---

How to Keep Your Cool If You’re a Mech First Day on the Job (Part 1 of 2)

By Vera Brook

Damn, the exoskeleton was hot. Two minutes strapped into the smart harness with its thick exospine and the oversized, carbon-fiber limbs that grew from it, and sweat pooled between Jenna’s shoulder blades, over her own spinal column. The whole thing hummed with electronics and throbbed with support motors. Nothing like the black top, mini skirt, and sneakers she’d worn on her previous job, waiting tables and tending bar at Lazy Dog’s.

But the pay was three times what she made in tips, and she had the evenings to herself.

She was moving up in the world.

Jenna raised her thick new arms in front of her, closed and opened her fists, rotated her wrists, wiggled her fingers. Her robotic hands enlarged her motions, each finger lined with a flexible pad for a non-slip grip.

The clear visor of her hard hat displayed the specs. Lifting capacity: 400 lbs.

Holy shit, she was strong.

If Paps were still around, he’d be both horrified and impressed. He’d worked the docks all his life, loading and unloading endless trucks of e-commerce goods and wrecking his back in the process, before exosuits became “cost-effective.” All to give her a roof over her head and some measure of security at a time where robotics and AI were turning the job market upside down. He wanted her to have a nice, clean office job and wear a suit to work.

Well, she was wearing a suit all right. Just not the kind Paps imagined.

Anyway, she wasn’t cut out for office work. Couldn’t imagine anything duller than sitting at a desk in a cubicle no bigger than a port-a-john and staring at a computer all day.

“What the hell are you doing?”

A grim-faced man stepped in front of Jenna. Piercing blue eyes under black hair peppered with gray. No exosuit, but judging by the way his muscles bulged and roped under his long-sleeve tee, he’d worked construction for a while. He held a tablet in hand. “You don’t move until I tell you to move. I’m still linking you up. Got it?”

She’d forgotten her Mech trainer.

His name was Daron, and he’d looked pissed from the moment she’d walked into the hangar this morning, after onboarding in the office trailer—an entirely computerized process that consisted of a rudimentary quiz on safety rules, followed by two dozen electronic forms, half of them the company’s liability waivers. He barely spoke to her as he helped her suit up and run system diagnostics, and now he jabbed at his tablet, a permanent scowl etched into his face, like her very presence was a lousy joke.

“What’s your problem?” Jenna snapped.

That got Daron’s attention.

He looked up at her, gaze sharp enough to slice metal. “My problem? Right now, you’re my problem. I have five houses to print this week, a rig that can handle two, and I’m a man short. I need a real Mech, with experience on the job. Remind me, sweetheart, how much experience have you got?”

Jenna bristled. Sweetheart? Was this guy for real—or messing with her?

So she was new—fine. But her tech certificate required sixty hours of VR practice, and she’d clocked in ninety-four and aced all her tests, on top of a hectic schedule at Lazy Dog’s. She busted her ass to get here. A little appreciation would be nice.

“My name is Jenna,” she corrected. “And if we’re as busy as you say, why are we wasting time standing around here talking? Give me a job to do. I’m a fast learner, sweetheart.”

Daron’s eyes widened and his lips twitched, his face a fraction less menacing for a second. But then the scowl was back in place. “Okay, Jenna. I see you’re eager to get out there. Super. But I still need to know one thing. Your number one job qualification, and not something I can look up in your file.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

The Mech stared her in the eye. “Are you going to lose your shit when something goes wrong? Yes or no? Because my crew are out there, and I don’t want anyone hurt on my watch.” He pointed his thumb at the open gate of the hanger and a dusty office trailer baking in the sun. “So if you can’t handle the heat, do us both a favor and quit right now.”

Jenna clenched her teeth and glared. What a dick. Was that supposed to scare her? He wouldn’t be the first to try. “Sorry, I’m not much of a quitter,” she snapped.

“Is that right? I guess we’ll find out.” Daron rotated his arm, the tablet unused for the moment, and jabbed a quick pattern on the touchscreen strapped to his forearm. “And speaking of safety. See that faint lock icon in the upper right corner? It’s a motion override. You try anything stupid, and I’ll freeze your ass.”

