Felix and Mira

Mira had been in Orlan’s lab for hours that afternoon. He was elsewhere in the building doing—something. Either it was something suspicious or something boring, like playing father to that Jorja girl. Whatever the answer, she didn’t want to know about it. She just hoped it kept him busy long enough for her to search through his databanks to see what he’d been up to. And trying to accomplish that was mildly difficult while she was feeling eyes on her back.

“What?” she demanded, turning back around quick enough to see Felix duck behind a rolling cart.

“N-Nothing,” he said. “I wanted to see what you were doing…”

“It’s none of your business what I’m doing. Why do you even care?”

The boy peeked up over the cart. “Because you were kinda freaked out when we met Orlan today. I mean, all of us were too, but you’re not usually like that.”

“I met him before.” Mira turned away, “And I don’t need anyone checking in on me. Why can’t you figure out that I don’t want anything to do with you?”

“Then why did you come to my house after your fight with Arlo?” he asked.

“That? I was trying to turn you against him, that’s it.”

“But why were you crying?”

She paused. Then she blushed. “I-I was hurt and wasn’t thinking straight! Don’t you ever tell anyone about that.”

“I never told Arlo all the stuff you said to me,” he said. “And I knew you were trying to turn me against Arlo, even though I didn’t know why or even who you were. But I wanted to help you two figure out whatever issue you had. And I still do, even after what you did to him.”

Mira grew silent and turned back to the databank. Felix took the opportunity to slowly step out from behind the cart.

“You can talk to me again. About anything. It doesn’t even have to be about this if you want. You’ve probably seen a lot of cool stuff over the years we could talk about. I’m not going to—”

“Ugh, you’re so annoying,” Mira groaned. Felix stopped and turned away, but she went on. “I don’t like hurting people. Not really.”

“Then why do you do it…?”

“Because I had to. It’s what I was made to do.” She wouldn’t turn around to face him. “My units were hunters, sent to reclaim defective mechas. The MIR-A production line look like… this… because we went after juvenile domestic models. The company wanted to avoid negative press for public reclamation work, so we would befriend the targets or their owners. Then we’d lure them away and deactivate them. Our handlers would take us back and shut us down until we were needed again. The only way I could stay activated was by helping Orlan in his experiments. It was how I met Arlo.”

“But things are different now,” he said. “Nobody’s going to make you do that anymore.”

“It’s the only thing I know.”

Felix reached out to her but stopped, pulling his hand back. “I know it’s hard when your whole world is pulled away… Everything you knew… And it’s harder to try and figure out how to move on from it.”

“How would you know any of that?” she asked. Her voice was shaking.

“Because I went through the same thing when my parents died. When everyone did… And I lied to Ms. Lavinia when she said I could move in with her and Arlo. I don’t like living alone with Capri, but I’m scared to go through the same thing again…”

“I know you were lying,” she said. “You’re a really bad liar.”

Felix cracked a little smile. “I try not to do it a lot.”

Mira wiped her eyes on her cardigan sleeve and disconnected her hand from the databank. She turned around to face Felix, who stood there awkwardly. He started to raise his arms.

“I don’t need a hug,” she said.

“Oh. Sorry.”

She looked down at the floor. “I took out Arlo’s long-term memory drive because I thought he’d always be scared of me. Because if he could still remember Anne… you… I could never compete. And I never will, now…”

“Maybe not,” Felix admitted. “But friends don’t have to compete with one another. I still don’t know what all happened between you two Back Before, but he promised to be your friend. It would have just taken time, like when we became friends. And it can still happen if you stop acting so weird and controlling. Try being open with people instead of pushing them away.”

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment. They hadn’t talked like that since they first met, and this time it felt like he had much more say. He shifted on his feet for a moment, and Mira looked up at him.

“Can I have a quick hug…?” he asked.

Mira groaned again, even louder. “You can have one hug. And then we never tell anyone about this.”

He stepped forward cautiously and reached out, pulling her into a hug that she weakly returned. It only lasted for a second or two before he let go.

“There’s something else I wanted to ask. Did Orlan really make you and Arlo?”

“He designed us,” she said. “The factories built us.”

“Oh.” He nodded, “That makes sense, because he doesn’t look like you two.”

“… He doesn’t even have a face anymore.”

