Scarlet Steel

“In 2020, Earth began to die. By 2025 all dirt had turned to sand, and storms raged across its surface weekly. All water drained through the sand, leaving the surface barren and dead. Despite that, humanity and AI survived, and in 2065, forty-five years after its death, the first rocket launched from Earth.” - An incomplete history of space travel, written by Kismet.

Dad’s warning echoes through my mind.

Do. Not. Open. Microwaves. A single touch at the wrong place will kill you.

It’s just a shame I need the transformer. I’m being careful though! Very safe. Paying absolute attention to every movement. And as long as I’m slo-

“Scarlet!”

My hand jerks at a shrill voice. A streak of bright red blood gets left behind on the rusted metal. My finger doesn’t even hurt, at least not yet, and if it wasn’t for my shirt quickly being dyed red, I might not even have noticed. I quickly wrap my finger in the cloth, and clutch it tight.

To my right, standing atop a mound of scrap, stands the only face I hate. Lily. Little miss perfect, but nobody else can see what a dummy she is. I’ve seen her homework! I know she’s a dummy.

“What?” I glare at her.

“Well I was going to share a secret, but if you’re going to be a jerk about it...” She shrugs and turns to leave.

“Wait!” Lily pauses. Ugh, my chest burns from not knowing, and she knows that. “I’m sorry.” I mumble quietly.

“What was that?”

“You heard me!” I yell. “Now just tell me what you wanted to say.”

“Your dad’s ship just landed.” She walks away.

“Oh!” I shove the half-deconstructed microwave off my makeshift workbench. A massive spark jumps from it to the rusted junk beneath my feet with a bang. I don’t care though! Dad is home!

I scramble over the endless rusty metal beneath my feet and run through the paths carved between junk piles.

It’s a mile between our house and the town, and my secret workshop is already half way there! It’s only a few minutes before I come screaming down a metal slope and into town.

The town is the only place around for miles, or maybe even the whole planet, where you can see actual dirt. Everything outside it is just the endless junkyard with spaceships occasionally dropping off yet another pile of junk.

An entire corner of the town is dedicated to the scrapyard, a massive building with smoke constantly rising out of huge chimneys. They bring in scrap metal and turn it into nice steel that gets shipped off-planet occasionally.

Mom says it’s too dangerous for me to go in there, but I’ve snuck in a few times and I’m fine! It’s not that fun in there though. It’s hot and smells bad.

The landing pad is on the far side of the town, and I sprint down the main street as fast as my legs will carry me.

Something firm hits my stomach and catches on me, sending me spinning through the air.

“Where are you going Kid?”

I glance down and find an arm holding me off the ground. I look back and see a familiar man. His hair is sandy brown, lighter than mine, and missing the single white lock that curls through mine.

“Dad! Auntie Exa!” I throw my arms around his neck and hold him tight.

Exa smiles. Some people whisper about her, saying her metal face is hard to read, but I tell them to shut up. Her face is kind and reassuring.

“It’s good to see you again.” She says.

Dad lets me down and steps back, cocking his head at me.

“No, sorry, I must have the wrong girl. My daughter is way shorter than you are.”

“Dad! I grew!” I say proudly, standing tall. 

“So you did! You better stop or you’ll be taller than me soon!” He reaches down and ruffles my hair.

“Yeah!”

“Come on, let’s go see your mom.” Dad gives me a small pat on the back and begins to walk.

I jog ahead of him, having to stop and wait for him to catch up every few seconds.

“Speaking of Lyra, how is she?” Exa asks.

“She’s doing good!” I happily report.

“Good.” Dad says. “And have you been helping her out?”

“Yeah…” I lie flawlessly.

“Scarlet.” Dad draws out my name.

“I’ve been helping!” I say quickly. “I’ve just… found a lot of time to work on stuff.”

“Like what?” Exa asks.

“Like this!” I quickly dig through my backpack and pull out a small bundle of wires, a circuit board, and a speaker, all held in place with copious amounts of tape. I hold it up proudly for dad.

He takes it from my hands and carefully inspects it.

“And what is it?” He asks.

“It plays music!” I take it directly out of his hands. “The only thing it had wrong with it was a bent case, a broken screen, and a single broken pin on one of the microcontrollers! Can you believe that someone just threw that away?”

“I can’t imagine why.” Exa agrees.

“And watch this.” I fiddle with it for a moment, grabbing the two wires I left out, and twisting them together. The machine stays silent in my hands. “Shoot! Wait! It was working, I promise!"

I immediately get to work removing the tape and closely inspecting it. Something taps on my shoulder and makes me jump.

“Scarlet?” Dad asks.

“Huh?” I look up at him.

“Did you hear me?”

“Uh, no.” I admit.

“I said I’m sure it was working.” Dad reassures me. “And when you fix it again, we can listen to some music, alright?”

“Ok.” I return my attention to the music player and walk slowly behind the two of them.

Everything looks fine from a quick visual check. Maybe the battery is just dead? I rip off the wires I soldered to either side, throw the small puck into my backpack, and grab another. It should be fine to just hold the wires in place between my fingers. The voltage is low enough to be safe.

The device begins to play music, tinny and quietly, but a beautiful sound to my ears. All at the cost of only a small tingling in the tips of my fingers!

“It works! I told you!” Maybe soldering batteries is a bad idea, the heat may have killed it. That’s ok though, it’s working now and that’s what matters!

“I never doubted you.” Dad reminds me.

I could just tape the contacts in place. The tingling probably isn’t very good for me. I add a strip of tape to either side, re-tape the whole thing back together, and connect the play wires once again, giving us music on our walk.

