Mecha Skirmish (revised)

Rick had lots of great suggestions on my submission for the anthology, so I've revised it.

Sorry I've been so quiet. Here's a quick update:

• We paid off the house

• Hit our retirement goal

• And everything still appears to be on track for me to switch to full-time writing next summer

You guys have been wonderfully patient, and I love you all. You are making this dream come true.

Most of my work has been either the day job or getting the anthology entries ready to go, so there's not much to see yet, but we will be at MFF in a fortnight! Have an amazing Thanksgiving, and we hope to see you there.

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Neakli sprinted from the graveyard the moment that the gates opened. She’d had a long day at school and was so ready to blow off some steam by destroying a few gigantic robots.

Cresting the hill, an enormous parking lot stretched before her. “Ha! It’s Conspicuous Consumption Mall,” she announced into her radio. “I love this battleground.”

The mechs were—in theory—towering behemoths that shielded a tiny operator inside who controlled their actions. In most of the scenarios, the bots could kick cars out of their way, punch through walls, and hurl the scenery assets as improvised weapons. But the Conspicuous Consumption Mall was set on Krakuntec II, and everything in it was sized for giant lizards. Here, their robots felt “normal size” and could run around the level as if they were in the shopping district of the hallowed-out asteroid that she and her friends called home.

In her headset, Rolanz replied, “Dibs on the smoothie booth overlooking the atrium. I’ll snipe.”

Somchai growled a deep, menacing sound. He roared, “You always take sniper!”

“Well, she’s the best shot,” laughed Tota. “Get good, and you can snipe. Who we up against?”

Neakli zig-zagged between parked cars. Her teammates teased her for always selecting the Bounder, but the mech’s jumping action felt so natural to the geroo. She could leap from cover to cover almost as fast as her teammates could sprint in a straight line. “Dunno. Haven’t spotted them—”

Then, she groaned. From around the movie theater charged four identical UtiliJack mechas, each painted red and running shoulder-to-shoulder. “Shit! It’s Ace and the Jokers.”

She dove for cover and rolled. An instant later, a missile streaked by, converting the parking spot where she’d just been into a smoking crater. “I’m pinned down behind the shopping cart return. Can anyone cover me?”

“Gimme a sec. I’ll take up position at the streetlamp,” radioed Somchai. “Which is Ace?”

“No idea,” said Neakli. “I hit the deck the moment I saw them.”

Neakli’s team, Gold-Black-Gold, was a stellar group—quick acting, well-coordinated, deadly. Since the game’s release four months ago, they’d ranked second on the server more weeks than not. But Red-Red-Red—or Ace and his Jokers to Neakli’s squad—always held that top slot.

In reality, Ace was the only part of Team Red-Red-Red with any true skill. The other three were just wildcards. Sometimes they shot well, sometimes they ran in the wrong direction. There was no predicting what they might do. But Ace had a preternatural ability to be in the exact right place at the exact right time, whether to deflect fire from his teammates, suddenly appear from behind, or to deliver a devastating missile strike into the center of an enemy formation to inflict maximum damage.

“Got one!” shouted Somchai, but his laughter was short-lived. “Nope. I’m out.”

“Damn it,” grumbled Neakli. Her mech got up on its knees and prepared to peek over the carts only to spy the blinking red LED on a limpet mine Ace had glued to the top of the stack. Her screen flashed white, and she found herself back in the graveyard, waiting for the cool-down gates to open once more. “He got me.”

And so, the game went as it usually did when Neakli faced off against Ace. Her crew quickly gave up any hope of capturing flags and running them to the scoring drop-points. Instead, they focused only on trying to get as many kills against the jokers as they could manage. After all, if they were destined to lose the battleground—and they were—at least their individual player stats shouldn’t suffer overly.

In the mall’s courtyard, Neakli’s bot stepped up to a circle of spotlight on the central dais. “Hey, what the heck is this?” she asked into her radio. “A mic stand?”

“Oh! They added that in the patch yesterday,” said Rolanz from the smoothie stand. “Your bumpers and triggers give you four different voice filters to talk cross-faction.”

“Why would I want to talk to the enemy?” asked Neakli.

Sniper fire dropped her to the dais, and a moment later, a heavily filtered voice—like a robot shouting into a megaphone—trash-talked her, “What kind of idiot stops in the middle of battle to stare at a mic stand?”

Neakli groaned. “Six hours of downtime yesterday… just so they could patch in a way to trash-talk each other?”

”Yeah, isn’t it great?” laughed Rolanz.

Neakli rolled her eyes. This sounded like the dumbest feature ever. Restricting players from communicating cross-faction was one of her favorite aspects of Mecha Skirmish. “I hate it already.”

