Hawker almost felt like he was made of meat and water by the time they were done: Celn had lost so much of his own bodily moisture that even his own olfactory sensors were hit with the smell of stale, sweaty air when he opened up for the last time that day. If Chris looked like he’d lost a few pounds, then that weight was definitely in water, and it was dripping out the bottom of the cockpit.
His words were halting and a little slurred, but the mech knew he’d learn to switch between neurospace and meatspace with much less fallout as the days went by. Eventually, the transitions would be almost seamless.
“Dismissed,” the giant mech said, watching as the scab staggered out.
—
Twenty minutes later, and Hawker was back at his slab as techs hooked him up for a fluid flush. They had a habit of acquiring contaminants after the use of firearms, and though it was in the parts-per-million, Hawker wasn’t going to wait until carbon and metal buildup in his hundreds of feet of hosing caused him physical pain before filtering them out. He preferred being in top working order, and was a stickler for preventative maintenance.
Another tech was cleaning out his cockpit. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he worked, spraying and wiping down every surface in there. Hawker could feel the rag against the seat. “You really did a number on him, didn’t you?”
Most of Hawker’s sensors were offline. He was enjoying his respite from the inputs. “They call it the hot seat for a reason, Thule.”
“Yeesh. Glad I never went to scab school.”
“What,” came the taunting voice of the other tech on a gantry behind him. “You couldn’t even handle drone duty?” she laughed.
“Fuck that,” he snorted. “Have you seen the weight those guys put on, sitting in those chairs all day? No thank you, I enjoy not being a fat-ass.”
Hawker scowled, and let out a growling rev of his internals. The humans flinched.
“Sorry boss, we’ll pipe down.”
“You’d better.”
—
The mech was mulling over a newsfeed – the conglomeration of 47 different agencies around the world – when words barged into his foreprocessors.
It’s Chris Celn, they said. What time do I report for training tomorrow?
Two four-hour intensives was usually Kole’s recommended training day: one for strength and endurance training, the other for firearms training. Though he would rarely be firing a gun with his own two hands, it was beneficial to be intimately familiar with the scaled-down versions of Hawker’s arsenal, and to get good at using them with his own body. The 50-caliber pistol would be traded for a 9mm sidearm, the rifle for a custom-made gun-mortar using 60mm shells as ammunition (to be filled with rubber for practice purposes), among others.
There were so many other things that needed to be done before the two of them could even think about leaving the precinct, though: emergency controls, escape in the case of Hawker’s total failure, the basics of navigating civilian infrastructure without causing millions in damage, as well as training for the possibility of going up against an enemy mech as a human.
Hawker had played the part of gang mech during several such demonstrations, but one-on-one demos were usually reserved for command-track officers, raid unit leaders, and the rare scab who would be operating on the street and away from other human support. The psychological stress of being hunted down by a massive death machine on foot was formidable enough. It would someday be important for Celn to know how to put up a fight.
But that was for later. He had other things to master first.
0600, he replied. Arms practice first in the officer’s shooting range, break, then cardio and weights with a trainer. For that, you’re to use a wireless plug so I can monitor your progress remotely.
Chris watched as the response appeared on his phone. He texted back ‘Affirmative’, not noticing that somehow the background of his phone had changed to a promotional shot of an HLX-9 standing victoriously on the smouldering ruins of an enemy tank. THe phone went back into his pocket and he finished his drink. He needed to sleep. He needed to download another chapter of Hawker’s manual before their next session. He’d do it tomorrow. He didn’t want thing touching his interface port except for a pillow. He’d just put the tray with the other dirty dishes when..
“Hey, rookie. Yeah you!” Chris turned to find himself looking at another scabber. Well, scabber really wasn’t the right work. The man is hispanic, in his forties, still looked to be in decent shape. THe interface on his neck looked as natural as possible. Professional pilot for sure. “I’m Ferdinand. I’m gonna help you up to your new dorm. You’re in room 8A now. Floor 8 is where they keep all of us. At least, those of us who stay at the station. Not much good housing around 42.”
Chris blink at him. SUre the words went in but, he didn’t feel like talking. A long moment passed, enough to be an uncomfortable pause. He raised his hand and shook Ferdinand’s. “Chris. CHris Celn. I’m.. tired..” he spoke a a calm, near-monotone.
“Shit kid. I know Hawker is tough but you look like you spend 4 days out there,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate outside. “Not 4 hours on the range. C’mon. I’ll help ya out.”
A duffel bag and a backpack were all that were needed to contain Chris’s possessions. If Ferdinand found it weird that Chris had no photographs, toys, books. He didn’t even have non-police issued clothes. Outside of a smart phone and it’s charger.. Chris was devoid of materials. The rookie tucked away the certificates from the police academy and scab school. (Technical Certification of Mind Machine Interface. A Rating.)
Ferdinand led Chris to the elevator, carrying the duffel for the rookie. “Right so there’s usually 12 of us here. Most good pilots get transferred where we’re needed. Drone guys usually are centrally located. They can remote from anywhere, so they’re in nice neighborhoods. THose of us in tanks tend to get rotated, so we keep the AIs regularly exercised. Tanks don’t go out much. MRAV pilots tend to stay for a while. THose go out daily.”
Floor 8 is pleasant. Doesn’t look like it’s 60 years old. Fresh paint on the walls. There’s a kitchen that looks clean and well used. THere’s a living area with couches, and a TV showing the mid-day news. A woman waves, she’s got a can of soda and a plate piled with potato chips. She’s a pilot too. Everyone on this floor is. “Hi rookie.” SHe offers pleasantly, before turning to watch TV and getting a face full of starch and sugar.
Room 8A is the first on the right. The computer is far newer. The interface cable looks long enough to reach the bed, it’s a real bed too. Not a cot like down below. THere’s a small table with two chair and a large closet. Chris and Ferdinand up pack into it. The two plastic framed papers get stood on the otherwise empty desk. “So uh, Welcome to 42’s penthouse.”
The other man gestured for Chris to follow him out. He Opened the fridge.. oh wow. Sodas, Lunch meat, bottle water. THe pilots probably kept a private provision list going. What go Chris’s attention is the orange juice. He grabbed one, and followed Ferdinand to the couches. THe woman turned off the TV. “I’m Jane. You’re Chris, right? We’ve.. we’ve all been watching. What’s it like?”
“Yeah! What’s it like to pilot him? I bet he’s like a drill sergeant. All business.” Jane shook her head. “Nah. I bet he’s cold. That stuff he does with humans is an act. He’s pure logic at his core.”
Chris stared at them. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. If he’d been given any other job, he’d probably get bouncing off the walls in excitement. He sure a fuck wanter Hawker. But the mech had simply ground him down today. And gave no signal that it would do anything but continue to crush him with each session until it was satisfied.
“The .. the Vanguard is strong.” He admitted, opening his drink. Man. So good, the acidic bite. The sweetness. He remembered fighting and trading food in public housing. Sadly, those are his good memories. “It’s the storm. I do your job. Or he’s not interested in me.” his words are slow, they come out with careful enunciation.
Jane sighed. “Sorry Rook. You’re burned out. How about we watch some mindless TV and you hit the sheets early.” SHe turned it back on, changing the channel to a popular show. THe host cackled, smooching each of the beautiful women he had on each arm. ‘I’ll buy THAT for a dollar! Haw haw!’
—-
At 0530, Chris’s phone went off. Shower. Clothes. Breakfast. He rode the elevator to the officer’s shooting range. Colburn wasn’t there, but a tech and a SWAT guy is. Both are failing not to smirk. CHris had a coffee in hand. He looked better. Normal-ish. “What?” he asked.
The tech held it out. The SWAT Officer, a hand black man who probably had to duck through doorways, guffawed. Chris knew logically it made sense. Wireless interfaces were difficult. You could wear one as part of a helmet. Or as part of body armor. But if you were expected to be wearing training clothes, like he is..
then a collar made logical sense. But did the collar have to be so obvious? He strong suspected that if they’d have more time, then It’d have tag dangling that mentioned just who he belonged to.
He sighed. On it went. THe tech ensured that the power charge is good, then flicked on the transmitted keyed to Hawker’s personal frequency. THe carrier message included a few mentions of leashes.
“Heh! Well greenhorn, I’m SWAT Marksman Preston. And Today, and for the foreseeable future we’re going to be doing weapon drills. As much as the HLX-9 enjoys tearing up the range, all that ammunition is expensive. THe stuff we’ll be firing is a fraction of the cost. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be able to use your weapons like you’d been born with them.” The man gestured to the range where a table with weapons.. and a literal cart of munitions sat.
