What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

A Young Master was a particular archetype. The actual name of it varied based on culture and such, but the core concept traveled across every nation. It was the ur-example of a rich man's child. Spoilt, catered to, wanting for nothing. Typically they were arrogant. 'Do you know who my father is?!' That sort of thing. It took a particular yet surprisingly common set of circumstances to produce one. Very typically they were third or fourth generation children from the original line that had produced them. It required a combination of riches, authority, and insulation from consequences.

Bolt didn't particularly care for the behavior. He also didn't really dislike it either. He simply preferred not to interact with the archetype at all. His contest wasn't necessarily designed to kick them out. It would filter many of the most spoilt ones out.

Most of the students had the following life: Born from a tube, nurtured by a nanny / nanny bot, then introduced to their parents maybe once or twice before they spoke. If their family was loving, they knew their parents from birth, but the nanny was always there. After this they had a sheltered childhood with chosen friends / servants. Injury was in training, if the family had that tradition. They'd never gotten sick, they'd rarely seen pain. They went through the best schooling and personal tutoring, where people had never told them no. Failure was rare, and some of the people had never even been able to fail. Carefully curated education had eliminated that possibility.

Going into a dirty battlefield alone was a shock to their carefully curated upbringing. The smell alone was unique. All of the heirs had been chauffeured as well. Some had driven cars as a novelty. None had controlled trucks. Driving into the fog alone took a surprising amount of resilience, and it was a testament to their training and drive that not a single person failed to do so. Many almost broke several minutes in, but none did immediately, and Bolt was sincere in his praise for that.

Two hours was when the people began to really differentiate themselves. Roughly a tenth of the contestants had outright failed or withdrawn already. The failures were considered 'fine' for a given value of it. Sometimes shit happened. There was no loss in face or prestige when you got what amounted to bad luck. The people withdrawing without cause were less well regarded. Mechs Pilots had a warrior culture. Cowardice was a mark of shame. Designers were adjacent to that. No one that withdrew from the carefully curated contest would be trusted again by any pilot worth his seat. It was a mark of death for any career in the field.

There were a few exceptions to this. One person had to withdraw due to getting impaled through the torso and spine. There'd be a few others similar to them as the contest progressed. Those designers were actually a 'step up' so to speak. It was a mark of honor that they tried and got injured enough that they were forced out. They had the closest thing to battle wounds a designer could get in their line of work. They'd find their careers a bit boosted if they leveraged it right.

After four hours had passed there were clear leaders and clear losers. One loser had essentially gotten so lost they'd hit the edge of the test area three separate times. One winner had already found most of what they needed for a mech and were carefully trying to leverage it into the truck without breaking it. Another loser had been caught by a fellow contestant, beaten, and was very likely going to give up shortly.

The violence wasn't really something Bolt liked, but he also couldn't say he hadn't expected it. This was what it meant to be a scavenger. Also there were enough safeguards that a beating was about all the contestants could get. Their opponents couldn't sabotage the trucks with the tools they had, and there were rules against doing more than just beating them. It wasn't exactly fair. It was another obstacle.

Six hours in the one contestant that had managed to find what they'd needed had also managed to load it up into the truck with, well enthusiasm, if not competence. They likely had a serious repair job ahead of them, but they'd overcome the largest hurdle. Now they needed to find a safe spot, do some field repairs, and then prove their mech could walk.

Other contestants were less lucky. One had decided to do something like a flying mech based on their work. The idea was sound, but it'd be a royal pain dealing with the next round if they didn't salvage more. Another contestant and happened upon a prized part, had been beaten for it, and was now running on spite.

About twenty-five percent of the contestants had either dropped out or visibly given up. At this point it wasn't really a mark of shame to request a pickup in Bolt's eyes. If the contestants hadn't found something, they were rather obviously not suited for the job. Another five percent of the contestants had been cheating or doing things against the spirit of the competition.

One particularly egregious example was one man who'd decided to sabotage a reactor and turn it into a bomb. That had required a ruling from Bolt, who'd then polled opinions on the noble representatives. The consensus was that it was barely against the rules. It was very technically an attack against another contestant using unapproved tools. Sabotaging wrecks with the intent to kill other contestants was something they wanted to discourage. Just sabotaging the wrecks was fine, and several other contestants had already done that to no censure.

