Ash Blossom's fluffy mane is ash-colored, just like her skin, hence the name. It's not that she's old or has a disease, it's simply that her Swiss roots gave her that appearance from birth. Day her father, with the same complexion and even grayer attitude, took one short look at her and returned her to mom's arms without congratulations or fanfare.

Mr. Blossom was always sparing with words and attentions. Ash still remembers when, at age 7, she told him how much she wanted a bicycle, and Mr. Blossom, with a touch tablet in his gnarled hands, told her without looking up from the score of the game:

"Well go and buy it"

Ash wished, with all his heart, that Mr. Blossom would pay the slight and go bald. It wasn't long before his longing was fulfilled, but she avoided getting excited, the gentleman's pronounced innings already promised that way.

By installing software on computers and devices belonging to lazy and elderly people, Ash managed to buy the bike and learned a valuable lesson: If you want something in this life, you have to work for it. It's true that the wealthy can bypass that vital rule, but for the poor, merit and effort were the only way out.

When she was 9 years old, one day she caught her first live fight of robots, ferocious machines made by the ingenuous, crushing each other... She fell in love and decided to become a mechanic. Not because her father was one too, that could be misinterpreted as admiration, and she would hate to give him the gesture. The resolution was hers and no one else's. Explaining the plans to her parents, Mom smiled, but Ash didn't look twice at the one she considered the family fool, and instead fixed her amber eyes on the subject beyond the electronic tablet.

"Well, go and become a mechanic"

Ash nodded in agreement. She would have been offended if this one decided to lend him assistance.

The houses flattened against each other, on the pillars of the artificial island. In the shed in the backyard, whose dividing fence was made of zinc sheets, Ash set up his workshop. She lacked tools, parts, contacts, or even funds. But knowledge from videos, forums, and online manuals helped her get her bearings and pinpoint a starting point. She set off to explore Downtown's mile-long landfills, scavenging through trash, and talking to scrap dealers, she managed to expand her inventory enough to offer to repair simple devices like toasters or TV set-top boxes, all at prices well below Mr. Blossom's.

Among the less affluent and more stingy, Ash built a niche that was enlarged when Morro, the manager of a famous porn movie and experience store, asked him to fix his bedroom automaton. Which, against all odds, and burning his eyes with manuals that she forced himself to understand, she finally managed to do (It wasn't really that complicated, just disassemble the robot, and give it a thorough cleaning to expel all the old semen accumulated on the boards and circuits). Step by step, Ash built his fame.

One night that same year, during dinner, spying on his taciturn dad, for the first time she felt she was on his level.

The next morning, a crimson glow on the other side of the window leading to the courtyard snapped her out of her reverie. She peered out, and any trace of drowsiness vanished for what she saw. Pale and screaming, she ran to the backyard and pulled Mr. Blossom's arm to stop. But her dad continued to pour gasoline on the fire, which, fierce and hot, consumed Ash's makeshift workshop, taking with it his accomplishments and the small fortune he kept in a false bottom of the toolbox. Little Ash, on her knees and with tears streaming down her face, said.... Why?

Mr. Blossom explained to her that, sabotage like that, is inevitable when you are new to the fishbowl and starting to excel in the capital game. Ash tore up the grass, dirt stuck between his fingernails, and screamed that life is unfair. Mr. Blossom had only one reply.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Then go and make it fair"

Ash escaped from home that same day, slipped away on one of the merchant ships, and disappeared from Downtown forever.

Fifteen years have now passed, life is still unfair, but Ash is better able to survive its stabs. She is so confident in her ability to handle what is mechanical, that she traveled to Australia to make a living among ruffians, because the dividends there are as good as anywhere else in the world, and with much less competition. The Australians lacked the same education and resources that she reluctantly obtained during her childhood, which allowed her to excel quickly among the settlements. The bad thing was that when she managed to get along with a boss and be moderately comfortable, her boss would end up being overthrown by some ambitious slaver. She always had to flee to land drier of blood.

She got tired of all that running and danger, decided that her accounts and purse were fat enough to allow her to open a workshop in a clean and shiny city. She traveled to Sydney to get a ship to migrate to, but on the way a Deathmask patrol caught her.

The chain gang planned to use her as a meat object, because her breasts and thighs were generous, and the gray skin and matted hair did not detract from her features - on the contrary, they gave her an exotic tinge. But when they searched her belongings and found electronics and engineering instruments, they determined that she was a mechanic. From the cages, Ash overheard the conversation, gleaning valuable data such as that Achu sought to replace the loss of the burned man.

Hearing that nickname left her stunned.... The burned man! She thought it was a legend, an invention of ignorant dingoes, like the God Armor, or the taipan tribe. But if such a legendary scientist, guilty of destroying a city with an antimatter bomb, exists? What other fantasies would swarm the continent?

Sadly, her forced walk to the thunder dome did not lead her to learn more about the legend. Instead she was locked up with other mechanics in the dome's workshop, and realizing that she was the only one with knowledge up to the challenge, Achu beheaded the others. Ash was left in charge of the Crocodile.

The proportions of the Crocodile are far from the elegance of the Muskite machines, or the practical simplicity of the allied exponents. It has a Babylonian shape, of width rather than height, and on seeing it one wonders what springs and joints would be able to withstand maneuvering under several tons of pressure. The answer: none. The armor instead of striding with its four legs, is propelled by steel tracks on each "foot," which are actually old Merkava tanks of Israeli origin. The arms possess almost zero mobility, the right one holds a battery of Soviet missiles, and the left one has a hand formed by five GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannons, a set affectionately known by slavers as: Devil's Hand. The torso can rotate 360 degrees, both right and left. Beneath the three heavy 406 mm cannons, a black armored glass dome, some 4 meters in diameter, covers the various vision, radar, communication, and measuring devices. Data flows to the central computer and then to the cockpit, located in the center of the torso, suspended by hydraulic springs that absorb the terrible turbulence of the Crocodile. Over the pilot's reclining seat hangs a helmet, and this, as in most modern armor, is intended to connect to the operator's brain. It is the nexus that transforms the human into a powerful metal machine. Added to all of the above are five Saturn rockets on the back, which were added as if out of time, perhaps on a whim of Achu's desire to fly, even though the amount of energy and fuel the Crocodile needs to soar is insane.

Ash moves on all fours through the narrow ducts that form the Crocodile's interior passageways, completely cut off from the outside. She has to admit that in the few days he's been working, he's learned a lot from studying the colossus. Mind you, there was one very strange thing inside the machine, an explosive device in the heart of the reactor, designed to detonate with a voice command sent from the piloting center. She guessed that Achu preferred to have a self-destruct system in case the Crocodile was hijacked. Just in case, Ash kept a disciplined silence every time the cockpit was going.

She concludes the inspection, and returns to the hatch leading to the Crocodile's left shoulder. As soon as she climbs the ladder and opens, the sound of the alarm hits your eardrums, and you discover two pairs of shapely legs, one trailing down to a very tight suit, the other to a thong. The man and woman look back at her, smiling, as gunshots whistle all around. Chester places the flat side of the katana against the Swiss woman's cheek.

"Tell me, are you my star mechanic?"

Ash, fearful of the consequences, swallows and accepts the part.