'Is everything fine?'

Mother's voice came from the entrance, waking up Tsune who napped in the lobby chair.

'Yeah, just got sleepy after that weird dream they made me go through.'

Standing up to leave, the girl suppressed the urge to stretch. Given how formal everyone here was, she didn't want to look uncouth.

An hour after her mother surprised her with knowing how to drive manually, they stopped before Rue's house. Unlike the rounder architecture of Tsune's home city, the building's was square and did nothing to disguise its rough brick walls. 

'Welcome to my family home'

Rue, dressed in a simple beige blouse and a long dress, met them at the door. She stepped aside to let them through and walked in last. Then showed the girl to the dining room table.

'While the food is prepared, we can have a chat. Unless you have anything else in mind?'

The girl looked down on her phone that showed no signs of a network. Judging by lack of any electronics inside of the house and Rue's demeanor, it was unlikely there was anything here to fit her interests.

'Why is this place outside of the net? I thought you could connect to the Ring from anywhere.'

'You mother never told you about this? Well, I'm not surprised, she has changed after meeting your father.'

The woman interlocked her fingers after she sat down to speak. But unlike the girl, she kept her elbows off the table.

'This city is very old. What made it special back then was that it was never attacked by mecha-monsters.

And because humanity wasn't sure they could fight back when attacks just started, this city became a sanctuary of all the knowledge we would need to rebuild.

But recordings alone are enough only for technology, so the city people chose to uphold the culture and traditions to keep them alive. Its the capital of old.'

"So there's no net because?"

'I thought it was the old capital?'

'Technically correct. It was the administrative center for a while. But it doesn't sound sentimental at all.'

Tsune looked at Rue with a bit of surprise. The woman looked too prim and proper to care about sentimentality. But the love towards the city was probably expected from its citizens.

More importantly, that tale, while interesting, didn't answer her question about the net. Maybe she should approach it differently.

'Where would you recommend me to go?'

'You want to be a pilot, right? There's a garrison here...'

The woman paused and turned around, her gaze distant as if looking at the city through the walls. But she failed to remember.

'...somewhere. But there's a handful of those remote vehicles because Command was always afraid of attracting the enemy. If you are asking because you wanted to see the old mechs, I can give you and your mother a free pass to the museums here. One of them has that exhibition.'

The girl nodded and looked down at her phone again. She didn't even have anything to watch for tonight. Maybe a more direct approach would work better.|

'I think I would want to go. But how do to I enter the net? I usually spend the evening to improve as a pilot.'

When the girl reiterated her question, Rue's fingers drummed against the table as she finally understood where the girl was going. 

'Yes, of course, studies are important. I think the library is open for another hour.'

'I don't dislike technology, on the contrary. It's just that my son spent whole days in that network and then decided to go to my husband who works outside of the city. I'm sorry.'

'Ah, no, it's fine. How do I find it?'

Waving away the apology, the girl stood up.

-

A half an hour later, Tsune walked through the streets with a paper map in hand. Unlike her preplanned city, these streets seemingly had no rhyme or reason. They also were smaller, so she saw her target only when she reached the library park. 

Although, as she could see now, it was less of a park and more of a ring of seats around the library building. There were enough trees to create a shade and the ring was big enough to dampen the street noise. But for her a park was for sightseeing and walking, not just sitting around.

While thinking about what defined a park, she reached the doors. But they remained closed despite her being so close she could reach the handle.

She waited for doors to open for almost a minute, then realized what was wrong. Resisting the urge to facepalm in embarrassment, she pulled the door handle. Then stumbled yet again as the door refused to open outwards.

"All this automation spoiled me, can't even open the door right."

Once inside, she saw that nobody could've seen her and decisively forgot this incident. More importantly, to her delight, the phone rang with a choir of notifications.

She walked past the closed book shelves, that lined the walls, and went through the opening in a blue rope fence. It separated the walkway from the central seating area, that was full of teens. Some of them read the books, but the majority used their phones.

-

"So, let's see."

