Cavalier's Gambit (Patreon)

“CPU-online,” reported the basic VI from Wayne’s diagnostic tablet.

“Yup,” Wayne muttered, watching the tool he held in one hand. The other was pressed to the knee joint of his Walker.

Though perhaps calling it a Walker was an overstatement.

It’s missing all of the possible armor, not a hint of a weapon, and it’s power-supply unit doesn’t work.

But hey… it’s a Walker.

Kinda?

Maybe.

Though just a baby-Walker.

Nothing like a big-ass building sized Walker.

Fucking Stompers, not Walkers.

Wayne chuckled softly and shook his head.

“More like a turret. I guess,” he admitted and then sighed.

“System, starting up,” the diagnostic tablet stated. “Power-supply, tethered. Sensors, online. Weapons-systems, online.

“Multiple errors reported. Over seventy-two thousand issues that will need corrections.

“Prioritizing—”

“Nope, that’s fine. Uh… but… it’s… online? I could jack-into the Walker?” Wayne asked, surprised. “It’d… it’d work?”

“Yes,” answered the Virtual Intelligence, which was often abbreviated down to VI.

“Well, uh… shit. Okay, ah, yeah,” Wayne murmured. Then he quickly put down the tablet. He reached up and clambered into the Walker.

Settling into the cockpit he reached back to the connection point.

It was probably the singular newest piece in the entirety of the Walker.

Grabbing hold of it he pulled it up underneath his right ear.

There was a magnetic port that he’d had installed into his skull.

This provided a connection to the sensor-net that Wayne had also paid to have installed on the inside of his skull.A sensor-net that rested directly against his brain and provided him with the ability to interact with a Walker, as well as a host of other hardware that required a direct connection.

Something that’d cleaned out his life savings without the promise of doing much of anything. The only way to test one’s ability to interact with systems wasn’t something that could be known until a full year after the surgery.

That’s how long it took to heal as well as train to utilize the software it would interact with.

The latter of which Wayne had pirated and did his best to learn.

Though it’d felt a lot like a boot-leg version that was full of jank.

Settling into the cockpit, he got comfortable, pulled his hand away from the port, then let out a slow breath.

Then he attempted to access the system as the instructional program had instructed him to.

There was no response.

“Error,” the diagnostic tool declared. “The Walker has thrown a diagnostic fault for the human-to-system interface. A VI handler is required to facilitate the connection.

“The current VI handler, M4d-C4t v1.043, is not capable of bearing the load.”

“It… can’t bear the load? What does that mean?” Wayne asked, reaching up to tap at the connection.

“Unknown. The error code, 42.D2-4 is not listed in the manual for the Walker. It is reccomended that you seek professional assistance.”

“Manual operation is possible?” Wayne confirmed.

“Yes.”

“But the hydraulic and synthetic fibers lack connections to the system that would enable it to be powered through manual controls.”

“Yes.”

“In other words… it’d be like trying to physically move the damn thing on my strength alone.”

“Yes.”

Sighing, Wayne nodded his head.

He was halfway to his goal.

The fact that it recognized his connection attempt told him that the hard part was done. The wiring, systems, software, and hardware, was operating at a basic level.

This was further than he had ever honestly thought he would get.

“Right. Well… nothing else I can do, I guess,” Wayne mused. “Is there any job postings? Can I clock in early?”

“There is an extra shift open on platform seven,” the VI answered. “It starts in twenty minutes.”

“Sign me up for it,” Wayne stated and clambered down out of the Walker. He picked up the tablet and left his work garage. Heading into his home he figured he had enough time to take a dump, then he had to go.

When his shift ended, he could access the work terminal and see if there was anything about that error code. The access he could get at work into the deep-space network was considerably better than the public access nodes.

“Complete,” the VI confirmed. “Shift taken. This shift lines up with your original shift. You will be at work for eighteen hours.”

Fuck.

Whatever.

Money. Lots of money.