“Let’s start with your stances. Pick up that 9mm and take your time. Uh-huh. Alright. Standard footing. But here…” And it began. THe first hour had been going through each of the weapons, practicing holding them, standing, going into position. Preston often moving the rookie into place, showing the smaller scab the right ways to movie, even pressed up behind him, reaching around to adjust how he held a weapon.
——
As Celn finished lunch, he made sure to wash his hands again. They still smell of gunpowder. He like Preston. The man had a genuine interest in weaponry and showed off some impressive skill when taking down targets. He is looking forward to seeing him in two days. Training on the range is calming.
——
“You’re shitting me.” remarked the man wearing a baseball hat, tank top and track pants. His near-perfect physique made him look like a model. Despite being just three inches taller than Chris, he must have had 50 pounds, easy. “You’re the scabber who lasted 4 hours on day 1? With Big Nine? I don’t fucking believe it.” He crossed his arms, leaving back in an impressive display of anatomy.
Chris ‘s eyebrows pinched inward and his normal smile turned into a frown. He looked up and met the brown eyes of the trainer. “4 hours, 15 minutes. And lasting is a good way to put it. Are you going to help me make that 8 hours?”
The man unfolded his arms, brushing the tinies ball of white lint off his left pectoral. “Yeah. I can do it. But I don’t think you got what it takes to keep up. We’ll start you with cardio. Once you’re warmed up, then it’ll be weights. I’d say we’d do just arms today but..” he rolled his eyes and scoffed “Pretty sure you’ll be limping outta here after two hours on the machines.”
The thing about Deep Field 2 was that, aside from being a quantum system, its design was twofold: the operating system was structured around associative pattern recognition, which is what made Hawker’s uncannily human-like thought processes possible. Unlike a human, though, every single program he ran, every single sub-routine, was transparent to him if he so chose to pay attention. Most of the time, that kind of conscious management was undesirable and unnecessary. He was equipped with incredible amounts of processing power, sure, but he still had to delegate to hindprocessors. So in that way, the engineers behind DF2 took inspiration from octopus intelligence: brains in every tentacle, so to speak.
This was all a very involved way of explaining how Hawker was in possession of a scope of attention, and of a limited ability to multitask compared to more traditional computing systems.
So he had to ‘check in’ on Celn’s progress throughout the morning. He turned his attention to the information that the wireless was transmitting to him, the blips of thoughts and sensations and numbers data. Preston was a capable trainer, and one of Hawker’s favorite people to discuss matters of weaponry with. Celn was in good hands.
The mech had intended on focusing on other things – run of the mill police work; filing reports – but Chris’s performance in the range intrigued him enough to keep him glancing back in through the little window that the wireless provided. The “collar”, he remembered with a faint chuckle. It took a lot to distract Hawker from work, admittedly. Colburn tried every once in a while, and he’d usually retaliate by shutting off power to her shop.
—
Hawker wasn’t familiar with the personal trainer, though. Must be new, he thought, cocking his head and diving into 42’s server to pull up his file. Yes, he was new. Started a month ago, recruited from some bougie neighborhood where he’d go train people in their own homes. Shit, Chicago still has money like that? Whatever, so long as the man produced results.
The mech kept a wary, proverbial eye on the situation in the gym as he went about his business. Kole had his hands full today with a double-homicide, otherwise he’d ask the brass to come in and give the rookie a few pointers.
As Chris jogged on the treadmill at a heartrate of 195, the trainer conferred with a few others over the rookie’s goals in the shared office.
“What the hell is this? Am I supposed to train that shrimp up or wha?” Alvin Yorker is a contract employee of the state. Buff, strong jaw, looks good in tight clothes. One of 20 people hired by a city wide initiative to combat ‘doughnut belly.’ Not that it was a bad idea, but trying to motivate a cop into putting down confectionary by hiring cute trainers? There’s been worse plans.
Alvin rolled his bright blue eyes, his carefully styled hair looking perfect as he check himself out in one of the many mirrors. He looked over the chart that’d been helpfully provided from some .. Captain Hawk. Captain Hawker? Whatever. “This is seriously nuts. How the hell am I supposed to pack twenty pounds of muscle on the runt and boost his endurance?” The other trainer shrugged her shoulders. The woman is in her forties with the body of a twenty-two year old. A fit 22 year old. “Look, it’s not a bad plan. Do like 45 to 60 minutes of cardio. Then once his stomach’s settled have him protein pre and post workout.”
The only police employee in the room had different feelings on the matter. He’d put money down on Chris making it two hours before passing out. The scab had endurance. THat ment on days when he’d be in the gym, there would be no respite. The two gym bunnies didn’t know why some young rookie suddenly became a priority; they just needed to get him in proper fighting shape. “The goals are 20 to 25 pounds of muscle, so that’s getting him up to 170 to 175 pounds. Able to do a five minute mile. 13.5 Seconds for a 100m sprint. 4:30 marathon. Climbing training, swimming training. Then, once he’s in shape there’s a schedule to keep him there.” He drank from the cup of coffee on his desk. “So, no big deal. Turn that 145 pound kid into an olympic track star.” he shook his head. He got Alvin’s frustration.
“With 3 to 4 days a week training, with a 4 hours window. Weights each time. Swap cardio for swimming or climbing every other session. Get it done.”
Alvin looked at the information that is collated into a datapad. “Fuck man, shoulda just put him in the Marines. Would have made this job easier. Bet he cracks out.” He swaggered out, leaving the others in the office that overlooked the athletics room. He pushed a button Chris’s treadmill, activating the cooldown. “When you finish get a protein drink from the fridge. Get it down your neck before you meet me at the machines.” he gestured at the row of equipment “Gotta see where your strength is at twerp. Then you’re gonna work everything until ya can’t move.”
Alvin looked healthy. His skin had the kind of tan you had to work for. The normal looking clothes had to be tailored to fit like that. Chris felt old.. old habits sparking inside. His trainer would cry, wet his pants if he got a knife on him. THe kind of bitch that’d go down with a jackrabbit punch to the gut, leaving his girl screaming as he made off with the purse and wallet.
He wasn’t like that anymore. He sighed, finishing on the treadmill as he envisioned kicking that moisturised nose in. Therapeutic thoughts. The protein supplement isn’t bad either.
———————-
“GAH!” Chris’s arms felt like noodles. His stomach is on fire. His shoulders are weak and make od bread. He is laying on his back; and his legs refused to give any more movements. “C’mon little dude. THis is just 200 pounds. That’s like, you in wet gear. PUSH IT UP! One more!” Alvin loved talking down to him. Showing off his strong arms and legs as they’d worked out. Embarrassingly, the trainer demonstrated how to do each exercise and didn’t even seem to break a sweat. Chris managed one more, with jelly legs.
“Well, that’ll be okay. I guess.” Alvin examined the sheet, adjusting the values for Chris’s performance. “You’re done for the day. Protein up. Each time, before and after. Gotta grow that muscle. Gonna take a long time on you.” He reset the weight to 0, gesturing for Chris to get moving so he could wipe down the seat and get out for the end of the day. “C’mon. I want to get out before 6.”
Somehow Chris managed to get up to the 8th floor. The communal shower is smaller and featured individual stalls. He took a plastic chair and sat in one, letting the water run over his aching form. Half an hour later he emerged, toweling off and looking in the mirror. A very tired Celn looked back. Wearing a collar. He’d showered with it? Well.. crap. Looked waterproof. He concentrated though the connection. <What time tomorrow Hawker?> He’d barely felt the mech all day.
The mech observed, and he was coming to the conclusion that this Yorker kid wasn’t up to snuff. Who’s goddamn idea was it to bring in a civilian trainer? Hawker didn’t like civilians, didn’t get along with them – they thought differently. They didn’t understand discipline, self-sacrifice, the honors and dishonors of war. Er… policing.
Kole thought they had merits. That they “keep us honest”, to use his words. That may be true, and 42 was certainly one of the most watched police departments in the entire country, with journalists hovering like biting flies. But Kole had charisma, too. He knew how to play the game.
But Kole was busy, so he paged somebody else in admin who might know who bungled this decision.
“Uh huh?” came the voice on the other end of the line. It was Sam Thatcher, one of the pencil-pushing project managers upstairs. Probably forgot how to use his gun years ago.
“Who hired Alvin Yorker?” Hawker cooly demanded.
