“Oh, fuck off,” I muttered. And then I thought of Hobie’s mother giving her idiot child access to a war machine for his birthday. I clicked “Yes.”
Please wait….
The nonrefundable deposit charge has been approved!
“TheEncantadaappears to have just gone offline,” Roger said. “I believe the four Moderators are now in the process of destroying the fifteen generation ships. Yes.Nuevo Mundois also gone.”
“Shit, okay. We better hurry.”
Repair complete.
The repair gel started to drain.
“It’s draining,” I said.
“Exiting the backpack now,” Roger said.
Sam tapped me on the shoulder and yelled, “We’re still streaming, so we’re still playing!”
“Are we doing this?” I called.
“We’re doing it,” Sam yelled.
“This is our last song, assholes,” Lulu screamed. “It’s called ‘The Grandpa Song’!”
I counted off, and we started to play. The song was just a jam, and the lyrics changed every time. Lulu started to scream a list of names of still active players, accusing them all of having sex with farm animals.
I moved my attention back to the repair bay.
I couldn’t see them, but from behind me, three scouts emerged from my backpack. They were Priscilla, Trixie 2, and an unnamed black scout. They spread out, followed by one more. This was a regular honeybee with several items strapped to its back. The final items to emerge from my backpack were as many UAVs as Roger had been able to shove in there, which was seven.
“Interesting,” Roger said. “The UAVs will need a few moments to acclimate. They are designed to work in multiple environments,gravity levels, and pressures. However, they do not have this environment in their library and will need to do some self-tests before they can operate.”
Please stand by. You will be moved to an ammunition refill station.
This was followed moments later by a new, larger message in red.
Warning: A fault has occurred in your repair bay. Please wait while the damage is assessed.
“The UAVs are indicating they are ready,” Roger said.
A pair of the round flying machines flitted past my view and then disappeared in separate directions.
My entire mech shook. My view was still fixed forward.
Trixie 2 zoomed past. She had a communications module unit in her grasping claw. I blinked, momentarily confused by the difference in size between myself and the bot. My mech was almost four meters tall, and the scout was suddenly, at least to my point of view, smaller than Roger. For a fraction of a moment, the discrepancy caused my brain to stutter.
My view blacked out.
Please wait.
The reboot sequence appeared, followed by theOperation Bounce Houselogo.
Warning: You are not connected with central command sync. Error 55a.
“Okay,” Roger said. “You should now be in full control of the unit. You are connected from the helmet to the servers inside of Trixie 2,Priscilla, and Lorraine, so as long as one of them remains intact, you should be able to control the mech.”
“Lorraine?” I asked.
