“No, we didn’t know you were a Mecha Child. We needed a scientist. Reef 6 has been up and running with this hodgepodge group for three years and they never sent a scientist for the mechas. When we sent our latest request, they sent you. It seems there wasn’t a scientist that suited this base till you.”

            “Let me ask you this. Why are there six mecha units here? Isn’t each base only allotted up to three units?”

            “We have two mechas, like all the other bases. Both pilots are in a coma, the other four are from two other Reefs and their pilots are also in comas.”

            “I’ll examine the units, but I am sure that they will be fine. The cause I’m sure will be mental, so we are going to have to figure out what happened between these pilots.”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            “You can call me Rosalind. Am I allowed to see the pilots? I’m not a doctor so I won’t go near them, I just want to see them.”

            “Yes, that is not a problem. I can take you there after this mecha’s examination.”

            “Great! Lt. Lee.”

            Rosalind took two hours to check Bleu. It took longer than usual because there was no pilot to expedite the process. After Bleu passed his checks, Rosalind and Lt. Lee left that building and through another maze of hallways found their way to a medical bay that connected to a room with a large window that revealed six pilots. Four of them were men and two of them were women. And they were all hooked up to monitors.

            “So which ones are ours?” Rosalind asked curious to see who she would be working with.

            “The two guys closest to us.”

            “I didn’t ask, but does Bleu belong to this base?”

            “It’s surprising, but he does. His pilot is the one closest to us.”

            The pilots were covered with a thin white sheet that laid just below their neck and as it was tucked underneath them it outlined their muscular bodies. The two pilots that belonged to Reef 6 had noticeable skin peeling from a recent sunburn, that was still healing. The others also had some semblance of having been in the sun for too long, which allowed Rosalind to surmise that they were together just before they all entered their comas.

            “Did they do something together before entering their comas?” Rosalind asked.

            “They did. They had a group exercise over the ocean, that didn’t go well. The mechas expelled their pilots and left them in the sand and returned to this Reef on their own.”

            “That explains those sunburns. Do you know what went wrong during the exercise?”

            “They couldn’t agree on who should lead the exercise and fought amongst themselves, till the mechas expelled them.”

            “That’s pretty harsh. But I expect that they will be released from their comas soon. The mechas are trying to teach them a lesson. I guarantee that the pilots are communicating with each other through the mechas.”

            “How can you be sure?”

            “Well, the mechas are still with the bodies. I am pretty sure if you moved one of the bodies their mecha would follow. How long have they been like this?”

            “It’s been two days.”

            “I can try talking around Bleu to get him to release them sooner, but it probably would be better to just let them ride this out. The mechas were sent here with a mission and pilots fighting amongst themselves won’t fly with them, even if it is an exercise.”

            “You should talk to … Bleu, just in case. Can you do it now?” Lt. Lee was a bit embarrassed to be using Rosalind’s name for the mecha, but he decided to allow it when talking to Rosalind.

            “Sure, let’s go.”

            They spent no more than twenty minutes starring at the unconscious pilots, before returning to Bleu.

            “Hey Bleu, we’re back. This is Lieutenant Lee if you didn’t know. I saw that you and the other mechas have those pilots in comas.” Rosalind spoke using a normal inside voice volume knowing Bleu could hear it. He didn’t respond to her or move, and Rosalind didn’t care, she knew he was listening and that was enough.

            “I know you are trying to teach them a lesson, but they should be doing it out here with us and you all together, not inside trapped in their minds and yours. They also don’t always get to make their own decisions, they have commanders that tell them what to do, who can also be wrong sometimes. So even though they need to work as a group with you mechas, other people need to learn how to work together too. And they aren’t capable of doing that while the pilots are trapped with you mechas. Let them go and if you tell the pilots what upset you, they’ll work with you and their higher-ups to fix it.”

            “Do you think it will work?”

            “Hopefully, because it's hard to do these assessments without the pilots, plus eventually I’ll need the pilots for my experiments. I’ve done all I can do here, let’s get dinner and I’ll go home and sleep. Maybe the pilots’ conditions will change by morning.”

            Lt. Lee and Rosalind shared a quiet and quick dinner. Reef 6’s food was surprisingly just as good as what the main base offered.

            “Wow, this food isn’t too bad,” Rosalind smiled. Food was the only way to her heart and the only thing that could calm her when she was raging.

            “You can expect to be treated with the food offered here, our cook is probably the best. He’s here because he wanted to do his own thing with the menu and ingredients and the other bases’ higher-ups wouldn’t have it.”

            “If not for Bleu, I’m glad I ended up here.”
            “How did you end up a Mecha Child? Weren’t they all released back to their parents, soon after the program even started?”

            “I was sold to the military by my parents and the kids that the military had use for were kept until they were 18 and offered to become civilians.”

            “Well, how many did they keep?” Lt. Lee asked trying to ignore Rosalind’s first comment.

            “I don’t know a few, like two or three. The mechas communicated well with the youngest kids and those two or three older ones, so by the time the program was over the older kids were mostly gone and they didn’t have a use for the younger ones anymore. But that left me and the other two, but I don’t know what they ended up doing.”

            “Well, it’s getting late, and I’d like to go home too, so why don’t we head out?”

            “Sure.”