By twelve hours, there were five candidates that had distinguished themselves. Bolt had their official names somewhere, but he internally nicknamed them differently. Externally he judged them as the ones most likely to win. They were as follows:

Lucky. This man had managed to get lucky very early and was nearly done. He'd happened on one of the most intact mechs and had furthermore lucked upon several other good finds. His repair job was standard and uninspired though, and in finishing early he'd also finished with the bare minimum of extra parts. This wasn't necessarily horrible, but it would limit his options in the future.

Flyer. This woman had gotten a few good boosters and was just making a flying mech. This was useful in that she didn't require much. Dangerous in that she'd limited herself harshly with that plan. At the same time, this let her browse through the battlefield and find choice parts that others weren't using at all. The poor girl had also been the one who'd fallen in the mud more than once, and was more dirt than girl right now.

Packrat. You sometimes got scavengers that picked up everything. That was what this man was doing. He had no visible plan. He'd just grabbed everything he could. He'd also roamed into the irradiated area and was currently high off meds and might or might not crash out before he finished. At the bare minimum the poor man would need to use the bathroom for an hour or so once the contest was done. (Several of the meds gave very unpleasant side effects.)

Spite. This man had lost a finger, gotten into three separate fights, and seemed to be running off of rage and spite. He was only in the running because he'd looted two separate trucks. He had enough scrap now to make a mech. The question was if he was going to be able to considering the damage he'd taken. Considering the amount of armor he'd found, the man was probably going to make something with a lot of armor at least. Which fit.

Dark Horse. There was a particular style of scavenging where you took your time and took only what you wanted / needed. It was a pick and choose method. This man had been patient and controlled in his work. He'd also nearly crashed his truck and gotten lost at least once. He was only in the running because Bolt had noticed that he'd actually been very careful about what he'd picked up. If he managed to hit one or two more good salvage jobs he might be able to squeak by just in time with a rather consistent mech.

These were of course just the leading ones. There'd been over a hundred contestants. Bolt was quite sure someone would surprise him somehow. There were still twelve hours left as well. A good repairman could probably fix up a mech within one or two hours if they were willing to accept that it wouldn't be a good repair.

 

[lost star]

"So, evaluations." Bolt began after the twelve-hour mark hit. "Do we wish to go over them now?"

"Perhaps if you would clarify the expectations for those less technically inclined." The Vermeer representative gave his input.

"Fair." The designer gave a nod and settled back in his seat while also bringing up a few screens. "The goal of the first round is to create a mech that can walk, or essentially cross a finishing line. This is on paper a very simple process. There are automated programs that are used for mech testing that we can use. It doesn't risk a pilot on possibly dangerous wrecks and is also rather neutral as a judge."

On one of the screens a mech began to walk across as field and over a finishing line. It was as he said a very simple process. It was also deceptive.

"Now, based off statistics, a graduate should be able to design a mech capable of this task in about an hour." Bolt continued. "Assuming they know how to make a mech, they should be able to design and construct a mech capable of walking and combat in roughly six hours give or take. This is the bare minimum a graduate is expected to be able to achieve. On average about twenty-five percent graduates are completely incapable of doing that."

"So many?" One of the representatives asked. "Is the education that bad?"

Bolt wiggled a hand. "The standard focus is typically for office work not construction to my understanding. Any graduate is capable of sitting on a chair and doing math and double-checking stuff. To the best of my knowledge about half of all graduates end up being data analysists and never design a mech at all. If we go by mech terms, it's the equivalent of your average soldier. You need them, but they're not remarkable and rather interchangable."

The Konsu representative gave a small laugh. "I will not say that the average soldier is bad, but when put in that terms I understand. Many soldiers are simple men that do their duty honorably, but will never be remembered because that duty was boring."

"A career designing is a gamble really." The Carnegie man gave his input. "I've seen the numbers of successful to non-successful. You'll never be poor, but most aren't famous."

"Moving on. I wouldn't call anyone who participated a poor student. This is just very much outside their normal day-to-day operations." Bolt continued. "While your average designer can design a mech in an hour. Repairing a mech is not in a standard education. Even just evaluating the damage... I'd say it'd take ten to thirty minutes based off tools for a single mech. Making a mech out of salvage? If you have all the parts, it's thirty minutes or so. Many designing contests do the equivalent. They offer a series of pre-made parts and tell people to assemble them. It makes things faster." The man brought up a few contest reels from other areas.

"But this isn't that." Someone said.

