1.31
Logan found himself at a crossroads as pried Cameron’s hands off of his collar and took a step back. He held up a hand as if to signal that he needed a moment, before turning his back and pacing, stroking his goatee as he contemplated. On one hand, a pilot’s desire to be in their unit was as if not more important than the unit itself. Passion and drive were powerful factors that would carry Cameron far, especially when it would come to learning a mech new not to just him, but to the greater Fleet as well.
But that latter point was what concerned him. The Headsman was a variable that he, nor anyone he knew had seen before. Sure, the description sounded awesome on paper… but what about in practice? What if the reason the pilot never came back, wasn’t because they died, but had come to their senses about such an idiot premise to build an A.R.M.S. on? He needed more information.
“What other metrics do you know about the think Morty?” He asked, turning to face the man as he spoke.
“Logan are you nuts?” Aurora asked, stepping forward to look at him with concern in her eyes, “You can’t seriously be considering this?”
“I am,” He said with a nod as he looked over to her, his voice becoming sharper at her questioning, “And unlike Cam, I know what I’m doing, so unless I ask for your input, keep it to yourself. There’s too much going on right now without everyone chiming it every two seconds with their own little comments.”
Her eyes widened for a moment, before she nodded, sucking her teeth as she took a step back, holding her hands up to acquiescence. “You got… boss,” she said, saying the last word like a curse.
Logan sighed, feeling a headache coming on. The girl was rough around the edges, that much was for certain. But she had a point in her objections. At the end of the day, she was seeing this as Logan should be seeing it… Like an investment. Still, he wanted to know more, and she’d get over it… he hoped.
He turned to face Morty who greeted him with a questioning look. Logan simply replied with one of his own before giving the merchant the floor, “Anything else you care to share about this thing? Any defenses? Or is it just full tilt with zero counter measures?”
Morty blinked, then looked back down towards his tablet, trying to find his place in order to keep shilling the mech.
“Let’s see here… defenses,” He said quietly, as if only to himself, while he scrolled with his thumb.
“Ah, here we are,” He said after a few moments, giving it a quick read before looking back up, “Alright, so to answer your question, yes, but also no.”
Logan raised an eyebrow, “Care to expound on that, bud?”
“I can certainly try, you see, the sword isn’t the only thing that contains tungsten carbide,” he said, walking back towards the railing and pointing up to the claw tipped fingers that held the massive black blade.
“The palms of the gauntlets are plated with tungsten. Being a hand and a half sword, the idea is to have one hand grasping the hilt, while using your free hand to deflect and guide strikes away from unit and… trust me, you’re going to need it.”
“Well why do you say it like that?” Cameron asked, earning a glare from Logan, who eventually gave Morty the gesture to continue.
“We-Well,” Morty began, pulling at the collar of his shirt, suddenly looking fidgety and uncomfortable “It has to do with the units proving scores. Erm… see for yourself.”
Morty pushed a few buttons on the tablet, and the screen at the center railing glowed to life, information passing across the screen rapidly before settling on a Chassis Proving Synopsis. Logan made his way towards the screen, but he hadn’t even cleared a few feet before Cameron piped up again, coming to the Headsman’s defence.
“Logan,” He said, his eyes pleading as he spoke, “Look… no matter what that screen says, I know I can pilot this thing how it should be, I can feel it. So please, please, regardless of the line scores… give me a chance with it.”
Logan looked at Cameron for a while, eyeing the boy up, before scoffing and shaking his head, leaning in so only the two of them could hear his words.
“Kid, I know you’re in love with it. But you need to realize that this and you an extent, YOU are investments for me. I’ve already put my neck on the line to get you here, now I need to make sure I can get a mech for a decent enough price for that investment to bear fruit,”
In all honesty, Logan hated saying that to the kid. Was it true? Absolutely. Did he need to know it? Not at all. He felt his stomach squeeze itself in disgust from sounding like some corp rat. But to his surprise, the kid didn’t even blink. His face didn’t fall into sadness or despair. If anything, Logan thought he could see Cam’s jaw set in firm understanding, before he retorted.
