As Jen-Li inspected the mech for their departure, she knew Terra wanted to ask her the burning questions. Now what? Now where? Instead, she burrowed beneath her tarp, bracing herself for the snowstorm beyond the hostel’s protective overhang. Townspeople passed them cautiously, some looping back again to get another look at the creature that had watched them silently in the night. Jen-Li had become accustomed to the stares and had learned how to separate the curious from the malicious. But one stare was different, causing a rise in the hairs on her neck that was not from the biting cold. She turned to meet the man’s gaze, perched high in his mech across the street.
“What is that?” Terra asked as her mother scrambled into her seat, rattling the ladder back up behind her. Terra leaned forward as Jen-Li flicked switch after switch, muttering the sequence to herself beneath her rushed breath. “Is it a mech?”
The machine was grotesque. Larger and taller than a standard mech, it was bulky yet lithe as it maneuvered into the street. It appeared to be constructed of a thousand different pieces, welded together and painted black so it stood out like a dark dot on the crisp snow. The arms were fixed outward, heavy with weaponry that may or may not have been operational. The man in the cockpit studied them from beneath his hood, weighed down by a thick layer of accumulating snow.
“It’s a hybrid,” Jen-Li muttered, cursing as the opposing machine turned and disappeared into the storm. Finally, her mech roared to life and charged after him, now a barely visible outline in the flurry. Wiping the snow from her eyes, Jen-Li fought to keep the hybrid in focus. She was not used to seeing a mech from this viewpoint, as the observer instead of the handler. She understood now why the giant’s figure caused a concoction of fascination mixed with terror. Her heart raced as she pushed her mech harder and harder, trusting it would find footing in the blinding storm. Suddenly, a burst of fire rocketed into the air and the hybrid was gone.
“There!” Terra screamed above the engine roar. She tapped her mother’s shoulder sharply as a wave of bullets pummeled their right exterior, ringing as they made contact and dropped like sizzling tears into the snow. Terra screamed and ducked down as their mech struggled to stay upright.
Swinging around, Jen-Li retaliated with the only weapon she was equipped with. At her touch, a cannon descended from the belly of her mech and dispatched a flurry of shells towards the hybrid. She could hear the projectiles make contact, dull thuds followed by loud sputters of electricity. Again, a blast of light flashed through the white storm and the hybrid disappeared.
Jen-Li became lost in her breath, trapped in the strange white noise created by her mech’s engine and the roaring winds around them. She looked around but could see nothing except that constant white snow. Her finger hovered above the trigger as the cannon followed along with her line of sight. Terra peeked out from beneath her tarp and squinted up into the sky.
"I hear something!”
Holding her breath, Jen-Li listened. She tried to keep an eye on the sky while focusing on the sounds around her. Then, she heard it. The heavy footsteps and hum of mechanics that was unmistakable. It was another mech. Both she and Terra jumped at the sudden clash of metal on metal happening somewhere in the blinding snowstorm.
“I bet it’s Aunt Nina! It’s got to be!” Terra shouted, tumbling backward as their mech sprinted forward.
Jen-Li agreed. In fact, those footsteps and hum had sounded all too familiar, even from a moment over eight years old. The trailing sound of her sister’s mech as she left town was a memory burned into her mind like none other. She raced towards the sound until finally coming upon the two mechs, locked together too close for Jen-Li to safely fire at. She watched as Nina’s mech lifted one foot and stomped the hybrid into the ground, knocking the driver out into the snow. The hybrid flailed until darkening out of commission, aware it had no controller and therefore, no life.
“Nina!” Jen-Li screamed as her sister turned in her direction. It was her, eyes on fire and all. Her mech leaped forward and vanished into the snow, returning with the hybrid driver locked in her mech’s firm grasp. The man struggled but was too tangled in his heavy coat to escape.
The sisters met at the base of their mechs. Jen-Li held her sister’s face in her hands and examined it. Older and adorned with fine lines around the eyes and mouth, her skin was tight and tan from the elements. Nina studied her sister as well, shaking her head as though tallying up the years in her mind.
“I heard the cannon!” she shouted above the wind. She smiled stiffly. “There was no mistaking that bucket of bolts.” She looked over at the hybrid driver, glaring at them from his seat in the snow. “And I’ve been tracking him for some time now.”
“What’s his use?” Jen-Li asked. “Look at the mess he made of that mech.”
