Ed by qntm

Author:qntm [qntm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

My Other Car Is A Giant Robot

There are roughly two hundred mechs - part of an international Space Defence Coalition - posted around the world. They are arranged roughly evenly, though there's some clustering around more densely populated areas, which have proved to be more popular targets for Eridanian attacks. The United Kingdom is defended by two of these. There are five to ten pilots taking shifts at being on call to pilot these at a moment's notice - until Ed went to America he was among them. One pilot, named Marcus, was activated a few minutes ago and instructed to fly his mech to here, to the market square near where I work, as fast as possible. Meanwhile I made my excuses at work and came here, where I've been waiting for only about a minute total.

"As fast as possible" could use clarification. Ed released a whole bundle of new technologies to the public back when he announced the energy virus's existence, and while it's taking an agonizing amount of time for practical implementations of these technologies to filter through to the general public, the SDC have had the means and motivation to basically pounce on them. Consequently the basic mech design has been upgraded considerably in the past few years. For example, it used to be powered by jets, rockets and thrusters: that is to say hot, dangerous flames. The new design doesn't have that, it has a version of Ed's reactionless screw drive - or "liftweave" as the marketing types seem to be calling it now - woven into its superstructure instead. Screw drives are actually insanely dangerous devices in that, supplied with enough power, there is no theoretical upper limit to the level of acceleration they can provide. So, without overrides forcing acceleration to stay within a certain tolerance, it would become very easy for a pilot to ramp up to twenty or more gees and simply crush himself to a pulp. This in turn means that even though the robots themselves aren't what you'd describe as aerodynamic, they are quite capable of breaking the sound barrier at sea level.

Technically it is illegal to break the sound barrier over land, and as the sonic boom echoes distantly over the market square I consider it to be highly doubtful anybody managed to get special permission before Marcus' mech launched. He probably did a lot of damage en route. He'll probably do even more on the next leg of his journey. Hey ho. Price of saving the world.

Almost everybody in the square scatters in alarm as the mech draws to a halt over the square, and gently comes in to land, all in almost eerie silence. These days, a mech is just another piece of military hardware like a tank, but it's still pretty unusual for the average member of the public to see one in action, so many remain (foolishly, really) at the edge of the square, waiting to see what will happen next. Some take photos.

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