Gear City

Ch 1

“Hey, stop that kid.” shouted the baker. He tried to chase after the thief but with his short legs and fat gut he wasn’t getting far. All that was stolen was two loaves of bread, hardly anything to break him. But in the slums showing kindness is like painting a bulls-eye on your back for any would-be bullies or thugs. No, everyone who lived in the slums of Gear City knew that to stay here you must be cold, tough, or skilled in some shady practice. Yes the slums were a breeding ground for societies waste, those who would grow up doing just the kind of low-life things they did now to survive. Except every now and then a pearl is found in the muck and proves everybody wrong. Just like this thief. Jerret.

Jerret ran down the road, turning right, into a back alley. He had to jump over the trash and filth that always littered the roads. The bread was still warm in his hand and this made Jerret that much more determined to secure it. Left. Then right. Right then straight. Turn after turn, until he came to his hideaway. Quickly he threw the bread into his small metal igloo and continued to run down the street.

After a few minutes he heard it; the unmistakable clanking of the Springers. This was seriously pathetic. To think the police didn’t have anything better to do than chase down a petty thief. Wait did he just call himself petty. That is humiliating. But there was no point to worry about that now. He had to hide.

Jerret turned one last corner and his heart fell through into his stomach. He had run into a dead end square with a storage container and some abandoned shops all that he saw. Maybe he could turn back. CLANK. Jerret turned around and saw standing in front of him a fully equipped Springer Mec. The glint energy glowed throughout the machine like bright blue veins powering the large suit of armor. The whole thing stood seven and half feet tall and looked about ready to cut Jerret in two with its razor sharp swords. Nothing could be seen of the actual officer beside his face which was protected by a thick glass dome. He didn’t look happy. Jerret took a step back and he hit the door of the storage unit. The officer took a step forward and reached forward to grab him.

But Jerret was ready. He ducked down and shot between the guards legs. He then turned around and hit the left knee joint of the Mec with both of his palms. The joint stuck fast. The officer tried to turn around but with one leg immobilized he lost his balance and fell. Jerret quickly snatched the glass container holding the officer’s glint power cell and yanked it out of the Mec’s chest. The officer stared in horror as the power left his limbs and the armor refused to respond to his controls. His great weapon had just become his prison.

Jerret admired his handiwork for a moment, while the officer yelled and shook his Mec. But the sound of more clanking from a distance brought him back to his senses. He turned and tried to wrench the door up from the storage unit. It only rose an inch. He pulled again with more desperation and it rose a few more inches. Jerret squirmed and squeezed himself under the door and shut it. He turned hoping to find another way out but instead what he saw took his breath away.

Sitting in front of him was a giant battle Mec. This wasn’t like the puny little Springers that the police used, no this beautiful piece of art was designed for one purpose. Destroying other Mecs. Sitting up it was about 10 feet tall. Unlike Springers, these bigger Mecs used observation ports as well as a top glass dome and rear sight visors to provide 360 degrees of vision. The Metal limbs were slightly dented and there was a thin layer of dust over everything.

Jerret was suddenly shocked back to reality by banging on the door. There must have been more Springers out because the lock started to squeal as something pulled against it. Jerret made a snap decision. He scrambled up the front of the Mec and looked for an entrance. Immediately he noticed a latch on the right breast plate slightly out of his reach. Jerret leaned over and pulled the latch. Out popped a door on the side of the Mec right under the arm. Jerret scrambled in and closed the door. It was a tight fit but Jerret managed to get comfortable. The cockpit was basically long metal gloves and boots that covered his limbs completely and a helmet with two visors that only covered half of his front vision, all of which was connected with cables attaching them to the bigger outer layer at all the major areas of movement. The cables seemed to hang Jerret in mid air with about six inches of distance between him and the metal interior. Displayed in front of Jerret was an army of dials and gauges reading different things like glint purity and motor heat. He could tell that the visors were rigged to glow in different measures to provide direction to injured parts. Jerret also noticed the viewing mirrors that swiveled from side to side with the movement of his neck showing the rest of the storage unit behind him.

