What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

The College Clash was a yearly mech design contest sponsored by several colleges on the planet. So far as contests went it was more a vessel to show off their students than anything else. The prize was on the low side compared to other contests, the glamour wasn't particularly high, and the competition was essentially whomever signed up. Since it was open to the public, provided you had accepted credentials, this meant there was a fairly large large and eclectic crowd of participants. Bolt considered it a prime opportunity to get used to contests and see what working with other people was like. It also happened a few days after the first month, so Bolt would be able to adjust as needed for the latter contests.

To his mild annoyance there was a complication.

"Attention participants!" An official looking man called out soon after Bolt entered the waiting area. "Due to an overwhelming amount of designers deciding to participate in the competition, we will be adding an additional event. There shall be a test of your scholastic skill first. The top fifty percent will be allowed to continue."

"What?!" Someone shouted.

"We apologize for the last minute change. The test was only suppose to happen if we reached a certain number, and a few last minute participants hit that threshold. If you could kindly move to a nearby classroom, we will get this finished promptly." The man gestured to a side doorway. "This change was mentioned in the fine print of the sign up forms, so please do not waste your time protesting."

Some people most certainly did. Bolt simply moved to the other area and ignored them. He'd skimmed over the fine print before signing himself, and recalled something vague about 'we reserve the right to add or remove events based off contestant numbers.' It wasn't worth getting worked up over to him.

What was getting worked up over was the damned test in question. It was a mix of insults. Some questions were pitifully easy. Others were of local history, which Bolt had absolutely no interest in at all. There was even a religious question! Why was this on a damned test about mech design?! He wasn't even from the planet, how would he know what they considered correct?

Fortunately he just had to do better than half the competitors. The technical questions were easy enough that he was sure he aced them, so he got through with a decent enough score. It did make him more than a little irritated when he made his way towards his assigned team.

"We're doomed. Completely and totally condemned to the nine hells!" The words that met him as he approached were not encouraging. Then the speaker saw him and gestured. "Look, a sign of our impending demise, a meathead thinking he's a designer!!!"

"Excuse me?" Bolt asked as calmly as he could.

"Look at him, he doesn't even look like he knows the difference between a bolt and rivet!" The young man with shaggy brown hair gestured up at Bolt.

"He does look like he could snap you in two though." Another young man, this one with short cut black hair, coughed out with a bit of amusement.

"I would welcome the death over the humiliation!" The complainer said.

The words made the budding anger the designer have sputter. "I am missing somethin'." He said, perhaps a bit obviously.

"And a foreigner too!" The man mimed fainting.

"Please excuse Dai. He is lamenting many things at the moment. Namaste, I am Ando, that is Wu." The quieter boy said with a small bow before gesturing to the young woman with shoulder length black hair at his side that had been very quiet so far.

"There are plenty of things to lament." The now named Dai grumbled and crossed his arms. "Don't tell me you expect to win against him." The man hissed the last word out. "Especially as stacked as the teams are."

"Explain please?" Bolt asked Ando as it became apparent Dai was caught up in his own drama.

"Ah, the testing clause for this contest is only triggered when they want to stack the teams. Officially they try to balance the teams by averaging out the test results. Unofficially, they have their start student get a perfect score and then select aides purposefully get barely passing results." The boy explained with a small wince. "The other teams typically have people with actual lower scores as a result."

"It's very hard to prove, but we all know it happens." Dai grit out.

Bolt looked over his assigned team. "And I'm guessin that this is important to you all?" He asked curiously.

"Yes." Wu said into the silence and then looked at him with a complicated emotion on her face as she noticed his lack of care. "You don't care?"

"Not much. I have other contests I need ta win. This is just to get a feel for them and try working on a team." Bolt admitted freely.

"Perfect. We got a complete newbie!" Dai threw his hands up in the air. "How'd you even pass the test if you haven't done contests?!"

"Dai." Wu didn't put emphasis on the word, but the young man winced at the implied reprimand.

"Yeah yeah, sorry. This isn't the end of my life or anything, but I do need something so I'm not doomed to cup noodles and busy work!" The young man almost shouted before he huffed and gave a small bow of his own. "Nameste." Wu bowed as well.

