Tzilpapali is walking around her area in Iltzik. It has been quite some time since she’s decided to go exploring the city for no reason, she can’t remember how long specifically, but it has been at least a year if not more. Her gait feels light and natural, much more so than usual. While she heads towards the transport station by the usual road she’d take for the nearest one, she begins to notice sights and sounds she hadn’t seen before.

In the wooded area that the local leader decided to safekeep as a green zone there’s the rummaging of squirrels and opossums too. Some of the braver ones head to the outskirts of the woods, but most of them seat alone in the center. The winter cold doesn’t detract them. Most trees still have their leaves, and there’s no snowfall ever in Iltzik, but it still warrants a sweater.

Once she reaches the cableroom, she looks for her destination, “The Headless Square.” The Headless Square is known as such because of an incident regarding an artist from when Rhydian cores were still new. It predated R-Suits as far as anyone could verify, so Rhydian cores at that point were just used in the same way that they were used in every modern appliance, vehicle, and the like, as a 1:1 energy storage system that allows for easy transport and containment of energy.

During that time, one particular artist decided to play around with a set of Rhydian cores and make it into a performance. He’d figured out that since they contained energy, he could also make them exude energy in random directions. To his credit, he was right. He connected them all in a rudimentary fashion, simple cables coiled around them in their pure, round, stone forms, making it all into a fairly stable circle which he held with a rubber rod.

The circle had a large radius, it held itself around 2 meters from the center. At the center was the artist himself, holding a blowtorch in one hand and the rubber handle in the other which then curved perpendicularly and upwards leading to a stable hold of the Rhydian core circle.

He turned on the blowtorch and fired on one of the cores, causing it to receive the energy until it could hold no more. Then that lead energy to the next core, and then the next, right until every single core was powered up. This lead to a colorful display of light going out in every direction creating unpredictable and unique patterns throughout. The display went on for a half minute before the Rhydian cores’ accumulated far too much energy for the artist’s good.

A tremendous wave of pure power raced inwards towards the center of the circle, hitting the artist in the chest and going upwards to his neck. After that, the sheer force caused his head to fly off and away, the display was gruesome in sight, but comical in retelling. Thus the news became the joke of the year, and every artist in Iltzik took it in as a banner, which they then utilized to turn The Headless Square into a gathering of artisans of all kinds. Restaurants began to open in the vicinity as a result, then theaters and then more.

This incident also prompted the government to put special locks on Rhydian cores that allow for only a specific energetic input on them. So that the only way to bypass it would require an engineering suit such as Tzilpapali’s and other mechanics’.This made it expensive and difficult to do so.

Tzil thinks about this incident. In spite of his recklessness, the artist has the right mindset as far as what Rhydian cores can do, and she can’t help but consider what he was doing to be part of the heart of a mechanic. She wonders if he could’ve made an R-uit if he had been born in an age where both, constructive information, as well as engineering suits were publically available, if a tad expensive. R-Suits were the only machine that utilized the Rhydian cores as both energy generators as well as energy storage, harnessing the specific energetic properties inside them in their pure form, rather than converting it to electricity.

When she arrives at the pyramidal fragment that is the cableroom, whose design inspired the outward design of her own R-Suit, she thinks of what she has been doing as of late. It has been 3 months since she started attacking raider camps. sometimes she does it twice a week, sometimes she doesn’t head for them even once for 2 weeks. She feels an odd sense of pride to herself about the whole affair, and she carries it through in how she moves about.

The road towards the Headless Square is long albeit straightforward, she takes a single cableroom that leads directly to the square after little over a dozen stations. Her own station is the first one along the line, so when she enters, the cableroom is alone. She puts on her headphones and connects her cellphone to them, playing some music. She listens to Yalb music, it relies on heavy drums and a strong bassline with brief high pitched moments that often include vocals in a somewhat explosive manner. Burst vocals so to speak. She enjoys the subtle variations.

The cableroom ebbs forward and backward with a steady sway in spite of how fast it goes. More and more people enter, Tzilpapali gives her place to an old man at one point, then she takes it back when the man leaves, eventually, she arrives at the station. She heads off and leaves, then walks the stairs up to the street, light hits her face and colorful buildings begin to greet her.

Residents of the area have fully embraced the idea of the place being an artistic conglomeration, all the old houses and buildings have new coats of paint, and all of them are colorful. There’s some convenience stores and smaller art shops at the bottom of some of the hard concrete buildings with intensely dramatic decorations and usage of natural light and shadow to achieve a particular look. In-between some of them one can find a couple of buildings made with older techniques, relying on placing rocks together in such a way that they wind up getting stuck in place.