“He knows where the Heart is. He’s here for it, too,” Nina said, keeping her eyes locked on the man. She looked back at her sister. “We are so close.”
“It is real?” Terra had appeared between the sisters. “The Heart is real?”
“Terra…” Nina whispered, bending down to her niece’s height. She touched her damp hair and fought the tears that threatened her eyes. “I can’t believe it.”
Jen-Li stepped closer to the hybrid driver. She didn’t like the look of him as he glared at her from beneath his shaggy brown hair. He looked like a drowned rat with his tangled coat soaked with muddy snow. Anyone that would bastardize a mech was twisted in her opinion. A cheater, a thief, a pathetic excuse for a machinist. The thought of someone like him finding the Heart of Mech made her sick.
Because now, she could call it by name. Now, it existed. Known by some and seen by less, the Heart was said to be the origin of all mech, containing the original plans and framework for the first device and dozens of designs after. Secrets of the machine that no one had shared or taught. Hidden away once mechs became used for war, some believed if the Heart was placed inside a mech it would take on life. Real consciousness, the next level of mech. A living, breathing machine that did not need sustenance or sleep, just that beating heart. It was a thought that crossed Jen-Li’s mind many times. What if her mech could come to life? What would it say? What would it do? Surely they weren’t meant to stay silent forever. And what could they achieve together?
They left the hybrid to become buried in the drifts of snow, a strange mountain of metal to be stumbled upon one day, someday. Returning to Nina’s dilapidated shack with the hybrid driver in tow, Nina and Jen-Li secured him before dragging him into the dwelling that provided some protection from the snowstorm. Terra attempted to build a fire to penetrate the damp cold. The man watched them as he tried to shake his dripping hair out of his eyes.
“I’ll get right to it,” Nina said breathlessly as she brushed the moisture from her coat. She stood in front of the hybrid driver and stomped the snow from her feet. “I’ve heard you found an old relic. Where is it?”
“You left my mech in the snow,” the man grumbled. “It’s gone by now.”
“That’s not a mech,” Jen-Li snapped from across the room. “It’s a trash heap.”
The man laughed hoarsely. “Trash that almost took you down.”
Nina held her hand up. “What’s your name?” she asked, crouching down to his level on the floor.
“Tirus,” the man answered carefully.
“Tirus,” Nina repeated. She stared at him, hard. “It’s of no use to your machine. If you tell me where it is, I’ll get your hybrid back.”
Visibly considering Nina’s offer, the man’s eyes flickered around the shack. Tirus stopped and stared at Jen-Li before nodding. “Done.”
“Too quick to agree,” Jen-Li objected. She pointed at him. “He knows something.”
Nina stood up stiffly. “No doubt he does. Likely he knows he can’t reach the Heart without a true mech. Your hybrid just didn’t cut it, did it?” she suggested, arms crossed.
Tirus didn’t reply but it was enough of an answer for Nina. She walked past him and began shoving any extra supplies she could find into her pockets. “I’ve been after this a long time too, my friend,” she said. “Don’t believe everything you hear. The Heart won’t work in your hybrid. It can’t. But I guess you’ll have to see that for yourself.”
The group left the next morning before the winds became too strong. Nina led the way with Tirus secured in her backseat as Jen-Li and Terra followed closely behind. They trekked east towards the rising sun, near-blinding in the glistening snow. Jen-Li grew impatient with this landscape, composed of flat fields that stretched on for ages, piling with snow that melted only to be covered again and again. She longed for the trees and mountains of home, for the dew that gathered on the windowsill in the morning. For the smell that hung in her workshop, an aromatic mixture of oil and dust that now she craved. But it wasn’t time to go home. Not yet.
Towards the end of day, a line of dark figures appeared on the horizon, flickering through breaks in the snowstorm. It was a ridge of tall rocks, jutting through the flat, frozen ground conspicuously. Nina halted her mech several yards from the ridgeline and led Tirus to her sister and niece.
“You follow in your mech, I’ll go with him on foot,” Nina ordered loudly, pointing towards the ridgeline. She looked up at the quickly darkening sky. “Be ready for anything.”
As they approached, the ridgeline was more impressive than Jen-Li assumed from a distance. Spattered with cracks and pits, the thick rock had aged well in that harsh environment. The group circled to the other side, Nina and Tirus leading the way through the thick drifts of snow. Jen-Li turned on her mech’s lamps, creating a beam of concentrated light so powerful it threatened to penetrate the rock itself. Terra emerged from beneath her tarp and joined her mother at the front of their mech. They watched Nina and Tirus converse, their shadows growing to giants in the mech’s harsh lamplight.