“Try the left trigger voice,” suggested Tota. “That’s my favorite.”

So, when the gates opened once more, Neakli ran back to the mall. Along the way, she spotted one of the jokers running in place, trying to push his way through the wall of a javea drive-through booth. Without slowing, she launched a stinger barrage as she ran by and took the easy kill.

Somchai was locked in a heated firefight with another red mecha—both popping up from opposite sides of a parked truck, emerging too quickly to aim a shot and ducking back fast enough to keep from getting shot themselves.

Neakli gave the pair a wide berth. She ran through a blown-out window, hopped over a trip-line someone had strung to a booth selling protective phone cases, and out to the courtyard. She didn’t see anyone else, so she hopped up on the dais and keyed the left trigger. “Hello?”

Her voice sounded like modulated flatulence, and all three of her teammates laughed into the com-channel.

Neakli rolled her eyes and tried again with the right bumper. This time, her voice sounded musical and lovely. “Hey, Ace! You wanna hang out with us after the match? Food court on thirteen, in front of the burger bar.”

“What?” shouted Somchai. “You’re not supposed to invite the enemy out to dinner!”

“Yeah!” chimed in Tota and Rolanz.

“Why not?” yelled Neakli as she sprinted to a gift shop.

“The mic is for trash-talking!” whined the other three in unison.

Neakli spun and hid behind a display of knick-knacks. Peeking out, she saw Ace drop down from the upper level in a superhero landing with one knee and palm on the dais. “Okay, sounds fun!” he said in the mic’s robot voice. Then, he dropped a concussion grenade, leaping just as it went off to perform a perfect cartwheel.

“No! No! No!” shouted Somchai. “We are not hanging out with the enemy. Get back on that mic and tell him we’re not coming.”

“Really?” asked Neakli in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Cancel,” said Tota.

“I guess,” agreed Rolanz half-heartedly.

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Neakli grumbled as she ran back to the microphone.

But no sooner had she keyed the mic, one of the jokers popped up from behind a pretzel cart and tagged her with a heat-seeker.

Neakli groaned. “Where was my sniper? You were supposed to be covering me from the smoothie booth!”

Rolanz waved from her seat on a tombstone. “Sorry, Ace got me while you were asking him out on a playdate.”

“Fine,” grumbled Neakli, “I’ll run back and tell him, ‘Never mind.’”

She waited and waited for the cooldown timer to expire, but only a moment after the gates opened, the match ended, transporting all four back to the lobby. Gold-Black-Gold had run three flags to their drop-points—pitiful compared to the fifteen that Red-Red-Red had managed. They’d been slaughtered.

“Uh, sorry guys,” said Neakli.

# # #

Neakli munched contentedly on her salad. Most everyone’s parents were still at work, and the majority of the food court’s tables sat empty, though other teens milled about, shopping and socializing with friends. Tota, a tubby coosa, lifted his mask for a moment and slurped loudly from his soda, trying to get the last drops up into the straw.

“Y’know,” said the geroo around a mouthful of greens, “if you didn’t want to meet Ace, you didn’t have to come.”

The three looked up, and Somchai, the lio, growled, “We had to come.”

Staring at the giant feline, Neakli chewed and chewed and chewed. Agreeing to go out with him had been a mistake, and ever since their one regrettable date, he’d only grown clingier. Finally, she swallowed. “Why?”

“Why?” gasped the lio, as if it were obvious. “He’s our enemy!”

“No,” said Neakli, “he’s our competition. I don’t have any enemies. Besides, we’ve played against him dozens of times now. That practically makes him our best friend.”

“Well, he could be… He could be … some sort of maniac! You could be in danger.”

“A maniac,” she repeated, “because he’s really good at Mecha Skirmish?”

Rolanz, the geordian, rolled her slitted eyes. “Because you don’t know anything about him!”

“So?” Neakli shrugged before digging back into her salad. “At one point, none of us knew each other. Any of you could have been maniacs.”

Tota shook his head. “I’m not,” said the coosa. He set his empty drink down. “...Not a maniac, I mean.”

“Well, of course, you’re not a maniac,” said the geroo. “We know you now. But when we first met—”

“We met in first grade,” he reminded her. “Mrs… I want to say it was Mrs. Depi’s class. Does that sound right? I think I bit you.”

She glared at him, her ears back and low. “Never mind. You were a maniac!”

Behind her, a squeaky voice announced, “You must be the pilot of the Bounder!”

Neakli spun on her stool, her thick tail sweeping the deck. “Ace!” she exclaimed, but then her ears drooped when she saw nobody there.

