"You mean I don't coat my baby in cheap green paint and put little flags on her?" Tinker asked and raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you knew what they used to make that paint, you wouldn't want it on your…I'm thinking a Minato? They hard to find these days, honestly."
"You have a good eye too," she noted.
"Well, yes, but that's because I play the most important role in the Knight's Mechanica." Tinker moved closer and dragged a couple of the larger pieces of rubble away. "It’s right there in the name. I'm the Mechanic-a. I work all these mechs to their full potential, get them all roaring and humming and ready for a fight when they need to be. D’ya think these assholes could keep their own pieces running without me?"
"Fuck you, Tinker!" the pilot of the Raptor shouted, having listened to what they had discussed.
"Yeah, I'll remember that when it's the next time to oil your joints there, Bessie," the man yelled in response. Jessica13 couldn't tell if Bessie could hear him but the lack of any kind of response suggested that either she hadn't or she knew she needed him to keep doing good work on her mech.
"If you get you a big fucker that needs to bend over to fire off, you need a better grease feed into the joints or they gonna burn right the hell off," he said and shook his head. "I like the thought behind the design but that's lazy finishing."
"It seems like something that top-heavy wouldn't have a good way to get the oil all the way down to the legs," she said as she freed the Minato’s left hand and checked the electronics. "You'd need to put something near the ankles. It helps to give it some ballast against falling over on its side, and with the grease box on the bottom, it'll be simpler to pump it up to the rest of the mechanism. You'd need to refill it twice as much, of course, but it’s better than doing it manually."
Tinker eyed her for a few seconds as she adjusted the electronics that allowed Mini access to the limb again before she shifted her position to work on the legs.
"You really have a mind for this," Tinker said. "Of course, it’s not that easy to find the right kind of grease boxes. I would have to build it almost from scratch and maybe integrate it into the foot."
Jessica13 looked up from her work and wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Sure, but you need to give it some kind of mechanism to pump the stuff into the joints above."
It was an odd thing, she suddenly realized. She was talking about mechs and how to improve them to an almost complete stranger. It should have felt weird but it didn't. Having someone of like mind to share the conversation was interestingly relaxing. She could feel the terrifying sensation of almost being killed slipping away.
The feeling was still there and would likely be a part of her life, but it was a lesson learned. The negatives of it had begun to fade.
With Tinker's help, she soon finished clearing the rubble from around Mini. The AI still couldn't see anything but the stabilizers were working again, which enabled him to stand the Mech on its feet and she climbed inside and took control.
"There we go, good as new," Tinker said with a chuckle. "Well, we have to think about getting you a new plate for the front of the cockpit, anyway, and then you should be good as new."
"I don't suppose we'll find anything good on the mechs around here," Jessica13 complained as she moved clear of the demolished building and out to the road again. "There aren’t many Minatos up and running around here, so I'll need to figure something out to fix it."
"Don't worry about it none, Jessica13," he replied and walked beside her. "The chances are there are more than enough Minato pieces in the scrap yards and if not, we'll find something that was an upgrade on what you had before. For the moment, though, I think the big fella wants to have a word with ya."
There was no point in asking why he thought that as she could see Hammerhand striding to where the two of them now stood. Even in the Minato, she could feel the impact of the steps on the ground like it was a minor earthquake each time. It was irritating to the point where she began to struggle to remain on her feet before he came to a halt in front of them.
He remained in place for a few seconds and looked at her. The size of the mech was impossible and she knew for a fact that something so big would never fit inside the elevator at Sanctuary.
"Your bravery will not be forgotten," Hammerhand said, his voice a little quieter and less booming than before. "Standing your ground before insurmountable odds is not something to be discarded from the mind."
She inclined her head and tried to analyze his speech. His accent was a little easier to understand than Tinker’s but there were a few odd word placements and inflections that ticked her off for some reason.
Not that she would mention it to the pilot of a mech that could stamp her to paste with one foot.
"Honestly, I didn’t so much stand my ground as run away," Jessica13 admitted. "You arrived a little late, but by the time I stood my ground, I really didn't have anywhere else to go."
"I saw everything, child," Hammerhand replied. "How you stood your ground when you could, fought back when you could, and remained brave in the face of what must have appeared to be the very end. To my mind, that is bravery."
"Oh…well, thanks," she said and her face heated in response to the praise.
He'd seen everything? She hoped not. He would have seen how she careened into the building that had buried her under it. Or worse, he would have seen how they drew the pirates on them when they were trying to be stealthy.
Either way, if his conclusion was that she was brave and not stupid, she would leave it at that.
"You spoke of others who might need our help," he continued.
"Oh, right," Jessica13 said. "I almost—well, there's a bunker to the east, a little closer than the one I'm originally from, but…anyway, they were hit hard by a group of pirates that attacked my bunker first. They're well-armed, well-led, and have considerable firepower behind them. We barely survived the attack, but the other bunker wasn't so lucky. There were survivors and they are starting to rebuild, but they need protection while they set their defenses up again. I was asked to come and see if…well, the Knights Mechanica could help."
