Kye pushes the creaking slider door open and light floods into the dusty interior. His grandpa goes in first, knocking on the garage lights. The mech crouches, dusty and inert, the dawn glinting across its metal scars.
Young Kye stares up in wonder. While crouched like this, it’s still twice the height of his grandpa. Robust armoured plates cover most of its dull chrome skeleton, its paint scratched away by battles in the distant past and the coming passage of the immediate future. Its optical unit, which might be taken for its head, is raised as if in silent defiance of its cold core.
‘People used to fight wars in these?’ says Kye, his wonder sparkling on each word.
‘Not quite,’ says his grandpa, heaving himself up onto the back of the mech. ‘They used these in special operations. Too expensive to mass produce like other combat vehicles. Each one was ultra-specialised for their given roles.’
‘This one was yours?’
‘No,’ smiles the old man, opening up a panel and fiddling with the mess of wires within. ‘This belonged to an old friend of mine.’
Kye glances over at the other garage wall where an enormous rectangular shield covers the length of the whole garage. It must be at least the height of the mech itself.
‘What was it called?’ says Kye, remembering that all mechs had names.
‘Aegis,’ says the old man, pulling something from the back panel.
Kye stares in awe at the back of the garage where, resting on a rack, a sword the length of a car lies waiting.
‘What did Aegis do?’ he says, breathless.
Grandpa smiles. ‘She held the line.’
Paddy Dobson
9th May 2022