"My man Ves, I received your files. I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied with your work. The cape doesn’t have any frills and the surface lighting sches don’t seem impressive at all. The only thing I found cool is the red lights installed underneath the armor."
Ves was afraid of that. Not satisfying his client ant his rewards for the mission could be reduced. "I have made my design choices with resilience in mind. Excessive frills will be the first thing that gets lost when your ch receives damage. It’s better to keep a clean appearance that looks great both when it’s pristine and when it has survived a battle."
The excuse was enough to cause Vincent to pause in his tirade. He frowned and thought over his words. "Alright, but I’m consulting a pro shuttle customizer artist for the lighting sche. I still feel your designs are too basic. Heh, why didn’t I do that in the first place. Your not an artist."
"If you are unsatisfied with my designs, feel free to turn to soone else." Though the System wouldn’t like it, Ves agreed with Vincent’s choice. "Just make sure the artist knows that chs are machines that are ant to be put in the frontlines."
"Yeah yeah, whatever you say. As for getting permission and sourcing the materials, I’ll let my assistant handle the details."
"That would be appreciated." Though he could purchase the extra materials himself, he’d be liable to get ripped off in the process. "In any case, I’m still in the conceptual stage of working out a design to et your... third demand."
"I’m expecting to see your proposal by tomorrow. I need you to work on my new ch as fast as possible, within two weeks at least."
That knocked Ves off course. This was the first ti he heard about any deadline. "Is it very urgent that I deliver your ch in that ti?"
"Yes, it’s super urgent! I’ve already got a bet going on. I’m going to show that bastard that I’m not scared or anything! I’m NOT a coward!"
"Yes, yes, you’re very brave!" Ves said quickly, trying to avoid getting on the receiving end of a tirade. "Vincent, I’ll get it done today and have a potential design for you to peruse by tomorrow."
"You’d better!"
The signal cut off abruptly, causing Ves to sigh with relief. He had been a little negligent in his duties. He thought he had plenty of ti to consider all of his options and refine Vincent’s dream ch step by step. The sudden hard deadline of two weeks put a sudden stop to his leisurely vacation on Bentheim.
He took Lucky with him and left the arena and its cheering fans behind. He hailed an aircar straight back to the MTA. After going through several security scans, he finally ended up at a design studio similar to the last one. He was ready to get back to work.
"Hm, a bulge, huh?" Ves considered as he summoned the image of his ch, now with a cape and so rudintary light system. In his eyes, the ch already looked pretty masculine, in a knight in shiny armor kind of way. Adding an obvious bulge to the front waist would ruined the entire feel of the ch.
"n who wore armor in those days never exposed their private parts to any danger. It’s one of the most vulnerable weak points in a human body."
chs were pretty much the sa way. Its central position just on top of the chanically hungry legs made it a pri position to place the engines. As such, the waist and lower torso portion of a ch possessed plenty of armor already. It would be highly challenging to elongate the front section without impacting a ch’s maneuverability in so strange fashion.
Unless he stuck sothing on it at a right angle. But then he’d ruin his reputation and get Vincent get arrested for indecency.
"I shouldn’t be the only person who is dealing with this problem."
The ch is an imitation of the human form. Yet ch designers were content to wholly minimize any waist protrusions as much as possible in the na of efficiency. Perhaps Vincent had a point where he said that the lack of gender expression in a ch presented an obstacle to fully bonding with it in the process. If Ves simply put sothing subtle there, it might even improve the ch’s X-Factor.
"But what if the pilot is of another gender?"
Ves could imagine a dissonance between the ch and the pilot should occur, but not too strong. Plenty of female and other gendered pilots pulled off fantastic performances in very masculine chs. And while they are less common, his own feminine-looking Fantasia variant also showed that no male pilots ever perford much worse than the female pilots.
Still, he couldn’t help but feel that gender did matter. Maybe this was the great wall that held him back from scoring higher than an E in terms of X-Factor. The instance that he earned a C-rating from the System must have been attributed to other factors. It might even be higher if Ves paid attention to his ch’s gender in the first place.
"Is this the secret to obtaining a higher X-Factor?" Ves asked himself, and with the knowledge he mastered so far, he guessed that it might very well be a viable direction to pursue.
He then recalled so strange skills and subskills in the System’s Skill Tree. They mostly pertained to replacing a chanical ch’s parts with biological equivalents. So instead of using artificial muscles made out of alloys and polyrs, these researchers cultured living muscle tissue with the sa shape and function.
A ch is an imitation of the human body.
"There are so people out in the galaxy who believe in the phrase a bit more literal than others."
Ves imagined he touched upon one of the great secrets of what humanity’s elite are pursuing. He realized the ch Designer System’s unintentional reveal of what other researchers are pursuing in their dark and hidden laboratories were dangerous secrets. This was so far above his level that if he ever revealed any of his suspicions, that he might draw an entire battlefleet from so first-rate superstate upon his head.
"I better keep all of these thoughts locked up for the mont." He quickly concluded, and turned his attention back to the matter of portraying a certain piece of male anatomy.