Jenna glanced at the icon, indignant. She knew about the safety feature. It was for emergencies only. She was about to tell her trainer to go ahead and try it, see what happened, when a loud metal bang shattered her thought.

Another Mech—a woman in a full suit—had just brought her massive carbon-fiber fist in contact with the gate. Her hard hat was in her other hand. Tattoos swirled up her shaved head and sweat glistened on her throat. “Daron, you coming? We need you to QC.” Her eyes moved to Jenna. “Who the hell is this?”

“Hi, I’m Jenna,” Jenna said quickly. “I’m new.”

“No shit,” the woman answered, then banged her fist on the gate again. “Come on, boss. Chop, chop. It’s getting hot out there.” And she was gone.

---

Daron tossed away his tablet and suited up in record time, cursing fiercely as he did, although his annoyance seemed no longer aimed at Jenna. Then he spun around and marched toward the gate without another glance in her direction, his movements swift and limber despite the added bulk of his exosuit.

Jenna stared at the obsidian vertebrae of his exospine, irked at being ignored, then hurried after him, her own gait clumsy and lumbering.

Her trainer didn’t ignore her completely, though, because his carbon-fiber arm shot out, halting her progress, a second before she ploughed through a utility cart loaded with equipment.

“Watch it,” he barked, frowning at her through his visor.

“Okay. Sorry.” Her cheeks warmed. In her previous job, she could slip through a crowd with a tray full of drinks balanced above her head and never spill a drop. But she didn’t even notice the cart.

Daron shook his head, then stepped out of the hangar and onto the main road. Jenna followed, her visor darkening against the harsh brightness of late morning sun. Gravel crunched and popped under her carbon-fiber boots as she walked.

At first glance, the construction site made Jenna think of a giant sandbox. The desert at the edge of the city stripped of all brush and flattened, with only an occasional saguaro or desert willow still left standing, and a tangled band of prickly pears marking the perimeter. A row of gray rectangles rose out of the ground like sand molds pressed down by a child’s hand. A faint ring of pink and blue mountains wavered with heat in the distance.

Cute, Jenna thought. Like one of those battered, second-hand picture books Paps used to read her when she was a kid.

But as soon as she turned her head, the 3D printing machinery ruined the illusion.

A massive, moving steel frame squatted over one rectangle, which marked the foundation of the house. One tall vertical pillar in each corner, each pair connected by two parallel horizontal bars, with another perpendicular bar rapidly sliding alongside them. Mounted on the fast moving bar was a bulging print head, pointing downward and ending in a nozzle that glowed hot. The nozzle spit out a continuous line of goo on top of the short, curved wall already standing, layer by layer drawing the new house into existence.

Even with their exosuits on, the machine towered over the human crew.

Definitely not a toy. Plus it stank like spoilt eggs.

Jenna’s nerves prickled. What had she gotten herself into? But she’d never been in the habit of letting fear or self-doubt dictate her options, and she wasn’t going to start now.

“Boss. Over here.” The woman with the shaved and tattooed head, now covered by a hard hat, waved Daron over. She and another crew member—a heavyset guy wearing a bright orange tee and a hard hat, no exosuit—were bending over a bulky computer resting in an open hard case on a tall storage box. “Something’s not right.”

Daron groaned and hurried ahead, but Jenna stopped, her eyes drawn to the fast-moving print head that was just rounding the curved front corner of the house, adding another layer of the reddish goo. The house had no sharp corners, inside or outside. Here and there, short tubes were snuggly sealed into the walls, for the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical systems to be installed later.

As Jenna watched, mesmerized by the printing process, the nozzle reached a break in a straight stretch of the wall and smoothly reversed direction. A window, she guessed. The wall already rose to her waist. Up close, the goo looked like stacked rolls of red clay that matched the color of the ground she stood on. She’d expected concrete but clay made more sense. A local, natural material would be cheaper and more sustainable.

Good. The city badly needed more affordable housing.

