Trusting

It’d been a long walk; the furthest Arlo had ever gone from Lavinia’s home. It was uncomfortable leaving that fortress of safety against an unrecognizable world, but Felix said he had something cool to show him. At least if he had to go anywhere, his friend was with him. And his friend’s bird, unfortunately. They set out, from the sleepy outskirts of Seventy-Seven down cracked roads encased by the forest, vine-wrapped railed bridges over gurgling streams, and finally down an abandoned railroad line. And all the while, Felix seemed interested only in talking about Capri. Maybe it was peer pressure, with the bird riding along on his shoulder. But whatever the reason, he neglected to say what they were going to see.

“I don’t mean to sound rude,” Arlo said, “but where are we even going?”

“It’s not much further,” Felix replied. Then he stopped and glanced around, with Capri mirroring his movements. “Erm… I think.”

“You think?”

“What do you say, buddy?” Felix asked the bird.

Capri cocked his head to the side and nipped at a few locks of the boy’s hair. Felix giggled and said, “I guess that means yes,” but Arlo grimaced. He was still iffy about that bird, and how Felix treated him like a puppy. Capri immediately looked over at Arlo, as if sensing the mecha’s apprehension.

“So… Why do you let him do that?” Arlo asked.

“Do what?” Felix replied.

Arlo gestured vaguely to Felix letting the bird sit on his shoulder and nibble at his hair.

“I understand that birds can carry harmful bacteria and viruses. And they… poop,” Arlo added, distastefully. “A lot.”

Felix giggled, “So do people. And Capri’s a clean boy, I give him a bath at least twice a week. Isn’t that right, boy?”

The boy scratched the side of Capri’s head with one fingertip, and the crow’s beak hung open in an approving grin. Even Arlo had to admit it was somewhat cute.

“Do you wanna pet him?” Felix asked.

“M-Me?” Arlo swallowed hard, “I don’t know, I’m not much of a bird person…”

“It’s okay, he’s nice.”

It was true that Capri always seemed calm and well-trained, however Felix managed to do that. Arlo slowly reached out to the bird, not wanting to startle it. Traveling a decent length from Seventy-Seven and now attempting to pet his bird—Arlo was putting a great deal of trust into Felix. Though, he didn’t understand why.

They hadn’t known each other for more than a couple weeks at the most. But having a friend like that felt good. Natural. Consciously, he preferred the routine cleaning in the safety of Lavinia’s home. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t shake the feeling that being there—with Felix—was where he was meant to be. As if spending time with other children, sharing in their likes and dislikes, and going on mysterious quests was what he was made for.

Arlo gently stroked the black feathers down the back of the crow’s head. They were surprisingly soft and velvety, and Capri was as well-behaved as his owner claimed. At least, until the bird suddenly cawed and flapped up off Felix’s shoulder, sending Arlo recoiling back.

“Oh, we’re almost there!” Felix said. “Capri always gets spooked near it.”

“And we want to get closer to whatever that is?” Arlo asked, glancing around cautiously.

“Yep!”

Felix hurried along the tracks with Arlo close behind him. Being so close to a railroad gave the mecha a twinge of anxiety, even though no train had actually run through there since Back Before and likely never would again. A break in the trees came into view ahead, and in a few seconds, they exited out onto a low, flat bridge across a river. The tracks winded across the bridge and around the city, where they could see the Builder’s head over the restored structures. No wonder Arlo didn’t realize where they were going—Felix took a much longer, indirect route to the old city.

“There’s the thing I wanted to show you!” Felix said, pointing up at the Builder.

Arlo looked up at it as it continued its work; he’d never seen it before. The city was only dilapidated ruins when Lavinia brought him out after he first woke up. But now, it looked like there could still be people living there again.

“Ms. Lavinia said she’s talked to it a few times.”

“She’s talked to it?” Felix’s eyes were wide in awe, “That’s so cool…”

“Do you like the Builder?” Arlo asked.

“Yeah! It’s a giant mecha, why wouldn’t I like it?”

Arlo played with his pinned-up sleeve. “Do you like regular-sized mechas too?”

“Um…” Felix paused, thinking. “I’ve never met one before, but mechas are automatically cool.”

A hesitancy gripped him. The only one who knew he was a mecha was Lavinia. But it wasn’t intentionally a secret—she was the only one because he just didn’t know anyone else.