"Uhmm. I'm sorry." Bolt drawled out as he tried to make sense of the greeting. "I don't get that?" He tried to bow but was sure it came out clumsy and awkward.

"Local greeting. Or rather nation wide to be more clear. The bow is fine. We don't expect it from foreigners." Ando replied with a small laugh. "Could we get your name though?"

"Yes! Sorry, I'm Bolt, and as you can guess I'm not from here." The young designer replied with a half smile as he straightened out. "So, could you explain how one designs as a team?"

"Oh for." Dai cut himself off.

"I believe I am the highest scorer of the group, so I can lead?" Ando gestured to table right next to him. "Have you worked with design tables like this?"

Wu had already moved up and started pressing buttons. A holographic three-D grid appeared in front of them and she began to outline a skeleton. Dai moved over and gave it a few twirls with a gesture of his hand.

"And they're already starting." Ando muttered and sighed. "Typically you have a designer lead and then assign tasks based on skill level. With a good lead it works out well. Without it you get this. Or that." He pointed to a nearby team just barely visible.

Nearby more designers were working on their own mechs. Or rather one person was working and the others were waiting. Some clever angles had it so that Bolt couldn't see the design, but he could tell that there was only a single person actually doing anything.

"That's the honor student. Golden crown, silk pants, ready to get a senior's mentorship." Dai muttered as he added wires to the blueprint.

"Ok, that explains some things." Bolt muttered as he watched the design. "Should I give input?"

Ando gave a shrug as he moved to the table. "Depends on the designer lead." He gestured very obviously to everyone working on things.

"And we don't really have one. Fine. What's the step after design?" Bolt felt the need to clarify just to be sure he wasn't missing anything.

"Design, build, test pilot through obstacle course, then the pilots choose and have two demo battles. The victor is based off obstacle course points and points scored in demo battles." The one woman in the group explained and then glanced a Bolt. "The demo battle points are damage done and taken over ten minutes, deactivation, or surrender." She headed off the next question.

"We have information the the demo and course?" Bolt watched as the mech took shape.

"Eh, it varies. They can't rig it too much or it becomes obvious, so it's usually just a gauntlet where you have to smack targets, dodge shots, and finish in time. The battle is a flat arena." Dai snorted as he started to fill out the torso. "I mean literally smack the targets by the way. They favor melee heavily."

He hadn't even started and he already felt a headache coming on. "Well I suppose the final question is who're the pilots?"

"Test pilot is some foreign girl that volunteered. The battle ones are from our local fighter colleges." Dai replied. "Those are both completely on the level by the way. The pilots would get pissy if someone tried to rig their fights so the rigging is elsewhere."

"Ah." Bolt gave a small laugh as he realized who had volunteered. "Small girl, long red braided hair?"

Wu glanced up from the design and noted his expression. "You know her."

"My fiancé, and likely why she volunteered." The young man admitted after some consideration.

"Bullshit." Dai shot back. "Since when did elite pilots associate with weaklings like us?" He asked, gesturing at the group and their rather skinny frames.

"Foreigner." Wu reminded, looking suddenly more interested than she had all day. "How'd you meet?" She inquired with a very serious look.

"I wouldn't mind talking bout it later. Right now, we need ta design a mech." Bolt said and stepped forward. "Umm, would you mind?" He gestured to the air in front of the holographic interface.

Both designers pulled their hands back.

"So, sorry for all the questions, but do local pilots only use staves?" Bolt began to fix the most glaring issues he saw in the mech as he spoke.

"What is he-" Dai was cut off by Wu holding her hand over his mouth.

Ando was the one to answer. "They're trained on all weapons, but you can safely say they know how to use staves."

"Ain't confident about fighting a prodigy who's been trained in building staffmen all the time. They'd be better. We at least know what he'd make. Trick is what would counter that in an open area." Bolt tapped out the wiring and the configuration, barely noticing that he'd mostly overwritten most of the work. It had started to clash anyway.

"So, ah, my friend." Ando spoke up as Wu slapped both her hands over Dai's mouth to keep the young man even more silent. "You said you've never done contests before right?"

