1 Understudy/Glorified Errand Boy.

"Alright. The Energy Lattice is in. Fire her up."

The control panel in front of Yseni flickered to life- a complicated arrangement of indicator lights, analogue gauges, buttons, switches and digital readouts showing varying signs of age and use. To his right, a console lit up with cascading status messages that Yseni absorbed with a glance.

"All emergency systems green and active," He reported. A low hum resonated throughout the chamber - the passive shielding - and he flipped the Radio Pass-through on before continuing, "Initiating boot sequence."

He moved through the checklist with practiced ease, and the movements took but a minute.

All around him, the machinery whirred into action. The low hum was drowned by the sound of pressurizing canisters, fluid pumps, actuators, and idling engines. The big wraparound screen that surrounded him lit up with the sigil of the Cobalt Corps before transmitting the outside with stunning clarity.

A small holo-pad on his left lit up, showing him a wire-frame view of a bipedal mech - The Class III close-combat mech, 'Hatchet'. An older model, used by the lowest ranked infantry of the Cobalt Corps during the First Contact days. Now retired, and in the hands of much humbler folks. Its current Pilot had affectionately nicknamed it 'Mountain.'

"You ran the diagnostics yet?" Cerrit's voice crackled through the earpiece, his tone impatient. Yseni could now see him through the primary display, standing there indignantly, hand on his hip, a singed eyebrow raised. You could never please the Head Mechanic.

Yseni's hands were already flying over the controls, running the custom diagnostic scripts necessary for a mech that had long since deviated from standard specifications. "It just booted up," he replied, focusing on the readouts as they populated his screen. "We have a low-pressure warning on a hydraulic sensor. It's the-"

"In the lower left torso? C... 48, was it?" Cerrit interrupted.

"C-58, yes."

"Ignore that. Sensor's faulty. Too out of the way to replace."

Yseni did just that and continued his review.

"The rest of the scans are green."

"Good. Time for the Motion Data tests now."

Yseni sighed. He hated those.

"... Copy."

He saw as Cerrit and the other mechanics walked as far away from the mech as they could. A Motion Data test without a verified Pilot always ran the risk of going awry and Yseni was very much not a Pilot.

He closed his eyes and went through the checklist for the Motion Data test once, twice, thrice again. He mumbled each iteration into the earpiece, wanting the whole room to hear it and stop him if he got anything wrong.

But no one interrupted. He wished someone would. Syncing sucked. He almost loathed Cerrit for making him go through this when he was just a mechanic.

Yet, he had asked for this. He needed the money, the tools, the components, and the opportunities that being Cerrit's understudy provided. And then there was the promised reward. He needed that most of all.

He gulped. "Okay, ready..."

He grabbed the helmet above his seat.

"Initiating Sync in 5, 4, 3, 2," A final breath. "1!" And pulled it onto his head.

...

Yseni braced himself. He always did when initiating a Sync. He ran a mental simulation of all the times he has done so before just to get his brain ready for what's about to come. A part of him always thought that that would be enough. After all, every Sync left him with a distinct and vivid memory.

Another knew that the anticipation had never been enough.

Still Yseni tried. He closed his eyes and tried to etch every fiber of his senses into his memory. He recorded how it felt to breathe, how his skin felt against the metal and worn leather of his skin, how warm his own body was, how his nervous twitching resonated throughout his muscles, even the speed of his own thoughts. He must not lose himself.

Finally, he recounted the checklist once again. Remember himself. Remember the checklist. Remember himself. Remember the checklist. Remember himse-

The floodgate of information finally opened, and Yseni found himself swept away once again.

56,297.

987,472,441.

The first, the total number of sensors, actuators, and other moving parts in the 'Mountain'.

The second, the number of data points that the 'Mountain's primary computer was unceremoniously dumping into Yseni's brain every nanosecond.

His vision flashed, from him inside the cockpit, to a camera near the mech's head with a wide field of view, to the Infrared scanner in his chest, to the broken jigsaw of thirteen camera inputs his brain tried to mash into a panorama in a hope to resolve his surroundings, to his own face from the cockpits internal camera, to the visual noise of a data stream misinterpreted as an image, to-

He heard his own heart beat. 10,000 times a second, in the flames of hell itself. It was his engine. It was a loud, incoherent scream that consumed all. Echoes upon echoes, mechanical breaths lodged in between repeating, pitch shifted, overlapping clacks of dialogue.

He was upside down, then facing the sky, in the freezing vacuum of space, and in the arms of the sun, he was nothing, and everything. He-

A fleeting noisy signal caught his ever shifting attention. An afterimage of a thought, really. It spoke a thing he was once. 'Yseni.'

Instinct made him clench onto that. Made him amplify and repeat that word.

Yseni.

