Short Story – To the Edge of the World

"To the Edge of the World"

Finished on 12 December 2023

             In his slumber, the man thought about how sour it turned out. Promises, unkept. Plans, broken. The blissful joy that she had regularly brought to his heart, not even an afterthought. All he could think about was their last argument before she left, poised in the rose-tinted bedroom of his settlement with a brilliant view of the crystal field that only reflected their lucid colour when the sun hit them at just the right angle twice each day, weather permitting. That once-treasured haven in his home had been tainted by countless arguments where he forwent discussing his deep-seated issues with their relationship to settle for peace because he didn’t want to lose her. If she had just given their relationship the same amount of effort she gave to herself, the memories wouldn’t have curled. Instead, all that time letting her into his settlement, into his bedroom, into his life, had been wasted.

Beep beep beep beep! Beep beep beep beep! Beep beep beep beep!

             The alarm sounded off in bursts of four as a cool breeze kissed the face of the slumbering man, tickling him into a dreamy state of consciousness. The cockpit protecting him from the frigid territory he chose to settle came gently flooding back at him as he delicately awoke.

The Settler first noticed his throbbing head, pulsating with each beat of his heart. He then noticed a soreness on his skin around his harness that locked the rest of his body to his seat. His arms came into focus as they dangled in front of him, limp and outstretched as gravity tugged on them. A dull, crimson-tinted light from somewhere around his cockpit lit them, with an easy, flashing teal that would briefly overshadow the crimson for a moment every few seconds. He toyed with his hands, squeezing his palms gently and touching his fingers together, playing with them as if he had just discovered the sense of touch for the first time.

             He wasn’t sure when he first noticed the beeping, but the Settler eventually became aware of another noise, this time in an unassuming, cordial voice that would periodically alert when the teal light overtook the crimson, stating, “Error. Cannot automatically restart. Manual powerup required.” Powerup is a silly word, he pondered lightly with whatever brainpower he had available in his semi-conscious state. Was it one word or two?

             As his brain lazily progressed through its wake-up procedure, his eyes glazed around the cockpit beyond his hands. Besides the crimson-tinted and occasional teal lights, a white ray bled in externally. The light seeped through a hole at the bottom of the transparent dome to his front, poking above the snow that had been packed against most of its glass that blocked the rest. Another gust of wind snuck through the opening, swirling around the cabin before again caressing the Settler’s face.

             A breeze? Suddenly, he realised he shouldn’t be feeling any outside winds from inside his cockpit. His eyes shot wide open and began darting around the cockpit to take his situation in. Crashed somewhere in the snow. A hole about half a meter wide in the frontal dome. Shattered glass surrounded the hole. Not level. Primary lights out, emergency power on. Mech wouldn’t auto-restart after the impact.

             He reached for a dashboard above his head containing a myriad of switches and dials and flicked on one labelled, “Manual Powerup”. The dull rose and blinking teal lights subsided, along with the four-burst beeping. White lights came on in their place, lighting up the interior of the cockpit. An AMOLED screen suspended to the Settler's front sputtered on, displaying a vintage 80’s-style logo, reading “Mecha Hi-Z, version A3.17.”

             “Welcome back, commander,” greeted the mech in a polite, yet indifferent voice. “Mecha Hi-Z, ready to take you to the edge of the world.”

             “To the edge of a cliff, more like it,” the Settler quipped, his eyes not acknowledging the screen as the scowl on his face didn’t change a muscle.

             The screen displayed the statuses of a series of self-checks as the Settler inspected the manual sensors, placed vertically on the sides of his cockpit. The temperature gauge on his left read -5°C. Not horrible, he thought, but any colder would be a challenge for his light pilot jumpsuit if he had to face nature outside his heated mech.

             His altimeter below the temperature gauge read 3145m, which he noticed was about 50m less than it should have been. The ice, he remembered from the far reaches of his stinging brain. Things were a bit hazy for him. But he remembered commenting to himself how much icier the road back was than usual. He must have slipped on it and fallen off the path home.

             On his right, the battery levels were acceptable at 55%. He could go half a day with the remaining power left. Ammo types #1 and #2 both read “EMPTY”. Of course, he had taken the weapons off his mech, not having any use for them out here. Lastly, hydraulics read 17%. His lips tightened for just a split second before returning to normal. He gave the gauge a smack, futilely hoping something had malfunctioned with it. Nothing changed. “That could give me an issue,” he murmured aloud. He had never operated a mech with such low hydraulic fluid.

             Beep beep! A blank yellow square popped on the AMOLED screen with the word “MALFUNCTION” labelled across the top. “Automatic drive error,” the mechanical voice read aloud as the words populated the yellow square below the title. The Settler tried shaking the joystick to his front, positioned on a separate panel between the AMOLED screen and his seat, just in case the mech had lied to him. Unfortunately, his mech remained immobile.