Locals say that it helps the place remain “moving” whereas other buildings are “still”. They say it represents the movement of the arts, while Tzil on the other hand wonders what they would come up with if they had to justify industrial steel constructions instead.

She walks past towards the center and heads for a cafe. She is in the mood to see some of the artistic displays that day. She seats at a local cafe with a good view of the entire square, people of all walks of life compete for attention amidst a large crowd. Some of them succeed, there’s a painter that works by stabbing pieces of fruit and using the juice that comes out to paint, the spectacle winds up being more worth than the end result.

There’s also multiple musicians, whom Tzilpapali observes. She asks the waitress for a mug of spicy hot chocolate and thinks about what to do for the rest of her day, for one, she’s heard that there’s an event of sorts later during the day, a wide party which should be interesting. In the meantime, she decides to take a nice long look around, for once relaxing outside of the confines of her workshop. While she’s there she overhears a couple of teenagers talking about a rumor.

She takes her time to listen in, and hears that they are saying that apparently, someone has been dealing with raider supplies, attacking only those that rob unprotected, tribute cities, of their resources. Knowing fully well who they are talking about, Tzil listens in, and listens well. With her ears creeping in discreetly, she hears the teens commenting on the details that are known so far. They can’t agree on how the act happens, whether it happens near instantly, or if perhaps it takes its time, whether it’s a large explosion, or quiet, dissonantly so. The one detail that the two of them agree on, is that the thing that has been punishing the raiders is blue, very blue. It emanates a bright blue light that cuts through the sky and towards the ground.

Hearing this Tzil smiles and thinks about the R-Suit itself. She realizes that she is yet to name it, having only a unit number rather than a way to call it properly. And to her, the name bluelight seems perfect at that point in time. The shape is of no concern when the only thing that’s actually seen is the light it emanates, and if she has it her way, that’s the only thing that will ever be seen.

Despite the usage of Rhydian cores by the Headless Artist, the actual environment in the square is far more casual than the laid-back, yet organized sense that permeates the mechanic market. People experiment with attires of all kinds to make a melange of colors. Tzil notices a girl with a large lilac scarf held aloft by a red dress that’s protruding upward with the aid of yarn woven with palm, held firmly. There’s men with spiralling pants covering only half of their legs as the spiral spaces and with large black sweaters with bell sleeves opening up wide, they seem to be an aspiring boyband judging by their unique and choreographed dance moves. And no matter how long she walks, she finds that there’s music everywhere, or at least the melodic rumble of joyful steps.

Tzil stops as she notices a closely guarded open air exhibit. A group is looking over a Rhydian core in its natural state, a new sight for most no doubt, but common for Tzil who has been working with them for years. It’s a green core that excels in expending energy in short bursts as opposed to the more control oriented blue core that her R-Suit possesses. It appears similar to a half-sphere with rugged conical protrusions coming from the upper edge.

People marvel at the object, and parents take their time to explain the importance of Rhydian cores to their kids. They explain to them how before they existed, it was not possible to keep energy in one place and transport it to perfection, and how while usually they turn their inner energy to electricity, R-Suits usually use the Rhydian energy in its pure form, which is what allows them to be so incredible compared to all else.

Tzil mentally takes it one step further into thinking that no one fully understands them. And that even she, who had had Rhydian cores interface directly with her brain to efficientize the electric impulses with Rhydian energy, couldn’t fully comprehend them. She thinks of how she’s felt about Rhydian cores since she started driving her R-Suit, she feels as if she knows less about them than she ever did.

She reminisces on the process of building the armor around the cores, a process that was as interesting as it was annoying. She tried a variety of materials, carbon fiber for starters seemed to be a natural choice, but once the energy output exceeded a certain amount, it redirected the waves of Rhydian energy elsewhere, which caused a form of meltdown on the whole ordeal, rendering it unusable. Harder metals seemed the standard, but upon testing what they’d move like, she found them to be much too stiff on her model, which would have made the smaller stature pointless. She finalized her design with a combination of polylactic resin used in small places as an axis to give versatility, while the rest of the metal was an alloy of titanium and aluminium.

The ordeal was the most expensive thing she’d ever spent any money on, far more than her trucks ever were. However, as Tzilpapali thinks about it, she considers that so far, it has proven to be more than well-worth. The R-Suit doesn’t feel weak and lacking, nor does it seem needlessly stiff. It feels exactly as strong and usable as it should be, and all ready to take on a life of its own.

