Axton was nearly finished with his first War Suit. All it needed was a fresh coat of paint and something to put in its hands and he would be completely done with his new toy. He was, at first, a bit put off by the Suit’s appearance, as it was made of a mishmash of parts from all manner of other War Suits. It had navigation systems from one model that came from the Entente Universalis, a heavily remodeled and reworked power core prototype from the United Syndicated Stellar Regions, and a whole host of internal components from everywhere else and in between. The individual components had to be jailbroken and then modified even more than Axton figured was to be the norm just to get them all to work together, and even then, he was unsure of whether the machine would even turn on without tearing itself apart.

The Frankenstein Monster of a War Suit fit just inside the ‘Light’ category, which was something Axton was proud of. He had worried that the rusted-out floor beneath the building area would give way, but by sheer luck, he was able to keep the suit from reaching the next weight threshold. This was not to say that something heavier would have fallen through the floor, but Axton was not one to try it and find out.

As he looked at his monstrosity, he began to brainstorm a name for the machine. It did not take him long before he settled on the only real name that adequately fit the abomination he had made. Any War Suit Engineer worth their salt would take a look at his construct and wonder how it had managed to be put together, most likely thinking of it as though it were akin to a living thing made of random salvaged body parts dug up from an early grave.

Thus, Axton’s personal War Suit, ‘Franken’, was born and named.

As much as he wanted to finish the Suit by adding some paint to it, Axton felt that he didn’t have the patience to do it, nor did he have the time. His communication with Daxter and those of the colony who had fled into the wilds beyond it painted a picture that he was none too happy about. Stebbs was sending scouts out there and they were beginning to get close to the rebel ‘base’. If Axton did not give Stebbs something new to worry about, there was a damn good chance that the rebels would be found out before they could finish preparing to take the colony from Stebbs and his goons.

Also, Axton had yet to hear from the people in the GCA about his… request. He was sure that he had sent enough credits to buy the result that he wanted, but whether the bureaucracy was simply going its normal pace or whether they had taken his credits and ran was something Axton had no knowledge of. Time was running out and it seemed that Axton and the rebels would have to roll the dice sooner rather than later.

With that thought hanging overhead, Axton climbed into Franken and began the first-time boot-up sequence. It was only after he had started that he realized that his Suit was now drawing power from a much larger grid, which could possibly tip Stebbs and his tugs off to where he had been hiding all this time. Ah, well. It wasn’t like he could have kept things hidden forever, now could he?

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

…

In a certain room in the Mayor’s compound, a flashing light clued a single person as to a spike in power usage in the grid. He at first thought it was nothing but a glitch, but after restarting the monitoring station and then performing some percussive maintenance he determined that there was indeed something drawing a hell of a lot of power from the reactor banks. As the only persona with any knowledge of how to run these things (among the ones loyal to Stebbs and not counting the others who were not), it was up to him to tell the Mayor about the spike in power usage and where that spike was originating from.

So, with a final bite of his sandwich, the traitor to the rest of the colonists wrote a report and then sent it to the Mayor’s Email and then went back to reading the web novel that was taking up one of the digital viewscreens. Perhaps if Stebbs ever checked his mail, he would have been able to deal with what was about to happen before it had a chance to, but Stebbs’ inbox had over 15k unread messages, some dated back as far as the day after he took office. With that nugget of knowledge now exposed, what would the odds be that he would check his mail for the first time in his life?

…

Axton waited for the door to be blown in and for Stebbs and his flunkies to arrive to try and take him in before his Suit finished its first start-up. Seconds turned into minutes and then into an hour, but the big door never even budged, nor did any walls end up being smashed in by inbred thugs-for-hire. For Axton, sitting inside Franken, time itself seemed to slow to a crawl, and each time he checked the clock in the menu he felt as though it was only going slower.

And then, in an event that washed so much stress and weight from him, the War Suit finished coming online. Axton quickly checked the different systems to make sure that they actually worked. If even one did not, it would be back to the drawing board all over again.

“Navigation; Check. Comms; Check. Life Support; Check. Audio and Video; Check and check. Movement; Check. Hover; Check. IFF; Check. Weapons; Check. Cooling; Check….”

Axton went through the systems in no particular order, checking off a tally in his head as he made sure everything would work with everything else. He was about to get his machine out of the scuttled ship's Mechanic Bay and set to work messing up Stebbs’ day when an alert sounded from his HUD. It was an alarm that the pod had manually sent, telling him that the waste storage unit was nearly full and that the nutrient dispenser was nearly empty.

If he didn’t pop out now and change the nutrient dispenser and septic waste container, he might well either die of starvation/ dehydration while in-game or simply end up filling the pod with human waste; the latter of which would void the warranty and would be a hassle and half to clean out. Begrudgingly, Axton powered down Franken and set the biometric lock on it before hopping over to a makeshift bed and logging out. He could only hope that Daxter and the other colonists would be able to avoid Stebbs’ gaze until he managed to get everything in the real world in order, which would allow him to safely return to the game and get back to work.