Fire Born of Hearts Pressed to Copper Skin

Flash Fiction by Brandon Case

I sit beside Mother on a fallen log, deep in Northeast Wyoming, warming my chassis in the glow of our nascent campfire. Dark pines loom overhead. An owl hoots in the shadowed branches. Distant wolves howl. A strange hiss echoes through the forest, and the first snowflakes settle on my shoulders like the ashes of a funeral pyre.

I scoot close to Mother.

She is wonderfully warm, but I don’t want to steal more of her heat. Her face is already thin and wan. Exhaustion bruises her eyes. She’s given too much of herself already. I start to pull away, but she reaches around my shoulders and holds me close—not flinching as my copper skin sucks warmth from her flesh.

“Fear not the forest, my beautiful child.” Mother’s once-grand voice has diminished to a rasp; she pauses to cough. “Your second birth was in a meadow of autumn aspens. This is your home; the woods will not harm you.”

But the winter will.

The fire’s heat beckons me. I squeeze Mother’s hand and leave the log, kneeling on the ring of stones to gorge myself on flames. I wish Mother could bathe in the warmth with me, that it’d renew her as it does my batteries. But the fire would consume her fragile skin.

“Please,” I say, “tell me again of my birth.” The story always brings a glow to her eyes, and it’s the only comfort I can offer.

She smiles and says, “Maybe just one more time.”

“You were so cold when I found you, curled on your side in a bed of wildflowers, their purple bells leaning over you like the faces of concerned friends. And you were small—no larger than my daughter, who was six when the bombs claimed her life. But she died at the height of the war, while you came to me with its end.

“I’d shot down a Collectivist gunship near my solitary outpost in the Tetons. The massive vehicle lay across a mountain peak, broken. But a fresh trail wound down the slope. You’d crawled out of the crumpled turrets and dragged yourself over miles of rubble and rock to find your place among the flowers. I’d never seen such perseverance, such hope.

“But without the cannon’s heat to absorb, you ran out of energy. Your copper skin couldn’t consume enough warmth from the sun, which hid behind the veil of eternal clouds.

“You were part of the army that’d killed my daughter, but I knew they treated your kind like slaves. I picked you up, and you clung to me like I was salvation itself. You’ve always been an excellent hugger. And as you warmed, your eyes focused on me: intricate copper lenses behind sparkling glass. At that moment, I knew. In the death of. your ship, you’d been born anew, and I was meant to be your mother in this second life.

“At first, my body’s heat was enough to keep your systems running. You were newly woken to the world of thought that lay beyond the mental shackles of servitude. As your curiosity grew, your mind required more energy to process the world. More heat.

“My little camp wouldn’t suffice once winter neared, so we headed north. I devised a backpack so you could carry hot stones from our campfires to keep yourself warm while we walked.

“Watching you learn, seeing your wonder grow as we studied plants and animals, was a constant delight.

“You harbored a fear of the night, of that confining darkness you suffered in the belly of the ship where you were forced to load and fire their weapons. But your spark grew with every day, becoming the light of my life, like my heart was a lantern, newly lit after years of disuse.

“I longed to share Yellowstone Park with you, which I loved dearly as a child.

“It has more heat than you’ll ever need, and an abandoned outpost with medicine and shelter. I’d love to spend my days watching you splash in the boiling pools, chasing geysers that hiss and froth—"

Mother falls into a fit of coughing: deep, hollow sounds that shake her entire body.

I turn away from the flames. My skin immediately starts to cool, heat harvested by my small battery. But while my hands are still warm, I lay them on her chest—for once giving warmth instead of stealing it. “When will we arrive at this wonderful park?”

“Two days ago.” She smiles weakly. “Or so I thought. I won’t lie to you… if we don’t find—” Another round of coughing takes her breath; flecks of red dot the hand she holds to her mouth. 

I stare past her, into the darkness pressing smothering the light of our camp. There is no place in the world for me without Mother. In her absence, I’d die of cold or be torn apart by people who see me as their enemy.

Silence falls over the shadowed pines. Heavy snowflakes drift from the sky. In the distance, the strange hissing erupts again.

With Mother’s tale fresh in my mind, I ask, “Could that sound be the geyser near your outpost?”

She slumps against the log, eyes closed, rasping shallow breaths.

She needs food and antibiotics.

A wolf howls in the night; the frigid wind curls around my copper neck like a sickle; I flinch. If I crouched in the campfire, I might survive the night.

But I’d die with the flames, and Mother long before.

How far is a geyser’s hiss audible in the mountains?

I wrap Mother in our blankets to protect her from my hungry skin, then strap her to my back, my chassis bowing under her larger body.

I snatch a glowing stone from the depths of our fire and hold it to my copper chest, its heat an external heart, like the warmth she showed me these last months.

With Mother’s legs dragging behind me, I venture into the darkness.