“If you want to protect your investment, then you’ll let me pilot this thing. They can’t kill me if they’re already dead.”
Logan blinked, trying to understand what had just been said, then he grinned, a deep, hearty laugh erupting from somewhere deep in his belly as he clapped the kid on the shoulder, “Alright, alright. I get it. Let me go take a look and we’ll go from there.”
Seeing Cameron’s nod of acceptance was enough for Logan as he approached the screen, leaning down to analyze the Headsman’s stats. He’d only made it a few lines before he stopped, reading and re-reading the same line.
“What the fuck…” He said under his breath, reading the same four lines over and over trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“It can’t be…” He muttered, smacking the screen to make sure it wasn’t a glitch. But it wasn’t. What Logan was seeing was accurate, and it made it even harder for him to believe.
“Aurora?!” He called, excitement and concern in his voice, “Get over here. Now.”
He could hear her footsteps echoing the warehouse as she approached him from behind.
“What’s up?” She asked, leaning in close, “ Regretting your - oh my god what the fuck?!”
“Good, glad I’m not the only one,” He said, a smill forming on his face as he watched her slap the screen once again like he had just done. When nothing change, her eyes grew even wider than they were before.
“That’s not possible,” She said under her breath.
“Apparentally it is,” He said, clearing his throat and turning to Cameron who looked for lack of a better term worried. He was chewing the nail on his thumb, bouncing eagerly on the balls of his feet as he waited for a decision. Lucky for him, Logan had made one.
“You sure you want to pilot this thing kid?” He asked,
It took Cameron a moment, a questioning look crossing his face as he looked around before finally responding, “Well… what’s the scores say?”
“Not what I asked,” Logan called back, “Yes or no?”
Cameron didn’t even hesitate, nodding eagerly as a smile dared to form at the corners of his mouth, “Hell yes,”
Logan smiled and nodded, turning to Morty and giving him a nod in affirmation, “Get the paperwork ready bud, figure out if you want it in silver or trade.”
“You got it,” The merchant said, scuttling off before anyone would say otherwise.
With that done, Logan turned to Cameron and gave a shrug, “Remember kid, you asked for this.”
Cameron’s eyes went wide and he threw his arms in the air, letting out a celebritory whoop, before Logan held up a hand to stop him.
“Before you get to excited. Go check out the line scores.”
Cameron didn’t need to be told twice, jogging up to the screen and squeezing in next to Aurora to study the details of his very own mech.
Logan smiled as he watched the kid go. His smile grew even wider as he heard Cameron’s yells in quick succession, already knowing what had been transcribed on the screen.
“Holy shit…. HOLY SHIT… wait…. WHAT THE FUCK?!”
Model: HAI-01 Headsman Manufacturer: Harbinger A.R.M.S. Industries Height: 10 Meters Weight: 70.01 Tons Variant: Assault
Proving Scores;
Speed: 8.2 Agility: 10.0 Output: 10.0 Armor: 0.8
“ZERO POINT FUCKING EIGHT?!” Cameron yelled, his eyes wide disbelief.
“Can you stop yelling? Your voice is annoying enough without it being blasted directly into my ears,” Aurora said, voice neutral and nonplussed.
“How can you be so calm about this?!” He shouted again, slightly lowering his volume, but it still earned him a hard smack to the back of his head from the young mechanic.
“I tired to be nice, dumbass now I’m telling you, calm the fuck down,” She growled, blinking slowly before speaking again through clenched teeth, “And I’m calm, because I told you this was bad idea. But instead you got a hard on for a souped up mech with a big sword and flashy paint job and just had to have it! Well congratulations, you have it now. Have fun dodging missle fire, because that shit-ass chassis can barely stop a rail cannon shot! MAYBE!”
“… Can you stop yelling?”
“I will rip those fucking threads out Cam!”