Finally there was a horrible screech and the door flew up as five Springers entered the unit. They all had various weapons drawn, swords and axes and spears. Jerret ducked below the glass dome so they couldn’t spot his head. They all stopped and starred at the giant Mec for a second and then turned to look for Jerret throughout the shop. He stifled a laugh of happiness as he saw through the port hole the officers looking for him anywhere besides the Mec. Finally one officer approached it. The officer took his axe by the handle and hit the flat back into the leg of the battle Mec.

 Jerret could tell that the sound was off as it resonated through him. All the officers turned and after a quick look stepped toward the battle Mec. One of the officers lifted the glass of his Springer helmet and said “Come out now kid or else we’ll have to come in after you. You’re already in enough trouble as it is. Make it easy on yourself or you’ll definitely spend a week in the sewage detail.” He waited with a smirk on his face expecting to see a kid groveling and begging for mercy. But what he got was completely unexpected.

With a great hum the Battle Mec came to life and swung at him. The giant metal hand was about as long as the Springer and sent him flying out of the storage unit. The other officers jumped back to safety. It took Jerret a minute to figure out how to get on his feet and eventually he had to humble himself by walking out on his hands and knees. When he finally stood up he almost overcompensated and started to tilt backwards. Waving his arms he righted himself, shocked by the power behind the giant Mecs movements mirroring his own. Jerret liked it. Now that he had himself balanced he enjoyed how normal it felt to be suspended in the air with cables. There was tension in each cable forcing his movements to be intentional. He looked through the visors and found lights at the top of his vision not bothersome in the least. Also the gauges told him that he had full power and his motors were running on all cylinders. Jerret was ecstatic.

While all this was happening so fast for Jerret, the Springers had gone on the offensive. As one they broke apart and came rushing at the Battle Mec lightning quick from all sides. Jerret only had his fists but reflexes helped enough because he was able to swat two of the Springers away while grabing another and chucking him at his comrades. Standing about 16 feet tall Jerret should have had to bend over to hit his foes. But that was the beautiful thing about Springers. They jumped impossibly high, which benefitted in aerial attacks. This could help when they had enough height to make it above the target such as an unarmed human. But they only barely cleared Jerret’s observation glass and by then he would just catch and throw them around. In no time there were five Springers on the ground with varying busted parts and bruises/other injuries. The last one tried to hit him with a low blow at the legs. However Jerret saw that coming and slammed his giant metal foot into the officer ending the attack and nocking the Springer over. Jerret picked up the man by his leg and deftly plucked the glint core out. He then dropped the officer and once again admired his work. Six highly trained Imperial police, trained guardians of The City Of Gears, defeated by a 16 year old street punk in his first time controlling a Mec.

Jerret started to walk to the exit when something stepped out and met him in the alley.  It was a Battalion Mec, the strongest of Cog officers’ Mecs. Each was personalized to its specific owner to make their connection as perfect as possible. The markings on the large forearms indicated this was one of the captains, the highest ranking official that could patrol the city. Jerret could see the operator of the Mec, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a cigar. Unlike Jerret’s Mec, his had a metal frame protecting the glass observation dome and he carried an assortment of weapons including two giant axes. Also there was a difference in the structure of their Mecs, as Jerrets was lanky and less heavily armored which he could tell was made for speed and power instead of defense, and the Captains which obviously chose to forgo speed for its thick protective plating. As the two sized each other up Jerret took a stance he often saw brawling kids took. The captain responded by pulling the two giant axes from his side holsters. Jerret didn’t like how he had no weapon until he noticed the long staff sheathed on the captains back. Warily he approached the captain trying to get behind him somehow. Suddenly the captain lunged at him with one axe coming down from above while the other swept low at his legs from the side. Jerret managed to knock the blow from above off course with a clumsy swat of one arm while he grabbed for the staff with the other. But it didn’t go well after that. The lower axe strike hit his leg while he overcompensated with his hand and missed the staff completely and fell on the captain. The extra weight knocked the captain over and the two lay there struggling to separate themselves.

