March of the Mech Pilot

The brick-red sand swayed and shivered in the heat haze of the high sun. The same sand that had long since eroded away any landmarks that stood tall and defiant many long years ago. Any wildlife that may have lived below the sands made no sound a human ear could detect and even the wind seemed to blow too quietly. A wanderer might be forgiven for thinking they had stepped into some divine land of judgement, devoid of mercy or survival, and feel they ought to hedge their bets by burning their knees in the sand and praying to whatever god put them there. The void was split in half by the horizon between the red ground and the pale blue sky. In some unnamed spot in this void, a seemingly simple rock sat with only the barest hint of its incredible size poking out of the flat sand. This stone glacier withstood the centuries of constant erosion through sheer force of will (well, it had as much will as any other igneous rock, in fairness), and it looked forward to the day when it would once again stand proud as a monolith, towering over this land once again. This incipient mountain –

CRACK!

Two quick steps to right her footing and Toni was able to settle back into her set pace, she was still making good time. Remembering that some things were bigger and tougher than herself, she redistributed some priorities to resume scanning her immediate area. In a place like this, where one square kilometer looks the same as all the others for the next while, she had decided to focus on long-range radar scanning. This let her set an alert if she detected anything of note (it had been a while since that happened and the parameters for “interesting” had been steadily widening for some time), but she had neglected to visually pay much attention to her footing in an attempt to save her optic lenses from the occasional sand blast. All the calculations and adjustments were completed in the blink of an eye.

From inside her pilot compartment, she heard some stirring, but not much else. She gave an internal sigh and rolled her proverbial eyes. He could sleep through anything but folk music, and on many occasions, it was voted unanimously that it was unfair that the one who couldn’t sleep was not able to listen to her music out loud while the other slept. These votes were done while the sleep-able party was unable to vote, but that didn’t matter to her.

“Ceez.” No response from her passenger. “Ceez, up and at ’em,” she insisted, this time eliciting a grunt, snort, and some grumbles. “Ulysses, if you don’t get yourself up, I will be forced to do it myself.” When no response came, a quiet, rhythmic, high-pitched noise began to slowly fill the cabin, building to a concert for two made of banjo, guitar, and harmonica.

“OK, I’m up! Toni! I said I’m up, you can turn it down now! Toni, I’m sorry!”

“That was all I wanted to hear. Thank you, Ceez.” Toni said, with no small amount of smugness. She turned the audio output down and switched to something with more steel guitar, something that Ceez seemed to complain less about than harmonica.

“What’s the matter, Toni? Did we fall, or was that just me?” Ceez asked, still groggy from the rude awakening. He began to flip through the multi-function displays around him and toggle a few switches to adjust his sitting position. He stretched in his seat and made note of their position. “Nice job, looks like we’re making good time. Let me guess, you missed another rock?” he said with a smile.

“This was huge! And it came out of nowhere, for your information. Must have been a huge crab shell or something. I’ll need you to check my right foot. I ran diagnostics and it’s a little off, but I can't examine it until we stop.”

Ceez picky up his earpiece from the charging dock, put it in, and began preparing to open the hatch. “You know those crabs don’t exist, stop bringing them up.” He finished zipping his EVA suit, a thin but sturdy exoskeleton of rubber, aluminum composite, and electronics. A full-body suit, much like a diving wetsuit, that helped him and Toni synch up when needed and was especially helpful when outside in extreme conditions such as the one outside his compartment currently.

Turning the release handle, Ceez waited for the hydraulics to open the hatch in the front of Toni’s chest. When the hatch was fully opened, he saw that she had already moved one of her hands in front of the opening to keep out as much sand from blowing in as she could. Ceez reached out to climb onto her hand, gripping the handholds bult into the frame, and tried not to look down. He tried not to think about how he was a full story above the hard ground. He tried, and failed, and his head swam. Taking a second to breathe in the hot air, he reopened his eyes and leapt to what would have been Toni’s thigh, just above the knee. He turned to face the ground, orienting himself to be upside down and felt his suit compensate by expanding near his legs to help with blood flow.

“Watch where you put your foot, mister,” Toni said into Ceez’s earpiece. Ceez just rolled his eyes and focused on the task at hand.

He moved his legs so the magnets on the suit at his calves locked onto the maintenance points on Toni’s leg. Peering down at her foot, swinging below him in mechanical precision, he looked for the damage. It wasn’t hard to find. The tip of the frame’s foot, between where the big and index toe would have been on a human had a serious dent in it. He wouldn’t know until he could see underneath the foot, but he was pretty sure she was still watertight. He looked around at the flat landscape, red-brown ground above and clear sky below, and dry all over; and determined that watertight meant a lot less without any liquid water for who knows how far.

