Fusion And Friction

"Behold the Mk. VI," Mercutio whistled.

The mech filled a fifty-foot-tall mobile screen in the Regent Hotel's courtyard. The guards only watched the external gates; sneaking past them was trivial.

They still had to keep their voices down.

"It looks the same as the previous ones. I've seen bigger tanks."

Its plating was shiny red and gold—the Capulet colors—and had that typical factory smell. It was more oil and gunpowder-heavy than new cars but nothing that screamed next-gen.

"Sure, but could it climb cliffs? Or operate in space?"

Mercutio was a mech fanatic.

They all operated with an outdated neural interface, which didn't work for everyone. Romeo suspected someone would've fixed it ages ago without the related Church bans.

Instead, countries tested people at a young age to see if they could connect to this faulty system. His friend did, describing it as playing an addictive game.

That explained why grown men wanted to pilot these chunks of metal.

More people died during training or to interface malfunctions than in active battle. But did that stop anyone? His friend defended the machine like it was his life.

"Besides, tanks are sitting ducks without infantry support."

"And this isn't?" Romeo raised an eyebrow.

"This is infantry, but bigger."

Since he wasn't compatible, he knew little about them. As a child, he watched the Capulets test their new toys. It was fun, but kids would also stare at tractors with no interest in farming.

"They could've made it bigger." Romeo knocked on the plating.

They stood at its heel, his neck hurting from taking the whole thing in. But the governor's Mk. IV was also the same size, and it wasn't even the scariest thing that night he saw it.

"Ever heard of the square-cube law," his friend asked, "or the rocket equation?"

"Um, if I said yes, could we skip the boring parts?" Romeo sensed a trap.

His hypersensitive ears picked up the guards' steps as they patrolled. Getting caught in a heated explanation was the last thing he wanted.

"Not anymore," Mercutio chuckled. "Let's say this thing's a hundred tonnes, the diesel engine is two, and it carries another ton of fuel. The rest is the frame, armor, weapons, and ammo—"

"I walked into that one, didn't I?" Romeo was about to give up on life.

"To make it a little bigger, you need a much bigger engine. More fuel—more armor, an even bigger engine—it's a death spiral. The Capulets are stuck polishing junk."

"C'mon, diesel engines? We have nuclear reactors."

"Sure. And it already has a tiny RTG to power the sensors and other electronics," Mercutio nodded. "But that's not enough for hydraulics—this thing needs muscles."

Romeo sighed. "I'm not going to ask."

"A larger reactor's excess heat would cook the pilot," his friend said, "and you can't throttle it down. Until you have a generator as dense as an RTG but scaleable, you're stuck at this size."

"I don't care," he yawned, overplaying it.

He could hear the guards walk around, but his hearing was off the charts.

"It's funny because there might be a breakthrough soon," Mercutio teased him. "Thanks to Church shenanigans, it's only theoretical right now, but—"

"I said I don't care. Let's go back in," Romeo tried to escape.

"The inventor is Juliett Capulet. Ever heard of her?"

"You're kidding," he claimed, too loud. His voice dropped to a whisper. "You're teasing me, so I'd ask more boring mech-related technical questions."

"You're that into her?" Mercutio grinned.

"She's fun to talk with," Romeo shrugged, blushing.

"And here I thought you only cared about her looks. Well, you had no idea she was a genius. Did you?" That little stab got him where it hurt. He knew little about her.

"I knew she was smart, but—"

He stopped. A Capulet was right on the other side of the screen.

It covered them and the mech but didn't block the sound.

"Come on, ask it," Mercutio whispered. "Ask about her invention. I'm surprised you never heard of it, considering it caused an uproar three years ago."

Romeo furrowed his eyebrows.

"So she invented something crazy when she was twelve?" he shook his head, suspicious. "You're playing games with me."

His friend was about to respond, but he silenced him with a startled glance.

The steps' echo got too close for comfort. Mercutio grabbed his phone. He typed 'SFR' and 'Juliett Capulet' into the search engine—forty thousand matches in one second.

Scientific papers, tabloids, articles with her face—she was cute at that age, too.

"No way," Romeo whispered, reading the first match that Mercutio clicked on. "Scaleable Fusion Reactor? What does that even do?"

"The short answer: nothing," his friend laughed.

The noises stopped—then they got louder again.

All technical jargon went right over his head, but it showed his secret frenemy's genius. She theorized a fusion reactor the size of a grapefruit, with scalable output on demand.

Talking seemed risky, but now he wanted to know the details.

"So why don't they use this, instead of ancient diesel tech?"

"You weren't listening," Mercutio sighed. "The Church didn't allow her any experiments because she's a Capulet. Without proof, it's nothing but pretty math."

"But could it work?" Romeo asked, looking for escape routes.

It was a cat-and-mouse game with the patrolling guards, but he had an enormous advantage. Mercutio must have misunderstood it for carefree confidence because he got louder.

"Who knows? You'd need a lab, rare isotopes, and the Church's approval to find out."

He remembered the footage from his first day in school—Capulet labs in ruins. The Uniformity Accords hurt researchers more than anyone. Now he understood her expression.

And all that for what? Romeo needed to know.

"Hey, this is out of the blue, but do you know what happened in those labs fifteen years ago?"

"Here, I caught Montague spies," a familiar voice yelled, and they both froze.

Tybalt found them at the worst time, pointing a rapier, of all things, at Romeo.

"What are you trying to do with that thing?" Mercutio chuckled—a bad choice.

"This is all I need to stop a thief." His accusations felt empty, but the guards surrounded them regardless. "Did you try to steal our latest tech and sell it to the governor, like your father?"

"Stealing what?" Romeo shouted, his senses tingling. "I told you already—I can't pilot these things." The other Capulets weren't toying around with swords, they approached guns drawn.

"Why would I ever believe that?" Tybalt scoffed.

He had a point. Romeo wouldn't believe the average Capulet either. The best they could do was to raise their hands and step away from the hulking machine.

"Come on, Mr Superior. Your CEO was about to unveil it, I was a bit impatient—that's all."

Mercutio's comment didn't help, but he couldn't ignore that ancient thing.

"You still owe me a mech duel for your arrogance, Montague dog."

"Nope, you failed my riddle, and I'm not a Montague," his friend laughed, but the rapier's tip closed the distance. "Lord Capulet invited me—"

"And I'll send you home in a bodybag," Tybalt yelled, swinging.

The wind brought a whiff of cinnamon before his sword connected.

"Do it, and you die with him," the ice-cold voice warned—the rapier freezing mid-air.

Even in her wheelchair, dressed up as a firefighter, Julie was not someone he could ignore.