The senior nodded with a grin. "Ain't even close to that. This is people scrounging up parts from a fake battlefield. They're ripped, torn, dirty, and they're not in a handy catalog. The contestant has ta judge everything on site, and then judge if they have enough to build a mech. After all of that they gotta tidy up the parts and then put them together. That's the challenge. You could do it in an hour in an office. In the field we have? I'd expect about half o' them to fail once times up."

Everyone turned to the contestants still working on things. Most people had treated the halfway point as the time to find a good spot to create their junk mech. Several were still searching though, and a few people were obviously looking for a target. Everyone had also been working for twelve hours in a high stress environment. They were getting tired, even with stimulants and modified bodies. The tension was growing rather than decreasing.

"How long would it take you?" The Vanguard representative asked.

"When I first started? About a week, but that was what, when I was twelve I think?" Bolt mused outloud. "Would have ta ask my pa. That time was kinda bad, had a war going on and we were scrounging across a few battles. Nearly got stomped once or twice and we were really low on food. In circumstances like this, probably six to twelve hours depending on travel time and what I found."

A few seconds of silence passed before the man realized that something about the words had disturbed people. The Senior blinked and then shrugged it off before switching through the feeds and bringing up the leads. No point in dithering or wondering about all of this.

"So, evaluations. Forgive me for being quick. I'm going to be going through fifty of the top ones." Bolt gestured at the screens he'd brought up and began going down the list.

Truthfully, it was mostly a tedious list of what parts people had salvaged and if it was enough for a mech or if they needed to scavenge more. Aside from the possible cheaters at position nine and fifteen, most of the leading contestants had gotten enough parts by this point to create something functional. It remained to be seen if they could assemble them properly. That required a lot of judgement of both your own skills and the parts you had. True to his expectations about half of them were going to fail if they tried to assemble a mech immediately.

After he'd rattled off everything the representatives had a few questions, but none of them were anything unusual. Mostly technical clarification and questions on who would win. That question at least Bolt couldn't predict. Even the five standouts weren't necessarily going to continue to stand out after the first phase. They'd simply had the most consistent work.

The one he'd nicknamed Lucky was the only candidate truly finished. His mech was uninspired but functional, which meant now he just had to leave and get it tested, then he could sleep if he so decided. Everyone else would likely have to pull an all nighter. That included Bolt too.

Fortunately spending a night awake wasn't a hardship at all to Bolt. The representatives did leave shortly after he finished his evaluation though. The designer expected that they were relaying his evaluation and getting something from their own side. No one was going to have an early night today.

Left with just a few attendants who'd be watching their assigned people, Bolt flicked through the feeds and settled himself down to observe. He was going to have to take one of these people as a student after all. It'd be the height of rudeness if he ignored their style here.

Flyer was having a lot of trouble with her work. Third Rate mechs were not Second Rate ones, and getting a coherent flyer required serious sacrifices. She was persevering mostly through stubborn work and tears. Bolt really didn't blame her. The poor girl had been hit some really bad spills and was absolutely filthy. Repair wise, her work wasn't properly compensating for the Third Rate materials, but the mech would work well enough to pass if she didn't get hit with something unexpected. He respected her dedication to flight if nothing else.

Packrat had gathered up even more stuff past the deadline, and then bunkered down right next to a hill where he used some of the scrap to make a shelter and improvised workstation. That was actually pretty innovative in Bolt's opinion. A bit of a waste and it made him a target, but it also gave him a cleaner environment to work in. His repair job was... Well Bolt was fairly sure he was having a bad reaction to the meds he'd taken from the first aid kit in the truck. It'd work. He hoped the man remembered to document it.

Spite had gotten into another fight and then thrown the victim into an improvised prison. The young designer was obviously absolutely done with everything. His mech was a mess of weapons and armor that would walk and probably be able to shoot enough to level a small battlefield. Hopefully that anger was just because the man was dealing with a lot of tension, because Bolt would have to recommend anger management if he wasn't. Seriously some of the hammering strikes were more rage than skill. Also the walk part was about all it would be able to do mobility wise.

Dark Horse was pushing and still salvaging. He had a mostly assembled mech now and had been carefully tuning it after every time he picked up another part. The man's work was truthfully very amateurish. He was obviously learning on the fly, but he was also showing some decent improvement over time. It might have looked like he was still completely unfinished, but he was a good seventy-five or so percent done already. Due to the careful work he'd have a lot of options in the next phase.