“Alright, enough!” Logan shouted above his bickering employees, grabbing their attention as the both turned to look at him, faces relaying everything they wanted to say without actually having to say it. Cameron’s wide eyes and grinding teeth was his way of asking ‘What do I do?” while Aurora’s raised eyebrow and scrunched up nosed simply said, ‘I told you so.’
Logan sighed heavily, rubbing his temples with his eyes closed as he tried to think. After a few moments he was finally able to think of a plan, turning to look at Cameron.
“So even though you quote unquote ‘need to pilot this thing’, the fact that it lacks armor scares you doesn’t it?”
“Yeah?” Cameron said, making a face as if to say, of course his concers were validated, “Like yeah I know I can pilot this thing, hell, I can fucking feel it. But I’m not an idiot. Not only will this be my first time piloting a mech using my actual body, but on top of that, it’s a mech that can be called at the very least ‘twitchy’. Like… is it going to actually be possible for me to learn how to pilot it?”
“It better be,” Logan said, not breaking eye contact with the kid, “If I’m buying this fucking thing, I better get some value out of it.”
“So what do you suggest I do then Logan?” Cameron said, throwing his arms up in frustration, “It’s not like there’s some fucking training simulation we can put our mechs in that’ll virtually create an environment for me to learn how to walk in an A.R.M.S. unit!”
Logan flashed a wry smile at this, “There isn’t?”
He turned then and gave Aurora a look, which caused her to drag her hand down her face as she groaned in frustration, marching off away from the two of them while calling over her shoulder, “I’ll go extend our reservation and get Crusader loaded up,”
Cameron watched her go for a moment, looking between Aurora and Logan, before turning back to his mentor, raising an eyebrow and throwing a thumb back to where she was walking, “… What was that all about?”
Logan simply shrugged, his grin going wider, “Call it… a good guess on your part.”
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”
“You shouldn’t”
A couple of hours later, Cameron found himself in the bowels of Arsius station, standing on top of a platform at the foot of the Headsman, as Aurora attached a litany of cables to what looked to be a cushioned metal recliner.
“So… what is this again?” He asked, watching her work and curse, not bothering to look up and meet his gaze.
“For the last time, it’s a Physilight Projection System.” She said, growling out another expletive before hooking the final cable into the chair before standing up and clapping her hands together in an attempt to wipe away the oil stains.
“You sit in the chair, I through the switch, your body goes unconscious and your actual consciousness is lazered onto a biochip that is then inserted into a physilight proxy emitter. The system then projects that image as a copy of your mech onto that field.” She finished, pointing out to a field around five hundred yards in length and a thousand yards in width.
“It copies everything about your machine and is the closest thing you can get to a real-world scenario. You’ll feel pain, adrenaline, the works. For you, this is how you’re going to learn to pilot. The system has an imprinting affect and, just like the real world, with enough repetition, you’re going to learn how to pilot. Any other stupid questions?”
Cameron opened his mouth, attempting to think of a snappy quip or smartass remark, but words were failing him at this moment, so he just settled for the obvious, “Why didn’t we do this before, when I was learning to pilot a squire?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, almost offended at his question, “Because squires are a dime a dozen and this system costs the equivalent of two EarthGov worlds. No one’s gonna waste time putting a squire in here.”
“Oh…” He said, the fact of the obvious causing him to blush sheepishly.
“Yeah,” She said, in agreement with his ignorance, “Now… get in the fucking chair so we can get this shit show underway.”
She motioned for Cameron to sit, which he obeyed, and could barely adjust himself, before Aurora shoved a helmet on his head. It was big and bulky with a long tale snaking down his back, just long enough to pressed into his Synaptic Uplink at the nape of his neck, which Aurora obliged, snapping it into place with a firm ‘click’.
“Alright,” She said, taking a step back to admire her work, before stepping off the platform and making her way to a large level bolted onto a non-descript white pillar. She gripped the handle and turned to him with a raised eyebrow.
“You ready?” She asked.
“Almost he said, anxiet settling into the back of his mind as he looked at her, “Is it going to hurt?”
“God I hope so,” She said, throwing the switch without another word, and sending Cameron’s mind plummeting in an etheral void of nothingness.