I’ll need money.

I’m sure whatever the hell the problem is I can solve it with money.

Money is amazing.

***

“Fucking hate money,” growled Wayne as he forcibly pulled at the arms of his Load-Walker. The packed hot-tub he was holding was balanced badly.

He increased his counter balance after having checked the load’s manifest but even then it didn’t feel right. As if the weight was inaccurate and weighed even more.

Wrangling the crate into the land-skipper he grunted, growled, and huffed the whole while. Getting it into position he sighed and realized he’d have to clamber into the damn skipper to make sure it was in position.

He wasn’t a load master but if he did this right, the actual load master would give him a small kick back for making his life easy.

With a hiss, he glared at the skipper.

It was a fat, ugly, stubby, piece of crap that was damn well nearly the size of a single lane of traffic and a bit more, that was used to transport anything coming down a space elevator.

It was nearly as tall as it was wide and handled like the tub he was loading onto it. He refused to ever pilot one again.

You couldn’t load it with a forklift, couldn’t unload it with one either, and even using a Load-Walker was a pain in the ass.

There was a long, loud, blaring klaxon. It sounded for three peals of ear splitting awful before shutting off.

His shift was over.

Continuing past this point wasn’t advisable, but he wanted to get the tub into place. Shift managers didn’t like filling out overtime paperwork and everything was on camera.

Which meant even a minute over had to be documented.

Ignoring it, he clambered up into the loading bay of the skipper and then looked to the interior.

The automatic light attached to the roll-cage of the Walker turned on.

He was glad he’d checked now.

The interior was filled to the brim.

There was no way he’d be able to shift any of this around. It’d need an actual load-master to handle it.

“Fuck it, that’s Jenny’s problem,” Wayne muttered and got back out of the skipper.

And practically landed on top of the shift manager on duty, Kenny.

He was a mousey little man. His face was covered in a respirator and goggles. Just as Wayne was.

“Hey, Kenny. I’m clocking out,” Wayne said with a nod of his head. “If you wanna chat, can you follow me to the clock? I don’t want to get any paper.”

Kenny had looked pissed when Wayne first saw him, now he looked happy as could be. Apparently he’d been expecting Wayne to argue.

“Sure, no worries. Thanks. You need anything by the way?” asked Kenny, trailing along behind Wayne as he waddled off to the armorer bay.

Someone in vehicle maintenance would handle the Load-Walker for him if he just parked it there.

“Could use some time at a terminal if you’ve got any free cards,” Wayne admitted.

“You got it,” Kenny promised and quickly peeled away from him.

The nasty rat of a man didn’t give a crap as long as no one caused him to do more work. Which Wayne couldn’t fault him for.

A hand-off from Kenny, a quick stop at a vending machine, and Wayne had sat himself down at a terminal. Kenny had given him an hour and a half worth of terminal time in cards.

They were spread across nine different cards and left-overs of what other people didn’t finish. Left behind, throw in the spent bin, or Kenny just keeping them for one reason or another.

Grunting, Wayne finished loading in twenty-some-odd minutes of time.

He settled down in front of the computer and hesitated.

The goal was to check the web for the error code.

Except he hadn’t logged in for the better part of two months.

Give or take.

Grimacing, he looked down to his steaming cup of noodles. He stuck his fork in, swirled them around for a moment, then pulled up a mouthful. Stuffing it into his mouth he realized he needed to check his communications.

Chewing, he grabbed the mouse and flicked it over to the communications program. He opened it, stared at the retinal scanner, and waited.

There was no indication that he’d been scanned, but it happened.

Immediately his communication portal opened.

Not a single communique had arrived from any of his contacts, few as they were. Nobody had responded to his last message sent months ago.

Nodding his head, he closed it all and went to the web.

An ad popped up. One that encouraged him to enlist with planetary forces.

“Been there, did that, got rejected before I even started,” mumbled Wayne, typing in his search into the bar.

