The Mech Touch

Though Lady Romanda still looked reluctant to participate in a project revolving around experimental tech, Ves successfully 'persuaded' her to lower her ethical standards and agree to collaborate with him anyway.

That did not remove her personal objections over this risky endeavor, but the dark clouds that the Red Cabal cast over human civilization had done much to reinforce the urgency of the situation.

Lady Romanda felt as if she answered her calling.

By participating in a secret project that was way bigger and more impactful than a typical commercial mech design project, she had the potential to make history.

Not only that, but her work may end up getting appreciated by millions or even billions of 'new' mech pilots over the ensuing years and decades!

No mech designer could remain calm at the thought of servicing so many people with a single project. Every professional craved validation. The more validation they received from their customers and their peers, the more they understood that they were on the right track!

Obtaining validation was not a luxury for Lady Romanda. It had practically become a necessity as her mech designs had still not gained significant traction on the mech market.

How would her career progress if she did not accept the offer? Perhaps she would continue to toil while remaining stuck in a marginal position until external events finally caused a shock through the mech community.

It was very much possible for the native aliens to overrun red humanity and make it impossible for Lady Romanda to sustain her business activities!

This was part of the reason why she said yes. She wanted to gain more control over her life and not be governed by events outside of her control.

She recognized that as long as she participated in this monumental mech design project, she would be able to alter the course of red humanity in her own way.

Whether her contribution ended up helping or hurting red humanity remained to be seen. Lady Romanda had a feeling that she had boarded a pirate ship that had an unclear destination.

It could either lead her to paradise, or straight into a bottomless cliff!

As Lady Romanda left in order to put her affairs in order, Ves boarded his shuttle and made his way back to Diandi Base.

As he sat down on the piloting seat, he grabbed hold of Lucky and placed the cat on his lap.

"So what are your impressions? Did you sense anything special about Lady Romanda?"

The cat sleepily yawned as if to send a signal that he had been dozing all of this time.

Ves smacked the archemetal cat on the head. "Be serious. Have you sensed anything off or abnormal about her? It is better to hear about it now than later."

To be honest, Lady Romanda did not give Ves the impression that she was more than what she appeared on the surface. First impressions were anything but perfect, but Ves had a good feeling about the Terran Senior.

Surprisingly enough, Lucky did not entirely concur with that assessment.

"Meow meow meow." The cat explained as he continued to lay on Ves' lap.

"Oh? You sensed an unusual cranial implant inside her head?"

"Meow!"

Lucky activated a projection that showed one of his scan results.

Just as Ves expected from a Terran and a scion of an ancient clan, Lady Romanda's brain was extensively modified and digitized.

Though she did not engage in any extreme genetic modification, her brain and cell structures were far stronger than usual.

"Meow."

Lucky pointed at a specific implant buried close to the center of her brain. It looked quite different from the others because it was not obviously connected to any of her brain tissue.

That was highly unusual, as implants installed into the brain were always supposed to integrate with the surrounding brain matter in order to do their jobs.

Ves did not recognize its function. "What is it? Do you have any clue, Lucky?"

"Meow…"

Lucky's powerful senses towards metal allowed him to sense a high concentration of high-quality exotics inside the pill-shaped implant. It was also filled with other substances that confused the gem cat.

"It's okay. I'll take this scan to the mechers and see what they make of it. I don't know if it is a potential source of trouble, but it is best to make sure."

Once the armored shuttle returned to Diandi Base, Ves waited until he got teleported to the Tarrasque in orbit before he proceeded down to the design lab to discuss the results of the recruitment attempt.

The Transhumanist liaison especially looked forward to working with Lady Romanda.

"Good job, Ves! You successfully managed to gain her cooperation. I can proceed to approach her with my proposal once we have brought her up to speed."

"I think many Carmine mech pilots will have reasons to be grateful that you have persuaded Lady Romanda to work with us on this project." Jovy said in a more measured tone. "Accommodating her design philosophy into our subordinate mechs will force us to make numerous painful compromises, but I believe that many people will agree that it is worthwhile to sacrifice a small or even a moderate amount of performance to give Carmine mech pilots a much greater chance to preserve their piloting careers. Professional mech pilots may be able to switch to other mechs with ease, but Carmine mech pilots play by different rules. It is only natural to rethink the purpose of the cockpit to this group. This reminds me that we may need to reimagine or reinterpret many of the assumptions about mechs that we take for granted."

Ves nodded in agreement. "You have made a good point. We can explore this issue in depth later on as we begin the actual design process. I will proceed to call Lord Richard Brownstone next. I don't expect him to deny a request to travel to New Constantinople so that we can initiate him into our project in person, but it will take a while before he arrives. I guess we'll just have to adapt our design schedule to account for his delayed arrival."

