The Mech Touch

5645 Precrime

Ves did not know what to make of the Meeting of Races.

On the one hand, it foretold a possible and maybe even likely future where the Red War did not lead to the annihilation of red humanity.

That was already a cause for celebration, but how much did red humanity have to sacrifice in order to negotiate an end to a conflict or the start of a new multi-racial cooperation agreement?

Ves actually felt a bit skeptical about this future possibility.

He knew that General Axelar Streon and Gaia were cooking up a grand plan to heist the home planet of a major alien race.

There was a distinct possibility that their ultimate goal may be the ancestral home planet of the orven race!

After all, the orvens resembled humans the most, so their home planet should be a lot more compatible as well.

If the Terran Alliance managed to pull off this explosive grand heist, then the orvens would develop such an irreconcilable hatred towards humanity that they would never agree to end the war!

However, if that scenario was not entirely guaranteed to come to pass.

Ves ultimately shook his head and did not dare to think too much in this direction. He needed to follow his own advice and stop himself from trying to read too much into dubious and unreliable clues.

"As grand as this occasion may appear, do you have the impression that the two sides are happy to sign this treaty?" Jovy asked.

"I thought that the sense of gloom and discomfort came from the Zeal as opposed to this artwork." Gloriana skeptically responded.

"That is partially true, but now that I think about it, I don't think I tried to depict a happy occasion." Ves mentioned as he tried to recall his mind state at the time of making this work. "I get the feeling that both sides are under pressure. The likely explanation for that is that they may be forced to come together in order to confront a common threat that either of the two sides cannot defeat by themselves."

That sounded like a much more plausible reason to form an alliance between red humanity and at least a few of the major alien races.

The group of mech designers moved on to a simpler but considerably more darker image painted on a smaller surface.

Ves had utilized a lot of black and gray paints to make all of the ragged brush strokes. The resulting painting roughly depicted a grim older man holding a pistol against the head of a younger man that was kneeling on the floor in utter defeat.

Gloriana immediately became on edge. The prophetic image offended her in a way that prompted her to take it a lot more seriously!

"Is that your Amastendira?"

"It kind of looks like it." Ves admitted. The white and golden colors stood out too much from the rest of the image. "Even though the detail level is not too high, I am pretty sure the gun that I have painted has a different design. I may have broken down and rebuilt the Amastendira from the ground up. It's a horribly outdated laser pistol by this time, but it still contains a few pieces of good tech that I can build upon. I always intended to upgrade it, but only after I became a first-class mech designer."

"That means that the figure holding the gun is likely you." His wife concluded. "The question is who you are executing. Your art style in this image leaves much to be desired. How little time did you spend on it? I cannot discern any facial details at all! Even the clothes are engulfed in shadow!"

This was clearly a dark scene. Ves actually felt he had done a great job at conveying the overall dark and depressing atmosphere of this prophetic vision!

Yet when Ves thought about who the person holding the gun might be trying to execute, his expression suddenly dropped.

For whatever reason, Gloriana immediately picked up on his change of mood.

"You know."

"I… think I do. The title that I have associated with this artwork is pretty unambiguous in this regard. Don't read too much into it. This is only a possible future."

"I will not like the answer." Gloriana guessed in a flat tone.

"Yes, but this is anything but a guaranteed outcome. The observer's paradox alone means that the future can still be changed. Now that we have received forewarning, we can purposefully take action to lower the probability of this event from ever occurring."

"Tell me the truth, Ves. Do not lie. I can tell if you do. What is the title of this work?"

"...Filicide."

That was an unusual word to say the least. Pretty much no one in their orbit used this word in normal parlance.

Jovy instantly looked up this word in his internal dictionary.

"Filicide. Noun. The act of killing one's son or daughter. I believe this is a case of killing a son, as the human figure kneeling on the ground in defeat clearly looks masculine."

That predictably caused the only woman to explode!

"WHAT?! I KNEW IT! I KNEW THIS PAINTING WOULD BREAK MY HEART! HOW COULD YOU, VES?! HOW COULD YOU KILL OUR OWN CHILD? WHY ARE YOU SO CRUEL AND HEARTLESS TO SHOOT ONE OF OUR PRECIOUS BABIES IN THE HEAD? ARE YOU SO FULL OF YOURSELVES THAT YOU ARE UNABLE TO FORGIVE THE SON THAT YOU HAVE RAISED IN YOUR OWN ARMS?!"

"Calm down, honey!" Ves innocently raised his arms. "You know I would never do such a thing! Don't talk to me as if I have already done it! I don't know how far in the future this event takes place, but a lot has clearly happened for such an execution to become remotely plausible. Precrime is a fantasy, not a real phenomenon!"