It wasn’t physical labor that had killed Paps. Stress had done it—the ever-increasing rent and threat of eviction gnawing at his heart muscle and chewing through his arteries month after month and year after year, as he hustled to squeeze more mileage out of the same meager paycheck, until one morning, his heart gave out. If they could have bought a cheap, 3D printed house, like the one she was looking at, Paps would have still been alive.

The old anger flared in Jenna’s gut, but she pushed it down. Paps was gone. Nothing she could do for him now. Except to build some houses for families who badly needed them. Paps would have liked that.

She stepped around the corner pillar, still watching the nozzle—and came face to face with another Mech in a full suit.

The Mech stood inside the house, in the open space that looked like a living room, their own gaze fixed on the nozzle and a handheld device in their robotic fingers aimed at the line of clay that flowed from it. Monitoring the temperature and moisture content of the layer, maybe? Both mattered for the print quality and the length of the curing process, Jenna recalled.

The Mech, at least a head taller, blinked at Jenna over the half wall. A magenta mouth framed by a neatly trimmed goatee twitched. “So you’re the newbie, huh? Ever printed anything before?”

“Only veggie burgers, and they were god-awful,” Jenna answered truthfully.

“Shit,” the Mech said.

“Excuse me?”

But the Mech wasn’t talking to her. “Kill it!” they yelled over Jenna’s head. “Uruk! KILL IT NOW!”

It was too late, though.

The nozzle choked, coughed, and sputtered, and the neat line of reddish clay thinned and then broke up into a handful of dark, chunky turds, just as a new, more foul stink—rotting fish and burned rubber this time—hit Jenna’s nostrils.

---

Uruk must have heard the alarm, because the massive printer froze a moment later.

“No, no, no.” Magenta Mouth peered at the turds in horror, craning their neck to see around the print head that blocked their way. “They’ll stick if they dry.”

Jenna hesitated, not wanting to do any damage to the uncured wall, but the Mech’s urgency was infectious.

“I’ve got it.”

With three quick steps forward, she shaped her hands into claws—the thumb against the other four fingers—and started picking off the turds from the wall and tossing them behind her.

To her relief, the robotic extensions of her fingers were less clumsy than she’d expected, although definitely not designed for the delicate task. She ended up accidentally smooshing half of the soft, barely crusting clumps and getting clay all over her robo-gloves.

The last turd hit Daron’s exosuit in the chest, promptly melting against the carbon-fiber shell warmed by the sun.

He glanced down at the clay on his suit, then glared at her. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch anything?”

She lifted her chin and stared back. “No, I don’t think you did, actually.”

“Well, I’m telling you now.” His voice was hard, irritation grating like rusted gears. “Don’t touch a thing unless I tell you to. You haven’t been trained, and we don’t have time to redo any walls because you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

Jenna sucked in her breath.

She just saved his stupid wall by picking off the turds, and she did a good job too, barely disturbing the still pliable roll of the previous layer. Thanks to her, they didn’t have to redo anything. Just add a new layer as soon as whatever was wrong with the print head was fixed.

Not that she expected a show of gratitude. A simple thank you would be enough. Instead, it felt like Daron was going out of his way to piss her off.

But why would he try to get rid of her? She was a fast learner, she hadn’t lied about that. And if there was one thing Paps taught her, it was that anything worth doing was worth doing well. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She just needed a chance to prove it.

“Okay. So how about—” Jenna started.

But Daron turned his back on her and addressed Magenta Mouth. “Irelyn. What do you think?”

Irelyn shook their head. They were ignoring Jenna too. “It was a sudden spike. So not the clay mix. The heatbreak or the cooling fan would be my guess.”

Daron nodded. “Uruk thinks it’s the fan too.” He frowned at the print head suspended from the steel bar. “I hope so. The fan would be an easy fix. We have a replacement. Skye went to fetch Khalil.” He turned and called out. “Uruk? Can you move the print head to the origin and shut down the system? We’re going to get her down and take a look.”

A musical, three-tone whistle rent the hot air—an acknowledgment and a warning.

Where was the origin? Which corner of the frame? Jenna tensed, ready to duck if the print head moved toward her.

