I woke up on an operating table, all my limbs and other such things strapped firmly in place. Frantically looking around the room, I got a view of brass, more brass, a shockingly happy man currently gearing himself up for surgery, several hulking figures with big fancy hats, and a trilobite logo over the door of the Operating Room. Shit. Adjusting for art style, those were definitely Jaegers acting as guards for the surgeon in question, meaning that I'm currently in custody of a Heterodyne. Seeing as I can't imagine Agatha or her successors going around kidnapping people to use as test subjects, that means that even worse I'm in the custody of an old Heterodyne.

Not having anything else to do (seeing as I'm strapped firmly in place and I stand no chance against the Jaegers in the room anyway), I ask aloud "So. You're obviously a Heterodyne going by the insignia and the Jaegers. Mind introducing yourself in more detail?"

I wasn't expecting a comforting answer, and I certainly didn't get one when the man answered "Ah. I hadn't expected for people in this corner of the multiverse to know about that. How do you know this much about me, I wonder?"

I didn't want to answer, and simply stayed as silent as possible.

After a few moments, the mad scientist noted "The silent treatment will get you nowhere, since I can just extract the memories from your brain as needed. Tell me how you know of House Heterodyne."

In response, I managed to get out a shuddering, shaky answer of "There's a webcomic titled Girl Genius. It's set in Europa and a member of House Heterodyne is the main character, though she doesn't know it at the start of the story."

Writing something down, the man noted "Understood, and most interesting indeed. Tell me, do you know of a world called Neter?"

Immediately, I answered "Primary setting for an engineering-focused computer game called From The Depths. I'm an avid player and have deep knowledge of the lore."

Continuing to write before handing the notepad off to one of the Jaegers, the man noted "Very well. I'll be needing to check your homeworld for extradimensional influences later, but if I account for this in the data set the results should still be valid. Anyway, since you asked, I am Augustus Heterodyne, and I will be surgically altering your brain and putting you into a Clank body."

Huh, that actually didn't sound too - WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING THIS IS SOMEONE WHO KIDNAPS PEOPLE THIS IS NOT WHO I WANT AUGMENTING ME!

Swallowing my panic, I asked "Specifics of the brain surgery?"

At this, Augustus grinned before he put on the surgical mask, noting "Nothing too extreme. Just a basic monitoring device, a universal fluency implant, a system for making backups, and an implant that I'd estimate has a fifty-fifty chance of successfully turning you into a Spark! Either that or melting your brain into porridge for me to study before trying again, but that's what the backups are for."

As I caught a brief glimpse of the surgical tools, it was all I could think to ask "Can I please be anaesthetized for this?" as my head was strapped down and firmly immobilized.

Snorting, Augustus answered "Of course not. Still, if it's any consolation you won't remember this conversation. After all, having you remember this would pollute the data set most severely." and then my world was pain.

----------------------------------------

The floor under me was wood. Noticing much more took a couple seconds as I hauled myself to my feet... Or rather, the ground effect jet turbines that I had instead of feet. Seriously, what the fuck? Looking around, I was definitely on a wooden structure in the sea that vaguely reminded me of an oil rig, a couple cannons visible along with a radar antenna. There was also an apparent robot who also had jet turbines for legs pointing a large shotgun at my face and demanding "Who are you and how did you get here?"

I hurriedly answered "My name is... WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER MY NAME!? WHY AM I ON AN OIL RIG I SHOULD STILL BE HOME IN LOWELL AND WHO TURNED ME INTO A CYBORG!?" curling into a compact little ball as I had a total breakdown.

Apparently that was sufficient to snap the River Rat (now that I recognized the player character in question) out of "identify threat" mode as they put the shotgun away and sat down next to me. After a few moments, they asked "So, you can't remember your name, or how you got here?"

I managed to get my emotions back under control after a few minutes of muttering to myself, before I finally managed a coherent reply "Yes, that's accurate. No clue how I got here, who kidnapped me, or why I'm a cyborg now. Admittedly I'm not too upset at being a cyborg in and of itself, but it would have been nice if whoever did it at least asked first."

Looking slightly askance, the River Rat asked "So, what do you remember?"

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Thinking for a few moments, I answered "Basically everything except for my identity and who dumped me here. This includes a significant amount of strategic intelligence about the various factions on Neter, rough blueprints for several combat units within your ability to construct that can achieve utterly one-sided victories against anything the Deepwater Guard has on hand, and hypothetical experience with organizing the logistics necessary to fight a war."

