Scarlet Steel

Elytron Manufacturing is the second of the four main corporations designing mechs. Boasting survivability far beyond any other group, it’s a rare day that a pilot in one of their mechs dies. Their heavy armor comes at a cost, however. Unwieldy and difficult to pilot, they’re often seen as useful purely in defensive situations where individual skill is less important. However, skilled pilots have gone on to prove that they’re incredibly versatile, even in non-ideal situations. - An Idiot’s Guide to Mechs, 3rd edition.

I’m at Hoppy finishing up the antimatter cell adapter when my phone rings. I pull it out, hold it in place with my cheek, and keep working.

“Mom?” I ask.

“Yeah. Juno and Elara are at the house.”

“Can you just ask them to leave the mesh?”

The phone crackles as it switches hands. Only a moment later Juno’s voice comes through clearly.

“I’m not giving you this until I’m sure you’re not going to blow yourself up.”

“It’s a hundred-thousandth of a gram with a cell that fully passed its self-vent test. There’s no real danger.”

“Thinking like that is a good way to blow yourself up. Now come on, I’ve let you avoid me this long.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you!” I snap back.

“Then what’s the problem with Elara and I checking up on you?”

I go silent. She just doesn’t understand! I have to do this by myself. I don’t want her help. I don’t even want her chiral mesh, it’s just the only option.

“Fine.” I swallow my pride. “Meet me here. Mom knows the way. And I have a battery bank charging in the backyard. Carry it here.”

“Understood.” The line clicks dead.

I slip my phone into my pocket and keep working. I’m going to show her that I know what I’m doing.

The adapter between the cell and the rest of the engine is designed to be removable. No welding, no gluing, just bolts and o-rings. When I can upgrade to an actual mech cell, undoing my work will be easy. Manufacturing everything took weeks, I’m just lucky Juno was too busy to show up before now.

I do one last full, in depth check before slotting the cell into place. Moments later, I hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps hauling a heavy weight atop the endless scrap. I’m not used to hearing that sound from someone else.

I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see her. I just keep checking my new installation, letting a small air pump alternate between pressurizing and pulling as much air out as possible to check for leaks.

“You’re still wearing his overalls.” I don’t react to Juno’s voice. “Miller would be glad to see they fit.”

Her words drive a spike of anger directly into me. How the hell would she know what Dad wanted?

I don't respond. Just keep testing.

“You've been very resourceful.” Elara says. Her voice comes from Juno, but I'm sure her hologram is pretending to inspect the mech. “I see parts from five different types of mechs.”

“Six. Seven if you count the car parts.” I interrupt. “The whole Old Earth Designs scout line, along with parts from a Switchblade, Aphid, and a Dagger.”

“I see that now.”

Juno walks slow laps around the mech. Nearly all the armor is off, letting her and Elara see everything.

“Don't ask about the wire colors. They're right. I've already fully tested the computer systems.”

“I wasn't going to.” Elara goes quiet as Juno finishes her lap. Only when it’s complete does she say anything. “It won't fail catastrophically. It's safe to test.”

“Alright.” Juno steps over to my workbench. “You’re going to have to look at me if you want to work for me.”

I don't respond.

“Holding a grudge and a breakdown in trust is a damn good way to get killed.”

I still don't respond.

“Scarlet, turn around and let's have a God damned conversation. Prove you're mature enough to actually do this.”

“Fine!” I reach down, turn off the air pump, and turn around.

She looks so much older than I remembered. It's just been three years, and they haven't been kind to her. Her skin is damaged, half her face sporting an old, poorly healed burn. It starts at her jaw and extends all the way up to the side of her head. The burn has done enough damage to prevent hair from growing overtop it.

“What happened?”

“I give everything to get my squad home. My cabin got a breach and an indirect IR flare from a bullet hitting my Photon Lock Shield cooked me to the bone. I kept fighting. I don’t leave my people behind lightly.”

“What does-”

“I didn’t kill your dad.” She says bluntly. “If the situation were different, I would have taken his place. You could have gone to my funeral and moved on. But you know what? In this business, people you love die, and you move on. You get in your mech, and best case scenario, you live to see every friend you’ve ever made die. Chances are you die instead, and you leave your mom with nobody. That’s the job you’ve been dreaming about for years. Those are the outcomes. If you have any brains in your skull, you’ll grab that cell, bridge connections A-7 and B-11 and run. It’ll cause a runaway reaction inside your engine and detonate your Hopper.”