“So how long before you build your own computer from scratch?” Exa asks.

“Ugh, I wish. Everything’s rusted or broken or shorted or crushed or burnt or snapped or-”

“And is your laptop still treating you well?” Dad asks.

“Oh! Yeah! Well I did step on it once or twice and the screen is a little cracked, but it still works! Did you bring more books?” I look hopefully between the two of them.

“You think we’d come back without anything?” Dad asks, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “No, we’ve got some fun stuff.”

“Thank you!” My legs burn, demanding I jump, pushing me on to sprint home and get started now. Dad’s mean though, and me sprinting ahead won’t speed him up at all.

I can’t stop myself from speeding up a little though, returning to our dance. I’m constantly too fast and have to wait for them to catch up.

It’s a long time before we finally make it home. Our house is a one story, pre-fabricated home. A big box was brought down from orbit and placed in a small clearing. Pens have a bad habit of rolling off tables and water pools in the corner of the sinks, but I like it! It’s way better than some of the houses in town.

I rush through the door before the two of them can reach it.

“Mom!” I yell. “Dad’s home!”

I hear pots and pans moving in the kitchen before she steps into the living room.

She’s stressed. Oh, I should have been helping. Next time. Next time I’ll be sure to remember to help!

She glances at me and around the room, searching for him.

“He’s still outside!” I say.

She steps past me and out the door.

“Niel.” She breathes before rushing into him.

“Hey.” He catches her, and the two of them hold each other tightly for a few long moments. “Told you I’d be fine.”

Mom glances at Exa before smiling.

“Thanks for keeping him safe.”

“I feel like you’d kill me if I didn’t.” Exa shrugs. “I’d rather fight a Mouse than you.”

“I guess I’ll have to keep being threatening then.” She laughs before looking up into Dad’s face.

“Ew! Gross!” I yell as their lips touch.

They break off their kiss, but their eyes remain locked onto each other.

Exa steps forward and takes my hand.

“Come on Kid, why don’t I go show you what we brought?”

“Ok!” She leads me into the house, and I lead her to my room.

Oh, crap, I should have cleaned. The projects that mom approves of are spread across my desk haphazardly. Dirty clothes are shoved into a small pile in the corner or spread throughout the floor. My bed isn’t made, which is apparently bad or something. It’ll just get messy again when I sleep!

I grab my laptop off the floor and hop onto the side of my bed.

“What do you have?”

“A couple of things.” Exa takes a seat next to me, pulls a cord out of her wrist, and hands it to me.

I quickly plug it into my computer, and several books pop onto my screen.

“So, your dad upgraded to a White Lie.” A set of pictures dominates the screen. A large, humanoid mech has most of its armor stripped off, letting me see the insides. I soak in every structural beam, every component, every gear and shaft, trace every wire. One thing instantly stands out to me.

“Wait, Old Earth Designs doesn’t use distributed engines on medium mechs, but I don’t see a central engine? And why are their drive shafts connecting every limb together?” I trace my finger along what I’m pointing out.

“It was an experiment with a hybrid system on a smaller mech.” She says. “Four smaller engines in each limb while still having a connection, either to siphon power from the other engines when needed, or to compensate for a broken engine.”

“It’s a medium mech, right?” I ask. “Do they use sixty-fourth of a gram in each engine? Or still a single sixteenth gram?”

“What do you think?”

I take in the picture again. Heavily reinforced tubes run from the engines to a heavy metal box in the center.

“The antimatter cell has to be in the center. Do they even make cells that small?” I ask.

“Not for mechs, no.” She says. “You can find them for specialized civilian and military use though, all the way down to a thousandth."

“Woah.”

“Mm-hmm. Alright Kid, let’s get to work. Any luck with the books we left for you last time?”

“Yeah! I actually managed most of them! But I do have questions.” I minimize everything she’s uploaded to my computer and pull up the document I’ve been keeping. It’s pages and pages of things I couldn’t quite understand. But that’s ok! Exa is great at explaining! “So what does a flywheel actually do on mechs? They’re in every mech, but the books don’t say why.”

“Two reasons, stabilization, and kinetic storage. Antimatter engines take a moment to spin up, so instead, we keep at least one, and often more than one flywheel spun up. We can then siphon kinetic energy to compensate for needed power instantly while the engines catch up.”

“Like a capacitor!” I say happily.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“But how do they help with stabilization?”

“That’s a question that’s way more complex than you would think. Here, let me show you a simulation.”

A video fills my screen, and she starts her explanation. The thing I love most about Exa is that she never tells me I’m too young to learn, like a lot of the adults do when I try to ask questions.

We stay there for the rest of the day while Exa explains every question I could ever have. Mom and dad even end up bringing me dinner! I pick at it while Exa talks, and try my best to remember not to talk with my mouth full, but fail more often than not.

She finishes one last explanation before standing up.

“Alright Kid, you can’t stay up forever.”

“Noooo.” I whine. 

“I know. Let's go say goodnight to your parents and get you into bed, alright?”

“Do I get a bedtime story?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Ok!” I jump out of bed and head straight for the kitchen. 

“Mom! Dad! I’m going to bed!” I come sprinting around the corner. Both of them are sitting at the table, their quiet conversation having come to an immediate stop.

“Make sure you brush your teeth.” Mom reminds me.

“I will.” I promise. 

“Tomorrow we’ll go out and do some stuff together, alright?” Dad asks.

“Ok!” I run back to the bathroom and quickly get ready for bed. It’s only a matter of minutes before I climb into bed and Exa leans against the wall next to me.

“Alright, you need anything first?”

“No.” I answer.

“Good. An engine block contains the most important parts of an engine…”

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