Scarlet Steel

Old Earth Designs prides itself on their mech’s reliability above all else. Often called too simple, underpowered, or slow, the complaints are often correct, though overstated. However, in extended missions where downtime is a rarity and repairs are a luxury, no pilot would have anything other than an Old Earth Design. - An Idiot’s Guide to Mechs, 3rd edition.

I wake up and run from my emotions. I throw on fresh clothes and dirty overalls, grab my toolbag and a breakfast bar, and head directly to Hoppy.

It turns out mom was right. Getting some sleep made a few things clearer, and I get to work. First is making a stopper for the end of the tube. Shaping a rubber block is slow, but it’s relaxing and it keeps me from thinking too much. It’s a temporary solution, the air is so dry the rubber will soon crack, but I can make a better solution in the future.

I finish shaping the plug, shove it in, and pump the accordion once again. My heart sinks as I still get no pressure. Nothing.

Either my mounting mechanism isn’t air tight, or I cracked the pipe when I cut it. It has to be the first one. It’s the only option I can fix. At least testing it is easy.

I mix some water with soap and make sure it covers everything in the area, my mounting mechanism and pipe. Thankfully I designed my accordion pump to work both ways. If there’s a leak, the soap should bubble from the air escaping.

I pump the accordion once again, and feel very little resistance. I keep my eyes on the tube and see nothing. There’s no bubbles, no leak. Especially not the big leak it feels like there should be.

Maybe the end isn’t plugged correctly? No, there’s no leak there. I have to have broken something else, but how? The only thing I touched was the wiring.

I spend hours testing every possible joint and connection for the leak. No matter what I check, no matter what I change, nothing ever gets better. The engine still can’t hold any pressure at all and the leak seemingly doesn’t even exist.

I collapse to the ground and scream in frustration. Nothing’s wrong! Nothing! There is no hole! The air is just disappearing! It’s not even making it in!

It’s not even making it in.

I unhook my accordion and inspect it. The fabric is torn, separating from one of the ends. It hasn’t been working this entire time. It’s not even something that I can easily fix. Tape or glue would work for a little bit, but as soon as I try to pull a partial vacuum, it’ll break. I need to find another one, there’s no other real option. Or I guess I could try to build one? But I need more mech parts anyway. An overnight trip would be nice, and this is a good excuse. 

I grab my backpack and make the trek back home.

I let myself in and see Mom sitting at the table, a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. Massive dark circles sit under her eyes.

“Did you manage to get much sleep?” She asks.

“You don’t look like you got any.”

“Not for a while.” She shakes her head.

“I’m sorry.” I can’t just leave her here alone. But equally, I can’t stay here at all. I can’t stop moving.

“What’s wrong?” Mom, as always, can see straight through me.

“It turns out my accordion was broken this whole time.”

“And you want to be out of the house.” She guesses.

“I just need to stay busy! I don’t want to leave you alone though.”

“Alright. You go find us a route and I’ll prepare our bags.” Mom stands up and heads to our closet.

“You’re coming with me?” I ask. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

“It’d be good for me to get out too.” She says.

I hurry to my room, grab Uncle Numbers’ drone, and head out the window once again. I built a ladder to the roof with- 

I built a ladder to the roof a few years ago. I climb up, and sit in the center of the flat roof, right next to a large antenna.

I plug the controller into the antenna, put on the headset, and pull up a map. It keeps track of everything I’ve explored, and has automatically catalogued every piece of junk it’s seen. I grab my tablet, hit a few buttons on the screen, and search for any accordions. Thankfully there are actually a few in my list.

I select one of them and my view lurches across a recorded, digital representation of the junkyard. The first one I come to is in the middle of nowhere, with nothing interesting nearby. I select another and take a look around.

This one’s near a mech that I forgot about! It’s another hopper, although an older model. The important part though, is that one of its electromagnetic leaf springs are in one piece! It’s not technically required for Hoppy to run, but supposedly increases the performance of its legs by a lot.

I launch my drone and head that way, checking to see if any scrap drops have changed the route or buried anything. Just a few minutes later I see that, nope! It’s fine!

I put the route into my tablet, call back the drone, and return to the kitchen.

Mom already has two packs made. Two sleeping bags, some food and water, and a toolbox I’ve never seen before.

“Where did that come from?” I ask.

“It’s my old set of tools.”

I step forward and open it up. Everything is pristine! Not a speck of rust, and while there is more than a little bit of wear, everything has been taken care of.

“You made me scavenge for my own tools when you had something this nice?” I ask.

“I thought you liked solving problems?” 

“I do!”

“Then what’s the problem?” Mom asks with a smile. “Trust me, knowing how to improvise is the best skill you can have. And I’m sure you learned an awful lot from doing it.”

“Yeah.” The experience I got from trying things and seeing what worked has probably taught me more than all my books.

“So, how far is our hike?”

“Ten miles there.” I get a look from Mom.