After a moment’s delay, she looked down and spotted a white mysa lying flat on the deck. The tiny thing looked up, and her big ears grinned. “Good thing I’ve got fast reflexes,” she laughed, “or you’d have launched me into orbit with that giant tail of yours!”

“Uh… Uh…” managed Neakli. She squeaked, “Sorry about that.”

Her crew stared with jaws open as the little creature climbed up a chair, then up onto the table they shared.

Somchai leaned closer until the two-meter-tall feline was nearly nose-to-nose with the quarter-meter-tall rodent. “No,” he said, “you cannot be Ace. Ace killed me a dozen times today.”

“That makes you the pilot of the Groundshaker, right?” she laughed and put out her paw. “Nice to meet you. I’m Xica.”

Instead of touching paws, the sandy-colored felinoid flopped back in his seat and crossed his arms with a deep gruff.

The tabby geordian pounced, and the mysa cowered for a moment, but then they touched paws. “I have no idea how you got me at the end there. Didn’t see it coming, but I’m Rolanz.”

“A pleasure,” said Xica with obvious relief. “So, you must pilot the Phantom.”

“I do!” laughed Rolanz.

The mysa turned to Tota. “That just leaves the AT-77.”

“You got me. Heh. You got me so many times,” said the coosa with a grin. He also touched paws. “Tota.”

“I’m Neakli, and Mr. Sourpuss over there is Somchai,” the geroo offered with a touch. She looked about, but Xica appeared to be alone. “Where’s your team?”

The mysa made air quotes with both paws. “‘Team’ is a very generous term, in our case,” she explained. “More like pup-sitting, really.”

“Come again?” asked Somchai, scooting closer.

“My family isn’t that well-off,” explained the mysa. “We only have four tablets, and the house rule is, ‘You can play as long as you like, but when you die, you go to the back of the line.’”

“The… The line?” stammered Neakli in surprise. “So, we haven’t been playing the same four players each match?”

“Nah,” said Xica. “All my sisters and cousins want to play too, so we have to share.”

Tota slapped his forehead. “That’s why you guys use four identical mechs? To avoid arguments?”

Rolanz’s ears grinned wide. “I get it now. I’ve always wondered why your teammates could be decent one moment and then terrible the next.”

“A couple of my sisters are really young,” laughed Xica. “They know how to make the mech run, but they’re useless at aiming and shooting. Nobody minds when they get their turn though as it never lasts very long.”

“But not you!” said Tota.

Xica looked proud. “Once I get my turn, I try to keep it for the rest of the night. Not dying is the only way to get lots of game-time in when you have to share with so many siblings.”

“No. No. No,” growled the lio, getting back in Xica’s face once more. “You cannot be Ace. I will not be beat by a teeny, tiny—”

“Mysa?” she laughed.

Somchai’s teammates looked really worried about how aggressive he was acting, but Xica seemed to take it in stride. “That’s the beauty of Mecha Skirmish,” she explained, “doesn’t matter how big and tough you are. Doesn’t matter how strong or how far you could run. It’s just reaction time, strategy, and skill. I got all three of those.”

“No,” he grunted once more. “I refuse to believe it.”

“Well, I’d suggest a 1v1 match,” said Xica, “but rules are rules. I’d have to wait my turn on a tablet.”

“No, I wanna see this,” laughed Neakli. “Please, you gotta demolish Somchai with my rig.”

The lio gave her a nasty scowl but said nothing.

“Sorry, that wouldn’t work. Mysa are too small to play on a rig,” Xica explained. “They don’t make them our size.”

Rolanz tilted her head. From behind her mask, the geordian asked, “Why not?”

“No one manufactures anything for a mysa market,” Xica explained. “So few of us can afford nice things that the investment wouldn’t pay off. Fortunately, we’ve got a culture of improvising.”

“Wait…” Tota tilted his head. “Did you say ‘tablet’ earlier? You don’t mean you’ve been kicking our tails on just a tablet?”

“Basically. We use those ‘cub’s first tablet’ things you guys pitch or garage sale off when your cubs get big enough to use a real computer. We root them, replace the OS, overclock the CPU, and install real games—like Mecha Skirmish.”

Somchai stared. “You’ve been destroying us… on jailbroken cub toys?”

“That’s brilliant!” laughed Neakli, her salad completely forgotten.

# # #

Despite how Somchai stewed, the remaining four became fast friends, and Xica tagged along on Neakli’s shoulder whenever the team hung out.

“Careful, don’t fall,” said the geroo, holding up one paw to catch the mysa should she slip.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Xica, “this is actually a lot harder than it looks.”

“I’m sorry about that burst of speed. He just pisses me off, and sometimes I need to give him space.”

