Lt. Lee almost ran into the poor people just trying to step in line to grab food while he was escaping his duty of monitoring Rosalind. She sighed a sigh of relief, but noticed that once again there were eyes on her in the mess hall.

            ‘At this point, I am going to have to eat lunch alone in my office,’ Rosalind thought, with a sigh. She suddenly didn’t feel like eating anymore, as the anxiety started to close her stomach off. Looking down at her food she saw she had barely eaten a fourth of it. Rosalind knew eating a small amount was going to cause another fainting spell so she decided to pack the food up and take it with her to her office to finish when her stomach would permit food again.

            Back at the office Rosalind sat down at her desk and began typing up a recount of her interaction with the mechas earlier that day. As she sat there thinking about the information in the report, she slowly munched on her food. It was curious as to how the mechas were seemingly slowly letting pilots unlock their abilities.

            ‘This is worrisome,” Rosalind began to think long and hard. ‘If the mechas, who had been rather stable in interacting with their pilots till now, were forcefully pushing them to unlock more abilities that might mean something is happening. But what? And is it connected to why they were at the beach?’

            Rosalind knew she had no answers to these questions. The mechas continued to be a huge mystery since they were removed from the package left by the Gargantuans. Unfortunately, the message the Gargantuans left didn’t offer any instructions on the mecha. Now that communication has resumed with the mecha the military was going to field swaths of questions that Rosalind was going to be required to hear their answers from Bleu. At least Rosalind was no longer military, and thus no longer at their beck and call. Of course, she wanted to do everything she could to help them out, especially since they raised her but she had set hard boundaries with them when she decided to become a civilian.

            Taking the initiative here was Rosalind’s best course of action. She needed to anticipate all the military’s questions and field them to Bleu and record his responses. With a jump start on this, she hoped Major Green could develop a queuing system for the military’s questions. But first, she needed to perform routine examinations on the other mechas. Bleu didn’t need another examination, which Rosalind was glad about, but she moaned having to deal with the work of examining the four other units that didn’t belong to this base.

            In attempting to get to the tower holding the mecha Rosalind was going to examine today she had to go through Bleu’s tower. It was customary for pilots to hang around the mecha they piloted to attain familiarity with the machine. Rosalind tried to avoid running into Lt. Anderson by choosing a floor that she thought would be uncommon for him to be on and entered into the circular walkway it was empty from Rosalind’s perspective and as she walked along with it no one else was spotted. She opened the door to the hallway connecting the towers and came across Lt. Martinez. He was sitting on a lounge sofa and reading a manual of sorts that was propped up by his leg which was casually laying across the other one.   

            As soon as Rosalind had swung open the door Lt. Martinez had noticed her. He scrambled to his feet and the manual slid from his leg onto the couch when he saw her but relaxed again when he noticed no one else was with her. Rosalind was a little overwhelmed with being alone with him, but she figured this would be a good opportunity to take a step towards controlling her fear, especially since she wasn’t as afraid of him as Lt. Anderson. She also noticed his hesitation in approaching her as well, which she appreciated. He let her come to him and address him if she was comfortable with it.

            “H-Hi, um, Lt. Martinez, right?” Rosalind asked softly keeping her eyes on her conveniently propped up tablet.

            “Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

            “You can call me Rosalind. I am going to examine your mecha at this time. If you have time now, I’d appreciate your help.”

            “Yes, Miss Rosalind. Let’s go.”

            “Alright,” Rosalind replied taking the initiative and leading Lt. Martinez to his mecha.

            Lt. Martinez grabbed his manual and followed behind Rosalind, but not too close. She opened the door using her hip and leaning her weight on the door to the next tower’s circular walkway, while Lt. Martinez proceeded to walk over to the nearest desk and set his manual down. Now that Rosalind could focus on Lt. Martinez, she could see that his muscles filled out his uniform stretching out most of the creases. He seemed to be trying hard to hold back his comments, speaking only when spoken to. Although it was becoming a little awkward with the under-the-breath noises he was making.

            “What is it that you want to say?” Asked Rosalind. She tried to not sound offended but it may have come off sounding like that because of the extra energy she used to push her voice through her trembling vocal cords.

            “How are you able to speak with the mechas?”

            “I can only speak with one, I assume it’s because I’m a former Mecha Child.”

            “Oh, that makes sense.” Lt. Martinez said. He had more questions but knew his place and wouldn’t allow himself to waste any more time, “Let’s begin the examination.”

            “Alright,” Rosalind agreed, she responded rather excitedly, and it caught her by surprise, but she felt good about it.