So, he pulled a lever on the side of the panel that held the joystick, twisting its stand up and away from him and the AMOLED screen, giving him a better look at the damaged glass to his front. He bent over and strapped his legs to two sensors hanging nearby that best resembled shin guards, wrapping their Velcro around his calves to hold them tight. His torso stretched as he reached high up above with both arms, yanking two cords from the top of the cockpit down, which he hooked up to loops on the upper back of his mech pilot’s harness. Next, he twisted two levers above him, swinging two puffy armbands riddled with sensors connected to the frame of the mech down to his side. The armbands felt cold as he slipped his arms into them. As he connected sensors at the end of the armbands to each one of his fingers, the mech questioned, “Switch to manual drive?”

             “Yes, switch to manual drive,” the Settler replied, standing up from his seat.

             “Switching to manual drive,” responded the mech. The seatbelt tightened around the torso of the Settler, pulling him backwards into the seat, while the cushion he had sat on folded down and tucked itself away towards the back of the mech. The belt around his waist hoisted him up into a standing position, seemingly holding him in the air if it wasn’t for the seatbelt and the cords hooked up to his harness. Finally, the Settler felt the artificial resistance flow through the veins of his puffy armbands and leg covers, snapping his body into something resembling the fetal position, which mirrored the mech’s limbs outside the cabin. Ready to move, he gently pushed the gloves outward and extended his legs to raise the mech off the ground.

             The mech creaked and groaned, and the snow-covered front shook violently as the robot scraped its limbs against the ground. It assumed a push-up position, lifting its cockpit from the cold floor it had been resting on. Another gust of wind came through the dilating hole in the frontal glass as the snow fell off in clumps, eventually revealing a black pool of a viscous liquid underneath one of the arms.

             The Settler moved a leg underneath the torso and pushed it up, standing the mech upright. “Mecha Hi-Z, deactivate the left arm from the hydraulics pool,” he ordered as soon as the weight lifted from the arm.

             “Deactivating left arm,” responded Mecha Hi-Z. The Settler’s left arm flopped down but remained stiff by the artificial resistance. He let go of the arm harness and twisted one of the two levers above his back, swinging the glove out of the way.

             The Settler glanced at the hydraulics gauge again. 15% now. His unfamiliarity with hydraulics shortages in mechs prevented him from understanding how it would affect movement. Regardless, he hoped that shutting down the leaking arm would prevent the hydraulics situation from further deteriorating.

             The Settler turned the mech around, giving him a proper view of the terrain through the visible patches in the cracked glass. Around him were two vast cliff faces that stretched and twisted as far as he could see, placing him at the bottom of a ravine. He winced as he looked up, the bright sunlight reflecting off the snow stinging his brain. Snow covered everything except the sky, which glowed an otherwise welcoming baby blue.

             “Mecha Hi-Z, pull up the map,” The Settler requested as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand. His head still beat rhythmically with his heartbeat, adding to his suspicions that he had just suffered a concussion. You don’t just get knocked out without having a concussion, after all. But at least physical pain was more straightforward to deal with, he reasoned.

             The mech’s motherboard whirred, soon displaying a map on the AMOLED screen. The Settler squinted, his eyebrows curling into an even deeper frown as he concentrated on the monitor.

             “That fall put us off far course,” he murmured, his pained eyes focused intently. He glanced at the damaged arm. If it worked, perhaps he could climb up the side of the ravine. But the sides of the ravine were quite steep, and the earth it was composed of was likely too soft. And with as little hydraulic fluid as he had, he knew it wasn’t worth it. He’d have to hike down the ravine until its end, until it let more gradually out by the planes. The long way home.

             “We need five hours,” he declared, fixing his gaze on the clock in the corner of the screen that read 1:52. “Mecha Hi-Z, what time is sundown?”

             The mech responded in a congenial, monotone voice with, “The sun sets at 5:34 P.M.”

             The Settler sighed as he moved his legs in their harnesses and swayed his good arm, initiating the mech’s actuators and beginning the trek home.

             But something didn’t feel right with the mech’s movement. Although the speed seemed okay, it staggered as if it was bowlegged, wobbling beneath the torso with every step. Perhaps it was because the mech only had one arm to sway as it moved. He tried walking while keeping both arms at his side. But it still moved awkwardly. It must have sustained damage in the fall, or perhaps it was the hydraulics, he reasoned. But since it still worked, he had no choice but to carry on. The Settler lamented not having the ability or time to properly assess them, but he had to get back before it got too dark and cold.

             He only made it a few more steps before another strong gust of wind shot through the hole in the front of his mech. The Settler shivered, his ill-equipped pilot's jumpsuit struggling to keep the brisk air at bay. It was normally warmer in here, he thought, why wasn’t the heater on?

             “Mecha Hi-Z, turn the heater on full blast,” the Settler commanded.

             “Turning the heater on maximum power,” the mech causally returned. The Settler craned his head up towards the vents where the air would come from, closing his eyes and letting the sides of his mouth turn ever-so-slightly upwards, keen for some warm air.

