: Prompting Needed_

Mechanical Generations

Gilet grasped the head of the spanner as her other hand torqued the handle down. The tool groaned in protest before the spanner slipped from her grasp with the disheartening ping of snapped metal. The unfinished edge of the handle she had fashioned to the socketed head ate into her thick leather glove with a whispered slice. She jerked her arm back and spread her fingers wide to keep the tool from getting any further and digging into her palm. A slew of coiled wire followed the handle from inside the machine, uncoiling and arcing through the air like a spray of solidified blood. The head fell loose from the bolt then slid on the polished floor, followed by the rapidly straightening tension wire. Gilet fell back onto her butt and kicked her feet up to slam her hardened-toed boots under the chassis. "Slagged mech!" she yelled. She balled a fist and felt the leather pressed around her knuckles. Fleetingly, she imagined punching the rusted shell in front of her but her other hand – still aching from last week – sent caution through her, telling her not to make that mistake again. She instead began to tilt back and forth, craning her neck to stare into the exposed inner workings of the mech's neck. Surprisingly, even though the lights in the bay were on low, she could see everything in the mech's central nervous system. Clusters of rods, pistons, and wires along with the crystalline energy packs were lit up from a beam that was being reflected from somewhere.

Gilet followed the shadows' angles to find the beam came from an electric torch being shone from the mech's waistline. "Someone there?" she called.

The beam moved, casting lines of shadow that slid over Gilet's face as whomever held the torch moved around the mech. A small, hunched figure draped in layered robes shuffled around the mech's feet as the torch clicked off. In the warmth of the ambient bay lights, the creased face of her grandmother smiled down at her. Gilet returned the smile and held out her hand for the device. "May I?" Torch in hand, Gilet stuck her head in the neck hole and brought her hand into the arm's shoulder joint to spin the loosened gear there. That had to be the reason the coil was not catching. A moment later, she sat back and glanced up at her grandmother who stood with rapt attention at the work Gilet was doing. The soft orange lights of the overhead bulbs filtered through the older woman's hair, ringing her head in a halo that accentuated the elder's attention. Her smile deepened as Gilet made eye contact.

"I enjoy seeing the work done," the older woman said in her native tongue with her syrupy accent. Something about the tone reminded Gilet of old hydraulic fluid. Gilet smiled as an answer then ducked her head back into the mech. "But I wonder," her grandmother continued, "when will it be complete?"

Gilet sat back once more, and this time caught her grandmother staring at the rough-hewn spanner parts and loose wire that littered the deck. "Is nothing," she said back. Her words sounded watery compared to her grandmother's. Gilet's Himathi was not fluent or smooth, but she always felt weird talking to her elders in Makkish, the common language in the hub. "Done in... much little time?" A twist of confusion moved over her grandmother's face. "Uh," Gilet said while waving her hand in a circle to help to generate the right words. "Soon?" With grace that belied no age, her grandmother sank to the ground in a billowing of cloth to sit cross-legged on the concrete. The lights shifted her features. The torch in Gilet's hand cast shadows into the elder's eyes and accentuated her cheekbones. Her grandmother's grin was wide and warm. Gilet glanced beyond towards the large bay window. The newest planet's lightside was sliding across its surface. As sweet as her grandmother was, Gilet did not have the time to dally. The Consortium would be by soon for their gear.

"How soon," her grandmother asked in Himathi. "I want to take my favorite mechanic to breakfast." Her head tilted, causing her long boneshell earrings to rattle. One hung from an elongated ear lobe and the light from the torch splayed across it. Prismatic sparks were cast around the garage for one dazzling moment. "What do you say?" Her wizened hand swept the wires spread out beside her then gripped them into a bundle. She gave the bunch to Gilet.

Gilet stared at the wires for a long moment before sighing. She took the offered bundle, dropped them, then grasped her grandmother's hands in one of hers.

"Of course, Mimi," she said in Makkish. In the warmest Himathi she could attempt, she added, "How can 'no'?"