“H-Hawker, sir,” Thatcher stammered. The mech could almost feel the man straighten up in his chair, tug at his collar. “We, uh… as you know, we restructured the whole workout program last fall after Graves left…”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Thatcher swallowed. “Uh, I did, sir.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Well, what… what don’t you like about him? We could sit him down and -”
“He’s a goddamn meathead, Thatcher. You should have pulled somebody from D.C. They’ve got a good program there.”
“With all due respect, sir…
“With all due respect, you’re going to work on replacing him. Leave Kole to me.”
“Yes, sir.” A mumble.
“Excuse me?”
“N-nothing, sir.”
“Replace him. That’s an order.” The line closed. Hawker had heard the man, actually: Fuckin’ jarheads.
—
When Hawker checked in on Celn again, the first thing he sensed was water. Steam. Slow, heaving breaths. Exhaustion.
The kid was in the shower.
The mech lingered there for a while, just on the edges of his awareness. A silhouette in the shadows. To what end? A few minutes passed, and Hawker realized it was to no real end at all. And still, he was there. Watching in silence as the human nursed his feeble body, almost fallen asleep in that chair. He wondered if the collar was still worn intentionally or not – probably not.
<What time tomorrow, Hawker?>
The mech stepped out of the shadows. <0700. We’ll be in the crash room for emergency training.> He sent something across their connection that suggested the probability of further exhaustion for Celn.
<Yorker is right about one thing: your protein intake needs to be higher.> A picture of Lee flashed in his memory. The man was 5’10” – Hawker’s cockpit would have been impossible for anyone over 6-foot to occupy – but built like a tank. In the photo he was working on something that required a heavy-duty torque wrench and cheater pipe. There was grease on his forehead from where he’d wiped the sweat from his brow. In the background was Colburn, laughing as usual. Lee was special, the simple flash of memory seemed to say. You need to be special in order to cut it too.
In the climate controlled offices, Thatcher got to work. Yorker had a list of complaints three times the size of his compliments. Hmm. Putting in a request to the main office for one of other trainers, he fast-tracked Alvin toward getting out. He looked over the complains again. He winced, forwarding three to HR. It was looking more like Alvin Yorker is going to be going back to making rich housewives happy. Probably by Friday.
————————-
Chris started at the Photograph of Lee. Hawker had an aura of emotions around the man. Subtle, but there they were. No one had talked about Hawker’s former pilot to him. For all Chris had known, Lee had retired.
But he knew that wasn’t the case. Not now. The way Kole was laughing. Kole had been dead serious yesterday. And that machine part looked like part of the mech’s left foot? Hm. One of those complex and oversized joints for sure. The man looked like an advertisement for masculinity. Stubble on the chin, smooth and well-formed chest. Arms like pythons. CHris felt an attraction to the former pilot. And surprise that.. that it is expected that he’ll have the same build.
He looked into the mirror, knowing that Hawker was sharing his vision at the moment. Technically, he could vaguely sense that the mech was in the motor pool. But he had -no- desire to get a head full of datafeed before tomorrow. <Yes sir. Emergency Training, 0700. I’ll download those chapters tonight.> At the mention of Yorker, there’s a definitive flash of anger. Chris wanted to deck the jerk. <I’ll eat more protein.>
He looked at his small, weak body. The way his smooth skin hugged his taunt form. Some muscle here and there. Nothing like Lee. But, Hawker did say it. Celn could be special. All it’d take, is giving everything to being the mech’s partner. His hands form into fists. <Sir.> He wanted to say something, but not be.. annoying. Rude. Full of confidence he wasn’t sure he could back up. <I won’t let you down.> Then he put the chair back in it’s home and walked out with the towel around his waist.
“Looking good rookie.” Laughed the two women in the main area of floor 8. Jane still, and a woman of Chinese descent. Chris gave them a playful wave. “Wearing a collar already? Geez. Just don’t sleep with it on.” Chris did a quick dress up, before going down to the mess for dinner. Triple protein. He is hungry, but he had to force himself to pack down the last of the stuff down. Ugh. Definitely needed to do breaks between eating that much in the future. He kept burping even after he got back to the 8th floor.
“So, why shouldn’t I sleep with the collar on?” He inquired. THe girls were both playing Halo 7. Jane was busy tea-bagging some member of the red team, while the Chinese pilot sword-rushed an enemy player off the edge of the map. “Cause then things get weird. The AI get to see your subconscious. Can’t really mess with you, maybe a little hypnotic suggestion. But it’s more that you’re dumping constant nonsense, at an uncontrolled rate, into a logical AI. Makes ’em grumpy.”
“Oh yeah. THanks. I need to get about 300 pages of procedures into my head so..” NIGHT! they both chime, concentrating on the screen. “Night.”
Chris shut the door of his room. On the desk, sat something new. Charging cradle for the collar. He thumbed the disconnect, waiting for it to shut down before taking it off. Less then five minutes later he is laying in bed. Alarm set for 0630, and the downloads queued up. He’d be hurting physically all day tomorrow..
8-{Chapter 3, What to expect when the worst happens..}-
Like a reflection out of the corner of his optics, Hawker could see Celn through his own eyes in the mirror. He was lean; quick and wiry and smooth. Scarred, also, from years out on the streets. Procedures. But memories of his own flashed too: a knife in somebody’s side; dodging a fist; scaling a wall to reach the safety of a second-story window as bullets dusted the concrete at his heels.
It was a wordless exchange, and the two of them suffered the imposing presence of the other for a few long moments before Celn broke the neurospace silence.
<I won’t let you down.>
In the motor pool, Hawker vented hard. Clenched his own immense fists. But his “voice” was quiet. <That’s what I like to hear, greenhorn.>
—
The mech was waiting in the crash room, surveying the equipment and rubbing his chin well before the scheduled time. It’d been almost eight years since he’d done these routines last, and the place was eerily similar to the last time that he was in here. One wall was outfitted with the facade of a 3-story building, the opposite end was piled with junked cars, and between the two was scattered concrete rubble. Off in the corner was an assortment of crash pads: thick slabs of foam to break the fall of a human at the mercy of gravity.
There would be two phases to this exercise: breaking neurospace under a variety of emergency situations as overseen by Colburn, and engaging with the mech as machinery. Celn would need to be able to scale every inch of the HLX-9, would be able to need to jump from any point on his body to the ground and land safely. He would also need to be able to make emergency boardings as well – say, leaping into Hawker’s hands from a third-story window during a firefight.
Today would be the day that Hawker officially touched Chris Celn with his hands for the first time as well. The mech had a hangup about it – it seemed below him, to manhandle humans who hadn’t earned his respect. But Celn, whether he could admit it or not, was beginning to earn his respect. He had to admit that he made it here to begin with – the other scabbers had been flimsy and feeble-minded. But Celn, well… he was a survivor. Perhaps a kind of soldier in his own way.
Panoptic sensors alerted him to a presence in the control room on the mezzanine, though. Hawker glanced over his shoulder and saw Colburn give a little salute through the thick glass. She fixed a headset into place and adjusted the mic.
“We doin’ alright this morning?” she asked, her voice sounding in his head.
<I’m ready to bust some balls, if that’s what you’re asking.>
He could see her laugh and shake her head. “You know what I mean, Big Nine.”
Indeed, he knew what she meant.
<It would be an impossible scenario to recreate in here,> Hawker effectively muttered.
“You plan on training for it at all?”
<I don’t know.>
Lee had ultimately died at the hands of a gang mech, another HLX-series; a knock-off made in Ukraine. Hawker’s DF2 OS had been offlined by a targeted EMP attack, his cockpit torn open to expose the fragile human inside, now piloting a dead machine with nothing but sheer force of will. What Lee should have done was maneuvered Hawker’s body to fall in a way that would provide cover as he escaped, discharging flares before making a run for it during the few seconds of confusion. But he didn’t. He fought to the bitter end trying to save them both.
“You should teach him how to fall, at least.”
<I plan on doing that much.>
Colburn nodded, and Hawker went back to choreographing.
Chris woke sometime around 2 in the morning. He’d fallen asleep connected to the training database. His mouth felt like a dumpster. Ugh.
Disconnect. He stumbled to the bathroom. Biological functions. Wash hands. Brush teeth. Stumble back into room 8A.
BREEP BREEP BREEP! *THUMP*
“uuuuuuuuugh…”
Chris ached. It was a struggle to sit up. He looked down at his body. No bruises. It felt like he’d been beaten. And he would know what that is like. “Buh.” he commented to the room.
Make bed. Shower. Two ibuprofen. Suit up. Someone left the TV on, was showing morning cartoons. Looked like He-Man. Skeletor’s shrill voice spoke as Chris snagged a juice. Apple this time. ‘And now, you muscle brained fool, Skeletor shall be the cause of your witless kingdom’s demise! Neh Heh Heh!’ Elevator took him down to the mess.