“You really did a number on it,” Ceez said, speaking up to be heard in the earpiece over the movement of Toni’s legs and the whoosh of wind. “It looks like you should be fine to keep going until we hit the next town, but let me know if anything changes with it. And don’t worry, I’ll protect you from any more of those big, mean boulders that come out of nowhere.” He grinned to himself as he climbed back up to where he could get back into the pilot cabin.

When he tried again to leap to Toni’s hand, he fell short and felt his stomach drop and he fell for an instant before Toni moved her hand to catch him. He gave her optical sensors a look. “You know I hate it when you do that,” he pouted.

“My mistake, I think my foot disrupted my calculations on where my hand should be, interesting. I appreciate the leap of faith though.” Toni moved her hand in front of the opening hatch and Ceez stepped from her palm into his seat. “I’m pretty sure I kicked off a piece of that rock, though. That rock must have been huge. I didn’t register it move at all.”

“Look, if you want to pick fights with rocks, that’s your business. Just please don’t damage your frame too much. We need to stock up on a lot of things soon and there’s no guarantee we’ll find what we need to get that dent fixed.” Ceez finished going over the diagnostics himself as well as monitoring a few other reports from when he was sleeping and finished this routine by turning down the music that had somehow changed to even more harmonica and banjo.

After a few hours of trudging through the sand, the duo took note of an increase in vegetation. It began as just a small scrub every kilometer, but they steadily increased in frequency and size. By the time they reached the edge of the small town, it was a couple hours before sundown, and the air was still scorchingly hot. Staying to the edge of town, Ceez climbed down Toni (this time without the help of the big, metal practical joker), and moved behind her as she knelt.

Attached to the back of Toni’s frame was a large, hardshell pack that stored their equipment. The faded khaki brown of the pack blended with Toni’s scratched and dirty white frame, most of the ice blue markings having been sand-blasted away months ago. The industrial, angular style of the pack differed from Toni’s military-style frame, with its added external compartments and added armor plating in vital areas. The contrast was minimized by the replacement of certain sections of her frame with parts salvaged from other units. Ceez reflected on the thought of maybe needing to replace her foot as well. I wonder how she feels about all these modifications, he thought. I suppose she would tell me if she was uncomfortable with it. That’s more like her and it’s not as though we have much of a choice unless she wants her chassis exposed.

This town looked too small for any kind of large armor shop, but he could still pick up other necessities for the both of them. He collected his poncho, a dusty brown and orange with triangle patterns, and a hat with a forward-facing bill to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Ok, I think I’ll have you wait here if that’s OK with you,” he told Toni as she stood back up to her full height, about one and a half stories. “Since we’ve never been through here, we don’t know how they’d react to me bringing you in with me.”

“You mean they might have an issue with a four-and-a-half meter killing machine that can punch through a tank? Or do you think they wouldn’t appreciate my attitude?” Toni agreed with Ceez, but it was always fun to give him a hard time. Without waiting for an answer, she turned away from town and began to examine the flora and continued with the map she was detailing of the area.

Ceez smiled to himself and strode toward town. Eventually his path intersected with a trail that led toward the main road through the town. The trail gradually widened and began to show signs of heavier use. He stepped between deep groves made by wagons and carts, as well as a pile of dung left by some local pack animal. He assumed that any real repairs to Toni would probably have to wait a little longer.

The town was comprised of a half-dozen buildings built along the main track with a few clusters of others a short walk away. The buildings on the main road were mostly two-story shops or public offices, all made in the style of either classic wood boxes with a false front, or aged and dented metal habitation units, likely brought in when a little more money ran through here. The people moved with purpose, pulling carts or pack animals loaded with livestock material most often, or moving between buildings using the boardwalks that ran along the front doors on either side of the road. While he didn’t pick it up at first, by the time he made it to the front steps of the building marked as a general store, he noticed the faces of the townsfolk and turned to take them in.

Many of these people were gaunt, showing signs of not having enough to eat for at least a few days. Despite their condition, they seemed to continue with their work with the same determination Ceez assumed they always had. It didn’t seem like they’d started going for their pack animals yet, so they weren’t in too dire a situation.

The store had a large painted sign on its façade, denoting it as the “Eugene Falls General”. Pushing through the front door to the shop, he saw many shelves were bare. There was little food, only dried goods, and many other necessities were absent as well. He grabbed a small paper bag of what looked like nuts and a root that looked like one he recognized. If nothing else, it would help the shop. He reached for a can of oil lubricant that Toni needed for one of her digits, but seeing it was the last one on the shelf, he left it for someone else who might need it for farm machinery.

The store owner cleared his throat behind Ceez. The man was tall with black hair and a bushy black mustache. He had sharp eyes, and while he was big and a little more round than the average townsperson, he had clearly lost some weight recently. He watched Ceez between making notes about stock in a leatherbound ledger.