Jovy made a suggestion.

"We do not have to put all of our eggs in one basket, Ves. If you want, we can invite other Rubarthan mech designers to make their way over to this star system. There are still other promising names on that list I displayed to you last time. They can serve as our backup options in case we cannot proceed with Lord Richard for any reason."

"Hm, that sounds like a decent suggestion, but… what will they do if they end up making this trip in vain? Will we just send them back to the Rubarthan Pact without gaining anything?" nσvel.cøm

"Of course not. Our Association is more than happy to compensate them with MTA merits for their trouble. We have the ability to do so. Even if they are not entirely pleased by our requests, it is of little concern to us. The smooth progress of the Swarm Project takes precedence over their feelings."

Ves frowned. "I don't know, Jovy. That sounds like a really awful way to treat our fellow Seniors. What if… what if we invite them to work on our Swarm Project anyway? Instead of working as contributors, they can fulfill the role as assistants instead. It is rather demeaning to ask a bunch of Seniors to assist other Seniors in their work, but if we give enough hints about how important this project is, they may feel honored for participating in a set of mech designs that will eventually make history."

That actually sounded like a good suggestion. Both Jovy and Vector contemplated it for a moment before they agreed with this suggestion.

"We can bring them in, but they will have to remain with us regardless if they agree or not. We cannot have them return to the Rubarthan Pact and leak valuable clues to the intelligence services."

With that decision made, the three prepared to start another design session.

"Wait." Ves said. "Before you go, I want to show you guys something." Ves called.

He proceeded to show the scan that Lucky had made of Lady Romanda's brain and peculiar cranial implant.

Jovy did not recognize the function of this implant, but Vector possessed more knowledge in this area.

"I know what it is." The Transhumanist said. "It is a security implant that is designed to prevent a person from divulging classified information in any way, whether directly or indirectly. There is a large amount of advanced technology packed inside this deceptively small implant. Do not ask me how it works, because I do not specialize in this field. The implant is solely there to prevent Lady Romanda from divulging information that the creators of this device had specified beforehand. In this case, she is not permitted to explain anything she has witnessed, worked on or otherwise managed to learn during her employment at a secret Terran research institution."

"How far does it go to protect all of this information?"

"Let me say that it is an expensive but highly effective security measure. The Terrans will not invest so much money into it for more mundane purposes. The cranial implant can detect any form of mental tampering, hacking, biological data extraction and more. If it detects anything amiss, Lady Romanda only has a short amount of time to take corrective action. If she is unable to do so, then the implant will explode in an attempt to physically deny anything recoverable that could be used to learn about the activities of the secret Terran research institution."

"I see."

The amount of times this mysterious Terran research institution popped up made Ves suspicious about it. What kind of sick and twisted research were the Terrans engaged in? What was so important that her former employers forced her to carry this implant for the rest of her life?

Perhaps he was exaggerating. Every state maintained a few secret R&D institutions here and there. They worked on all kinds of projects relevant to the armed forces such as proprietary stealth systems and new applications of hyper technology. Just because they were secret did not mean that there was anything objectionable about their existence.

"Will this strange implant affect her cooperation with us in any way?"

"No, Ves. You can rest assured that it will not do anything suspicious such as recording what Lord Romanda is able to sense and transmitting the files to a secret Terran listening post or anything. I will tell the specialists of the Bluejay Fleet to examine Lady Romanda thoroughly before letting her get through, if only to rule out any unlikely dangers."

"Good. I would hate it if she ends up being a member of a secret cosmopolitan cell."

"Don't be ridiculous, Ves. The cosmopolitans would have attempted to assassinate you the moment they came in close proximity. Your head detached from your neck is much more valuable than keeping you alive. You still represent their best chance for one of them to integrate into the Red Cabal and grow into a greater phase whale."

That was right. This goal had become such a strong obsession to the cosmopolitans that even a Master Mech Designer as old and prestigious as Xieliq Quan blew his cover in order to make an impressive attempt at his Ves' life!

With this concern out of the way, Ves proceeded to sit down behind a desk terminal and begin his design work.

While Jovy and Vector mainly spent their time on the first-class iteration of the subordinate mech, Ves already made brisk progress in designing the third-class version of his upcoming Carmine mech.

He avoided the sections that required the input of his potential future collaborators, but made good progress elsewhere. Third-class mechs were so simple to design that Ves expected to be able to test out of the first prototypes within two months or maybe even less!

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