Cavalier's Gambit -ch 5- (Patreon)

Wayne stood in doorway to his garage and wanted to turn around. He wanted to walk right back out.

No matter where he looked, intrusive bits of information appeared. Endlessly providing him with information.

None of which he expected or even wanted.

He’d briefly consulted with the doctor who’d put his new eye in and he’d stated it was a bio-mechanical replacement. While it did receive data and signals from his brain as well as if he had any implants on board.

It didn’t provide any actual information on it’s own.

“Yup,” Wayne said, staring at Patchwork. There were so many text blocks coming out of it, that he couldn’t even see the wall behind his Walker.

It was covered by an endless spam of text.

“Yup… that’s… yup. I’m… uh… gonna have to rip out my eye, aren’t I?” Wayne lamented with a long sigh.

He closed his left eye and all the windows that’d popped up went away.

Then he opened it again.

Once more, all the electronic labels appeared.

Walking over to Patchwork, Wayne blew out a breath.

Someone had cleaned, fixed obvious issues with the armor plates, and even aligned them better than they had been to begin with. Going through a lot of trouble for something that Wayne had been trying to pry off not too long ago.

Grabbing the heavy cockpit lid he wrenched it open.

The insides had been cleaned but the place he’d normally be sat in had a dark red splotch right where his crotch would be.

He was fairly certain in fact that he could see where his thighs had been.

As if there’d been a deep and growing pool of blood right there. Dripping down from his face and gathering there.

“Neat,” he blurted out and then reached out to touch the spot. “I blooded my fucking Walker on the second mission. I’m amazing.”

He spotted a slip of paper sitting in the bottom of the cockpit. Reaching in he fished it out.

It was a list of things that’d been repaired, fixed, noted as destroyed, or cleaned.

Everything there was mostly what he’d expected.

And even a bit more.

“Oooeee, Sigma Liquidations really took care of me. Look at that shit. They even calibrated the reactor,” Wayne murmured. “That means they fucked up, didn’t they?

“Something happened that they’re trying to bury and cover up with super-nice-nice feelings.

“Yeah… yeah something happened. I’ve heard this song before. Lotta ex-girlfriends did this one.”

Letting out a long sigh, Wayne blinked, shook his head, and walked over to his work bench. He flicked the paper on top of it, then looked away as information started to bubble up from the electronic tools laying on the desktop started to display their data.

“Ahhh fuck, I need to call the doc or something. Or maybe a mech-doc. See if he can tell me what’s going on with this frickin’ eye,” growled Wayne, focussing on the repair document.

A single line item jumped out at him.

“Artificial Intelligence unit, damaged beyond reclamation or program retrieval,” he read aloud. “Unit assessed as Utility grade AI with high diagnostic ability.”

Wayne paused, his mind turning that over.

“Diagnostic ability. Like… getting information on stuff?” He asked aloud. He was starting to wonder if that chip he’d bought and put into his Walker had been a bad idea.

That maybe that chip, combined with an old AI chip, and putting it in a Walker, broke something.

Maybe broke something in Wayne’s head.

He was running a boot-leg military grade implant in his head, after all. There was the distinct possibility that his implant, which was a rooted bio-mechanical implant to start with homebrewed software, had been damaged, or overwritten.

Sighing, he looked back to the paper in his hand and continued reading.

“Outdated diagnostic AI, replaced with VI unit of similar capability and current drivers.”

Frowning, Wayne blinked several times and then quickly left his garage. He entered his home and went to the bathroom.

He passed by his kitchen window and saw that it was still early in the morning. The hive-city that his parents had escaped before he was born on the distant horizon.

Though they’d turned him into an orphan before he’d even reached the age of four. His case worker had ended up becoming a friend and mentor to him.

Even going so far as to be his foster parent.

Until they died, too.

Thankfully that’d happened just after he reached the age of majority and could inherit his parents belongings.

Stepping in front of a mirror, he looked to his own face.

Nothing popped up for his eye.

With a grunt, Wayne turned away from it and went back to his Walker. He reached in and unfastened the computer’s door latch.

Inside was everything as it should be, except for the AI chip. There was a shiny new HAL VI chip seated there.

Wayne clambered up into the cockpit, laid down in it, and stuck his head into the spot it was required to be. The implant connecting to his Walker instantly.

