After calming down with some deep breathing exercises she gathered her courage to attempt to go to the store and purchase food, among other things she needed. Upon opening her door, she saw Lt. Lee pacing back and forth on her tiny porch.

            “Hi,” Rosalind tried to speak, but her voice was somehow worse than before.

            “Uh, you don’t perhaps have any food, do you?” Rosalind asked with her broken voice, hoping he would either have food and give it to her or let her buy food, so she doesn’t pass out again.

            “Ah, I didn’t think to bring any. Anyways, we have a problem.”

            “Up-pup-pup, before that. I need food, I’ll pass out and be useless. So, take me to get food and while I eat you can then tell me whatever it is you need to tell me.”

            “Fine. Hurry, get in the car.”

            Rosalind casually took a seat in the open door of the front passenger seat of the car. She felt comfortable there because that was where she had sat last night when being dropped off.  After positioning her seat belt, Lt. Lee drove three times above the speed limit to a nearby fast-food joint, ordered Rosalind what she wanted, and then began driving her away from the base.

            “Okay, where are you taking me? What’s going on?” Rosalind asked while sounding worried with her messed up voice.

            “I honestly don’t know myself, but the mechas left their towers, and started moving to the coast.”

            “What about the pilots?”

            “They’re heading out in vehicles chasing after them.”

            “So, why are you getting me?”

            “You’re the mecha scientist, aren’t you?”

            “Oh, yeah. Darn. Why did all this have to happen? It’s so stupid.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The reason I was in the room with the pilots this morning was that I had a weird dream about all of them doing their flybys over the water and beach and I wondered if that meant that they would be awake or something. But checking in on them and thinking it was going to be safe, was a bad idea. No one could have guessed what happened would happen. Right?”

            “I’m sorry for what you got into. You must have been scared.”

            “Yeah, I was relieved someone finally showed up. I had been pinned by that Lt. Anderson for so long. I thought I was going to die.”

            “Were you hurt? You left in a hurry…”

            “Ah, sort of, I’m pretty sure my arms are going to have huge bruises in the shape of hands.”

            “I should have been there, sooner. I’m sorry.”

            “Anyways, did the mechas move on their own, or did the pilots try to enter them again? Do you know if anything caused them to leave?”

            “The report is that they just got up on their own.”

            “I guess we’ll see what’s going on when we arrive.”

            Despite feeling anxious that she was heading into danger again after what had happened before, Rosalind was even more curious about what was going on. She figured the mecha were upset. They aren’t exactly tools that will just follow the will of anyone operating them, hence their ability to move on their own, but what was she going to do about it? What was she prepared to do? At most, for the moment, Rosalind would try talking to the mechas, but that was it, that was all she could do. 

            The drive was taking a lot longer than Rosalind imagined it would, despite how fast Lt. Lee was driving. It had already been a while since the two of them could see the mechas. There was nothing on the base that could obstruct the view of them. Seeing all six at once was the craziest thing. ‘What are they even doing out here on the beach?’ Rosalind wondered.

            “Is this where the training exercises were happening?”

            “More or less, the pilots get the mechas to fly from the base over the ocean for their routines, the flyby that sent the pilots into comas was the first attempt at flying more than two mechas in uniform from different bases. After the pilots were found to be in comas, the other bases did not attempt any more of these exercises.”

            “I wouldn’t either,” Rosalind nodded in agreement with the decisions the bases had made.

            Lt. Lee stopped the car, behind a lot of other government vehicles that had come from the base. Rosalind didn’t want to get out of the car but followed Lt. Lee closely when he hopped out. He was unfortunately the only person she could trust at the moment. Following him led to a huge group of people shouting at each other to do something about the situation. Looking around Rosalind saw the pilots paired off by base sitting slumped over in the trunk of vehicles. When she tried to return her attention to keeping close to Lt. Lee she realized, he wandered off.

            ‘Crap, I lost Lt. Lee. This sucks.’

             Rosalind tried to move further away from the pilots and became entranced by the size of the mechas. All six of them looked the same, just as they were when she had seen them as a child, with no rust, color changes, or adornments from the bases. It had been a long time since she had seen them from the bottom up. She was taller now, but that didn’t matter when you were comparing the few feet, she gained in height to a 350 ft object. The mecha were more or less standing in a semicircle with a few of them taking a dip in the ocean.

            Walking towards the front of the crowd, Rosalind found Lt. Lee discussing something with Lt. Smith and Major Green. For a second, she wondered if she should even go up to them, they were certainly going to tell her to go up to the mecha and examine them, but she’d rather sit back and watch everything from a distance. Major Green noticed her immediately and beckoned her to him.

            “Rosalind, I know you have been through a lot today already, but would you be able to go examine the mechas? No one here has as much experience as you, except the pilots and they are-”

            “Relaxing in the back of the trunks of a few SUVs, yeah I saw. Are they back to their normal selves, yet?” Rosalind tried to reply laying on the sass but nothing was coming out right when her voice wasn’t at 100%. Major Green made a look at Rosalind. She couldn’t tell if it was from the sound of her voice or her reply. Either way he was clearly focused on priority number one: the mechas.