The Mech Touch

"MEEEEOOOOW!"

When Ves entered a storeroom, he immediately noticed the frenetic activity that took place.

He noticed that Lucky had been gorging himself on lots of exotics prior to his current predicament. The evidence was plain to see as Lucky ate his way through some reinforced lockers and took a bite out of every exotic within reach.

This was not normal!

While Ves knew about Lucky's penchant of phasing into storage areas in order to take a bite or two, the cat usually left no traces behind.

Frequent practice along with focused instruction from Calabast allowed Lucky to become the best infiltrator of the Larkinson Clan! He not only excelled at infiltrating enemy strongholds, but also excelled at sneaking into friendly areas as well!

Only Ves and possibly other spiritual entities were able to track Lucky's movements. No matter how well the mechanical cat could fool ordinary senses, he wasn't capable of dampening his spiritual signature.

These days, Lucky was allowed to do as he pleased. The Larkinson Clan had long reached a scale where many resources were no longer scarce in its eyes.

Certain strategic materials such as Breyer alloy, Unending alloy and resonating exotics were too precious to squander, but Lucky was smart enough to leave them alone. He instead gorged himself on more common materials used in the fabrication of expensive mechs.

Even though these meals didn't hold as much attraction as rarer exotics to Lucky, Ves and the rest of the clan didn't mind if some spillage occurred. They still had lots of materials left in their stores!

Ves suddenly realized that Lucky wasn't able to eat his usual snacks anymore.

Ever since they traveled to the surface and got stuck here, the gluttonous cat no longer had access to his usual buffet aboard the Spirit of Bentheim. While the Larkinsons still brought a large batch of raw materials to the surface, they were quite scarce to the ground forces.

Without these materials, it would become a lot harder to service the metallic mechs in the airfleet, including the incredibly powerful Piranha Prime!

Although the prime mech was clad in nigh-indestructible Unending alloy, much of the internals underneath the surface were still delicate. Indirect shocks, strong physical impacts and heat damage could still degrade the performance of Venerable Tusa's mech.

In short, Lucky's usual menu was off-limits this time!

Fortunately, there was still the local cuisine.

The biomech production facility that the Larkinsons took over was massive. Even though biomechs were grown rather than fabricated, the input materials were still similar enough to the materials used to fabricate regular mechs. In fact, there was significant overlap.

However, it appeared that Lucky hadn't limited himself to familiar materials. Ves could clearly see that the stores containing exotics that were exclusive to biomechs also featured prominent bite marks!

"Are you having a stomach ache because you ate the wrong kind of food?" Ves questioned.

"MEEEEOOOOW!"

He knew it! Whatever affliction Lucky suffered now was probably directly prompted by eating exotics that were mainly used in organic products. Some of the weirder exotics were actually organic in themselves!

"If you kept your hunger in check, you wouldn't have ended up in this situation, you know."

He had no sympathy for his cat. Even though Lucky was curling on the table like he was suffering from the biggest bellyache in the galaxy, Ves only thought that his naughty cat got what he deserved!

"Meeeeooow! Meeeeoow! MEEEOOOOW!"

In fact, rather than feeling sorry about the current circumstances, Ves grew happy instead. As Lucky started to scratch his lower body, it slowly became apparent that the gem cat would finally be ending his months-long production hiatus!

After stalling for such a long time, Lucky finally couldn't hold it in anymore. The suffering he must be going through was probably a sign that his output would definitely be bigger and stronger than anything that appeared out of his backside!

Ves strolled closer. "Do you need some assistance, buddy? I still have some B-stone shards. I saved them for just these kinds of occasions."

"MEOWWWW!"

"Okay, okay, I'll give you a chance to do it yourself. Don't take too long, though. If nothing happens after the day is over, Doctor Ves will treat your condition."

"MEOW!!!!!!!!!!!"

Just the mention of 'Doctor Ves' sent a shiver through Lucky's spine. After witnessing so many depraved experiments and being subjected to some of them himself, there was no way that he wanted to end up on the operating table yet again!

His pain, desperation and urgency caused him to focus on clearing his digestion as strongly as possible. The mere thought of becoming Ves' patient was enough to motivate him to work his hardest.

Ves continued to smile as he looked down on his mewling pet. The gem cat truly looked serious about ending his current state.

"Come on. You can do it. Just push!"

"Meeeooww… meeeeeooow…. MEEOOOOW!"

Several minutes passed by as Lucky continued to mewl in agony. Ves had no idea how a cat made out of mechanical components could even experience pain, but that was just one of many mysteries about his nature and his origins.

As Lucky struggled to fulfill his job as a gem cat, Ves wondered where products like Lucky even came from. He strongly suspected that there must be more gem cats in existence.

As a mech designer, Ves became good at judging whether he was looking at a product formed by nature or by a deliberate intelligence. In his judgement, there was no way that Lucky belonged to a naturally-evolved species.

The more he witnessed Lucky's wonders, the more he became convinced that someone designed the gem cat. This person was not only incredibly good at imagining a nigh-impossible product, but actually managed to realize it despite the tough requirements.