“I don’t suppose you have any more of that grease in the back?” Ceez asked in a friendly tone. There was a lot he was unsure about, how do these people feel about strangers, is he prying too much, does he have anything to help with growing a mustache like that? Ceez refocused and added, “I need the stuff for heavy machinery, but I think I’ll need more than that.” He wasn’t trying too hard to hide his curiosity about the town’s situation.

The owner looked at Ceez a moment, thinking to himself, deciding whether this stranger was worth holding conversation with, and eventually let out a breath, deciding that he shouldn’t turn away the first bit of positivity in a while. “Sorry, but no. That’s all we’ve got and I don’t expect to get more for a while.” He put down his pencil and leaned against the counter. When the shop owner shifted, Ceez could hear the tell-tale sounds of a leg replacement, he guessed it was from the knee down and could also use some care.

“How often do your shipments come in?” Ceez asked, still trying to draw out the answers he was looking for. He had been to towns like this many times and knew that these people were proud and would rarely ask for help before they were on death’s door. “I can wait a little while, but I can’t stay much longer than tonight.”

“The town used to get shipments daily, though that product in particular wouldn’t get here for another few days, even if there weren’t any problems with the deliveries,” explained the shop owner. He started to look more tired than he had when Ceez first walked in. “We get a few crates every day under normal circumstances, but nothing’s arrived for almost a week. This town’s been having a hard time for a while, and it ramped up when some tech fella showed up and started a ‘repair’ business a couple weeks ago.” The last bit piqued Ceez’s interest.

“What would a re-programmer have to do with missing shipments, is he still in town?”

“No, no. We ran him out of here when we found out he’d been fixing the bots – and they really would work great, for a time – and setting some kind of internal timer to have them break again so that folks would need to continuously bring them in, costing people a fortune.” The shop owner looked around at his empty shelves and let out a sigh. “We sent a few people up to where the shipments come in, but they didn’t see anything. They couldn’t stray too far, though, so who knows what’s going on.”

“Well, if you want me to take a look…” Ceez began and flashed his most friendly smile. “I would check it out for that last can of oil on the house.” Experience taught him that the owner would probably prefer to send Ceez to investigate as a matter business, instead of asking it as a favor for the town. His hunch was proven correct.

“I suppose that would be fair,” the owner said with a look that said they were thinking the same thing. He put out his hand. “The name’s Cho, Carmichael Cho, and you’ll be wanting to ask for Deputy Lewiston. She’ll let you know more of the situation.”

“Deputy?” Ceez was puzzled, did they not have a sheriff?

“Yeah, you don’t want anyone else. She’s the only one worth a damn when it comes to enforcement.” Carmichael rolled his eyes at the thought of the others in that office.

Ceez nodded in farewell and the gesture was returned by the store owner. He stepped into the hot sun, now a little lower in the sky, and looked for the sheriff’s office. It was one of the prefabricated habitation units, or “habs”, that was painted a deep blue, with white stenciled letters that simply read “Eugene Falls”, with a badge painted on the door.

Stepping across the street to keep in the shade on the walk down to the office, he glanced out of town and was barely able to see through the heat shimmers a reflection of sun off Toni’s frame.

The inside of the sheriff’s office was a sty, papers strewn around the single room, the bunks in the holding cells were disheveled, and the paint on the walls was peeling. A sleeping deputy had his boots up on the desk and his wide-brimmed hat over his eyes. The reek of hard liquor gusting out of his open mouth. The badge on his jacket didn’t say Lewiston, thank goodness.

Suddenly, a back door shot open, and two more people came into the room, one pushing the other. The person in front was shoved into an open cell, the door closing behind him. He looked over at Ceez and snarled. He had a long scar on the side of his face and a look in his eyes that said he often looks for opportunities to get more. The other newcomer wore a matching badge to the sleeping deputy, this time with the correct name stamped into it. She had a long braid of deep red hair and a serious, no-nonsense look in her eyes.

“I don’t have a whole lot of time right now, stranger. Make it quick,” she said with a tired voice.

“I was sent over here by Carmichael Cho.” Ceez moved out of her way as she moved through the office, filling out forms on an old datapad and setting it down onto its charging dock. “He pointed me in your direction when I offered to help look for some missing supplies.”

Deputy Lewiston stopped and gave Ceez a more thorough look over, pausing in her tidying of the desk with the other deputy still passed out. Satisfied that Ceez wasn’t pulling her leg, she checked the lock on the cell door and started moving to leave through the front. “Are you coming? If you’re serious about helping out, we should get a move on. I can fill you in some more on the way.”

“Right behind you, deputy.” Ceez smiled, happy to be around other people for a little while again. In the long stretches between towns he would feel he needed more company than just Toni. “I just need to pick something up I left outside of town.”