“Do you think this is it?” Terra asked. Her voice sounded very hopeful and young, too innocent to be out in that howling darkness. Many times on this journey Jen-Li had doubted herself, wondering if this was the place for her daughter. But now, on the edge of that ridgeline, it felt right. She recalled the stories her mother and grandmother had passed down about the Heart of Mech. They played out in her mind, the history and the hope placed upon that object of the past that promised so much. It spurred them to keep tradition alive and to answer the call when it came to them in the night, whispering of what could be if they sought it.
“This is it,” Jen-Li said. She gripped her hands around her mech’s controls firmly, so tight she could feel her own heartbeat in her clenched palms. She imagined the Heart within the rock, waiting to be unearthed so it could beat as well. Her mech took a step forward.
Nina and Tirus both looked up at the mech’s sudden movement. Jen-Li removed her hands from the controls then returned them, causing the mech to move forward again at the slightest touch. Terra’s eyes widened. She placed her hands on top of her mother’s gloves and the mech jumped forward, forcing Nina and Tirus to roll out of the way.
Breathlessly, Jen-Li and Terra held on as their mech charged towards the line of rocks. Grasping at the controls, Jen-Li doubted whether she was actually directing her machine or not. The mech continued to pick up speed and Jen-Li could hear Nina’s shouts mixed with the whistling wind. Grabbing Terra, she braced for impact as the mech slid to a stop. When she opened her eyes she found herself several inches from the face of the rock, the red light from her mech focused on a small, inconspicuous crack in the stone. Jen-Li reached out and touched the rock that began to crumble beneath her fingertips.
“Hold on,” Jen-Li told Terra, reeling back the mech’s arm. She released it and the felt the clash of metal on rock vibrate in her teeth. Again and again, she reeled back and released, reeled back and released. As the dust settled and mixed with the falling snow, Jen-Li climbed across her mech’s extended arm and reached inside the rock. Scratching through the loose dust, she held her breath as she sifted through the debris. She reached further and further, straining to fit her hand in the small space. Finally, her fingers brushed against smooth metal, cold and biting. Her sister ran forward with her flashlight swinging wildly just as Jen-Li pulled the Heart from the rubble.
—
“If you do this, there’s no going back.”
Jen-Li glanced over at her sister. Nina was staring at her sister’s mech, its chest cavity open and waiting beneath the ancient fir tree outside her old dwelling. It was very early morning, before the snow had a chance to pick up the pace and accumulate for the day. Faint lines appeared on the horizon as the sun began its climb through the hazy sky. Terra stood beside her mother and aunt, wrapped in a heavy blanket and still dazed from a night of heavy sleep. But Jen-Li and Nina had not slept, staying up all night to design a placement for the Heart of Mech. To create a home for something only dreamed to be possible.
“Why is he still here?” Jen-Li asked loudly, nodding over to Tirus. His restraints had been removed and now he stood against the fir tree, arms crossed. He narrowed his eyes at her.
“He did help,” Nina admitted. “He’s like us, whether you want to accept it or not. Would you want to be denied this moment?” She looked at her sister, eyes heavy with lack of sleep. “And he’s right. There would be no going back.”
“And that’s what we want,” Jen-Li whispered fiercely. She grasped the Heart in her hands harder, cleaned and polished meticulously. It was beautiful in a strange sort of way, a creation of old mechanics that stood the test of time, protected all those years within its tomb of stone. Fashioned to resemble the shape and size of a human heart, its design did not go unnoticed by Jen-Li. Or what the creator was trying to communicate.
“Go ahead,” Terra urged her mother. “I want to see what happens!”
“I trust this,” Jen-Li said, standing in front of her sister and holding out the Heart.
Nina pushed it way. “Then go,” she said quietly. “It chose you and your mech. And I trust that.”
Jen-Li needed no other prompting. Approaching her mech, she studied it as a silent partner for the last time. Built with her own sweat and blood, every inch of that machine was known to her except for one. Inserting the Heart into the chest cavity, Jen-Li locked it in place and closed the compartment, patting it three times as was tradition. She stepped back, watching and waiting as the mech processed the new addition to its system. Terra slipped her hand into her mother’s palm as the Heart’s mechanics ticked to a start.
“The mists are rising. It’s time to go home.”
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