"Nope. First time." The young designer continued to design as he absentmindedly answered the question. "Perhaps a spearman? No, glave. Something with a hook? I'd love a ranged thing, but I'm pants at them and I'm not confident of that in an arena. They'd get one shot."

Dai managed to pull Wu off him with a small glare at the utterly unrepentant woman. "Shotgun." He said and tapped open his interface, bringing up a weapon. "This one can be used to block and hit."

"Need the arms to be special for that but it could work. We could cut standard rifleman stability and reinforce the side arms." Bolt muttered and shifted the configuration.

"Did he just reconfigure the entire mech in a few seconds?" Ando asked Wu quietly.

"No, just the upper part." The girl whispered back.

"Oh, just that." Ando repeated incredulously. "JUST that."

Bolt didn't even hear them. "This guy's going to need to be good for one shot. I'm a bit worried about the obstacle course with that design though." He paused as something occurred to him. "No wait, it's Lilly. We just need it functional enough for her to handle that. She could probably do it with one arm."

"Hey peanut gallery. Work on the legs and boosters." Dai said over Bolt's words.

The designer paused and blinked. "Ah, sorry about that. Yes that'll help. We don't need anything special, and I don't think we have time for proper details. I need ta see about getting the theme. Ain't a good mech without one."

"Heh, reminds me of the old timey videos of men staring down a charging animal with just the gun." Dai observed out loud.

"Perfect!" Bolt said with a grin. "I'll adjust the targeting to account for what we have planned." He switched to another system.

"Why are you going into the computer systems?"

The young man paused mid-code. "You don't?"

Dai spoke up first and quickly. "We took other classes. Do what you think is best." He lowered his voice and hissed at his class mates. "Remember those oblivious young master cliches?"

Both young mech designers nodded rapidly in turn with very amused and only partially hidden grins. Bolt had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but at least they were trying to contribute now. It did help split up the work for the more tedious parts.

So, one thing about contests was that they were all timed. Bolt had sort of accounted for that, but his deadlines were typically a bit more fluid and less you have exactly this amount of time before we literally turn off the screens. Bolt found it more than a little annoying. He swallowed that annoyance though, and went back to his quarters in the MTA facility to rest and ready himself for the next day.

To his mild bemusement, he found that his team had beaten him to the construction facility when he returned. None of them looked well rested though. Wu had more than a few hairs out of place, Dai looked half dead, and Ando looked rather ruffled. Bolt was half tempted to make a joke or two, but it felt a bit out of place. They were invested. He wasn't so much.

Instead they entered the construction area and Bolt surveyed the area with clinical fascination. "Hmm."

"Got the bad bay." Dai observed with a shake of his head.

"This is bad?" Bolt asked.

It was several steps up. The fabrication unit was clean and looked functional, none of the cranes were missing parts, and the materials were all neatly sorted. (He still had to punch his cousin for that fiasco.) If anything this was a luxury!

"All the bays have identical fabrication units, but some were newer than others." Ando informed the young man. "Also, this one's slightly smaller, and not next to the snack vendor." He finished with a small chuckle.

"Those are very important." Dai said with a nod and a smile of his own before he moved forward. "Well, nothing to it." He rolled up the sleeves of his uniform.

"Ah, before we start, I do have experience in this." Bolt started. "Would you mind me being foreman here?"

The three exchanged glances before one of them gestured for him to start. Bolt smiled and gave the place another glance. He then moved to the fabricator and tapped it. It glitched slightly and he flicked the panel before finally reaching to the side and opening up a maintenance hatch. He was actually relatively familiar with this model and knew the most common failure points.

"Why does no one bother to clean things?" The young man muttered while peering inside. "All right, Ando, gather the skeleton materials. Place them on loaders two and three. Dai, place loader one towards the output. Wu. We need the blueprints printed out. Large as printout as you can. Place them up on the columns. We'll also need markers for them."

Mildly confused, but willing to follow his orders, the three jumped to things. In the meantime Bolt removed some of the obvious debris and then looked for the hand tools. They were in a box and dusty to his bewilderment. Grabbing a hammer he returned to the fabrication unit and began to hammer out the gunk and obvious buildup. No one wanted to get in and dirty on these things, so the stuff always built up on the inside and caused the strangest issues. They got absolutely filthy!

