purred while stroking his chin in an exaggerated manner. “Who's first? What about Quinn.”
She frowned “We don’t pick our own?”
“Well, technically the public picks your Sam name, but they tend to go along with whatever you tell ‘em unless you’re a right jackass. But it’s kind of a tradition for the first vet a newbie runs into to name ‘em, ya know?” He tapped at his keyboard, before peering at one of the monitors.
“Looks like Mecha-Chan is taken, maybe…”
“Add a word in there? Takimura-Chan or something?” Elliot interjected.
Quinn grimaced “I'm not a fan, do I get a veto?”
“Fine, fine. how about…” he poked at his keyboard some more. “Madame Mobile suit?”
Elliot wiggled a flat hand in the universal ‘Eh’ symbol “Doesn't flow right, Mobile Suit Maiden works better.”
“Hell yeah, that works and.. it's not taken.”
The two men physically and digitally looked at Quinn, who shrunk back a little under their gazes.
“Sure.. It sounds kind of cool.”
Nodding to himself and pursing his lips in appreciation of his own work, Synapse turned to Elliot and gave him an appraising eye.
“Now.. what about..”
“Boy Scout.” Elliot's eyes had lost their usual glint of mirth, and his tone brooked no disagreement.
Synapse held up both hands in surrender “Sure, sure, You sound set on it. Fair nuff. Well Boy Scout, Mobile Suit Maiden, Welcome to the club. Now, a decent chunk of the isthmus is still metaphorically and literally on fire, so I'm going to get back to dealing with that unless you kids need anything more from me.” He paused long enough for them to shake their heads. “Cool, Kill some plants, don't die, yeah? See you on the flip side.”
He hung up, and Quinn put her knee down and pushed herself off the box, turning to see Elliot standing and giving his weapon a check over.
“Right, so you need a new mech.”
Quinn nodded slightly “I do, I've been trying to think of what to get, I kind of don't know where to start.”
“That's exactly what I'm here for, darling. The most pressing question is what style of combat you wish to emulate in mechanized form.”
“What do you mean?”
Elliot leaned in closer as they walked, excited. “Like uh, do you wanna be fast and precise up close, or be a walking tank covered in guns, or just have a REALLY big gun, or….”
“Thank you Elliot, that’s essentially what I was asking.”
Quinn shielded her eyes as they crested the ramp into the open air. “That makes sense. I guess if I had to decide, I’d honestly prefer to be somewhat flexible? I wouldn’t mind being a little more agile than Cassie, but I liked her ability to pick up things if needed. I’m guessing being human level agile means being vulnerable?”
“Correct, at least at lower tiers.”
There was a flash, and suddenly Quinn's augs were displaying a semi detailed model of a humanoid mech with a boxy torso, no head and two pairs of arms.
They approached the shaded hoverbus stop that usually shuttled employees to and from downtown Madison, a few of the translucent sides splattered with antithesis sap. The two took a seat next to each other on one of the mildly uncomfortable metal benches.
Elliot piped up questioningly “Why a humanoid model, I always thought they were kind of a rule of cool more than practical?”
“Humans so far have utilized a variety of forms of mobile armor. You are correct that usually a form closest to a standard earth tank tends to be optimal for a variety of engineering reasons, but for those who engage far deeper with their vehicles a trend emerges. A form that for lack of a better term… resonates with them mentally sees significant improvement over time when utilizing mental linkage.”
“So, a mech that looks like me will work when I.. mentally link to it? What about just driving it like a car or like Cassie.”
“That is generally unadvised, as it will induce delays and mistakes that can be easily avoided with a mental link. If the idea really makes you uncomfortable there are..”
Quinn waved a hand dismissively “No, no it’s fine, I’m not opposed if it makes sense. But this one doesn’t really look quite like a human though?”
“I used the terminology resonating with you mentally quite deliberately. That and your physical appearance are often not one and the same - you have some prior experience with that.”
Oh, it would make sense Irys would know about that. She caught Elliot giving her a questioning glance and mouthed a “I’ll tell you later” at him.
“So.. I identify with this specific body type?”
“Not as such. When we first evaluated you, we determined you were likely to be extremely compatible with a number of enhanced chassis.”
“How did you even know she was going to do mech stuff?” Elliot inquired
“Give me some credit, darling, we are very good at what we do. I had a 99.6% certainty that Quinn's choice was going to be in this direction.”
Elliot gave the air a bemused look, not quite buying that number.
“But, assuming this chassis is to your liking, we can move on to discussing the finer details, such as armaments and secondary capabilities, including how to spend your tokens.”
