Chapter Text
The vanguard-class Titan is without a doubt the most impressive machine you’ve ever laid your hands upon. Even the hydraulics and cables in isolation emanate a power, a decisive beauty that is only further exaggerated when placed into the chassis of the hulking mechanical beast. For the past three years – an impressive number for a front-line mechanic – you’ve worked to keep these titans battle ready when tensions are high and to repair or rebuild them within the blink of an eye, should they inevitably be damaged or destroyed in the heat of battle. Sometimes, of course, a titan is mauled so thoroughly that even your hands can’t bring them back from their demise. This is war, after all. It’s why there’s an unspoken rule among the mechanics. Never get attached to the big dumb robots. Titans are tools, and tools break.
Aside from unspoken rules, the mechanics have jokes too, of course. Whenever a new mechanic joins the party, everyone pretends to repair the titans without any help from the obviously incredibly helpful MRVNs. More than just a hazing ritual, it’s a test of their resolve. When it was your turn to join this place, you’d been working at the titan for twenty-four hours straight by the time they came to rescue you from your own commitment. You’d very nearly got the thing up and running, as well. Now, with the assistance of MRVNs, you can get three titans from battle-ravaged to brand new in an hour or two.
That is, when the MRVNs do their job.
It’s been a calm day. One of the titans returned with minor damage on the cockpit shielding, another with a leaky minor hydraulic and one with a slight tree-induced limp.
Just as you’re enjoying your fashionably late lunch, the raspy voice of your chief bursts through the silent cafeteria.
“Sinclair! We need you in the hangar!”
With a theatrical grumble, you stuff whatever food you can into your mouth and get up. A little too eager for something to do, the sound of your almost-running echoes off the empty seats. You give her a hasty half-arsed salute which she only technically acknowledges and she updates you on the situation as you make your way to the hangar.
“The MRVN you had working on that left leg fucked the wiring completely, damn near caused a fire. Shoved that one straight to the repair workshop and got another one try to repair it, only now that one’s fucked it even harder. I’d repair it myself, but you know him the best, and I’d be lying if I said I felt comfortable repairing him – especially given his… Well, you’ll see what I mean.”
You mumble a sound that almost sounds like “Ah. I see.” – only it is severely distorted by your mouth still full of egg sandwich.
“We’ll need an update within the hour, or you’ll have a grumpy commander to deal with. If you need me…” She gestures in the general direction of the office overlooking the hangar.
“I’ll get it done,” you manage.
The starlight casts a beam of yellow-white light across the bright magenta hull of the titan in question – an older Vanguard with the identification PL-2832. Its ocular systems are trained on you as you come in, but the titan doesn’t acknowledge your presence otherwise. It’s not immediately clear what the problem is; Initially, he looks entirely up to code, only a wiring panel on the left leg being open. Upon closer inspection, the issue becomes apparent, though: the wires are meticulously tangled into themselves, looping over and over with the result an unsolvable knot of cable that will need to be removed in its entirety. This tangle couldn’t possibly be caused by a MRVN under normal operating circumstances, making the consistent failure of two of them quite an anomaly- were it not for the fact that this particular titan has had a habit of interfering with engineers he doesn’t like.
You shut the wire casing, obscuring the tangle, and give it a pat for good measure. It’s then that you notice that the titan’s ocular systems have not moved away from you since you entered. You decide to humour him.
“So. Want to tell me what your plan was, confusing those poor MRVNs?”
He responds in a harmonic voice with a soothing, predictable cadence.
“It was an attempt to trick you into repairing my leg.”
This titan is going to get me in trouble one day, you think to yourself. “An attempt that – very predictably – succeeded. Now-”
You ascend the ladder up to the closed cockpit canopy until you can talk to the titan at eye level.
“What do you want from me that no simple robot could accomplish?”
The titan shifts slightly in the clamps, almost looking nervous.
“I require an off-the-books upgrade.”
You briefly make a troubled face, but decide to hear him out either way – you have been rather bored recently. He continues, either intentionally ignoring it or blissfully unaware.
“My pilot and I are most effective in the titan-wingman configuration. It is a conclusion we have reached after performing trials of this strategy in the past three missions. However, I believe this configuration could be significantly more efficient if my dynamic materials sensor system was upgraded to a class 3-D system, from the class 1-A that it is currently.”
He hesitates; his eyes inspect your face intently for any signs of an opinion, for any indication that this proposal might be rejected – after all, such requests are rare and quite often considered ‘unnecessary.’ you can tell that the robot has set his hopes very, very high and his expectations very, very low.