The Sanctuary Library

Arlo sat on the ground with Astus behind him, as both watched the three men working to fix the cart. Though, Astus was more interested in the patches of grass he was chewing on. Lavinia was by the cart and had been talking to one of the men, a big one with a robotic arm, ever since Arlo wandered out of Orlan’s lab in a haze. Now his head was somewhat clearer, but she was… gone? Where did—

“Hey kiddo, are you feeling better?” Lavinia asked, suddenly beside him.

He jumped and looked up at her, “A little bit… You found people to help with the cart?”

“Sure did.” She turned back at the men, “The one underneath there with the arm is Archer, the one on the side with the beard is his husband Jaxon, and the one with the metal goat-looking leg is their other husband, Ben.”

Arlo looked out at them too. “Did it really take three people to fix the wheel…?”

“Y’know, I think they just like doing stuff together.” Lavinia lowered herself down onto the grass beside Arlo. “You okay spending the night here? It’ll be dark soon and we’ll have to make camp anyway. No way I’m risking driving into another pothole after we just got the wheel fixed.”

“Mm,” was all Arlo said. Lavinia glanced over at him.

“You sure you’re okay?”

He was quiet. “No. I guess Orlan really is the one who created me.”

“Mira sure seems to think so. But I’ve never seen her as spooked as when he introduced himself, which honestly has me a little spooked…”

“I’m worried too. Not only about Orlan and why she’s afraid of him, but the fact I don’t remember him either.” Arlo looked up; his face was pale. “If I can’t even remember the person who created me, how likely am I to remember you…?”

“Hey, hey, remember what we talked about before?” She wrapped her arm around him and Arlo leaned into her.

“I know, I know… But it’s so hard to not worry about it…”

“How about we go for a walk around town?” Lavinia smiled at him, “We can go find a place to stay for tonight, see if there’s anything interesting. What d’you say?”

Arlo nodded and stood up with her help. They went off down the main street, each looking back and forth to both sides at the different buildings. There was a market like Blackwell’s, a few houses, and the tavern. It was clear that Sanctuary was a town built from the ground up instead of an old community that was reinhabited. There were no empty buildings scattered around and overtaken by the ivy; everything had a purpose.

They walked by a little shop with large front windows and got just past them before Lavinia stopped and backed up. The inside was lined with bookshelves.

“Oh my gosh.” She turned to Arlo excitedly, “A library! Can we go in? Please?”

“Why are you asking me for permission?”

Lavinia hurried inside with Arlo following along. Beneath the windows were a few chairs around a table, while the rest of the small space was occupied by a few aisles of full shelves marked by different signs. Arlo looked down the aisles; at the back of the room was a simple desk. Every part of the library was clean and meticulously organized, without a single spot of dust or book out of line. They were the only people there.

“I always wished Seventy-Seven had a place like this… Most books I found in the ruins were all torn up,” Lavinia said as she wandered past a section marked Mystery.

“Maybe whoever opened this place got them all first.” Arlo looked down towards a section marked Technical Manuals. He walked down to them. “Do you think they’ll have anything on mecha repair…?”

Lavinia didn’t respond, and he looked back at her. She was in front of a section marked Romance with a faded paperback. The cover had two women on a horse in the snow, both in dresses that barely covered them, and wrapped in each other’s arms; one was sitting backward on the horse for their pose. Arlo couldn’t make sense of anything going on there, or why Lavinia was blushing as she intently read through it.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“H-Huh?” Her attention snapped back to him. She closed the book. “Oh, sorry, I’m uh… I’m just gonna borrow this book for later. What were you saying?”

“Do you think there might be a book on mecha repair here?”

“I dunno.” Lavinia walked down to the manuals beside him, “We’re getting pretty close to that old factory now, so it’s worth a look.”

They both looked through the shelf for a few minutes, at books on small engine repair, electrical wiring, computer programming, and so on. But there was nothing on mecha repair. Or at least nothing useful.

“Hey, here’s something” Lavinia said.

She held up a book titled 2063 Mecha Style Guide, with pictures of different mechas in all sorts of absurd outfits and accessories on the cover. Most of them were glamoured servant uniforms; maids, butlers, a tutor with a stack of books. There was even a little girl showing off a boy labeled MECHA to her friends.

