Free Haywire by Justin R. Macumber

covered his mother’s face like a cowl. “That’s your father talking.”
    “ He might have a point.”
    “ That would be a first.”
    Shawn’s eyes hardened. He didn’t like anyone speaking badly of his father, especially her. Before he could say anything, though, she waved her hand.
    “ I’m sorry, that was glib, and I didn’t mean it. But your father’s wrong. The Titans didn’t abandon us – they saved us.”
    “ Maybe, but ‘god’ is still a little over the top. They didn’t stop the Hezrin with bolts of lightning, did they? As strong as they were, they still had to fly ships and shoot guns. They didn’t pull those from their own bodies.”
    His mother nodded, a small grin on her face showing she was enjoying the back and forth. “No, but even then it was Groesbeck’s genius that made it come together. He made the Titans, and then he showed the military how to make weapons that would integrate with their nanite-enhanced bodies. Without the Titans in control, those ships and guns would have been as useless as every other weapon we’d thrown against the Hezrin. The Titans were the key to all of it.”
    Knowing he was getting nowhere with that line of discussion, he tried changing tracks. “If they’re so damn heroic, then why do you always speak about them like they’re tragic figures?”
    She tilted her head again, and he could see words churning behind her eyes. “You have to understand, they gave up their normal lives, maybe even their humanity, to become something greater, and I think that sacrifice gets lost in the stories and history books. Groesbeck remade them from the inside out. He might have made them more than human, but in some ways he made them less, too. If they were gods, it’s a rather tragic sort of divinity. They were forged into the ultimate weapon, and all they would ever know again was war.”
    Shawn wasn’t convinced of that, not even close, but the way she spoke made him reconsider his feelings a bit. “I dunno, maybe. But if they were such great warriors, why did they run off and leave us?”
    “ I… don’t know,” his mother replied with a heavy exhale. “No one does. After they forced the Hezrin from Earth and chased them back into space, the records get muddy. Warships were everywhere, messages were flying back and forth; it was chaos. The only clue we have is a short message that said, ‘More are coming.’ After that a team of Titans boarded a Hezrin ship that was still functioning and used it to lead the rest of their forces into unknown space. They were never heard from again. To their credit, neither were the Hezrin.”
    He couldn’t argue that point, but he still wasn’t ready to worship them the way his mother did. “Well, they still left us defenseless and sifting through rubble. Hell, Mom, it’s been a hundred years and we’re still rebuilding.”
    “ Just be glad we had something to rebuild.” She offered him a partial smile and stood up, her cup in hand. “These are all just words though. Perhaps if you came to the museum and saw some of their history for yourself you’d see things differently. “
    “ I don’t know, maybe tomorrow,” he said before he picked his plate up and pushed the remainder of his food into his open mouth. Over the plate’s rim he saw his mother’s eyes open wide in disgust, but he didn’t stop pushing until the plate was empty.
    “ I cannot believe you just did that,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
    Shawn chomped his teeth in several large bites, then swallowed and drained his coffee cup. After a healthy burp he said, “Don’t worry. I know how to act in front of company.”
    “ Then perhaps one day I’ll be afforded the same polite treatment,” she replied as she took their dirty dishes and set them in the sink.
    He wasn’t sure if she was seriously offended, and a small part of him worried that his behavior had undone some of the goodwill that had finally been built between them. When he opened his mouth