But the heater behind him made an obnoxious noise like a metal box being repeatedly hit with a wrench. Black smoke came seeping out of the vents, slowly for the first second, but then all at once, blasting the Settlers face with a murky cloud.

             “Mecha Hi-Z!” coughed the Settler. “Heater off! Heater off!”

             “Turning the heater off,” the mech responded in the same tone as if nothing unordinary had happened.

             The Settler covered his mouth with the elbow of his free arm and coughed again. Afterwards, he rubbed his face with the backside of his hand, noting a black grime that now covered it as he withdrew it. No heater, he decided.

             That concerned the Settler. It was only going to get darker. And as it got darker, it would get colder. And that hole in the window wasn’t going to go away. There wouldn’t be anything he could do about it until he made it home and could fix it at his settlement. He would just have to deal with the brunt of the cold as it snuck through the hole.

             “Wait,” he said aloud. “Mecha Hi-Z, weather report.”

             “Displaying the weather.”

             The AMOLED screen dashed the map with puffy cloud figurines, indicating local pressure and temperature. Last updated an hour ago. A swathe of particularly dark clouds had been spotted in the area, but he wasn’t sure if they’d be joining him or not up the mountain on his way home.

             “Mech Hi-Z, refresh weather,” he requested. The winds could change at any moment, so he needed the most recent update.

             “Refreshing weather now.”

             The loading symbol spun next to the spot where the map indicated it had last updated. After about 20 seconds, the mech nonchalantly reported, “Connection error. Could not refresh.” The Settler pinched his lips. That meant he lost communication with the outside world, too. As if they’d be able to make it in time if something happened. But if he got out of the ravine, he’d have a better chance at getting a connection.

             He made it a couple hundred more meters along the inside of the ravine before he remembered the supplies he had stashed in the back of the mech. With a swoop of his legs, he spun the mech around, worried if anything had fallen off. But Lady Luck was on his side this time around, because nothing unexpected jutted out of the snow.

             “Mecha Hi-Z, display rearward cameras,” he instructed.

             “Displaying rearward cameras,” echoed the mech. The fisheye camera on the upper back of the dome displayed on the AMOLED screen, showing a panorama of the terrain to the rear, along with the top of the mech’s storage container. Thankfully, its lid looked the same as it did when he loaded it. The Settler breathed a sigh of relief, grateful at least something had gone right in this journey. He needed those supplies to last him until spring, and they were particularly expensive during the coldest part of winter.

             As he continued his journey through the ravine, the Settler lamented why he had to go on the supply run to begin with. If her actions had aligned with her words, if she had just been honest with her intentions and left ahead of time instead of falsely promising she’d try, he would have had enough supplies to survive the winter. Or if she stayed, they could have done this trek for more supplies together like they had planned. Hell, the trip could have been fun, too. And maybe he wouldn’t have fallen down the ravine if he had someone else to watch his back. But the path she chose was the most damaging in both ways. He hardly felt the frigid wind that snuck in through the crack of the window as he simmered with a boiling regret.

             A few hours later, the Settler finally came up upon what seemed to be the end of the ravine, which was more of a pile of mech-sized rocks leading up and out of it instead of a flat exit. Mechs were particularly good at traversing steep terrain, especially the A3.17 version of the Mecha Hi-Z with its proportionally strong legs. Even so, it would be a challenge with only one arm operational. Alas, the Settler had no other choice.

             To avoid the night, he decided to climb the rocks the fastest way he knew. He positioned Mecha Hi-Z at the base of a rock at the bottom, a flat one about two-thirds as tall as the mech. He reached out with his one good arm, feeling the sensors at his fingertips give resistance as it touched its top. The Settler squatted, bending the actuators beneath him, and then sprung up at the same time he pulled in with his fingers, catapulting the mech onto the top of the level rock. The mech landed with a surprisingly soft “thud,” having given just enough effort to jump atop.

             Satisfied, the Settler repeated this with the next rock, one almost identical to the first. But this time, the mech’s actuators didn’t perform consistently, and he jumped higher than the top of the second rock, landing with a more resounding “thud.” The mech wobbled, its battered legs struggling to support the extra pressure amidst their damage. Its feet danced across the top of the second rock in a desperate attempt to regain its balance, but it placed a foot too close to the edge and began tipping backwards.

             The Settler reacted by snapping his one good arm behind him to break the fall instead of risking damaging the core of the mech where the supplies were stored. The mech tumbled backwards until its outstretched arm crashed into the top of the first rock, bouncing towards the other arm as it continued downwards.

But the deactivated other arm remained pinned towards the side of the mech, leaving the cockpit exposed to hit the edge of the first rock, on the side above of the hole in the glass. The Settler squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as his damaged mech collided with the stone. The impact shattered an extra meter-wide hole into the glass as the mech bounced off the first rock and toppled further down.

