The Mech Touch

Veoline was called the City of Trees.

While it was not the only city in the LRA to feature massive tree-like structures, it was definitely one of the largest in the region.

The combination of growth buildings and organic vehicles gave every visitor the illusion that Veoline was some kind of alien forest.

A sparse forest with very huge trees, but a forest nonetheless. The leaves hanging over everyone's heads provided an adequate amount of shade without blocking too much light.

Many organic caretakers in the form of beetles, butterflies and other colorful insects tended to the growths. They meticulously followed their bioprogramming by removing litter, inspecting the health of any trunks and branches and perhaps keeping an eye on any humans who wished to perform any mischief.

The result was a pleasant, clean environment that completely lacked the artificial atmosphere of conventional cities.

As the armored shuttle bearing Ves and Gloriana slowly flew along an air corridor reserved for VIPs, Ves continued to admire the view.

"This is a very different place from Bentheim, that's for sure." He muttered.

"That's natural." Gloriana responded as she scratched Clixie's ears. "The Lifers reject any aesthetics that look cold and artificial. Some are more extreme than others. They even developed organic starsh.i.p.s."

These biosh.i.p.s were amazing sights. Ves would have loved to see one of these majestic vessels up close, but there weren't many opportunities to do so amidst all of the restrictive rules. No one was allowed to mill around in orbit. Visitors either had to stay in the outer system or make their way to one of the planets.

Not that he complained. There were plenty of novelties on the surface Prosperous Hill VI that attracted his interest.

He would have loved to walk on the streets, but that was irresponsible for someone of his stature. He could only view the streets of Veoline from above where a pair of aerial mechs from the Infinity Guards flanked his shuttle.

In fact, they weren't the only ones to travel in this fashion. There were numerous other VIPs moving around the capital city while being escorted by a varying number of mechs.

Ves could judge the relative power, importance and origin from studying the mechs on protection duty.

The quantity of mechs denoted the relative power and importance of the passengers.

The greatest number of mechs he had seen at the same time was when a squad of twelve avian biomechs surrounded a luxury passenger transport from every cardinal direction.

"It's probably a prominent local official or business magnate." Gloriana guessed.

"Maybe, but those avian biomechs look quite unique. Such an honor guard probably fits a powerful biomech designer."

There were many more biomech designers than Dr. Navarro in the Prosperous Hill System. Granted, most of them resided on the fourth planet from the sun, but Prosperous Hill VI was where most mechs got sold.

The reason why Ves and Gloriana decided to go out today was to experience different varieties of biomechs in person.

They just arrived at their first destination. Their shuttle along with their escorts landed in a secluded, guarded landing zone. Ves and his group exited their vehicle and floated upwards until they reached a restricted entrance that led into some kind of huge horizontal tree hall.

A uniformed attendant scanned their bodies and waved his arms in welcome.

"Mr. and Mrs. Larkinson. We have been expecting you. Your tickets are in order. Please enter our great halls and enjoy our historic exhibitions. The Prescott Museum offers its visitors the most interesting and innovative biomechs that the Life Research Association has ever developed. Each of the biomechs on display are representative of fully-realized models that have achieved great success in the mech market."

Ves tuned out the standard marketing spiel and simply flew forward until he entered the first great hall.

As a museum that exhibited a large number of biomechs, its structures were huge. The Prescott Museum tied several interconnected halls that looked like giant tree trunks that had been grown in a horizontal orientation.

The interior inside was nice. Smaller trees and other growths brought a breath of fresh air to the visitors. The average folk walked from exhibit to exhibit with their feet. The richer and more well-to-do people flew above everyone's heads.

While there were floating benches and other fixtures that allowed the wealthier guests some reprieve, there were no other places that could give flying a place to shut off their antigrav clothes.

He supposed that if anyone ever fell, some kind of safety system in the museum would make sure that no one plunged to their deaths.

"Look at this tiger mech! Doesn't it look adorable?" Gloriana tugged Ves' arm and dragged him over to the side.

"Meow?"

"Miaow!"

Lucky and Clixie were attracted by the exhibit as well. Lucky had no problem with flying by himself, but the Rubarthan Sentinel Cat had to be fitted with a customized flight harness in order to keep up with everyone.

Fortunately, Clixie was a clever cat. She easily mastered the controls once she spent a few hours getting used to flight.

The tiger mech in question looked like an actual tiger, but scaled to the proportion of a bestial mech.

The majesty exuded by the organic mech instantly reminded Ves of Zeigra back when the Crown Cat was alive and in his prime!

A projection came online that briefly described the mech and provided follow-up choices if the visitors wanted to hear its history or view footage of its most notable moments.

