Chapter Three - Rusty

I’d hidden Rusty behind a large shrub. It was a waternut bush, the sort with fist-sized nuts hanging under a blanket of nettles longer than some knives, and sharper.

In a pinch, someone could crack one of those and get a good gulp’s worth of lukewarm juice. There were even some desert birds that were agile enough to swoop in and snatch a nut off the bush before taking off. You’d hear them falling down onto the rocks sometimes, a loud, distant crack like a gunshot.

In this case, the bush was a good landmark. Behind it, the land dipped a little, keeping Rusty out of sight, and the long shadows cast by the bush left his rusty-brown frame a little cooler.

“Heya boy,” I said as I walked around.

Rusty was... frankly, a bit of a mess when it came to provenance. The legs, thick and bulky, were of dwarven make. His main torso was good old human engineering though, a large ball of thick steel covered in bandoleers and a few leather pouches around the back.

I kicked at his side and a step creaked out, its spring making it shudder in place.

Rusty’s arms were mismatched. On his right was his original arm. A few hydraulic-fed actuators and a skeletal frame. Most of it was wrapped in some beige cloth, to keep the sand off and to better hide in the dust.

His left arm had been torn off some gnomish warmech. Thick spellsteel, an actual hand with full articulation, and a few surprises cleverly tucked away.

The old mech’s head was mostly black, with a red eye and some shaded glass where the periscopes were. A metallic helmet above it had a brim as wide as I was tall, and filled with heatsinks on the underside.

I flicked open a panel on his chest and twisted a knob.

“Oh, crap,” I said as I jumped back.

A gush of steaming-hot air escaped Rusty’s interior, filled with the faint stench of day-old sweat and oil that was cooking away as if in an oven.

Oven was right, I could see the air ripple as it escaped the mech’s interior. “Damn all the gods.” I waved my hand at it as if that would help cool it down. It didn’t.

Rusty’s insides were actually rather spacious for a smaller mech, owing to his bulky frame. The pilot’s seat was set up so that I’d be half-standing while in it, with the arms tucked into a pair of large gauntlets with switches near the hands. A few pedals poked out of the floor, for the legs, and the bit of shield-space within had some tools and provisions tucked away.

I jumped into Rusty and tried not to touch anything for too long. Laying hands on piping steel left you with nasty burns, even through leather gloves. I flicked on the engine. Then, when that didn’t work, I cursed every one of my ancestors and shifted over to the side to smack the controls at the back. The box was a little loose, some of the wires within, not the originals, of course, trailing out and down. I had to wiggle them until something sparked while flicking on the main boot-sequencer.

Rusty shivered, then started to hum.

“There ya go,” I muttered. I gave the mech a good pat for being agreeable, then checked the gauges. The engine was running hot, which was plenty normal. Rusty’s fuel gauge was a glass cylinder with some scratches marked into it. It was mounted above, held in place by a couple of pipes. We were at three-quarters full.

I flicked on the heat-exchange, then slid an arm into one of the control gauntlets to reach for the knobs within. I turned the cooling on to just shy of its maximum. Any higher than that, and condensation would form on the cooling unit, and then when it shut off, it’d turn to steam inside the enclosed unit.

That had happened once. Spending three days travelling in a boiling mech wasn’t my idea of fun.

The air vents clunked and chattered as lukewarm air was pushed around the cabin.

“Looks like we’re ready to roll,” I said.

I pulled half-way out of Rusty to unsling my rifle and tucked it away in the holster set into the cabin’s side, then I grabbed a handkerchief and climbed up Rusty’s frame to rub away at his forward visor to clear it of any sand and grime.

Noticed a bit of hydraulic fluid staining the side under the gnomish arm. I’d need to tighten that one seal again. Maybe it was time to invest a few silver into getting it fixed once and for all. As it was, I was wasting plenty of silver on fluids just to keep everything topped up.

My exterior check done, I slid back into Rusty, pulled the torso hatch shut, and sat my ass down on the boiling-hot leather seat. I was alone, so I allowed myself a bit of cursing as my ass cooked. Nothing to do for it though, and I got used to it soon enough.

I slid my arms into the control gauntlets, wiggled my fingers to make sure I could reach every switch, then I grasped the handles within with a creak of my leather gloves and pulled them close.

I could feel Rusty’s arms whirring and moving just outside of his frame. There was a bit of resistance on the left arm. Probably from that leak.

I pulled my hand out, reached to the side, and opened a control panel built into Rusty’s frame. A quarter-twist and I upped the pressure on the left-side. Some pipes rattled a bit with the change, but everything held.

When I next moved the arms, there wasn’t as much resistance. “Looking mighty fine,” I complimented Rusty.

A flick of a finger and Rusty’s display came crashing down around my head with a clunk. To the sides, a pair of brass horns that lead up to holes on the outside, letting me hear something other than the rumble inside the cabin. They had some cloth over the openings, to keep the sand out.

Before me, three screens. Two were mirrors set on a complex system of gantries, and leading out with periscopes to the openings in the mech’s head. The view wasn’t perfect, but it let me see ahead. The middle most screen was different though.

It was also not working.

“Come on,” I muttered as I pulled an arm out of its glove to smack the screen.

It flickered and soon the gems around it sparked to life.

Combat Core - RUSTY - Active

... Surface Controls... Active

... Cooling... Sub-Optimal

... Fuel Levels... Optimal

... Weapons... Loaded

... Mana Circulation ... Sub-Optimal

DAMAGE CHECK

...

Left Arm - MISSING

Right Knee Actuation Damaged

Neck Actuation Damaged

WEAPON CHECK

...

Lever-Action, Emberbar Rifle - Functional

Model 1634 Revolving Gun - Functional

Pilot Check

...

Pilot Not Responding...

I huffed out a breath, and licked my lips.

Carefully, I tugged down the lapels of my jacket and took off the scarf I had under it and flung it to the side. My mask came off next, letting me breath in the now-cooler air of Rusty’s interior without a filter. I hung the mask on a leather loop to the side, buttoning it up so it wouldn’t come off in the event of rough maneuvers.

Then, because my lips were dry, I reached over and tugged a waterskin off a rack and swallowed a heavy gulp of lukewarm water. I shoved it away and got ready.

I hesitated, and instead of activating anything, I reached under my seat and found the flask tucked under there. I unscrewed the top and took a pull of the whiskey within.

It burned good.

I tightened the cap back on, and shoved the flask away.

I hated this part. Didn’t matter that I’d been with Rusty for years, I still hesitated like a maiden on her wedding night whenever this part came around. It was like getting a tooth pulled.

Leaning forwards, I strained my neck, then slammed my head back.

A pair of little arms, perfectly adjusted for my head, snapped around and clamped my head in place, with leather-covered pads over my temples. A pin came down and stabbed into my neck, just over the collarbone.

I didn’t hiss at that. I was expecting the prick, and the slight wetness of blood slowly dripping down my collar.

It was the next part that I hated.

...Pilot... Active!

Magic poured into my head, like a pair of icepicks being driven into my skull from both directions.

Circles formed in the air around a few components, like those that appeared when a gun was fired, but a thousand times more complex.

I squeezed my legs together, grit my teeth, and forced my eyes to stay open.

One moment I was Charlie Norwood. The next, I was Rusty.

***