Jessica13 nodded. "I guess I can agree with that. It would take one hell of a lot to bring the Excalibur Hammerhand rides down, though."
"Drip by drip, water cuts through stone, not through force but through persistence," he said. "Eventually, we might see that the chipping away at his armor and his will brings Hammerhand down, and the world will be the poorer for it."
"Is that from the Great Prophet Sagan?" she asked.
His mech shrugged. "I don't think so. It might be, but I saw it scribbled onto a piece of aluminum back in the day like your Live Free or Die Hard chest plate there."
"It's a phrase that stuck with you, I understand, exactly like the dream of finding Citta del Mar. Honestly, I like the idea of it and I might start hoping for something like that myself."
He chuckled at her sudden exuberance. "I have to admit, hearing you say that helped to reaffirm my faith and hope of finding it. It is out there. Even if we have to build it ourselves to make it true."
"I do believe the term he is looking for is a self-fulfilling prophecy," Mini pointed out.
"Let us have this, okay?" she retorted and laughed.
"What?" Windchime asked.
"I'm talking to the AI again," she admitted.
He smirked. "Ah… Well, I'm not sure if an AI is capable of hope. I have been told it is almost uniquely human and there is no coding in the world that can account for it."
A quick scan of Mini's files crossed the HUD. "That's not untrue, I suppose. Hope is a difficult thing to quantify, although it could merely be expressed as wanting something to happen to the point of almost expecting it."
Jessica13 smiled and ran her fingers along the inside of the cockpit. It was a tender, affectionate gesture she made more and more as she watched Mini's capabilities as an AI expand and grow. She wasn't sure if there was any kind of limitation to what the AI could do, but it was something she was interested in perhaps finding out someday.
Absently, she swiped her mech's arm at some of the taller grass stalks nearby as they walked. A few minutes later, both of them paused suddenly and listened intently. It wasn't often that any outside communications came in, mostly because very few people had radios. Those who did tended to not transmit out in the open for fear of attracting the attention of folks who didn't have their best interests in mind.
Now, however, a transmission came through clearly. That usually meant they were either ignorant of the dangers involved or desperate enough not to care.
The commlink pinged three times in short bursts, quickly followed by three more long bursts and three short ones again. After a quick pause, it repeated the pattern over and over again.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jessica13 asked.
"Didn't they teach you Morse code in that bunker of yours?" Windchime asked.
"No."
"Fair enough. They didn't teach it to me there either."
"Morse code was a character encoding scheme used in telecommunication that renders text characters as standardized sequences of signals of two different durations called dots and dashes," Mini explained. "The name is derived from the inventor of the the telegraph—the telecommunication device that used it—who was Samuel Morse."
"So what they're transmitting are letters?" she asked.
"Yes, two letters under a three-letter coding—SOS," he continued. "These are usually used in this manner as a distress call, although the meaning of the three letters has been lost to time."
"Is someone calling for help?" She directed her question to Windchime.
He nodded. "It sounds like it. Are they sending it to all open channels or is it directed to someone in particular and we were simply caught on the wavelength?"
"It's being broadcast on three different wavelengths, and those are only the ones accessed by our radio," Mini said and extended his voice to the outside speakers.
"So, they're looking to cast as wide a net as possible," the man said. "What do you think? Is it a trap or someone who genuinely needs help?"
Jessica13 took a deep breath before she replied. "Either way, shouldn't we go there to make sure? Either someone needs our help or we can make sure no one else falls into the trap."
"Good thinking." He nodded and connected to the line to it. "You have reached the Knights Mechanica. State your troubles and whether we can help you."
She wasn't sure what the answer to something like that might be. Her first interaction with the Knights had been them telling her to stay off the radio lines for her own safety which, as it turned out, was a little late. She was already being hunted and needed to keep herself alive by calling for them so had been in a desperate situation.
Maybe these people were too.
The repeated SOS message came to a sudden halt. Maybe they hadn't expected anyone to answer or perhaps they didn't want the Knights Mechanica to be the ones to help them.
"Please," a man through the line a moment later. "You must help us. We are being attacked by a group of mechs and there's nothing we can do to stop them."
"What kind of mechs?" she asked. "How many are there?"
Another short pause followed. "We're not sure what they are. The leader is big, though. It looks dangerous and is covered in mismatched fabrics—like a cloak, or maybe a shawl, and it’s full of soot and dirt."
Windchime turned his mech to face Jessica13 as the description continued. "Does it have a helm that looks like the face of an owl or some kind of bird of prey?"
"Yes," the man responded urgently. "Yes, and he has a spear—like a lance, but it has an electrical charge that disabled all the mechs we have for our own defense. Please, can you help us?"
Her companion made no answer and
