"...Who would build something like this, then destroy it, and just leave it here?" Technology was expensive and no one wasted a billion-dollar invention like this. "It doesn't make sense."

"It's not an invention," Andrew said. "You see that face - or at least, what's left of it? This thing was alive."

Another distant flash of lightning lit up the sky and reflected off the demolished metal of the large robot, and a few of seconds later, a crash of thunder followed. "Yeah right. Quit pulling my leg. It's a robot. It can't possibly be alive."

He just shrugged. "I told you you wouldn't believe me."

I thought back to the dream I had the other night, of being chased through the military base by a giant robot. Surely, that was the kind of thing that belonged only to nightmares. A machine could only move at the direction of a human being or a computer program written by one. I told myself what I was looking at was some secret government project that had gotten out of hand. Maybe MECH had been called in to covertly pick up the pieces. Or perhaps we were instead stealing someone else's private robot project. Was there an entire underworld of competing engineers I didn't know about?

All of these crazy ideas somehow made more sense than a sentient robot. Several soldiers were cutting apart the corpse into smaller, more manageable chunks. Andrew and I were directed to help load pieces into the trucks. The work was much easier when I imagined it as hunks of scrap metal, not parts of a giant intelligent being. And it was easy to accept such a perception in the emerging monotony of physical labor. My metal legs were much stronger than I had ever expected - how could they lift hunks of scrap much larger than I was? I lifted with my legs, but it was my arms that grew sore instead. Andrew was having no such difficulty. His modification was along his entire spine, and I couldn't help but wonder just how big of a car he would be able to lift before he broke into a sweat. Compared to all the strong ex-military agents working around us, he was practically a super soldier.

"Something tells me you've done this a few times."

He dropped a large servo into the covered truck bed before jumping down. He shrugged. "This isn't the first one I helped them bring in. Normally, the mechs are identical, same shape and color. They're like drones, or soldiers or something."

"Soldiers?" I laughed nervously. "You don't think there'll be a war, do you?" What would it mean if war broke out? Would my parents be safe? I didn't think I would be able warn them if something happened. And what would happen to me? Would I be forced to become a soldier for MECH, fighting on the front lines?

At the direction of a one of the agents, I crouched down at the side of what was once the robot's foot - I think. It was hard to identify any of it now. Andrew got on the other side, and with a grunt and a heave, we got it up off the ground while a flatbed platform was carefully being positioned beneath it.

"I think there already is a war."

His words nearly made me drop the hunk of scrap. I had to readjust my hold on it. "What?"

"It's a secret war, and I'm not sure if we're a part of it, but yeah. It seems like the best explanation for the carnage."

First giant robots, and now a war? I hoped Andrew was just being a bit dramatic.

"Okay, lower it!" My ears perked up at the voice. Careful not to loosen my hold, I turned to look back over my shoulder. Above us, near the head of the carcass, Hillary stood on top of the robot. A helicopter hovered some feet above, with a cable slowly lowering towards her. When it was close enough, she secured it to a conglomeration of chains that had been hooked around the main chassis of its chest. I watched her as she worked. Her metal hand moved as swiftly as her real one, with the same precision that suited everything about her. The spotlights illuminated her light blond hair, which was pulled in a tight military-style bun - I couldn't help but imagine how, of it was loose, it might waver in the cool night air. She didn't climb down from the carnage carefully; instead she jumped and landed skillfully on the scattered gravel below in a single motion.

"Shilo! He said to lower it." Andrew's tone was filled with annoyance as he supported the brunt of the load.

"Right, sorry." I set the piece down on the platform with a loud clank. I had to keep my head in the game. I didn't want to piss off Andrew, who seemed like he might become a valuable friend.

Hillary called out, "We're clear, bring it up!" Someone else clicked on his radio and transferred the command to the helicopter, whose blades began to whirr faster. The cable strained for a moment before the piece of metal slowly rose into the air with a creaking grown, leaving a few sprinkles of loose dirt raining down in its wake.

I forgot what I was supposed to be doing next. She was walking near me now and I couldn't ignore. "Hey. This seems like an interesting field trip. Is this normal?" I already knew from talking with Andrew that MECH had done this a few times before, but it seemed like the best way to start a conversation.

She nodded. "Unfortunately." Her eyes went to her hands for several moments, where her human fingers circled her metal wrist several times. She glanced up again. "Where do you the metal for these implants comes from?"

Where did metal come from? I was pretty sure the answer was 'The Earth', but it seemed a stupid answer to say. Anyone with a grade school education knew that metal was extracted from ores in the ground, then purified and forged into whatever it was meant for. I had a feeling this wasn't the answer Hillary was looking for. "Is it some rare metal MECH can't afford? So we have to steal it from giant robots?" Maybe the metal giants were manufactured in Vietnam just like my Samsung.