“We're sleeping there then.”

“That's the plan! And I need help carrying back a leg spring!”

“I'll pack for three days.” She says with a smile and a shake of her head. “Is your phone charged?”

“Yep!” I pull it out to demonstrate, only for the screen to remain dark. “Uh, no.” I head back into my room to grab a replacement battery.

By the time I head back outside, Mom has already finished packing once again. I pull on my backpack, she puts on hers, and we set out.

“So have you ever scavenged this one?” Mom asks.

“A little. The engine is entirely missing, and all the body parts I want are too heavy for one person. I was going to wait until Ex- someone could help.”

“Well, I'm glad I can help.” Mom says.

The two of us stay quiet for a while, with me leading the way and the sounds of crunching metal following behind. The entire time a question burns at me, demanding I ask it.

“Is Exa going to be ok?”

“She’ll be fine, she just needs time.” Mom takes a deep breath and loudly exhales. “No, that’s a lie. You’re a teenager, and I need to treat you like you are. The fact is that I don’t know. She’s alive at least. But when an AI turns themselves off, they’re sort of in stasis. She’s not getting better, and at the same time, not getting worse. It can take a lot to snap them out of it. I’m sure Juno and the rest of them are doing their best, but I don’t know.”

“Oh. I could help her! I can talk to her!”

“I’ll let Juno know you offered, but we’ll see what she thinks is best.”

“Ok!”

Walking to the mech is way slower with Mom following, and way slower than I would like, but she’d get lost out here without me. After just half an hour, we come to a large hill, which I begin to climb.

“Where are you going?” Mom asks.

“It’s the fastest way!”

“Uh-huh. I think I’m going to go around. Which way’s faster?”

I find a foothold, grab my tablet, and check the map.

“There’s a path a quarter mile that way.” I point down the ridge.

“Alright. I’ll meet you on the other side. You stay safe, ok?”

“I’ll be ok! My impact prevention system still works!” I tap my backpack to demonstrate. The thing will inflate, surrounding me in an airbag if it detects me falling. “I’ll be safe!”

“Ok good.” Call me if you need me.”

“Ok!” I’ve taken this route before, I already know which handholds are safe. It only takes a few minutes to scramble up the ridge and climb down the other side.

Well I don’t want to just wait here. I start walking along the ridge towards Mom, meeting her in the pass.

She just shakes her head and walks past me.

“What?” I ask.

“You just have way too much energy.”

The rest of the walk is nice, even if Mom needs to take breaks kind of often. The first one comes when she’s breathing hard and is forced to sit down.

“God, it gets dry away from the town." She grabs the neck of her shirt and wipes the sweat off of her face.

“Oh, yeah. You get used to it though!” I add quickly.

“I’m sure you do.” Mom puts down her backpack and digs around for some food and water. “You should eat something too.”

“Right, yeah I always forget to eat.” I take the bar she hands to me.

“I’m aware. I’m the one who puts your leftovers away.”

“Right. Yeah.” I reach up and rub the back of my neck while digging into my food. 

We quickly eat and continue our walk.

“There it is!” I yell and sprint forward, finally picking up the entire reason we came here. The instrument is banged up and it doesn’t make sound, but the air sack is fine! I can work with this! I tuck it safely into my backpack, and keep moving.

“And where’s your mech?” Mom asks.

“Just over this hill!” I rush forward, cresting a mound of scrap. Just a few hundred feet in front of me, half buried, is a Hopper. It looks very similar to Hoppy, just in worse shape, and less pieces.

When it got dumped here, it fell upside down. The empty torso is lodged in the scrap, partially collapsed. Both legs are crumpled atop it, held partially off the ground by large electromagnetic leaf springs running from the torso all the way down to the feet. 

I hurry down the hill and reach it. My heart drops as I finally arrive. A large crack runs through one of the springs, it’s utterly ruined.

It’s fine! One is better than none! Even if my legs are going to be different, I can fix it in software!

I need to get this leg onto the ground. The hip joint is stuck at its rearmost limit. If I can just pull it forward, it should fall flat onto the ground. I grab a rope from my backpack and get to work attaching it to the mech’s knee.

“I can see why this one was totalled.” Mom says as she approaches.

“What do you mean? There are a ton of good parts here!” I complete my knot and roll out the rope as far as it will go. “Can you help me pull?”

“How many mechs have you scrapped for parts?” Mom takes the end of the rope.

“Eighteen? Pull!” The two of us tug hard on the rope. The leg tips forward slowly before gravity takes over, sending it crashing to the ground. The spring is still stuck partially bent. I grab a compact battery from my backpack, connect the terminals to both sides of the spring, and watch it slowly expand. “It works!”

“You want us to carry this whole thing home?”

“Yeah? It’s just an eight foot piece of metal.” I grab my tools and get to work unhooking it.