Even the MTA would find it difficult to make something analogous to a gem cat despite all of their extremely advanced technology!

"What's more, can they even make mechanical products alive?"

There were several aspects about Lucky's existence that were more mysterious in nature. His sentience and the esoteric effects of his gems were so far outside the boundaries of conventional science that his creator may possibly be a spiritual engineer!

He wasn't too sure about this conclusion, though. Multiple people may have worked on creating Lucky. A galaxy-class engineer may have designed and realized the gem cat's physical components while a spiritual engineer subsequently infused a copy with life.

Now that he thought about it, such a collaborative relationship sounded awfully familiar to his own collaborative relationship with Gloriana!

Could it be… that his pairing with his wife was not the first iteration of this kind of productive relationship?

"That is.. quite plausible, actually."

There was another possibility, though. The scarier outcome was that the entire gem cat project was the brainchild of one incredibly capable engineer!

The sheer amount of proficiencies such a person had to master to an insanely high degree was almost unimaginable to Ves. Even though he had progressed far from the beginning of his mech design career, he still wasn't able to do more than scratch the surface of Lucky's inner workings.

"MEEEEOOOOW! MEEEOOOOW!"

Even as Lucky continued to act as if some kind of alien organism was rampaging through his internal organs, Ves no longer paid any mind to what his pet was going through.

Instead, he became more intrigued at trying to imagine what kind of person would be able to create someone like Lucky from scratch.

Such a person must not only be well-versed in the production of extraordinary gems, but also be capable of miniaturizing the entire process to fit inside the belly of a cat-shaped construct.

On top of that, the developer of the gem cat project must also be able to integrate highly sophisticated self-evolving mechanisms that could adaptively improve every aspect depending on variable input of materials as well as other factors.

Along with being able to bestow a gem cat with sentience, there were very few possibilities left on his list.

Ves came up with three somewhat likely but still improbable guesses.

"The first option is… that I'm the creator!"

While this theory sounded incredibly ludicrous, it was still plausible from what he knew was possible with time travel!

Perhaps a future version of himself traveled back in time to develop a magical gem cat in order to give a past version of himself a lot of help during his early years.

It sounded incredibly dumb and extremely implausible, but even if there was only a 0.0001 percent chance that this was true, Ves could not rule it out!

When he looked at Lucky, he tried to imagine whether the gem cat conformed his design style.

"It doesn't look like it." Ves muttered. "Then again, the future me who designed him might be a very different version of myself who followed a different path."

He could easily imagine how Lucky's absence would cause him to pursue a different life.

His future self could have also disguised his characteristic design style. That was also possible.

Therefore, Ves could not say for certain whether Lucky was actually his product or not. His intuition did not lean in either direction.

The second and probably the most likeliest possibility was that multiple people worked on the gem cat project. The reason why Ves favored this theory was that products like Lucky were simply too good.

If several different top specialists in human space came together to pool their strengths, they could create many different wonders, not just gem cats!

Hundreds if not thousands could be involved in the project. While gem cats were incredibly unfathomable, as long as the project was chopped up into many chunks, a huge team of developers and researchers could systematically tackle every individual problem. This would allow them to complete a sophisticated project despite not being the most brilliant scientists in human space.

"Such a project would be unimaginably huge, expensive and cumbersome. It's not worth it to mobilize so many top engineers for such a trivial-sounding project."

This was why he did not discount the third possibility.

There was only one kind of engineer that might have the skills, knowledge, tools and resources to make a gem cat.

"A Star Designer."

If Ves regarded Lucky as a product of a Star Designer, many uncertainties about the gem cat suddenly made sense.

He found it extremely difficult to believe that one person could be so proficient in so many different areas.

Yet if it was true, then it had to be a Star Designer! No one else came close to qualifying!

The Star Designer might not even have any serious intentions in mind when he or she conceived of gem cats.

Perhaps this incredibly smart and successful individual felt lonely and wanted some companionship. Maybe this was why gem cats were originally created.

The gem synthesis function wouldn't even be their main function, but just something that the creator tacked on to fill up some available capacity and make them more useful.

Without meeting a Star Designer or examining their grand designs in person, Ves had no idea whether Lucky was made by one of these exalted individuals.

"If this is true… then I bet the Star Designer is still around somewhere. Would he be able to recognize his own work when he catches a glimpse of Lucky?"

Ves grew concerned. 

Though Lucky's appearance changed substantially from the beginning, many of his current characteristics were still identical to his initial self!

If Lucky got recognized, the attention of the Star Designer would quickly shift to Ves himself.

"This is bad."

There was no point in disguising his pet at this point. There was so much public archival footage out there that it was impossible to disassociate Ves from Lucky!

The important question was whether this hypothetical Star Designer was a friend or foe.

If the Star Designer was purely affiliated with the MTA, then Ves might be able to cling to his current life.

If the Star Designer was affiliated with the Five Scrolls Compact, then Ves may need to get ready to bolt at any time!

"Damn it. I don't know which theory is true. What I do know is that there is definitely a story behind Lucky!"