"MY BABY! MARVAINE! WHAT HAS MARVAINE POSSIBLY DONE TO DESERVE THIS PUNISHMENT?! HE IS JUST A MECH DESIGNER IN THIS FUTURE!"

"The man holding the gun is not necessarily me, you know! Even if he is, there is no certainty that the kneeling figure is Marvaine!" Ves retorted. "We can still have other children, you know. There may be other sons that have misbehaved for one reason or another. In fact, the victim may not even be one of our children. He may be one of our grandsons or distant descendants."

Not even Jovy believed in the latter. "The emotions poured into this artwork suggests a strong emotional bond between 'father' and 'son'. This is an act of extreme desperation and necessity. It is unlikely that the two family members have a passing familiarity with each other. You have depicted these emotions in a beautiful manner despite the brief amount of time you spent on making it. Your work deserves to be put in a museum."

Ves got betrayed by his own art!

"Childkiller! I should take Marvaine away from you right away! Even my daughters may be in danger from you one day. If you are depraved enough to kill your son in the future, then my precious baby girls are no less safe in your presence!"

It took a lot of effort and a bit of time for Ves and Jovy to calm down the hysterical mother.

It was more than understandable for Gloriana to go nuts at the very possibility that her husband might kill one of their own children one day, but this was such a spurious scenario in the far future that it was excessive to believe that it was already set in stone!

Treating Ves as a child killer at this time was as absurd as spending trillions of MTA credits worth of handbags and other extravagant luxuries based on his probable income 100 years later.

Though Gloriana's distressed emotions had gained primacy for a time, her rationality eventually resurfaced just enough to calm her down.

She agreed with Ves not because she agreed with her arguments, but she had to believe that determinism did not exist in order to make room for a possibility where her cute little boy would be saved from getting killed by his own cruel and merciless father!

"I will keep a much closer eye on you and Marvaine. Do not test my patience." Gloriana warned with narrowed eyes.

Ves looked helpless as he could not shake off his wife's intense suspicion and paranoia.

"I love Marvaine as much as Aurelia and Andraste. Family is the most important thing to me. You know I would never harm my own flesh and blood. Either this is a case of a mistaken identity, or a lot of stuff happened that caused us to deviate too far from our current selves. At the very least, the remote possibility that this future may come to pass is a wakeup call for all of us. We need to work even harder to restrain ourselves and prevent us from ever losing sight of what is important."

They took one last look at this tragic artwork before they moved away.

Ves had one more thought as he bid goodbye to this awful prophetic vision.

Though Gloriana assumed that the 'son' was Marvaine, Ves was not so certain about this identification.

There was still a possibility that he and his wife might decide to complete their set and have 2 more sons in the next couple of years.

Ves couldn't help but think back on Ylvaine's recent prophecy about his possible second son. This caused him to feel more upset, because the design spirit's annoying prophecies had started to distort his perception of his children when nobody was at fault.

Nothing happened yet, but Ylvaine already made a number of predictions that did not foretell anything good about a child that had yet to be born!

Anyway, all three mech designers were eager to wash away the bad associations generated by Filicide and eagerly observed the third major image.

Jovy looked intrigued. "If the previous image was zoomed in to a personal level, then this one has zoomed out to the point where we are looking at a galaxy from top-down."

"This is the Red Ocean." Gloriana stated. "The red nebulas and the approximate size and shape of the dwarf galaxy are unmistakable. The density and the positioning of the stars also match up to the current star map. At the very least, this snapshot is taken within a couple of centuries at most if we account for stellar drift and other factors that change over time."

"There's a big difference between the current map of the dwarf galaxy and… this." Ves pointed out the obvious. "Half of the stars are engulfed in a cloud of darkness. They're not even glowing anymore. I can't tell whether those stars have literally been snuffed or if the obscured side of the Red Ocean have fallen under the control of a dark power."

Either possibility sounded frightening to Ves!

"What is the name of this piece?" His wife asked.

"The Black Tide."

"That certainly sounds ominous."

"There are strong indications that the remaining prophetic visions will not be much better." Jovy shared one of his thoughts. "I can perceive a definite pattern in these works."

Ves had been having this feeling as well. It did not help that the Zeal had become extra gloomy and fatalistic after absorbing the powerful Final Sacrifice gem.

However, he only added the gem after he and Ylvaine produced all of these illustrations, not before.

The order was wrong… or was it? Had Ylvaine somehow known that the Zeal would be a mech steeped in negativity, and therefore orient his predictions towards visions of doom and disaster?

Ves inwardly shook his head. This was too complicated. He shouldn't let all of the implications of these prophecies overwhelm his cognition.

No matter what may or may not come to pass, he firmly believed that only he was the master of his own destiny!

No one else was allowed to dictate his future!

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