With a tight grip on Neakli’s fur, Xica glanced down at the geroo’s pouch. “Well, if you’re not gonna get me some sort of saddle, I could always ride—”

But Neakli cut her off with a raised finger and a stern look. “I like you, Xica. I mean, I really like you, but that would be … very personal, y’know?”

The mysa made a show of pinching the fingers of her free paw together in front of her lips and remained silent a moment before adding, “Forget it ever crossed my mind, okay?”

“Deal,” said Neakli, her ears grinning.

Xica sighed. “I just don’t get why you’re even friends with that lio. If he pisses you off so much, maybe you should cut him loose … switch to the 3v3 league instead. I can teach you how to manage without a tank.”

Neakli’s ears hung in a frown. “He’s not always insufferable.”

“No, usually he’s sullen,” grumbled the mysa.

“Lately, sure,” agreed the geroo, dabbing at her eyes. “He’s upset that I can’t be what he wants me to be.”

“Wait! Wait! Hold up,” said Xica, bringing her friend to a stop. “Don’t tell me that Somchai is your ex!”

Here, as in most of the asteroid’s rocky corridors, long, deep, and ugly gouges streaked the rock walls—something the miners had done, Neakli presumed, in their search for valuable ore. She lifted the mysa from her shoulder and set her down in a gouge so the two could face each other while they talked. “He was a lot nicer back then. Somchai’s always been charming since we were little cubs, and I used to fantasize that he and I would trade beads someday…”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” said Xica patting one of Neakli’s fingers with her paw.

“We only went out once,” said Neakli. “And it was fun, and then we kissed a bunch, but when he tried to stick his paw in my pouch…”

The mysa frowned. “Did you slap him?”

“No, but it made me realize that I didn’t like him in that sort of way.” Neakli sighed. “Maybe I’m broken? But I’m not sure I could like any guy in that sort of way. Anyhow, now, he needs time to adjust to the reality that we weren’t meant to be.”

“And so, you’re just gonna put up with this crabbiness?”

“You have to give your friends second chances, Xica,” said the geroo with a little weariness. “If you cut every friend out of your life the first time they screw up, then I promise, you’ll run out.”

“I guess,” sighed the mysa, “but there has to be some point of no-return.”

# # #

Neakli and her friends browsed the shop’s newest game gear while Xica ran back and forth, from one of Neakli’s shoulders to the other, taking it all in. Clearly, she’d never been in a store like this before.

“Ooh! Ooh! What’s this?” shouted Xica, pointing excitedly at a prominent display. She scrambled down the geroo’s arm and leapt onto the shelf. With wide eyes, she fondled the black metal-plastic-and-glass gizmo, her slender fingers seeking out all the knobs and buttons.

“That’s one of those AR goggles,” said Tota. “It overlays a video display on top of whatever you’re seeing. They set the focus way out so your eyes don’t have to refocus in and out between the display and the real world.”

“So cool!” whispered Xica, ducking under the earpiece so she could climb inside and peer through one of the two lenses.

“Yeah, it’s a neat concept, but I got one when they came out.” Neakli shook her head when the little mysa looked her way. “It was a waste of money.”

“Aw,” groaned Xica. “Can you play Mecha Skirmish with it?”

“You could,” sighed Neakli, “but you’d be seeing the screen on top of whatever you’re looking at. To play a game, you end up staring at a blank wall just so nothing obscures your view, which kinda defeats the entire point. It’s easier to just use your screen.”

“Well, it probably wasn’t my size anyhow,” laughed the mysa as she climbed back up Neakli’s arm.

“Yeah, it might have been a bit snug,” agreed the geroo with a grin. “Would have given you a headache.”

After loitering in the shop for an hour, the group drifted out the door and into a loose huddle out front.

“So, where should we go next?” asked Neakli.

Xica seemed distracted, staring at the red bakery next door. When nobody suggested a destination, she rejoined the conversation, speaking up with as timid a voice as they’d heard from her. “Uh, well,” she started, “we could go to my house. I could show you my latest project … if you promise not to laugh.”

Neakli, Tota, and Rolanz turned to stare at the white rodent perched atop Neakli’s shoulder, their ears raised in curiosity.

“Oh, yes, let’s all go over to Xica’s house,” said Somchai, his voice buried deep beneath an avalanche of sarcasm. “We could have a sleepover—the five of us curled up together on her bed.”

“Yeah!” agreed Tota, oblivious to Somchai’s tone.

To Neakli’s surprise, the mysa sounded unruffled. “Nah,” she said, drawing out the sound, “I have to share a bed with a bunch of cousins. There’s no room for anyone else.”

“Would any of us even fit in your house?” asked the geordian.

“No, of course not!” laughed Xica. “But our apartment is on the main thoroughfare. Even Somchai’s hairdo should fit out on the street.”