Arlo looked up at her, unamused. “I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Yeah, me neither.” She put it back. “Don’t see anything else about mechas here though. Sorry, kiddo.”

“It’s okay. Finding something useful was a longshot anyway.”

Lavinia nodded. She glanced around the shelves to the aisle behind it. “Hey, kids’ books. Wanna take a look.”

Arlo looked too and nodded. They both went over to the books and started looking through them, pulling one out here and there until a respectable stack began to form on top of the bookshelf.

Mira's Emotional Support Human

“There you two are, where’ve you been?” Lavinia asked as Mira and Felix entered their room in the tavern. Arlo followed behind them.

“Where were you?” Mira demanded. “We went to the cart and only found that deer and the bird.”

The sun was getting low in the sky, and the tavern floor below was filling up quickly. All the locals, it turned out, built their own homes as they filtered into the town. They were lucky to find the tavern had rooms available upstairs. For one reason or another, there didn’t seem to be many travelers that passed through Sanctuary.

Felix stroked Capri’s feathers as the bird nestled in his arms. “I was worried something happened until Arlo came and found us.”

“Something will happen if we don’t move on now,” Mira said.

“What’s going to happen…?”

“Even if we left, we’d have to stop to camp up the road.” Lavinia sat down on the bed, “As fun as sleeping outside is, I really, really wanna have a bed again.”

Mira only crossed the room and glanced out the window rather than respond. She glanced from side to side as if they were being watched at that exact moment. Lavinia looked from her back to Felix, giving him a look of What’s wrong with her? The boy shrugged and stood up rigid in a poor attempt at mimicking Orlan.

Lavinia turned to Mira. “Is there something going on?”

“No.”

“Then why’re you staring out the window?”

The girl clenched her fists, and to the surprise of both Lavinia and Arlo, Felix went over to her.

“Nothing’s going to happen if we spend the night here,” he said. “You’re okay now, right?”

“You don’t know that,” she replied. She wouldn’t turn to face him.

“Yes I do.”

“How?”

“Because Ms. Lavinia is here, and so is Arlo, and so are you.” Mira started to turn back to him, and he smiled at her. “We’ll be okay if we stay together.”

The girl stopped and turned away again, her cheeks growing flushed. Lavinia and Arlo, who were watching the whole scene, stared ahead at the two before turning to each other in total confusion.

“I can’t take you seriously when you’re carrying that bird around…” she said. Capri blinked.

“His name is Capri, and you’re gonna have to like him too. We’re a package deal.”

“Do you two want some privacy?” Lavinia asked.

Mira and Felix turned back around. For a moment, the two had forgotten about both Lavinia and Arlo who continued to watch them in bewilderment. Arlo in particular also looked deeply concerned.

“Oh, no, that’s okay.” Felix turned to Mira, “We talked earlier and now we’re… friends?”

“I—tolerate you,” she said.

“Just don’t hurt him,” Arlo said, eyeing Mira suspiciously. She met his gaze for a moment or two before wavering.

“Be open instead of pushing people away…” she muttered. Then she looked back up at them all. “There’s something I have to tell you. About Orlan.”

***

“Papa?” Jorja asked while setting a single plate on the table.

“Yes, my dear?” Orlan replied.

“What were things like in the Back Before times?”

Orlan’s metal head swiveled around from the stove to face her.

“That is a rather curious question.”

Jorja swayed a bit, back and forth. “I was just thinking about it, since you were talking about how you had a bunch more kids then…”

“Indeed, I did. No need to be bashful, my dear,” he said, holding a mechanical hand out to Jorja. She went over to him. “This world in days long past was in a glorious age of possibility. Technology and engineering had advanced to such a point that, as a young man, I created the first of what would become my legacy.”

“The mechas?”

“That’s right. My children were inherently the most superior beings in existence, and had the potential to correct many mistakes of the old world. Those set by nature and those instituted by design. For you see, in those days, the ages old problems of inequality, warfare, civil strife, and the like had yet to be addressed. Problems that are no longer present in the world you’ve grown to know. Unfortunately, there were obstacles to my children reaching that potential. But with your big sister’s assistance, this can finally be overcome soon.”

“Big sis Mira’s gonna help?” Jorja asked, puzzled. “What’s she gonna help you do?”

“Oh, plenty of time to discuss that later,” he said. “You had better sit down to eat before your dinner grows cold.”