She had worded it as officially and eloquently as possible but by the end, she began to feel she had rambled on. Hammerhand looked at her after a moment of silence.
Had she worded it wrong? Had he expected her request for help with some kind of pomp and ceremony? In neglecting that, had she somehow offended him?
The questions buzzed around her brain like insects, unwilling to be controlled as the seconds ticked by.
Finally, the enormous mech turned to face the other Knights.
"Then we shall go!" Hammerhand roared and his speakers boomed again to the point that she could almost feel his voice in her bones. "Our hands to those who need them! Our weapons to defend those who cannot defend themselves!"
The other knights raised their weapons and cheered.
Tinker nudged Mini in the side with his hand and almost knocked him over. Alarms blared over the stabilizers, but his intention was clear enough.
"Mr. Hammerhand," Jessica13 called and the Excalibur stopped and turned to face her again. "Hammerhand? Hammer?"
"Hammerhand is fine," he replied in a quieter tone.
"Hammerhand it is," she said with a nervous chuckle. "As you can see, my mech is in need of repairs, and—well, it seems a little wasteful to see all these mechs around here and simply leave them to whatever vultures might come to collect them. I thought we could probably…uh, maybe…scavenge them ourselves before we go to the bunker?"
There was no response for a moment but then the large shoulders began to rock alarmingly. When he shook his head, she realized he was laughing.
"Welcome to the Knights Mechanica, my girl," Hammerhand said finally and chuckled. "I think you'll fit right in."
The massive mech moved away, and Jessica13 wasn't sure what to make of his statement until Tinker nudged her in the shoulder again.
"I think the big man likes you," he said and laughed
.
"Is that what that was supposed to be?" she asked. "I thought he made fun of me."
"We don't leave anything for the pirates to take again," Tinker said. He glanced at the crushed Balthazar and nudged it with his boot. "Nothing they can use, anyway. Anything useful is collected and carried to where I can put it to good use in one of the other mechs. It was my and Hammerhand's idea to set things up that way, and you have the same spirit of a scavenger in you. Like the big man said, you'll fit in right with the Knights Mechanica."
It was quick work to scavenge most of the mechs. A good portion of them had been reduced to little more than scrap metal after Hammerhand had destroyed them with his hammer, but those that had been eliminated by the other mechs were still in good enough shape.
Once she had the parts she needed, Jessica13 retrieved her tools from the Minato and laid it on the ground since she didn't have the harness to hang it while she worked. She used a pair of cutters to peel away the sections of metal she wouldn’t be able to use in that position anymore.
Even so, she hated to waste anything. The chunks were shoved in a bag she could fit on the back of the Minato and kept going without so much as a pause.
Tinker watched her work as she began to install the new front panel in place of the one that had been torn off. As she continued to fit the new piece, a few of the other Knights moved in closer as well and tried to get a good grasp of what she was up to.
Most talked on the private comms she wasn't privy to, but as they leaned in closer, she wondered if they hadn't seen Tinker work this way before.
The panel fit rather well and only required a few minor cuts and adjustments to settle into the place she had created for it. While it wasn't a pretty fit, she had already decided she would have to get used to something like that since she was Outside now. It seemed logical that she would have to accept that her mech wasn’t as nice and clean as she was accustomed to.
"Nice work on that panel," Tinker said once she had finished fixing it in place. "How do you think you'll see through it, though?"
"There isn’t a problem with that," Jessica13 said and patted her finished work before she pulled a few of the armor sections up from the panel itself. "I only need to fit it with the sensors in the Minato. That, plus the ones I need to fix on the head section, means I'll be able to settle in there with a full view. They didn't design these with see-through panels. They were always meant to work with full armor and visuals provided through sensors on the outside."
The wiring was jumbled near the head of the mech and she began to sort through the issues manually.
"Why would they make a mech you couldn't see out of?" the Knight riding the Watson—Taylor was his name if she remembered correctly—asked. "What if the sensors go down and you can't see anything at all?"
"Minatos were fitted with AIs originally to resolve that," Jessica13 said. "They were finicky bastards, every one, but you can work the sensors without the AI. If you do have one in, though, you get to see why they didn't want panels with a weaker structure on the front."
"It's when you go down on all fours, yeah?" Carson, the pilot of the Sherlock, said, likely having watched her run from the pirates like Hammerhand had.
"That's right," she replied, finished her work with the sensors, and set them to a timed restart to bring all the systems up again. "When you run on all fours, you don't want to have the underside of the mech weaker in case something catches the bottom and breaks it. It’s best to have the whole thing as structurally sound as possible."
"Agreed," Tinker said. "Though I’d still rather have a way to see something with my eyes out there than have to rely on machines."
"We already rely on machines," Jessica13 pointed out and patted Mini's hull. "Do you think you can get up now?"
"What's that?" he asked.
"I wasn't talking to you," she responded and after a few seconds, her mech began to move on its own and managed to climb slowly onto his feet and settle without issue.
"Repairs are…adequate," Mini said through the external speakers. "Running diagnostics now in case you missed something."