Even before he’d actually thought about what he wanted, then Patchwork stood up. It began to move it’s arms around to his mental commands.

Things were moving smoothly and quickly.

“Connecting,” his tablet reported from somewhere off to the side. “Wireless connection made.

“Downloading logs.

“Critical error.”

“Oh? Critical you say? What is it?” Wayne asked. He didn’t feel like anything was wrong.

“Diagnostic VI unable to display information. Cockpit HUD not connected,” reported the tablet.

Wayne raised one eyebrow, then reached over and scooped up the tablet with Patchwork. He did it as daintily as he could.

Bringing the hand over he picked up the tablet. He ignored the box that appeared around it.

“Show me an example of what it should look like,” Wayne asked.

The tablet threw up a screen of the interior of a Walker cockpit. The HUD there was what he normally would expect and had seen many times.

Highlighted in the middle of the photo was a box around another Walker.

It looked just like what Wayne had been seeing.

“This box is the diagnostic VI?” Wayne asked. “It’s what it would show?”

“Affirmative.”

“How would I tell it to turn off?” he asked, hopeful that maybe his hunch was right, and maybe his implant had picked up parts of the diagnostic AI.

“A command to the VI or AI to disable the display,” the tablet stated. “Other commands can be given in a similar fashion such as filtering results, or removing layers.

“If this answer was helpful, please consider subscribing to—”

“Oh my fuck, stop, cancel, decline,” hissed Wayne as he pushed several wishes to his implant for the diagnostics utility to be turned off.

There was a moment where his head felt oddly heavy before nothing happened at all. He was still staring at the tablet with it’s white box around it with all it’s information listed.

Sighing, Wayne leaned his head back somewhat and looked up at the ceiling.

“That would have been too simple, wouldn’t it,” he whispered.

“Incoming call,” announced the tablet.

“Goodie. Is it the local eyepatch salesman? Because I think I’m going to need one,” Wayne replied.

“No, it’s an unlisted number,” answered the tablet.

Sighing, Wayne nodded his head.

“Accept,” he allowed.

Waiting a few seconds, Wayne cleared his throat.

“Hello?” he began.

“Ah? Mr. Hesh?” asked a man.

“Yeah. What can I do for ya?”

“Ah, good, good. Mr. Hesh, you’re a Walker pilot, are you not?” the man prompted.

“Yeah. I am. I didn’t catch your name?” Wayne asked, looking down at the tablet.

He was surprised to see it was a video call.

The man on the other end of the call looked to be uncomfortable.

The left side of his head was shaved down to his skull, though the right side was only a few inches long with dark brown hair. He had pale blue eyes, several knicks on his face that were thin white scars,

The collar of a suit was visible at the bottom of the frame.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m Victor Vale,” the man said and waved a hand across the camera. “Mr. Hesh, I was hoping you’d be willing to help us out.

“We’re doing some testing on some hardware and we need a new pilot to give it a go. Your experience fits our requirements as well as your physiological background.”

In other words, the poor orphan with no family to sue them.

Uh-huh, I’ll pass on this one.

“What I mean by that, is your planet, not your upbringing!” the man interjected quickly. Apparently he’d had his own thoughts about his words. “You have a different bone density and muscle mass compared to many others due to your planet. It’s a bit heavier than most colony planets.”

“Oh. Oh… alright… uh… I was just injured though,” Wayne began. He really didn’t want to take another mission right now. “I just got discharged this morning.”

“I’m aware. We’d love to have you come in. If we have to provide medical treatment, that’s fine,” the man stated.

“Yeah, I duno. I’ve got some side-effects that I’m trying to work through and—”

“We’ll cover that,” the man put forward again. “Truly, you’re the candidate we want here on this planet. We were already going to provide medical attention to make sure the tests are performed in the manner we wish, so it isn’t an issue.”

Wayne really wanted to just go to his bed and go to sleep.

Except there was no telling when the next contract would come. If he didn’t take this one and went to relax, there was no guarantee he’d get another one anytime soon.

“The testing is four days to start, with an extension to eight weeks if things go well.

“Real basic things though some of it might just be testing software as well.

“It’s eight-hundred credits a day. Included medical the whole time. You don’t need to bring your own Walker, we’ll be providing you with all the materials and equipment needed,” Victor explained. “Meals included and a place to sleep each night if you want so you don’t have to worry about travel costs or anything.”