By this point in time it is getting late, the skies are reddening and the taverns are opening up. Adults are getting louder and families leave for the night. Time starts to pass faster and faster, music grows larger in the center part of the square and different varieties of music sound throughout different streets. In the center there’s fusion music utilizing both archaic and traditional instruments mixed with electric ones in a unique style.

The sound from the main square diffuses as one dives farther away from itt and into the streets nearby. Each place has a sound it prefers, and each place just gives it some time, it’s a worthy endeavor to follow through a path and return to the main square in due time. Tzilpapali feels that she doesn’t know where she might fit the best in that day. So she starts going places and notices each bar has its own variations.

There’s darkly humorous places with colorful imagery of fall, and energetic ones with reds and blacks and steel domes to get the blood pumping. The people there are all talking, in groups of 5 or more, and everyone seems to be hanging around some people around some dance floor.

That’s how it seems to her in any case. She heads into bar after bar, and sees just impenetrable walls of people that are in their own world ready to talk between themselves. Not ready to give up, she looks for a group a small one ideally. She reaches a bar, whitelit and with plain architecture, but decorated with drawings made by the visitors with markers tied by chains. The music is soft and ambient like, punctuated with hard percussions to remind the people there that it’s there and at a volume where it allows for comfortable chatter without the need to raise one’s voice. Overall, it feels very close to a restaurant except for the requirement to buy a bottle in order to get a table.

Without letting pressure mount, Tzilpapali finally approaches a group of three girls. They use mostly normal haircuts, long and well braided, or simply straight. However, each of them has distinctive clothing,A purple asymmetrical blouse with only one long sleeve, worn lightly and in a flowy manner, coupled with tufted pants a green and yellow dress that eventually becomes gloves but below flows naturally into a short skirt, and a simple white t-shirt with a rainbow-colored flat “tail” going from the back for the third.

The three of them happen to be talking about the same movie that Tzilpapali watched earlier in the month, the one that inspired her to defend the communities outside of protected cities. She knows the topic, and she feels that she is also dressed uniquely enough to fit in well with them. She goes to the bar and orders a Nayan, a common drink among the people working at the electronics market. She drinks it mostly due to familiarity with it.

"Truthspeak here, the real heroes are doing something out there, we ought to follow at some point."

Said the one with the “tail”

"Yeah there’s some visit things, where they take you to one of them with a military. A friend says that the Ukche alcohol there is the best to go trodded."

"Tlinyi you go trodded with rainwater, I don’t think you can say much about drinking."

Say the other two following that conversation, with Tlinyi being the one with the gloved dress.

Tzil approaches the group. Somewhat confident in what she can say to talk to them. Decidedly she says.

"Just overheard you, were you talking about the communities outside?"

The trio turn to Tzilpapali seeming fairly welcoming.

"Hey there, how’s the dog biting?"

Said Tlinyi, the one with the purple blouse.

"It’s nice I-"

Says Tzil before being interrupted by the girl with the tail.

"Is that Nayan?"

"No clue, I saw it there and asked for one."

Lies Tzil, she isn’t quite sure of how accepting they will be of her habit of drinking Nayan.

"It’s pretty good, rough on the mouth, comes down hard but the aftertaste is great."

Says Tzil after

"You sound done old"

Says Tlinyi

"Put some slack on it minty, no worries here."

Says the girl with the asymmetrical blouse.

Tzil freezes, for a couple of seconds in real life, and for what seems as if they are hours in her mind. She wonders what to do, and what will happen if she does it. Dozens of scenarios happen all at once in her head involving the next thing she says after that. The number of choices paralyzes her, and she is brought to life only by the sound of her phone ringing.

It’s her dad, Lahocotl, he came to Iltzik for once after a long while. He is asking if she wants to have dinner together.

"Yes, yes, I’ll be there."

She replies. before talking to the girls.

"I’m sorry, I have to...go"

She pays and leaves without a second thought. The girls stand there dumbfounded before resuming their talk. She walks through the door, and heads back home through the cableroom. The journey home feels much like the last few times she went to the Headless Square. She doesn’t notice anything along the way, but rather moves forward.

Eventually, when she reaches her home, she notices that her father is there. He’s a stickler for the old ways, he utilizes the long highways on his own car rather than other methods of transportation because it seems to him as if he has more control over what he can do that way. Thus, when the unmistakable, long, and short, faded brown car, with scratch marks from wear and more than its fair share of trouble, sits in their garage, she knows that he is home.