“Actually… You have met a mecha,” Arlo said, slipping his shirt down off his empty shoulder. Felix turned and froze at the sight of metal and wires in the boy’s body, his face making Arlo immediately regret showing him. But then his eyes lit up even brighter than before.

“You’re—You—” Felix couldn’t get the words out in his excitement. Then he paused. “Are you gonna grow up to be huge like that Builder?”

“I don’t think so,” Arlo said.

A Promise

Arlo gripped his duster, “I don’t know who that boy is…”

“I’m—I’m Felix,” he said, growing alarmed. “Capri stole Ms. Lavinia’s thing, remember? And then you chased him to my house and I said ‘Hi I’m Felix’ and then we hung out a few times and I showed you how to pet Capri and—”

Felix’s voice gave out as tears formed in his eyes. Arlo stared at him like he was insane, standing partially behind Lavinia. All the while, from her spot on the couch, Mira was grinning. She stayed quiet and went unnoticed as Felix and Arlo focused on each other. Well, almost unnoticed.

“What’d you do?” Lavinia asked, glaring at the girl.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mira replied.

“Yeah, I bet you don’t. You show back up here and promise to ‘fix’ Arlo, then this happens.” She pinched the bridge of her nose; she didn’t actually have proof Mira caused this memory loss. “Just—go to your room while I figure this out.”

“… You never gave me my own room.”

“Then go to Arlo’s room,” Lavinia ordered, despite an objecting look from the boy behind her.

Mira shrugged innocently and slid off the couch, striding over to Arlo’s room. She shot Felix a sly glance before closing the door. Lavinia shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I know that girl did something…” she muttered. She turned to Felix, “Alright kiddo, let’s take a deep breath. We’ll figure out what’s going on with Arlo, okay?”

“But nothing’s wrong with me,” Arlo said.

“Then why don’t you remember me?” Felix countered, wiping his eyes.

“Because I’ve never met you.”

“That’s the problem, you have met before,” Lavinia said. “Heck, Felix’s the only other friend you’ve had since I woke you up.”

Felix nodded and looked at Lavinia. “Can you fix him? You fix broken stuff, don’t you?”

“I fix small appliances and junk, not people.”

“But Arlo’s—well, he’s not junk, but can’t you fix a mecha too?”

Both Lavinia and Arlo froze in unison and turned to one another. They stared at each other in a silent conversation of only the slightest shifts in expression, trying to determine which of them gave away their not-secret.

“Arlo told me,” Felix said. “Well, he showed me, when I took him to see the Builder a few days before the girl with the white bow showed up.”

“I did?” Arlo muttered, almost inaudibly.

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Lavinia said. “When’d you start keeping secrets from me, huh?”

Arlo didn’t respond. He was withdrawn, with a heavy frown weighing down his face. The expression spread to Lavinia, who knelt in front of him.

“Heck, I wasn’t being serious. You can keep some things to yourself, I won’t—”

He shook his head. “You’ve been worried about what might happen if people found out I’m a mecha. Whether they’d be afraid, or confused, or would treat me like a freak. And it worried me too. So… if I told him, I must have trusted him, so I do know him.”

“Yes, you do!” Felix said.

“And it means there really is something wrong with me…”

Lavinia rested a hand on his shoulder, “There’s nothing what’s come through here broken that I couldn't fix. Whatever’s going on with you, we’ll figure it out.”

“I want to help too,” Felix said. “Even if you don’t remember me, I know we’re still friends.”

“Thank you, erm… Felilx?” Arlo said. “I hope I can remember you again. But if not, then at least we can make new memories together.”

The other boy smiled and nodded, then crossed the room to Arlo and Lavinia. She smiled at Felix and, in the relief to have a friend of Arlo who was also a confidant in his true nature, forgot about the girl she’d sent to Arlo’s room. And who’d been listening the entire time.

Mira stood against the door, her trembling fingers gripping her skirt. How did it keep happening? She got rid of the chip with every friend except her, and yet there she was, alone and away from him while that stupid bird boy fell back into Arlo’s life. Did she not remove the right memory drive? Or she didn’t remove enough. Mira gripped her skirt so tight her fingers began to tear through the fabric. Through the door, she could hear Lavinia talk and Felix laugh along with Arlo.