Protein shake. Eggs. Sausage. Bacon. One pancake. As the rookie packed the food away, one of the beat cops looked at him; noting the modified pilot suit that clung to him skin tight.
“How can ya eat that crap, kid?”
Chris looked up at the a guy who couldn’t’ be more then 10 years older. Maybe 30, 35? But.. damn did he look weathered. Chris smelled cigarette smoke. Stains on the fingers. A little pudgy. Holding a plate with doughnuts and bacon. Moustache.
THe rookie blinked. Swallowed, washed it down with the protein shake. “Tastes good to me.” And if to prove a point, he packed it a way while the other man shuddered. “Kid, ya know that stuff’s just reconstituted soy & whey proteins? The pancakes are cardboard. Only decent food around here are the doughnuts. They get baked and sent in. Along with the coffee.” Powered sugar sprinkled onto the front of the beat cop’s uniform.
Chris wiped off his mouth with one of the rough napkins. Tray on the pile, trash in the can. He got himself a styrofoam cup of coffee. Black. “You’re right. Coffee is great here.”
The man munched his doughnut and shook his head. Unless the kid had a cast iron gut, he’d be regretting eating from the stuff the robots in the mess made. You really couldn’t call it food!
————————–
Colburn watched the security feed quietly. So far Chris had been on time. She didn’t tell Big Nine, but she wasn’t going to let the greenhorn sleep in at least for the first month. After that point, she knew the AI would be happier to scold the pilot for her.
No one waiting to pounce on him this morning. Chris was expecting it today. He frowned, and walked through the winding hallways and the fluorescent lighting. How old were some of these sections? The station took up a huge amount of space. Probably because no one cared if it expanded into the crumbling buildings that make up the local area. He did manage to follow the signs into the room, pushing open the door at 0658. Early. For once.
He walked slower then before and listed to the left. Sore all over, and likely would be feeling it until he finally got some beef on his frame. Coffee, coffee, coffee! The stimulant at least got his brain kicking into gear. Chris took in the impressive sight of the crash room. “It looks like a school for stuntmen in here.”
Overhead, the Chief Engineer spoke over the PA. “You aren’t far off.” Chris turned, putting a hand over his eyes to try and see if Colbrun was alone int he booth. She seemed to be. “You won’t be getting rid of me for some time scabber. I get to watch and observe until we’re sure you’ve fit in.” Chris turned the hand into a thumb up in acknowledgement.
He walked up to Hawker, the mech looking taller and taller as he approached. About twenty feet from the mech, Chris felt tiny. How the hell could anyone hope to get away from Hawker, once the guns came out? It was a sobering thought, knowing that with just by taking a careless step, the mech could end him without noticing.
He pulled himself up straight and saluted.
“Reporting for training, Sir. Permission to board.”
The kid smelled like breakfast when he stepped in, looking refreshed. Well, as refreshed as he was gonna get for a while. He was about three pounds heavier than when Hawker last saw him, though – most of it just in the kid’s gut still, but some of his meals were already being put to work as tissue. Excellent.
“Reporting for training, sir. Permission to board.”
Hawker just popped his hatches and gestured for the kid to climb up.
“He always that serious?” Colburn asked the mech directly.
<Seems so. His professionalism is a nice change to what I normally see around here.>
His sensors told her she’d started laughing up in the observation room. After a moment: “You’re a match made in heaven, then.”
<You playing matchmaker?>
“Who, me?” She gave a tight-lipped smile and glanced away. “Never.”
Hawker shook his head, rolling his optics as Celn seated himself inside. The mech closed up, activated linkup procedures, and felt the metal plug slide into the hole in the back of Celn’s head and seat with a satisfying click. Neurospace engaged, with Colburn watching. Their consciousnesses met, danced, and sunk into each other.
It was getting easier.
“How’s the view, Chris?” Colburn asked after they’d settled down. “All the human stuff looks weird from that high up, doesn’t it? Well it’s like I tell my pilots, just pretend you’re a size-changing superhero or whatever. It helps to give the brain something to work with while you adjust.”
Hawker was sensing that Celn was looking at the room with a little disorientation; processing the cars like they were toys, the building like it was a dollhouse. Whatever worked, really. He knew they’d encounter this again the first time they’d be in the presence of another human while Celn was hooked up to the big mech. Usually pilots had to fight the urge to reach out and start poking at the person – usually Kole, who was a good sport about it – to make sure they were real. Colburn didn’t quite count, being in a dark room behind glass. It created the psychological illusion that she wasn’t really in the same place as the two of them, maybe even just a figure on a TV screen, depending on Celn’s level of dissonance. He’d learn, though. And from what the mech had seen so far, he’d likely learn fast.
<We’re going to start with basic maneuvering again,> Hawker ‘said’. <I’m dead weight. Get me from here to over there.>
—
It was about an hour of his pilot taking the helm, expanding his consciousness to fill more of the machine. They did this in the range, and after a little re-acquaintance, Celn was more or less able to move Hawker’s body as his own on the uneven terrain. By the end, they managed to cross 200 yards of broken concrete in all of 12 seconds.
But now it was time for the hard part.
“Chris, we’re going to start you learning quick-disconnect techniques,” Colburn said. “Let me see what you normally do, and I’ll give you some pointers on making a cleaner break. We’ll use that to practice the other emergency routines. Eventually, I’d like to see you go from full neurospace to stepping out onto the hatch in about 4 seconds. Any slower is a big liability for the both of you.”
Hawker had seen into Chris’s mind. As the rookie settled in and felt the secure embrace of the restraints surrounding him; he closed his eyes and let the connection complete.
When he opened them, Chris was 8 again. He could distinctly remember the last days before he’d been moved out of the foster home. He’d been well behaved, as good as any 8 year old boy. Something about the family he’d been with. They always were so nice to him. THen the public servants came. Chris never knew why they had to move him back into the public housing. Just that he never got to play with fun toys like those again. And he always had to share. He wanted to crouch down, put his hand over the car and move it while making engine noises with his lips. He wanted to touch the dollhouse, to play with the tiny life inside. Make it perfect.
Perfect.
Chris felt.. unprofessional. Briefly. That isn’t how a policeman acts. He took a deep breath and held it, exhaling the tension and the desire to be childish out with it.
He keyed the button that allowed him to speak. He didn’t feel right co-opting Hawker’s voice. Moving the mech’s face as his own. Them speaking together would be fine, but he felt too much respect and awe toward the AI to be so rude. This is Hawker. He is the pilot. One of the PA loudspeakers built into the mech keyed up with a soft chirp. “It does all seem so small.” he agreed “I’ll try to keep that in mind ma’am.”
————————————-
Chris wished he could do the whole, ‘Just pretend it’s your body’ thing. Even the manuals referenced that he should be able to subconsciously work the mech like his own limbs. But hawker is huge! Master Yoda might have said ‘size matters not’, but he was wrong. Hawker is LARGE! And Chris hand to think about moving those colossal limbs. Weird, uneven surfaces are easier, as he had to concentrate where to put each limb. The flat surfaces annoyed him, as just trying to imagine running didn’t quite work out. He’d thump the mech’s ‘boots’ against each other. He needed to learn to run, to move like the mech did. Like a guy who had way more muscle then the skinny rookie possessed. But he managed. Just keep those legs widely set, arms move outward, don’t try to draw them in. Hawker isn’t skinny!
————————————
He keyed the PA again. “Allright. Standard disconnect.” Hawker is taking it easier on him today and he is thankful. The mech wasn’t dumping the full feeds continuously into him, letting the human concentrate on the various tasks. Eyes closed, restraints up, connection off, hatch open. Perfectly reasonable course of action, and in the motor pool or the training courses, it’s fine.
The 15 seconds it took was not fine. Then it truly began, and the engineer’s ruthless drive for efficiency showed. Colburn was merciless! “This isn’t about pretty, Clean. You are diving into the mech while under fire. Jump in, plant you butt in the seat and hold still!” Chris stood on the lowest part of the entry hatch. For the sake of getting this part right, Colbrun wasn’t going to make him climb up each time. “Now, do it.”
Chris hauled himself in, twisting around with his hands and feet, pressing firmly against the seatback. Until now the restraining system and the automated helmet/interface had moved slowly. With mechanical whirrs and clacking joints that seemed soothing. There’d been the illusion that he could’ve escaped their embrace. With a high pitched whine, the multi-sectional system snatched him like a mechanical predator. In about a second! As the interface plate contacted his implant, the connection fired up and a frozen Chris faced the dual vision of the crash room and the closing of the chest plates.
