Pressure Cooker

I am within the machine. I am a barely paid actor in a three-billion-credit titanium mascot suit, and I am sweating like a stuck pig. My earpiece reproduces the cheers of the audience. Civilians surround me, marvelling at my chiselled and superglued exterior, riled up by two days of tedious speeches and sermons. 

In the opposite corner stands the suit of my performance partner. I do not know his name, nor do I speak his language. We’ve only shaken hands twice. As I envision him in the centre of that impossibly voluptuous aluminium simulacrum of womanhood, floating curled up in an intelligent gel our best scientists have spent years miserably failing to emulate, his face is vague and washed out, an ever-shifting collage of features that all seem equally correct. I think he was wearing glasses.

The cheers begin to subside. I turn my periscope towards the podium and find the man whose features still vaguely echo those that have been etched into the hollow metal head hovering five meters above my own.

He opens his arms and his mouth and barely gets two words out – “my children!” – before the crowd erupts into another round of ecstatic applause. He grins and basks in his own glory. That grin is when his resemblance to the mythical grandfather whose mask I bear is strongest, so he shows it off as much as he can. I always get unbearably itchy when I see it.

“This is a most historic day! A day that shall be talked about by generations to come! After a decade of war, the Demagans have finally reached an agreement with the Jingonian Empire. Peace is upon us!”

Another wave of applause crashes through my earpiece. The skin on my neck has gone red and rough from scratching.

“To celebrate this momentous occasion, we have prepared a special show: The Jingonians’ infamous Warrior unit…“

He points at my partner’s shell. It’s gleaming in the spotlight. I wonder how many litres of blood had to be pressure-washed off to make it shine like that.

“and our undefeated Bergentrücker…”

He points at me. A single shrill laugh forces its way out of my throat. The only blood that has ever touched this model is my own.

“...will meet in space, thousands of miles above this very stage, to replicate the unity of our nations on a personal, symbolic level, in an intricately choreographed ceremony…”

***

“Basically, he wants them to fuck. The mechs, I mean.”

Lieutenant Comb removed his glasses to massage his eyes. The major was clearly enjoying himself.

“In space.”

Comb leaned back into his seat with a long exhale.

“And that’s non-negotiable? He’s not willing to move on this at all?”

Major Wax shook his head.

“He considers it a dealbreaker.”

Comb closed his eyes for a moment and turned his head up. Technically, this behavior broke code, but neither of them cared.  Major Wax was one of three people in the universe around whom Comb allowed himself to let loose. The other two —his parents—were long gone. The major, while unaware of the exclusive position he held in Comb's life, appreciated his friendship and admired his skills as a pilot, which was why he had suggested him for this mission.

With another deep exhale, Lieutenant Comb opened his eyes. He unconsciously scanned the hexagonal white ceiling tiles for impurities while trying to picture the scene: Two mechs, going at it in space… 

Only a dictator could have come up with something so extravagantly idiotic. The utter impertinence of the pitch, considering the position the Demagans were in… But the negotiations had gone on for way too long already. Breaking them off and bringing the war to its inevitable conclusion would only be a massive waste of resources at this point. Not that this would be cheap, either.

“What’s it going to cost?”

Wax stuck his finger into a floating sphere of Mel and turned it clockwise. The image hovering in the air behind him shifted.

“Thankfully, they've agreed to take on almost all of it. We are only required to pay for shipment, and for the, uhm… ‘modifications’ we’ll have to make to our model.”

Wax gave him a suggestive nod. Comb went pale.

“What… what modifications, exactly…?”

***

It’s been at least half an hour. Somehow, he’s still talking. I check my instruments to ensure functionality for the umpteenth time today, by now neither following protocol nor trying to quell my nervousness, just desperately killing time. 

As I bend down to investigate the most recent additions to my suit, the safety belt digs into my breasts. The sweat-damp fabrics uncomfortably chafe against each other and my skin, and I am seriously tempted to rip the whole damn uniform to shreds and go commando. I’d do it, too, if I weren’t 100% certain that they’ve hidden a camera somewhere in the suit.

I bend down as far as I can, but am still unable to reach the ‘penis button’, as I have lovingly christened it. Its function has been demonstrated to me repeatedly by a group of bemused mechanics: ‘If you press that button—Boioioing! Finally, the Bergentrücker is a real man!’ And then they’d laugh, and I’d imagine how it would feel to rip out their jugulars. 

In case the button shouldn’t work, which they seemed to deem an impossibility, there is a crank with which I can manually reel it out. I cannot currently reach the crank, either. 

They explained that since the suit hadn’t been designed with these features in mind, there had been no space within reach of the pilot’s seat left for the controls, so I’d have to unbuckle and jump down once I’d gotten into position. And then they gave me smiles dripping with the kind of pity you can only throw up for someone who earns so much less money than you that you cannot fathom how they even manage to survive. Again, I was mostly looking at their necks.

