MECH

by Tim Marquitz

  Vestige Grey waited, leaving Antiquity further unsettled. Her grandmother always knew how to make her talk.

  “Do you think they would have killed me?” Antiquity asked.

  “Maybe. The Dreadth family has always taken delight in their violence. And that Manson… he likes it more than most his age.”

  “Why?”

  “Men teach boys who eventually become men,” Vestige said. “It is a vicious cycle. And it is the way of the world. Perhaps it always has been.”

  “It wasn’t always so,” Antiquity pressed. “We once ruled.”

  “True. Our family did rule once, my mother the last of our reign. Before the Dreadths ascended. Before we became Grey-shamed.” The old woman frowned, craning her head to the horizon in search of a fading sun she could not see. “The past. It is ever-present in the now; yet, neither the past, nor the present, should be sacrificed for the future. You are that future. You must be smarter, Antiquity. We will not be Greys forever. A time will come when we regain our true name. But giving those in power reason to kill us… that is not the way. We must bide our time.” Vestige gripped Antiquity’s shoulder. “Manson Dreadth attacked you for a real reason. He mentioned a secret. Do you have a secret I should know about, my last granddaughter?”

  Antiquity was unsure of what to say. She hadn’t had time to figure out what she was going to do with her find.

  “Antiquity unearthed a mech, just east of Solomon Fyre, Matriarch Grey,” Chekker answered, the bot hovering near her airbike.

  “Chekker!”

  “A mech?” Vestige Grey asked, brow furrowing. “That can’t be possible.”

  “It is possible, Matriarch,” the bot replied. “We unearthed it this morning at zero-nine-fifty.”

  Her grandmother’s grip on her shoulder lost its tenderness, fingers clamping down. “Is this true?”

  She couldn’t hide her discovery now. “It is.”

  Vestige was as still as a statue. Antiquity couldn’t read her.

  “The mech is complete, unmolested,” Chekker added, hovering now before the matriarch. “Treachery brought it down, its systems compromised by a source from the outside, before it could even join the Splinter War. That’s why it is intact. It never made it to battle.”

  “How did you find it?” Vestige asked Antiquity.

  “Yesterday’s wind storm moved enough sand from one of its hands it became visible. And we happened upon it first,” she said, giving Chekker a dark look. Still, the sharing of her secret gave rise to a certain excitement. “I uncovered more of it, lots more, and Chekker opened the cockpit! I covered it back over, to keep it safe.”

  “I opened the faceplate,” the hovering bot said. “The driver is of your house and, based on the uniform and biologic presence, it is my belief that we discovered the remains of your mother, the Lady Laurellyn Grey.”

  Chekker had not told Antiquity that important bit. She had assumed the driver had been a man. Fresh excitement replaced any pain Manson had given her. Had she actually found her great-grandmother?

  The blind woman did not respond. She let go of her granddaughter’s shoulder. Her hands tremored, so she folded them before her.

  “Her surname was not Grey, Chekker,” Vestige murmured finally. “You know that.”

  “It is the surname I am charg—”

  “What proof do you offer?” Vestige cut the bot off.

  “The proof lies buried in the sands,” the bot replied. “I did not have time to copy the system data.”

  “Chekker unlocked the mech. I can verify what he saw with the uniform, at least. It was our family.” Antiquity took a deep breath, though tears sprang into her eyes anyway. “They killed her, didn’t they? The Dreadths. It’s the treachery Chekker mentioned.”

  “Our two families have hated one another for a long time,” Vestige said, fully composed once more. “And the one family that most benefited from her disappearance was the Dreadths. My mother was a strong woman. A stronger leader. I was young then, younger than you are now, and even I knew how dangerous she could be. And how precarious her position. We thought her mech obliterated, no evidence left. The Dreadths have ruled ever since that day. And they have worked hard to destroy our family name, erase it from history, and ensure it never rises again.”

  “If that’s true, and the data inside the mech can be gathered, this could change all of that!”

  “How?”