"This will be done in ten minutes. We have twelve hours to build our mech!" Bolt called out. "Prep, smoke em if you got em, and hit the shitter!"

Off to the side Dai snickered. "Does he know his accent's getting worse?" He asked Ando.

"Probably not, but this is entertaining in it's own way."

A few minutes later the parts printer was humming along and Bolt directed the others to start working. Assembling a mech was an old hat to him, as was directing other people. The college almost graduates were familiar with mech assembly, but only in the group project sort of way. Frankly Bolt would have rated anyone in his family as better workers. They knew their stuff in mech design, and they had enthusiasm, but they didn't know any of the tricks!

"What's with the markers?" Dai asked once the skeleton was finished and placed upright in the bay.

"Hmm, you don't mark what you need ta change on the blueprint?" Bolt asked.

There was a long beat of silence. "I was taught to follow the blueprint exactly." Ando said. "It's actually very bad practice to deviate."

The young designer frowned. "The way we do it at home, no, never mind." He looked up at the ceiling as he thought it could theoretically cause trouble in more advanced models maybe? More importantly though. "Will it cause issues in the contest?" He asked.

"I will look at the rules." Wu said.

Bolt nodded and continued to have the printer spit out parts. Pausing in their work was fine. Pausing in fabrication was less so. They had a limited amount of time there, and all of the parts needed to be checked for integrity.

"There's nothing about it in the rules." Wu called out after looking through things.

The lead designer nodded in turn before he reached down and picked up a cable bundle. "Then we do it my way for this. In retrospect it's probably a bad habit to adjust the mechs while making them for better mechs, but in this case we didn't have time to make everything right so we will see issues we can fix."

"That makes sense." Dai concluded. "Usually we calc everything out beforehand and adjusting things would cause cascading failures. Here we have a sort of slapdash rush job with errors we might not have caught. Also, isn't that heavy?" He asked Bolt as he saw what was being lifted.

"Hmm?" Bolt looked at what he was carrying. "I've had worse, and dealing with the machines is always a hassle with this cable."

It was one of the main power lines. The cables were as thick as a person's wrist and the entire bundle was long enough that it could stretch through half the mech. It was not a light part, but getting it aligned using the machines typically required you getting it up on a crane, slowly moving the crane into position, pulling the cable down with another crane, and then attaching it. Or you could just climb a ladder, bolt it to the skeleton with a temp bind and let it drop. It saved ten to twenty minutes if you were quick with the climb.

"Thinking about it." Bolt said as he dropped the cable and swung down to align it. "It is probably a bad habit I have there. Adjusting mechs while building them I mean." He spoke to the others, who seemed to be slowing a bit. "Chop chop. We can talk while working until the welding! There I expect proper safety precautions!"

They all startled slightly and began to rush again. The young designer shook his head and went for another cable. This mech wasn't going to assemble itself!

Admittedly it wasn't that hard either. This was a rushed mech for a third rate state using what amounted to generic licenses. It was not that much of a step up from Iron Spirit assembly. The largest issues Bolt had was he wanted to change everything while working. Now that his attention had been brought to it, that little niggling need felt like a bit of a problem.

Not that it hurt here. There were plenty of easy fixes. The wiring could always be better. The cockpit could use a few degrees of shift. Getting the gun flawless was obvious important!

Eventually the mech named simply Team Fifteen's Mech was finished. It was not the most complicated mech in the world. Bolt still felt proud of it. He'd learned a lot.

He also had time for a shower, he'd gotten absolutely filthy. Fortunately they did have one nearby. Fancy tools or not, sometimes you had to get dirty building mechs. It was good that was acknowledged here!

Lilly had probably been a tiny, tiny bit hasty. Volunteering to test mechs for the contest thingy that Bolt had gone to had seemed amusing at the time. She'd grown up with junk mechs. She knew how janky some designs could be. It was perfectly fine to do this behind his back and surprise him! It was a silly little joke!

She regretted everything.

