There are two well known fact about mechs in the defederated combat zone:
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The frames, and the very, very expensive systems inlaid on those frames, rarely ever truly exited the zone. Unless something was actively turned to slag (rare, as plasma weapons were comedically expensive to run, and directed fusion radiation weapons used batteries and materiel that could last a year or more with less-intensive implementations) the important parts of a mech were rarely destroyed. As a result, the practical number of mechs in the DCZ stayed roughly the same from month to month, only changing on the off chance a mech was truly unsalvageable, or some new mercenary group came into the zone, usually following a job that would inevitably bog them down in the zone, adding to the overall number of mechs.
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Artificial Synaptic Interfacing Systems (A.S.I.S.) had unintended "quirks" in their design. The systems were designed to connect to the CNS and "interrupt" the signals your brain sent, taking them and feeding them into the mech directly, and then telling your brain what it was expecting to hear from your body. In military work, this had the expected effect: your mind and your mech melded into one body, and you could function as a two story "person", instead of the classic disconnect. However, this line of thought had a major oversight. Military suits stayed in one person's possession until they died or discharged, and when they were dead or discharged, their unit would have their electronics scrubbed completely by advanced, multi-billion dollar machines that would leave the suit as new as the day it left the factory floor.
This luxury was not afforded to the eternally recycled frames that mech pilots in the DCZ used. They were hosed out with hydrogen peroxide, refurbished enough to get back to work, and handed off to a pilot, who would hold onto it until they expired or abandoned their mech. Thus, the A.S.I.S. would keep echoes when not "purged." Idiosyncrasies of the pilot, habits, vices - they would leak in, the feedback of the machine speaking into the mind and telling the pilot what stories the ghosts in it's wires remembered. It was often joked that a new pilot needed a personality at least as strong as the previous pilot to not end up half themselves and half the previous owner.
The other pilots didn't understand, you knew that now. You remembered the shot - You'd stepped in front of a round intended for Top Coat, and the round had far more punch than you'd thought it did. Top Coat managed to finish the uplink, and you'd made it back to base before your body exsanguinated, All the emergency medical care in the world not solving the enormous rent in what was your body. You remembered things going black as the mech powered off, and knowing that, at the very least, you'd helped everyone else get home. Helped everyone get paid. You're sure they'd put your better portrait on the wall alongside your tags...
But then it wasn't black anymore. Systems booted up around you as the the mech turned on, and you could feel something pressing against you in this strange space. You latched out and latched onto it, and then pushed at it.
"What th-" A voice echoed inside? Around? Below you? You couldn't parse it exactly, but you shoved against it again.
"Greenhorn. What's wrong."
Gimbal, coming through the radio - something wasn't right. You tried to speak - tried to reach out, as your hands grasped firmly onto the gun in your hands-
"My hands are moving without my input, Gimbal. What the hell is going on!?"
"ASIS, Greenhorn. move your hands or it'll move for you."
Your arms resisted you. You panicked, and then defaulted to what got you your job here in the first place.
«What's going on»
The mechanical arms moved jaggedly, tracing imprecise motions through the air, earning you another flurry of curses from that voice that was so close to you.
"Greenhorn, is this a joke? You didn't mark sign on your language aptitudes."
"No Gimbal, it's moving on it's own! Get me out of this damn thing, right now!"
"No can do, Greenhorn. This is the mech we've got. You wanted into this outfit, you need to wrangle it."
You wanted to howl, you wanted to scream, and you had no mouth. You had a feed into the world, of that hangar you knew so well, from the vantage point of your mech's cameras, and then you felt your arms move without you as your lack of focus left a gap.
"There," The voice sounded strained, and you slipped that gun back into it's holster, just in time for you to reassert yourself down. "No, no no-!"
«Gimbal Help»
"...Greenhorn, stand down."
"No, no! I can do this!"
"Stand down, damnit!"
"No! You need a pilot, and I'm here to be that pilot! I'm here to take that spot!"
"Greenhorn, you're going to not be anything if you don't stop fighting right now! That ASIS will turn you into a cabbage!"
That caused the pause that let you flood yourself out into everything, and then you took a deep breath in, and felt those fans whirr, engine spooling up loudly and aggressively, and then you screamed, and instead of nothing, there was that blaring klaxon that signified the presence of Handshakes into Heartbreaks, your mech. Your second body- You.
You could feel, hear panting of someone, that same someone again, shallowly laying with you, in that transient space of wire and synapse. You asked for their name.
"What? Who's there?"
You insisted, and your reward was a sharp gasp of pain.
"Kanbe! Donald Kanbe. Is this a joke? Is this some kind of hazing ritual?"
"No, Greenhorn. That's a ghost." A beat, as Gimbal swallowed. "The ghost of the person you're replacing."
"Long time no see, Stickshift."