Then it hit her: Maybe it wasn’t enough to just remove the drive. Maybe she had to remove the competition for Arlo’s affection. Both Felix, and even Lavinia too.

Spring Cleaning

“There’s no way that’s gonna fit in the garage,” Lavinia said. “I’ve already got way too much junk in there already.”

“Hm… Maybe if you turn it?” Arlo suggested.

Mira looked up at her massively overstuffed travel bag. It’d remained parked on the lawn for almost a week since the girl returned with Arlo, but the sheets of grey clouds that darkened the sky threatened to drench it and its contents with the first rainfall in all that time. The bag was massive, as tall as Lavinia and wide enough to cover her, both mechas, Felix, and maybe even Mae behind it without giving any of them away. Mira’s ability to haul it around was a testament to the hidden strength of her construction, but that strength didn’t help one bit when it came time to finding a place to store the bag.

“I could push it over and roll it in,” Mira said, sizing up the opened garage.

“There’s no way that wouldn’t just get stuck in the door. Even if it did, there’s no room with all my repair stuff.” Lavinia thought for a moment, “I guess there’s only one option…”

“She’s not going to like it,” Arlo said.

“That’s right, spring cleaning!”

“… It’s September,” Mira said.

“Spring cleaning ain't about the seasons, it’s a state of mind,” Lavinia explained. “There’s gotta be some stuff in that bag you don’t need no more. How ‘bout we sort through it and see what’s worth keeping and what can go?”

“Why don’t we go through your stuff and get rid of that instead?” Mira replied, her arms crossed.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Arlo said to her. “You can show me all the neat stuff you’ve collected over the years, too.”

The girl’s eyes immediately lit up, “Well, if you insist…”

She climbed up the side of the bag while Lavinia gave Arlo a thumbs up for his smart thinking. The boy nodded some, though with a guilty look on his face. Then a metal skull landed at their feet, making both her and Arlo jump.

“W-Why do you have a skull in your bag?” he asked.

“It’s not just a skull,” Mira replied. Two more dropped to the grass next to it. “I’ve got three of ‘em!”

“Why do you have three skulls?” Lavinia demanded.

“I used to talk to them when I was alone. They’re pretty good company.”

Arlo looked down at them, each still with scraps of artificial hair and skin. “Are those…?”

“Mhm, they’re from real mechas!”

For the first time ever, Arlo looked like he might vomit. Lavinia didn’t know if that was a possibility considering he doesn’t even eat, but she didn’t want to risk it. She kicked the skulls away, letting them tumble across the lawn.

“Those are definitely not staying in my house.”

“Fine,” Mira said. “I don’t need them anymore, now that I’ve got Arlo.”

She kept digging through her bag and dropping item after item to the ground, describing when and how she came across each one. While she talked, Arlo and Lavinia sorted them into two stacks; one to keep and one to dump. There were more in the latter than the former. The dump pile was its own mound of garbage, clay pots, water-damaged books, baby toys, several shoes without a match, and many half-burnt candles (excluding a teakwood scented one that Lavinia found alluring). But here were a few worthwhile items.

“How’d you fit a whole guitar in there?” Lavinia asked as she turned the instrument over in her hands.

“I dunno,” was the girl’s reply. About as insightful as any other time she asked Mira something.

Lavinia sat the guitar in her lap and strummed it a few times, before frowning and adjusting the tuning pegs.

“You know how to play the guitar?” Arlo asked.

“Well, not really,” she said. “But I did learn some stuff from my daddy before he went out west.”

“One of them knew how to play it too,” Mira said, pointing at the partially buried skulls.

“Did… you know them?” Lavinia asked.

There was a long pause as Mira stood on her half-deflated bag. Then she finally, unconvincingly replied, “No.”

A low rumble of thunder echoed across the sky as the breeze began to pick up. Lavinia looked up at the darkening sky, threatening them with an imminent drenching, to Mira’s bag.

“It looks like we can at least get that into the garage now,” Lavinia said. “Better stuff it in before that rain rolls in.”

She pushed herself up and gathered up some of the items in the keep pile, which included some non-damaged books, a basketball, shoes and clothes that could fit either Mira or Arlo, and a few pieces of decent scrap. Arlo scooped up as much as he could with his sole arm. The dump pile stayed behind on the lawn while Mira pushed the rest of her collection into the garage, and took one look back at the glinting metal skulls before she pulled the door closed.