Felix followed along. Unable to help himself he looked into every lab room, desk, and terminal he saw as he passed.
Everyone was working on something. He could see prototypes, modeling, data points, even an entire meeting that looked like it was talking about testing protocol.
“—ee if we can’t make upgrades simply based on your power! I mean, when we really dug into the original Fist we found a lot of things we’d never even considered. That’s why we tore it apart, put it back together, and then retired it,” Felicia said.
“Huh. Yeah, that makes sense. I suppose we could see what the point cost is. No idea how much it’ll do or how far I can push it though. Some of that more subjective stuff gets weird,” Felix said.
“Excuses already? You’re the naysayer today, are ya?” Felicia said.
She slapped her hand into a panel next to a doorway. The door slid open and she made to enter immediately.
“Come on then, come take a look at the Fist and let’s see what we can do,” Felicia said as she walked through the doorway.
Felix followed along and stopped almost immediately just inside.
It was bigger than the last one. At least double the size in fact. The weapons were similar, but sized up. There was even what looked to be a gigantic cannon sticking up over the shoulder and pointing skyward.
How would you even use that?
This new Fist was clearly designed for a battlefield, and not for a building.
“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. This isn’t for going into buildings. Your normal armor is for that, and excels at it. Why create another tool that does the same thing?” Felicia said.
Stopping in front of a console, she began typing something in.
“White and I have been working pretty heavily on this one. We took a lot of his other work and built it in. Nanotech, rail guns, better energy sources, better alloys,” Felicia said.
She typed something rapidly in and the Fist began moving.
It was eerie how little noise it made as it lowered itself to the ground.
The torso opened up, the lower half forming a stairwell, and the upper half moving out of the way. The cockpit inside looked as if the original one had been mirrored.
He wasn’t quite sure how that’d work if he was supposed to control it as if it were his own limbs.
“Similar helmet design to your armor. It feeds in, and responds, as if it were your body. We spent a lot of time getting it right,” Felicia said.
“Am I that easy to read?” Felix grumped. Lately it felt like everyone knew what he was thinking as he thought it.
Felicia stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him.
“No. But we all talked to Kit about your thoughts once she got into your head. It’s… good to know you’re exactly what you say you are. Also easier to understand. Even if you are an ass.”
Should have known. Not a problem, though. She’s not sharing anything I wouldn’t already tell them if they asked.
“Good, I suppose. So… you want me to try to upgrade it?” Felix asked, starting to draw up what he wanted his popup to do.
“Yep. I want you to more or less do what you did last time. We figured out a lot of things that would’ve taken us time to get to, and we would have, but time saved, ya know? So… more of the same,” Felicia said, facing him. She leaned up against the console and folded her arms across her chest.
“Fine, fine. By the way, how are you and Ioana doing? I don’t get to see much of her. She’s always working,” Felix said.
He focused on Legion’s Fist, trying to think back to what he did last time. He’d simply wanted it completed at the time. To be what it would be if they’d had the time to finish it.
“We’re… we’re doing well. Too well. I keep expecting something to go wrong,” Felicia said after a moment.
“That’s a silly way to look at it. Why predict a negative when you have no reason to? Focus on the now or lose it,” Felix said with a touch of anger in his voice.
A number of people he’d met in his life had always focused on the problems. The concerns. The negative what ifs that could happen.
They spent their lives worrying and complaining, instead of working to fix it.
Ah, let’s do that then. Let’s apply that thought to this.
Making that his driving thought, Felix wanted to see what the Legion’s Fist would be if Felicia and Mr. White had another year to work on it.
To see the state of the mech at that point.
Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out extended by one year
Warden Unit will be completed per specifications.
Upgrade?(53,000)
“Well. I got the answer. About fifty-three thousand points,” Felix said.
“And what’d you do exactly?”
“I wanted to see what’d it’d be like if you had another year to work on it.”
“Huh. That’s definitely one way to look at it. Change that though. What would it look like if we upgraded it to the next version,” Felicia suggested.
Nodding his head, Felix altered his desire.
Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out changed by one iteration.
Warden Unit will modified by one development cycle.
Upgrade?(112,500)
“Damn. Jumped up to one-hundred and twelve. Give or take.”
“Ok, go up another version.”
Felix frowned and decided he’d humor her.
Don’t exactly have that kind of point value, you know.
Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out changed by two iterations.
Warden Unit will modified by two development cycles.
Upgrade?(359,250)
“Three hundred and sixty. Roughly,” Felix said, shaking his head. That was a massive point investment.
“See, that’s a big point jump though. It isn’t a straight multiplication. Which means the development on that one is much bigger. Ok, do that one,” Felicia said, nodding her head.
“Hah. And where do you think I’ll get those points? It’s not like th—”
“Ah. That’s right, I haven’t told you. I’ve been converting some of my budget into gold. Right now I have enough for about a million points. This is what I want first,” Felicia said, waving her hand in the air. “Your point budget right now is at about one hundred, I’ll take up two-hundred and sixty of that on my own.”
… Damn. I never even thought about doing that. That’s not a bad idea. Have departments turn their budget to gold to convert to points instead of straight funding.
“I also told everyone else what I was doing the other day with my budget. I expect they’ll probably be doing the same.”
“I would be, too” Felix admitted.
“Alright. Do you have the gold handy or do we have to do some transfers?” Felix asked.
Felicia looked back to the console and poked a button.
“Oi, bring in two hundred and sixty thousand points worth of gold,” Felicia said, and then looked back to Felix with a wide grin. “I can’t wait to see what we would have made in the future. This’ll jump us ahead by years I bet.”
Felix began turning gold into dirt as soon as the lab assistants started to cart it in. As soon as it was altered, the dirt was carted right back out.
By the time three minutes had passed, Felix mutated enough gold to make economists twitch.
And when it was all done, he only took a moment to pull up a window and make the upgrade.
Legion’s Fist began to rapidly change in front of them.
The design went from sleek lines to hard edges. Weapons melted and reformed themselves into vaguely similar designs, but clearly different.
Overall, it was a similar design, but was clearly a different machine.
“Yes, yes!” Felicia shouted, clapping her hands together. “I can’t wait to start poking around in it. Shit in my beer, is that a portal device on this thing?”