             Fortunately, the crash into the cockpit bounced the mech back towards its good arm instead of the supplies on its back. The Settler was able to somewhat break his fall on their final impact onto the bottom of the ravine by managing to catch the mech in a one-armed push-up position. He promptly rose the mech to the stand, where even more glass fell out of the growing hole in the glass, now about a third gone. The glass around the hole had further shattered, giving him an abbreviated view outside another third of his cockpit. Only the top part of the cockpit remained mostly intact.

             Beep beep! “Danger. Hydraulics critically low,” warned Mecha Hi-Z in an unassuming tone as a blinking red alert lit up the AMOLED screen, covering the map. The Settler snapped his head towards his hydraulics gauge. 9%. He winced. Any fluid below 10% was dangerously low, according to the operator’s manual.

             The Settler sighed and responded, “Acknowledged.” He stared at the AMOLED screen, waiting for it to change, but even after a few seconds, it remained the same.

             “Mecha Hi-Z, acknowledge.” The red alert remained blinking.

             “Mecha Hi-Z!” shouted the Settler, worried the mech’s microphone was damaged. “Acknowledge the critical hydraulics alert!”

             Still nothing. So, the Settler reached towards the AMOLED screen and pressed a physical button on the bottom, shrinking the damage report and bringing the map back up.

             Curious if the mech still wouldn’t listen, the Settler tried, “Mecha Hi-Z, display rearward cameras,” worried about the status of his crucial shipment.

             “Displaying rearward cameras,” the mech responded to his surprise. How curious it would decide to work sometimes, and not work other times, the Settler pondered. Perhaps it just wouldn’t acknowledge a critical fault with voice.

             The rearward cameras didn’t show anything out of the norm. The Settler sighed, this time out of relief, and ordered the mech to put the map back up on the AMOLED screen.

             Peering through the cracked glass, he scoured around for a safer route to get up the rocks other than the quicker way he just tried. There were some relatively innocent looking rocks on the side, so he started there. He carefully placed out his legs and arm on the rock wall, making a tripod out of his mech, and began using its immense power to crawl up little by little.

By using these gradual movements, he discovered the mech didn’t seem to experience any serious problems with its hydraulics. It turned out to be a much more controlled method, at the cost of speed. This extra time gave his wandering mind too much space to avoid again dissecting the past.

             By now, the frustration of her leaving had mellowed into more of a disappointment. How disappointing that he’d poured so much of his time into somebody who thought perfect relationships just happen without any work. He could have spent his time doing anything else instead of dedicating himself to that relationship. Like working on his mech, watching the crystals, or drinking more root beer.

             Oh, the root beer. Sure, she never told him he couldn’t have root beer. Quite the opposite, actually. But she placed herself on a strict diet and would be tempted to have some of his root beer every time he’d bring it out, whining and begging until she got “just a sip,” which always seemed to turn into half the bottle. No matter how often she told him not to give her some before it came out, his heart melted every time she’d ask, and he couldn’t help but share the drink that made him happiest with the woman he cared about most.

             But afterwards, she’d complain about how that sip had spoiled her diet, making those already lurking self-image issues worse. So he got in the habit of just not stocking any root beer around the settlement. He felt so guilty enjoying a beverage so terroristic to his body while his girl fought tooth and nail to work on hers. Part of why he spent so much money on supplies was because he wanted to buy a case of that root beer back. Particularly during the dead of winter, getting good root beer in his region could cost an arm and a leg. Or in his case, his mech’s arm, and its leg’s stability. But regardless of the expense, he firmly believed that root beer was a necessary part of his own re-discovery, so he shelled out for a crate of it on his supply run.

             After what seemed like forever crawling up the rocks, the Settler snapped out of his daydream as he reached the end of his climb out of the ravine. He eagerly slung Mecha Hi-Z up on the last stretch just slightly faster than normal, popping his mech out onto a gradual plane on the side of the mountain that led to the field of crystals.

             Relieved to finally be out of that subterranean jail, the Settler inhaled deeply as he spun the mech around, welcoming the air from his new environment into his lungs with a renewed smile donned across his face. Amidst his twirl, his eyes fixed themselves through the only visible part remaining on the upper part of the mech’s dome, where he caught a gargantuan, looming cloud, peppered by the sun’s rosy rays as it began its retirement beyond the horizon.

His cheerful spin halted to absorb the elegance of the cloud’s brilliant wine-tinted shade, and how it could cascade itself against the baby blue background of the sky. He admired how he could trick his mind into thinking the cloudy sky was actually the ocean, with its wrinkles that caught a different hue from the sun doubling as waves in the water, and the earth stretched out to the horizon could instead masquerade as the beach. But mostly, he admired how the sun’s ability to change the clouds reminded him of his field of crystals, as if its beauty merely became the appetiser for a landscape dominated by those brilliant, rose rays.

             After a good minute, he glanced at the clock. 5:16. Temperature, -6°C. Not horribly cold in the waning sunlight. But it wouldn’t hold.

             “Mecha Hi-Z, weather report,” the Settler requested. The weather icon kept indicating it was loading, but nothing came in. Comms were still down. Or at the very least, inhibited. But the Settler didn’t need a connection to know that the storm was, indeed, inbound from the same cloud whose very beauty he had stopped to admire.