But Daron threw her a grim glance, and she stayed where she was, strangely reassured. He may want her gone, but he wouldn’t let her get hurt. She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she trusted her gut feeling.

The machinery sprang into motion again, the print head lifting straight up, as if to avoid invisible obstacles, then retreating to the end of the horizontal bar, as the bar itself travelled along the parallel support bars to the opposite corner of the frame. There, the print head descended to an easy reach and stopped.

The printer sighed—a deep, eerily human sound, like a worn-out worker catching a break, rather than motors and fans powering off—and went still.

Daron and Irelyn hurried toward the print head, and Jenna followed.

Two more Mechs in full suits joined them, a trail of dust marking their path from the hangar. The woman with the shaved, tattooed head—Skye—carried a cardboard container, slicing it open with her robotic finger as she walked. The short, dark-skinned guy—Khalil—lugged a huge red toolbox. He set the toolbox down, then deactivated his exosuit and stepped out of it before throwing the box open and grabbing a bunch of tools.

Uruk was the last to arrive, at a heavy jog and huffing from exertion, the computer case clutched under his arm.

What followed made Jenna think of an emergency field surgery—except the patient was a machine.

A work table was wheeled closer and locked in place; the print head dismounted from the support bar and disassembled; the component parts examined for damage. Clay, instead of blood, crusted the nozzle and clogged the internal tubing, although the odor was just as potent.

When Khalil was done, they all leaned over the disassembled print head.

Jenna’s VR training hadn’t covered repairs, so she had only a vague idea of what she was looking at, but the somber mood told her plenty.

“Dammit. It’s not the fan,” Daron said. “We don’t have an extra heatbreak, do we?”

“Sorry, boss. Not this type,” Khalil said.

“We could try a substitute,” Irelyn offered.

“I have an old spare we could modify,” Skye said. “It won’t be a perfect fit but it’ll do the job.”

But Daron shook his head. “Too risky. We need the real thing.”

Uruk was furiously typing on the computer.

“An express drone can be here in an hour. But it’ll put us over budget.” He hesitated, sweat glistening above his upper lip and on his neck. “I could put in a priority request to—”

Daron waved his robo-hand dismissively. “Don’t bother. It’ll take them a week and a shitload of emails, and they’ll still reject it.” He clenched his jaw. “Deduct it from my pay. We’re going to finish this house by sundown.”

“You got it, boss,” Skye said. “But we’ll all pitch in. Yeah?”

Nods all around. They didn’t look happy about it, but nobody hesitated either.

Khalil grinned, breaking the tension. “Maybe we’ll get a bonus this time. It’s not impossible.”

Skye chortled. “A bonus? I’m not selling myself cheap. I want a proper raise, dammit.”

“Hell, yeah. A raise and a company hovercar.” Irelyn pursed their magenta lips. “I’m sick of taking the train. I swear, it always smells like someone took a piss in it.”

By now, they were all chuckling. Except their boss, who still looked grim and preoccupied as he turned to Uruk. “You put in the order?”

“Sure did. Forty-eight minutes to delivery.”

Daron heaved a sigh. “Okay. Thanks, Uruk.”

Jenna moved a step closer, the motors of her exosuit whirring, and cleared her throat to get their attention. “I want to pitch in too,” she said.

The majority reaction was widened eyes and raised eyebrows. Only Darren’s eyes narrowed behind his visor.

“That’s a generous offer,” he said, voice cold as ice. “But I have a better idea. Did you know that if you quit right now, before lunch, the company still has to pay you for the whole day? It’s the law. You should take advantage of it.”

Heat rushed to Jenna’s face, above and beyond that produced by the hot desert sun. She didn’t care if Daron was her boss. She’d trained plenty of wait staff and a few bartenders too, and this was bullshit. “Wow. You know what? If this is how you train new crew, I’m not surprised you’re short-handed and behind schedule.”

Someone clicked their tongue, a small tribute to her boldness.

But Daron was not amused. “If it was up to me, you wouldn’t even touch that exosuit for the first week. Not until you learned what we do here and how to handle yourself so no one gets injured.”