This got the other cyborg to burst out in laughter as they said “Boy, I’ve heard a lot of ridiculous tall tales over the years, but that has to top the list of unbelievable garbage that’s been said to me. An amnesiac showing up out of nowhere who claims they have a bunch of skills I’d willingly pay ludicrous amounts of money to have on my side? That’s the sort of thing that only happens in cheap novels.”

Sighing, I said “It’s the truth, though. Pretty sure I can design a fighter jet that would make both the Lightning Hoods and the Steel Striders envious, and for less than half the materials cost of any of their aircraft.” Wait what did I just get myself into I dropped out of computer engineering because I hated Circuit Theory shit.

Staring, the River Rat eventually remarked “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I nodded with fake confidence, before saying “Absolutely. The reason I specified a fighter jet is because they have relatively low materials requirements compared to even the smallest proper ships, so I figured you’d be more likely to approve it compared to some of the other ideas I have rattling around in my brain.”

Another chuckle from the River Rat, before they said “Tell you what, I don’t believe you for one second. On the other hand, I’m willing to give you a chance to prove yourself, so you can use the CAD suite on the lower deck for a while. I’ll check in soon to look over what you’ve made, and if it’s any good I’ll let you join on as an engineer.”

I nodded and replied “Thanks for the opportunity. Um, where exactly is the CAD suite?”

With that, the River Rat remarked “Right next to the constructor!” and sent me on my way.

Hovering downstairs, I looked around for about thirty seconds before I found the computer terminal in question and started it up,selecting the option for making a new design. Immediately I recognized several UI elements from the game, but plenty were new. Immediately, I set about familiarizing myself with the interface, especially now that I got to actually tinker with the guts of the components I was using to make stuff.

I almost immediately geeked out, familiarizing myself with every single part of the interface in extremely short order. Immediately I started specifying an airframe using Alloy (which turned out to be an Aluminium/Titanium metal foam laced with Carbon Nanotubes) and got to work on specifying systems that turned out to be shockingly similar in function to how they worked in-game; apparently teleportation technology was completely ubiquitous on Neter (though it had trouble moving gasses and needed a receiver unless you were using a full-fledged warp drive), which made designing and building plenty of stuff much easier than it had any right to be.

As such, in mere hours I’d designed a frighteningly fast fighter jet armed with a frontal laser and with racks for 18 missiles, along with the capability to make more from onboard material storage. Still, unlike in-game I couldn’t clip systems into each other; However, now that I actually could I rapidly dived into the the guts of the laser components themselves and several hours of tinkering later I’d refined the optical weapon system into something hilariously leth-

“Boy, you’ve been at that console for eight hours! Talk to me!”

Snapping out of things, I managed to pull back from the interface, saving my work as I said “Sorry, got carried away with the design process. Anyway, virtual testing on the Arclight is done and I’ve got several versions made that I think you’ll be happy with. I just wasn’t quite satisfied with the frontal laser and targeting system but-”

The River Rat held up a hand and asked “How in the world did you cram a laser worth bothering with into a fighter jet!?”

I shrug and say “Look over the design and you’ll see, I guess? Pretty sure the new laser will work just fine, but I want to give it some real-world testing before deploying it.”

The River Rat soon opened up my design files, and after looking through things noted “Well, we’ve got to see about getting you a name soon. I know how to make pretty effective lasers myself thanks to my dear old mother, and I have to say that what you came up with is a thing of beauty in that regard. My only questions are, in order: Where the hell is the cockpit, and why is nothing at all properly annotated!?”

Shuffling awkwardly, I noted “Er, the ‘cockpit’ is actually a support rig for a cyborg brain. That lets an Arclight get away with G forces that would outright kill a whole-bodied pilot, and the teleport system I included can allow pilot brains to be easily moved between the fighter and a more conventional cybershell. As for the annotations I just got too focused on the actual engineering part of things to remember that they were supposed to be there.”

There was a bit of a pause, before the River Rat replied “Making entire vehicles cyborg bodies for their pilots… it’s actually a surprisingly good idea and I’m shocked no-one else has thought of it before.The annotation issue is just inexcusable though, what if someone needs to work on your designs later? We need comprehensible engineering, not one-off blackboxes, and the latter is what your designs will be if you don’t shape up!”