Start!
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"Stop that ghastly flashing!" In the near black room, the only light source comes from a single stationary dot. The light, though, does not stop flashing. In fact, a burst of flickers long and short follow. All while the light floats down and to the side. A small circle of comforter and chin illuminate with each splash of light.

The voice from before sounds again, "Yes! Yes, I'm awake."

Another burst of flashes. The barely-lit blanket stir a little as whatever is under it moves a little. "I can still hear you with my eyes closed." Flickers. "I can see you though my lids." Another burst of flashes.

This time the flashing light drifts away from the body in bed. "Don't you dare, Lighty." As if testing the sleeping one, it flies an inch further. "I can hear you." Another inch. "Don't." Inch. "You." Two inches. "Dare." A second hesitation and then it goes another inch. This time when it flashes its message, a circle appears on the wall near it.

The figure in bed tries another tactic, the corner of the cover flips off. "There. See? I'm getting up."

Not fooled by this, the light bumps up against the wall. From that spot, colors ripple out along the surface. Some shapes in the wall take the color that hit them and pulse. Others take the color and start making sounds. Soon the room is full of strobe lights and a cacophony of sound.

Instead of getting out of bed, the figure covers their head with a pillow. The light on the wall moves up a little. A bar fills up and the volume increases. Sound from the floor causes the bed to vibrate like it's in an earthquake.

Incoherent mumbling comes from under the pillow. A foot slides out from the covers. The leg follows and soon half the person is off the bed. The comparably dim white light in the sea of flashing and rippling colors crawls down and the sounds quiet.

"I'M OUT OF BED NOW," the young teen with bed head shouts before he realizes the sounds are almost gone, "okay?"

Flying up and landing on another spot, the lights stop and the floor starts. Without moving his feet, the room takes him to a rectangle hole in the side wall. Upon entering, it turns to the right causing him to disappear from sight. A silhouette mirroring his movements displays on the wall.

Raising his arms indicates a solute is sprayed on him to clean all bacteria, germs, and dirt off of the sleepy young man. The shadow indicates that he is lowering his arms for dressing. Then his arms drop to his sides and he is guided to the other opening in the wall.

Out comes a young man in a poofy pink dress and a big, white bow in his short brown hair.

The floor moves him over to a mirror for a final inspection. Pink lipstick colored lips smack as the tired youth tries to focus bleary makeup-covered eyes at the vision before him. His brain registers. Eyes fly open. The fly on the wall receives a dirty glare that looks more cute than scary. "What? Did? You? Do?"

Rhythmic light flashes in a laugh-like pattern. "Why do I even HAVE this outfit?" But he knows the answer, Lisa.

The floor takes him back to the closet entrance to wash off the outfit and redress. He exits, this time, as a clown. This goes on for a while.

Elsewhere, a young female with robotic arms cleans up her work space by pushing gadgets to one side with an arm and wiping her work bench with a rag. Focusing on cleaning, she almost misses the young man sidling up to her booth.

With a cocky smile he says, "Hey L--"

A mechanical hand flashes and covers his mouth. "Don't say it. That's not my name." His wide eyes match his excited muffles. "My name is Mechanicalisa. And I go by Mecha. Got it?" He nods acceptance. She continues despite this, "And if you use that other version of my name, I will punch you sooo hard. Got it?" He nods again.

The fire leaves her eyes and a too sweet smile appears on her pretty face. She removes her hand from his mouth and runs it through her clear strands of hair that are transitioning from flaming red to a more calm blue. They seem to be linked to her mood.

Stunned, he says nothing. "So, SleepyHead, what brings you to my neck of the bazaar?"

He starts poking his pointer fingers together, "Welllllll,  you seeeee ..."

But she's no longer looking at him. Flickers and flashes come from Lighty. Mecha nods and hmm's before finishing, "And so you need a tune up, Hotaru?"

A burst of light answers her. While looking at the flashing speck, she directs her words at the owner, "I'm sorry, but I can't give you any more free tune ups, Hotaru. I run a business here. I'm going to need payment this time."

"Awwwww," the boy groans.

"And you are in luck. I just so happen to have a way for you to pay me." Mecha turns toward him to see if he's interested. Her hair continues to sweep the spectrum while drifting to green.