He referenced the galactic net again and took a look at how ancient pre-space flight civilizations dealt with the matter of armoring the crotch.
A lot of ridicule-inducing images appeared. So ancient armorers literally shaped a form-fitting codpiece that looked like they could snugly fit the mber. In today’s age, if Ves implented such a thing onto his ch, he’d literally get hounded from his profession.
The slightly larger and subter codpieces were not much better. They still bulged out so obviously that they never failed to call an observer’s gaze to the person’s waist. Sure, they offered a lot of protection, but the way they drew the eye just caused them to look like flaunting peacocks.
"Then again, it’s not like Vincent is any different."
Still, Ves sought a more decent example. He found a couple of interesting images. So armor designers neatly avoided this issue by adding a chainmail or plated skirt. While that would work brilliantly with certain chs, he was sure to draw Vincent’s ire. A man never wore skirts, after all, and his client wanted to flaunt his masculinity, not negate it entirely.
He eventually spotted so codpieces that looked a bit more fitting for modern tis. These codpieces skewed rounded shapes and instead used sharp angles in a combination of triangular and rectangular forms. These examples evoked the suggestion that they were there to do their job of protecting the crotch without attracting undue attention.
It looked sharp, modern and most importantly did not cross the line into indecency. Ves liked the concept very much that he imdiately turned on the design studio’s designer program and put his inspirations into form.
He hit so snags along the way. The Marc Antony was a fra based on the heavily-armored Caesar Augustus. Both chs weighed at the top end of the dium weight class. As the legs and the waist were so of the most heavily-armored portions of any chs, this ant that it was highly unusual to add additional layers on top.
Ves had to consider the range of motion of the legs. Extre contortions could very well bump into the ch and crush any rigid obstacle in its way. He doubted Vincent wanted everyone to see him destroy his facsimile manhood while inside the cockpit. Shaping the codpiece in a triangular shape so that its bottom portion was minimized could only go so far.
"If I can’t avoid any collisions, then it needs to have so give."
He thought back to yesterday and recalled his conversation with Vincent. He casually ntioned using a sponge-like material to build this part with. Such a thod could allow Ves to avoid the problem of leaving his ch open to destroying its own gender.
He took an hour to design this simple part. He first took a resilient sponge-like composite from the market and shaped it in a roughly triangular form that protruded sufficiently from the lower waist. He undersized it in order to leave enough room for armored plates to cover up the soft and flexible composite. He didn’t want to resort to a different material so he chose to stick to the sa HRF armor plating.
After stepping back, he took in the entire projection of the ch. The Marc Antony still looked awe-inspiring and ready to fight. The triangular armored codpiece nonetheless attracted a substantial amount of attention, but its design was sufficiently different from the more obscene examples in history. It looked... tasteful, even if Ves would never admit it. Still, he hoped Vincent accepted this addition.
His Marc Antony variant sohow looked more complete with the codpiece. Well, Ves personally preferred it to be smaller and less attention grabbing. Nevertheless, now that he considered the question whether it made any difference if chs had genders, it looked more fitting.
When Ves contacted Vincent in the morning, he showed the groggy-looking scion the projection of his work.
Even Vincent adopted a stumped expression. His jaw practically dropped as he admired the augnted form. "It’s great! That’s exactly what I was going for! It’s a bit classier than I prefer, but absolutely nobody will ridicule for hiding my package any longer!"
Ves questioned who exactly lacked the sense to criticize a ch’s exclusion of unnecessary additions. Still, he kept his mouth shut, not willing to disparage any powerful heirs and step on Vincent’s toes at the sa ti.
After ranting about the genius of the codpiece for several minutes, Vincent finally gave Ves the green light. "I want you to go back to whatever dirtball you’re based in and produce my ch according to this design! Make sure you coordinate with my assistant if you need anything extra. Don’t call back until you finished the ch."
His personal assistant took over the line. Ves asked a bit about the progress of procuring the materials for the cape, the lighting system and also the codpiece, and got a reassuring answer.
"Our logistical departnt has fast tracked deliveries to your workshop in Cloudy Curtain. They will arrive long before your flight back to your ho planet."
Ves then referred the personal assistant contact his broker to sign a contract for a commission. Marcella was much more capable of handling the sales portion of the negotiation. Once he received his advance paynt, he could ship all the other materials he needed to his workshop.
As Ves packed up his ager luggage and brought his cat back to the spaceport, he wondered how he should actually build his ch. Vincent’s product had to be in his hands in around thirteen days, which sounded a lot, but certification and shipping took a lot of ti and so did acclimatization. He couldn’t expect Vincent to master his new ch in a day.
The first ti he fabricated the Marc Antony, he took over a week, and that was when he worked with maximum care. Now that he grew a little more familiar with the fabrication process, he could skip most of the excessive caution and work a little more briskly.
"Ideally, the fabrication shouldn’t take longer than a week including the additional parts. Any longer and it calls into question why I even bother fabricating the ch personally in the first place."
He could definitely imagine hiring a full-ti fabricator to take care of his production, but now was not the ti. He ntally apologized to Carlos for putting his job offer aside. Once he received more demand for his product, he could revisit this issue.
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