All the candidates were likely brilliant in their own way. No one in this contest was there because they were a bad student. They'd been selected specifically because people believed Bolt would take them as a student. It was almost a pity he only had room for one. Only almost though. Bolt really didn't want to have an army of students. That felt like poor form really.

 

[lost star]

Every contestant had a story to tell by the end of the 24 hours they had allotted. They'd probably be telling them for years. Bolt knew only a few of them. With over a hundred contestants his time was occupied mostly by trying to keep the stupid ones from dying, fielding questions, and doing some review of their work. He wasn't trying to be rude or dismissive. One simply couldn't be everywhere and spare attention to everyone. That said, he could at least talk.

"Hope you all at least learned something from this." Bolt said to the attending contestants. "Ya'll might not ever encounter work like this again, but you can say that you did it once, and you made it to the end of the hardest part." He flashed them a grin before sobering. "You have my respect if nothing else. About twenty-five percent of the people trying this failed."

The looks he got to his small speech weren't exactly what he'd call friendly. Most of them had some buried resentment under their officially polite masks. He didn't hold it against them. If anything he felt like it was a healthy sentiment.

"Now, take an hour to get cleaned up and treated. Everyone goes through a medical checkup. Consider this a small gift. While that's happening yer mechs will get setup with your standard automated movement programs. You all know that type. If they can make it down that field to the side they'll pass." Bolt made a shooing gesture. "Now get yer shower."

Heirs didn't do something as undignified as running. They did something very close. Bolt restrained a snicker and turned towards the field. It was very flat, with a starting line and an ending line. A healthy mech would laugh at this sort of thing. The mechs they were testing weren't healthy.

To make things both fair and highly documented, every mech was going to go through one at a time. Before that they'd all get a onceover and a tech installing the walking program. The hour timeframe should be just long enough to get it all arranged thanks to big teams and a lot of technology. Automation and being able to lift mechs quickly made it a pretty quick process.

Apparently, his techs were having a bit of fun with the tasks. They'd drawn up lists of problems for each mech and were racing to see who could do the installation the fastest. Bolt left them to it, with a small note. He couldn't personally comment on the mechs, but the techs could. Those that failed would get a list of the problems. It would be up to them to decide if that was an insult or a way to improve.

Regardless, Bolt set himself down and waited patiently for the contestants to return. One hour later everyone was back in the room and he nodded. "Now, ya'll got a number. You don't need to say what it is. We'll show the number on the display and put the mech on the field. It'll get three tries. If it fails, you failed. I expect about half of you all to fail." The numbers were there for their sanity mostly. If the person didn't react the other contestants would know.

With those grim words the first mech was brought onto the field. It was placed on its feet and it flopped down. It was pulled up by a few cranes and then promptly flopped again before twitching. The process repeated once more, and this time a leg jerked and the mech threw itself on its back.

Bolt didn't smile at it even if he wanted to. That was because it was a mech he'd 'built' for this. A sort of demo mech to intentionally fail. It was hopefully both a good demonstration and a way of buffering the last part of the contest.

As predicted, there were a lot of failures. To most people's credit, many of those that attended had semi-functional mechs. Several of the contestants had realized they didn't have anything functional and gracefully stepped out before this part. The failures were typically in the knees, hips, and balance. Walking was actually highly complicated after all, and a simple jam in a hip joint could brick the entire side.

Not everyone was graceful in their defeat. Bolt had to deal with half a dozen 'do you know who I am' variations, but that decreased after the losers realized how alike they sounded. It faded into resentful looks and quiet promises of retaliation which were completely toothless. Bolt had enough backing that the threats were more damaging to the people making them than to him.

Most notable was one mech that managed to crawl across the battlefield. It wasn't exactly graceful, but the designer had managed to make the top chassis well enough, and got it properly integrated enough for the automated systems to actually do that. This was actually impressive from a technical aspect. You needed a very well integrated system to trigger that particular section of the auto-transport program.

Flyer's mech also raised a few eyebrows. The now properly dressed and clean girl looked quite proud to see her mech outright boost across the field with a singular problem. (It couldn't stop.) Bolt approved even if the girl would have to do a lot of work to get the mech into something battle-ready.