His eyes pop open in interest then squint into a scowl, "Oh, just happen to have it, huh? You've probably been waiting for me to show up to spring it on me."

Mecha's arms dart behind her back to hide the nervous gestures, "Oh. No, not at all," she tries to look cool about it, but the sweat on her brow tells a different story.

After a moment of silence she breaks, "Look. I need this. I'm willing to give you a freebie up front to get you ready for this pluuuuus," she holds it there for a beat to add to her sales pitch, "I think this is perfect for you and Hotaru." She checks his face which is still unmoving, but a crack has been formed in his armor with the word, 'freebie.'

Her hands come back to the front and she clasps them pleading. I didn't want to do this, but I guess I have no choice. "Okay. You've got me. I was waiting for you and I was hoping you'd do this for me. So. I guess. I've got no choice." Mecha closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, "So, here is my final offer. I tune up Hotaru and get him ready to go, and I'll let you borrow my size module."

She points to him and sees him smiling. "But only borrow, Olmar. You'll give it back when you are done. Got it?"

He smirks back at her, "Oh? And what is this mission that you are so desperate for my help? Before I commit, of course."

"C'mon. Why are you doing this? Won't you do it for your girlfriend?"

"Sure. I'd do quite a bit for my girlfriend, but you said that this was business. So, I'm treating this like a business deal."

"You know what?" Steam is practically blowing out her ears. Red-faced, she claps her hands together and shrinks down to the size of the light. Olmar is sure she's stomping to Lighty even though he can't see any evidence to the fact.

As best he can tell, she does the usual cleaning and tightening on Lighty, but then she does things different. She seems to reach onto her own arms and put something on his insect partner. Then she climbs up onto Lighty.

After taking off, they grow in size until they are sitting next to the booth. Lisa, errr, Mecha, he corrects himself is back to her usual size. And there, under her, is a robotic firefly. Instead of multifaceted eyes, there are a multitude of cameras. The wings slow to a stop allowing him to see that the shine on them are solar panels. Many fist sized bulbs comprise the tail. If Lighty turns them on right now, Olmar figures they'd probably blind me.

Mecha hops off and gathers the various mechanical devices she slid to the side and places them in various drawers under her booth. Then she locks them all up. She grabs a fake clock and spins the hands until they show some time in the future under the "I'll be back at: ".

"What are you doing," he asks as she heads back to Lighty.

"As your girlfriend,” Mecha emphasizes those first words before becoming sweet, “I think we need to spend some more time together." She slips back on just behind the wings. They lift letting her get closer to the head. Mecha turns back to him from her perch, "I'd recommend you get on before I leave without you."

His laziness and cockiness cause him to hesitate. She already cleaned Lighty. If she does the mission, the better for me. Payment for no effort.

"If you don't get on here now, I'll take Hotaru as payment for services rendered." Crap! He hustles and dives on to the firefly right as it is lifting into the air. With the ground disappearing below his dangling feet, Olmar scrambles and climbs his way up the leg using Mecha's arm and shoulder for leverage to pull his leg over and take a seat behind her.

Off they fly. Once they leave the city, the green terrain below drains color drifting to brown, tan specifically. Mecha chooses this moment to speak up, "We are going to save my supplier. Their freight vehicle broke down and the winds were picking up. He managed to get an SOS and coordinates to me before he lost signal. I hope we can get there before a sand storm catches him."

Behind them, the city shrinks. After that, the desert rolls on below them. The rising and falling of dunes is all that gives reality to their movement. Ruddy skyline hides the horizon. They both know what that means.

"Sandstorm."

"C'mon Hotaru, hurry up!"

Pointing over her shoulder, he shows her a pile of rubble partially covered by sand, "Look over there."

"Crap. It was already hit with a storm. Let's salvage whatever we can."

"Yeah," Olmar agrees.

"But we'll need to be quick. Another storm is on the way." Before he can respond that he knows, Mecha calls out, "Shrink Hotaru."

As they descend the pile of wreckage grows. How are we going to save anything if we get smaller?

Now it's her turn to point, "Hotaru, head for that cave." The 'cave' is a hollowed out gap between metal beams. Winds buffered it and drove sand that way, but not enough to fill it.

"Why are we doing that?"