"It’s odd to let your AI talk back at you like that," Tinker told her as she pulled the door open and climbed into the cockpit. "I'm lucky if I can get me three or four words out of the one running mine. Not that it runs much."
"Like I said, the Shimura-Sendai manufacturers designed their AIs to be finicky and, I think, as close to human brain processing as possible," Jessica13 explained and studied all the diagnostics Mini ran through her HUD. "It’s absolutely worth the effort, though, once you do get them functional."
"Your compliment is noted and appreciated," Mini replied.
"Enough dallying!" Hammerhand roared at them. "Those who need our help will not wait, nor will those who wish them harm!"
"Ready to move, Jessica13?" Tinker asked.
"Affirmative." Mini answered the question and completed the diagnostics.
"Let's move," she agreed.
Chapter Eighteen
The day had begun to wind down by the time the mechs were ready to move. None were quite as fleet of foot as Jessica13's Minato but she lacked the kind of firepower they had.
Whether they had killed most of the pirates in the battle or whether those who survived knew better didn't matter. The fact remained that as the group moved through the city, they were left unhindered.
"Do you think the pirates will try to attack us again?" Jessica13 asked Tinker, who had opened a comm line with her.
"Well, you can't ever account for stupid," he replied with a chuckle. "But many of them only survived this long because they know who they can attack and who is best left alone. When an Excalibur wanders around the city with a mech-flattening hammer and flanked by a group like ours, those who know their way around the world stay away. Those who don't won’t last very long anyway. The fun thing about natural selection is how brutal it can be in weeding out the weak."
"Natural selection?" she wondered.
"The evolution of animals," Mini interjected and displayed a couple of diagrams on the HUD. "Animals tend to evolve according to a fundamental premise that those with the best traits for survival in their current environment tend to pass those genes on to their progeny, whereas those that don't die or are killed off. Tinker’s reference implies that those intelligent enough to stay clear of the Knights Mechanica are those who will survive long enough to pass that intelligence to their progeny."
"Oh." She frowned as she considered this. "How come this wasn't taught to us in the instructional vids?"
"It is possible that those in charge of running Sanctuary did not think of it as relevant to your education," the AI pointed out.
"You know, I can tell when you're still talking to your mech," the man interjected. "Even if you don't have your speakers on. Most folks don't really take small things into account like body language. If you shrug, tilt your head, and do anything, the mech moves too so it's like I can see a quarter of the conversation."
"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," she said, still not sure what the etiquette between these knights was supposed to be. "It was only…it's a little embarrassing. The AI was explaining a part of what you said to me to give me context."
"Don't you worry about anything. We all have gaps in our knowledge," he reassured her. "Was it about the accounting for stupid?"
"No, I understood that part," Jessica13 said. "I've actually heard it before from my CO at the bunker. He liked to say it almost every time the pirates attacked us."
"You don't say?" The man grunted as if surprised. "Ah, well, it's good sense, I suppose. What was the part you needed help with?"
"It was mostly the 'natural selection'," she explained. "But Mini already explained what he thought was the context you used it in."
"He?"
"Yes. They originally fitted him with a female voice modulator, and because the AI wasn't functional when they brought the mech to operation, they didn't think to fix it."
"I�
��huh." A pause followed, and she waited for his response. "Have you thought about whether you wanted to fix that?"
"What do you think, Mini?" Jessica13 asked. "Should we start looking through the scrap yard for a modulator that best fits your personality?"
"My personality is perfectly adapted to my current module," Mini replied. "I am finicky, as you said."
"No, I said that AIs can be finicky to get to working," she clarified. "And I'd say you're less finicky and more…sassy, I think the word is."
"Sassy. I like that," he said. "I suppose I will continue to be sassy with a new modulator. Therefore, if it makes you feel more comfortable, we can search for one."
"You're doing it again." Tinker laughed.
"Sorry," Jessica13 said. "We're discussing getting him a male modulator instead of the one he has now. He's a little iffy about it but doesn't mind if it would make me happy."
"Oh, well, it wasn't a complaint on my part. I only assumed the AI was…well, based on the voice…"
Tinker didn't appear to know where to go from there and she wondered if he was not used to having someone to talk to. She could understand the sentiment. Machines and mechanical things talked to her in a way she couldn't get from other humans. She even got along better with an AI than she had with any other human she'd met. Maybe the man was the same way and that was why everyone called him Tinker instead of his real name.
"Well, it's not something we're really thinking about," she continued in an attempt to break the awkward silence with the older man. "It’s something to talk about as we make our way to the bunker to see if we can help the people there."
"I can understand that." Tinker sounded a little relieved. "Priorities are important and all that. Hammerhand will likely keep us moving through the night to make sure we reach the bunker in time to help them. Although I guess you can move faster in that Minato. Tell me, does it operate with the Bulletfoot mode? Is that what the others were talking about when they said you moved on all fours?"
Jessica13 hadn't expected someone to know about the Bulletfoot mode. She hadn't found any reference to it in the manus she'd been able to get her hands on so it had surprised her when it happened the first time.
Bulletfoot One Page 20