  “If the people know the truth—”

  “They will what, child? Revolt?” Vestige shook her head. “This is a hard life with harder lessons. They would find a way to kill us before such information could be used.” Grandmother moved before her granddaughter and took the younger’s hands into her own, imparting Antiquity with a solemn look as if her eyes could see all too clearly. “Women ran across this world. Women flew through its clouds. Women strong as men. Especially in our family. Once,” the old woman said. “No more. Remember those days, Chekker? The strife. The blood. The death. The women of Solomon Fyre have been ground beneath the boot heel of Dreadth men for decades now. And there is nothing we, as Grey women, can do about it.

  “So, granddaughter, I am ordering you, as your matriarch… leave that mech buried.”

  Antiquity pulled free of her grandmother’s leathery grip. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. “That is the very thing we should not do!”

  Vestige darkened. “You are naïve and foolish, Antiquity. I have seen what happens to those who challenge the Dreadths. The men, gone. Buried in the mines. Women, too. I have lives to keep safe beyond your own. If you do this, I will have to denounce you as a heretic, in public, before the Elders. You will become a soul without house or home. It is the only way to keep everyone alive.”

  “History has proven Matriarch Grey’s words as correct,” said Chekker, the bot now hovering before Antiquity. “I, too, have witnessed it.”

  “I will break history then,” Antiquity said.

  Vestige stood tall and straight, a blade about to fall. Long moments passed.

  Then, with her three guiding balls of light swirling about her, she turned and walked the way she had come. She did not look back.

  Leaving Antiquity and Chekker alone.

  The heat of the day began to take hold. Antiquity Grey had already uncovered the mech’s head, having departed Solomon Fyre long before dawn colored the sky. She had said goodbye to her living quarters, thinking that it was likely the last she would see of the former mech eyrie.

  It had been fitful sleep, plagued by fears. She awoke in darkness, suffocated by it, gritty eyes and pounding heart. She had made her choice the night before and prepared; that choice required leaving the eyrie before anyone else awoke. If she didn’t, eyes would be watching for her. It was best those eyes began their hunt long after she was outside the city. She would not be deterred. This was the only way to set right what had been wrong for so very long.

  Chekker located the mech with ease. The bot remained by her side, a protector to the end, regardless of her decision.

  Being a Grey with its attached stigma, the bot had been her only friend.

  And remained so, no matter the consequence.

  It had not taken Antiquity long to remove Laurellyn Grey from her harness. She had gently placed her within a mort-shroud, giving special care to the mummified remains of her ancestor. Laurellyn was nothing but skin, hair, and bone, but her ancestor would be given an honorable rest, fired to ash, then loosed upon the winds of her eyrie. It was a freedom she had more than earned, and more than deserved.

  The sun beat down on them as Chekker continued to copy the mech’s internal systems. The data would help Antiquity disprove the history that had resulted in her family’s shaming.

  “The mech’s name, if you’re curious, is Saph Fyre.”

  “What?” Antiquity was pulled from her thoughts.

  “The mech,” the bot said from within the cockpit. “Its name is Saph Fyre. Quite clever, really, given its home and original appearanc
e.”

  “Hard to believe this is the last mech of Solomon Fyre,” Antiquity said.

  “When I was created, so long ago now, the eyries were occupied by more than a hundred of these marvels,” Chekker shared, spinning while he continued his work. “Each one served a secondary purpose with distinct capabilities, even though every pilot was sworn to defend the city. You have seen video of them, taking to the skies.”

  Antiquity nodded, remembering.

  “Even for one such as I, a machine,” Chekker said, “it was truly a marvel.”

  “Maybe the skies above Solomon Fyre will see it happen again.” Antiquity shut her eyes and imagined it.

  “I am detecting functionality.”

  It took Antiquity a few moments to realize the bot had changed subjects. “What do you mean?”

  Chekker levitated out of the cockpit. The bot flew toward the mech’s arm. There, he began to spin. Faster, then faster still, until the hexagons of his body became a blur and, suddenly, light emanated from him.

