The Mech Touch



Ves often reminded himself of his principle that mechs should be treated with dignity. They should ideally be granted rights similar to those of humans as they could be just as intelligent and lively as the people they served.

While Ves recognized that mechs could never become fully equal to humans, they could still get close enough that the gap became irrelevant as far as everyone was concerned.

The way he treated the Sensia and the Furia at the moment violated his principles.

He took a natural adaptation process and sped it up so that months worth of familiarization took place in a matter of hours!

This was akin to rapidly maturing the body of a human clone. It was already unethical to make a clone in the first place, but to have it rapidly age so that it skipped its entire childhood made it even worse.

As Ves looked at the competition mechs he was working on, he recalled that he only really built them to last for this tournament and not much longer. They were expendable in his eyes, but that might be a fate too cruel to mechs that had just been born and had yet to enjoy the fullness of life.

He sighed. "You're right to point this out. I think a subconscious part of me did not want to confront this discrepancy at all, so I haven't thought about this before. That is not how a smart and principled mech designer should handle a serious problem. Thinking about it now, our Twin Souls truly deserve better. They may be designed with a very narrow purpose in mind, but that doesn't mean they can enjoy a second life after they have fulfilled their jobs. Normally, the tournament organizers take possession of all of the competition mechs. They will either recycle them or preserve them in order to put the successful and most interesting machines on display. I think it should be easy enough to ask them to transfer the Sensia and the Furia to our clan where they can serve other purposes."

The mechs weren't even close to ready to fight on a modern battlefield. Ves would have to redesign them from the ground up, but that took way too much effort. He would rather spend his limited time on more productive activities.

What he could do was hand the living mechs over to Maikel and Zanthar to see what they could make out of the competition mechs. It would be a good test of their design skills for them to reengineer an existing pair of Larkinson mechs.

Ves also thought about making light modifications to them before handing them over to one of his mech academies. The living mechs should be able to have a fruitful time helping mech cadets explore the potential of living mechs and teamwork.

He inwardly shook his head. He could think about the alternative uses of his Twin Souls later. It was enough to promise them that they would be able to have a good time in the Larkinson Clan after this day was over.

"Looks like you resolved at least one of your problems." Juliet said. "What about the accelerated adaptation that you are trying to pull off? Is it okay for you to treat living mechs this way?"

He pressed his lips as he quickly deliberated on this specific matter.

"From a utilitarian standpoint, I feel like I do not necessarily need to rely on this procedure to win the finals. However, I should never underestimate the competition. Team Hendrix almost managed to defeat us. There are other teams that are at least just as strong. I shouldn't let go of this advantage, and while it is not entirely ethical, there is no question that my mechs are made to win this contest. What I am doing will help them fulfill their purpose better. They were always meant to cooperate with Bobbie and Lizzie. I think the best way to look at it is that I am designing customized pets for a pair of clients."

Though Ves knew that this was not an entirely good answer, it was more than acceptable to him. It was at least sufficient enough to ease his troubled mood and soothe his conscience.

After Ves and Juliet fixed up their machines once again, they awaited the start of the fourth round of matches.

Not a lot of teams had managed to make it this far. With only 9 teams left in the competition, the dynamic in the waiting room had changed.

The ones that made it this far regarded their other competitors with respect and wariness. There was a tension between them all that discouraged casual chatting.

After all, who knew whether they would leak out any sensitive information about their works that could be used to target their weaknesses in the next round!

As for the losing teams, half of their mech designers had already exited the venue. They were usually the individuals who made a poor showing in this event. Their mechs got crushed too quickly while the panel of experts did not mince their words when they picked apart a lot of flaws.

The ones that remained at least managed to earn enough respect to preserve their pride and hold their heads high.

[Team Larkinson vs Team Danilov!]

"Go get them, boss." Dulo Voiken said as he clapped his palm on Ves' back. "The mechs developed by Team Danilov aren't pushovers. My mechs would have been able to fight against yours if it wasn't for our defeat in the earlier round. Our javelin mech and our spearman mech did manage to poke a lot of holes in the enemy mechs. I hope that helps."

Ves gazed over at Team Danilov. He wasn't familiar with them but he understood their type. They were yet another pair of older and more experienced Journeymen.

In fact, the ones that managed to make it to the later rounds tended to be over sixty years old!

There were geniuses among the younger generation of Journeymen. Why couldn't there be geniuses among the older generations as well?

Not every Journeyman was able to advance to the rank of Senior when they entered their fifties or sixties.

Everyone progressed at vastly different rates. Their talent, their life experiences, their knowledge accumulation, their mech designs, their work ethic and the complexity of their design philosophies all played a major role in determining whether they were ready to take the next step!