Looking at the wall clock that showed that she had about ten minutes before closing, the girl pocketed her phone. It was busy with downloads, so she had time to explore.

At first she looked at labels through the glass, then noticed the original print dates that often went hundreds of years into the past. 

"Are these really that old?"

Curious to see if they were originals or reprints, the girl tried to open a shelf but was interrupted by an electronic voice. 

-Registrations are available on the first and last days of the week-

It came from a modern, albeit wood plated, terminal below the nearest window. Instead of automatically synchronizing with her phone, it requested a manual data input, including her current city residence.

Finally, the screen told her that she could retrieve the card on the next day of registration. Then it turned off, showing that library was closed.  

Shaking her head in disappointment at the wasted time, Tsune turned to leave. Even if she was curious, she wouldn't stay here for an entire week.

-

When she got home, the women have already set the dinner table. Waving to them, the girl was about to go past but Rue stopped her.

'Wait, aren't you going to join us for dinner?'

'But I usually eat later.'

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

'But food tastes better with your family at the table.'

The woman tried to object and turned to her mother, seeking her approval. But the other woman just shook her head.

'Its okay. She wants to make her own future, so she has a lot on her mind.'

'My son always said something like that.'

Rue let Tsune walk past and as the girl walked to her room, the woman continued.

'But sometimes I wish he recognized that staying to work for the city takes as much strength as leaving it.'

An hour later, the girl returned and found the room empty. But the food was recently reheated.

Wondering if it was her mother, or Rue's lucky guess, she sighed as she sat down. Despite the pre-trip plan, the mother-daughter bonding wasn't going as well. She would have to try better tomorrow.

And while her reason to get closer to her mother was selfish, as she wanted to find a way to prevent any further talk about suitors, it wasn't all of it. She also wanted to make up for the months of worrying about her, ideally without giving away the cause.

-

The next day, after everyone had a breakfast together, mother and daughter left for a sightseeing ride. As they walked to the car, the girl turned to her mother.

'Can you be the guide instead of the map?'

'Of course! I know enough to give you a great trip.'

The woman's voice beamed with joy but outwardly she remained serious. Like a high class lady that arrived to meet other nobles and introduce her daughters to their heirs.

"Wait, no. None of that last part."

-

The first landmark was the central street, whose sides had rows of monuments for humanity's heroes and achievements. And the girl almost instantly recognized one of them, specifically a giant self-propelled beam cannon.

"Wow, it's been a while since I thought about the previous world."

The weapon was used to defeat an unusually big flying mecha-monster. Its pieces transformed to become smaller enemies, so the main plot was about developing a weapon to one shot it in its entirety. 

Tracing her daughter's line of sight, her mother slowed down before they could pass it.

'Oh, I remember that one. Your father's laboratory worked on one of the pieces. Did he tell you about it?'

The girl shrugged and turned away.

'It seems familiar but I don't remember.'

Soon they reached the central square and stopped. Lady Red pointed at a statue complex in the middle of the square. There, five pedestals formed a ring but only four of them had statues. And all four were humans in toga that offered different items to the rising sun.

'Can you guess what are they about? But without reading their plates.'

Tsune raised her hand to block sunlight as much as she could.

First held fire, second held a lightning bolt, third held a model of an atom, fourth held a clear glass ball. The first three were obvious but the fourth she couldn't guess. Eventually, she couldn't bear her mother's smug look.

'Is it the sun? Because the sunlight makes it light up.'

'Wrong! It's space. And if you ask why didn't they put a spaceship there, it doesn't mean just distance between planets.'

Her mother folded her hand to hold empty air as she tried to explain.

'When humanity developed interplanetary drives we thought that we conquered space itself.'

Puffing her cheeks in indignation, because the spaceship line actually was her question, the girl got out of the car.

While there, she noticed that the surface of the fifth pedestal looked damaged. As if something was there before. And the text plate of the fourth statue looked older than the bolts that held it in place.

But her attention to detail was fleeting and she left when the pedestal plates confirmed her mother's reasoning.