Not wanting to go through the whole buckling process again, I leave the penis button be and grab my periscope. I drag its visor back towards my partner. I wonder if he has to deal with this kind of shit, too. I bet he’s taking a nap in his stupid gel right now, the spoiled little son of a…

***

Lieutenant Comb was decidedly unhappy with his current situation. An outside observer would have struggled to understand why. The underwater rehearsals were going great. His partner, a short, dark-haired Demagan woman with a slightly concerning glare, followed the choreography to the letter and managed to make their encounters look convincing, despite the comparatively lackluster movement options of her machine. 

Since the script foresaw the ‘male’ mech dominating—a concept that boggled the Jingonian mind—he didn't have to act too much during these sessions, mostly just leaning his head back in simulated pleasure and holding on to his partner's suit. Things were going about as well as they possibly could, considering the scenario. The truth was simply that Comb still hadn’t made peace with the adjustments to his unit.

He was aware that they shouldn't irk him this much. All the engineers had done was drill a vacuum-sealed hole into the bottom of his mech. It wouldn't be out of line to describe it as a ‘docking station’, which was how the modification had been listed in the official documents, following his request. 

Rationally speaking, all the filthy connotations attached to this idiotic hole should have vanished with that designation. But, deep down, in a deliberately unexplored corner of his heart, he couldn’t help but consider it a desecration of sorts. 

It was seriously embarrassing. The Warrior unit was a combat suit, nothing more than a tool, but he had found it impossible not to grow attached to it. After all, he had spent nearly every waking moment of the last five years submerged in this bubble of Mel, synced up with the body of the machine. Every day, he would glide through the tranquil silence of space and feel passing meteor dust, dissipating wreckage heat, and torrential atmospheric rain strike the skin of his enormous, terrifying, beautiful body...

And now, there was a hole in it, which, through a cursed, phantom pain-like phenomenon, somehow, despite a total lack of sensors in that area, he could feel as well. Yes, the cat was out of the bag: He had felt the thing enter, every single time, in the way one might feel a punch in a dream: mercifully dampened. Of course, he shouldn't be feeling it at all. 

He'd gotten way too attached. He could never tell anyone, not even the major. It was simply too embarrassing. There was nothing to do but to be a man and deal with it. 'It’s just a docking station,' he repeated to himself through clenched teeth, watching as the monstrous titanium rod of the Bergentrücker extended towards his body for the third time that day. 'J-just… a dick—no, a doaaaAh~!

***

I'm sorry, sis. I've long forgiven you for getting me stuck in this job. I realize now that you simply didn't want your sweet baby sister to face that cold, cruel world whose sharp icicle fingers had cut up your heart so bad that you could barely meet her eyes after returning from your first tour. 

But your baby sister is not sweet at all. She has all these horrible thoughts looping in her head like rows of rabid hamsters running and running and running until they drop dead in their wheels. It's all too hot, way too hot, and I cannot stand it anymore. I yearn for that cold to shut me up, to kill me like it killed you, to end my line with a full stop... No, that's bad. That's a horrible thing to think. It's all the fault of that dickhead who won't shut up while I'm stuck in here, a sweating pig waiting to skewer someone for show... 

All for show. This hunk of junk barely qualifies as a mech. It certainly isn't suitable for combat. They designed it as a panicked last-minute face-saving measure, when years of research hadn't been able to come up with anything that could in any way compete with the Warrior units slicing up our troops by the thousands.

Here's a fun fact: Today marks the first time that a Bergentrücker unit actually leaves the planet. The government would never allow you to know that, of course. The news continues feverishly spouting nonsensical tales of galactic heroism. There's nothing 'new' about it. Just another soap opera. All channels open, day in, day out, awake or asleep: Soap operas crackling, crawling out from machines, building nests in our heads...

At this point, the news has established a recurring cast of beloved characters. Made-up cardboard pilots are being honored with plastic medals. The children buy action figures of their favorites and come running, screeching in delight, talking about how they want to grow up to be like me, the mech pilot. 

Me, the sock puppet. The big rats have figured out that a mech is like one of those gigantic statues of the mythical grandfather they keep putting up everywhere to inspire and intimidate, except we have the advantage of being movable and interactive. 

We can be stationed anywhere on the planet within an hour. Wherever we are, the law-abiders feel protected, the criminals get scared, and no one has any chance to forget that hideous face they branded me with for even a single goddamn second.

I am a living statue. I am already dead, but I cannot die, because I am the fleshy inner lining of a titanium maiden burning with the heat of thirty hells. I am the criminal I punish. If I took off the suit's head to catch my breath, the magic would be ruined and the children would break out into tears, because I cannot be recognized as a hero. 

None of the cardboard cutouts wears my face. If you subject yourself for a while to any of those endless soap operas vying for your ears, it becomes a simple matter of fact: there are no female mech pilots. With any luck, if this goddamn agreement goes through, there won't be any mech pilots at all by the time those kids get old enough to ruin their lives with bad-

He's done! Fucking finally!! The crowd explodes into my ear and, for once, I agree with them. I pull the ripcord and am shaken through by the maddening vibrations of the motor. At this point, I'm almost looking forward to ramming the rod into that fucker. I flick some switches, unclamp the brake lever, and put my hands and feet into the limb control handles. My periscope locks onto the Warrior unit. It's go time.