The first mech had felt like it wanted to crawl into a hole and die. The mech did to clarify. She just wanted to help kill it. It jittered when it moved, the leg had an annoying little hitch on every other step somehow. The sensor data physically hurt to interpret. It also had a stupid little staff as it's one weapon. The arms weren't even designed to give her a full range of motion!

She was half tempted to make the entire thing fail, but pride and professionalism kept her from doing it. The obstacle course still hurt going through. She missed about half the targets because the arms couldn't move right, and the speed was nothing to write home about. It felt bad in other words and she was glad when she was finished with it. She'd foolishly assumed that that was going to be the worst of the bunch. It wasn't.

That honor went to the third of the twenty she was going to go through. That travesty had outright miss done the armor on several parts, and the endurance portion of the gauntlet with automated turrets had outright totaled it. Considering that particular portion was just meant to lightly damage the mech to test the durability, it was an outright failure potent enough to functionally disqualify the team. Lilly had never been so pissed off by the end of that one!

Number nine was the only one of the group that actually soothed her temper some. It was actually functional enough to work with. It was still a stupid staffman, but it flowed well enough that she could hit all the targets and move through the endurance gauntlet intact. It also felt cold, but in the clinical sense of the word. It was a mech that did its job, and there was nothing wrong with that. Lilly could even see some of the appeal to staffmen if the good ones were like that.

Nine wasn't perfect of course. It was on the slower side, so it got docked for time, the sensors grated against her own, and it was a design that the designer had obviously practiced repeatedly. There was no innovation. It was so utterly unimaginative that you could practically interchange it with another staffmen. It was another weapon with different details ultimately.

Fifteen was Bolt's mech. She could have told it apart just approaching the thing. It had a hint of style. There were a hundred little things that set it apart internally too, but probably the most important part was that it felt warm when she got in. It was nice and soothing.

To make her day even better, the machine didn't have a damned staff! It had a rather large two handed shotgun. Interesting choice, and different enough that Lilly did a test fire after starting up to get a handle on the heft.

She could immediately tell that the arms were not standard rifle variant. Too jerky. There was a noticeable twitch with the test shot and she couldn't maintain a stable platform when aiming. The blast cone on the rifle was very wide though, so she got the idea. More a Striker than a Rifleman. Those by necessity couldn't be stable firing platforms due to the need to move or defend themselves at short range.

In the interest of being professional Lilly didn't take her time and really familiarize herself. She got to the starting line and started up the mech. Then she boosted off like she had all the others.

The gauntlet was relatively simple. Lilly had gone through more than a few with the MTA and this felt outright primitive to be honest. It started with a straightaway to test speed and movement. Then an obstacle course to test lateral and vertical abilities.

Then another obstacle course, this time with targets. All of them were arranged such that it was close range, which was a rather large flaw really. Even the simplest MTA tests had things for longer and extreme range. Here it was just a series of targets around a corner, slightly above her head, a small cluster of them, and so on. Easy targets for a melee, less easy for anything with low rate of fire like the shotgun. Well, less easy if you couldn't line them up and blast them all at once.

This guy was a patient one. Unflinching. He would do the right shot when the time came, no matter the obstacle. Not her usual style, but it fit the design. His shotgun was meant to do real big damage. Or smack them with the butt when they got too close like she did with one target, heh.

After all of that was another straightaway with the automated turrets. There was no cover and no way around it. The shots were pretty light though, so if you moved fast and did proper dodging you could get through with anything less than paper.

Not a bad time. There had been one mech built for speed that had done better, but this one had achieved good scores all around. Lilly felt so professional! Especially when she went back to the rest of the less than pleasant mechs to finish off the testing.

There was just a little, tiny problem at the end of it. "What do we do when the pilot is too good?" One of the officials asked his compatriot in a low tone she could still hear.

"We smile and say thank you." The other replied, giving Lilly a bow before turning back to his companion. "Next time setup the gauntlet to be harder!" He ordered in a loud whisper.

"But our budget!!!" The man protested with tears.

Lilly quietly left before that conversation got too involved. It didn't seem like any of her business. Doing her job too well was not her problem!

Finding her hubby to be was a relatively simple matter. The mechs needed to be fixed up after the battle, the techs had assigned repair bays. Nothing fancy really, and very easy to get to. She was mildly surprised to find the designer sitting down at a small table with three other people. He was actually socializing!?

