The next morning I woke up first, careful to extricate Elli’s curled legs from around my body as I got up to find something for us to breakfast on. When we’d gotten home the night before, we’d slept immediately, the actions of the day having left us completely drained despite our growling stomachs.

She’d be happy to have me make her something for a change, I thought, stepping out into the bay. But as I flicked on the lights, all my plans flitted away in light of the tremendous sight before me.

Where once had stood the stiltwalker mech, there were now piles of scrap metal and parts, all non-organic pieces evidently shed and dropped as we slept through the night. I wondered what sort of ruckus it must have caused, considering how far some of the parts must have fallen. I marveled at the fact that neither of us woke up as it was happening.

The organic frame of the mech was something I’d never seen the like of. I had no experience scavenging any mech battles between the empires, so now that I had my first look, I better understood their nature, their cores, and their crystals.

Rather than being simply bone with a vascular system, it was an eyeless meaty-pinkish-green humanoid creature, seemingly lifeless yet standing of its own volition and under the power of its very muscular legs. Translucent orbs ballooned out in places around its body, spots that I knew second-hand as nerve centers that could be implanted with developed crystals and cores. I could even see arteries and veins pulsing, wrapped around and through its muscles.

It seemed to be just seven feet tall, which was a bigger surprise, though CD had said he wanted to make something small to start with.

The frame put me in mind of some hellish mix between us humans and the monsters we constantly had to fight. A lot of it was the same as us, or at least as I imagined us to be. The muscles and sinews were in the right place, at least, but the color of it was alien and wrong.

I stepped up to it, prodding a bicep with my finger, and realized that it was of the same rubbery-chitinous texture as the monsters, despite the humanoid configuration.

It was then that I noticed that the frame gleamed slightly under the lights of the bay as if it were damp, yet it was as dry as the bones of a year-old baked chicken.

“A true miracle of adept and masterful engineering,” CD said proudly, his voice coming from just over my shoulder.

I glanced in his direction just long enough to see that he was in the form of a fellow scavenger.

“Are you thinking of joining the guild?” I chided.

CD cocked his head.

“Perhaps if this holo-emitter could be upgraded to a point where I could be solid? I expect, were it possible, I would soon become the father to all human-ape babies, and the lord of this city.”

I chuckled and turned back to my inspection, my face now just an inch away as I examined it, dumbfounded at the seemingly godlike power of the mech-makers.

There were small grooved lines traced through all of the surface tissue, and occasionally I would see a jet of black fluid pulse along one, spitting from a sudden, not-before-present pore to be received by another of the same. I reached out to touch one such ejection and pulled my hand back in surprise as an electric shock ripped through it.

CD chortled from behind.

“Yes, ape, touch the strange black stuff. Perhaps you would like to try to eat it as well?”

I ignored him, continuing my investigation, tracing the channels to small nexus point intersections around its body. These points I understood. Here there were slots embedded into the flesh, ready for the insertion of mech tech and electro-metallic upgrades.

A better picture of it all was rolling through my head. I couldn’t quite understand all of it, but I could roughly understand how it worked and how the black fluid must either power the tech we put into it or maybe even command it.

I walked around to its back side and recoiled a bit when I saw that much of it was hollow . . . and the perfect size for a human. One like me.

I turned back to CD.

“How did you know my size?” I asked.

“Magic,” he said, almost sounding manic.

I decided not to push him as whenever he was in an insulting mood, it didn’t make much sense to argue. I could learn it all later, anyway. All that I cared about at the moment was just how magical the frame was. I spotted nexuses for sensors, maybe even audio, weapons, armor, and many others that I didn’t have any knowledge about. It was almost intimidating to see the possibility representing itself for me, and I found myself eager to get started.

Then my stomach groaned.

“Apes need breakfast after all,” CD sighed. “Go reenergize and wake your mate. Then we can get to work. You’d never manage to get it all done by yourself anyway.”