She stuck her tongue out at the lio, and his ever-present frown deepened. “Hey!”

“But my project… I’ve been building it up on the roof,” she explained. “If you wanted to see it, you could—without having to come inside.”

“Yeah, all right,” said the geroo. “I’m curious!”

Rolanz and Tota agreed. Somchai didn’t suggest any alternate plan, and his big paws padded along behind the others.

“I’ve never been to the mysa sector,” said Neakli with a smile. “This is kinda exciting.”

“Yeah, me neither,” said Tota. “I heard their vendors sell only mysa-scaled items and portions.”

“I guess that’s true. We can be kinda insular. It’s not that we don’t want visitors. It’s more like no one wants to visit us,” explained Xica. “We do take some of your scraps and hand-me-downs, and sometimes our families come down here, to your levels, and they all share one of your gigantic sandwiches, but if you guys tried eating at one of our restaurants? They’d probably sell out their entire stock before you felt full.”

Somchai snorted a laugh at the mental picture.

Neakli turned to walk one direction before turning around again. “Uh… How do we…?”

Unlike spaceships where each floor was a card in a stack, the tunnels in asteroid LB426 were far more irregular. They meandered this way and that, following veins of whatever minerals the miners sought out. More often than not, the tunnels had names, not numbers, and “Mysa Main Shaft” was way up near the asteroid’s surface.

Lots of ladders, it turned out, led up to that part of the station, but they would all be too small for any of the four. Instead, Xica directed the friends to a freight elevator. Though much bigger than the ladders, it could still only transport two of the larger mammals at a time.

Tota and Neakli—with Xica on her shoulder, naturally—went up first, then they waited for the felines to take the car when it returned back down. While they waited, Neakli savored the differences between this tunnel and the ones she’d known all her life.

The geroo could smell so many individuals, so many scents overlapping, a multitude really, that she couldn’t isolate any single person’s scent. She smelled cooking that was nearly familiar—the same starchy grains and tubers her family ate at home—but with so many spices she’d never tried. The scent of cooking oil hung heavy in the air, clinging to the rock walls, the ceiling, and even the pelts of those around them.

A sea of small pedestrians scurried along, heading this way and that, in and out of the dollhouse buildings that lined the streets. Neakli and Tota attracted many curious stares from mysa who slowed down to gawk a moment, only to hurry back along their way shortly afterwards.

Neakli marveled at how the mysa had adapted their surroundings. Everywhere she looked, the mysa had transformed and repurposed salvaged scrap. They had filled in the wall gouges with clay to build dividing walls, turning the ugly eyesores that everyone else had to live with into cozy pockets for single family homes. Tiny doors, windows, ladders, and landings covered every face, and a patchwork of scavenged paint decorated everything in an explosion of color.

“This place is vile,” groaned Somchai, no sooner than the elevator doors reopened. His scowl deepened.

“It’s not bad,” countered the geroo, pounding his arm lightly with the side of her fist. “It’s just different. Different always takes some getting used to.”

“Different disgusting,” he grumbled and made a show of holding his nose while he followed the others.

Over her unoccupied shoulder, Neakli mouthed, “That’s rude!” at him, but turned back around before he could manage any sort of reply.

The walk to Xica’s apartment was short by geroo standards, but the four had to move so much slower and so much more carefully than they were accustomed. When they stood still, the curious foot-traffic swarmed around them like a stream avoiding boulders, but when they stepped, they had to give others a chance to get out of the way before putting a paw back down.

Worse still, food carts sat everywhere, positioned without any obvious rhyme or reason. These, obviously, couldn’t move out of the way, so the Gold-Black-Gold team had to pick their path with care.

“This is exhausting,” sighed Neakli. She started to lean against a building only for it to shift and slide across the ground. “Oh shit! Sorry! Sorry!” she shouted to everyone inside.

Xica just shrugged. “Rush hour. Really not ideal for you guys, I guess. My bad. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” said her friend, supportively.

Xica smiled at the geroo, then pointed. “There! There! That’s my house; the pink one.”

Neakli nodded and worked her way toward the three-story structure. At the ground floor, she saw an entrance for an accountant and windows filled with a bodega’s advertisements, but all the windows on the upper floors looked like homes. Most had brightly-painted trim and some even had flower boxes beneath them with tiny, precious blooms.

When the five reached the building, Xica scrambled down Neakli’s arm once more and leapt to the roof. “Remember what I said,” she repeated, “no laughing! I know it’s silly.”

Neakli, Tota, and Rolanz all nodded, but the geroo didn’t bother looking Somchai’s way to see his reaction.

