TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  WHAT I 
  REMEMBER 
  MOST
  By Kevin Killiany
  
  BATTLECORPS
  What I Remember Most • Page 2
  Santiago City, Santiago 
  Outworlds Alliance 
  6 March 2573
  What I remember most about the 
  day before my thirteenth birth-
  day is the colors of the snow. 
  Before you tell me that 
  snow has no color, I chal-
  lenge you to look at it. Really 
  look at it. Not on a cloudy, 
  dreary day when it is falling, 
  but on a day after, a day of 
  bright sunshine.
  See the colors? There, 
  playing across the surface, the 
  sunlight sparkles, startling free 
  tiny rainbows of gem fire. There, and 
  gone again, appearing and disappear-
  ing with every step. Or there in the shadows 
  of evergreens, subtle shades of blue and grey and lavender. 
  Blending in a cool and restful palate.
  My mother always said I had the eyes of an artist, seeing color 
  and form and beauty everywhere. In places no one else thought 
  to look.
  All of my life all I have ever wanted to do was paint. Not in harsh 
  acrylics or heavy oils, but in the feather soft lightness of water-
  colors. You can not blend or mix watercolors, each shade must 
  be perfect as you apply it. The image must flow from your heart 
  through your brush to your paper. Because that’s what makes a 
  painting different from a photograph. 
  A photograph is a scene, reality as it is, captured in a moment. 
  It has a form, a composition, a balance; the photographer brings 
  craftsmanship to this image captured by the camera. But it is an 
  image of what is physically there. 
  The artist, the painter, captures the spirit of the world.
  I was a blessed girl, my mother always said. Blessed with an 
  artist’s eye and soul and blessed to live on Santiago, where the 
  heart and soul of the artist is valued.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  What I Remember Most • Page 3
  “From each, as they are able. To each, as they have need.” The 
  founding law of our people. And as I gave the people a glimpse 
  of the soul of beauty around us, they would give me the food and 
  shelter and comfort to let me seek out that beauty. That was what 
  my mother said, and—until the strangers came—what my mother 
  said was true.
  The strangers. Santiago has no reptiles, but even so there was 
  no mistaking the evil of the serpentine dragon with which the 
  strangers marked all that was theirs. And all that was not theirs, 
  but which they claimed as none would oppose them.
  They came, these strangers, and claimed our world. 
  Claimed Santiago though it held nothing they desired and 
  though our position—numbers meaningless now as they were 
  then—meant we were near nothing they desired. The founders 
  had known this, had chosen this haven for that very reason. But 
  the strangers said there was danger, war and rumors of war, and 
  they had come that we might have peace.
  Peace was what we had had before the strangers came.
  But that morning, the day before my thirteenth birthday, almost 
  three months ago, now, I was not thinking of the strangers. Not 
  thinking of the empty storefronts along the street, or the cold, damp 
  scent of old smoke that lingered there; lingered everywhere.
  Our school was on the other side of the park, and the park was 
  a wild place. Not neatly trimmed and controlled, it was what the 
  city planners called a wilderness zone; a place of trails wandering 
  through trees and brush where you could hear wearies nesting 
  songs on summer nights and find strawberries growing wild in 
  the spring.
  A creek ran through the park. The day before, on the way to the 
  school, I had seen the ice along the rim of the waterfall above 
  the swimming hole. The minerals in the water, baleful stainer of 
  blonde girl’s hair, were captured in the ice and—as the morning 
  light shone through them—vibrant in greens and oranges and 
  blues.
  I imagined that painting through most of the day, feeling each 
  brush stroke as I chose my colors. Mrs. Eckhart commented on 
  how cheerful I looked.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  What I Remember Most • Page 4
  On the way home, of course, the sun had moved and the icy 
  citadels along the edge of the rushing water were subdued in the 
  greys and blues of twilight.
  The next morning was a free day. I headed out, my paint box 
  and folding easel over my shoulder, the flask of water for mixing 
  paints warm inside my coat, to capture the morning glory of the 
  waterfall.
  Moving slowly along the street, pausing every so often to regard 
  a burned out building like a scavenger sniffing at bones, was one 
  of the strangers’ machines. Even with soul and eye of an artist, 
  I could find no beauty in that hulking insect shape, taller than a 
  tree. Some of the younger children were calling out to it, calling it 
  names and throwing snowballs. The machine, or the man in the 
  machine if there was one, paid them no mind.
  Neither did I. Ducking my head deep into my collar, I hurried by, 
  crossing the street into the safety of the park.
  My first warning was the footprints. Huge, they churned up 
  the ground. Black earth and red clay and the crushed greens and 
  browns of plants were mixed through the whiteness, killing its joy 
  and its color. Still, I had hope. 
  Hope that died at the waterfall, now a twisting rapid where a gi-
  ant heel had slid down the embankment. The painting, the beauty 
  in my heart that had kept 
  me so happy, was gone.
  I don’t remember run-
  ning back toward the 
  street. I remember the 
  shape of the trees, bend-
  ing and wavering through 
  my tears. And I remem-
  ber the snow, away from 
  the footprints, radiant in 
  the clear morning light.
  I didn’t think when I saw 
  the monster. I screamed. 
  I threw fistfuls of snow, 
  not caring enough to 
  make snowballs. I threw 
  my paint box.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  What I Remember Most • Page 5
  Above me, high on the monster, there was a sound. A scraping, 
  a sighing sound that cut through my own screams.
  I looked up.
  They tell me the fluid the war machine dumped on me was not a 
  weapon. It’s called coolant. A stupid name; it burned.
  They tell me that my hair should grow back, which would have 
  made my mother happy. She always loved my hair. The doctors 
  tell me the skin grafts have taken perfectly. By the time I’m four-
  teen there will be no sign of scarring at all, they say. 
  But they can’t save my eyes.
  I have already seen the last thing I will ever see. That scalding 
  flood of coolant.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/What I Remember Most - Kevin Killiany.pdf