             A chilling wind then zoomed from across the frozen plane surrounding the ravine’s end, making the Settler shiver as it swirled up into the even bigger hole in the glass. But having been recharged by the sunset, the carefree smile remained stretched across the Settler’s face as he remembered how serious of a challenge his journey home was going to be. Nonetheless, he needed to keep moving before it got dark, so he began trekking across the plane.

             The rough combination of freezing plane winds and the hole in his cockpit still proved to be quite punishing for the weary Settler, though it also couldn’t pierce his rejuvenated spirit. But when paired with the monotonous step-by-step slugging across the boring terrain, repeating the same motions with his legs and working arm with the other squished against his chest for warmth, it spiralled him into another bout of rehashing his past in his head to keep his mind off the cold.

             Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. Yeah, her leaving was rough, but there's nothing wrong with giving her some space for self-discovery, right? Besides, the good times couldn't have been much better. He'd never forget the peaks. The way she'd look at him with her dark, oversized anime eyes. Pupils so stretched, he couldn’t tell where they ended and her irises began. It made him feel warm, accepted. And with all she did for him in her own way, he was certain she loved him, albeit sometimes in a different love language than his. She just didn't understand how some of her habits would hurt him. And surely, she felt the same about him. A little adjustment, a little more open communication to learn the tools to work with each other instead of against was all they needed. And they could go far. Real far. They were so close to reaching that point of singularity.

             Maybe the time apart was what they both needed, to let those wounds heal and recharge with some self-exploration, so they could hit it again with enough energy to discover those tools. But if they were in a catch-22 where they constantly waited for each other, nobody would make that first move, and the opportunity would be squandered. So maybe he needed to reach out to her to reaffirm that he wanted to try again. She needed support, too. Oh, how would he do it? Would he shoot her a straightforward request to talk and then meet up at an agreed location? Would he write her a long-form letter, detailing all his feelings and patiently wait for a reply back? Would he go to her settlement with a boombox blasting "Baby Come Back" by Player, and when she came to the window, yell, "I love you!"?

             Surely, she'd say yes. Their relationship had more gas in it. He was positive of the love they had for each other. Besides, she had told him she never loved before like she loved him. Yes, all they needed were the right tools to work better together as a team, and all those other issues would work themselves out.

             As he blissfully admired the future’s possibility, he hardly noticed the sun had set until Mecha Hi-Z beeped twice, dragging him out of his head and reminding him, “Danger. Hydraulics critically low."

             He reached out and hit the acknowledge button on the AMOLED screen, peering through the cracks in the glass and catching sight of the field of crystals, now only a couple miles or so away from him. The sun, already tucked beneath the horizon, could still shine on the most prominent ones from their position high up on the cusp of the mountain. In these mere moments while the sun danced around the horizon, the crystals would suck up the sun’s rays and emanate that brilliant rose around them like lanterns. Their warm glow could be seen for miles. Becoming a part of the crystal’s cycle as they gleamed during these two mere moments at most twice a day was the predominant reason the Settler chose to live in the heart of the field, so distant away from civilisation. The crystals themselves weren’t alive, but their warming glow gave his soul warmth. They were his ikigai.

             The Settler’s eyes fixed on the parts of the loftiest crystals that no longer glowed in the waning sunlight until they stopped shining. Though this time, he hardly thought about what those crystals meant to him. His mind mostly worried about how he was going to traverse them. The ravine led to a different point on the field than he would normally enter, so he’d have to hike through the unkempt parts of the crystal field instead of down the path he laboriously carved towards his home in the middle. The field went for miles, too, and crystals of all shapes and sizes – some quite sharp – peppered the land. He couldn’t simply dismount the mech and stroll back on foot. The fields wouldn’t be safe to traverse without the mech’s armoured feet.

             But then in an instant, everything abruptly seemed to go dark. He recognised he had been busy wandering through the maze inside his head, but it still seemed too hasty for the Settler. Another frigid breeze shot through the gap in the frontal glass, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He suddenly remembered the impending storm and whipped his mech around towards where he last caught sight of the dreamy, sun-kissed clouds that reminded him of the crystals. But instead, all he saw was a violent, deep grey wall of death. And it was almost on top of him. By the look of it, it’d arrive any minute.

             His fight or flight system activated, and the Settler took off running in some futile effort to try and beat the storm. However, the awkwardness of his mech’s damaged legs paired with the incline up the plane inhibited his balance and he immediately almost toppled over. The Settler staggered to a stop to regain the mech's balance as he swore under his breath. All he could do was continue walking.

             The eerie darkness hardly waited a minute to wrap its forbearing fingers around the neck of what little sunlight remained as the storm crept closer and closer. Something in the air felt dangerous for the Settler, alarmed by the sudden pressure drop. He shivered, noticing the winds had begun picking up, too. He checked the thermometer as he rubbed his body with his free arm in a fearful attempt to keep warm. -17°C.

