Title: Connection
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 1250 words
Author notes: YET MORE GIANT ROBOTS because apparently I just like playing with snippets of this universe. Because Pacific Rim. XD And this bit is why there's no two-pilot system in this AU?
Summary: Clef takes the three new trainees to meet their future mech.

oOo

Clef took over the tour at Emeraude’s nod – there were a lot of things they needed to get moving on, now they had their prospective pilots, and a lot of it was things firmly in Emeraude’s hands – just getting them permission to take trainees out was going to take a month or so, and they hadn’t been able to apply for the right until they had some.

It was amazing, how much red tape had been snarled about their project, as soon as the military realised it was veering off towards independence. But they were no match for Emeraude. And Clef wanted to be there when these girls had their first look at the machines they would, hopefully, be piloting.

He’d been a pilot himself long enough to know that the first reaction was usually enough to tell whether someone would find enough empathy with their mech to survive their first mission.

He ran through the usual spiel about the mech program as he led them to the heart of the complex. He knew it well enough he could quote it in his sleep – Emeraude had passed off enough visitors on him, over the years. By the time they reached the lift up to the hanger, he was into the general history of the machines – and heading swiftly towards the purpose of this place.

“The first mech were simply mechanical in terms of controls, though there were computer systems which managed things like power levels, the response of the mech to each movement the pilot made. Right up to the battle of Eleru, five years back, the majority of mech were entirely manual control. But there is only so much which can be done with such a system – and the creatures learn, develop. They were getting stronger all the time. It’s taken them a while to recover, but they’re doing the same now: adapting to face us. That’s why the AI systems were first developed. To add a level of subtlety of motion, increased possibilities in terms of piloting, with the AI interpreting both manual and verbal commands and executing them through the mech. The very first of the hybrids were brought online in the nine months before Eleru; nearly all those currently in service are the same, Mark Eights, hybrids. The AI system has now been developed to the point where it can fully exploit the capabilities of the Mark Eight engineering.”

Clef paused, as the lift came up out of the floor in one massive room – they could see through the cage walls, as it continued to rise, and slowly – slowly – the three massive structures coalesced in the darkness. The feet, brightly lit as people walked about them, workstations dwarfed by the rise of each massive ankle, and the legs fading into the shadows until they were illuminated by the lights from the gantries which crossed the hanger. Stripes of machine were lit up, small glowing areas where people were sat in the body of the machine, welding and hammering and chattering away, distant cacophony of noise echoing like a mechanical lullaby through the room – and the three great reactors were still exposed, gleaming softly orange with the warning lights about them, so high that it hurt the neck to look that far up.

These mech were far, far larger than anything the girls could have seen before – a third again the size of his Griffin, still stood outside the doors, after one of Ferio’s team had managed to jam the controls earlier today. The shape of each was – sleeker, somehow. Still bulky, still reminiscent of plate armour, but no longer the boxy imitation of humanoid which they would be used to seeing on the tv.

Clef gave them a moment to stare, as the lift kept rising – it eventually came to a halt directly in the centre of the hanger, on the level of the three great hearts. He pulled the door open, and waved them out onto the gantry.

Their shoes clunked on the metal grille-work, and his boots clanged, as he followed them out, but not one of the three so much as flinched at the height, at the dizzying drop to the floor, visible below their feet. Instead all three were staring up, to the shadowed heights of the room.

From here, it was just possible to see the head of each machine, bowed slightly in their pre-activation rest.

“Now,” he said, voice low but carrying easily through the air, “we are developing our technology to unleash the potential of the AI system. This project is the development of the next stage of Mech: the Mark Nine.”

The one with the long hair – Ryuuzaki? - tore her eyes away from the mech to look back at him. “When will they be finished?” She asked him, a kind of urgency in her voice.

“If all goes to plan? The same time as the three of you. Six months.” He looked up himself, then, and the three figures never failed to make him feel like they were three gods, waiting to be woken up. “It’s an accelerated training program, but it will also involve interaction with the machines – with the AIs which are being developed. The Mark Nines are a hybrid model, again, but with one significant development. In these mech, the AI responds to manual and vocal commands, but they’re also connected to the mind of the pilot – to the nervous system, through sensors in the helmet which monitor the pilot’s brainwaves, and a two-way connection at the base of the skull.”

“A- connection?” Ryuuzaki asked, while the other two were silent, waiting for him to explain. “Does that- you aren’t going to operate on us, are you?! We aren’t experiments!”

“What? No!” Clef snapped out of his solemn mood, blinking at her. “No, it’s a device held against the skin, nothing more – it can send electrical impulses back into the brain. No one’s proposing we start implanting chips in your heads, or anything like that! There’s a mild adhesive used to keep it in place during the time you’re piloting, but it comes off with a shower gel our people developed for that purpose.” She still looked dubious, and he raised an eyebrow at her, then turned and scraped the short ends of his hair from the back of his neck. “I was wearing one this morning. You might be able to see a faint mark still – I scrubbed it off in a hurry. But I promise you there’s no operating going on. Happier?”

“…Yes. Um. Thank you, sir.”

He turned back, with a short sudden grin, whole face lighting up when it lost every trace of a frown which had looked permanent. “Madoushi is fine. Even Clef. We’re research – things aren’t as formal about here as they are in the fighting units. Emeraude – our Director-General – she prefers people to be insubordinate and efficient than miserable and slow at their jobs. Of course, being Emeraude, no one wants or dares to cross her anyway, but somehow it works for the rest of us.”

“…Thanks, then. Clef.” She said, and turned back to look up again, peering into the shadows.

All three of them were staring with a certain tension in the way they stood, and Clef sighed deeply, while they were looking away. That was one question answered, at least.

They were nervous, but with anticipation. Not one of them was afraid of the machines in front of them.

Well. This might even work.

oOo