I cut the memories short, feel sweat slick beneath my arms. Piloting ’Mechs had been only one of my jobs, but the inside of a cockpit is not an easy place to forget.
The boy doesn’t seem to have noticed my preoccupation. The ’Mechs are far enough away he can’t possibly see much detail, yet a look of longing sits upon his face.
Would he still wear that same look if he knew how it feels to bake inside a machine, weapons firing salvo after salvo, the stench of sweat and fear oozing from your body like pus, while all around you people—real people inside their own machines—are dying?
I take a step forward and immediately stop as the pitchfork raises, its tines glistening with menace.
“Don’t you come no further,” the boy warns. His chin lifts and I see the challenge in his eyes. I toy with the idea of meeting the challenge, but that was the old me. The new me has made a different choice: Stop killing and go home.
If only things were that easy.
“I like your caution, kid. Caution helps you live longer.” I keep my hands spread and move toward the farm house at the far end of the field. Even though he can’t possibly see the ’Mechs from where we stand the boy can’t resist one last glance toward the horizon as I pass by. His hunger matches the hunger I once felt.
“You know what it’s like inside those machines?” I walk a little to the side so I can keep an eye on that pitchfork.
“You ain’t no MechWarrior.” In spite of his protest, the boy’s eyes are wide. He lets the pitchfork drop a little lower.
“For awhile you feel like you’re on top of the world and nobody can knock you down.” I remember well the feeling of accomplishment, of pride mixed with a bit of arrogance. “Then you start to get tired of the heat that bakes you like bread inside an oven every time you fire your weapons. Get tired of feeling scared. Get tired of the killing.”
“I knew you weren’t no Warrior. ’Mechs ain’t scared of nothing.” The boy’s look turns to disdain. “One day I’m gonna be up there, riding one of those ’Mechs.”
We walk a few steps in silence, me trying to figure out how to get out of this mess, the boy chewing on his lip as if trying to make up his mind about something.
“I thought your daddy didn’t like ’Mechs?” I ask, more to keep the boy’s mind occupied and his pitchfork in a less ominous position.
“Pa thinks they cause more trouble than they take care of.”
“And you think he’s wrong.” Didn’t surprise me to hear Lucas felt that way. He and my daddy went way back. I let my hands brush the heavily seeded grass as we walk, watch the breeze pick off the chaff and carry it away while the seeds fall to the ground.
“All’s he cares about is planting and harvesting. ’Mechs take care of people.” There’s definitely a note of bitterness in my new friend’s voice.
“Planting grain is an investment in the future,” I say, ironically mimicking my own daddy’s words. “Harvesting that grain is what keeps us alive, what keeps those warriors alive.”
It had taken me years to see the truth in those words. Years filled with bloodshed and death. Deaths justified by the code of the Dragon, but not by my heart.
“They should be more careful when they come through, the ’Mechs, I mean. They’re so big, they can’t always see where they put their feet. I try to tell Pa that, but it don’t matter to him. All’s he sees are the crops they stomp into the ground.”
Rebellion isn’t new to Buckminster, a fact I can personally attest to. Rebellion had allowed me to leave home when I came of age; I plan on that same rebellion allowing me to return to that home.
“Your daddy’s got a point.”
The boy’s point—a very sharp, metal point—presses through the back of my shirt. My cab driver’s uniform shirt. Something I’m sure I’ll have to explain when I meet up with Lucas.
The smell of roasting meat fills the air as we approach the farmhouse. My stomach responds to the tantalizing aroma in an almost violent fashion, reminding me I’ve missed several meals already today.
Telling me I’m home.
Funny how it doesn’t feel like home. It doesn’t feel anything except a little bit familiar.
I close my eyes and see chickens pecking in the yard, hear laundry flapping on the clothesline, taste the sweet tang of vine-ripe tomatoes. A small flock of Bucky browns, indigenous birds no larger than a ten-year old boy’s hand, wanders among the chickens. My father always claimed the birds were nothing but a nuisance, but my mother loved the undersize bits of fluff. She refused to use anything but the iridescent brown feathers in pillows and quilts.
A cold, wet nose presses into my hand. I open my eyes, stare at the mangy creature sniffing my palm. A dune pup.
“You’re quite a ways from home.” I give the pup’s head a pat, then rub my fingers hard against my pant leg. No one’s quite sure where dune pups originated, but one touch of the wiry, sand-colored hair plastered against their skin like a thin sheet of armor is enough to set a body’s skin crawling.
“This is his home,” the boy says and I nod. Home for boy and pup, yes. But not the same home I left behind.
We turn away from the white clapboard house with its sumptuous smells and lace curtains flapping in the windows and follow the mutt into the barn.
“Got my first whopping in this barn,” I say, but the boy doesn’t answer. I remember vividly the look on my daddy’s face that day. I told him I wanted to be a MechWarrior. He said there were