             “Mecha Hi-Z, turn on the headlights,” he ordered, the ground already getting tough for him to make out through the darkness.

             “Turning on the headlights now,” went Mecha Hi-Z. Two lights snapped on, one on each shoulder of the Mech, beaming a binocular-shaped pattern on the ground ahead of him. The light attached to the damaged arm then flickered, made a frying noise, and shut off. One beam of light it is, accepted the Settler.

             Then, when only a couple hundred meters away from the field of crystals, the storm struck. Snow came billowing down from the sky in clumps, and the wind seemed to only be growing stronger as it swooped the snow around in every direction. Flurries zoomed through the hole in the front glass, twisting around inside the cockpit and plastering themselves to anything they could find, whether that was the walls of the mech, the controls, the Settler’s clothes, or his exposed skin.

             A particularly strong burst of wind came crashing from the side with enough force to risk capsizing the weary mech, so the Settler torqued his controls and leaned into it as he trudged forward. The wind would seem to react by stopping for a moment, just to come again from another direction. It became a constant struggle for the Settler to lean the right way to keep his mech upright. The joints of the battered mech whined under the immense force the wind could generate from ripping across the open plane. The Settler worried it might not be able to hold, or that he wouldn’t react in time to lean in the right direction. Just a bit more to go, he fixated on, and hopefully, the crystals would provide some safeguard from the winds.

             The mech finally placed its first reinforced foot onto the field, giving off a crunch loud enough to be heard even through the blizzard as it pulverised some of the smaller crystals poking from the ground. The Settler lurched forward and took his first turn behind the closest greater crystal, which peered about three times as tall as his mech, hoping it would shield him from the plane’s bloodthirsty winds. A sharp breeze immediately crashed against the outside of the crystal from the other side, whipping around its corners and charging into the dark nether beyond him. But hugging the crystal, he was safe.

             The Settler rubbed his face with his free arm to wipe away some of the snow, again taking a glance at the thermometer. -25°C. He then noticed the tips of his extremities had all grown numb. But he had much more to go.

             Beep beep! “Danger. Hydraulics critically low,” alerted the mech, with the same warning popping up on the AMOLED screen.

“Oh, stop being so dramatic,” grunted the Settler as he reached forward to press the button. He then took a deep breath and grit his teeth, bracing for his journey through the never. With one determined step, he was off.

             But after hardly making it a couple meters away from the first giant crystal he had used for cover, the wind suddenly bashed from the side, again almost taking the mech to the ground. The Settler strained his legs in their sensors, fighting to keep it upright. With a frenzied burst of energy, he managed to lean the right amount into the wind before it could slip. He hurried as fast as his mech could move to the next big rock, praying the wind would die down as he made his way deeper into the field.

             He made it past the next giant crystal, and then one more, before another savage wind ambushed him from a different side this time, thrashing the mech around like a toy in a dog’s mouth. The Settler battled the venomous winds by straining to keep the mech upright, getting close enough to catch himself with his good arm on one of the big crystals to brace there until the wind subsided. When it finally did, he continued his trek, making it only halfway to the next crystal before the same thing happened again.

             But this time, he wasn’t so nimble. A wind swooped his legs out and flung them behind him, rocketing the cockpit forward into the crystal-laden ground perhaps a meter before one of the huge crystal pillars. The remnants of the mech’s frontal glass smashed as the cockpit collided with the ground. A particularly sharp crystal pierced through the dead centre of the mech, lancing right through the AMOLED screen. The mech stopped falling before it could pierce him, but as a payment for his fortunate luck, the Settler’s free arm whipped forward from the impact and crashed into the flat side of the crystal forearm-first. Suspended by his harness just above the ground, the Settler stared at the pointy crystal, its tip aimed directly at his chest.

             Beep beep! “Danger. Hydraulics critically low,” warned the mech in the same monotone voice as if nothing had happened. As if he needed any more bad news to crush his spirit, the Settler still craned his head towards the hydraulics gauge. 5%. He could hardly control the mech at 9%, and now, in this dreadful storm, it read at 5%.

             As the cherry on top, the mech's white cabin lights then snapped off. Not even the beeping and crimson and blue lights this time. Complete silence, minus the snarl of the wind as it coursed across the mech's back with an unsavoury thirst for blood. The Settler's only remaining companion now was his loneliness.

             And then the pain. His forearm stung as it hung in front of him, already growing swollen from the impact. His legs and arms had grown sore over the past several hours from manually moving his mech up the mountain. The harnesses that strapped his body to the mech dug into his skin underneath. But most agonising for the battered Settler, his head throbbed, having not been given any reprise from the impacts he suffered the several times his mech had fallen.

             A wave of hopelessness rested its sombre fingers on his tired shoulders. No left arm, no hydraulics, no heat, no map, no Mecha Hi-Z, and no girl. Everything throughout his body whined. And oh, was he cold. Simply frigid. He felt like the whole world was against him. So, he just closed his eyes and hung there, allowing his head to sulk down, too beaten to try anything more.

