Old Mars, yeah, where I grew up.
Drake had been kind enough to provide me with a clone of my old man so the spendthrift could fake his own death when the loan-sharks sent out their hired muscle to collect on his debts. This was the last time I’d loan dad sums of credits though… he should know better at his age but I guess if a habit has set in by that stage in life then it’s pretty much cemented in your personality.
I named that Bishop mecha in my team Diocese as a bit of a religious joke. See, a diocese is the clergy territory which a bishop is in charge of. A few of the parts thumped and thudded and I could hear a thunking coming from the Plasma Bottle engine. Definitely going to swap it out for a more stable Caged Singularity as soon as I can afford one. With the calibrations I’d made and frequent repairs though it should hold together for awhile... I hope.
My mom is a businesswoman and she runs a courier service using a fleet of Orcuses. Or would that be Orcusi (not sure what the plural of Orcus is but they’re speedy enough to be practical so leave that conjugation to the linguists if they want to puzzle it out)? She personally watches over the service yard of her messengers in a Keradon that she has painted blue. Things were a bit like I’d remembered, and the site still had Krampuses posted as sentries with the familiar Cindron for gate watch and a detachment of smaller Hoplites inside whirring around doing active security patrol. When I was little she and dad used to let me try out Red Ants and Shocklites to get a feel for piloting. My Shocklites Prime and Deuce are near-replicas of the ones I grew up on but upgraded with Goliath Racks in place of the Mordems and Furys I’d trained on as a kid.
You can imagine my surprise to see Drake in the Cumulus Courier office nestling a mug of Mars Cocoa.
I guess he decided to brief my old lady on the cloning procedure that was going to get the gangsters off pops’ tail once and for all. See, she’d wanted to cover part of the costs.
“Mom, you didn’t show him the old mechwrestling pics of me and Atom as teenagers did you? How embarrassing.”
Drake smiles, “She did indeed.” He lets loose a good natured laugh before taking a drink, “Excellent Cocoa Ma’am”
Aurora Cumulus: “Luke,”
“It’s Myco now. Luke Cumulus died back in that lab accident.”
“Myco, your brother is still a Mars Mech pro-wrestler. I was just showing Drake a holovid of him performing his Atom Smash laser finishing move.” She cleared some dishes from the table.
“You boys are going to send a double of my husband for the creditors to go after instead, is that right?”
“Correct. They’ll have all the fun of torturing and killing the clone and you get to keep your husband, a Win Win situation I love those.” Drake smiles his sly smile a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, “Of course I have other plans for those creditors depending on what my good friend Myco wants done.”
Aurora: “I don’t mind you fragging the gangsters, lord knows the police here have their hands full enough as is. If either of you wants a staging area to prep your mechs the stockyard is out back; The Krampuses have AI that are voice activated, I’ll just give them the passcode.” She audibly mutters the code into a microphone with her hand over the microphone and her mouth.
“Thanks mom,” I tell her but she is already directing her workers to move things in the stockyard around making a staging area for us to prep my and Drake’s mechas.
Submitted by Mycobacter & Drake Novum Scientist#712744 #706289