  On the mech’s steel plating, images appeared: the interior of the cockpit; the view, as the mech flew from a younger, brighter, more civilized Solomon Fyre…

  The pilot. Laurellyn Grey.

  Chekker’s voice whirled outward: “These are Saph Fyre’s last catalogued moments.”

  Antiquity watched as a woman, with younger but all-too-similar features to those of her grandmother’s, guided her mech through the skies above to confront an invading force intent on pillaging her city’s ore resources. Before her, battalions of mechs seared the sky, while she remained in low altitude, orchestrating their efforts.

  When the Splinter War arrived above Solomon Fyre, explosions tearing apart the skies as the two forces met, Laurellyn Grey was ready. She yelled orders, and her commanders reacted, stymying the invaders, pushing the enemy back. The battle continued beyond the initial clash. It was clear to Antiquity that the leadership of Laurellyn Grey would see them through the worst of it.

  Then, Saph Fyre’s interior went dark. There had been no attack, nothing to warrant the cause. Laurellyn Grey panicked as the gear and goggles that allowed her to control the mech detached from her without permission. Saph Fyre started to plummet. Tears filled Antiquity’s eyes. She watched her great-grandmother scream into her com-apparatus for aid.

  Dead air.

  No response.

  Mechs exploded above, a rain of burning metal fell. Saph Fyre plowed into the earth, displays dimming into a void of misinformation, and then blackness.

  The images faded.

  Antiquity felt ill.

  “That is the end.”

  “Did you find out what happened?” Antiquity asked.

  The bot had stopped spinning and levitated toward her. “A molecu-virus, activated remotely when the mech had gained a certain elevation.”

  “Sabotage. Had to be the Dreadths.”

  “Probable, given the time period. No certainty can be gained from the evidence.”

  Antiquity wanted to punch something. She wanted real proof that the Dreadths had been behind her family’s fall. The video and the existence of the molecu-virus corroborated that Laurellyn Grey had been murdered. The effect of her death could not be ignored; leaderless, the mech corps had fallen after that, and the ransacking of Solomon Fyre resulted in her family’s removal from power. Antiquity could clear their name, no longer Greys, but the Dreadths would still lead the Elders.

  She suddenly realized how difficult all of that would be.

  Still thinking about what to do, Chekker gained elevation in a sudden burst, the bot sensing something.

  “Danger approaches. Enter the cockpit.”

  “What?”

  “Now!”

  Antiquity struggled up the sandy embankment she’d created with her airbike and peered out at the desert. She saw nothing. When she turned back, her heart leapt into her throat. Sand dust. Lots of it. Swirling up into the sky. Something large approached.

  Or a large group.

  “We have to get out of here!” she yelled and scrambled to her airbike.

  The sand dust that had come from the direction of Solomon Fyre whipped about her even as several airbikes zipped past, circling the location of the mech in a blur. At least a dozen of them, maybe more.

  She looked over at Chekker, who hovered near her shoulder. The bot did not move, waiting. She did the same. Her grandmother always said keeping calm was the most important aspect in life; panicking now would avail her nothing. There was no doubt, though, she was in more danger than the previous day.

  “Look, my boys! What have we here?”

  Above her, on the sands overlooking Saph Fyre, Manson Dreadth straddled his airbike. He pulled his goggles up and gazed at the mech. When his eyes met Antiquity’s, he grinned all the more. She saw avarice there. And conquest.

  “And look at this!” he said, laughing and waving an arm at Antiquity. Dreadth boys hooted and snickered. “Why, it’s Antiquity Grey and her broken-down soccer ball bot. Out here in the wastes, where anything can happen.” Manson gestured. The boys spread out, taking up positions about the hole in the desert that contained the mech. “I wonder. Where is your blind bitch of a grandmother now, hmm? She certainly wouldn’t leave the city, crippled as she is.” His grin died, replaced with a malicious look. “That means you’re alone, little girl. That means you’re mine.”

  “Manson, you now know my secret,” Antiquity said, turning to look at Saph Fyre and thinking quickly. “You can have all of this. Impress your father with it. And the Elders. If—”

  “What? If I let you go?”