“6.6 Seconds. MUCH better. You wasted time on the entry.” She fed video to the greenhorn, showing how he’d wasted precious moments putting down his feet several times. “I know you aren’t up to the physical requirements, but you should pivot on one foot, use your hands and fall back into place.” A standard disconnect. Then fast entry. Twenty six times! At that moment, AChris finally seemed to get it. Foot on door, hand to handle, turn, use free hand and foot to keep moment. Free hand and foot land on controls as I let go. Fall into seat with motion. Press the rapid interface button. Hawker could snap up around him, but it is better to have that last part ingrained into the procedure.
“4.8 seconds. I don’t think you’re going to get better until you’ve the strength to throw yourself around. It’s passable for now.” Coburn noted, her voice sounding pleased. She enjoyed Chris’s determination as well. “About that disconnect..”
—————–
Chris is perspiring, his vision blurry. He wanted to cry. The continuous breaking and initialisation of himself into the Deep AI’s neurospace had given form to a new kind of pain. He didn’t even know that it would be possible to experience his nerves being on fire. But that’s the sensation, or as close as he could put the unpleasant experience. “Again scabber!” came Colburn’s professional prodding. “You should be able to do this easily, and at least 20 a day. At speed.” With a growl, Chris lunged into the pilot’s chair. TUrn, foot and hand back, fall, initiate.
He is Hawker, 15 feet of — <Drop!>
Infinite Mirror Syndrome had been something to avoid yesterday. Now it greeted him like an old friend. At least it is a different kind of pain. THe restraining system pulled back, the connection severing as he pushed up, and fell onto his knees, chest hitting the lower place of the hatch. Wind knocked out of him, his arms, head and shoulders dangled over the edge. He coughed. Sucked in a wheezing breath as he winched, feeling embarrassed for tripping on the way out. <IDIOT!> he thought to himself, wiping a hand over his face. That drill had been perfect!
“D..” he rolled onto his side and slid in towards the cocpit, needing to take a break. He’d fallen onto one of the many lumps of protruding equipment and gotten a bruise on his ribs for sure. “Did.. I make it in time?”
The mech had been concentrating on the tasks at hand, and staying quiet – even quieter than normal. He attempted to limit the distractions that Celn would have having, because Hawker really did want the kid to get this down. This was important to him. This was a matter of life and death. No, this had been a matter of life and death.
The memories came, and he shielded them from Chris with stoic fervor. The last thing he wanted was to bombard the kid with his previous pilot’s memories of dying while he was trying to learn how to survive. He didn’t need to know what had been recorded into the mech’s black box from Lee’s last moments. Nobody did. But Hawker demanded they not be erased.
—
The weight of the machine falls into him as the EMP detonates, his consciousness ripped away and replaced with a searing void. Lee’s showered with sparks as the HLX-9, his partner, experiences a complete system failure. The great mech sways, lurches backward, and with a haggard cry Lee forces control of his friend’s body, grabbing onto the side of a building to keep upright. The panes of glass explode and rain down onto the street below.
“I need backup!” he shouts hoarsely into his comm mic, but it’s all static. Hawker’s radio had been taken offline too. He tries again. “I repeat, this is Davidson, requesting backup..!” It does no good.
With Hawker’s sensors offline, Lee’s sitting blind. He rips off the helmet, his head still locked into the cranial stabilizer, and reaches for a big red button hidden closely to the side of his seat, protected behind a plastic cover.
BA-BA-BA-BOOM
The hatches blow off, and the acrid stench of battle and machinery hits his nose. But there’s no time to get his bearings. The heavy CHUKKA-CHUKKA-CHUKKA of machine gun fire off to his right rips through the building beside him. Some of the bullets graze the smooth, geometric paneling of Hawker’s arm; others tear in, sending oil and coolant spatter flying.
It’s an HLX-6. A squatter, headless model; more tank-like, and with no personality to contend with. A true machine. Across its left shoulder is spray painted the blood-red red livery of the Barbarians: a battle-axe and severed leg. And Eastern European gang that got rich off the Siberian Wars.
Lee’s fingers deftly sail across the manual controls, flipping switches and smashing buttons. He’s trying to get Hawker’s body to arm its on-board weaponry, but most of it is offline, and something else is jamming. Lee takes a moment – a moment that feels like forever – as he stares down the barrel of that 50-caliber gun. His ears are ringing, but he can hear his eerily steady breath.
If he turns and runs, they’ll both get blown to pieces. But if he charges… there’s a chance that they could take down the Six before he kills any more good men.
He takes off at a sprint, headed straight for that barrel. Beside him, Hawker’s massive arms swing in time with his 18-foot strides. They reach out to grab the gun, wrench it away, but –
Ka-choom.
Static.
—
Hawker forced himself to be fully present for the next exercises, forced himself to not think about what had happened four months ago. It was for Celn’s sake, he kept telling himself. This was serious.
—
The human inside of him was hurting. He could feel the pain radiate up into his own CPU, and to be honest, after so many rapid reinitializations, the mech was hurting too. He was cycling air constantly to keep up with the processing load, and… ah, fuck it. He had a mind just as much as the human, and he was mech enough to admit when he needed a break too.
For the umpteenth time, their connection severed with a dull stab to his primary cortex, just above Celn’s head, and out spilled the human. His own chest was heaving.
“D-did… I make it on time?”
“Not bad, scabber,” Colburn said over the PA. “3.9 seconds.”
“That’s… sufficient.” No, that was good. “We’ll do more of this next week,” Hawker said, his deep voice made a little bit deeper by his own mental fatigue. “Now c’mon.” He reached in and touched Celn’s shoulder with that massive finger, not really thinking about it. The kid’s body yielded so completely to even that smallest of touches. “Break for lunch, then I need to talk to you about Yorker.”
Meanwhile, Colburn was hastily updating the betting pool.
Colburn felt tremendous satisfaction as bets fell off the short end. Sure, those participating could buy back in, but the money stayed in the pot. She started to draft some possibilities, for afterCeln got approved for duty. She’d seen how the rook pushed. If anything, he’d gotten more tenacious with a day’s break. Still, his vitals were once again looking like crap, and Hawker’s interface subsystem needed a reset and to clear the data caches.
Chris pulled himself up into a seated position. 3.9 is less then four. 4 is the goal. All he needed to do was throw himself into and out of the cockpit like a monkey. Inside the open cockpit, he could hear fans spinning fast to push air through the electronics. He dangled a leg off the edge of the chestplate, looking down at the floor. He did kinda wish Hawker was closer to one of the big foam piles. He wanted to fall into it and sleep.
Something pressed to Chris’s shoulder. He heard the sound of hydraulic and electric motors and actuators closeby. THe touch’s motions are gentle and friendly; like the way someone might put their hand on him’s shoulder, while smiling and saying ‘Good Job.’ Except that his make him twist, the force behind it could’ve pulverised bone. He turned his head, seeing the finger and hand of the robotic giant moving back.
He had never felt fear of Hawker, until that moment. That was barely a poke! The mech couldn’t easily flicked him twenty feet with that finger! Crushed him and.. no. Hawker wouldn’t. The mech wanted to break his new pilot in, not crush in an oversized fist.
Break for lunch…
He’d controlled those fingers. That hand. What would it be like to be held by Hawker? Other feelings came to him. Respect for the machine’s size. Other feelings worked around in the back of his mind. Ones he would need to spend a long, long time deciding on before he ever spoke to the AI about.
..then I need to talk to you about Yorker.
That name dropped the bottom out of the rookie’s daydreaming, and he frowned. Asshole! If he had to spend weeks working with that cocking jerk, Chris is going to develop a grudge.
“Yes sir.” he said with a firm tone, “Will report back when I’ve eaten.”
Chris took his time going down, going easy on the rungs and footholds. He wanted to put and icepack on his implant, pour cold water onto his brain. He leaned forward as he walked out, left hand rubbing the back of his neck. He felt conflicted. He hurt. Gods, did he hurt. THe worst part was that when he tried to pay attention to anything, even concentrating on which elevator button to press, there was a flare-up of fresh agon in his mind. He whimpered, the doors closed and brought him up toward the mess. He pulled the phone from the padded chest pocket, sewn in where none of the restraints would crush it. “OKay google. Give me a 25 minute timer.” He didn’t want to stare at a wall for two hours while Hawker vented and fumed in the crash room.