“She’s not my mate,” I grumbled, sliding off to find something to eat and drink.

The hunt for breakfast ingredients in the bay's attached dry pantry yielded a modest bounty of corn, carrots, bread, and bone broth among its regular stock of leathery jerky, hardtack, and all the other mostly long-lasting non-perishables common to the city.

I could have hit the cold storage, but felt like it’d do us both a favor if I took care to cook anything that might go off soon. Plus I just wanted something hot and wet to start us off with. With the ingredients gathered, I set about preparing our meal before heading over to her stove.

It was a nicer model than my own, sleek despite its age, dents, and cooked-in stains. A heavy-duty metallic frame, a flat top situated so as to keep the flaming cylinders exactly under the plane of the cooking pane. There was a refillable canister attached to the side that fed monster oil into the chamber.

I was briefly puzzled about how to start it, before spotting a naked turn wheel on the side, and a crank in the washing basin. I took the crank, ignoring the fact it hadn’t yet been washed since last being used, and attached it to the turn-wheel, cranking it in tight circles. Each revolution struck a flint, which sent sparks flying.

Still, it didn’t light, and I slapped my head at my stupidity, reaching out to the gas canister and lightly turning a valve release before returning to my cranking duties. Shortly after, the flame caught and soon I had a large pot on the stove.

I opened the canister of bone broth, pouring that in first, before dumping in hard kernels of corn, followed by chopped bits of carrots. As I did so, the liquid began to bubble gently, and I took a big whiff.

It smelled plain but nourishing, which to my stomach was the equivalent of a five-star rating.

I stirred and stirred, gazing off until I felt the time had passed. Excited, and with my mouth beginning to water, I dipped out a kernel of corn and bit it, finding it tender and moist. After repeating the action with a bit of carrot, I removed the pot from the stove, setting it aside to cool.

Next, I filled a smaller pot with water and placed it on the stove to boil for tea. The water boiled briskly, steam rising in a gentle cloud, and I peppered it with tea flakes.

Turning off the gas and removing the teapot, I let the brew steep, filling the bay with the comforting scent of herbs.

“Simian food fulfillment is more complicated than it was with my people,” CD reflected. I jumped a little, having forgotten him in my busied actions.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Yeah?” I asked. “How’s that?”

“Consumption was mostly taken from plastic tubes. Open the cap, squeeze the sustenance into your mouth, drink some water, and you are done. These strange necessities of cutting, burning, boiling, and soaking seem counterintuitive. How are you supposed to get anything done if you are cooking all the time?”

“Tubes,” I pondered, imagining what it might have been.

I could see the possibility of any sort of food, being ground up small enough and made wet, then mixed into a paste, being exactly what CD was detailing. It wasn’t a bad idea and was something I’d look into doing later.

But for the time being, I simply decided to turn the tables for a bit.

“Oh, yeah, you’re lucky that you are with us because most humans require their foods to be at tremendous temperatures to properly absorb the sustenance. For them, the cooking alone takes probably 20 hours of their day. It is a sad state of affairs for us ooh-ohh ahh-ahh monkey-men.”

CD stared, sputtered, and glared.

“I almost believed you for a second,” he said.

“Glad to hear it,” I replied, leaving the pots to steam and cool on the stove while I made my way to where Elli slept. The bay was now positively alive with the aroma of our breakfast, and I was surprised that she still hadn’t woken.

I opened the door and stepped into the room of our little bedroom cubby.

“Wake up, Elli,” I said, a big smile on my lips. “Time to eat.”

“Mmm. Food,” she whispered, her soft smile rising despite her eyes staying closed. “Is there any way you can feed it to me here?”

“Spoon feeding?” CD asked, his hologram flashing beside us. “Lazy ape girl needs to get up and eat. We have a mech to build!”

Elli’s eyes shot open.

“The mech! How’s it looking? How’s the frame?!”