She walks inside and up the stairs to the kitchen, where sure enough she sees a man. Sleek, but well built, average height and a somewhat strong presence to himself, dressed in a formal black gown with grey pants below. That’s her father, a fixer in charge of getting production teams in proper order to make movies. He meets with the right people and ensures that everyone is fulfilling their task as they are required to do. It sometimes takes a toll on him, but he enjoys it nonetheless, or he says he does.

Tzil smiles when she meets him. She is relieved that she will have someone to talk to that night regardless of what came before. Lahocotl looks at her and smiles back, he is glad to see her before heading to sleep, he is tired, yet happy. Arriving home relaxes him and gives him time to slow down.

"I was just about to go to sleep, didn’t think I’d see you"

Says Lahocotl,

"It wasn’t the lab this time, it was the Headless Square."

Says Tzil.

"That’s new"

Responds Lahocotl somewhat gladly, but without intending to dig any deeper into the matter. The two of them take some chicken in green mole from a container in the fridge, then red rice from another, then tortillas and plantains from elsewhere. The two of them begin eating, Neither talks much, but Lahocotl comments on how business is going, and Tzilpapali explains that her electronics stall is still selling well. They resolve to talk in the morning, since at the moment, both are tired in their own ways.

She goes upstairs towards her room. Once there, Tzil briefly considers turning on the TV, or opening up her laptop. Mustering the energy turns out to be difficult, so instead she looks at the picture of the orca being dressed in water that sits in her room. Observing it deeply helps her start to fall asleep. She looks closely at the shape, how the Orca appears to show itself through the water. She begins staring at how it’s made, the materials, the strokes, and before she knows it, she’s asleep.

The following day, she wakes up early and goes to greet her dad to his room down the hallway to the right and to the left. They have a routine for the odd time when both of them happen to be in the house at the same time, one where Tzil and Lahocotl spend some time in the morning sitting down together and talking about unimportant things before heading to the park to have breakfast.

The two dress up in casual attire, black hooded jacket and grey pants for her, while he wears a white sweater over blue jeans. The two of them walk to the local cableroom and take the room number 4 towards The Barkers, a nickname given to the largest park in the city due to the abundant presence of dogs.

Both have considered buying a new dog, since their old one died a peaceful death several years past. However, both of them understand that neither spends enough time at home to properly care for a new dog. As such, they are content with watching other people’s pups instead of having their own, at least for the time being.

The two head over to a large restaurant in the park frequented by sports enthusiasts and early birds of all sorts. The place has a long set of tables sitting on the outside, most of which remain unoccupied at the moment due to the current weather. Tzil and Lahocotl, however, choose to seat there on a table with a clear view towards the street and to the large arboreal gathering where both people and animals cross their sight at regular intervals.

On the other side of the street there is a cycling road with clear signs indicating a stop at roughly the same height as Tzil and her father’s table. The stop leads to a perpendicular turn for both the cycling road and the walkway that goes further into a way filled with trees and towards the center of the park. A common point of both entry and exit, that enables visitors to spend their time efficiently. The cycling road also continues straight for those that refer to surround the park with their bikes for an added bit of exercise.

Meanwhile, the trees gather into an easily observable mass, separated at plain sight by their varying tones from green to near blue. Tzil knows that she inherited her love of observing minute details from Lahocotl, who is fond of pointing out new buildings or ones that have received maintenance. She focuses more on the specifics of things, finding tiny, discernable, patterns that repeat endlessly across a variety of surfaces, or giving images to what would seem to be blotches to another person.

Neither of them talks for a short while. They appreciate being with another person that can enjoy a quiet minute for what it is without feeling a need to feel it with something emptier. They take in the perception of what lays around them, and the flavor of a good, hard cup of coffee that is just the slightest bit acidic. Eventually, Lahocotl breaks the silence as if by mutual agreement.

Speaking calmly, Lahocotl asks

"Your stall, have you been taking care of it?"

"Better than you take care of yourself old man"

Both laugh at that quip, Tzil finds it easier to communicate with her own father than she does with most people. She sometimes wonders if it is because he knows exactly how to work with her, and exactly how to prod her to get an answer. Or if it is time that has allowed both of them to reach an understanding. But she avoids dwelling on that for long, preferring instead to focus on what is happening at that moment.

And what is happening at that very moment is an interesting thing. It’s a moment where the two of them can see what is about to transcur and yet neither has the power in themselves to stop it. Two bicycles, perpendicular to one another, head to a collision point in the vertex.

The cyclist that is exiting the center and heading to the street where Tzilpapali and Lahocotl are is not paying attention to the stop sign. And the other cyclist is assuming that the first one is acting with prudence. In this sense, the one that is heading away from the center can be called an attacker, but in the end, both are at fault.