"We have to clear the sand," she calls back, "Once we get in there, we can grow to full size displacing things." Her voice gets quieter for the next part making it almost impossible for him to hear, "Plus there's something I need to get deeper in."  

Unfortunately for them, the 'cave' does go very far. Just beyond the beams is a metal wall partially buried in the sand. They stop short. "Crap," she growls, "I thought this would go further." She ponders this for a moment. "Hotaru, let's see if there's another entrance."

Olmar counters that, "We don't have time. The storm is coming."

Mecha huffs a little, "Fine. Hotaru, let's see what we can do here." They arrive in a cloud of dust and when the cloud disperses they tromp forward to the massive structure.

She swings at the wall, and it dents with a resounding echo. "What did you do that for," Olmar asks.

"It tells me that it's hollow behind it and light weight." She starts brushing away the bottom. Before long, she crouches with hands in the dirt. Groaning, she lifts. It resists but starts to move an inch at a time. Once it reaches her waist, she calls, "Hurry! Get under."

Olmar doesn't need to be told twice. He dives inside. Hotaru skitters under the metal and stops. She grunts out, "What. Are. You. Doing?" As an answer, the robotic bug twitches its wings but doesn't move. And flashes its tail.

Blinded, missing most of the communication, and not wanting to crush her friend, Mecha lifts or tries to. It doesn't get any higher. "If you aren't going to move, I will," she spits out frustrated. And she lowers it back down.

The heavy door rests on Hotaru's six hydraulic legs. Mecha gets it. "Good thinking!" With the weight off her arms, she is free to adjust. She crouches and grabs it again near her shoulders. A heavy lifter's thrust later and she is standing with the entrance an arm's length above her head.

"Okay, Hotaru. We can both go in now. Let's go." Instead of heading in, the insect turns ninety degrees to face her. Before Mecha can question, Hotaru's wings start flapping. Wind picks up speed and dust flies in her face. When she can see again, there is a waist high sand dune against one side.

Finished, Lighty enters. Mecha follows curious. As she lowers the wall, it sinks a little and comes to rest thigh high from the ground. "Huh. Good job, Hotaru," she says to herself because the robot has moved on.

"HELP," Olmar's voice echoes to her ear. Mecha darts down the dim path. There with his back to a sand wall is her boyfriend, as reckless as usual. Keeping him there is a large horn connected to a larger Rhinoceros beetle. Like Hotaru, this one is also robotic. Unlike their pet, this one seems wild. And angry.

Seeing red herself, Mecha charges forward and punches the beetle. Not much happens. It does tip a little to one side allowing Olmar to slip his neck away from the horn.

Feeling the assault, the beast lumbers her direction bring the horn to bear on her. It's eyes are a cliché red. Like a bull, its front right leg paws at the ground before it lowers its head. "It's going to charge," Olmar calls, stating the obvious.

It does.

Mecha dives forward and lands in a handstand before using her arms to throw herself up and over the beetle. It buries its horn into the sand. A dull ring can be heard of the horn hitting metal.

ssssssssssss Some sand pours in the ceiling creating a larger pile along one wall. It's then that they notice that they are in an overturned cart. Piles of sand are at the bottom of the walls and at random intervals on the ground.

"What do we do now," calls Olmar.

"The!" She dives to the side avoiding the angry beetle, "cargo must be here--" Bong "--somewhere. Dig in the piles of sand while I keep it distracted."

Olmar nods and heads to a pile. Dusting it, he finds a crate underneath, actually a pile of crates. Next pile, same thing. Then it hits him. He is small and the boxes are smaller than him. They must have shrunk, too. “Hey, Mecha. What am I looking for?”

“My plunder.” She rolls out of the way. A little breeze swirls around the kinda rectangle cave. Bong

Olmar looks around to see Lighty using its wings to fan the sand away from its dune. More crates. “Do you know where it is?”

She pushes sweaty bangs out of her eyes, “If I knew where –“ She interrupts herself as an idea comes to mind. “Buy me some time.”

Olamr’s eyes go wide, “What?” He gulps and stands. “Okay.” Positioning the pile of crates between him and the bug, he waves his arms to get its attention. Mecha pokes at things on her arm, not really looking around but trying to get out of the way.