She threw off her blanket, and I turned my head after briefly noticing, again, how naked she was.

“You prude,” she laughed, yanking herself into her mechanic’s coveralls. “Come on, eat, drink, shit, then let’s build this demon’s mech. I can’t wait to see it!”

Elli bounded out of the bedroom cubby, and we chased after her. I cautioned her to slow down on the soup as she proceeded to shovel it in fast and steaming, before following it with even hotter tea, but her enthusiasm had made her indestructible. She beamed, her cheeks positively fat and rosy with her desire to build and make perfection.

It was amazing to see. Even CD seemed flustered with her need to be done and working. I tried to hurry up after she finished her meal and tea. Once she saw I wasn’t managing it to her liking, she even yelled at me.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Come on! Eat up!”

My tea finished and my mouth scorched, we made our way over to the frame. Elli squeaked and ran at it, touching it over, gushing manically about synaptic contact relays, vein viscosity, fiber denseness, and other mechanical hoity-toity that I had no training for. Squealing and hissing and letting out a number of other noises, she even jumped in place once.

When she had finally cooled down a little, we got to work. Heading over to the mess of parts and pieces, Elli and I started picking them up and sorting them, placing like with like as we placed them on work benches and tables

“So what’s the plan here?” Elli asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.”

“The plan is to make an unimaginably powerful and yet small mech,” CD said, seeming to chastise her curiosity. But his words left her with a frown on her face, and his holographic image backpedaled from the ferocity of her gaze. “I have a plan. The Quantum Resonance Core has recalibrated the mech's design to better suit what we need. Now, when we are done organizing the parts, we will have to do this.”

A beam of light projected from CDs body, and the air in front of us shimmered, holographic blueprints appearing in the now familiar blue pane of his graphical interface, displaying the new design in intricate detail. Despite the fact that we were nowhere near done sorting the mechanical mess the QRD had left us, curiosity drew us both closer. Our eyes traced parts and designs, our heartbeats quickening as we understood what we saw.

The mech suit that was outlined before us was nothing less than superb. It was strongly protected, its armor not at all as thin as its height would make one believe, and it had extra core slots for adding in monster scavenge and loot, thereby making it a highly upgradeable and customizable model of mech. Or could it even be considered a mech? This thing was something else entirely, a suit in a league of its own.

The mech had a list of armaments and combat abilities that were quite unusual, integrating human technologies presumably alongside those of the former alien mechs. There were slots for retractable kick-blades housed within its legs, obviously made for lethal, close-quarters combat, which sent my heart racing.

One arm was outfitted with a mechanism that allowed a shield, like those held by the cataphracts, size-appropriate, to unfold and extend rather than needing to be held, freeing up the hand for other uses while also offering protection without compromising mobility.

A single jagged line of grinding blades was to be placed in the chest, something that looked like a circular saw, but somehow spun on a tract of what was labeled living metal rather than sitting on a normal, singular wheel. The hands were to sport metallic claws and talons, their shape and design definitely similar to those of the monsters that plagued our lands.

The mech suit was monstrous. It was certainly something the church would label as an abomination, and it was perfect.

I slapped my hands together eagerly.

“Let’s get to work,” I said, turning to see both Elli and CD staring at me.

CD shook his head.

“You still have chores to do, little ape warrior. We sort first and build later.”

“Really?” I protested. “We should--”

“No, we shouldn’t, apeling. Just listen to me. It will be worth it.”

It took us a while to get everything ready, but it’d been just as he said: worth it. Elli first picked up a CC Calibration Lance, the small device chirping in her hands as she aligned the core plating to protect any future loot that we might place there down the line. When that was done, she moved to the main core, slotting the monstrous heart and attaching a variety of tubes and fleshy veins before resealing the membrane that protected it. I could feel it activate, a sort of static electric field rising out and filling the bay with a light ambient energy that made my arm hairs stand on end.

“Oh, it’s a beauty,” she said, stepping back and away from the mech.

