Chapter 17:

A Parent's Misery

Mechanical Chess : The Pawn


Amy Andross sat in the back of her car as the League stadium got smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. She looked at the photo of Harrison and Adeline on her phone that she took earlier that day, chuckling to herself. “Boy you don’t know what you’re in for.” Amy turned to her left and peaked in her bag. Several wires hung out of the side as the passing streetlights revealed Harrison’s review headset shoved into her oversized purse. Amy tucked the wires in and zipped the bag shut as the car crossed the intersection into millennium park. She reclined in her chair looking out the window as the city was still abuzz with fans celebrating the Sentinel victory earlier that day.

Her phone began to chime as the call screen lit up the back of the limousine revealing the mountains of match memorabilia she purchased from stalls after the game. Figurines, posters, statues even. Her husband would say she had a problem, but she’d say back “If we have all this money we might as well use it.” She looked at her phone seeing that Marjorie was calling her. A little excitement in her tone Amy poised herself and coughed to clear out her jitters to put on her best mom voice and answered. “Hello Marjorie, how’s my boy?” she said as the car bumped up heading north onto Michigan Avenue over the Dusable Bridge.

“He’s doing okay now Mrs. Andross, but I think he’s a little down over the Pilgrim. He never said it outright, but you know how he is.” Marjorie said, shouting over the sound of helicopter blades chopping around her. “Eveline must be taking the chopper home. She should have no excuse not to be at the meeting then.” Amy thought as Marjorie talked about the rest of the night, avoiding the one topic Amy wanted to talk about the most. “So Marjorie, how was the date, did you two hit it off or did y’all get hung up on that best friends thing.” Marjorie was silent for a moment before saying. “What Mrs. Andross I can’t hear you, krrrrrrrr, I think the connections breaking up, krrrrrrrrrr, I’ll talk to you later.” Then Marjorie hung up the phone, just like Amy planned. “Charles, I swear I try to talk to these kids about their love lives and they shut me out, what’s the big deal.” Charles looked at Amy through the rearview mirror before his eyes fell back on the road.

“It’s an uncomfortable topic to talk about Mrs., especially for the inexperienced.” He said driving past the Water Tower and getting on to Lake Shore drive. “I hope that boy didn’t bungle things up with her. Known that girl his whole life and it took them this long to get the ball rolling? Geez.” Amy said looking out at the lake. Amy looked at her watch and again and noticed the time, nearly midnight. She was running late. “Charles, I don’t mean to be ab other but I’m going to miss the meeting with the others.” Amy said. Charles put his foot to the gas as the limo began to bob and weave through traffic. “Don’t worry miss, I can get us there.”

As the limo flew into the neighborhood and careened around the twists and turns Charles punched the gate opener on his dashboard and slid in with just enough room for the mirrors to fit. Amy grabbed her purse and opened the door rifling through her purse looking for her keys. “Thanks Charles you can put all my stuff in the living room I’ll sort through it later. “Amy’s proud mother exterior slowly began to fade as her angry wife demeanor rose to the top.” She yanked open the door slamming it behind her as her heels clicked down the wood floors. She passed the living room and the kitchen grabbing the headset before tossing her purse onto the counter scattering several items everywhere but not even slowing down to pick them up. She entered the back hall and opened the basement doors grasping at the railing catching herself before tumbling forward. “Damn heels.” She thought taking off her shoes once she reached the bottom holding them alongside the headset.

Amy passed the wine cellar and the rec rooms, the boiler and laundry room before coming upon a wall with no distinguishable features. She brushed her hair out of her face and stood up straight then said. “Amy Andross requesting entry.” An audible metal click could be heard somewhere beyond as an artificial wall moved in to place behind her sealing off the way she came, and another wall slid in front of her revealing an elevator. Amy walked in to the elevator and furiously pressed her password into the keypad before spamming the close door function, her thoughts turning into mumbles slipping past her lips as her anger started to seep out. The elevator doors opened, and she came out into a hall with rock sides and a wooden bottom. Every step she took cast an echo even barefoot as she continued forward eventually being let out into a massive cavern.