He also approved of Spite and Dark Horse. Spite's mech took a solid minute to get across, but that was just because the program could barely handle the heavy frame correctly. Dark Horse's mech was actually very smooth for the time he'd worked on it and showed that the man had learned quickly on the job.

Bolt did get his estimation off though. About sixty percent of the contestants failed after all it was said and done. He was just thankful for the lack of explosions. The three mechs that had fried themselves non-withstanding, most of the mechs had avoided the most dangerous pitfalls that came from amateur construction. He'd had to disqualify three for cheating as well.

All told, Bolt considered the contest successful so far. After the walks were done Bolt had everyone gathered up again for the next phase. This was more conventional mech design.

"You probably don't need me ta say this, but I'll go over the next step anyway. It's going to be a standard single elimination tournament. My wife will be officiating it and will be picking the pilots after you finish the mechs. You have another 24 hours to do this." Bolt explained to the remaining people. "First place is me offering to take you as a student. You don't have to accept, and I will try my best to get ya something equivalent. Second place is a personal lesson from me or me reviewing one of yer mechs. Top three all get formal sponsorship. Now, you'll be directed to a bay with your mech. Good luck."

Each bay had a restricted Second Rate printer and a few power tools and machines. Enough to make it challenging to revise but not enough to make it too easy. Bolt was just about to get up and work before he was informed quietly that two of the trucks were no longer operational.

"Hah!" The designer gave a small laugh after checking things.

There hadn't been any rules about using the trucks for parts, mostly because there hadn't been any need. Truck parts weren't useful for mechs even accounting for the Second Rate and Third Rate disparity. The fuel and some select exotics though? Those could be repurposed if you were very, very careful and knew your science very well.

"I'll allow it. Don't tell me who's truck it was though." Bolt told the attendent.

It was a fun mystery.

 

[lost star]

The contest wasn't kind. Nothing that forced a designer to stay up for 48 hours could be considered kind. It was fair. It would also hopefully show Bolt what he needed. He was not going to take a student without getting a hint of what they were like past the mask and the polite veneer of society. Sleep deprivation and hardship had a tendency to at least show where a person's limits were if nothing else. It didn't show everything, but that was expected. Bolt really just wanted a clue.

With all of that said, Bolt also wasn't going to do another 24 hour shift. Once the initial sorting was done he did some minor paperwork and made sure that the contestants were settling in and there were no issues, then he took a nap. He could stay up a lot longer if he needed, but watching a bunch of young students dither about repairs would either put him to sleep or piss him off. Neither would be conductive, so sleep and get his mind cleared out.

Once he was fully refreshed the Senior designer made his way back to the foyer with the representatives. Everything was as expected there. A lot of screens were up and displaying the various candidates. Bolt was pretty certain that none of the officials here really understood what they were seeing. The view of their charges doing work was more than enough for them.

"Hmm." Bolt let out as he looked over things. "Candidate fifty-one needs to be checked for communication devices. That's not his work." Really blatant too. "That's actually close to being genuinely insulting. Did the person aiding him not think I'd notice that?"

To his mild surprise his statement resulted in some actual speed. The candidate was grabbed, stripped within seconds to find the communicator, and unceremoniously thrown on a ship out within minutes. In retrospect it wasn't surprising. There was cheating and then there was insultingly cheating. That sort of thing resulted in feuds. He was fairly sure all designers would be extremely displeased with that sort of cheating.

Fortunately that was the only instance of blatant rulebreaking. The rest of it was just recently graduated students actually showing their strengths. It was mildly entertaining and boring in equal measure. These weren't really veteran designers. They were young adults doing their first real job, and it showed.

There were basically two 'types' of contestants. The ones that dithered, and the ones that were so self assured they thought they weren't making mistakes. Both were bad in their own ways. These were again novices though. They were going to make mistakes no matter what. The only thing that would be different was where they'd make mistakes.

Case in point. "Why is there a shutdown order?!" One of the representatives shouted as their candidate was pulled out of the bay.

Bolt flicked to the reports from that area. "Improper chemical handling. They spilled something toxic. No disqualification, but they can't use the bay until it's clean. Be thankful there's not more of a penalty." The designer said. That sort of thing could become lethal fast, and it was not a fun way to die.

The words quieted down the man and Bolt switched back to monitoring people once it became apparent there wasn't an actual issue. With the cut to the participants they had a rather manageable spread of people to monitor. It helped a lot that there wasn't that much to keep an eye on now. There were only so many ways you could take apart and put together an already built mech. Physics had its say after all.