Jenna stared in confusion. That was why Daron was upset? Because she wore her exosuit? “That doesn’t make sense,” she blurted out. “The exosuit makes me safer.”

“Wrong,” her boss growled. “And the fact that you believe it tells me you’re not ready to wear it.”

“Speaking of lunch,” Khalil interjected.

But for once, Daron’s attention was fully on Jenna.

“Then why do I have it?” Jenna challenged, but with less certainty. “Why are you wearing one?”

“The suit lets you work harder. Lift more. Finish the job faster. But it doesn’t automatically make you safer. You got that?” From behind his visor, Daron’s eyes drilled into Jenna. “Not until you get used to it and learn how to use it. And not in some nice, clean simulation—but out here, on the job site, where it’s hot and dusty, and one mistake can cost you an arm or a leg.”

Jenna held his gaze. “Then teach me, instead of telling me to quit,” she said hotly. “I want to learn, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Daron studied her. “You want to learn? You’re sure?”

“Yes!” Impatience grated on Jenna’s nerves. How many times did she have to say this?

“Boss,” Skye piped in. “We should break for lunch before the drone gets here.”

Daron nodded at his second in command. “Great idea.” Then turned back to Jenna. “Okay. Your first lesson starts in five. And the topic is…”

---

“…Self-control.”

“Self-control?” Jenna bristled. “Can you be more specific?”

She was hoping for something more technical. Unless her boss was just pulling her leg.

But Daron had already turned away and was marching toward the hangar, his carbon-fiber-reinforced boots crunching the gravel and stirring a cloud of reddish dust. The rest of the crew followed.

“Not freaking out,” Skye said to no one in particular as she passed Jenna.

“Grace under pressure,” Irelyn added.

Khalil was just strapping into his exosuit. “Hydraulic pressure.”

Uruk snorted, then threw Jenna an apologetic glance and hurried after the others, jogging to keep up with their mechanically lengthened strides, his computer under his arm.

Jenna glared at the three carbon-fiber spines and the orange t-shirt. Her new boss and crew mates were really pushing her buttons.

Whatever. The best strategy was to ignore the jabs.

Inside the hangar, clearly visible through its open front gate, Skye, Irelyn, and Khalil were already out of their exosuits, the hard hats gone. They crowded near the small fridge, then carried their lunch containers and water bottles to a beat-up table with a bench on each side.

Uruk hit the fridge and hurried to join them.

One by one, the crew snuck out the back door, no doubt to use a port-a-john.

Jenna’s bladder tensed as she neared the hangar. She could use the restroom herself.

But first—where was her boss? She had more questions about that lesson.

Daron stood off to the side when she entered, his exosuit and hard hat gone.

He glanced at her, then hit a switch on the wall. A large fan opposite the table shuddered to life, the head slowly rotating side to side.

Jenna stopped when the breeze brushed her. The breeze was warm, but it still felt wonderful after the blazing, oppressive heat outside, and so did the shade. She closed her eyes and held still.

“Okay,” a voice said.

Jenna’s eyes flew open, just in time to see her boss lowering his hand, the touchscreen on the inside of his forearm still lit up. Was he speaking to her?

But Daron was already walking to the fridge. He grabbed his lunch, then crossed to the table where his crew were busy shoveling food into their mouths and washing it down with water.

“Uruk, can you keep an eye on the delivery updates?”

“Sure.” Uruk pulled his computer case closer, cracked it open, and started typing with one hand while holding a sandwich in the other.

Jenna watched the group grudgingly. Weren’t they going to invite her to join? She was hungry too, she needed to pee, and she was going to need help taking off her exosuit for the first time. Worse, she was pretty sure they knew that, and they were ignoring her on purpose.

Fine. If they wanted to act like jerks, let them. Jenna didn’t care. She would take off her suit by herself and eat her lunch outside, alone. She’d rather bake in the heat than put up with this unfriendly bunch. No rule said she had to socialize on her break.

The exosuits stood in a neat row along the wall, each next to its charging station. Jenna’s spot was at the end. She better park her suit there, not to give Daron an excuse to complain.