             Why even bother continuing, he thought as his numbing body quavered from the frigid cold. He fought the urge to stay closer to his friends and family to come all the way out here. He fought tooth and nail to build his settlement out in such a dangerous place. And he fought with everything he had to keep her from leaving. He gave it his all. But all the love he poured into the world couldn’t prevent him from failing to make it back, lying a mere mile or so away from his home, in a field of otherwise dazzling crystals, on a mech that had also abandoned him. She wasn’t coming back. What even awaited him out here? Why had he given so much, just to end up like this?

             He realised that he only hurt if he kept moving. What if he just remained still? All he wanted to do was let the breeze slip in through the space between the ground and the mech where the glass once covered and wait for the cold to take him away. Maybe this was a sign, telling him to stop.

             But to his surprise, the mech's cabin lights turned right back on.

             “Welcome back, commander,” greeted the mech in that polite, yet indifferent voice. “Mecha Hi-Z, ready to take you to the edge of the world.”

             “To the edge of the world, you say?” retorted the Settler. “More like to the edge of our garden. We almost made it home.”

             The mech didn’t respond directly, but it might as well have. "Automatic emergency restart complete,” it reported. “Mech restarted in Combat Override mode. Malfunctions ignored. Maintenance needed. Mech operational.”

             How curious, he pondered, that after all the damage it had gone through, his trusty Mecha Hi-Z still started up and kept trying. A crystal had pierced through the AMOLED screen, its heart at the core of the cockpit, but it still found a way to restart and give it another shot. This time, even better than it did after his tumble down the ravine.

             A similar batch of weaponised disappointment began pumping through his veins. Although this time, it wasn’t aimed at her. It was aimed at himself. Why hadn’t he restarted the same way?

             Why was he going to go through everything he did to just lay there and give up when he was so, so close to the finish line? He had slaved away to get this far, why let anyone or anything rob him of his chance to make it out of here? If he could just use the energy he had been wasting on worrying about her to get out of this mess, he just might make it home. If not for him, for Mecha Hi-Z. More than anything else he might have been sure of today, he was sure he could try.

             Armed with a determined scowl, the Settler glanced towards the thermometer. His head pounded, but he winced, took a second, and looked back at it. But before even registering what it said, he decided to look away. The temperature wouldn’t sway his plan either way at this point. He had to try no matter what it might read.

             The Settler slid his arm hooked up to the sensors alongside his chest, wedging the mech’s working arm right through the crystals right beneath him, between the ground and the cockpit. He then pressed up with all his strength, prying the body of his mech away from the crystal-laden ground, leaving virtually all the glass behind. The AMOLED screen stayed secure enough to the inside of the mech for the particularly pointy crystal to slide out, leaving the carcass of the monitor dangling in front of him, now oozing a clear, thick monitor goop. The Settler put his feet underneath him, but this time rocked backwards into a squatting position. He took a few squatted steps towards the giant crystals to take cover for a moment while he brainstormed a way to survive the unforgiving winds. Whatever he had been doing simply wasn’t viable.

             Only tiny shards of glass around the edges of the cockpit remained now, giving the winds a virtually full, unobstructed avenue of attack, save the carcass of the murdered AMOLED screen. At least the view was better now though, he justified.

             Then the first rogue wind came in, punching him head-on through the uncovered front. He gritted his teeth as he shivered, covering his face with his free arm as he absorbed the full brunt of it.

             After it subsided, he noticed the mech hadn’t rocked at all in the face of the latest antagonistic breeze. Did it waver at all before when he stood up next to the tallest rocks? He didn’t pay enough attention to it earlier. Regardless, the height of his mech surely affected his centre of gravity. Perhaps if he trekked home in a squat, he could lower it and survive the winds.

             So, he awkwardly moved his legs forward to duck walk back home in his curious squat. The crystals strewn about the field shattered under the mighty actuators of the A3.17. He felt goofy using such an advanced piece of machinery in such a manner until he was about three-quarters to the next rock and the next ravenous gust of wind came. When his mech hardly wobbled as the wind bashed into its side, a defiant grin sprang from the Settler's frosty face.

             He made it to the next crystal, and then the one after that with no problem at all. Then another wind came, and he absorbed that, too. He finally felt like he had a winning chance to make it on his final stretch home.

             By now, though, his body temperature had reached critical levels and he trembled from the hours of exposure to the cold. He first tried to move faster, but the mech could only handle so much speed through its dangerously low hydraulics. He realised he hadn’t needed fine motor movement for a while and tried fluttering his fingers. He could hardly feel them. Was it worth it having dirty air, he questioned? Perhaps it was.

“Mecha Hi-Z, turn the heater on!” he shouted through the roaring winds.

“Turning the heater on,” the mech announced, in not just the same tone as always, but the same volume meant for inside a closed cockpit. The Settler didn't know if it heard him until the murky smog began billowing down from the vent above him. He covered his mouth with the elbow from his free arm, wrapping it around his head and digging his numb fingers between the neckline of his clothing and his skin to try and steal some of the remaining heat from his torso.         

