The bus judders and bounces as Mule, the crazy girl driving it, swerves out of the way of falling chunks of monster and brays like her namesake. I’m keeping my hands over my head and my head down, grateful for the seat belt, trying to peek out the window at the battle still happening around us.

  Between the slim, graceful robot that just saved all of our asses, and the giant nightmare deer that tried to end us.

  The guy that recruited me, Isaac, is sitting in the seat ahead of me, feed cap tucked over his blond frizz and square gsses, calmly breaking a Hershey bar into pieces.

  Where he got prescription gsses and goddamn chocote, 7 years after the grownups that make them and import them fell asleep at their posts, I really wanna know.

  Isaac hands me part of the Hershey bar, long sleeves of a light blue button-up shirt crinkling under his bck denim overalls.

  “Take this. You look like you need it,” he says. “There will be more at base.”

  I do, carefully, not wanting to drop it. I break off a third of what Isaac gave me, putting it on top of my tongue and letting it melt a little, so I can really taste it.

  Sweet as love, as Mama used to allege.

  Guess the phrase came to mind because she used to make me hot chocote, before everything. I miss her dearly.

  “You’re pretty fu- pretty damn calm about this,” I say.

  “That’s cause this is goin’ about as well as a fight against the Invaders ever goes,” Mule says, rapping her knuckles on a wooden cross she wears. “Bec is kicking at least fifteen metric tons of ass – I told you she was gonna do fine, ‘Zac!”

  “Isaac,” he insisted. “And you know full well I’ve got a right to worry about her no matter how well she performs as a Padin.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I say, looking at the fireworks in the distance with new respect. “Your little sister is in that thing?”

  Isaac hesitates for a sec, pushing his gsses back up his nose, before nodding. “She decided it was more important than her safety,” he says.

  I see her slide under another one of these things that’s attacking another robot, and punching it with a huge piston-driven spike, pinning it to the ground.

  I need to meet this girl.

  “And you picked me up because… because there’s another mech and room for another pilot?” I ask.

  Again, Isaac hesitates before answering.

  “If you got what it takes,” Mule says. “If not, hey, there’s still always pigs to feed and corn to harvest.”

  “Being a Padin is neither easy nor safe, but we do need more of them,” Isaac allows.

  “That’s where I belong,” I say.

  I don’t say at that girl’s side, in a shield wall.