Lunch was something like a casserole. Chris had to down two protein drinks to meet the dietary requirements he’d been given. The robots in the mess dutifully splatted a second portion onto his tray and he forced himself to finish. <High-grade protein drinks for sure. Something that doesn’t feel like watery cornflakes to eat.> He looked at the timer. 5 minutes left. He put his palms over his eyes and stared at the pretty patterns that formed in the darkness of his closed eyelids. He burped, trying to get a few minute’s peace.
Hawker paced in a loose circle to clear his CPUs. He dumped his cache, feeling the plug of unpalatable information sluice away into the ether. He felt like he could breathe better afterwards. Synched with 42’s servers to relieve himself of a little more mental burden.
Still, his processing centers ached. The mech rubbed at his chest like a human in a commercial with heartburn. It didn’t really help, and he wasn’t sure why he did it – hell, he wasn’t sure why he did a lot of the little things that he did – but he always chalked it up to having been designed by humans. He was a machine, but he was still one of them.
<How much you got riding on us now?> Hawker grunted at Colburn.
“Huh?” She dropped her data pad and played dumb. “Riding on who what now?”
<Kole told me already. And no, I didn’t tell the kid.>
She cleared her throat and shrugged. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she said, looking away. “As of right now, I stand to walk away with 700 big ones.” She tried to keep from sounding proud of herself. “62 of us bought in, there’s only 16 now.”
<Anyone betting on if it kills him?>
“Actually, uh…”
Hawker went rigid and shot her a searing, dangerous look. She fell silent up in the booth, and the mech slowly walked over to the pile of cars. “I get real sick of this place sometimes,” he said with his mouth, the words dripping out with a scowl. His chest still burned, and he suddenly felt restless for something. He reached down for what was once a red sedan, fisting it and lifted it into the air. “I feel like I remember what military life was like…” He tossed it a little, the ton of crushed metal turning lazily in the air before he lifted his massive foot to give it a swift, cacophanous kick. It went sailing at a wall and collided with it at 80 miles an hour. The metal made a horrible sound before hitting the ground and coming to a rest. “…and I feel like that’s where I always needed to be.”
“You can’t go back and you know it,” Colburn said quietly.
He turned around to stare her down. “All I know is that its classified.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“That’s what they keep telling me!” He picked up another car and smashed it into the other one. “It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with those special upgrades, would it?” he snarled.
“Hawker, you’ve just been cooped up in here too long. We need to get you back on the street. And if this is about Lee -”
He turned on his heel and stormed over to the observation deck, shoving his face uncomfortably close to the glass. His yellow optics bored holes into the little woman inside. “Don’t bring Lee into this.” He remembered the way Celn had flinched against his finger.
“Goddammit Hawker, it’s been about nothing but Lee for the past four months! You’re not the only one who lost a friend, you know!”
“You didn’t know him like I did!” The side of his fist collided with the window, and a spiderweb of cracks erupted from underneath it.
“HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker number nine-zero-eight-one, I order you to stand down,” Colburn bellowed over the PA.
Hawker stood there, staring at her as his fist slowly unclenched. The crash room was eerily silent. After a long moment he vented air, took a step back. Lowered his hand.
A blip in sensor range. The mech jerked his head toward the door, and there stood Chris Celn, so small. There was a look of shock on his face. Hawker immediately regretted his outburst. Where did that come from? How long had the kid been standing there? Why didn’t he notice?
“Celn – Chris – I…”
Beep Beep Beep Beep Bee—-*
Chris pocketed his phone, dragging himself out of the seat. Tray away, he got the robots to give him a back of ice cubes. Holding the clear plastic bag to his neck, he wandered back down toward the crash room. He didn’t even get to the elevator before Ferdinand caught up with him.
“Hey Chris! What’s with the bag?” His fellow pilot pressed the elevator button for the same basement level.
Chris spoke softly as the doors closed. “Fast connection and disconnection. Was doing the old in and out.” He waggled his eyebrows to imply something for more naughty.
“Oh man, emergency protocols. I hate that crap. Full cycle too? On a platform with an AI?” The mother man peered at the rookie. “Best I can do on a MRAV is 14 seconds. Not counting the whole, OMG, tank is on fire get out part.”
Chris turned a bleary eye on the veteran pilot, He took the ice pack off and let the condensation drip on the floor. “They.. they had me working to get it under 4. Seconds. Managed 3.9 when hawker sent me to eat.”
Ferdinand laughed for a moment, then his face froze. He reached out and poked at the interface. Chris winced. “Seriously? AI in, AI out in four? Also, you’ve got some inflammation around the implant. You should see a medic.”
Chris sighed, shaking his head. “3.9 Seconds, In and out of AI AND cockpit.” He put the icepack back on. “I”ll see a medic after I’m dismissed for the day.”
——————
Ferdinand followed Chris down the hallway, his own destination ignored. “Don’t screw with me rookie! You’re fucking with me? 3.9? Complete in and out?” THe other pilot had his phone out. Celn seemed dead serious. Looked like he’d been through it too.
Chris sighed, “Yeah. I think we did at least 70 full integration cycles. At least 30 of them were me getting time shaved off.” Ferdinand nodded. He busily tapped on the screen of his phone, filing a big bet on Chris making it. “Hey Ferd?”
“Yeah Chris?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“What?”
“Don’t.. don’t let anyone know. Don’t say how I’m doing. I didn’t show up looking to be in an HLX-9. I woulda been happy running anything they gave me. Now though.. I’m scared. Scared they’ll say I’m not good enough. I mean.. look at me.”
Chris is kinda on the small side pilots. And small for a cop.
Ferdinand shook his head. “Rookie, nothing is a secret with Big Nine. Everyone in 42 watching you two to see–”
*BOOM!* *CRASH!*
Chris looked horrified that the other cops were watching him. The thought of failing now made him feel sick, like he might upchuck. There is legitimate green around his gills. Then the noises start. They both sprint down to the small lobby that empties onto the crash room.
..classified!
The two pilots watched as the mech tossed cars. CARS! like they were footballs. “Don’t go in there.” Ferdinand muttered. As far as HE is concerned, the big dog was about to get a newspaper from Colburn.
Chris whimpered. He put a hand on the push bar to open the door to the crash room. The other man put a hand on Chris’s shoulder, the same one the robot had touched. “You loco! Don’t go out there while he’s angry!”
Chris really, really hoped he wasn’t being stupid. Every instinct told him he needed to be 5 miles away or in that cockpit RIGHT NOW! “That’s my job. Stay back.” came the weary response.
Hawker in angry motion is like watching an angry god. THe machine’s movements made the room shake, the air filled with the sounds of it’s mechanical movements. CHris didn’t even have to think as he opened and closed the door quietly, those previous life skills welling up as he stayed closed to the exit.
How the hell is he going to talk the AI down?
“Goddammit Hawker, it’s been about nothing but Lee for the past four months! You’re not the only one who lost a friend, you know!” Lee. Chris is going to have to address that issue. Maybe he could speak to the AI quietly, stay linked up and forget the rest of today’s training?
“You didn’t know him like I did!”Chris flinched as Hawker punched! He feal real fear from the SPEED! How the FUCK? is something so big so quick? That had to be triple digit speed on impact! And the machine’s hand isn’t hut??
“HLX-9 Vanguard Hawker number nine-zero-eight-one, I order you to stand down” Chris DID know that one. One of the parts from Chapter 4, part 7 {‘So an AI that’s in your brain has decided to kill you. Possible means to not be smote.’}
Chris let the icebag fall onto the ground. He sure as fuck is cold enough now! Chilled to the bone! His instinct told him to run. Run the fuck out and let the mech get shut off for now. He’d never seen the AI be anything but cool or annoyed. Now he’d seen real anger.
But.. Hawker’s face. The mech’s expression squeezed his heart. The 15 foot engine of destruction looked horrified. Like how a pet owner looked when they stepped on their pet’s tail. He knew this is important. Some steel found it’s way into his spine, and the small human stood upright. THe implant on his neck burned along with the rest of his nerves.
“Hawker.” Chris’s face screwed up, he tried to smile and be sincere at the same moment. What the hell should he say to make things right? He felt responsible somehow. He looked up at the booth. “Ma’am. Permission to board the HLX-9 and speak with Hawker. I..” he swallowed, putting his hands behind his back and spreading his feet in a parade rest. “.. want to help. We work better together.”
Colburn eyed the rookie, wondering what his angle was.
“We work better together.”
This is a little beyond your league, she wanted to tell him. Leave the broken machines to the techs to fix. But did she or didn’t she have money on him?