The deal was perfect.

It was the right rates for this type of thing from what he’d seen on the forums and so far everything sounded “good” but not perfect. If it had sounded perfect he’d have told them to fuck off.

“Fine. But you need to push the contract through the brokers,” Wayne started.

“Already did, you just haven’t received it yet because he didn’t want to send it to anyone other than you,” Victor explained, looking off screen to the right. “Go ahead and kick it, Britha.”

There was a chime from the tablet in his hand followed by a notification at the top.

A new contract had arrived.

Great.

No… no rest, I guess. Fine.

Make hay while the sun shines, right?

Whatever.

There aren’t any old Walker pilots.

Just people who retired to deskwork, ended up having to quit due to medical reasons, or getting a life-time supply of combat and getting a permanent transfer to a pine-wood box six feet under ground.

***

Feeling weird about the situation, Wayne checked the address of the building he was standing in front of. Then he checked his phone.

It matched up.

Looking back to the building, he really didn’t know what to think.

The location looked fairly professional though the banner hung on the front of it was most certainly not a permanent thing. There was a number of other businesses nearby that had signs that looked as if they’d been up longer than Wayne had been alive.

“Right,” he murmured and walked up to the door. He pulled it open and entered into a lobby.

“Ah, hello, Wayne Hesh?” asked a young woman behind a desk. She looked fairly mundane and something that’d pass through a crowd anywhere here.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“Wonderful. I got your paperwork that you sent electronically earlier. I’ll let them know you’re here,” the woman said pleasantly. She looked to the thin monitor on the desk in front of her, grabbed the mouse, clicked several things, than typed something into her keyboard.

Wayne nodded his head then took one of the six seats gathered around a coffee table. There were several magzines littered about it.

He glanced to them and noted that there was no subscription information on them at all.

That meant they’d all been purchased in person.

Each of them were this month’s iteration.

His growing thought that this company had shown up suddenly was now a guarantee in his thinking.

“What’d you think of the weather last week?” Wayne asked as if he were making small talk. He reached out and picked up a magazine and slowly flipped it open. “Was one heck of a change. Was all anyone could talk about for a bit there.”

“Oh, yes. It was rather surprising,” agreed the woman at the desk but nothing more.

Mm, yeah.

Except there was no weather around these parts. There never really is other than some rain.

So they’re very new here.

We’ll need to be on our guard but… in the same breath… might just be that good ol’fashioned paranoia again.

With a mental shrug, he settled in to start reading the magazine in earnest. It was a Walker magazine and not something he had the luxury of spending coin on.

“Oh shit, it’s a new Y-UN model? Wow, all the way up to A7?” Wayne said to himself as he read. “I wonder how different it is.”

“Wayne?” called a voice off to his right, catching him off guard.

“Oh? Oh. Yeah,” Wayne said and got up. “Am I the only one today?”

His question had meant to be mundane, but he noted the look of mild confusion on the woman behind the desk. Her brows moving toward one another and coming down as well.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m Horrace. I’ll be your tester today,” the man explained as Wayne came over to him. He was holding the door open and then gestured with his arm past the doorway.

Horace seemed just as generic as the woman behind the desk. Unremarkable and somewhat forgettable. The labcoat he had on was the only noteworthy part of him.

Mostly because you didn’t see lab coats that often.

“Great,” Wayne said and moved past the man and into the area beyond the door.

Horrace said nothing further but instead closed the door and then moved ahead. Wayne trailed along.

Reaching another door, Horrace opened it and then held it open.

“Today we’re testing your ability to utilize a Walker given certain circumstances. As well as your performance in simulated combat experiences during those circumstances,” Horrace explained as Wayne entered the room.

Sitting in the middle was most of a Walker. The torso, arms, and cockpit were all there. The upper legs down to the calves were also there.

The feet were missing though and the entire thing was hung up on some heavy looking cables.

“It’s made in a similar style to the Lugh Walker, just with a few modifications to fit our testing needs,” stated Horrace as Wayne walked over to it. “Please check the cockpit, confirm it’s internals, and if you need anything to be modified.”

Wayne raised his eyebrows and felt himself get excited.

There was a moment of dismay as his left-eye began spitting out information about the whole contraption which dampened his spirit.

Though only a bit.

Pulling open the cockpit hatch Wayne saw that there was physical controls and looked back to Horrace.

