[h2][color=khaki]Jingo[/color][/h2]

Jingo held out the tin of cakes at the others in the truck, giving them his best inviting smile as he did, he shook the tin at them, the cakes rumbled around inside merrily. Slowly, though, his out-stretched arm grew tired and so did the smile on his face, it drooped into a frown and he slowly retracted his hand away, sealing the metal circle and placing it back into his bag. '[color=khaki][i]It seems that they don'nee want any tea cakes.[/i][/color]' he thought to himself morosely, as he leaned back onto his duffle bag and stroked the yellowed plastic of his prosthetic arm. The rest of the ride went by, for him at least, in silence, just him, the sound of a truck full of breathing and the bumpiness of the road beneath. As soon as they arrived at the camp, they unloaded themselves from the truck, Jingo threw his duffle bag over his shoulders and hopped off of the vehicle, falling into line behind the rest. As he walked, snow crunched under his feet like glass, it was a satisfying sound.

[i]Crunch Crunch Crunch[/i]

Jingo hoped that the first thing that they would do would be heading to the Barracks, his back hurt from sitting up right against the truck wall and he felt the need to unpack his marginal amount of things but he suppressed a groan as the group was lead away, instead moving to a distant building that was the briefing room. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of the NCs, namely his, the stockier one with the older looking parts, though not old in the sense that they were in bad shape, old in the sense that they were... [i]old[/i]. A shiver went up his spine, despite trying to convince himself that it was the cold, he knew deep down that the sight of the large metal beast scared him. As he walked, a building slowly crept over his field of view and obscured The Wessex, he felt a bit calmer. Jingo followed behind the rest, pushing heavy double doors out of the way as he walked, as every time he came to a set they were closing again. Soon though they were in the briefing room and he took a seat around the table with everyone else, it was a sparsely furnished room, with a dusty slide projector sat idle in the middle of the room and a white painted wall opposite it being the only details, apart from the desk and chairs of course. 

As the woman who was evidently commander spoke, Jingo flipped though the file that was chucked in front of him, it was a thick mass of paper, held together by what must have been dozens of paperclips. As he turned the cover of the file, a click then a whir caught his attention, he looked up and the projector had flickered to life, producing a dusty cone of lighten and casting detailed floor plans and pictures of documents on the opposite white wall. Jingo let the cover of the file fall back onto the pages and instead turned his attention to the slide show and the captain who as pointing out key details. Upon finishing the briefing, the lot was dismissed, and much to Jingo’s relief, they would have time to relax and recuperate before their excursion. Before filing out of the room along with the others, Jingo pulled the tin of cakes out of his bag and opened it, inclining the open container to the commander.

“[color=khaki]Care for a Teacake ma’am?[/color]” he asked, hopeful that she would take one, she just fixed him with a hard look and mumbled.

“Gluten. Intolerant.” Jingo quickly fixed the lid back on the container and slung the bag over his shoulder, tucking the tin under his arm before saluting.

“[color=khaki]Aye, ma’am.[/color]” Jingo scurried off.

After taking a shower that was oddly colder then the weather outside and unpacking his things into the footlocker at the foot of his bed, Jingo was ready to get into his NC. He slipped his t-shirt over his grey, woolen thermals and buckled up his cargo pants with one hand, an action that came naturally to him as he preferred to use the prosthetic as little as possible, as they were not easy to come by and he didn’t want to break his. Jingo opened the door to a hair raising gust, he threw his arms around his body and instantly recoiled, as a jabbed his hand with the blunt hooks at the end of his false arm. Instead, he decided to wrap his body in his good arm and let the fake one dangle by his side, he jogged out of the barracks, keeping warm by moving not stopping until he saw the Wessex in the distance. His skin went pale, his body refused to move forward, the sight of the NC freezing him in his place, he realized that he had yet to get over his fear of NCs, he visualized the cramped inside of his old NC and being crushed against his seat by the imploding front of the machine, screaming as the coolant trickled down his back giving him frost burns and eating away at him with it's caustic volatility. He snapped out of it when he shivered, '[i][color=khaki]Cold..[/color][/i]' he made his way to the feet of the giant vehicle, where a man was putting away welding equipment, "[color=khaki]Torch me![/color]" he blurted out. 

When he lived in Falcon Reach, it was common for workers to torch each other when they were feeling cold, they'd close the oxygen valve to the flame so that a cold, yellow fire would come out opposed to a hot blue one and they'd quickly brush the flame over the torchee to warm them up. The welder seemed to get the reference, as he cut off the oxygen and ignited the flame, brushing it over Jingo like someone would brush a feather duster over an old vase. Jingo nodded his thanks, "[color=khaki]Thank ye, sir.[/color]" the man merely nodded and continued packing away his tools. Adjacent to the leg of the NC, scaffolding rose up to the cockpit, creaky and rusty punctuated by platforms of wood planks, Jingo swallowed his fears and began the ascent. He climbed up, rung by rung making way to the top of the metal structure, it wasn't the heights that made him afraid, it was getting into an NC after a decade or so of loathing them, they he didn't know they would petrify him as much as they did. Upon, reaching the top, he found two people shuffling around outside the open cockpit, chatting as they did. "[color=khaki]Excuse me?[/color]" he called to the pair of mechanics, they turned in unison, “[color=khaki]Am I right'n saying this is my vehicle?[/color]"

The pair were twins, that was quite obvious, they shared the same chestnut hair and lavender eyes, they had the same facial structure but one was a man and the other a woman. The man leaned over to the woman and whispered a bit too loudly. 