I don’t respond. It’s all I can do to keep a firm expression.

Juno shakes her head disappointedly, pulls a small box out of her pack, and places it on my workbench.

“If you blow it up, save the mesh.” Without another word, she turns away and starts the long hike back to the house.

I don't watch her go. I still have tests to run. I flip on the air compressor and try to work through a thin film of tears.

“Fuck.” I'm going to make a mistake. I need to do something. There's only one place I can go. I flip off the pump and climb into the cockpit. There's just enough space to grab my legs and curl up.

What am I even doing? She's right. I know she's right, and yet, I won't let myself think about that. The possibility of not being a pilot is so foreign that my brain just can't process it.

It'd be so easy to give up on my dreams, but Hoppy doesn't deserve that. She deserves to do what she was made to do. Nobody else knows her like I do. Nobody else would be able to pilot her like I could. I can't just let such a special mech be reduced to scrap again.

This is what Dad did, even knowing the outcome. This is what Dad loved. I'm sure he felt the same pull I do.

There's nothing else to do. There's no other option I can make. It doesn’t matter.

I hide until Juno is well out of sight, wipe my eyes, climb out of the cockpit, and get back to work. My seals are good, and the internal pressure sensors will warn me if there's a leak. I'm ready to pull a vacuum.

I walk to my workbench, grab Juno's box, and open the lid with shaking hands.

The chiral mesh is simple. It looks to me like any piece of cloth with two wires coming out of the side. I’m not even sure how it works, just that it does.

All I have to do is disconnect my air pump and hold up the mesh to the opening. Once in place, connecting my battery bank to either wire causes the mesh to fuse to the metal opening as long as power is coursing through it. I turn the dial on my battery bank, increasing the power being pumped through it, and it should be working.

I plug my laptop into the mech and pull up the internal sensors. The pressure is dropping quickly at first, but slowing down with every passing second. That's expected, it's working exactly how it should. I can speed it up however. Placing another tube on the other side of the mesh causes it to fuse to the mesh as well. I connect the air pump to the external tube and flip it on. Air flowing through the mesh from low pressure to high pressure is difficult, and pulling a lower pressure on the output side should make it easier for the air inside to escape.

And now I wait. It'll take almost six hours to completely vent, and my battery is going to run out before then. At least I can switch them over seamlessly, the chiral mesh doesn’t care about how much electricity it’s receiving, there’s just a minimum it needs to work. The bad part is that I'll need to make the trek back home a few times to let the batteries recharge.

The first battery runs dry after an hour. It only takes a few seconds to attach the fresh battery and disconnect the empty one. All that’s left to do is haul the dead one back to the house to let it charge.

It’s a familiar 20 minute hike back along the path I’ve created over the years. With every footstep, my worry grows, and a moment later my worries come true. As I round the bend and come into view of my home, I see three people through the kitchen window.

“Great.” I head to the back of the house, plug in the battery, and sit against the wall. At least the battery charges quickly. I sit there for ten minutes, idly grabbing anything in range to mess with.

As soon as the screen on the top of the battery reads full, I make the hike again. At least I get a quick ten minute break before needing to swap them out and head back to the house. While I wait for the next swap, I eat and slowly watch the pressure inside the engine disappear.

After five hours, the pressure inside reads zero. As much as I want to just start Hoppy up, I force myself to wait. Every molecule of air inside is going to both damage the inside of my engine, and also suck up my fuel. I don’t know how many parts and how many cells I have within walking distance. It already took years to scavenge all of this. Waiting a little longer isn’t going to kill me, even if it is painful. Not waiting could kill Hoppy though.

Besides, I have to head back to the house anyway. I need a full battery for the startup process. Juno is still with Mom, so I stay outside. I don’t want either of them to help anyway. This has to be done by just me.

Finally, after six hours, I close the valve to completely shut off the vent and disconnect the battery. The mesh goes limp, no longer connected to the metal. My smaller chamber on the outside clatters to the ground. Oops, probably should have thought about that, but I only have to do this once. 

I put the mesh back in its box, climb into the chassis, and get ready to boot her up for the first time.

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