Bolt was more interested in their decision making rather than their work really. How a designer thought was more relevant to him than their work at this stage. He could teach them to do their job better. Changing what they were thinking was harder.

Here was where the clever parts of the exam came into play hopefully. Everyone had made their own decisions in salvaging a few wrecks. The tools in the bays were a mix of Second and Third tools. The mechs could be upgraded to something like peak Third Rate with them, assuming you had the proper judgement. Bolt did not expect anything like that, but the option was there. None of the contestants had the skill or knowledge to really upgrade the mechs to the peak of what they could be. They'd at best get something functional with a hint of their interest, hopefully.

Midway through the day Bolt had to amend his inner evaluation. Most of the people involved were struggling. They were focusing too much on the wrong things. Either trying to repair the mech too much or trying to make it 'clean' for a lack of a better term. These were weapons of war. They had inbuilt tolerances! The armor didn't need to be seamless, it just needed to be tight! You didn't need to hose off everything!

Every single candidate would have been considered a failure in the eyes of his Wrench Rats. A wreck like what these candidates had wasn't worth tidying up. You made it functional and accepted that it would be an ugly son of a bitch. Then you slapped the appropriate weapons on it.

Bolt was half convinced he'd explained something wrong before he finally figured out what was going on. These were graduates insulated from wartime conditions. They'd at most had a few contests and all of them likely involved other conditions. They didn't know how to ration time properly, work with Third Rate mechs, or deal with real battle damage. They were therefore defaulting to fix and inspect everything.

The man was rather thankful that they were competing against one another after he realized that. This way it was still pretty fair. It wasn't like the mechs were identical either. There were hints of brilliance in each one. There were also classic signs of people who'd worked with Second Rate mechs. They'd tried to cram too much inside them all.

"Any standouts?" One of the representatives asked mostly just to make conversation.

"In this case?" Bolt glanced over all the feeds. "About one." He said.

"Just one?" The conversation drew attention from everyone at this point.

"Mostly because he's the only one focusing on a style suited for Third Rate mechs." Bolt brought up the feed. "Everyone else is really just following along with what they salvaged and is doing the classic problem of trying to do too many things." The man shrugged. "I'm gonna be honest, I'm half convinced it's because the man's being lazy."

The representative who was responsible for the contestant looked at the feed and Bolt could see the life slowly drop from his eyes. He took a deep exhale and then deliberately turned away from the screens. The designer stared at him and then the feed. He then clicked it off the main screen feeling a bit awkward.

Everyone in the room seemed to be finding the walls very interesting at the moment. Bolt really didn't want to know the story, but he could read the atmosphere and turned back to keeping an eye on everyone. So far things were shaping up. This part really couldn't be failed if you were educated.

"I'll say that we'll get more of a show when the pilots are set in the mechs. No one's doing anything really bad. At worst they'll be very boring mechs, which is still a success." Bolt continued as he he tried to dispel the awkward air. "Design wise, we have a flying mech, a near heavy weapon's platform style mech, a light skirmisher, a rather solid looking hero mech, and a well mech that stand out as slightly above the rest at this time."

"Well mech?" Someone asked.

"I'm quite sure the designer was on mind-altering meds while he was putting the initial mech together and now he's trying to make it work." Bolt brought up the contestant. He was pretty sure people couldn't tell how strange the mech was off hand. "If he manages to get it to work it'll be one of the leads."

"Why are there wires outside the armor?!"

Bolt shrugged. "Decoration?"

 

[lost star]

Iora Tagami of the Konsu Clan was notorious. He wanted to say it wasn't really his fault, but it was completely, intentionally, and totally his fault. He wasn't too proud to admit it. He was lazy. No, that was underselling it. He wasn't just lazy, he was notoriously lazy. When you looked up the definition of lazy his name was under it. His ideal life and future was a warm bed, breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed, and death by overweight before he was eighty. He'd carefully cultivated that reputation all his life and was quietly proud of what he'd accomplished.

Unfortunately for him, everyone objected to his desires. For awhile he'd managed to maintain his dream. Carefully encouraging a reputation of absolute worthlessness hadn't been exactly easy but he'd managed. He'd spent good years of his life doing the absolute minimum as a result. He'd gotten very average grades, and graduated with a degree in the laziest job he could think of. Becoming a mech designer had been planned. He'd done some research and chosen the career with the intention of coasting on the power of nepotism. No Senior would take someone with average grades after all. He would just drift along on the bare minimum and fade into the background with a salaried position and absolutely no responsibilities.

