Building Zoids in a World of Titans

Morning light cut through the workshop's high windows. Ziya stood at the workbench, datapad in one hand, the shopping list already split into two columns on the sheet beside it. Millworks: Frame-Iron stock, Joint-Alloy bar, basic hydraulic line. Foothill Row: Pulse-Copper spools, salvage sensor clusters, two used actuator housings rated for combat shock. The Mark I didn't call for Vita-Alloy or Flux Metal, so neither one made the list.

She didn't look up from the sheet.

"Money's tight. Stick to the list, no impulse buys, no 'while we're here' additions. If it's not on the sheet, it doesn't come home."

"Understood."

"Obviously. I'm not made of Sols, Alex, and neither are you."

Rhian leaned against the Arosaurer's leg, arms crossed, grinning.

"Relax, Ziya. I'll personally tackle him if he even looks at a shiny new tool."

"I'm counting on it."

Alex folded the printed list and tucked it into his coat pocket. She's not wrong. Every Sol we save now is a Sol we don't have to scrape for later. The Liger Zero's damaged leg still needed the replacement sleeve torqued to spec before they left. He crossed to the machine, already running the torque sequence in his head.

The Millworks hit him before he turned the corner. Sound first: the deep-throated hammer of trip-hammers, the scream of band saws biting into ironwood logs, the hiss and pop of molten slag hitting quenching tanks. Heat rolled off the district in waves, thick with the scent of hot metal, pine sap, and coal smoke. Sawmills lined the riverbank, their waterwheels churning brown water into motive power. Behind the sawmills, ore-processing plants climbed the slope, crushers and separators feeding furnaces that glowed orange behind shuttered windows. Cheap tolerances meant cheaper prices, exactly what the Mark I needed.

Forklifts and haul-trucks muscled through streets paved with slag-brick, raising dust that caught the light in copper streaks. Every building wore a thick layer of soot baked into every seam. Workers in leather aprons moved between stations without a wasted step, hands finding tools before their eyes did.

Alex found a steel yard two blocks in from the river. A hand-painted sign read HARROW'S: STRUCTURAL & FABRICATION. The yard itself was organized chaos: racks of bar stock sorted by dimension, bins of offcuts, a covered bay where a plasma cutter traced slow lines through plate. An older man with a gray beard and a missing finger on his left hand stood at the counter, marking a clipboard.

Alex set both palms on the counter.

"I need two hundred Frame-Iron brackets, standard flange, eight-millimeter bolt pattern. I'll also take bar stock, fifty millimeters square, three meters long, twenty sticks."

The man didn't look up. "Frame-Iron's cheap. You want cheap, or you want it to hold?"

"Cheap holds fine if the weld prep's clean."

That made him look up, his pale eyes taking Alex in. "You talk like a man who's burned through a few rods."

"Enough to know the difference."

"Hmph." He set the clipboard down. "Two hundred brackets in standard flange is a run job, not shelf stock. Three days."

"Two."

"Two and a half, and you pick them up before the shift bell."

"Done. What about the bar stock?"

"I'll cut it to length and face the ends, five hundred Sols for the lot."

Alex didn't flinch. "Four hundred. The brackets are a repeat order if the tolerances hold."

The man's mouth twitched. "You're buying the bottom shelf and talking like you'll be back for the top."

"Speed matters more than grade on this build. The cheap stuff cuts faster, welds faster, gets me flying sooner."

He paused. He studied Alex's hands, calloused and grease-stained, the Z-Bracer peeking from his coat cuff. "You build the machine or you just fix 'em?"

"Both."

"Huh." He spat into a corner. "Four-fifty. Brackets will be ready by third bell, day after tomorrow. Bar stock gets cut the same day."

"Four-twenty-five, and you throw in a twenty-meter spool of Pulse-Copper."

"Make it a thirty-meter spool, and you've got a deal."

"Deal."

The man extended a rough palm. Alex shook it. "Harrow."

"Alex."

Harrow runs the yard the way he runs everything else in his life: gruff, already done sizing a man up within the first ten seconds of him walking through the gate. Forty years of quench-tank steam and slag dust have left his beard the color of ash and cost him a finger off his left hand, and neither one has slowed him down.

"Good doing business, Alex. Don't make me regret the discount."

* * *

They hit three more stops before noon. A hydraulic supply house in the Millworks supplied the actuator housings and line. A salvage dealer in Foothill Row had two sensor clusters pulled from a wrecked Warden scout, cheap because the mounting brackets were bent, and a wire merchant near the market sold Pulse-Copper by the meter and didn't ask questions about why Alex needed thirty of it.

Each purchase chipped away at the reserve. By the time they walked back toward the workshop, the coin purse in Alex's coat sat conspicuously light.

Ziya fell into step beside him, datapad closed. "Most of the Sols are gone. We've got enough for rent and basic consumables through the month. Maybe a little buffer if nothing breaks."

"Nothing's going to break."

"Alex."

"Fine. We'll be careful."

Rhian walked on his other side. She'd been scanning the storefronts the way she scanned riverbanks, eyes moving, cataloging. Her steps slowed near a cart tucked against an alley mouth. Steam rose from a covered pot. The vendor, a woman with flour dusted across her forearms, ladled something thick and golden into paper cones.

Rhian stopped. Her head tilted. The scent hit Alex a second later: fried dough, honey, something spicy underneath. Cinnamon? Cardamom, maybe.

He glanced at the vendor's chalkboard. Honey-spice fritters: 12 Sols.

"You want one?"

Rhian didn't turn. "No."

Alex turned to Ziya. She was watching Rhian too, her mouth set in a flat line.

Alex caught the vendor's eye and held up two fingers.

"I'll take two cones, extra honey."

She hustled, trading paper cones for coins in one smooth motion. Alex handed one to Rhian, the other to Ziya.

Rhian took it like it was a core shell. Steam curled against her face. She inhaled deep.

"Thanks, Alex."

She had to swallow before she trusted herself to say anything else.

"Don't mention it."

They ate walking. The fritter was good: crisp outside and steam-soft inside, the honey cut with something warm and sharp. Ziya ate hers in three neat bites. Licking honey from her fingers, Rhian made hers last.

The workshop door rolled up before they reached it. Corwin stood in the frame, wiping his hands on a rag.

"Back already? Good. I've got the Mule's suspension sorted. I found a hairline crack in the rear crossmember, so I welded it up and gusseted the joint. She'll hold."

Alex nodded. "Thanks, Corwin."

"Don't thank me yet. You've got a Mark I to build."

He stepped aside. Cutting oil and cold steel hung in the air. The Liger Zero crouched in its bay, leg repaired, the Arosaurer and Lanstag flanking it. Tools lay out on the workbench, clear and ready.

"Time to start the Mark I."

Advance chapters on my p@tR$0n/Najicablitz.

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