The mech didn’t take long to decide what he thought of my proposal. “You trying trick Chert! You mine.”

“Hulk smash,” I muttered under my breath, getting ready to dodge if I could. Not that it was likely to help, but it was worth a shot. And anyway, “Chert” was poorly-maintained enough that it looked like he might have a few issues of his own.

As with the others surrounding us, his body was built on a cyclemech frame, but without wheels or other parts necessary for transformation. He was missing a few fingers, and walked with a limp when he moved forward as one of the hydraulic struts was gone from his left leg. None of the others were in better shape.

“Geez, it’s like the attack of the Junkions’ reject bin,” Sweeper said.

“We could handle all of these at once,” Jiana said smugly.

“Don’t hurt them too badly, OK?” I said. “If you can remove the IQ limiters from their CPUs, they might be a big help.”

“Don’t hurt them? What about you?” Sweeper said.

“That too,” I said, as Chert lunged.