• Parallel

    Seriously, I dunno what I’m doing here. They took me cuz I’m good at fixing up and they kept me, since I didn’t argue. Though they wouldn’t had let me go even if I’d asked. They need people like me and there is so much work to do that in fact, I kind of would have to dig my way out trough those piles of junk surrounding me. Like, they have to throw my coffee to me so I can stay awake. Haven’t slept for three days in a row now and I’m dead tired but even without that crappy and only drink we have here, I don’t wanna sleep.

    The guy on my left with the helmet and the Playstation controller is called Kevin, alias Cerberus. It’s his codename. By the way I’m Azael. I’m just the engineer here so I don’t need a codename. I’m just doing so Kevin have something to play with.

    If I can call that playing. He sure takes his job to heart, but still. There’s nothing funny about that. No one here is having fun, except for that moron right there, maybe. She looks like she enjoys it but I don’t really know if she really is, though. We don’t talk to her in general cuz she’s one kind of a freak. Moreover, a dangerous freak. She’s called Logan, alias Kidann. Oh and that idiot in the corner with blond and brown hairs is Raichel. We don’t know his real name but sure thing we know, he’s really skilled. He’s a spy of some sort. Informer, that’s what he calls himself. We know nothing about him except for what we see with our own eyes.

    Right, I didn’t told you ‘bout my job, except for the fixing up/engineer part. I do mechanics, or micromechanics if you prefer. Most of all, I work on the microchips we’re using so miss Kidann and misters Cerberus and Raichel can freely play around in the wild. Gotta put you into our situation, now. Bet you can’t even catch a glimpse of what that’s all about. Are the brains burning? Haha! Just before that, I wanna specify that the little thing running and jumping around me isn’t, in any possible way, blood-related to me. He’s Logann’s kid brother. Mana’s the name but we call him Kiwi cuz it’s his favorite fruit. Stupid, I know, but we might be geniuses, we are quite idiotic at the same time. Brilliant people aren’t necessarily smart. I learned that living here. Anyway, Mana wanna fix up chips just like me that’s why he’s always somewhere near. Gotta teach him everything I know and it’s surprising cuz he understand and remember almost everything I show him. The child’s skilled.

    So, ‘bout the situation. Well we’re militaries working under the Canadian army’s jurisdiction. They managed to father something so their soldiers don’t have to go spilling their precious crimson fluid on the battlefield anymore. Big robots are going instead. Of course, we’re not the only ones using that kinda technology. Other countries have their own arsenal. It’s surprising sometimes. What they think of, I mean. And another part of my job is to guess/understand how it works and ameliorate, should the occasion arise, drawing sketches and send them so they can mimic and build better weapons or whatever. Cerberus, Kidann, and the others that I dunno who do the same job are driving these giant things. Since we have a great lack of material here –relevant material I mean- I am the one who got the idea of connecting the Mizers to the playstaytion controllers. By the way, the Mizers are what we call the big-scary-mighty robots. Those lovely war toys I design.

    It doesn’t save more lives, though. Civilians‘re still up there, in their sealed off dwellings, looking out the window big and small robots, savagely knocking each other down. It’s sad cuz sometimes the fight break their homes and mash them in the process. Humankind cannot live without fighting it seems, even if it is for absolutely nothing. If it was up to me I wouldn’t be here, I swear. I hate myself for doing that but it is that or I can surely say goodbye to my living state. I know too much by now for them to kindly open the door and let me go with a couple of friendly taps on the shoulder.

    Fixing up the Mizers, at first, I thought that finally the war would turn to be more humanistic. As fool as I can be I thought that now it would be like a chess game, judging the winner by the number of pawns left on the board at the end. ‘S not how it works. The goal is to destroy the pawns, then smash the other’s base or lure the enemy’s attention on the pawns and explode their hideout from the back with Mini-Mizers. Mini-Mizers were my invention. Naturally, the others stole the idea but I still have the advantage here that my Mini-Mizers are the smallest. No one can do as small as my Mini-Mizers. In addition to that, I worked a thing so they deactivate when they come near the bunker. No fireworks for us, I’m telling you. Don’t need blowing s**t in here.

    Cuz yeah, as I said we’re stuck in bunkers underground with thousands of screens and as much scrap iron. And a coffee pot. Oh yeah we have a small fridge too but it died and I still haven’t got the time to repair it. Reason why I don’t really look forward to open it anymore, with the old sandwiches from last week and the milk… add to that the fact that it’s dead for three or four days now, you wouldn’t feel the urge to work on it either. Think I’ll ask Mana to do it instead. At least wash it before I start working on bringing it back to life. Un-Die it as Raichel would say. I can ask him too, if he quash another of my Mini-Mizers. Doesn’t happened often but still, when comes to him the brilliant idea of infiltrating under a Mizer’s shell… it’s freaking me out, really. The other day he screwed up one of those li’l babies of mine by going in a Mizer’s articulation. Notice it was still useful; I did new sketches to improve our heavy-duty battalion. Japanese have great ideas when it comes to mechanic.

