Mech Pilot who sends you a short wave message before retreat: “this ain’t over -”
I'm extracted from the cockpit in a cloud of scalding hot steam but through the crowd and wires and hazy red (something's in my eye, it's on my face, it's small and sharp and dusting my skin like powdered sugar on a pastry) I can see an incandescent figure wavering in place and the message plays once more:
this ain't over-
I go through the thousands of impossibilities for an explanation but it all comes back to horrifying snap sound that occurs when you apply enough pressure to chest cavity of an S-Panzer. I wonder if the engineers knew that the arms of these things were strong enough to rip a chest open. I know that. No voices should've poured out. Nobody was left to speak.A thousand hands pull me out and take me someplace else.
"Come on buddy, let's get you outta here."
I let everyone else do the work. I've done enough already.
🕊
Food doesn't taste like anything on this new medication. It's supposed to numb you up while your muscles get used to the implants, but it messes with everything else too. Your head gets foggy and you bump into things. I shovel something I'm pretty sure is mashed peas into my mouth. I'm only going off of texture.
"Birdy, hey Birdy, you seen it yet?"
Marko, smiling so wide that his face looks like it's about to split in two, leans over the table to shove a screen in my face. The other pilots are smiling behind him. He shakes it around for emphasis, the image blurring with movement.
"Y'see? Y'see?"
The garbled collection of pixels reveal a tattered red clump cocooned with sparking wires, metallic silver fractals entrusting it like breadcrumbs on fried chicken. There's a hand sticking out in the corner. Some bits of the company uniform are soaked black and crimson. The only thing I can recognize is the bright orange encircling it all-- that's the color they use for the cockpit seal of the S-Panzer. This one's been heavily damaged.
"So, what is it?"
"It's you, dumbass!"
I squint. There isn't any part that indicates it's me. Then again, I've never seen myself from the inside.
"Nobody thought you'd make it, but look at you, you're just dandy. You were a beast. Everyone's been talking about it. You know how hot it was in there? You shoulda been fried! Your arm was on by a thread but here you are, doin' just dandy!"
"Hmmm..."
"Whatsit?"
I tap the side of my face (I can't feel it, but I know the finger lands) "It's like a christmas tree... All the tinsel at Christmas..." Without thinking, my arm moves upwards to make circles around my head. A little halo of tinsel.
Marko takes a look at the mess and then back at me and squirks his mouth to the side in deep thought before laughing so loud it hurts my ears. He mimics my movement.
"Yeah," he barks "I sees it. Like a Christmas tree. Everyone, hear that? Birdy says 'e's like a Christmas tree!" There's laughter from all directions and it's like I'm in the cockpit again with the hands surrounding me and pulling me away, I open my mouth and I'm not sure what comes out but it's a sound that get lost in the air. The laughter stops and my mouth hangs open, but at that point there isn't anything left. I resume shoveling mash into my mouth as Marko continues to talk.
The enemy retreated, but they were caught and executed. I begin to think about Christmas. I guess everybody died. I wonder what I should buy for Christmas. There's nothing left on my plate. Marko helps me to my room. Something is burning bright in the hallway. It repeats:
this ain't over-
I'm laid out and I ask Marko to leave the light on, but he's already out the door.🕊
There have been cases where wave radios release a transmission far too late. There have even been times when the transmission is released repeatedly, resulting in an echo that ends with a startling clip of static. Something in the machine holds onto the voice and ponders it, picks at it, folds it in on itself before sending it out to the receiver in little crackling packages. Over and over and over it goes until it stops, when all the presents are unwrapped. It doesn't happen often. I've never bothered to ask why.
A man in blue coveralls brings the radio up to his ear and shakes it before handing it off. Something there can be saved.
I'm bent over the railing watching a squad of engineers cannibalize the S-Panzer for parts. I can't see the number but I'm assuming that it's mine, and suddenly the grotesque image Marko showed me makes sense. The torso is dented at the top and blown out completely on the side, melted slightly from the heat it was put under. The metal plates on one of the legs are peeled up like a banana from the explosion. Everything is dotted in tiny holes. The elbow joints are completely busted so that the forearms are snapped backwards-- The pressure, I suspect, from crushing that enemy cockpit was too much. I don't think the guys upstairs will be happy about this, but I'm too doped up to follow that line of thought so I just continue ogling at the worker ants below.
Away from the rest of the rest of the workers is a lone engineer with the radio box in his hands, the innards hanging out from the bottom so that they nearly brush the top of his boots. He takes the box and shakes it, making a quizzical expression, and then shakes it again. It should be busted but I suspect he hears something. I watch as he taps the side with his gloved fingers.
There's nothing. But then it screams.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHH--
Everyone freezes and somebody drops something and curses at it clatters to the ground, one of the seniors marches up and yells as the perpetrator but it's all just babbling and confusion and sorries that get drowned out by the voice of the machine. The space of the workshop always felt so empty but now it's blasted through with something inhuman and it's getting very hard to breath.As the senior readies his hammer I notice that I'm making my way down the stairs. I cannot feel my legs but I see they're moving, and I see my hand reach for the hand rail and miss. Something inside me disconnects. I can almost hear the metal rivets scraping.
My bandaged face meets the steps. The hammer comes down. The screaming is silenced with a loud metallic CRACK. It is quiet for a moment, even with the burning figure flickering among them.
"What're you standing around for?! Go help the man, goddammit!"
Time begins again. I want to get up by myself, but my arm bent at an awkward angle so I surrender myself once again to the crowd of hands. I'm lifted up, I'm cradled, I'm carried away carefully, and somewhere I'm counting the steps since the ritual has happened so many times. Something gets put in me. They ran away. Everybody died. I want to buy something nice for Christmas. I can't feel my body. The radio was full of silver tinsel. I crushed that man so he would stop trying to kill me. I hope he leaves the light on.
Over and over and over, until it stops.
Nobody saw the flickering man. And the flickering man says--