Elliot stood up and tapped Quinn on the shoulder “Hey, I'm going to go talk with Hylios about my own upgrades, you good here?” She nodded, and he walked off a short distance before starting a conversation she couldn't hear.
She propped an elbow on her leg and put her head in her hand “I have tokens? I thought I needed to accomplish special achievements to get those.”
“Well yes, but you have.” Irys replied. “You gained one for killing your first model in the teens, and a second for saving your first hundred people.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Quinn watched Elliot pace back and forth, clearly having an animated conversation from his smile. “How did I get to one hundred already?”
“Both the people in the basement shelter and the soldiers counted. Without your intervention I determined they would likely have fallen to the antithesis horde and thus added them to your total.”
Huh, she had saved a lot of people then. Maybe she was doing okay at this.
“Okay then” she sat up and drummed the fingers of one hand on her knee. “If I have tokens, shouldn't I just spend them on getting a better mech catalog?”
“In your case, partially. Let me explain it like this: when you buy a tier-2 mech, the entire thing is a set package, put together with often deliberately lesser components to meet engineering requirements. My suggestion is thus - one token to purchase the appropriate Tier-2 chassis catalog, which will include most of the vehicle sans weaponry and assorted gadgets. Then, I would suggest purchasing the Tier-2 Yrassian Conclave Mechanized Power Supply Catalog. Combined, they will allow you to power the frame more than adequately, allowing additions and substitutions to other areas as you see fit.”
Quinn nodded along “Makes sense so far, I’m assuming then we want to get guns and things too? Also, what’s the name of the mech chassis?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Princess Collective Dragoon Class”
Off in the distance Elliot burst out in a guffaw of laughter. Quinn made a face of utter betrayal “Seriously?”
Irys was entirely deadpan. “Of course, the Princess Collective is a venerable civilization. Many centuries ago they were a rather regressive monarchy, and the resulting revolution determined the best way to enshrine the rights they desired into law with the existing legal framework was to make every citizen legally a princess of the nation.”
She sighed and buried her head in her hand. “Fine, I believe you.”
“And to answer your earlier question, I would heavily recommend at least two additional catalogs to fully outfit the Combat Adjustable Samurai Skirmisher Integrated Exoskeleton you will be purchasing - One for weaponry as you mentioned, a second for cybernetics for a cerebral link at minimum, and a third for a maintenance drone catalog which will better serve repair and modification needs than nanite swarms alone. I would also heavily suggest purchasing a dimensional shunt catalog, which will allow safe storage of the drones and additional ammunition for kinetic weapons, and should come in handy down the line to allow hot swaps of your repertoire”
Quinn mentally collected that information. “Do I have the points for all that?”
“Yes. You won’t have enough to purchase a full complement of high cost weapons, and only the bare essentials from the cybernetics catalog, but you have a sufficient balance. Speaking of.. Did you have designs for your selection of armaments? Maybe preference for energy vs kinetic as well?”
She glanced over to where a set of PMC were struggling with a machine gun and its belts of ammunition. “I liked the dakka of the raging tsunami, but having a weapon that can keep firing no matter what would be nice.” She paused to collect her thoughts “Maybe make that an all rounder energy gun, give me something explosive for large groups, and a big gun for the tough stuff?”
The model in her view shifted, showing the mech now with the large right arm terminating in a large rifle. The left arm had a large cannon like weapon, and a long barrel pointed upwards from behind the right shoulder.
“Shall I go ahead and make the purchases darling?”
“Do it.”
New Purchase: Yrassian Conclave Mechanized Warfare Support Catalog - Class 2
Cost: 220. Points reduced to... 1770
New Purchase: Bipedal Armored Vehicle Chassis Catalog - Class 1
Cost: 120. Points reduced to... 1650
New Purchase: Bipedal Armored Vehicle Chassis Catalog - Class 2
Cost: 400. Points reduced to... 1250
New Purchase: Heavy Vehicle Mounted Energy Weapons Catalog
Cost: 100. Points reduced to... 1150
New Purchase: Utility Cybernetics Catalog
Cost: 50. Points reduced to... 1100
New Purchase: Dimensional Shunting Technologies
Cost: 80. Points reduced to... 1020
New Purchase: Princess Collective Combat Adjustable Samurai Skirmisher Integrated Exoskeleton, Class 2
Cost: 600. Points reduced to... 420
New Purchase: Yrassian Conclave Schrodinger’s Reactor Mark II.