“Does it work with an implant?” he asked.

Horrace smiled at that and nodded his head.

“Then no, let’s do it like this. I’ll just use my implant. Everything else I’ll try to get used to, or adjust it,” Wayne said. Not bothering to hesitate any longer, he clambered up into the cockpit and pulled it shut.

It was dark inside and left him feeling a bit strange.

Rather than trying to find a light or get something turned on, he got comfortable.

Laying his head down into the spot he expected to link with his implant he found it connected immediately. There was an odd response in his implant.

Turn on all systems, lock the hatch.

There was a clunk, followed by a hiss as the cockpit rapidly pressurized just as it should. An internal pressure and air flow that felt quite comfortable.

The cockpit’s steel-glass became electrified and the darkened surface that he couldn’t see through was replaced with a view of the room he was in.

As if he were looking through glass, which gave the material it’s name sake.

Strong as a great deal of steel but able to be seen through like glass given the right current and programming.

Then, surprisingly, there was a red box that appeared near the top.

“Non-AI diagnostic program recognized. Adapting driver, updating secondary driver,” the box said.

All over the rest of the cockpit more and more things were appearing.

Information and data that told him a great many things about the Walker he was in and the information it was receiving. Most of it didn’t quite make sense to him, but he felt like it wasn’t that far outside of his understanding.

He just needed a manual to read and he’d be good to go.

Then the screen flashed once and everything popped back up.

“All systems online,” reported a voice inside of his head. “Settings updated. Configuration settings set to default. Consult your owner’s manual for more information.”

“Settings?” Wayne whispered.

A window appeared in front of him in real life, as well as on the cockpit’s HUD.

It read very simply “Diagnostic Readout Settings”.

Opening it with a thought, he found that it had hundreds of tickboxes.

He immediately closed it again.

There’d have to be a time later when he fiddled with it. Maybe when the day was over just in case he couldn’t access the options without being linked into a Walker.

“How’s it looking Wayne?” asked Horace. His voice had come through the communications line.

“Not too bad,” Wayne answered immediately. He was rather eager to see how this Lugh would respond. He’d heard it described often as “utterly mad” by a number of people. “I think I’m ready. All systems are nominal.”

“Nominal? Nominal. That’s not a word you normally hear. Who the heck uses a word like that,” someone else said.

“Anyways,” Horrace interjected. “Let’s start with some simple agility trials. Everything will respond exactly as if you were piloting a Lugh.

“After that’s done, we’ll go through some other tests. Like combat drills and such.”

“Cool, I’m super excited for this. Any other Walkers I can try out?” he asked.

“Ah… do we have anything else?” Horrace asked, liked the other speaker.

“I’ve got a Freebooter we could use but it’s a bit weird. It doesn’t fit the testing room so the physical feedback would be off,” said the other.

“That’s fine! I’d still love to try it,” Wayne gushed.

“Alright, I’ll see what we can do,” said Horrace. He sounded curious more than anything.

He was looking around at the interior of the Lugh now.

Everything was new, shiny, and as if it’d just come off the assembly line.

He reached up and clicked a fan that’d been bolted into the corner. Air began to wash over him.

He looked over the number of buttons across the console. Most of these would be for combat but it woudn’t hurt to look.

Or touch a few.

Reaching out he flipped the switch to run electric countermeasures, or as labeled on the button ECM. A blue indicator appeared in the corner.

Wayne flicked it back off and grinned.

“Loading the simulation,” the other person said.

Wayne spotted the controls physical controls for movement and then deactivated them, reaching under the panel to pull the cordage out.

“Error, physical controls disconnected,” reported the system.

“It’s not an error, Lugh, I did it on purpose,” Wayne consoled it and dismissed the window. Then the cockpit blinked and the environment he could see changed.

It was a ruined hive city and there were a number of obstacles in front of him.

“Okay, Wayne. Go ahead and make your way down the street. Speed would be appreciated, but it also isn’t needed,” Horrace advised. “Go at the pace you feel best at.”

“Goodie goodie,” Wayne said with a wide grin.

He had no idea when he’d get to test out a Lugh in the future again, but he wanted to enjoy this experience.

This was a Light-Combat mech that was often used in a similar way to like Patchwork was. This was just bigger when fully armed and armored and had a lot more weapons and armor.