  “It’s a major find,” she continued, taking a risk. She hoped Chekker had finished copying the mech’s files. “Think about it. You would be the hero of Solomon Fyre! Remembered forever!”

  “True. I would,” Manson said, getting off his airbike. “And I will be anyway, no matter what happens to you.” He pulled a blade from a sheath at his hip. “You’re a Grey, and there is nothing you can do to stop what comes next.”

  Violence in his eyes, Manson began making his way down the sand. Down toward her.

  “Grey-child, prepar—”

  “Hile!” a small boy screamed. “Look!”

  Manson spun around. He scrambled back up to regain the top of the sands, then pulled a lance-shot from his side belt. All Dreadth eyes turned toward the vast wastes of the desert. Antiquity could not see what had caught their attention, yet she knew terror when she heard it.

  “They are upon us,”a Dreadth yelled.

  “I will not leave this to scavengers!” Manson snarled.

  In answer, they all scattered. Most gained their airbikes in a hurry and started jetting back toward the safety of Solomon Fyre. Three were not so fortunate. Either cut off from their airbikes by the approaching threat, or following the direction that Manson chose to take, they jumped into the giant hole with the mech.

  With Antiquity.

  “Do you have any weapons?!” Manson thundered in her face.

  “J-just Chekker,” she stammered.

  “Then I guess we both die today, little Grey,” Manson growled, then surged off, leading the few Dreadths remaining to confront whatever approached.

  “What are we going to do?” Antiquity said to Chekker.

  “Kick me into the midst of the scavengers when they appear,” the bot ordered. “I will do what is necessary.”

  “What is necessary?!”

  “Trust in me, Grey-child. Get me up there, then strap into Saph Fyre’s cockpit.”

  Confused, frightened, and fighting the desire to bolt, Antiquity did as the bot asked—she took hold of Chekker, plucking him from the air, and ran up the dune. When she got to the rim, she nearly dropped him. Scavengers converged on them, the reapers of the sands, who killed all they crossed. They’d undoubtedly been drawn by the dust storm the Dreadths had kicked into the sky.

  Seven large air-trikes approached. She gazed at desert-hardened men, women, even children, skin made leath
ery by the sun, their matted, greasy hair wild, and their tattooed flesh fused with cybernetic body grafts. They would be upon Grey and the Dreadths in moments.

  Manson, taking cover at the lip of the hole, fired his lance-shot, over and over. Where he struck, air-trike armor sizzled and rent, yet it did almost nothing to slow them down. They kept coming, over twenty scavengers strong.

  When they were almost upon them, so close she saw the implants in their eyes, Antiquity took one look at Chekker.

  And booted him into the air.

  The metal ball used his thrusters and rocketed faster than his own flight could have taken him. All eyes watched as he arced up and then down to the desert.

  Chekker thumped into the sand in the scavengers’ midst… and exploded. The detonation pulsed through the air, forcefully pushing up sand and scavengers in a plume of brown and metal. Three trikes were blown off their grav-stabilizers, their passengers either screaming or dying or both. Antiquity, Manson, and the handful of Dreadth boys stayed behind the dune, and then, as the earth and metal and body parts came to rest, the surviving scavengers howled. “Kill them!” came the order, and phase-cannons turned large swaths of sand to glass.

  Antiquity did not wait. She followed Chekker’s final order. With tears stinging her eyes—tears of sadness for her friend’s loss, tears for the frustration of being unable to save herself—she dashed back down the embankment toward the mech’s head, hoping she could somehow close the faceplate.

  She need not worry. As soon as she clambered inside, the face-plate drew down by itself.

  —Strap in, Grey-child.—

  “Chekker!” Antiquity wiped sand from her eyes. “Is that you?”

  —It is, Grey-child. I am pleased you heeded my request.—

  “But… you just blew up!”

  —A copy of me ended, that is all. The one I made to unlock Saph Fyre. I am very much here, in this form. As is my duty, I shall protect you at all costs.—