She started to lift her foot—

Nothing. Her boot wouldn’t budge.

She tried again, straining harder.

Ouch. Her knee popped but didn’t bend, the boot as good as nailed to the ground.

Annoyed, she looked down, leaning forward—and was brought up short.

She couldn’t bend either. She couldn’t move at all, her exosuit like a rigid cage around her limbs, torso, and the back of her neck. Her muscles were no match for the carbon-fiber frame that encased them.

Embarrassment whipped through her. Did she touch her control panel by accident? Or was it a malfunction of some sort? Wouldn’t the suit diagnostics warn her, though? Nothing was flashing in her display.

Wait.

The lock icon was on.

The motion override.

Dammit. She should have known.

Daron had threatened to freeze her ass, and now he did—for no reason whatsoever. That’s what he tapped into the touchscreen on his arm when she paused to enjoy the breeze stirred by the fan. He tricked her!

 

(Continued in Part 2…)

---

Host Commentary

By Alasdair Stuart

I’m trying something different with this one, because it’s a two-parter. This week I want to talk about the world and how this sort of story feels, to me, more and more like a major form of genre fiction writing itself into existence. It’s near future but so near future as to be functionally contemporary. It’s got cyberpunk trappings but only in the sense our own lives have. It’s not dystopian but it needs to pay rent just like we do. It feels grounded, like there’s dirt under its fingernails and its jeans have been patched a couple of times. The sort of story that genuinely good country music is and bad country music dresses like.

I love that sort of stuff, because it reminds me of a maxim I use over at PseudoPod a lot. That horror is a fundamentally hopeful genre and speculative fiction in general is hopeful down to its bones. In horror’s case, I view it as an almost therapeutic experience, vicarious trauma that holds our hand as we go over the edge, helps us hit the water right, helps us kick for the surface.

Speculative fiction as a whole is a little different and rather blunter. In order for us to write about speculative possibilities and futures we have to assume there will be one. Survival is baked in, even if salvation has to be earned. The world never quite ends and as long as it doesn’t quite end, neither does the story. And as long as the story is being told, someone has to tell it and have, if nothing else, the hope of being heard.

Brook’s piece gets deeper into this with the way it uses 3D printing on an industrial scale and who’s actually doing the printing. And the answer is, us. Now. We’ll throw a couple of examples in the show notes. But the short version is this isn’t just possible it’s being done. Most of the examples I found were either test communities or exemplar houses but the truth is inescapable. The future is 3D printing itself into existence and Brook is one of the people with the plan.

I LOVE that. I also love how Brook takes great pains to show the technology as just that; technology. This isn’t an instant fix, it’s not a singularity. It’s a job that’s exponentially faster than it’s ever been before but now is just differently difficult. The future is here and as I said, it’s got dirt under its fingernails, deadlines to hit and a boss to keep happy. How it does that? Will be what we talk about next time.

As is always the case, we rely on you to pay our authors, our narrators and our crew, and to cover our costs. We’re entirely donation funded and last year that changed in some very exciting ways with becoming a registered US nonprofit. We ran a great end of year campaign in 2023 to raise awareness about all the new ways you can help us out like for example if you pay taxes in the US, you might be able to claim a deduction. Check out the short metacast on escapeartists.net for more ideas, and how to get in touch if you think of something else that’s more meaningful to you.

One-time donations are fantastic and gratefully received, but what really makes a difference is subscribing. Subscriptions get us stability and a reliable income we use to bring free and accessible audio fiction to the world. You can subscribe for a monthly or annual donation through PayPal or Patreon.

Not only do you help us out immensely when you subscribe or donate but you get access to a raft of bonus audio.  You help us, we help you and everything becomes just a little easier. Even if you can’t donate financially, please consider spreading the word about us. If you liked an episode then please consider sharing it on social media, or blogging about us or leaving a review it really does all help and thank you once again

We’re back next week the same team and the second half of this story. Then, as now it will be a production of the Escape Artists Foundation and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International license.

We leave you this week with this quote from Aliens.

“Well, I can drive that loader. I have a Class-2 rating.”

We’ll see you next week folks. Until then, have fun.