It works. The beetle tracks his movement but doesn’t charge. They circle each other as they go around the pile of crates. A holographic image hovers over Mecha’s arm. She swipes it to the side and the next comes up. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. “There it is.” She pushes the image back into her arm and green light fills the cracks in her arm heading to her hand. She points and a laser shoots out.

Guiding the green dot around the room, she checks one pile after another. However, the dust begins swirling around the room causing her laser sometimes not hit what she’s aiming at. Holding her hand still she turns to the firefly. “Hotaru, stop moving your wii—“ Their ride is heading to the next pile. What’s moving this sand around?

She follows the movement of the sand backward and up to the hole in the roof. Crap. “The storm is almost here. We need to move quick.”

His eyes never leaving his foe across from him, Olmar corrects her, “No, we need to leave now.”

“We can’t! We need to retrieve my treasure. It’s here somewhere.” She resumes scanning the piles. When she lands on a big one, her beam gets big. Ping! “There!”

"That's great and all, but we need to do something now." Mecha does something. She walks right past him on her way to her booty. He tries again, "Mecha. We are in a bad situation here. Wind and sand are pouring in on us. This rhinoceros wants a piece of us. We need to get out of here."

Focusing only on the pile, Mecha lets her arms do the work, clearing the sand as fast as they are able. The dune avalanches with each handful. But progress is made because before long, a large black tombstone-like shape rises out of the dirt. Oblivious, she digs on. On the other side, a matching one appears. Still, she keeps cleaning between them revealing more and more of them.

Olmar sees this as he keeps circling. The wind picks up picking up the sand causing everyone to squint. Everyone, that is, except for the robots.

Another wave of sand pours in, lifting the floor up a little. Olmar only notices in that walking is tricky with his feet sinking a little more.

Mecha doesn't notice at all. She has managed to clear more of the black curved monoliths on either side of her. "Lisa," he calls, using her hated name to get her attention. It works, kinda.

"Almost there," she replies not looking back.

"You're in danger," Olmar throws in as much urgency into his voice as possible.

"Almost there," she repeats.

"You're going to get us killed."

Then he hears it, pawing at the ground.

Everything slows down as he turns to see that the beetle had kept moving while he stopped to talk to her. The red LEDs surrounding the eye-cameras are all pointed at him while there are no crates separating them. A lowered, sharpened spear of a horn aimed right at him. And then the pawing becomes a sprint.

Olmar looks for help. Mecha is behind it and would never get there in time, even if she noticed. No help there. Then he looks for where to dodge or somehow avoid it. I could drop prone and let it go over me.

But his body won't move. He is paralyzed and watching the beast come at him in slow motion. I'm dead. And she's next.

Nearer and nearer the sharp horn of doom closes in on him. He's in the process of closing his eyes and accepting the inevitable when he sees a blur out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he sees that the blur is Hotaru's wing. It's coming right toward them.

Olmar laughs to himself. My pet is smaller than this beetle. What could it possibly do?

Instead of ramming it, like Olmar suspected, it flies past, blinding them with the lights on its tail. When Olmar can see again, he finds himself in a familiar situation. The horn is at his chest. A little blood trickles into his shirt. There, on top of the beetle, is his firefly. Apparently it landed on it while I was blind.

That said, he notices something else. The rhinoceros's eyes are green. "What? How?" Before he can get an answer, he hears Mecha declare, "Found it!" There's a problem with this. He can't see her.

The breeze turned wind is now swirling inside the cave at such a rate that the sand is like a brown wall everywhere. If the two robots weren't right in front of him, he would never see them in this. "Oh no. Where are you?" Now that he isn't pinned to the wall by something sharp, he takes a step toward her voice. Maybe just to spite him, Hotaru springs up removing its interface leg from the back and disappears into the tornado.

"Tomas," he calls into the darkness playing an child's game by giving the first name of the first astronaut to fly past the speed of light.

After a moment, he hears her reply over the din, "Linguini." Again he takes a few steps toward the sound.

"Tomas," he tries again.

"Hotaru!"

What? That's not his name. Due to his distraction at the wrong name, he forgets to step toward the sound.

Realizing his mistake, Olmar starts the game again, "Tuhmah!" He coughs and spits the dirt that enters his mouth and muddles his speech.