The bicycles crash at full speed. The man in the street surrounding the park only falls over, but he manages to bail and skid off. The man that was heading away from the center is not so lucky. In what can only be called a freak accident, the man is propelled forward from his bike and falls on his chin. Momentum carries his back forward while his head stays in place, breaking the man’s neck with an audible crack.

Lahocotl immediately heads off to help the man in the second bike, not knowing that he is already dead. Meanwhile, Tzil heads towards the other man, who is lucky enough to only have a bloodied leg from the ordeal. She calls an ambulance regardless in case there’s more that can’t be seen, and in short both men are taken away by different cars. Tzil and her father pay the bill, then immediately head off in another direction.

They walk for a short while, giving themselves time to process what has just happened. Then, Lahocotl speaks.

"I feel sorry for that guy, the one with the leg."

Tzilpapali is puzzled by this but she asks.

"Why, it wasn’t his fault?"

"He’ll feel like he killed someone and now has to live with it."

For a second, Tzilpapali stops in her tracks, trying to put herself in the shoes of the man who survived. She can’t imagine it, no matter how hard she tries, but she can understand her dad’s thought process, and that’s important to her. After that she decides to speak.

"Come on now, you’re leaving tomorrow, let’s get ice cream today."

Says Tzil, trying hard to hide how she feels about the entire situation.

-------

Three, wide, 2-wheeled, all terrain motorcycles make their way outside the city of Iltzik, closing in on some of the unprotected communities. They bear the design of a feathered serpent, flowing downwards towards the center in continuous ninety degree angle turns. The paint job is a solid beige with a red stripe at the edge of the bodywork. The wheels are of the same color, and they are roughly twice the width of a standard car wheel. When the motorcycles go through the air after an obstacle in their way, the wheels move inward, improving the bikes’ overall cushioning ability.

The motorcycles come from a military encampment of the Huitzlian Empire, and inside of them there’s a group tasked with a particular mission, and spearheaded by Quixila, right hand of field marshal Il’Ilo. They are meant to investigate the recent attacks on raider communities, specifically, their location, and their timing.

The nearest community is 15 minutes away at full speed, it’s immediately clear when they arrive. The tallest thing present is a 2 story building, probably a town hall, sitting at the center of the community. The rest of the community organizes itself in single story rooms and houses. Every construction is facing the road, as the members of the town focus their efforts in selling fruits and vegetables to foreign visitors.

Quixila and her crew park their motorcycles and walk towards a fruit vendor. The three of them approach him with naturality, they are dressed in standard gear for someone riding over a long period of time. Comfortable shirts, a helmet, and jeans. The fruit vendor doesn’t question much when they ask for mango, and they are able to go their way towards the tavern without being suspected. Once there, they find it relatively empty, the bartender, a rotund man with an equally rotund nose, and a big smile on his face sees them, and greets them.

"Halfie’s ‘fore the men ‘rrive, Still, good time to get a drink if you ask me."

Says the man with a jovial tone, Quixila smiles, and the two men behind her follow her lead, they all order a single beer, and some food. The man brings forth a long, flat cut of beef and cut it in 3 pieces, then minces it and cooks it with onion and leak. He serves the meat to the group inside of a wide bread prepared with tomato. The group begins to eat.

"Great grub, best in town ‘m guessing?"

Asks Quixila while imitating the local accent flawlessly. To which the man replies.

"I’d sure like to think so, you travelers? Always thought I should travel myself."

Responds the man. Quixila maintains herself with a half smile before saying.

"Might do you some good, speaking of good, I heard some blue thing got some folks good."

The man quiets down when he hears this, and he says.

"You from the north or the south?"

The group is taken aback without showing it, however, Quixila answers immediately.

"The north, do we look the part?"

The man smiles again,

"If you were from around here you’d know all ‘bout it."

Says the man.

"Some villages got taken down, misguided but not bad people. Buildings on fire and all, but no’dy died you know?"

At this Quixila is taken aback.

"No’dy?"

She asks.

"Nope, not one, some guys are thinking it was the military’s new thing. Still, those victims gotta rebuild."

Responds the man.

"The thing happened a bit east from here, some guy might be making it a touristic thing for the curious if ya want."

He finishes.

Quixila nods, and the group finishes their meal. They pay up and leave before heading to a local hotel to rest for the night. When they wake up the next morning, there will be an encampment made in the east, waiting for them at specific coordinates. They have their work cut out for them. And now they know where to look for the R-Suit.