To her sides stood both her and her husband’s mechs. Her Dirnaught unit in a nice rocky blue color and Luther’s Bravada unit in a mountain camouflage skin. They stood unmoving with various rafters and machines hooked up to them from the walls of the cave. Amy paid them little mind as she threw the shoes and the headset in the passenger seat of a golf cart and took off down another tunnel opposite of the one she came out of. As she drove more mechs in all colors, sizes, and shapes stood lifeless in their patched together hangars. The caves starting to intermingle with each other with catwalks and bridges, even massive screens that displayed a map of the facility. Amy continued to drive maxing out the speedometer as she dangerously took corners as her anger boiled more and more.

Then she heard it, a choir of voices all talking at once from up ahead. But one voice stood out above them all. Her husbands. Amy whipped around the corner coming into a room with a large round table in the center. Several lighting arrays hung from the ceiling over other workstations filled with data and sheets, corkboards with documents and newspapers pinned to them. Amy began to honk her horn as the several dozen people around the table stood to look at her as she punched the brakes. Grabbing the headset and her shoes Amy climbed the metal staircase up to the others reaching the table. She lifted one of heels and threw it at Luther who blocked it, she wound up to throw the other one before Eveline stood up and grabbed her arm. A passive Florence looked on. “Amy please let’s just calm down.” She tried to say before Amy broke her hold and threw the other heel at him, missing him by a hair. Amy not breaking eye contact with her husband as her face turned red and tears welled up in her eyes screamed and yelled. “YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T BRING HIM INTO THIS, YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T BRING OUR SON INTO THIS AND LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE.” Amy picked up the headset and slammed it on the table. The many neighbors and parents from around the neighborhood looked at the jumble of wires as Amy flipped open a panel in the table and hooked the headset into them. The screen displaying the cavern disappeared and was replaced with the still Harrison had seen of the mechs in the snow. The crowd gasped as they all turned towards Luther.

“Luther, what have you done.” Eveline said collapsing in her chair as some parents began to cry out as well. Luther turned his back to his people looking at the screen. Parents cried behind him and some raged at him, the cavern filling with a dozen yells of angry men and women demanding answers. Amy came around the table and shoved Luther getting his attention. “You can’t even get over yourself long enough to go to your sons match but you can put this target on his back. On all of our children’s backs?” The crowd cried out with Amy as the situation worsened. Luther remaining stoic and composed walked to the terminal in the computer and entered his credentials. The onslaught of insults and curses continued as Amy cried into Eveline’s arms. The table was surrounded in turmoil and chaos, but they all went silent when Luther played his message over the loudspeakers.

“Mr. Andross, I have some unfortunate news. Someone up on my level knows about you and knows about what you’re planning. I don’t know who they are, and I don’t know how they got to me but they’re on to you. If you have any hope of seeing your way out of this, you need to move before they do. May that plan of yours come to fruition after all these years. Or we’re all dead.” The sounds of banging on a door could be heard once the man stopped talking. The sliding of metal and the click of a chamber closing rang out as the banging got louder. The room was silent as the crowd listened intently. A large crash was heard with dogs barking as gunfire broke out. Multiple pounding footsteps cut through the noise as the man yelled before the sound of automatic gunfire ended his last stand.” Then the audio file cut.

The crowd began murmuring amongst themselves before a man I the back raised his arm pointing at Luther. “What the hell was that.” Luther looked at the man before turning back to the many. “Two weeks ago, I received this message from one of our friends in Waller Industries, Vice President Victor Fern. Harrison brought down the audio file before replacing it with a headline. “Yesterday evening he was found dead by local law enforcement in a car in a grocery store parking lot in Ravenswood. This information was sent to me by someone who managed to get it out of the hands of the people who did this before they even knew it existed. My friends, we are being watched.” The crowd began to murmur again as the anger in the crowd was replaced with confusion and worry. Harrison turned to Amy seeing her despaired eyes jus before she looked away putting her head in her hands.