Cost: 100. Points reduced to... 320
New Purchase: Flux Scarab Heavy Repeating Pulse Laser
Cost: 70. Points reduced to... 250
New Purchase: Discus Mk. III Mounted Plasma Projector
Cost: 60. Points reduced to... 190
New Purchase: Fated Conclusion Class Particle Beam
Cost: 75. Points reduced to... 115
New Purchase: Yrassian Armor Maintenance Drone, Class 2 x2
Cost: 10 per. Points reduced to... 95
New Purchase: Drone Shunt x2
Cost: 25 per. Points reduced to... 45
New Purchase: Vehicle Cerebral Link, Quick Install
Cost: 25. Points reduced to... 20
The street in front of the bus stop was in one moment empty air, and the next occupied by 20 feet of awe inspiring technical power. It was clad in the white, charcoal black and dark purple that seemed to be Quinn's burgeoning colour scheme with a bulkier, rounded rectangle like front with a trapezoid protrusion for a torso. Two powerful looking legs squatter than a human proportionally, but not by much, propped it up on equidistantly spaced toes. It had two sets of arms, a thicker powerful set on top, and a smaller set underneath that ended in slender four fingered hands. On the right of the thick arms sat a long barreled gun with what looked like a hexagonal tube twice the width of the rest of it inserted in the middle. The other arm held a thick, cannon looking weapon, obvious heat sink dividing the front and back that stayed equally wide and round the whole length. On the back, pointed at the sky, was a long gun filigreed with gold, the front half less a barrel and more empty air flanked by a set of wide rectangular rails. A glowing suite of sensors like a head sat embedded in the top of the torso.
Quinn stood and stared in wonder at the sight before her, engrossed enough that when the much smaller box materialized in her hand she jerked in surprise and sent it clattering into the road. She sheepishly walked over to pick it back up.
“Shit. hope I didn’t damage it” She mumbled to herself, trying to ignore Elliot watching her with a smile from the corner of her eye.
“The contents of the boxes are in stasis until you open them, so I wouldn’t worry. But that there is your implant installation, you should ask Elliot to inject it into the back of your neck, where it will migrate to your brain and install itself.”
The description of the installation progress sounded kind of freaky, and she clenched her hand a little as the anxious thought passed over. As she walked over to where Elliot was still talking, assumedly with Hylios she watched a larger pair of boxes appear on the ground. A pair of drones, looking like orbs with two pairs of circling wings sweeping back and a number of appendages ending in various tools, rose out of the boxes. They promptly flew into two ports in the back of the mech and disappeared.
Elliot turned to watch her with a warm smile as she approached him.
“Damn, that's a hell of a successor to Cassie. You about ready to go?”
She nodded before proffering the box “Almost, need your help to inject this into the back of my neck, will allow me to actually control her.
He grabbed the box and dug out a small syringe gun, throwing the box to the side and moving around her. He touched her neck gently as he lifted her hair out of the way, sending sparks down her spine. It distracted her enough that she barely felt the cold of the metal and the slight pinch as it did its job.
A few seconds later her brain felt.. fuzzy for a few moments, and then suddenly she felt a new.. awareness in her mind. It felt like another limb she'd always had and never used, and she felt like she could command it in a rudimentary manner by sheer instinct. She turned and walked towards the mech, exploring the new feeling.
“Now, darling. you should be able to mentally command the mech to embark you, at which point you'll be able to fully link and control it as if it were your own body. Future implants will allow you to control both at once, if you should so wish.”
"Oh, but first." She proffered the nanite hive with the nameplate attached. "Can we ensure Cassie is at home?"
"Of course. Bring it closer and I'll ensure its there."
Quinn took a few steps forward and held up the cylinder. The purple tentacle extended and grabbed onto what was to be Cassie 2.0, before pulling its hive with itself. The front peeled open, revealing a compact seating area with gel like rolls for a seat and a small set of monitors and readouts, before the hive pulled itself up. It detached Cassie's nameplate, before gently fusing it to the metal right above the seat, then pushing its own way behind into the internals and out of sight.
She reached for the feeling of wanting to be taken in, and the mech gently bent down and picked her up in one of its smaller hands. Despite part of her panicking about being handled so bodily, it at the same time felt like she was picking herself up, despite the paradoxical nature of such a feeling. With great precision, she was set into the seat, getting a view of a few of the PMC moving towards the basement ramp stopping to watch. The hand retreated, and the cockpit front slowly closed to encase her before lighting up with a low red tinted glow.
“Okay, darling. When you're ready I'll initiate the full cerebral link. It will be a little overwhelming to begin with, so I'll limit your movements for now to avoid any accidents. We can use the ride over to get you used to the feeling.”
She nodded, feeling her body start to sink into the cool gel, it enveloping her limbs in a soft embrace.
“I'm ready.”
And suddenly, she became more.
Tomorrow will be exciting.. we'll get to meet the other newbie samurai, I love them as well so I'm excited to share them with you.
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