Hawker hadn’t lost it like this since the funeral was over. The mech hadn’t just been invited, he’d lead the escort to the cemetery, he’d made the traditional last radio call, and he’d lead the three volley salute. She’d tried playing shrink here and there, but the AI wouldn’t have it. It seemed like he just wanted to move on.
Apparently not, though.
“Give it a go, Chris,” she sighed. “And Hawker, be nice.”
—
The mech was bristling with shame, but he needed to set this right. Too many more outbursts like this and his days would be numbered, no matter how valuable he was.
He didn’t demand that Chris climb him. Instead, he stepped closer to the kid and gently descended into a kneel; quite the contrast to the damage he’d so easily done just now. His huge, black, five-fingered hand extended toward him, palm up, beckoning, hovering just above the floor. The invitation was obvious.
“I suppose I owe you an explanation,” he rumbled quietly.
Hawker had been standing at the now cracked windows. Then in just four purposeful strides he is looming over the human. The vibrations, the power! Chris is intimidated. Primal panic made his stomach tense and his adrenaline spiked.
The very air washed over him, blowing around him as the massive machine came down to his level. Seeing the HLX-9 kneel felt.. pleasing. Like he was being honored in some childhood fairy tale. Of course, Hawker’s face is still up there. Somehow, it seemed bigger up close. Then his gaze moved and he looked at the hand.
It wasn’t quite as long as the human is tall, but it is much broader. The mech could do more the hold the human in it’s palm. It could make a fist and hold him in that, with his head or feet sticking out. Chris is about 1/3 of the mech’s height, but the machine isn’t quite built to the standards of the human body. Larger torso for a cockpit and machinery. Broader shoulders. But Hawker is close to human, close enough to be considered humanoid. Chris brought his arms out from behind his back, boots crunching on the dirty floor as he walked up. The boots clumped on the metal surface of the palm, the same hand that’d punched the glass.
Thankfully the hand wasn’t laid flat, and Chris sat down; feet on the wrist, holding onto the thumb with his back toward the upturned fingers. He knew Hawker would be careful, but he sit didn’t want to risk falling and having to be caught.
“Yes. We’ve not had a chance to talk about anything aside from my training. And we’ll go back to that. Right now you and I need to speak about Lee. I’m comfortable doing that face to face. And I can go inside, and we can think about it if you’d prefer.” Chris knew the AI had an ego as big as the mech inhabited. He knew how to be the small, supportive figure. He just had to be careful and not appear too vulnerable. Hawker needed him strong.
“We will figure out how to make this work, so you can go back to grinding my mind with your processors.” He winked. “When you aren’t pawning me off to learn to shoot or get yelled at by a gym rat.” he smiled then, warmly. Confidingly to his partner.
What Colburn knew and perhaps Chris didn’t was that the stand down command could be overridden. Deep Field 2 left a lot of room for autonomy – perhaps too much, depending on which Washington shill you asked – but Hawker hadn’t been seized by some programming code designed to break the spell of a negative emotional feedback loop. When he stepped away from that window, he’d simply chosen to reaffirm the chain of command and follow orders.
Because if he couldn’t be a good soldier – now a good cop – he was nothing.
—
Somehow this felt different than all the other times he’d picked somebody up. It was usually business. Or more rarely, camaraderie. He’d picked up Lee many countless times, and it was… natural. Normal. They were each others’ co-pilots and friends. It was just what The Boys did.
Chris was smaller than Lee; like a whippet to Lee’s bulldog. There was no time to be thrilled by the smallness and fragility of humans, by Chris’s hands on fingers as thick around as the kid’s bicep, the scrape of boots on his smooth wrist plating. There was no time; he had a job to do.
“We’ll talk… with you inside. No neurospace.” It would give him the barest sense of distance that he needed, being able to feel Chris but not see him. Surrounding him, enclosing him in a harsh, machine embrace.
“We will figure out how to make this work, so you can go back to grinding my mind with your processors.” He winked. “When you aren’t pawning me off to learn to shoot or get yelled at by a gym rat.”
Hawker looked at the kid with vague suspicion, cocking a brow plate with the frown still on his face. Pawn off..? The barest hint of a smile tugged at one side of his mouth and he shook his head a little.
Slowly he rose to his feet, not taking his eyes off the tenacious little ball of organic tissue in his hand. “Last I checked,” he said, standing at his full height now with Chris not anywhere near eye-level, “I was still captain, greenhorn.”
Then he popped his hatches.
Celn is doing his absolute damndest to present a carefree and relaxed facade. Inside his stomach rolled and sweat dribbled down his spine were it met the piloting suit. He’d lied to cops plenty, now he is doing something far more difficult. Telling the truth! While lying about his physical state. His hand rubbed the finger affectionately, giving a squeeze when he’d been drawn upward.
The truth is that he felt that he owed Hawker. Owed the big mech for giving him a chance. He knew he had an amazing future before him, IF he could keep the mech on it’s feet and himself in it’s good graces.
“I was still captain, greenhorn.”
“Yes Sir. You are my superior.. officer.” he made the pause between superior and officer long enough to be interpretable. WHat he could have meant in that moment could be any number of options. BUT, he was not being coy about his position in the budding relationship. He considered Hawker to be the boss. In control.
Chris waited until that hand is close enough to the open cockpit before getting up to enter. The morning’s training must be sticking, as he rapidly dumped himself in position, his hand landing on the interface control buttons. He had to stop himself from linking them together. He stroked over the seat, wiggled on the comfortable padding. He waited until the hatch began closing before he spoke. He’d be locked inside, where no-one could hear their conversation. This is as private as a conversation can be get.
“You tell me about Lee. You tell me how you feel about him. Tell me about how it all ended. I’m going to be your new pilot or die trying. So, we’re going to do.. do a thing.”
he cleared his throat. “I don’t have any kind of professional training in this. But I have talked friends out of bad trips. And you probably can still feel how it happened. YOu and I are going to figure a way out. We’re gonna play through it. And I’m going to be a live on the other side, and so are you. Then you’re going to remember how we did it, each time you’re feeling for his loss.”
Chris had a tremble in his frame, fear about being so.. so commanding to the machine! He hoped the AI didn’t throw him out now. He hoped that by being the the vulnerable position he is, that Hawker would be willing to listen.
“I’m going to be your new pilot of die trying.”
Hawker almost flinched at that.
“We’re gonna play through it.”
He gave pause, now noticing the trembling in the kid’s body. Hawker rumbled, scowled, let his hand rest against the front of the cockpit for a moment. Was Chris scared of him? The thought made him angry, but no… no, it had to be a little more complicated than that. He hoped so.
“The bond between pilot and machine is deep and enduring,” he said on the inside, not moving his lips. “It’s a kind of brotherhood that words and data can barely begin to describe.” God, this was sounding like a fucking eulogy. Turn it around. “In time, you might be lucky enough to have that.” An uneasy pause. Cycling air. Hands at his sides, fists to keep his fingers busy. “Neurospace,” he said, a quiet command. He hadn’t intended on doing this; he was simply going to… what? Tell him who Lee Davidson was? Like that would have done any of him justice. That would have been merciful, though. “You’ll find what you’re looking for there.”
Hawker spent the next few seconds preparing himself to regret what was about to happen, what the kid was about to see and experience. He didn’t need that. Nobody needed that.
But Chris dutifully pressed himself back into the seatback, and Hawker gently grasped him by the scalp before sliding in. He felt like the protagonist of some Shakespearean tragedy, stroking and embracing a child or a lover as a kind of act of penance before running them through with a sword. They linked without much fanfare, and all was quiet blackness before the mech fetched the contents of the black box and like Pandora, let the horrors out.
—
Chris Celn had been Lee for an agonizing 3 minutes and 48 seconds – the last 3 minutes and 48 seconds that the man had spent as a cogent, loyal, and heroic peace officer. He felt his terror, his pain, his exhaustion, his desperation. He also would have felt his strength and extreme capability, but they were easily overshadowed.
Hawker waited for Chris to recover. It took a while. Somewhere in his CPUs he felt numb and distant, knowing he should have been there to coax his pilot back to stability again, but something in him couldn’t do it right now. So he waited, still as stone, head hung low, and thought about this could very well kill Chris Celn too.
..deep and enduring.. Heh.
Chris had a very different idea on just how he’d be approaching Hawker’s ‘holy vision’ of interfacing. It sounded like something that’d been programmed in. Or military blarg, the shit that generals would spout over the coffins of soldiers trying to justify wars that never end. Didn’t sound like anything that he’d experienced. There’d been no brotherhood with Hawker. Just the Hammer and Anvil of the mech and AI pounding the weak human. He rubbed his hands over his face, exhaling and centering himself.