[Markev-Johanna Bioproducts Incorporated Hollow Claw 7333-TNZ, nicknamed 'Tiger King'.]

"Tiger King is a very apt way to call this mech."

It turned out this was Markev-Johanna's only Hollow Claw mech that had been given a rich and luxurious tiger hide. The other Hollow Claws made by this biomech company had to make due to duller grey hides or no hides at all depending on their pricing.

Many uncovered mechs looked like skinless organisms because it was cheaper and made it easy to perform assisted 'repairs'.

However, an option existed to cover up n.a.k.e.d flesh with a hide or skin. While these skins could be fairly tough, their defensive parameters were not very impressive compared with hard bone plating that was customary to covered mechs.

The hides weren't needed to protect the flesh against bacteria and other environmental hazards because they were already incomparably resilient against germs.

Therefore, causing a mech to grow a hide only added to their cost and maintenance burden while providing a minimal defensive boost. It was only added to custom mechs for special clients.

"Look! According to this description, this tiger mech can not only rend through mechs with its claws and teeth, but it can also fire lasers from its tail!"

The Tiger King possessed more goodies. It incorporated biological antigrav systems that enabled it to float in the air. It could release special particles from its maw that weakened the effectiveness of energy weapons. Yet the most noteworthy aspect that allowed it to garner a lot of fame was that it was able to eat and digest parts from other biomechs to a limited degree!

"What a bold idea!" Ves looked impressed. "The amount of design work and forethought required to develop and integrate the digestion and upgrade systems is immense. There are many ways this can go wrong."

Just like classical mechs, biomechs incorporated lots of strange exotics and other materials. A single biomech did not require so many different varieties of materials. In some cases, adding more was detrimental as the exotics reacted or interfered with each other in dangerous ways.

This was how his Devil Tiger was supposed to work. His personal experience in developing his first masterwork mech gave him a greater appreciation of how difficult it must be to design the Hollow Claw.

Unfortunately for the designer of this model, the mechs eventually fell out of favor.

While it was very tempting to grow the biomechs through consumption, the digestion capabilities of the Hollow Claws were woefully inadequate. The stomach of this tiger mech model couldn't process too many materials but demanded lots of energy to sustain its processes.

Customers found out that while it was useful to enable a mech to upgrade itself in the field, it was generally cheaper and faster to purchase a better mech or perform a regular assisted upgrade with the help of a biomech designer.

The Tiger King happened to be the strongest of the Hollow Claws. Its owner and pilot stuck to it for over two decades. It even went through several rounds of customizations to tailor its performance even further.

"Why is it stuck in a museum, then?" Ves wondered.

"It says here that the original mech designer has died. Since he was a Senior, that meant his design philosophy became unmoored."

"Ah."

The fall of a mech designer mostly led to a reduction in effectiveness of any mech that he or she contributed to. The Tiger King could have continued to evolve to greater heights, but without the support of an active design philosophy, it could no longer keep up with comparable mechs on the battlefield.

"Is this still a functional mech?" Ves curiously asked.

Gloriana shook her head. "No. It's too old for that. The mech was already starting to decline when its owner sold it to the Prescott Museum. It's been treated so that it is permanently in this shape."

"A shame. This is the closest example of a living mech that I have seen so far."

The Tiger King possessed an old and subtle spiritual character. Ves could tell that the mech had gone through a lot over the years it was active. While the life it developed was not comparable to any of his living mechs, Ves still admired it for achieving so much progress without the help of his design philosophy.

The bestial proved that living mechs were not exclusive to Ves' products. As long as a mech existed long enough, it had the potential to develop as much life as one of his regular products.

Still, it was unlikely for any mech to last so long. The Tiger King could have probably functioned for a couple more decades, but its decline would definitely hasten at that point.

Every biomech possessed a finite lifespan. This was something that every biomech contend with. The fact that they could decline and die of old age was one of the biggest reasons why hardly any biomech designer bothered with adding continuous growth functions to their products.

Despite their organic forms, biomechs were just as disposable as classical mechs. Once they became obsolete, their owners had no qualms of getting rid of them in order to make room for newer, younger and more effective battle machines.

"If this mech was still functional, then I would have tried to see if I could gain it for myself."

"Huh? Why would you ever want this antique?"

"I'm not sure." He shrugged. "I just feel like I could do something."

The Tiger King still possessed a seed of life. The acc.u.mulated history did not go away even when it was transformed into a museum piece.

In fact, Ves even felt he could strip this quality from the former mech if he wanted to. He never thought about doing so, though. It would be disrespectful to the mech, its deceased designer and its past owner.

"I hope there are more interesting exhibits up ahead."