The Greatest Mecha-Chapter 53: Silver Blades Beneath The Skin

Alberta had taken Alto to a restaurant within the mall to entertain him with a bit of food; the gesture was something Alto took great interest in. As he ate diligently and with great fervour due to his hunger, he had a few things on his mind that needed attending to.

He wanted to get back to the mech division to try improving on his previous mech; he also had a duel the next day, and it was one he was in no way prepared to handle. As he ate, he looked at the professor whose mind seemed to be elsewhere; her food was untouched, which he would have noticed had he not been enticed by the aroma of the wonderful meal.

"Um, ma’am, you haven’t touched your food," Alto said with concern etching in his voice.

To this she responded, "Oh, you just noticed." Alto sank further into his seat. "I just found out I’m not hungry." She rose to her feet and grabbed him by the collar; without as much as a word, she pulled him away from his seat and started to drag him away. "Let’s go, measel."

Alto eyed the last morsel on his plate and cried, "But why? I haven’t even finished. Is your money going to go to waste?"

She gave him an audacious look and said, "What do you mean by that? I thought you were paying."

Alto almost screamed, "Say what now?"

She smiled, trying to seem positive, but Alto could sense a change in her, her mood less confident as usual. "I’m just kidding, man, chill out."

"Did she just call me man?" Alto thought to himself, but was also confused as to why she was in such a hurry. "Ma’am, where are we off to now?" he asked her openly.

She let go of him and tucked her hands into her pockets; her walk slowed down and she made sure they were walking at the same pace over to the exit.

"I just wanted to test you and that I did, something came to my mind, there’s something I have to check out."

Alto said nothing more. As much as he would love to stay longer in the mall, he wanted to get back to the mech division as soon as possible. As they walked out of the mall, they approached the direction of where the transport pod was while it was still under cloak. They were both surprised to find a large transport vehicle and a number of armed men in uniforms waiting; by their sides were their weapons prepped at the ready.

Alto froze on the spot, not wanting anything to do with the sight, but Alberta continued to walk forward like she never saw them in the first place. "Ma’am, I think you should hold on a bit. These men are dangerous."

Alberta’s demeanour went cold in that instant as she spoke, "I suppose you lot masquerade as mercenaries, you think your big shots here. But I’m an even more dangerous woman than you thought."

Alto spoke to himself, "What is going on?"

The man in front of the mercenary gang walked forward to greet her with a gentlemanly bow. "If it isn’t the prodigy mech designer, when we got word that you were here without your escorts we knew we just had to come and keep you safe."

Alberta stopped a few feet away from the man and spoke, "Do I look like I need protection?"

The man chuckled. "Oh, is that so, then I will apologise on our behalf then but there is a slight problem then. It seems it cost us quite a lot to come here so we might need a little compensation." He rubbed his hands greedily and eyed her like an object rather than a person.

Professor Alberta gestured for Alto to follow her, but he hesitated after seeing the number of foes before them. She turned her head and glared at him, "Where is your pride, boy?" she barked out in rage. Alto’s entire demeanor cracked at that moment; he was unsure whether to follow her or stay out. Around him, people were trying to get away from them; he doubted that help would arrive anytime soon. Alto weighed his options; if he followed her, he would die since she was the one they really needed, but if he ran, they would still kill him since they knew he was affiliated with her.

Looking at the professor’s angry eyes compelled him to make a move; he chose to follow her not because he was trying to be brave, neither was it because he wanted to appeal to her. He simply just wanted the men to set their sights on him, and they did. For the first time, Alto felt eyes on him even if they were not pleasant; in that moment, he knew the professor would not let him die. He believed that she had a way out of this; she had the status and power to make the world shake.

There was an explosion as someone shot a blast from a laser pistol at Alto’s head, clearly displeased by his presence. Alberta slipped in front of Alto to take the blast for him; what happened next took everyone by surprise. The blast hit her on the chest and it vanished without a trace.

"What was that?" some voices said repeatedly.

Alberta looked up at the sky and sighed, "Why did these idiots have to fucking piss me off?"

The gentlemanly criminal ordered his men to gun her down with alarming tenacity. "Take her down now, dead or alive we still get paid. Besides, the longer she breathes the chances of us getting killed." Just as he finished his words, there was a flash of a silver blade and soon his head slipped off his body and plopped to the ground.

Alto and everyone watched in shock as the body lost its purchase on the earth and collapsed on the ground, a small puddle of blood forming under it. Alto could see a huge metal claw giving off a silver shine as it grew out of the professor’s back, "Is she an alien?" Alto asked himself, as it seemed like the only plausible thing at the moment.

The mercenaries panicked and let loose their fire; more claws grew out of the professor’s back and started to slice up the mercenaries at an alarming rate, all the professor simply did was continue to walk effortlessly. Any blast she received seemed to be absorbed by something.

Alto hastily followed her, wanting nothing to stay in the scene any longer or else he would puke the very delicious food he had only just finished. Even the thought of it was enough to do the trick. After more than half of the mercenaries died shamelessly, the remaining numbers returned to their transport vehicle and left. Alberta reached where her transport vehicle had been and it uncloaked itself; around Alto were many dead bodies and the result of this was one mech designer.

Before he could ask, the professor answered him in a light tone. "You did not think one of the silver seats would be unarmed all the time. Stop being amazed by this mediocrity and let’s go," she said, hopping into the pod.

Alto managed to hold his insides somehow as he followed her into the transport pod. "I was not amazed, I was terrified. Besides, who’s going to clean all of that up?"

She hissed at him, "How the fucking hell should I know that? I don’t know everything."

Alto asked his next question, "Did you know them? And what were those things? Are you some type of alien?"

She groaned before replying to him, "What the fuck do you think this is, some fucking interview? I don’t know them. When you’re a big shot, you lose count of your toxic admirers. And I am not an alien; aliens are more violent. Those things on my back are part of my battle suit, it’s my latest artificial intelligence interface. It comes up whenever it senses I’m in danger; it’s way more reliable than having some guy watching over me. It’s pretty dope, what the other seats would kill to get this beauty here."

For some reason, Alto was unsettled by her behaviour. "This is insane, are we just going to ignore the fact that you murdered those men in cold blood?" He could not unsee the sight from his mind; she had displayed technology capable of cutting through people in seconds. He wondered if other great mech designers were also walking weapons.

Alberta snorted, "Life of mankind is such a fleeting thing. We mech designers might be special but we lack the ability to protect ourselves. While many of us don’t use sophisticated levels of protection, a few of us actually take it to another level. Think of it like being a mech pilot without the X gene. There’s no remorse for people like that, kid."

Alto did not know which was more shocking, the fact that she mentioned something about a way around the X gene or how she was cold and indifferent. He was not pleased, and the conversation made his stomach feel sour. "So where are we off to now?"

"Where else, back to the mech division. I wanted to see my home one more time but the commanding officer will be at my throat for this debacle."

Alto looked at her; she looked stronger than he was but her eyes also carried sadness in them. "Are you really from here?"

She replied by nodding simply and gazing out the window. For Alto, he was not sure if that day had ended profitable or disastrous for him; perhaps it was a bit of both.