You put on your best poker-face to give him no chance – no excuse – to shut his own plan down. You gesture for him to continue.
“Furthermore, to assist in reconnaissance operations, we have found my servo and hydraulic systems to have – for lack of a better word – a severe lack of granularity and rapid tactile feedback, when applied in stealth-heavy contexts. It follows that these systems should be refit to remedy these shortcomings.”
Now, the request has become quite extensive – if it weren’t for the fact that you’d seen those two in action and had tended to the titan for over a year now, you would’ve shut it down right then and there. Unfortunately, and quite specifically against the unspoken rule, you’ve grown to be quite familiar with this hulking pile of steel and polymers, even if you’d only seen its pilot in passing.
You consider the request, flip it over in your mind a few times, fold it inside out, put it in various differently shaped boxes, spin it around once more and come up with one more question.
“Why exactly does it need to be off-the-books?”
“I wish to surprise my pilot with these upgrades on their birthday. It is exactly two-hundred and ten hours, thirty-one minutes and five seconds from now.”
You hold up your watch, grab your calendar from the metaphorical wall in your mind, and start checking the feasibility of this plan. It’d be a tight squeeze, and that’s if they have no unexpected-
Most certainly reading your mind, he interrupts the train of thought.
“My pilot has been put on medical leave for the following two weeks. I, too, will be required to remain in the hangar for that duration - provided repair work is underway.”
“And just what excuse would I give the chief?”
He looks down at his recently repaired left leg and swings it lightly.
“I believe that wiring still needs some work, does it not?”
If the robot had a mouth, you’re sure it would be breaking out in a mischievous grin by now.
“I suppose you’re right,” you say.
You drop yourself down to the bottom floor, and open up the panelling again, this time with the intent to make this repair take as long as you could possibly stretch it out for.
When you arrive at the chief’s office just shy of an hour later, she can already tell something mischievous is brewing. Having learned from past encounters with your impenetrable mind, she doesn’t even try to ask the why, and skips immediately to the what.
“Just give me a manifest of what you need. What do I tell the higher-ups?”
“The wiring’s fucked.”
“And it’ll take a week?”
“Two weeks.”
She whistles, very clearly tempted to ask just what you’ll be cooking up.
“Two weeks to perform extensive repairs of the wiring and hydraulics systems in the left upper leg and all associated systems of PL-2872. Sound good?”
“Sounds like it’ll be a load of work. The list will be on your desk next morning.”
“I can’t wait.” she says, chuckling to herself.
It’s been about four days of hard work, but you’ve finally managed to finalize the new hydraulic systems in the left arm and hand. Not only should these brand new pistons and tubes improve the delicacy with which they can move, the maximum power output should be just shy of doubled. You climb up into the cockpit of the titan, where several panels are strewn about for access to the internal systems, reach up and flick a few switches. You’d pulled a cart containing several items of interest to the next task.
“Time to calibrate those hands.” you mutter to yourself.
He was awake much faster than you’d anticipated as evidenced by the cockpit twitching slightly, throwing off your balance and sending you tumbling into the pilot seat. You lament your new position in the scraps of progress: “Careful! I’m still in here!”
“My apologies. However, please note: only one of ‘these hands’ requires recalibration.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t move yet, I still need to set up the calibration environment.”
You reach up to flick some more switches, checking that all the values are being registered to the right places and pull yourself out of the enclosure. You take a metal cylindrical object twice the size of your head and put it into the palm of the titan’s hand. Taking great care not to be anywhere close to the arm, you take three steps away.
“Grab it.”
The fingers quickly close around the cylinder and promptly crush it.
“I said ‘grab it,’ not ‘crush it.’”
“My apologies. I did not anticipate the rate at which my fingers would move.”
“Well, this is what calibration is for.”
The pink titan opens his hands, letting the scraps fall out of his hands, and you replace it with a more flexible polymer cylinder. Now, the calibration procedure goes from measuring maximum force to granularity. Finger by finger, you command the titan to touch, squeeze and subsequently release the cylinder, noting the exact force each movement produced. When the procedure is finally complete a full afternoon later you grab an apple you were planning to eat but forgot about and hold it up to the titan – the restraints on the arm now much looser than before.
“Grab it. Gently this time.”
Tentatively, the titan moves its hand to pinch the apple between what would, in a human, be his index finger and thumb. Slowly and intentionally, he holds it up to his eye and spins it around. When the apple is placed into your hand once again, you too take the time to inspect it quite thoroughly. Much to your satisfaction, there are no bruises or cuts to be seen. You take a big bite from the apple and if the titan could, you’re sure it would’ve smiled.