A roundabout way of asking in regards to the error without listing out the error. He wasn’t really eager to jump straight into that unless he had to.

For all he knew the error message could flag him in some way.

When he clacked the enter key he went back to his noodles and took several tongue-scalding mouthfuls. The request could take a minute, depending on the outgoing traffic.

Swallowing hard, Wayne put down his cup of noodles with a frown.

His search result had already populated.

Nothing.

Sucking at his teeth he put his fingers to the keyboard and quickly typed in the error message he’d gotten. A generalized search hadn’t given him anything so all he had left was the error itself.

Before he could even pick up his cup again, he got a single result.

A link to what looked like some sort of computer chip.

Clicking it, Wayne took up his fork and leaned over his meal. Pulling up a mouthful while watching the screen intently.

The screen went white as it began to load, then showed him a new page.

It was indeed a computer chip. One that was for sale on this page.

Grimacing, Wayne sighed.

Realistically this was something he’d expected.

That he was missing some random piece or part and now he’d have to work his fingers to the bone to buy it. That without this singular chip, he couldn’t do anything.

With a grunt, Wayne swallowed, put his cup down, and grabbed the mouse. He flicked it over to the add to cart button, which also happened to be the “check price” button, and waited for the worst.

Only to find that the price shown was negligible.

It was reasonably priced at only twenty-two credits for the chip and five credits for shipping and handling. On top of that, that was the “on sale” price.

“Oh shit yeah,” Wayne mumbled and quickly moved the mouse to the cart to finish the purchase. A screen popped up no sooner than he did.

This is a mass-produced product and does not meet import regulations. There will be a one-credit fee.

Wayne shrugged and hit the accept button.

Please confirm that you have received the error code: 42.D2-4

Snorting, Wayne hit the confirm button.

Then the page flashed and he was presented with a receipt and a shipping notification. The chip would be arriving in three days.

“Hm. Well,” Wayne muttered and took another big mouthful of noodles and slurped at them. “I guess I can just… work and… do nothing for three days. I’m sure something else will go wrong.

“For now, well, I’ve got the time already docked so why not surf. Surf and delude myself that I’m not in some shit-hole in the ass-end of the universe.

“Oh! Whatever happened to that android sex story. That AI-guy was just slayin’ his way through an entire database filled with retired AIs.

“Never figured Androids and AI’s would be as horny as people.”

***

Holding the chip in his hand, Wayne was unimpressed.

It was nothing more than apparently a pin-to-pin connector that was a computer chip, loaded with bits of data that would solve the error code.

“I mean, I can see why it’s mass-produced then if it’s that simple,” Wayne said to himself and then clicked his tongue. It’d been scanned seventeen times on it’s way to him and he had received a record of each of those scans.

Every single one came back as a benign computer chip.

That didn’t mean that whatever data it held was safe, but he didn’t have another choice. Over the last several days he’d tried repeatedly to get access to his Walker’s systems with his mind.

The same error always came up.

“Whatever. Fine. Fine! I’ll just stuff it in,” he grumbled, then laughed at his own words. “Ugh, I shouldn’t have read all of that story. Now I’m all bent.”

Moving over to his Walker, he went behind it and accessed the computer components at the back of the cockpit interior. If the pilot died, the Walker wouldn’t need to be piloted.

If the computers went down, the pilot might as well be dead.

Things that were critical were inside the cockpit with pilot, where the most shielding was.

Staring at the motherboard Wayne went over the schematic in his head that’d come with the chip. It’s placement was deliberate and very much not-factory specifications.

He’d dug out the solder mask where the chip would go in advance. The chip sat atop several different traces and would be soldered directly into place.

It sounded ridiculous to him but that really was the extent of it.

Quick as could be, he got the chip seated, dumped flux on the connectors, soldered it all down, and was finished. Letting the solder cool for a moment he cleaned off his soldering-iron and put his tools away.