No voice answers him. He thinks he hears coughing, so he and the beetle head toward that. But moving is hard. In the time that he waited, piles of sand have climbed his legs miring them down.

Olmar dares not open his mouth again for fear of swirling dust filling it. He hums as loud as he can in the darkness surrounding him. Flying sand beats against his exposed body like thousands of bugs hitting a windshield all at once. Blinded, silenced, and pelted, he slogs forward.

Through almost closed eyes, his imagination runs wild. He thinks he sees the dirt glow, but of course that can't be. Dirt doesn't light up.

And the sand grows in luminosity but only in one spot. What a weird dream. This step is harder because he has to lift his foot above the sand that has buried his leg. Using the rhino-like bug for leverage, he manages.

And then the light breaks through. It's Hotaru and Mecha. At least that's what the shadows seem to indicate. Maybe this is all still a dream. Maybe I'm on the verge of death.

Breathing gets harder as sand tries to go up his nose. Flashes. His senses are so dulled he doesn't notice that the horn is no longer in his hand. Still he struggles on. Then his world goes dark.

Cough! Cough! Olmar starts at the sound and bangs his head on metal. Rubbing his sore forehead and looking around, he sees a prone Mecha clutching something. Cough! Cough! Her body racks with the sound. Then she begins to stir. "Uhhhh...."

"Mecha?"

"I'll live," she croaks as she rolls on one side to look at him, eyes half closed.

"Where are we?"

"I have no idea."

Mecha unclasps her hands revealing her treasure. It's a small metal shape. "That's what you risked our lives for?"

"It's an Omnitool. It does everything. It will be so helpful fixing all those machines. My hands can only do so much on their own. Plus I bought this one, and it was taking forever to get here." Watching him roll his eyes, she forages on, "I was not going to lose this to a sandstorm and wait all that time for it to be delivered again." She pauses and then adds, "It was weeks!"

Vzzzzzzzh The metal Olmar banged his head on lifts. Light pours in on them as they gaze up at brilliant blue clear sky. Olmar switches to his knees and peers out of their container. Below wherever they are is sand as far as the eye can see. Multiple cameras on a familiar head peek over the raised metal and down at them.

"Hotaru," exclaims Mecha sitting up, "thank you for saving me. Where are we?" The mechanical firefly lifts off and hovers in front of them. Its tail flashes. "Mushi." The tail keeps flashing. "Short. For. Kabutomushi. Good thinking, Hotaru."

Olmar joins in, "Where's Mushi? I've never heard of such a place."  More flashes. "Not where but who?"

"Who," Mecha repeats, equally confused. The ground draws close and the metal under them starts lifting. Olmar gets out first and realizes what's going on. Mecha is second. "Oh. Mushi is the beetle. Pleased to meet you, Mushi."

As an aside to Mecha, "Not Pointy, huh?" She shakes her head. "Pleased to meet you, Mushi," he parrots. "So, I guess you are Mecha's, huh? I've already got Hotaru."

Flashes. "No?" Mecha's excited face and excited rubbing hands drop.

"What? Why?"

Green flashes. "Oh, Mushi. You're operating system says Olmar is your owner? It happened when Hotaru landed on you? I'll check you out when we get back."

Olmar is agast, "What? No! I don't need another one. I can barely afford Hotaru..." But his cries go unheard.

Mecha takes a few steps away but no one follows. She turns back to green flashes. "We need to pick up the packages?" Flashes. "And deliver them?"

Both heads sag, "Okay,” they mutter.

--epilogue--

Flashes. "I'm up," Olmar mutters. The light flies towards a wall. "Don't. You. Dare." Hotaru lands on a wall. Colors ripple across the wall. Some of them catch the strobes, others the speakers.

The corner of his blanket flips off. "Look. I'm up."

The volume increases as Hotaru climbs the wall. This results in the pillow covering his head. The walls, floors, and bed vibrate.

In, amongst all the cacophony, a green light flies down and snuggles under the opened blanket. Reaching its target, Mushi pokes a bit of exposed flesh.

“OW!” Olmar springs out of bed and lands on the floor, rubbing his side. As the pain quells, Olmar’s head droops. The music quiets as the floor moves the half awake Olmar to the sanitary station and then to the changing room.

This time he comes out wearing a kilt and bagpipe. "This is going to be a long day."