The Mech Touch

Cormaunt Hempkamp did not stick his neck out too much in the initial months.

Though he was ecstatic about gaining access to his own research lab where he could tinker with any neural interfaces without too many restrictions, he still had to work his way into the regular structure of the Design Department.

At first, his contributions to the ongoing design projects were fairly basic but helpful.

He did not attempt to push any of his quirky neural interface models that he had designed in the past.

Instead, he served as a consultant that accessed the MTA’s secret catalog and selected the most appropriate neural interface models for every mech design.

Whether the mech designs in questions were alive, light, heavy, ranged, melee, cheap, expensive, commercial or Larkinson-exclusive, the man was able to match them with neural interface models that always seemed more appropriate for the occasion.

“Heavier mechs are burdened with more components and systems. You can’t fit them with neural interfaces that are prone to overloading the mech pilots with too much data and too much control.”

“No no no! What have you been doing all this time?! A light mech such as the Ferocious Piranha needs a neural interface that prioritizes speed and acuity over every other priority! There are many neural interface models that are much more suited to a light mech that needs to move quickly and fight even faster.”

“Just because a scouting mech is a light mech doesn’t mean it should carry the same neural interface as the Ferocious Piranha. While they possess the same weight class, they are completely different in operation! A proper scouting mech such as this Light Bearer needs to be paired with a neural interface that is extra attuned to sensor input data. Look at the line of neural interfaces over here. Each of them are capable of attuning the mech pilot to a specific type of sensor system. One of them makes a mech pilot especially sensitive towards visual patterns. Another provides a more comprehensive understanding of gravitic fluctuations on the battlefield. Wait, you never heard about them before? Have you been living under a rock?!”

Though Hempkamp grew awfully abrasive and direct at times, his input was always valuable. The man introduced more nuances and variations of neural interfaces to the Design Department than anyone else had ever done!

He was truly an authority when it came to neural interfaces!

In the first half year of his entry into the clan, Hempkamp steadily acclimated into the clan. He learned what it meant to be a Larkinson and also became familiar with the loose and friendly atmosphere of the Design Department.

What surprised him a lot at first was how much Ves and Gloriana were willing to allow the lead designers to do their own thing.

“Perhaps it is because you are a Journeyman yourself, but I did not expect that you are willing to extend so much trust and autonomy to the newcomers to this position.” Hempkamp told Ves during a private meeting. “The hierarchy was much more fixed and structured at the other companies I worked with. We were only supposed to do what the Masters and Seniors told us to do, essentially.”

‘That is because the Seniors and Masters are the lead designers in those larger and established mech companies. Our LMC might not be as large or established, but there are advantages to joining a younger and more versatile mech company. You have joined us at a great time. We have already developed to the point where we are financially stable and successful, but we still have a lot more room for growth. This means that your contributions and your design philosophy can help us grow even faster than before.”

“I will do my best to be of use to you all.” Hempkamp sincerely said. “It feels enormously gratifying to make a real difference in the piloting experience of your famous living mechs. I did not feel as accomplished as before even though I worked longer hours at my previous employers.”

Ves smirked. “That is because your superiors were the ones who were making all of the meaningful design choices. We are a bit more open here. As long as you are a lead designer, your input will always be valued, especially when the topic is related to your specialty. We are quite simple in this regard. As long as you can prove your input can improve the performance of our mechs, then we will accept your contribution. Simple as that.”

Perhaps that might change in the future, but for now the Design Department was still open towards different forms of advice. Even assistant mech designers had the opportunity to affect the direction of a mech design project in a limited fashion, though instances like these were rare due to their shallow understanding of mechs.

As Mr. Hempkamp continued to integrate into the Design Department, he began to earn merits as well as credit for successful mech designs.

Picking and choosing better and more optimized neural interfaces for different mech designs indeed made a difference to the piloting experience.

Direct comparisons between mechs with ordinary neural interfaces and those with more optimal choices revealed that the performance boost was quite modest, but still evident.

The overall improvement amounted to just 2 percent, which did not sound like much but already sounded like welcome news to Ves and the other mech designers.

The reason why the improvement rate was not higher was because the Larkinson mechs were already comfortable to pilot to begin with. What Ves had done was solve a part of the problem that more specialized neural interfaces tried to solve.

Though Mr. Hempkamp received more and more recognition for his contributions, he was far from satisfied with his current results.

“The neural interface models that I have matched to all of your mechs are still better than the available alternatives, but they don’t go far enough. They are too standardized. Each of them are developed in order to maximize compatibility with as many mech designs as possible. They are not fully configured to work with specific configurations of mechs, and they are especially not designed to accommodate the distinctive traits associated with living mechs.”