"Still can't believe we're done with the repair already." A shaggy looking man at the table muttered into his drink.

"Damage wasn't that bad." Bolt answered back with a shrug.

"I do have to agree. It was a treat to see someone physically lift the armor off though. You usually have to get the cranes and lifters involved." Another man said as he lifted his glass.

"Very impressive." The girl said, and Lilly decided to stop sneaking and start hopping because she didn't like that look towards her beefcake.

"Of course, he's the best!" The young woman cheered as she hopped onto Bolt's back and gave him a hug from behind.

"Well he wasn't lying about the fiancé, not that I doubted it." The man finished his statement quickly at the look at Lilly was sending him. "Also she's tiny!" He hissed to the others in a low tone.

"Bolt's too much of a sweety to lie. So, these your um teammates?" She asked and narrowed her eyes at them as she tried to place something. "I'd guess one does weapons, one did the boosters, and someone did armor too."

There was a long beat of silence. "How?" The noisy one asked plaintively.

"I'm guessing, but Lilly is very sensitive." Bolt tried to explain.

The pilot giggled. "I know my darlin's style. The best way ta describe it is he focuses on one thing well, I suppose? I was also guessin mostly."

"Introducing you, this is Lilly." Bolt gestured to his fiancé and then to the others. "Ando did armor, Dai did the weapon, and Wu did the boosters as you guessed."

Oh, proper introductions here. "Namaste." Lilly hopped down from her significant other's back and gave a proper bow.

"Of course the fiancé is a young mistress too." Dai groused.

"Hey, uh. Wait." Lilly almost protested before she realized the description might actually fit. "I suppose I could count sorta? I know Bolt doesn't." She counted off story cliches on her fingers. "Well, not really. He was decidedly middle class growing up?" She glanced at him with a question on her face.

"I don't get tha refences, but Wrench Rats could be lower middle class to barely scraping by. It's middle class for our planet, not for a nation like this. Also you understand that?" Bolt looked curious at that.

"Grew up learning from an old temple staff master for half my life. He told the best stories. Personally think it's the only reason I got a moral compass at all." Lilly admitted as she recalled those days. "Pity he died. Old man didn't have an arm and coughed till the day he died, but could still beat my cute little ass up and down inside and outside a mech."

"That's high praise." Her fiancé said softly.

"Don't feel sad, he mighta wanted ta die in battle, but he said I could carry on some of his legacy instead." Lilly smiled in remembrance. "Ain't like he had much admittedly. Ya know how our home goes."

"Is it too much to ask?" Ando chimed in with curiosity.

"We're from what you call Bloody Karma. Anyone not born there was left for some, likely painful, reason." Bolt explained with a small shrug.

The other junior mech designers exchanged a look and collectively decided not to press. Instead they chatted about mech stuff, which lost Lilly admittedly. She liked seeing Bolt happy and actually socializing. She did accept being pulled to the side by Wu though, mostly out of curiosity.

Her question surprised the pilot though. "Did you die your hair?"

"Nope!" Lilly flipped her braid over her shoulder and held up the bright red strands. "All natural."

"And gorgeous too." Wu muttered. "How did you manage with the helmets? That's far from standard."

"Either roll it up somehow or use an adjusted helmet. Bolt's designs usual add that, and I think there's standard adjustment on like half the mechs out there?" Lilly had to admit it was annoying to deal with, but the hair was a thing she didn't compromise on.

"It's definitely a warriors haircut then." Wu concluded with an almost proud look.

Another surprise statement there. That was a Serene Temple thing where you only cut your hair in a horrible loss. "Not, quite." Lilly admitted. "Sensi did tell tales about that thing, but I just wanted to be a girl when I decided to keep it uncut." It had been the first time she'd gotten into a fight with poppa in retrospect.

That memory still hurt, but she would not let it stop her. Fortunately the rest of the conversation was less of a minefield and more about self care tips. Probably her first time having girl talk, like ever. It was more than a little entertaining to realize in retrospect.

Sadly they couldn't talk forever. Eventually it came time to have the mechs picked and piloted.