Xica grabbed the edge of a silicone lunchbox, and with a heave, she pulled it from behind a heat exchanger. “I haven’t painted it yet,” she said, “but that bakery beside the game shop is getting a new coat of red paint. I betcha I could borrow a shot glass worth of it from them, and no one would ever miss it.”

The mysa pulled a series of cardboard sheets from inside the box, unfolding each and arranging them in stacks. She’d carefully cut each set to shape and joined them at the edges with strapping tape to act as hinges.

In a voice just louder than the rush hour commotion, Neakli asked, “Is that a—?”

“Yup!” said Xica proudly as she stepped inside two leg pieces. She grabbed a torso section and pulled it over her head, down until it rested on her hips. “I made my very own UtiliJack mecha!”

The four stared with wide eyes as she assembled the rest. “I used some old pens to make the rocket launchers. They’ll look much cooler when I paint them.” She alternated pointing her fists at different Black-Gold-Black team members and made “Pew! Pew!” sounds with her mouth.

“That’s so cool!” said Neakli at last.

“Yeah!” added both Tota and Rolanz. Somchai scoffed.

“Thanks!” said the mysa. “Originally, I wanted to make one with leg extensions so I could be a meter tall, but I wasn’t having much luck sourcing the parts.”

“Well, I think it’s awesome as it is,” said Neakli. “Any costume that makes you bigger would be cool, but if it’s too awkward to even walk around in it, then what’s the point?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” agreed the mysa, but her tone was still disappointed.

“Not that any of this really matters,” said Xica, taking off her cardboard helmet and holding it beneath one arm. “This is all just pretend. But someday … the real thing.”

The geordian blinked. “You’re going to make a real mech?”

“No, silly,” laughed Xica, “someday I want to enlist in the lio mechanized infantry so I can pilot the real deal.”

Neakli started to nod, then froze, her ears held in a puzzled expression. “Wait. What?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Xica as she shed more of the costume, “lio mechas are made to be piloted by big ol’ lios, but I figure I’m an exception. No one’s got the reaction speed I do; no one’s got my knack for strategy—at least not on this station. I figure once they see just what I can do, they gotta make an exception, mod one of their mechs so someone my size can operate it.”

She laughed hard. “Hell, wire the damn thing up to a ‘cub’s first tablet’ and I’m still gonna outperform anyone the krakun can field against me.”

The rush hour noise seemed to fall away, leaving Neakli’s ears ringing from the sudden silence. Very slowly, she repeated, “The … mechanized…?”

But Somchai had already lowered his face level with the mysa’s. “Wait. Wait. Wait,” he said with a shit-eating grin. “I want to hear you say that again. The mechanized what?”

“Oh, don’t be such a tailhole,” scoffed Xica, “and don’t act like I’m not up to it. I’ve put you in the graveyard more times than anyone could count. The mechanized infantry is my ticket off this stupid rock! While every other mysa is making a living off other people’s scraps, I’m gonna be the mech pilot that makes history!”

Somchai covered his muzzle with both paws as he struggled to contain a boisterous laugh. Xica set her weight on one hip and pointed an angry finger in his face, but before she could say another word, his explosive laugh escaped, nearly knocking her from her paws.

The lio howled his laughter, and the passing commuters gave him space, clearly worried about getting trampled. He bent at the waist and clutched his stomach while he roared. He fell to his knees, and tears leaked from both eyes.

Xica just scowled, looking angrier and angrier, but before he crumpled completely to the floor, the lio managed, “You idiot! You empty-headed little rodent! That’s not what ‘mechanized infantry’ means!”

“Pfft,” huffed Xica, “of course it does. It’s in the name.” She looked around at the other three, but they held their ears low and avoided her eyes.

When the silence stretched, Neakli finally looked back. “It’s just a game, Xica. It’s all make-believe for fun.”

“Well, the game is make-believe, obviously,” said the little creature, some worry invading her voice, “but … but … what about the settings: the Conspicuous Consumption Mall on Krakuntec II, the ice caves of Ridel III, the volcanic rim of Androgens… I’ve looked them up. Every map was the scene of a famous battle between the krakun and the lio mechanized infantry.”

Neakli winced. “Yeah, but … mechanized infantry means infantry with ground vehicles … like trucks, not mechs.”

Rolanz raised her palms as she explained, “Mechs don’t exist. Well, I’m sure someone’s tried building one—the idea is cool as hell—but so far as military applications go, they’d just be impractical. Anything a giant bipedal robot could do would be done better by a tank or a ship or a plane or a spacecraft.”

“But… But…” whispered Xica, her eyes filling with tears.

Neakli saw the way she trembled, the way she shook as her life plans fell to pieces around her. She was stuck here just like all her people were. There was no greater glory she could attain.

