So, let me give you the full user experience in detail. First of all, putting on this suit of power armour was way more complicated than I expected. This was not "getting dressed" in any normal sense. The whole process was closer to assembling yourself into a precision machine.
I was ordered to strip completely, then change into a black one-piece bodysuit, like a skintight diving suit. The inside of it was packed with dense metal contacts and wiring. The cold touch against my skin raised goosebumps all over me. They called this the "environmental interface layer."
"Hold on," I said the moment I got it on, because something felt wrong. "Isn't this… kind of… the wrong size?"
I gestured at myself. This skinsuit had way too much room around my chest and butt, like the fabric was hanging loose and empty. But at the same time, my shoulders, my waist, and especially the indescribable region between my legs were being squeezed so tight I felt like my circulation was about to file a complaint.
That "machine monk" answered in a flat, emotionless synthetic voice, "This interface layer is tailored to the Inquisitor's personal body dimensions. There are no local production facilities in this region. It is impossible to provide a bespoke interface layer matching your physique. Your physiological parameters deviate by 37.2%, but remain within acceptable tolerances. Negative impact to armour performance is under 5%. Acceptable."
What was I supposed to say? I can't exactly go whine to my boss that her underwear makes my balls hurt. So I shut up and endured it.
Anyway, after I'd finished putting on this "women's spacesuit," they brought me to the rack holding the power armour. With a round of clicks and procedures from Brother Zebrun, the armour's back split open with a sharp crack, like a beetle spreading its wing cases, revealing a dense maze of machinery and cables inside.
"Please enter the structural layer," Brother Zebrun said, pointing at the hollow cavity that was just large enough to hold a person.
I took a deep breath, like a monkey about to be launched into orbit, and carefully climbed inside.
It felt like stepping into a miniature excavator cockpit, except you could only drive it standing up. My limbs were locked into the corresponding mechanical framework. My back pressed tight against a cold metal inner wall.
Then came the final stage: the "armour layer."
"Clang!" "Clang!"
Heavy ivory-white plates were lifted by servo-arms and installed one by one, buckled down, then locked hard into place. At the end, the helmet lowered slowly from above. With a hiss of hydraulics, it sealed perfectly into the gorget and neck plating.
With a boom, my world completely changed.
A ghostly green interface flickered into existence before my eyes, filled with data streams and icons. All outside sound vanished, replaced by a low engine hum, deep and steady, like the heartbeat of some massive beast. I no longer felt like me. I felt like a steel giant, over two meters, nearly three, looking down from an unreal height at the short, fragile mortals in front of me.
This feeling… was unbelievably cool.
"All right. Try moving," the Inquisitor's voice came through the internal vox, clear as if she were speaking right beside my ear. "The control system uses full dynamic force-feedback. In theory, every one of your movements will be reproduced with precision. Start by walking."
I was full of confidence. I lifted my right foot.
"BOOOOM!"
A deafening crash. I felt the whole room shudder. I looked down—well, not really "down," more like adjusting my viewpoint—and saw that my right foot, no, the armour's right foot, had stomped a crater half a foot deep into the floor. The solid alloy decking had shattered like plasterboard.
I froze. I swear, I used about the same force as stepping up a stair.
"Force output exceeds baseline by 78%," Brother Zebrun's emotionless electronic voice reported. "Recommendation: reduce neural impulse intensity to 12% of current level."
Reduce neural impulse intensity? Easy for you to say. How do I adjust that? With willpower?
I tried to relax, aiming for a "dragonfly touching water" kind of lightness. Carefully, I lifted my left foot and stepped forward.
"THUD."
This time it was gentler. I didn't punch through the floor. But my whole body—no, my whole machine—pitched forward like a baby taking its first steps, stiff as a board, about to faceplant.
"Balance loss detected. Gyroscope emergency intervention!"
Alarms blared inside the helmet. I felt like I'd been thrown into a tumble dryer, the world spinning and lurching violently. I barely avoided eating the floor, but the armour's attempts to stabilize me sent both arms windmilling wildly. One hand snapped out with a sharp crack and slapped a sturdy metal frame nearby into scrap.
Me: "…"
The Inquisitor: "…"
Everyone in the workshop: "…"
Brother Zebrun: "Adaptability… appears pessimistic."
I used to think power armour was basically just "armour, but heavier." Now I understood I was wrong. Completely wrong.
This wasn't "armour." This was a vehicle. A multi-purpose excavator that walked upright, and it demanded full-body coordination to operate.
You couldn't control it with a stick or a throttle. You had to engage your entire body, applying exactly the right force at exactly the right angles, pressing and shifting against countless micro-sensors woven throughout the environmental interface layer. Every tiny movement you made got amplified by this steel beast by orders of magnitude. Put a bit too much strength into it and it could tear down a wall. Lose your balance for a moment and it would perform a full Thomas spin on the spot.
Now I finally understood why in Fallout 2 you had to spend forever learning the "power armour" skill. The difficulty level of this thing was beyond ridiculous. It was like operating four excavators at once and using their buckets to play mahjong.
The entire afternoon after that was pure torture.
I looked like a Parkinson's patient being puppeteered by a master of strings, performing one absurd maneuver after another across the spacious workshop. I'd trip over my own feet, or bounce in place like I was doing senior disco. I'd suddenly split my legs mid-stride, or just turn into a human torpedo.
The workshop's reinforced walls now had multiple dents from where I'd slammed into them. More than once, I genuinely felt like I was going to lose control of those arms and give myself a full set of karate punches.
By evening, the light spilling through the workshop doors had dimmed to a dull glow. I was close to collapsing, drenched in sweat. The ill-fitting skinsuit had rubbed my skin raw until it burned. And the only progress I'd made was going from "fall down three times per step" to "fall down once every three steps."
"Strange…" Brother Zebrun finally said, his electronic voice carrying a hint of confusion as he monitored the data beside me. "The machine spirit of the Terminus-pattern power armour is renowned for stability and acuity. It automatically learns and adapts to the user's habits. Yet according to the readings, the moment you entered, the machine spirit entered a state of… inertia. All assisted computation and error-correction routines ceased responding. It… it appears to be refusing communication."
As he spoke, a flexible mechanical tentacle extended from within his red robes and plugged into a port on my back. The lenses on his mask rotated and refocused rapidly.
"An incomprehensible phenomenon. Your biological signals are normal. Yet your existence itself seems to produce a repulsive interference within the armour's underlying logic. Like water and oil. You cannot merge."
I didn't fully understand the technicalities, but I got the gist.
Basically, this suit's built-in control system hit my body and just… crashed. Or slipped into some kind of power-saving mode.
Was all of this my fault?!
…Yeah. It really did seem like it was all my fault.
(End of Chapter)
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