Chapter 50: Touchdown At Soto’s Mega Mall
For the rest of the ride, Alto observed the outside world from the window. He let his mind roam free for once, he let it free from the prison of his thoughts. He could see the sky, which was blue, and the clouds green. He could see the expanse of the cities as they passed by them. Most of them looked small, but from above, they looked like pieces of art. Being brought up in the orphanage, Alto had expected his path to end in the home of whoever would adopt him. He would have an easy life and be loved. But when the realization came to him that he was a genote, he became elated. He knew fully well that mech pilots got the luxury of traveling the stars; they were not restricted to their individual star systems. Though their lives would always be on the line when on duty, he believed he would pull through as long as he was not alone.
But his life took a drastic turn, and here he was on the path to becoming a mech designer. What had started as his only chance at life again had become something he loved dearly. As he had worked on the white blade version of the original Fenwick-720, he had felt this joy, despite failing to fabricate it many times over. The feeling of bringing a machine to life, even in the virtual sense, was uplifting. Every time he thought about it, his hands would tingle ever so slightly. What was once a path he was unsure of, he had now fallen in love with and chosen by heart. His mind went back to when the professor had asked him why he wanted to become a mech designer. He had told her how he wanted to help mech pilots. At the time, he had not fully understood what those words meant, but now, after speaking to Marie and Kendall, he had an understanding of what it meant.
Mech designers were just as important as mech pilots. Even if genotes were hard to come by, so also were mech designers. As there were mediocre mech pilots, Alto was sure that there were also mediocre mech designers, and he did not want to be mediocre. He wanted to become like the professor. She was so known and revered that she could misbehave without being punished. It was not power, but respect for her worth.
Alto stood and glanced at the professor from time to time. She had packed her long red hair into a pair of coiled pigtails; her face looked cleaner. She wore a white crop top with the image of a pink kitty on it, she had mist-colored jeans and red crocs for footwear. Alto gulped down, clearly taken aback by her beauty. He wondered why she would dress so fashionably. "Isn’t she supposed to be a professor? How can she look so pretty?" Alto’s heart thumped as another thought came into his mind. "Could she be taking me on a... date?" It seemed hard to believe, but it was not impossible.
The professor, who spent most of her time looking out the other side of the flying vehicle, would catch him staring at her occasionally, and each time she would simply smile and wink at him. This only added to the tension that caused Alto’s heart to race even more.
"Breathe, Al, she’s just messing with you. Trying to get in your head," he told himself in his mind. It did not calm him down immediately, but it did manage to distract his thoughts from her for a moment. With Alto’s eyes still outside the window, he marveled at the scope of the world—or rather, planet Soto—from the sky, and it was massive. He wondered if it was possible to visit all of the cities on the planet by land. He had heard whispers that Soto was a rather small planet. It made him wonder how massive a planet would be for one to call it big. He wondered how many people would inhabit such planets.
As his thoughts persisted, a more reckless thought came to mind. "I wonder how the kaiju managed to claim planets and even rival mankind’s power." It had always been at the back of his mind—the thought that mindless creatures like such were able to force humans from their home planets. They were also able to terrorize many alien races and drive some to extinction. "How did such monsters come to be, and how are they even a threat to us? How do they go from planet to planet if they are mindless? How do they even know where to go?" To Alto and the others on the planet who had never seen a kaiju in person, it sounded very much like a fairytale rather than real fact.
Just then, Alto felt a pang in his head like he did earlier. He winced slightly, and the pain was gone as quickly as it had come.
"We’re here." The professor’s voice interrupted him from his thoughts.
Alto looked outside the window just as the vehicle was descending. Outside, he could see the biggest city he had ever been to. Come to think of it, had he ever been to any city before? The vehicle made contact at what seemed like a parking lot, and the door slid open. The professor urged Alto to get out, and he obeyed quietly.