-

Her mother was a surprisingly good guide, spicing up the dry history of landmarks with the urban stories she learned when she worked in the city.

Eventually they made a lunch stop at a café that served the recipes from any era or region. Tsune wolfed down a fruit salad and a slice of sweet glazed pie, the recipes that came from four hundred years ago and Three River region respectively.

She wanted to order more, but Lady Red pulled her away to their final destination for the day. A museum with the exhibition about the old mechs.

Due to very few visitors, the tour stand was closed, so her mother returned to being a guide.

'Here we have the painting that shows a man from before the mecha-monster era. Its author, businessman who wanted to promote his new clothing material, weaved his own portrait using only naturally colored threads.'

'Here is music that was considered classical three hundred years ago.'

'This holographic stand is a reproduction of life in an ancient city.'

While listening to her mother, Tsune noticed another stand. It had several manikin in old uniforms and one of them looked exactly like the white pilot suit she the Destiny's pilot wear. 

'What about these?'

Her interruption was met with a confused stare. But then the woman realized something.

'Oh right. Your generation doesn't learn that anymore. It's a part of Space Knights exhibition we came here for.'

'Pilots could wear anything they wanted but their clothes had to have specific colors. It became a formality several decades ago though, so don't worry.'

Interested, the girl went to read the plates.

The colors changed depending on roles. A non combat mission required white, combat was red, and repairs or medical support, needed black. Blue was for teaching or learning and green was for space operations?

The girl took a strand of her hair, to brush the green tips. Then she looked back at her mother, who understood her without words.

'I agreed to it only because it looked great.'

That Tsune could believe. She did say that he proposed after the Venus expedition and this seemed like a harmless way to immortalize it. However, In the light the last year, it was hard to extend the same good faith to her father.

'And this is the main part of the *Space Knights* exhibition.'

Her mother's voice distracted Tsune from her thoughts. She walked around a corner and saw a reproduction scene that took an entire room whose ceiling was at least storey high.

The left side had Earth terrain and a combiner mech that towered above R.C. vehicles. The right was a red wasteland with several Majin mechs that offered a knight salute to their counterparts. Their chests held faintly glowing star gems, as if their hearts.

'Impressive, isn't it.'

Looking at the models, the girl nodded. Despite the smaller scale, the detail on both sides was impeccable. But  she didn't understand why the sides were opposed.

'Why are they against each other? I piloted both in the academy.'

'Because of the device those use. It's the crystals up there.'

'I helped the pilots use them safely until Earth moved to assistants. But Martians are stubborn, using anything else is an insult to them.'

'Why is that?'

Her mother paused, then lightly bumped her head with her knuckles with a silly expression that hid her surprise.

'Sorry, this isn't taught to young people anymore, right? Not even in the sea city that is full of these crystals?'

'What do they have to do with mechs?'

The girl tried to recall anything relevant, from the building prisms to street artists. But her closest guess was the old man pilot and the purple gem in his robot. Which was called a powerplant by Hem.

"Are they volatile?"

'If you look into one, you might see the reflection of your thoughts inside. And if you are disciplined enough to hold onto an image, its easy to amplify it with the crystal and make it visible for others. It's how all those light paintings work.'

'And?'

'If you go further, it'll do more than letting everyone see your daydreams.'

Satisfied with her daughter's surprised expression, she continued.

'But powering the crystals creates a feedback loop that amplifies all the pilot's thoughts.' 

'For Martians it's as a challenge that a warrior must be able to handle, while for Earth it's a mental health hazard.'

The girl looked at the star gems again, now recognizing them as devices from the background lore, her mother looked at the wall clock.

'I'd say it's time for us to return. Cafe food is nice, but nothing beats a home cooked meal.'

Tsune nodded and quietly turned to follow. Her thoughts returned to the sea resort and how her real decision wasn't whether she took Mapo with her or not. It was asking the old man for help instead of trying to move the mech by herself.

Because if her mother was right, it would've moved after all.