“That’s an understatement,” I whispered, unable to keep my gaze off it as I kicked up a bolter, grinding its crank to maximum spring power before using the built-up tension to place the internal armor casings. I punched sleek metallo-plastic plates to the body with hearty, loud punching wheezes, all while following the blueprint. I made sure to line them up perfectly, bolting them in so that each and every one of them fit into the mech's frame like a second skin.

Next came the wielding, its large deposit of monster oil clicking and glugging as I poured it in. I walked it over to the seams of the plates, giving Elli a quick glance and watching her bend over at the mech’s shins to begin slotting the complicated springs, gears, and levers that would ultimately make me, with the mech’s help, into a melee champion. Grinning stupidly, I fired up the welder and began sealing the plates together.

Soon it was all complete, and before us stood a sleek and agile-looking mech that was just a foot taller than I was. The frame was dull-gray, yet to be covered by primer and enamels, but that didn’t stop it from looking awesome.

In many ways it looked like a very athletic human, though made of metal and monster parts instead of skin. Its head, angular and V-shaped, sat atop a neck that was slightly elongated for enhanced mobility. The face, devoid of traditional features, instead held a streamlined visor where its eyes might otherwise be, emitting a soft, dark-purple glow that would be difficult to make out in nighttime environments. Rectangular protrusions flanked the head, and from the bottom of the chin hung a great big metallic goiter, its purpose totally beyond me.

The shoulders of the suit were broad, creating a formidable profile that would easily enclose me, though strangely the head would be above me as I piloted the thing. Its arms were thick, encased in layers of semi-flexible armor, and from its hands hung wickedly sharp talons, ready to rend and tear.

The torso was elongated from head to rear, with a nicely shaped human silhouette situated behind the organic frame for me to enter and pilot it. The surface was segmented, allowing for fluid movement while providing protection. The mech's legs were obviously powerful, and the gripped soles we’d installed on the bottoms of the feet made it clear that it was meant for both speed and all sorts of terrain types.

Elli clucked her tongue, inspecting its many angles, while I sat back, taking it in as a whole.

“CD, can you give me one of those mech readouts on this? I’d like to have a feel for what it’s capable of.”

Without a word, CD cast another blue screen out onto the wall, and I peered at it closely.

Mech Unit “Ultra-Light Nexus Scout”

Processing – Codename: Shadow Strider

Class: Covert Operations/Assault

Tech Level: Hybrid (Advanced Organic/Neo-Mechanic Integration) Armor Rating: 650

Core Power Source: Bio-Energetic Core (Level 3)

Estimated Pilot Synchronization Rate: Unknown %

ABILITIES:

* Retractable Kick-Blades: Embedded within the legs for lethal, close-quarters combat. Designed for stealth engagements and swift eliminations.

* Extendable Shield Arm: Equipped with a cataphract-style shield that unfolds and extends, offering protection and freeing the other arm for combat or tool use.

* Chest-Mounted Grinding Blades: Features a unique weapon in the chest, a half-circular spinning saw blade made from living metal that spins along a track, ideal for slicing through obstacles and armor.

* Metallic Claws and Talons: The mech's hands are fitted with durable, monster-like claws and talons, enhancing its melee combat capabilities.

CUSTOMIZATIONS:

* Ten Core Slots: Allows for the integration of monstrous scavenge and loot, making the mech highly upgradeable and customizable.

* Armor Enhancement: Despite its sleek appearance, the armor is surprisingly thick and durable, offering superior protection.

* Hybrid Technology Integration: Combines human and alien mech technologies, resulting in a superb power output.

WEAKNESS:

* Complex Maintenance: The integration of advanced organic and mechanical systems requires specialized upkeep. Damage done to the mech may require extensive time and expenses to repair.

I smiled and nodded CD’s way. This mech was going to be a blast piloting, and from the look on my face, we both knew that he had me hooked.