Finally Jerret rolled in his suit hoping the Mec would reciprocate the action and landed on his back. He saw an opening and grabbed the staff off the captains back. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to stand due to a lack of tension in his right leg. He looked through the observation glass and saw with horror that his leg was sliced open and the inner mechanisms were screeching and showering sparks every few seconds. He looked up and saw the captain was already standing and recovering his axes. Jerret didn’t have time to worry about his injury. He had to stand or he was done. So using the staff as a crutch he finally got himself to his feet and tried to put pressure on his injured leg. Jerret found that if he kept the leg straight under him it would support him but anything else wouldn’t happen. It was then that he noticed the catch at the end of the staff. He pulled it gasped as a wickedly sharp double edged blade shot out. It had to be four feet long, although compared to the size of the Mecs it size was greatly diminished. Yet the captain did not seem scared of the spear and tried to close the gap between them to finish Jerret off. “Oh, no you don’t.” Jerret said and lunged with the spear thrusting it into the captains left shoulder. He was surprised how easy the blade cut through metal and that it was only stopped when it jammed movement in the joint. The strike halted the captain’s assault and Jerret followed through by pulling the spear back out and whacking his uninjured arm with such force that he dropped his axe.

Now Jerret couldn’t move his leg and the captain couldn’t move his arm. They stared at each other through the domes of glass, ferocity the only message that was conveyed. The captain took a long dagger, probably five feet long, and held it defensively in front of him while Jerret balanced on his one good leg and held the staff in both hands. The captain made the first move, lunging and slashing horizontally, trying to either damage the midsection or knock Jerret off balance. But Jerret chose option c and blocked the blade with the middle of the staff and then followed up with a thrust to the chest with the flat end. The captain took a step back and Jerret saw his opening. He leaned forward and as he fell he slashed at the captains right arm, cutting all the way through and utterly severing it from the Mec. Both fell with powerful jolts but it was Jerret who was able to get himself up with the help of his staff.

He turned and looked at the captain who appeared stunned, laying there with one arm broken and the other cut off. This had obviously never happened to him before. The eerie revelation was broken by quiet clapping from behind us. We both turned and looked at the oldest woman Jerret had ever seen in his life. She was short and hunch backed and carried an ornate metal cane with gears built into it and a weird claw foot on the bottom. She wore a brown dress as well as a blue apron and a white shawl around her shoulders. The contraption on her head looked like the one Jerret was wearing except it had extremely thick visors. She wobbled along until she stood in front of Jerret’s Mecs feet. Then she jammed her cane into a hole he had previously not seen on the foot and a sudden spasm went through the Mec. The knees crumpled, the arms folded in, and the chest went flying to the ground.

Just as it hit the cobblestone Jerret felt the gloves and boots loosen and the helmet was pulled off. He was shot out of the cockpit just as the glass dome slid back. Jerret landed at the feet of the old woman face first and sorely wishing otherwise. Then he was lifted off the ground by the scruff of his neck and his hands were violently pulled behind him. Cuffs were clamped on both of his wrists and as he tried to turn around the captain pulled upwards hard on his arms, until Jerret’s shoulders were screaming in protest.

“You think that was fun, rat?! Well you’re going to wish you never had the idea in the first place,” the captain said. Jerret was about to drive his head into the captains face when the old hag stepped forward.

“Oswald, could I speak with you a moment.” She said with a smile. Jerret noticed that her teeth were yellowed and quite a few were missing. “It would only take a moment.”

The blood in Captain Oswald’s face drained out, and after a moment of contemplation, he sat Jerret on the ground hard and walked over with the old lady. They then began to speak, and as the conversation continued, Oswald became more in more upset. Finally he looked at the woman with pure loathing and walked back to Jerret. He yanked the kid on his feet and unlocked his handcuffs. He then proceeded to steer the kid toward the old lady.

“Hello there. Can you tell me your name deary?” She said with a voice that conveyed senility.

Puzzled Jerret took a moment to respond. Finally he said “Jerret ma’am” in a whisper.

“Well Jerret that was one of my practice Mecs you were in and it seems you have gotten both of us into some trouble with it. So I have kindly asked Captain Oswald here to relinquish the duty of your extensive punishment to me. You are now going to be dismissed to go home with one of these officers as an escort. He will then take you first thing tomorrow morning to my home where we will decide how you will pay for your actions.”

Jerret felt as stunned as Oswald was when he lost his arm. Finally he nodded and started to walk out the alley, closely followed by an officer who seemed to deem it his mission to bore holes into Jerret’s head with his sight. But Jerret had more important things to think about. He had just had a day that definitely classified as dream worthy. Now he had to go home and try to see it again.