The geroo reached out with a comforting paw, but the mysa turned and scampered away down a ladder and into one of the apartments inside the building.

“Idiot,” huffed Somchai. The three remaining friends turned and glared at him, but he only shrugged. “What?”

Without thinking, Neakli shoved at his chest, nearly knocking him from his paws. Then, she gestured to the others. “C’mon.”

When the lio started to follow as well, she pointed a finger of warning right in his face. “Not you.”

# # #

“Okay, I understand. Just tell her I called again.” Neakli sighed and hung up.

“Still won’t come to the phone?” asked Tota, eyes down and his arms hanging loose over the edge of her bed.

The geroo shook her head. “I just feel so awful about this.”

Rolanz’s ears looked pained. She said, “You know who also feels—”

Neakli growled at her, hushing her for a moment before Rolanz steeled herself. “Somchai has been our friend since we were little kits. We’ve only known Xica for what … four months now?”

The geroo crossed her arms, her ears low. “Maybe so, but Xica has been an amazing friend the whole time we’ve known her, while Somchai is…” Her words ran out.

“A bit of a shit,” offered Tota, “lately, at least. He was a lot better friend before the two of you hooked—”

“Don’t remind me,” grumbled Neakli.

“But he’s really sorry,” groaned Rolanz. “He’s apologized like a hundred times.”

Neakli turned away. “Not to me, he hasn’t.”

The geordian rolled her eyes. “You blocked his calls and told your folks not to let him in.”

“Well, I don’t need his apology,” huffed Neakli. “Xica is the one he should be apologizing to.”

An awkward silence fell over the bedroom. Finally, Rolanz whispered, “I’m not asking you to forgive him, but this is cruel. The lio pride themselves on admitting when they’re wrong, and you’re not giving him the chance.”

She stared a hole into the side of Neakli’s head for the longest while before the geroo managed a tiny nod. The geordian pulled out her phone, tapped a button, and the screen lit with Somchai’s face only a moment later. His ears opened wide in shock when he saw Neakli’s face instead of Rolanz’s.

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his muzzle. “I don’t… I won’t make an excuse. That was really mean of me. I should never have said it.”

“So, why did you?” sniffled Neakli.

The lio shrugged. “I just… I got into the mode of hating her for beating us so often. When I finally had the chance to shout, ‘In your face!’ at her, I didn’t stop to think about how that would feel. But I’ve thought about it a lot since then.”

“You destroyed her,” said the geroo.

Somchai hung his head. “I screwed up. I did. I get it if she hates me forever, but it was just a silly mistake on her part. She’s embarrassed and needs some time to cope. I mean, we’ve all done stupid shit, thought something was real when it wasn’t. Remember when Tota thought those kerrati droppings were dried fruit?”

Neakli smirked for a moment, but Tota looked hurt. “Hey!”

Somchai laughed. “And I was absolutely convinced that trolls lived under my bed until I was like … ten?”

“You were so gullible!” chuckled Tota.

Somchai must have heard, and he growled. “You’re the one who told me they did, idiot!” he shouted. When he regained his composure, he added, “In the long run, it’s not that big a deal.”

“No, it really is, I think,” sighed Neakli. “Mysa aren’t like the rest of us. They pick a path, and they stick with it for their entire lives. They don’t change careers if something isn’t working out.”

“Well, Xica doesn’t have much choice in this case,” offered Rolanz. “She’s going to have to come up with a new plan, ’cuz piloting a mech isn’t going to happen. Maybe mysa culture needs a shake-up so they can make mistakes, can make changes.”

“It’s not their culture,” groaned the geroo, “it’s their biology. Mysa only live like twenty, twenty-five years. If they want to accomplish anything, they have to pursue it from the start. They don’t get a chance to chase dreams.”

Beneath Somchai’s mane, his ears drooped. “Great. Now, I’m even more depressed.”

“Did you apologize to her?” asked Neakli.

“I tried,” he sighed. “When someone answers, they say she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Yeah, she won’t take our calls either.”

Somchai managed a weak smile. “I baked her a cake.”

Neakli blinked. “You did?” she asked in surprise.

“Well, a cupcake, really,” he clarified, “but with the scale difference and all, I think it still counts.”

The geroo nodded. “Well, that was very sweet, all things considered. Did she like it?”

Somchai shrugged. “She wouldn’t come out. Her sister said she’d tell her I brought it.” He slowly released a sigh. “I guess it was her sister. She said she was. Anyhow, I left the cupcake on top of that old silicone lunchbox where she used to keep her mech costume.”

Neakli’s ears perked. “Used to? It’s not there anymore?”