“We all knew this day would come everyone. That someday the other boot will drop. We lost the war, and nothing changed to make the world feel like we had won. But we were at that final battle. We heard what Harshawk said. The war meant nothing more then to wear us down, to make us desperate, to seek compromise over victory. And that’s how they got us.” Luther slowly walked around the table to Harrison’s headset picking it up and holding it at eye level. “I sent my son that recording to give him a head start.” He admitted, turning himself into a slap from Amy who held her head low and clenched he fists trying to process what Luther had done. “Do you know if they find that on him they will kill him Luther, THEY WILL KILL HIM.”

“THEY’LL KILL ALL OF US.” Luther said cutting Amy off, shocking her. “Just by being in this room just by having these conversations, just by owning these mechs we have committed treason against the U.S. We didn’t lie low for all these years just to roll over when the chickens come to roost. They know about us, and they’ll come for us. What their plan is I don’t know but whoever oversees this country is finally showing their teeth after all these years and they’re going to try to clean shop first. “The crowd was distraught. Several couples consoled each other as they questioned how much time left, they had in their quiet suburban lives before it was all over. Years of laying low and prepping gone in a single night.

“I didn’t want to send my son that message. I know in doing so I may have killed my boy.” Luther said looking at Amy, a slight shake in his voice. “But I didn’t have a choice.” Luther caressed her cheek before turning back to the rest. “Our lives that we’ve built are at stake. Our children, our homes, and our partners will be destroyed if we don’t act now. I decided for the platoon and I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t hesitate to make it again. My son as you know will keep this to himself. Your sons and daughters won’t be brought into the fight until they are needed. But as of today, Harrison knows there’s more to the war then what is written and told. And he won’t stop until he finds it. We need him, all of them, to be prepared for what’s coming. And what we’ve trained to do since they were small.”

The crowd remained silent as they looked at Luther. Slowly the men and women in the group got to their feet, the sounds of chairs scooting backwards and rubber soles hitting the metal floor. Through tears and anger the parents around the table made their peace with the unfortunate news as they slowly brought up their arms to their foreheads. Amy stood up and positioned herself in front of Luther, tears still streaming down her face as she looked at him. Seeing the sadness and anger in his eyes breaking through that placid look he always wore. Luther put his arms behind his back and stood up straight, then cried out in a voice that echoed throughout the whole chamber.

“FOR THE COUNTRY.”

“FOR THE COUNTRY.”

Luther’s words were repeated by the crowd as he said them. They spoke them in perfect unison as they had hundreds of times before.

“FOR OUR CHILDREN.”

“FOR OUR CHILDREN.”

“FOR OUR HOMES.”

“FOR OUR HOMES.”

“WE WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT NEED TO CAUSE WE CAN.”

Luther and the crowds’ words combined as they got louder and angrier. Amy had reached forward with her other arm as many other couples had already grasping for comfort in this time of uncertainty. Luther grabbed his wives hand holding it tight, and Amy knew the decision he made was the right one. The pair stared in each other’s eyes as they continued to chant, their words getting more powerful as they said them. Knowing that regardless of what happens, they still have each other.

“AND WE WILL.”

“FIGHT FOR THOSE WHO WISH THEY COULD BUT CAN’T.”

“BECAUSE WE SHOULD”

“AND THE OBSIDIAN PLATOON WILL CARRY ON!”

On that line the mechs all around the room began to shed their various skin meshes. Almost as if a cloud of ash had flown into the cave, the mechs turned the darkest shade of black as they all started to activate lifting their heads and standing up straight, raising their right arms to their foreheads as well.

“AND THE OBSIDIAN PLATOON WILL CARRY ON!”

The mechs and their pilots in unison quickly turned their salutes into a fist. The sound of spinning gears, metal shifting, and electricity filled the cavern. Luther then brought his hand around and caught his fist, punching his hand. And the crowd and the mechs followed suit filling the cavern with one unanimous harmonized slam.

“NOW LET’S GET TO WORK.” Luther yelled.

“YES LIEUTENANT ANDROSS SIR!”