“You used them to gather data. I’ve clearly been underestimating just how devious you are,” Takafumi Mogami muttered after hearing what Keita had generously labeled a report.
“That’s not a very nice way to put it. I only gave them the technology they asked for. You signed off on it, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah. They took our unit. And on top of that, they got tech we were still debating whether or not to release. We’d better at least get some intel in return, or we’re getting the short end of the stick.”
Keita had called it an “exchange of technology,” but in truth, this was a controlled leak of classified information.
Naturally, leaking anything about the unit required the express permission of Mogami Heavy Industries. Even though Keita had basically just given a few piloting tips, the fact that the information could affect the company’s interests made reporting, consulting, and getting approval an absolute must.
When Keita had initially proposed handing over the techniques, Takafumi had balked.
Unlike Keita, who was still a student and had no interest in military fame, Takafumi was the president of a company. He had a responsibility to maneuver things in such a way that it benefited his business.
Giving away tech for free—especially when safety guarantees were shaky at best—was madness from a business standpoint. Of course Takafumi had pushed back.
That said, the technology required to control the mass-production models was equally valuable to Mogami Heavy Industries, which was working on building a third prototype.
Keita had argued, “Even if the army made them without permission, the mass-produced models still share core systems with ours. If they can collect and return usable data from field tests, isn’t that a good deal?” So Takafumi had agreed, on the condition that any test results be shared with them.
The army, for its part (with the exception of the Third Division), had had no reason to oppose mass-producing units that could take down large-class threats. It also didn’t have any qualms about sharing test data from the mass-produced models with Mogami Heavy Industries.
That same data had also found its way to a bunch of conglomerate-backed firms. That, in turn, had lit a fire under the resident mad-scientist tech teams at those companies—though maybe a little more than anyone had hoped. But that was far outside the jurisdiction of a lone student and a small-company president.
But leaving those sleep-deprived engineers behind for now.
“Look, there it goes.”
On the monitor in front of Keita and Takafumi, the mass-production unit leaped sideways after firing its weapon.
“Well, sure. The real question is what happens next.”
Considering it hadn’t even been able to so much as move before, this was real progress.
Takafumi was already impressed. From his perspective, that leap alone was a win. But Keita, who could already maneuver without any trouble, wasn’t about to let that be the benchmark.
“Maybe you think that’s enough… Oh, it fell over.”
Takafumi chuckled at Keita’s blunt assessment as he watched the unit crash-land.
“A posture control problem? Or fallout from the lighter lower body? What do you think, Mogami?”
“Both. Stability on the bottom’s an issue, for sure, but you can usually compensate a bit with upper-body balance. That one didn’t even try. They’re using the upper body all wrong.”
“Exactly.”
If this had been an actual field test with a real unit, that fall could have meant a dead pilot. Fortunately, they were just watching simulator footage, which gave them the luxury to dissect what had happened without worrying about casualties.
Both Takufumi and Keita came to the same conclusion: pilot error.
“For a first test, though, this isn’t too bad,” Takafumi remarked. “The Command System you came up with did the bare minimum of what we wanted it to.”
“‘Bare minimum’ is right,” Keita murmured.
The Command System—that was the technology Keita had handed over to Saori Muto.
In short, it was a system that performed preset actions when the pilot pressed the corresponding buttons.
Keita himself, with his FromSoft-brain, used this method to control his own hybrid unit. Originally, though, it had come from beast-type models. Those units didn’t carry sidearms or shoulder-mounted weapons, so when a beast-type pilot wanted to shoot, they just imagined pressing a button, and that mental cue pulled the trigger on the gun mounted on the unit’s back.
Based on that, Keita had devised a new system of mental commands: a blue button to make the unit jump left, a red button to make it jump right, and both together to execute a special move. Fixed commands, fixed actions.
For his own unit, he’d added variables. Pressing harder or longer adjusted the speed or hang time, and landings were cushioned by visualizing weight distribution across the joints. But he knew full well that was a personal skill set. He never expected other pilots to match him right from the get-go.
Essentially, this system was meant just to get the thing moving.
Of course, this approach clashed head-on with the established belief that pilots needed to link their nervous systems with the magicite cores to control their mechs. Veteran pilots had pushed back hard. Nonpilots, however, loved it.
And of course they did. For them, whether it was a tank or a fighter jet, you turned the stick, and the machine turned. You pulled the trigger, and it fired a round or missile. That was how weapons worked.
Seen in that light, the ability to give mech units that had been unstable and difficult to operate precise commands like “Move two steps right, shoot forward, then take one step back and shoot again” was a game changer. And since they had functional upper bodies, they could handle tasks like construction or rubble removal as well. Any commander would be thrilled.