Lodestone TLR-99

The most useless machine

"Alright," Kath called down from Lodestone's open cockpit. "Minimal power online, ad hoc networking enabled, ready for testing."

"You're sure this thing's safe?" Mehr yelled back. "We just wired its receiver up to a multi-trillion-dollar walking tank!" Who knew what on earth it did; they'd placed it in the very center of their makeshift mech hangar, just in case it did anything untoward.

"Look, you don't pass up a deal like that when it stands a chance of getting my dear co-pilot back in action with me." To say nothing of the guy's overall countenance, he looked as if anything would have made him happy. He was even giggling as he took a fiver. "MCA slot reads green. Press your switch whenever."

Mehr couldn't make herself touch the big lever on top of the box. It had the appearance of being cobbled together, largely out of scrap wood and the odd bit of metal bracing here and there, but in between plywood slats, she was sure she could see the telltale glint of LEDs inside it. Scrappers were capable of some incredible things; if this box was really what she'd been told it was, maybe it was true that it was nearly as powerful as the virtual cockpit system used to be. And that bore implications.

"Pull the lever, you dummy!"

She did. In an instant, the hangar quivered with Lodestone's sudden movement - it stepped forward on its own, causing Mehr to jump backwards away from the box. She looked on in horror - all she'd done was pull a lever! Kath wasn't trying to move it either...

Lodestone took a knee, bent down, reached out one of its massive fists...

...and pulled the lever back to the "off" position.

Mehr blinked several times. She stood back up, having fallen to a sitting position earlier, and walked back up to the box that Lodestone was still kneeling over. "You didn't just do that, did you?"

"Nope - hands aren't even in the controls."

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Mehr pulled the lever On again. Lodestone's big metal hand shoved it back Off. "Is that all this thing does?"

"I think I'd be impressed if I wasn't actually terrified. How much did that guy know about mechakinetic networking to make that work..."

"We need to disconnect it immediately. And find whoever that guy was that sold it to you."

"Aaaaand kick his ass?"

"N-no! ...Not yet anyway..."