"Some of the lab techs call it "transformium", but it isn't official because Silas thinks it's a stupid name."

I started a laugh, then stopped, afraid laughter wasn't the right response. But Hillary responded with a rare smile that told me it was. "Why, does it transform things?"

"You really don't have a clue, do you?" She phrased it as a question, but it didn't feel like one.

"Ever since I got here - to the hangar base, I mean - I've been in deep waters, and I'm still learning to swim." I mentally patted myself on the back for using such a wonderful metaphor in front of a girl and not tripping up on the words.

"Tomorrow, they're taking down Project Chimera for a test drive. Watch and then you'll understand." A moment after finishing her words, Hillary hid her smile and fixed her face to the stoic look she normally presented to the world. And then she walked straight past me. "Back to work," she called back, louder than our short conversation. "Silas doesn't reward indolence."

It was another hour before the job was done. I'm certain I fell asleep on the ride back, so in retrospect, I was grateful that Hillary had taken another truck. And with the extra hours of jostled rest the trip afforded me, I was able to wake up the next morning relatively well-rested. The migraine-inducing clamor from the other end of the hangar would have woken me anyway, so I was grateful to have a good rest under my belt. My mind was now fully awake and capable of endlessly pondering the previous evening. The night's events swirled through my thoughts over and over. Scavenging missions. A potential war. Transformium. The giant metal hammer suspended above a robotic corpse. I understood little of it, and some small part of me didn't want to understand. But I couldn't help mulling it over again and again as I sat on the edge of my cot, bored and legless...

I still had legs, of course, but they were practically useless. The metal pants felt more like real legs to me than the ones I was born with. These inferior, stubborn, stress-inducing lower limbs might as well not be here anymore. As they hung over the edge of the cot, my human feet resting on the ground below, I realized I could hardly even feel the concrete beneath. If I concentrated hard enough, I could just barely wiggle most of my toes. But when I was ignoring my legs, they went almost entirely numb. The metal legs didn't do that. The more I wore them, the more I felt the earth below. The more I used them, the stronger my control over gravity became. Each step was sturdier than the last. I was mastering an invisible foe, conquering it, pinning it beneath me as I rose above it to stand with the rest of humanity. But without the metal, my lower limbs were simply a reminder of all I didn't have.

As a child, I always had more enough. New legs were the one thing I was desperate for and the one thing my parents couldn't give me. Maybe this is why they let MECH come into our house, why they let me go so easily. They wanted only the best for me. But in the end, it was my decision to come here, my responsibility to deal with the consequences.

My thoughts were interrupted when the scientist-types showed up again to my curtained cubicle of a room. My metal attachments were returned to me for my "compliance" the night before. This time, when the metal transformed from its box down to cover my legs, I felt no pain when it hooked onto each of the different nodules. I wondered if this meant I had finished healing from the surgery. The nodules no longer bled, and I couldn't remember the last time I took one of the pain pills I was allotted when I first arrived here. At least the physical suffering, however brief, was over and done with.

As I moved the curtains aside and stepped into the hallway, I wondered where Hillary was today - what did she get up to most days? I rarely saw her spending time with the other test subjects - then suddenly I remembered what she said the night before. It was something about testing out a project MECH was working on. Whatever it was, I had to see it for myself.

I went to the end of the hallway of curtains. Two guards were nearby, and they spared me a couple of brief glances. I was being watched. Lucky for them, I had no intention of running away again. Across the hangar, where the constant commotion always came from, a large, very tall robot was being unlatched from its support structure. I stood where I was and watched as the last restraining strap snapped out of place, leaving the robot freely standing. I worried it was going to fall suddenly, with nothing left to support it, but it remained exactly where it was. It was humanoid in shape, which made it seem much thinner compared to the bulky blue wreckage I helped clean up last night. And while this robot also had patches of blue in its paint, there was also a fair amount of red and white in its coloration.

Watching the humans gathered down below, I spotted Silas sitting on a chair with controls at both hands and petals beneath each foot. When he pressed down with his boot, the mechanical creation stepped forward. There was no awkward loss of balance, nor was there much of a learning curve; the leader of MECH was entirely synchronized with the robot. Every thundering step it took towards the center of the hangar was perfectly in line with the others. It was strange to see a creation so large and imposing was puppeted by just a human that, while imposing for a human, was much smaller and less dangerous by comparison.

Silas spoke. "Gentlemen, soldiers, today we test what might be the greatest advancement the human race has ever made. Project Chimera is the perfect blend of alien technology and human engineering. You should all be proud of yourselves." He looked to the side, where a line of consoles were monitored closely. "Is the T-cog fully integrated and responsive?" A tech gave him a thumbs up. Silas nodded. A smile that closely resembled a grimace appeared on his face. "Now commencing transformation."