Summary: In which the Mechanic takes advantage of poor OPSEC.

In here, I was God. I had the most incredible machine ever built under my total control via partial neural link. I knew everything happening around me and had all the tools necessary to influence it in any way I chose.

So I was most surprised when the door to my sanctum was opened by an intruder of whom I had no prior knowledge. Needless to say, it put me on the back foot. No matter. I needed only to force a stalemate for twenty seconds, and the best part of that was appearing unflappable, in which I had extensive experience. [[Not another step,]] I ordered while triggering a full sensor sweep.

"Shut this thing down!" the intruder demanded.

The sensor sweep returned the intruder's signature, their aircraft (which had appeared from seemingly nowhere), and - oh. Oh, that could be bad. I activated the wide-spectrum jammer, said [[The explosives you planted on your way up to me have been disabled,]] and silently hoped they had.

To my shock, instead of challenging me, or trying to detonate one as a test, or any kind of smart move at all, they fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and spoke in a tone I clearly wasn't meant to hear, "Brains, we may have a problem." Communicator. Good luck with that with the jammer running and apparently working.

With seconds until my reinforcements arrived, I judged it time to play my hand. [[I told you to stay away,]] I said, and increased power to the ore consumer, conveniently turning down the timer on the rescue operation outside.

The intruder froze. A more advantageous reaction than I'd expected. (For me.)

I directed the ore consumer slightly left to collect a particularly rich zone and braced myself for an altercation.

The intruder broke from their shock and moved toward me. I was saved from having to react by dragonfly #5 entering the room behind them, causing them to freeze again. I directed my best imperious stare at the intruder as #5 made its own advance; the intruder reacted by - letting #5 past, allowing it to block the intruder's path to me. That was easier than expected; I didn't have to get involved myself, or even let dragonfly #8 in.

As #5 chased the intruder out, I turned my attention to actually disabling those bombs, leaving the ore consumer to do its thing on auto.

As the ore processing plant ground up the survey jeep (score!), my concentration on the bombs was broken by an alert. Dragonflies #5 and #8 had lost track of the intruder and now someone (likely said intruder) was tapping data cable #351. Worse, they'd switched off the ore consumer. I issued #5 and #8 a position hint and went back to working on those bombs. Tricky things. The latest obstacles clearly did not believe in off-the-shelf hardware. Oh joy, it gets worse, the intruder is getting communications out through the jammer. Note to self, reprogram that, as soon as I know the bombs won't go off if I stop concentrating on them. Wait. I seized manual control of #8. No good, it had already tried to shock the intruder, but failed, and crippled the processing plant instead. Thank you, artificial unintelligence. No point switching the ore consumer back on then. Leaving #8 to its own devices again (what more harm could it do?), I turned my attention to the obstacles out front. To my surprise, one of them was that International Rescue pilot I'd already warned off. Worse, I hadn't sensed that aircraft approaching either. Precisely how many invisible planes did these people have?

Fortunately, it wasn't in it. Driving the Earthbreaker forward would serve the dual purpose of unbalancing the intruder and threatening the pilot. I advanced the throttles.

The pilot waved off the others and turned to glare at me. Well. If it wanted a fight, it'd get one. Throttles to full, cutting arm hydraulics on, saw up, saw down. See how it liked that.

And saw up, and saw down. Not very much, I was pleased to see. On the other hand, even full throttle was only just human running speed. I could almost hear it complaining over the link. ((Master, this platform is a mobile ore processor, not a racecar. And also dragonfly #5 signal lost.)) Check cameras at last known position. Oh come on! They're meant to be more reinforced than that!

And saw up, and saw down. I was tempted to take manual control of #8 again and go hunting myself, but judged that the Earthbreaker was more in need of manual control. Oh and now they're accessing data cable #19. Have they no shame. Hang on, stand by #8, they're probing my systems. Let's probe back, see how they like that. Prepare the counterprobe, let them think they're in, and - there!

[[The Mechanic gained access to my system; I had to sever the link. I'm sorry, John.]]

I was not expecting to hear a small child.

"It's not your fault, EOS. You did everything you could. Kayo, you're on your own down there."

And saw up, and saw down. What kind of a name was Eos. Really. Oh, it's a name for a strong artificial intelligence. Do want. And its handler and likely creator was John. Also do want. But in the meantime I have a Kayo to contend with. And the pilot. Screw the pilot. Or more saw him really, since that's a sawblade on the front, not a screw. That's right, trip over. Wheels don't trip. And saw up, and sawCONTROL FEED 1 DISCONNECT
CONTROL FEED 2 DISCONNECT
CONTROL FEED 3 DISCONNECT
CONTROL FEED 4 DISCONNECT
MASTER WARNING: CONTROL DISCONNECT

Oh come on.

I composed myself as Kayo burst back into my sanctum.

"You'll be pleased to know our engineer is very impressed with your handiwork."

[[He's a clever one,]] I said, then, on an impulse, threw in another sentence to try to unbalance my opponent: [[But not the only one with brains.]]

Kayo blanched. Desired effect achieved. "You know him?"

I didn't, but it didn't need to know that.

Its face hardened. "Who are you, really?"

[[I'm just another cog in the wheel,]] I responded, triggering my Plan E.

"Scott, Kayo," said John over my pirated connection, "I'm detecting a massive power buildup inside that machine. I think he's going to blow it up...!"

So the one out the front was probably Scott. That was good to know.

Kayo wasn't moving. [[How fast can you run?]] I jabbed. She still didn't move. So Kayo has problems knowing when to disengage.

"Kayo, get out of there!" John urged, at which point Kayo finally turned and left. So John handles more than one child on a regular basis.

[[Give my regards to Brains!]] I goaded as Kayo ran.

Also, it turns out these people only have one invisible plane. Fortunate. What I can see, I can destroy at my leisure. But speaking of destroying at my leisure, I had an escape to make.

The invisible plane, now very visible, cleared out. Unfortunately, I didn't have the resources to pursue it.

International Rescue scooped up the obstacles. Pity. All that work gone to waste too.

I left, abandoning the wreckage of my biggest infrastructure project yet. On the other hand, I had tapped International Rescue's systems, and they had no idea. This could be fruitful.