“Alright, but we’re taking the easy way back. I’m not climbing over that ridge.” Mom steps towards the torso, places one hand on the top, and crouches down, looking inside. “Huh. If they took out the engine, you’d think they’d be more thorough.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’d be surprised about the little compartments pilots use to hide stuff.” She reaches towards the floor and swings an armor plate to the side. Behind it is a compartment, which Mom reaches into and pulls out a small box.

“Woah! Wait, that plate leads directly to the hip joint, you can’t hide a box in there?”

“There’s a small unused gap on most of them. As long as it’s magnetized, it won’t get crushed.” She opens up the small box. Sitting atop the small collection of items is a single photo of two men, their arms wrapped around each other in a tight embrace. Mom grabs it with a small, sad smile.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“If I had to guess? The pilot’s husband. It’s an old superstition to hide a physical picture of whoever you’re trying to get back to.”

“If it’s here, does that mean…”

“Maybe not. If his LADDER system got him to orbit when his mech was disabled, he could have made it home.” She flips it around and finds something written in a weird looping script that I can’t read.

Mom sets the picture carefully to the side and pulls out a pistol buried in the bottom.

“Have you ever found one of these before?”

“I know what it is, but no. And I know I’m not supposed to touch them!”

“Good.” She pulls back the top part of it and looks in a small gap. She glances around the compartment before reaching for another plate of armor. Behind it lies a dull yellow sphere with blocky shapes connecting it to the wall. “Have you messed around with Photon Lock Shields?”

“No. Exa-” I swallow hard. Don’t cry. She’s not dead. Not like- “She told me it’s dangerous.” I say quickly.

“Did she tell you why?”

“Not really. Just that it could kill me.”

“Let me see your battery.” She puts a hand on the small device and flicks a few switches on it, causing the thing to come free. She then places it on a separate piece of metal and flicks the switches once again, causing it to attach to the flat steel.

I hand her my battery and leads, and she places it in her pocket.

“A Photon Lock Shield suspends super-energized photons around your mech, or whatever piece of armor it’s stuck to. It sucks up energy like nothing else, it’ll take as much as you can give it and just get more energetic.” She props up the metal plate and steps back.

I move behind her.

“Bullets pierce armor not just because they’re moving fast or because they’re carrying a lot of energy, but because they’re applying a lot of energy to a very small point. Cover your ears.”

I do so, and she raises the pistol. A moment later a loud explosion makes me jump, and a small hole appears in the metal.

“A Photon Lock Shield is designed to prevent that.” She steps forward and takes out my battery, hooking it up to two of the terminals on the device. A shimmering, barely visible white glow covers the plate. “This thing is pretty well fried. Normally it’d be invisible, but it should still work. What the shield does is dump an unimaginable amount of energy into bullets, vaporizing small calibers and melting larger ones. Your mech will still take the same force, but the armor piercing properties of the bullet will be severely lessened. Cover your ears again.”

I jump just as much from the second explosion. Instead of a hole, the shield flares with light, and only a dent is left in the armor.

“The problem with these is that it’ll put energy into anything opaque that passes through it.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a small medical kit. She cuts off a small amount of a bandage and tosses it at the armor. The fabric immediately ignites, turning to ash. “It’ll do that to your skin if you’re not careful. Exa was right to warn you. Once you get Hoppy up and running, let me know and I’ll help you install one of these.”

“Is that why some mechs use lasers? To get past the shield?”

“It doesn’t get past the shield, but it does disrupt it, letting bullets pass through.” She crouches down and removes the wires from the shield, and the shimmer instantly disappears.

“Why do small mechs only use bullets then?” I ask. “I’ve only seen one small mech with what looked like a laser hookup, although I haven’t actually found a weapon yet.”

“Scouts have a limited engine. Energy you pump into a laser is energy you’re not pumping into your own shields. Scouts already have less armor than any other mech, they need those shields to stay safe.”

“I see.”

She continues going through the box, shifting though small trinkets that I’m sure meant something to someone.

“Did Dad have a box?” I quietly ask.

“He did.” Mom nods. “Kept a picture of us in there, and your first blankie from when you were a baby.”

“Then why didn’t he come back?” My voice breaks.

“Hey, come here.” Mom steps forward and wraps her arms tightly around me, resting her chin atop my head. “I know he did everything he could. And I know he was thinking about us.” Her head lifts off of mine and her hands are placed beneath my armpits. “Why don’t we go watch the sunset?” She easily lifts me up.

“Hey! I’m not a kid!” She places me atop the mech’s chassis and climbs up next to me. “I could have climbed up!”

“I know.” She ruffles my hair and looks out over the junkyard. 

The sun is just now beginning to dip below the horizon, slowly fading the sky from blue, to oranges and pinks, and finally to black as the stars become visible.

“Let’s get some dinner and get some sleep, alright?”

“Ok.”

Dinner is silent, and it’s not long before we set out our sleeping bags under the stars.

“Goodnight Scarlet. Don’t let the scrap rats bite.”

“I won’t. Good night.”

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