Another burst of wind struck before he could feel the heat from the vents, but once it settled down, the compromising cloud that seeped out into his open cabin seemed to thaw just the top of his shoulders, at the cost of covering everything with a dark soot. Fortunately, he hardly coughed anywhere near as much as the first time, protecting his breathing as much as possible with his jumpsuit’s fabric pressed to his mouth.     

He slugged through the field with his graceless technique, still freezing from the winds and now also poisoning himself slowly from the vents. But this final portion of his trek had proven to be considerably difficult for his exhausted body. His legs were by no means weak from his years working out in such a demanding environment, but slaving for hundreds of meters in the duck stance with as much resistance his mech had applied to his limbs had drained him. He had to breathe more because he used more energy, but to get more air he inhaled more of the smog, but to turn that off might freeze him to death in the dark blizzard. Despite as much of a workout moving the mech was, he still wasn’t getting enough heat, either. His body still shook almost uncontrollably, even with the heater on. And to make matters worse, his cheekbone bounced against the bump on his forearm stung with every jerky step his mech took.

             But none of this stopped him now. He didn’t know if he was going to make it. But he wasn’t going to stop trying. He had wasted enough of his life. And he had a mech that deserved its maintenance.

 

           

             The ceiling’s white colour poked through as the first light crept in from outdoors. As the sun rose, it hit the atmosphere just right and glowed a muted orange, then a brighter orange, and then back to the muted orange as it rose above the horizon. Just as the orange had almost entirely faded from the skyline, the sunlight finally hit the loftiest crystals on the field outside, almost immediately lighting up the Settler’s home with that brilliant, peaceful, rose hue.

             The Settler had built his home above the top of the crystals, situated with windows across the entire wall facing the sunrise and sunset. For a good 15 minutes twice each day as weather permitted, he would stop anything he was working on and just absorb the pure rose world he'd built his life around. That specific shade of rose seemed to calm him down more than anything else in the world, which was exactly what he needed this morning.

             Thankfully for him, the first thing the Settler’s eyes landed on as he woke up on top of his bed's covers was that brilliant, tranquil shade of rose shining on his ceiling. He grinned slightly, in the way a wise grandparent might when they uncovered a child’s lie but didn’t acknowledge it directly. He laid there for a minute before stretching his arms and sitting up.

             Just like Mecha Hi-Z the night before, his body groaned as it moved. A coughing fit struck him, his dirty lungs were still recovering from the damaged heater. The coughing triggered his head to ache again, battered from all the falling. But his whole body complained. His legs, in particular, were awfully sore. They had a terrific workout in that mech. Conversely, they were also the only part of his body that didn’t seem to get all that cold. But in spite of his pain merely existing, he had a very important mission to do, so he rose from his seat and strolled out of his bedroom.

             The Settler reached the kitchen, another room glowing Martian red, and made his way to the refrigerator. He reached for its door with the hand that had not been operating the mech’s working arm, but froze it mid-air, noting purple and yellow welt that protruded above the normal plane of his forearm. He observed it for a few seconds. What a memento, he decided.

             But his mission took priority, so he wedged his paw into the handle and flung it open to seize a bottle of root beer with his good hand. He shut the fridge with a shove and opened the bottle with the bottle opener on the wall before wandering back to his bedroom, where he took a seat on the edge of the bed to get the best view of the crystals.

             That first sip of root beer could hardly be described with words. The cinnamon, the nutmeg, the sassafras, the vanilla – every flavour, combined with 100% natural cane sugar created a cathartic experience for the weary Settler. All the time away from it made it all that much more satisfying for him. But the journey to get it made it feel even more like an award. The experience about brought tears to his eyes.

             He sipped it while gazing at the crystal fields below, with a serene sensation overtaking him as he reminisced. He could make out the route he took to get to his home the night before, carved in a nonlinear path from large crystal to large crystal way out past where he could see. He specifically never cleared more than one route out from the middle of the field because he wanted to keep the crystals as unmolested as possible. But now that it was there, he didn’t mind it as much as he thought he would. It marked a night of triumph for him.

             The Settler looked down at the raised welt on his forearm, noting the unordinary array of colours his skin on top of it had turned. It would take a long time to heal. But he knew it would get better eventually. Physical pain is simple, he thought. Nothing he could do but let time heal it.

He thought about his past was now behind him. Instead of solely living in dread, lamenting she left, regretting having to go get extra supplies, holding onto hope that they’d work out, or barely surviving the trip home, this part of his life held the decisive victory of making it through such a crucible of challenges. Sure, it wasn’t going to be a linear path. Like the rest of life, he knew he’d have his ups and downs. But knowing he had still come out on top after such a daunting down had given him a fondness for whatever future awaited him. Life just didn’t seem so harrowing anymore. He knew in his heart of hearts that he was going to be just fine.

And even if the future turned sour again sometime, at least that root beer was damn good.