One of the 53 distinct visual feeds suddenly struck him as unique. He held onto that too.

Yseni.

Another memory surfaced, one of a temperature. He isolated the data points around that.

Yseni.

Much of the auditory noise subsided. He could slowly feel an amalgamation of the found fields. A oneness.

A silhouette formed in his conscience. A blurry mess for now, but rapidly resolving itself.

He was Yseni.

And he hadn't taken a breath in the last 27 seconds.

Yseni gasped into consciousness. He had somehow clawed his way out of the machine's sensory maelstrom. For the moment, he was himself. At least a barely functioning shell of himself.

He became of a singular focus- the task needed to be completed before the ticking time-bomb of inputs and data overwhelmed him again. The task, the checklist, the test, yes. Move the mech through a series of pre-defined motions, designed to test the maximal amount of systems with the minimal movements.

Yseni moved his arms—through sight, rather than feel and instinct—and disengaged the movement locks on the mech. Then he probed into the mass of inputs his conscience was subjected to and selectively opened the connection just enough to control only the actuators he needed.

It was excruciating. It felt like an age. The machine tried its best to use each connection point as pilot holes to break the dam. He tried his best to vocalise every step he took, but his senses were still so jumbled up that he couldn't tell if any of it actually happened.

Right when his willpower was straining to near his limits, the checklist finally ended. He didn't probe around to see if he had succeeded, instead yanking the helmet off as soon as he could.

"... Did we get it?" Yseni mumbled. A tinge of iron registered on his tongue. He had been bleeding.

He had survived the Sync. He was no longer a part of the machinery.

"Well, we definitely saw movement," came the response. "Results should be up in a minute. Get out of there."

Yseni grumbled. He took a minute to compose himself, indulging in his all too human senses again. Even the aches from his bloody nose felt like a welcome respite from the Sync. He took out a tissue and wiped his face and the drops of blood that had splattered on the mech's seat. Then he held held the tissue to his nose, long enough to stop the nosebleed.

"Powering down," He mumbled into the earpiece and went through the motions, then slowly stood up.

"Seems alright," One of Cerrit's underlings read through the Motion Data report as he stepped through the hatch. None of the mechanics looked at him, each busy reading through data sheets or packing up their stuff.

Yseni didn't say anything and looked back at the mech. It towered over everything else in this small space. He felt a bitter taste in his throat. He felt a tinge of familiarity and a sense of loss through the silent fear.

He promised himself that he would never do that again.

As the maintenance staff dispersed, heading to their other duties, Yseni rushed over to Cerrit. He tried his best to not look as spent as he felt as he caught up to him.

Cerrit glanced over, and after a moment, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver card. He waved it over towards Yseni.

"You sure you just want this?" He raised a questioning singed brow.

Yseni replied by snatching the card out of his hands.

"Logistics knows what you want. Just show them the card," Cerrit eyed him. "And don't even try to trick them out of anything else. I'll know"

Not that Yseni would ever try. He had had to move to the edge of the galaxy to even find a place that would take in someone who hadn't formally gone through the prerequisite trainings for mech design. And even then, he could work here only as Cerrit's understudy and not as an actual mechanic. He got paid less, and wasn't allowed to work with most of the equipment. At least Cerrit let him browse through the learning resources during downtime, and let him peer over his shoulder every once in a while.

"Thanks boss," Yseni flatly replied, and walked off to collect his prize.

...

Yseni's steps echoed as he walked from the re-purposed maintenance hatch to the dark side of Port Limitless. The weight of the old mech-grade energy lattice in his bag was a comforting presence, a tangible reminder of a silent ambition.

He paused for a moment, looking up at the hanging artificial lights, and further at the vestiges of the Port proper, covering a vast majority of the sky. 'Mountain' would soon go up there again, and fight in one of the rings at the Overburn arena. Maybe he'd see that match on the transmission one day.

An artificial breeze blew over him, carrying with it the sounds and scents of the port - of metal, grease, and ambition. As it left his skin, it brought away with it the residual disorientation and fatigue of the Sync. He reminded himself again that he wasn't just an unseen cog in this giant machinery.

He navigated through the maze of walkways and service tunnels until he reached a run-down warehouse tucked away in the less-traveled parts of the port. The door groaned as he pushed it open; the sound reverberating through the empty space. He flicked the switch, and the lights flickered to life.

His home greeted him, a mess of dilapidated structure and cobbled furniture. His living space was shoved into a corner, leaving the rest for a makeshift workshop. He'd spent his five years slowly building it up, scavenging tools and re-purposing scrap. Occasionally, he'd be able to save up enough to buy something new, but that was rare.

In the middle of it all, taking up most of the floor-space, made of scrap, second hand material, blood and tears, only lacking an appropriately sized energy lattice--

Was a mech of his own design.