"See Gwenda, I told you the pilot was a zombie scotsman." Gwenda's eyes went wide and she turned to face her brother, yelling at him before smacking him with a wide, splayed hand.

"Victor, you idjit! We don't say that to our guests!" She turned to Jingo and gave him a smile, she wasn't a pretty girl but she wasn't ugly, she had a warm strength about her that was common in folk of her line of work, "You must be Mr. Strange, I’m Gwenda Keighly and this is my brother, Victor, say hello Victor.” Victor didn’t, Gwenda took his hand and crushed it in her grip, “Say hello, Victor.”

“Alright, Alright, hello Mr. Strange!” he yelped, trying to get his hand out of her grip, “now let go of you witch!” She smacked him across the face again.

“Don’t call me a witch, moron!” she shrieked at him, reaching for a spanner that hung at her belt. Jingo quickly interjected, with his prosthetic arm, he held onto the wrench before she could lift it from her side.

“[color=khaki]You can call me Jingo Ms. Keighly, and killing your brother won’t be needed.[/color]” She ‘eeped’ when the cold metal of his claspers touched her hand, that stung Jingo. She clutched her hand to her chest and looked at his face with a a scared look, she wasn’t looking at his eyes, and Jingo knew that. He fidgeted under her look. 

“I’m so sorry Jingo, I didn’t mean to! your hoo- hand was just very cold and I was just star-“ 

“[color=khaki]It’s alright.[/color]” Jingo mumbled, slipping between the two and into the cockpit of Wessex, “[color=khaki]Just seal me in.[/color]” he sat down on a leather seat and Gwenda handed him a floppy disc.

“It’s an old computer Jingo, you’ll need this, it’s the forth boot disk, put it into slot two, slot one has a jammed disk in it and we can’t get it out,” She lowered the top of the cockpit down and whispered quickly before it shut, “I’m sorry.” Jingo sighed and got to work, flipping on the cabin light and looking around. To his right was an old clunky keyboard, and to his left and on the ceiling banks of buttons, switches, dials and knobs, each one was familiar, he had designed the layout to match that of his old mining NC. He flipped the red arming latch to the engine and flipped the switch, behind him the engine whirred to life and the whole cabin began to vibrate gently. He insisted the floppy disk, labeled ‘4th Boot’ into slot two and the light went from red to green, to it’s right was slot one, it’s light yellow signaling a fault. He ignored it and turned a nob above him on the computer control panel, a magnetic tape wheel behind him started to turn, he turned the dial again and it sped up, the computer in front of him flickering to life with a black-green light. He tapped in the code to boot up the computers.

Green characters appeared on the black, buzzing monitor, appearing after every tap of the keyboard, proceeded by another pixelated character, then another, before Jingo tapped enter and the remaining tape reals behind him whirred into life, booting the NC-OS

[hider=Coding on screen]

[i][color=darkgreen]
//:[fetching.”bootfiles_”];

… … … 

//:[“bootfiles_”.fetched]*;
//:[open.”bootfiles_”];
//:[997331/997331.of.files=present]*;
//:[load.”bootfiles_”.to=maintape];
//:[loading.successful]*;
//:[launching.loaded_file];

>[X-OS]:Y
>[NC-OS]:Y
>[PORTS]
+ [power.production]:Y
   [fluid.gauge]:Y
   [camera.1]:Y
   [camera.2]:Y
   [transceiver.1]:Y
   [transceiver.2]:Y
   [right.arm]:Y
   [left.arm]:Y
   [right.leg]:Y
   [left.leg]:Y
   [alltheothershit]:Y
>[magnetic.flux]:100%
>[link.stability]:100%
>[link.activity]:0%

Launch? Y/N

[/color][/i]
[/hider]

Jingo gulped. Then tapped ‘Y’. The magnetic ring that hovered over his head like a halo flared up with light and Jingo’s head fell gently onto the headrest of his seat, unconscious. 

Jingo heard a voice, it was faint but he recognized it to be Gwenda’s, “Easy there Jingo, this is your first time going under for 12 years now, so take it slow.” she spoke in a soft Irish accent, “If you can hear me, rev your engines.” it came to him instinctually, as if he always had engines, he revved them from a gentle purr to a guttural roar before settling back into the purr. “Good, now can you turn left?” he did, “How about right? Good. Now how about you activate your camera?” at first a small point of light blipped into existent at the center of his field of view, slowly it grew into a white circle and the light faded away to show Gwenda smiling into the camera, “I know you’ve only been in simulations, so how about you take a walk? Get use to the weight, that sound good?” Jingo was feeling terrified, he was waiting for a boulder to smash him to pieces but it didn’t, so he revved his engine slightly and took a tentative step forward, then another. No boulder. He began to walk around a bit, “good job jingo.” she said encouragingly, Jingo broke into a light jog around the compound, practicing before the excursion.