Somchai shook his head. “I didn’t see it. Maybe she threw it out?”

With a couple more repeated apologies and no explicit forgiveness, Rolanz took back her phone. “Talk to you later,” she said quietly into it before hanging up.

“She threw out the costume she put so much work into?” muttered Neakli. “That’s so sad.”

Her friends nodded.

“I just hate that she’s cut us out … cut me out, y’know?” said the geroo. “We’ve been completely inseparable these last few months. I didn’t even realize it, but whenever I’m about to eat something, I always hold the first piece, the first slice, the first whatever up to my shoulder for her. I must look like a complete idiot. I keep forgetting she’s not there.”

Tota smiled. “We miss her too.”

“If it was either of you, I’d put on a mask, go over to your house, and knock on your bedroom door until you let me in,” said Neakli. “What am I supposed to do with Xica? Knock on her house?”

“Can we make something for her?” asked Rolanz. “We could bake her something like Somchai did.”

Neakli’s eyes lit up, and a moment later, she jumped up and started rifling through her closet, tossing old computer accessories this way and that before she turned about holding a pair of AR goggles. A cautious smile lifted her ears. “Hey Tota, could you write us an app?”

The coosa shrugged. “That does what?”

“Nothing big,” said Neakli, grinning even wider, “something that just lights up some buttons on my goggles when you press matching buttons on my strand. Forward, back, left, right … maybe run?”

He nodded. “That’s it? Yeah, that’s simple.”

“Okay, do that.” She turned to Rolanz. “What about cardboard? Could you find us some big sheets of cardboard?”

The geordian nodded. “My pop’s store breaks down all the boxes they receive and keeps them in a huge stack. They don’t bother recycling them until it hits the ceiling. Anything we take is all the less they have to deal with.”

Neakli jumped excitedly in place, brushing her head on the ceiling with each giant hop. “Grab some of them and meet us behind my house in an hour. I need to find some strapping tape and red paint.”

# # #

Xica peeked around the corner before stepping into the alley. “Guys? You back here? I got your message,” she called. “Sorry I’ve been incommunicado, but it’s been a rough patch, y’know?”

She spotted Tota and Rolanz first. They were kneeling on scraps of cardboard, busily painting other scraps red. Flecks of the paint stained both their coats.

“Is that…? Don’t tell me you guys made a…” She squinted at the figure between them. Though she suspected it was supposed to be a life-sized UtiliJack mech—well, life-sized if the lio pilot were scaled down to mysa height, at least—it bore only the vaguest similarity to one. It didn’t have any of the UtiliJack’s cannons nor missile launchers, but her vision swam at the thoughtful gesture, and she sniffled. “That was really nice of you guys, but you didn’t have to.”

The cardboard mech turned slowly about until it faced the mysa. Underneath all the haphazardly placed sheets of cardboard stood Neakli. Red stained some of her fur too, and some paint had slopped on the AR goggles she wore. Behind her, a lio peeked sheepishly out. With downcast eyes, Somchai waved and mouthed, “Sorry.” Bright red paint stained each of his limbs and had soaked into the long braid he wore.

“To be fair,” said Neakli, “Somchai did most of the work.”

The lio smiled. “Well, it’s our first try at making a mech out of cardboard.”

“It’s a lot harder than we expected!” laughed Tota.

“Yeah, and a lot more fragile too,” added Rolanz.

“That’s true. It probably won’t survive its maiden voyage,” admitted Neakli with a grin, “but it’ll be a ride you never forget. The UtiliJack is the fastest mech there is.”

“Pfft,” huffed Xica. “Everyone knows the Bounder is way faster over short sprints—”

“Not this UtiliJack!” laughed the geroo, flexing her massive leg muscles. She turned her strand toward Xica. “Forward, back, left, right… The controls are pretty straight-forward, but you best hold tight when you hit the run button!”

The mysa’s eyes opened wide. She waved her arms wide and shook her head. “No. No. No! I really appreciate all the effort you guys put into this just to cheer me up. I do! But I can barely stay on your shoulder when it’s not covered in cardboard. I certainly couldn’t keep a hold of your strand if you were trying to run!”

Neakli grinned wider, the insides of her ears heating to a bright-red blush. “Trust me, the pilot seat on this mech was designed for use even at top speed.” She turned the strand back around and slid it into her pouch.

Xica’s eyes opened even wider, and her ears took on some of the same blush. After a moment of stammering, she managed, “I-i-isn’t that … rather personal?”

The geroo offered an outstretched and cardboard-covered paw. With a smile, she said, “Not for my best friend.”

---

Editor's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vjkpi8iLs0iJdQX_HpzhINc4JiSFsSYqpJp0QO9h7gU/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?