Chapter 36: Failure
Alto returned to his room shortly after departing from Marie and Kendall. He came back with a small bit of provisions and with a new insight of where he was heading with his mech design.
He hurriedly booted up the game and waited for it to initiate. He pondered on his experience with the two young mech pilots. He wanted to build a mech that would carry its pilot as best as it could. While this ideology did not seem unique at all, he felt it right to build a mech with the thought of its pilot in mind. Thinking like this stressed Alto’s thinking capacity a bit, but he managed to push through.
The game had finished initiating, and he could now see the mech design hovering in the virtual workshop. It still looked rather unfinished. Alto addressed the matter of the weapons immediately. He wanted to build a light mech that was swift and capable as an assassin. He thought about what a pilot would want from the mech for a bit.
"Light mechs run fast, but as an assassin it might need an extra kick to its boost." Alto went into the designer’s shop to purchase two low-level thrusters, which he would attach to the back of the mech’s legs, right under where the knee was. The weight it added to the mech was not much, which still let it retain its initial speed. The thrusters could only function twice before they would burn out. This meant it had two chances at surprising its enemy with two bursts of speed.
Alto browsed through an array of weapons, wondering which one he could use. After a couple of hours, he chose to equip a laser pistol like Marie had said, and there were a lot of laser pistols on display. Ranging from small to big, their magazine sizes and range of fire, Alto chose to work within a certain budget.
He chose to equip two small laser pistols which cost him 5000 credits each. Alto did not want to dive into the world of weapons now. The best he could do was take it easy and then learn in detail about them later. After he was done, he looked at the list of melee weapons, and there were also a wide variety to choose from.
Alto did not fully understand why a mech should have melee weapons. He felt that this was rather a way of paying tribute to the far ancient times when humans were still barbaric and ill-mannered. Alto knew he had a lot to learn when it came to mechs.