Early bloomers tended to be the exception rather than the rule. It took a lot of brilliant mech designers half a century to a century to advance to Senior despite all of their hard work and innovative efforts.

They simply set the bar too high. Mech designers who sought to solve more difficult and complicated problems needed to conduct at least thrice if not ten times as much research in order to progress their design philosophies to the next step!

This was the impression that Ves gained from James Danilov and Laurence Tsukai. Both mech designers were in their seventies and managed to earn quite a decent number of awards and accomplishments since they entered the mech industry.

"Oh, I remember their mechs now. They're one of the few who decided to design beast mechs, right?"

Dulo Voiken nodded. "The Lancernaut and the Killer Kitty. Don't be fooled by their silly names. Both mechs are strong and difficult to deal with. They both have excellent mobility despite the fact that their designs are substantially different."

He activated a projection of the Lancernaut.

Just as its name suggested, it was clearly a lancer mech, but that was not all to it. Instead of possessing a pair of humanoid legs like any other normal lancer mech, it featured double the amount of legs in a centaur configuration!

"Centaur mechs are much better at charging forward than lancer mechs." Ves remarked as he closely studied the design characteristics of this competition mech. "Aside from the obvious advantages of having double the amount of legs to do most of the work, their mass can easily be twice or thrice as much as an equivalent humanoid mech, yet still be able to maintain comparable speeds. The formula for momentum is p equals m multiplied by v. The amount of force that a centaur mech can channel through its lance is much greater than that of a smaller and lighter humanoid mech."

"That's right. This is also the main reason that the spearman mech designed by my sister and I got knocked out so soon. It wasn't mobile enough to evade the charge while its defenses failed after getting impaled by lance propelled with the force of a crashing starship."

Though Dulo exaggerated a bit with his description, Ves understood the sentiment after watching a brief clip of the collision between the Voiken spearman mech and the Lancernaut!

The spearman mech designed by Sara and Dulo Voiken may be a bit on the heavier side, but it was not as sluggish as a knight mech.

The spearman mech actually managed to sidestep in time for the Lancernaut to miss the mark.

What no one expected was for the centaur mech holding both a lance as well as a shield to cover its weak point to correct its course and turn at an unrealistic angle!

"What!?" Ves almost shouted. "That centaur mech has turned over 60 degrees to the left in just a fraction of a second! How is that possible!?"

It was as if a speeding shuttle managed to turn around the corner of a building. The amount of forces required to make this happen were immense, and the load on the mechanical components of the mechs was not low!

The footage replayed and zoomed in on the legs of centaur mech. Ves could see that they did not look like an average set of legs for this mech type. They had been reinforced and altered so that they could also push out to the sides with much greater strength than usual!

"James Danilov is a beast mech designer who is known to design mechs like this. He specializes in inertial redirection, so all of his beast mechs are known for being able to turn and shift direction a lot faster than usual." Dulo explained. "In the previous two rounds, the Lancernaut already showed off the ability to turn faster while it had already built up a lot of linear momentum. However, it only turned 30 degrees at most. The Lancernaut even missed a few times because its targets managed to jump just outside of the way of the incoming lance."

This spoke of strategy and forethought. The mech pilot of the Lancernaut deliberately undersold the full capabilities of the centaur lancer mech.

It was only when Team Danilov matched against a fairly powerful opponent like Team Voiken that the Lancernaut exposed its true strength!

"Wait." Ves said. "Being able to turn 60 degrees in an instant might not be its limit. What is the record for all of his centaur mechs?"

Dulo briefly looked up the information. "90 degrees, but that is an extreme cause where James Danilov had been dared into making a single machine that could do this. The design of the experimental centaur mech was so extreme that it would be obvious to everyone that it is an odd machine."

When Ves carefully looked at the construction of the centaur mech, he figured that it was already straining to turn 60 degrees at its charging speed at the time. It might be able to turn even more, but not to the extent of 90 degrees.

"The Lancernaut is not easy to handle, but we'll figure it out, I suppose." Ves shrugged. "What about the Killer Kitty?"

"Oh, it's an annoying light tiger gun mech. It is fairly fast but is difficult to damage because it is equipped with energized armor plating. That is the specialty of Laurence Tsukai. He made it so that as long as the armor of the Killer Kitty remains powered, it can resist stronger attacks than normal, so don't think it will fall down easily after getting struck a few times."

That indeed sounded annoying to Ves.

"Any weaknesses?"

"The Killer Kitty attack power is weak. It only has a pair of light laser guns mounted to its side. They are accurate enough to aim at the weak points of opposing mechs, but their ability to penetrate armor is too poor. Its main role is to assist the Lancernaut."

"Alright. I think I understand what my mechs are dealing with. Hopefully Bobby and Lizzie will have a plan to deal with those tricky charges."