Now that Cormaunt Hempkamp successfully got his bearings in the Design Department, the time had come for him to develop more comprehensive contributions to the Larkinson Clan.

He had worked on enough Larkinson mech design projects to develop a basic understanding of living mechs.

The strange but extremely helpful sessions where he connected to the mind of Ves and other mech designers through the design network played a pivotal role in helping him come up with a viable approach to develop a neural interface specific to Ves’ iconic works!

Since Ves was able to understand Mr. Hempkamp’s perspective as well through the design network, he had an inkling of what the newest Journeyman to join the clan had in mind.

“What you’re thinking about sounds crazy on the surface.” Ves stated right away. “Treating a living mech like an intelligent exobeast and forcibly establishing a deeper and more intimate channel between it and a mech pilot not only sounds reckless, it also sounds like a great way to destroy a person’s life and go to jail for this transgression!”

“You’ve peeked into my mind, sir. You should have seen how beneficial it can be for the mech pilot to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of their living mechs!” Hempkamp tried to argue to Ves. “Just like how humans have understood the thinking and behavioral patterns of exobeasts through controlled interfacing sessions, I think we can provide the same benefits but with living mechs as the primary subject!”

Ves firmly shook his head. “I did catch a good glimpse of what goes on in your head. Did you know what I think? You are thinking way too much about the gains and not enough about the potential dangers! How can you go so long as a Journeyman without making any decent attempt to account for all of the risk factors of your inventions?! Your near-total disregard for the damage that you can inflict on people’s lives is truly appalling!”

“I did not see much of that in your mind either, Mr. Larkinson.”

“I AM DIFFERENT!” Ves insisted. “My work doesn’t instantly kill or cripple the mech pilots who I serve. My living mechs are also able to address and correct their own perceived flaws and shortcomings. In other words, in my field, the tolerance for mistakes are high while the consequences of making errors are fairly low. It is the exact opposite in your case!”

Ves and Hempkamp did not see eye-to-eye with regard to the latter’s research direction.

It took a long time for Ves to convince Hempkamp to take it slow and focus on attaining incremental progress first rather than try to revolutionize the field of neural interfaces right away!

Once Hempkamp built up a sufficient research budget after making enough regular contributions, he no longer spent as much time on study and preparation and began to conduct more practical experiments.

Due to the fact that the Larkinson Clan had decided to settle in Davute for a time, Hempkamp had easy access to the port system’s large and expanding manpower pool.

There were plenty of mech pilots available for employment in Davute’s job market!

Of course, the demand for skilled and experienced mech pilots was high. Many of them already found excellent jobs before they even put out their resumes.

Since a lot of large and powerful organizations in the Red Ocean were preparing for a war that might break out within the next decade, they already started an arms race among themselves.

Any organization or group that could field the least amount of mechs on the battlefield would most definitely fall behind in the event a war broke out in the region!

Therefore, all of the good mech pilots found employment rather quickly, which meant that the ones that stuck around in the job market were almost always less desirable.

Their genetic aptitudes were lower, the grades they earned during their cadet days were not as great and their attitudes were less than perfect.

How they managed to reach the Red Ocean and travel all the way to Davute was a mystery.

In any case, while many of these mech pilots were able to get by from day to day by relying on their accumulated savings or by performing menial jobs such as piloting industrial mechs, there were still plenty of pilots who were running low on funds.

Cormaunt Hempkamp found out that it was ridiculously easy to bribe these poor and desperate mech pilots into offering up their bodies and minds for science!

“Psst. Hey you. Would you like to earn a millicredit in just a single day? I will pay double the sum a day if you take part in my research for at least a week.”

The purchasing power of MTA credits was high, especially in a second-class star system like Davute. Offering a sum of just 0.001 MTA credits or a bit more a day was enough to lure mech pilots into signing a contract that expressed their willingness to subject themselves to potentially dangerous experiments!

While there were plenty of mech pilots that balked at this deal, Hempkamp still found plenty of suckers that were less capable of assessing risks!

With the help of these paid volunteers, the eager neural interface specialist finally conducted his first proper series of experiments related to his core specialty.

Ves initially grew so concerned that he tapped additional manpower to supervise his work more closely.

Fortunately, no horror stories came out of Hempkamp’s private research lab after a time. All of the test subjects only stayed for a while before they happily departed from the Cat Nest with extra funds in their bank accounts.

This was a win-win proposition that kept everyone happy. Despite his impatience, Hempkamp did not engage in any extreme research projects and focused his efforts solely on developing smaller design solutions in order to make more immediate gains.

It only took two months since his initial experiments for Mr. Hempkamp to present his first proper design application to the Larkinsons.