Not able to wait, or stall out of fear, any longer, Wayne clambered up into the Walker. The diagnostic tablet was set down on a stool in front of the Walker.

Getting into the cockpit he reached back to the connection point and pulled it up underneath his ear.

There was a click as it settled into place and made the connection.

Then he tried to access the system.

“Power-supply, online. Sensors, online. Weapons-systems, online,” reported a voice inside of his head. “All systems reporting online.

“There are forty-three thousands error reports. Maintenance is required.”

“Heeeey! Look at that, we cut down a bunch of errors. I told you it was just a calibration issue,” Wayne squealed. He couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Creating maintenance list,” his tablet countered.

Wayne then did what he’d wanted to do from the very beginning.

He lifted his arms up.

Or more accurately, he tried to lift the Walker’s arms.

To do it through his very expensive implant in the back of his head, rather than trying to pilot the Walker by manual controls.

They’d work for anyone and could be used by even the rawest recruit.

For big Walker types they were even preferred. There wasn’t much in the way of needs for agility or speed for those.

In something as small as his personal Walker that he was in now, they didn’t actually add much to the controls.

His implant was ideal for these types.

That and the manual controls weren’t completely hooked up anyways.

The Walker responded immediately. The arms coming up and being held aloft without issue.

Then he tried to move his legs.

Which of course moved.

“Fan-tastic… fantastic. Okay, uh… hey… what’d… shit… now what?” Wayne asked with a laugh.

He had no idea what to do now that he’d actually completed his original goal.

To own and pilot a Walker through military standards just like he would have if he’d passed the background and health qualifications.

“Uh, is there any postings for a class one reactor? Barter, purchase, or otherwise?” Wayne asked.

“There is one for barter, two for sale. You do not meet the barter requirements as they are listed as ‘personal arrangement,” stated the tablet.

“Oh. Yeah. Nah. Haha,” Wayne agreed.

“The two for sale are listed as used. One is two-hundred credits and the other two-sixty,” the tablet finished.

“Right… and that’d wipe out our bank account completely. But… but once we had it, we could start doing things.

“The arena fights provide armor and weapons for the beginner fights. A lot of the entry level stuff you just have to be there with a Walker.

“Not to mention-not to mention I could do some extermination gigs! There’s a lot of those that don’t pay that well on the boards. Even if it didn’t pay well, since I’m my own pilot, it wouldn’t cost me anything other than my time. Doubly so since I can juice the reactor off the system spike.

“Or… well… I guess I could rent myself out as a Load-Walker, too. Do my day-job after hours. Moonlight it.

“Though I’d need to buy some counter-balances as well as different legs. These would just topple the damn thing almost immediately.”

Wayne shook his head even as he said it.

He knew the answer he wanted to pursue.

“When’s the next opening for the arena? Like… the next season starts in a few weeks. When’s the tryout?” Wayne asked. “They have paid wages if you’re accepted, right?”

“Tomorrow,” answered the tablet. “Yes, there are paid wages for those who can make the circuit as well as fees for facility usage being waived.’

“Well. Guess I’m buying that reactor and putting whatever funding I have left to registration fees and error repair,” Wayne said and then laughed. “Then…then we’ll be a Walker-Jockey. An actual Walkie.

“Well… that’s for tomorrow. Today is buying that reactor and running down errors. I’m willing to bet a good number of the current ones have to go with the gyro-stabilizer. Because… uh… well… I did drop it.

“I should probably dig out that backup I have and get it installed. That’ll fix some things I bet. I mean, maybe? Ugh.

“Other than that I’ll have to figure out which errors I can ignore and which ones I can’t. Like… there’s probably a bunch of errors about the fact that the physical controllers aren’t connected. Could fix those, too.”

Wayne was excited.

He had a new direction and goal after having just met his original one.

In the back of his head, lurking beneath his thoughts, was the haunting realization that his recently completed goal, and likely the next one, wouldn’t solve his problems.