He really didn’t want to relink. He is hurting, and he didn’t care what is about to hit his brain. He just wanted to not hurt. The mechanics of the restraints were slow. It took well over forty seconds before the interface plates met up, and almost a minute before it seated. Was Hawker picking up on his emotions? Did the mech not want to be plugged into him anym—*
Chris never really knew that such VIVID REAL HOLY SHIT I’M LIVING IT WHAT THE FUCK mental transfers existed. He’d never been hooked up to another human. Never seen inside of a fully visualized death.
He’d felt death though. Death from an overdose, feeling the world go weird. Death from the cold shutting his body down.
Lee was astounding! Chris felt the strength in the man, a man who had arms bigger then Chris’s thighs. The man commanded and was the AI’s equal. He could feel and follow along, his heartbeat syncing up with Lee’s. He worked himself through the motions, seeing Lee as an idealised version of himself. Lee came from a heroic background. He and Hawker had good goo int he world, then came home to fix one of the worst places, to stem the tide of lawlessness that filled the country. Chris could feel the pain coming. Hawker had watched this enough that the moment of the EMP had been slowed down, each second analised to try and figure out some means of escape.
But it hit. THen everything changed. No more multi-sensory vision. Just the Cabin. Lee and Chris moved their hands in unison, touching the same controls, establishing manual control. THe cockpit in Lee’s echo had been wrenched open. In the distance, the other machine mech lumbered and wallowed in destruction. Enemy and allied combatants fought. He and lee looked down at the weapons. Nothing functioning, they had to stop this menace! Lee grappled with the enemy, and CHris tried to help, then the both died.
<Again.> He spoke to the darkness.
Uncertianty?
<Play the recording again!>
It restarted. It happened a second time. A third. Each time CHris tried different rounds of action, different ways to help Lee. In the end, their bodies lay in ruins. THeir guts spilling out.
In the cockpit, CHris’s nose bled into the mask over his face. He game dangerous close to losing sync. His heart beat rapidly and irregularly. Stopping entirely at the same moment as Lee’s.
<Again!> A fourth death. <AGAIN!>
Then, the two pilots broke apart.
The heroic charge, the sacrifice of self over others, victory, the belief that he and the HLX-9 are indestructible! Lee went on to die.
“NOPE!” Chris has no such aspirations anymore. “FUCKIN’ NOPE!” He turned! This is not how a soldier fights in war!
Chris, is no soldier.
Gripping the control sticks, still lost in the vision of the past, he turned the mech and he RAN! He ran from battle! Putting that back armor between him and the threat. The retreat left the allied soldiers to fall, but they’d died anyway with Hawker and Lee destroyed. “Need guns! No guns left!” The vision from the memory was fading. Lee was dieing to the hands of an AI in a lesser mech. A GHost.
And here, a new alteration is unfolding, a different end to the memory, and alternate path. They stood over the ruins of a building. Chris bent the machine down, picking up an I-beam and wrenching it free. In the other he grasped an engine from a ruined car. He lobbed the engine upward, like a tin can. I-beam in both hands, he swung it round with the force of a seasoned sandlot player. *CRACK!* The block went flying, impacting into where the enemy mech was killing Lee. As the ghost of the past faded, Chris found himself holding up the side arm, covering the retreat of their allies. “C’mon you fools! Get out while the gettin’s good!” Came his youthful snarl of the PA.
The warn torn past faded back into the crash room…
Over and over and over again Hawker and Chris relived that recorded memory of the dead man.
Distantly, he watched, endured, as the human lived it. Then, as he struggled against it. Then, as he sought to change it.
Hawker… didn’t know that what Chris was doing could be done. But, he wasn’t human either. It seemed to him, as the data passed around him like a howling wind, that this sort of thing could only be accomplished with wetware. There were things in that memory that the mech knew he could never fully know, but now it was looking like the entire thing was an open book to the younger, smaller, rougher human inside of him. Hawker remained silent, mesmerized. Then memory began to change.
No, that’s not what Lee did…
Where are you…!
The AI couldn’t control the memory like Chris could, and Hawker suddenly felt acutely like a prisoner. Claustrophobic. Get me out. This is not how it ends!
As Chris’s hands moved in time with the ghost controls in his encounter with a long-gone enemy, Hawker tried getting away from the hijacked memory itself. He staggered backward in the crash room, horrified and enraged at what was happening now. Chris’s voice sounded in his head as he taunted those ghosts, for him as real as the chair he sat in, and Hawker backed into the wall, chipping concrete.
It faded. The reel ended for the last time, and inside of him, where in a human a beating heart would be, sat Chris Celn, sneering and barking his triumph.
The mech stayed frozen for a few seconds, a minute, then he abruptly pulled the plug on their connection. It hurt them both, but it didn’t matter. The hatches blew open, the restraints flew off, and Hawker knelt deeply for the sole purpose of letting the kid tumble out of him and onto the ground. Vented heat blew dust into Celn’s face, and Hawker rose to his feet as the scabber was left to figure out what the fuck just happened.
“You’re dismissed,” he said, veiling his rage. Rage at what? Didn’t matter. “Training tomorrow at 0500. Looks like I’ve got a lot to teach you about respect.”
If Chris had seen how Hawker acted, knew the real reason why the connection had been slow to start? Knew if the AI had been touching it’s chest, demonstrating how it cared for him? He might had at least been more respectful. Maybe.
Chris didn’t know where he sat. His eyes swam in a part of the memory that didn’t exist. And it’d been EDITED! His own mind had skewed the black box data. The recording now lasted 4 minutes, 18 seconds. Lee still died. But in the same recording, they’d been a divergence. When Hawker next watched it, or it came unbidden into the AI’s thoughts, the option Chis had created envisioned led to a means to let the AI’s pilot survive. A way to live. A way that led to the kid being the pilot of HLX-9.
This had been another kind of training to the rookie. And situation where Hawker gave him an impossible task and it had been expected of him to excel at it. That’s all Celn felt about editing the sacred memory. He didn’t have the connection to Lee, didn’t feel the heat of the moment. This is a decision that came from knowing where certain death lay. He’d chosen differently. He’d succeeded where Lee’d failed, and did it by following his own instincts.
A pilot that would retreat from combat, retreat from impossible odds, but still look for a way to win.
“ARRRRRRgggggggh…..!” Chris cried out as the connection dropped for the 77th time that day. His hands went to the implant the moment the restraints went free. It felt hot, like it is burning his flesh.
Hawker ‘vomited’ him out onto the dirty floor of the crash room. Dirt mixed into the blood coming from Chris ‘s nose… It’d pooled in the mask, giving him some kind of grotesque goatee of bloodstains. He curled into the fetal position, tears of pain dripping from his eyes as writhed in acute and intense agony. Felt like he is being stabbed in the neck!
“Training tomorrow at 0500. Looks like I’ve got a lot to teach you about respect.”
Chris felt fear now. Fear motivates. Fear got him on his knees, then his feet. Tomorrow would be the range and the gym. Yorker would be preferable to facing down linking up again.
He coughed a sob, feeling the pain begin to subdue. Felt like, kinder, gentler stabs to the neck. He turned just enough to let Hawker see half his face. Enough that the pain, the tiredness, the confusion of his expression could be seen. The tears cut through the lines of dirty blood. “Yes sir. 0500.”
Then Chris stumbled out. Away from the Vanguard Class Mech. It hadn’t been that long, but Ferdinand is gone from the prep room. Either he or Colburn had messaged the aid station, because there was that medical droid waiting. “Officer Celn,” it drone “Please accompany me to medical. If you cannot walk I will carry you.” Chris leaned on it’s shoulder, a hand on his implant. He didn’t even argue. “I hurt. Too many initializations.” he admitted.
“This is known. You will submit to a full body scan, and may be placed on medical suspension if your implant or the nerve tissue is damaged.” Chris nodded. He wanted to sleep. “Yes. Just get me up there.”
Minutes later, he lay naked on a scanner. He’d been given a shower, washed by the medical drive. He is damp under his arms and between his legs still. Behind his head robotics moved, analyzing the interface implant and the angry bruised skin. Physically, he needed time to rest and recover. He’d been given anti-inflammatories and mild painkillers with the hypospray. He had bruising on his chest and shoulder. The medical droid pulled a smock over him, goving him the semblance of modesty. Chris heard footsteps.
He felt like.. he didn’t know what to feel. 0500 tomorrow. This wasn’t over. But .. he wasn’t sure if he’d made a difference.