Getting thrown into this contest was therefore his personal hell. He'd had no choice but to compete though. It was either put on a good showing or end up on the streets. Literally on the streets. His parents had picked out a street and put some sheets out just for him. (He wasn't joking. There was a street with sheets on it at right now.) If he failed he was going to get thrown on that sheet and getting cut off from all support.

So he'd struggled through the mud. He'd figured out how to work the accursed truck in the two hours he'd been given. He'd nearly broken a leg trying load mech parts onto it. He'd even managed to just barely get a mech working before the time had ended! Sure it was a piece of trash, but it was working!

By this point Iora had been up an entire day. For someone that loved sleeping twelve hours of day this was abhorrent. He could feel himself dying. Every second was an eternity! Yet he couldn't stop now. This was probably enough to keep off that street sheet, but he didn't want to chance it. His parents had been quite serious about their threats, and he was pretty sure a military academy was in his future if he did something stupid after passing the first round, so he had to at least put up a show of effort still.

That didn't mean he couldn't cut corners. The truck had a nice and powerfully reactive fuel that you could use for various chemical reactions in a pinch. Relevant to him, you could use a few drops to flush the various lines in a mech. It was a pretty expensive way of doing a cleaning, but it highlighted issues very fast. When combined with another pair of chemicals that would seal small cracks, you could do a flush, then repair, and flush within a minute. Again, this was expensive, but Iora didn't give a damn.

With the mech flushed and cleansed of micro-tears he was then able to do something with the junk parts that made up the entire mech. Truthfully Iora had no idea how to work with Third Rate mechs. He recalled them being simpler in many aspects, and the parts certainly lent itself to that, but he couldn't be assed to remember the exact details. Something about primitive stupidity or something like that. No point in really thinking about it. It was a mech. You used them to kill things. A pointy stick could still put holes in a person if they were in idiot. Third Rate mechs weren't pointy sticks, but the analogy was relevant enough.

So Iora basically just did the bare minimum. He got the parts properly aligned, repaired the armor, made sure all the joints moved right, and then added a gun to it. That necessitated making sure the mech could handle a gun, but that wasn't a problem. Really, why complicate it? He didn't need to win. He needed to do a good showing. He'd done enough damnit!

Once everything was set the young man made his way to the bay where he could technically observe the match and went to sleep. He'd done everything he could. Now for rest! He slept content that he'd done everything he could and he'd be back in his bed shortly after his loss and subsequent trip to his ship. His servants knew enough to do that.

Several minutes later he was shaken awake and back in his mech bay completely bewildered. His mech had won! How had it won?! It was shit. He knew it was shit. Hell the armor was barely intact and the rifle was a mess from the battle. How had it won?!

(The rifle had been enough to chip down the opponent once the match started. After it had run out of bullets the pilot had used the butt of it to club the opponent to death. This mostly worked because the mech was intact and had what amounted to a cohesive and unified design. It was litterally the only one with that status. Every other mech had too many parts and serious misalignment.)

Now he had more work! Repairing it was another bit of stupidity that he had to perform. Fortunately replacing armor was something he could do in his sleep. He might have gotten very average grades, but they'd been passing grades. You failed if you failed with armor. Replacing the rifle was easy as well. He'd gone with an easily made one and slapped it on. You could print another one out within minutes and it required no real adjustment. He even added more ammo just in case.

Which turned out to be a good idea, sort of. He ended up winning again, which meant more work and no sleep. By this point Iora was despairing. This wasn't a good thing! Too much success would make him look competent!!! All of his carefully laid plans for an early retirement were being ruined. What was worse, if he didn't keep doing what he was doing people would figure out he wasn't giving his all or something. He was trapped, so very trapped.

To his great distress this sort of winning streak ended up bringing him to the top six. Three more rounds. Sure someone would be able to beat him? At least he could sleep before his possible doom. They wanted everyone fresh for the last three rounds.

Unfortunately for Iora his family had heard of his victories by this point. He got a call right before bed praising him and assuring him that they'd find him the perfect mentor even if he lost. The news had been so distressing that he'd only managed 8 hours of sleep! The horror alone made him want to cry and hide in bed. His worthless reputation was completely ruined!