    Shouldn’t be wasting my time like that, still have a lot of job waiting for me. I’ll never see the end of it! Really! And where the f*** is my coffee? Great, Kevin took it. Without asking. Love it. Not. Can’t really blame him though, unlike me he can’t move from where he is or else he zap his Mizer and then I’ll get really mad at him. Could even break something on his head. Kevin arrived the same day I did so we teamed up to stand against all that nice people which were "oh so smarter and capable than we were". Kevin’s like a brother to me. And he got no luck, first time he operated a Mizer it was in his hometown and not knowing the commands he crashed the thing right on his parents’ house, killing them. Took him some time before operating those unholy toys again. In the meantime I couldn’t work either, he wouldn’t let go off me even for a minute. I understand his feelings, in a way, I would’ve done the same. Anyway I’m bad at video games, my thing is fixing things up and that’s all. That and drinking coffee. And can’t we get a f***ing coffee here anymore? There’s Raichel over there fooling around wasting his time and he’s not even disposed to give a hand! That Jerk!

    Looks like we’ve got troubles, there’s Logan yelling. It’s funny in a way that she kinda half watch her tongue. Doesn’t talk like all and sundry, it’s more like good vocabulary used so you just wanna strangle her in any possible way. If you’re the one she’s shouting at. Just for fun I managed to fix a micro on her helmet so when she have something to say she just put it on and shout out whatever she have in mind. The enemy then pick up everything by the micros equipped on every robot. Well, normally we use it only so we know what’s surrounding the Mizer. It is not supposed to be used for communication. It’s her personalized war toy, in a way.

    Kevin’s getting mad too and finally Mana’s the one who brought my coffee. Took the entire coffee pot with him to be precise. So he won’t have to go back later, he said. Pleases Kevin, at the same time. When he’s flustered he drinks like a madman even though coffee is of no good when you’re stressed. It somewhat do him good though, he turn into the devil with his Mizer after that.

    We’re loosing ground, for what I can get. They brought something new. I don’t even know against who we are fighting anymore, looks like it became some sort of a free for all. I’ll have to concentrate on the screens for Raichel decided that now was the time to release his Mini-Mizer and stop fooling around. Gives me even more job and to think that I have almost finished the chip I am working on…

    It’s awful outside. USA is attacking the city instead of the Mizers and there’s Logan yelling that they shouldn’t lash out at the citizens but the lifeless-more-dangerous-than-some-simple-unharmed-scared-innocent(in all possible ways)-little-humans. I can’t help but laugh even if there’s nothing funny about it. Never bored with her here.

    We received something big and the ground’s shaking. Mana put a helmet on, connected on his sister’s vision. He’s as interested at fixing than driving, there’s a great future awaiting him, I can tell. Kevin just blasted his Mizer and is so mad that I don’t even have the courage to propose him the last of my coffee. Not thirsty anymore anyway so I’ll just let it on the corner of the table I’m working on. If you can call that a table. It’s more like a table lost under a mountain of scraps. Or was it a table? Damn I don’t even remember! Maybe it was just a pile of packing cases… how am I supposed to know with all that mess!

    Ground’s shaking again, now we’re positive about the fact they found our bunker. Not the first time happening but this time it’s violent. And what are the others doing? Striving here I hope they’re doing the same! We are slaughtered here!

    All that cuz we refused the alliance with the USA. Even though they could slap the other enemies too, it seems to me that they’re all against us. The worst: we did nothing. We were just defending against USA’s attacks and since we’ve shown our Mizers the other countries got scared and then started our involvement in the war. Stiff.

    ‘S really quaky now and I’m freaking out. The light’s blinking and electricity seems like it’s gonna blurt out. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m just a mechanic, can’t stand seeing nothing.

    Raichel hover over the field with his Mini and it’s terrifying. There’s no much left of Montreal and I’m surprised we had pull back till here, two days ago we were still at the frontier. Next time I’m gonna work on ultra modernized Mizers that are gonna mash up the others in one blow then we’ll have a bit of peace and quiet.

    There goes the death of our lights, they destroyed our bunker’s underground electric grid and at that, what was left of our Mizers stopped to operate and Raichel’s Mini probably got banged in its fall. And I’m freaking out. Like, really and I am eating away my fingernails not to get into a spin. Since they are all eaten though I dunno where to bite anymore and I’ll end up digging in even farter. I’ll end up with no fingernails at all someday, I’m sure.

    No. As a fact, there won’t be any more mega-mighty-extra-powerful Mizers and Raichel won’t have the time to clean the fridge. They are clearly digging up there and in no time, we’ll go boom. I suppose they’ll put something that’ll blow us up so strong we won’t even have time to notice and we’ll be dead meat. I managed to find Kevin’s hand and I feel like I am crunching his fingers. I don’t wanna die. All I want is to do mechanic. All they want is to protect the ones they love, their families, their friends. There’s Mana whimpering, I suppose he’s in his sister’s arms. And Raichel’s talking nonsense. He always says absurdities when he’s stressed and he’s always stressed. But right now he’s sorely stressed. It lighten up the atmosphere, in a way.

    Their Mizers dug down to our bunker’s ceiling and they’re smelting it. Are they really willing to throw a grenade right there in our faces? I’m freaking. I see the metal melting white from the heat, hope no one’s under the hole they’re working. I prefer not to see it. Scared of the dark but that’s even worst. Hopefully there’s Kevin and he’s enough to hide from what’s frightening me. And he seems like he wanna hide too so he’ll just have to use me.

    Finally, there’s a gap and some light. And something doing tic tac. I turned just to take a look and see Logan rushes at the thing. She won’t have time to throw it back in the air. They’re not that stupid. They’re primeval but they’re not stupid.

    I prefer not to see. I don’t wanna know when it’s gonna blast. I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna die. I’m just a mechanic.

    THE END