1: Arena

A massive steel foot slammed down onto cracked asphalt.

If he had been walking half a meter to the right, Michel Lemon’s body would have been squashed into pulp. Then he’d have been just like a real juiced lemon, and the city police would have been left with some truly nauseating cleaning work.

Despite a sluggishness brought on by the unrelenting heat of the unfamiliar climate, Lemon cried out and dove away from the arm slave, an act which sent him crashing into a man walking on the crowded sidewalk from behind.

“Watch it, buddy!” said the young man he’d hit. He was dressed in a dingy work uniform, his face swarthy, covered in stubble, and deformed on the right side by a large scar. He was probably a former soldier, kicked out of the military when the war ended not long ago, now working as a day laborer to make ends meet.

“Ah...” Lemon briefly went silent.

Evening had fallen on the place he was visiting, a Southeast Asian city full of stifling heat and noisy crowds. Namsac was unique, a town whose location in a border region meant its ongoing development had been defined entirely by complicated power struggles, prolonged border conflicts, and civil war.

All around him he saw bicycles and rickshaws, three-person scooters, and overloaded kei-trucks. Yet among these shabby vehicles walked an old-model arm slave, strolling casually along the street as if it belonged there. It was probably Soviet- or Chinese-made—a model called a “Savage,” he believed—with a squat torso and a large frog-like head.

The orange humanoid weapon was taller than a two-story home, but it appeared to have been stripped of its armaments. Its head had a large searchlight where its machine guns should have been, and its back was monopolized by a crane, a steam shovel, and other construction equipment.

With a marked indifference to how close it had just come to ending his life, the machine kept walking, its diesel engine roaring. Michel Lemon dumbly watched it go. He’d seen ASes in news reports and pictures, but he’d never seen one up close like this.

“Hey, you hear me, buddy?!” A hard shove to his shoulder brought him out of his reverie.

Suddenly realizing he’d forgotten to apologize to the man he’d bumped into, Lemon ducked his head awkwardly. “I’m s-sorry, monsieur...”

“Don’t ‘monsieur’ me, sissy boy! Bumping your pasty ass into me... Look at you. You constipated or something?” The man’s implications went a touch too far, but Lemon really was a rather delicate-featured young man. He had fair skin, untouched by the sun, and wore rimless glasses. He was on the tall side, but lanky; he’d look right at home poring over blueprints in an air-conditioned office. He also stood out like a sore thumb in this city full of roughnecks.

“Ah, er. I’m actually feeling just fine—”

“I wasn’t worried, dumbass!”

The man yanked at the sleeve of Lemon’s short-sleeved shirt, causing him to stumble. “Ah—”

“C’mere!” The man pulled Lemon into a nearby alleyway. His strength was overwhelming, and he ignored Lemon’s cries of pain and distress.

“Really, there’s no need for this. I didn’t do it on purpose. I understand that you’re angry, but please remain—” Lemon’s attempts were interrupted by a back fist to the nose.

Stars flew in his vision and the world spun around him. As he doubled over, the man seized him in a headlock, and whispered to him threateningly, “Put a sock in it. You’re gonna pay for bumpin’ into me. Get it?”

“P-Pay... how?” Lemon managed as blood trickled from his nose. The alleyway was dirty and empty, a foul smell that stung his throat pervading the air.

“You’re French, yeah?”

“Y-Yes...”

“And your job is...?”

“I’m a reporter.”

“You got a camera, then, right? Hand it over. Plus any foreign currency you have. Euros, dollars, all that shit.”

“P-Please, not my camera! And I don’t have any foreign currency!”

“Not buying it, asshole!” He slammed Michel into the ground, back-first. Somehow, the feeling of his freshly-laundered shirt turning soaked and sticky on the filthy alleyway ground was a greater immediate trauma than the pain.

The man got astride Lemon and wrapped his fingers around his throat. “Listen. I’ve been watching you awhile now, wandering around our town. Mr. Great Reporter can’t even offer up some spare change to buy a guy a drink?!”

Oh, he was marking me from the start, Lemon finally realized. Now that he thought about it, a white man in this crowded city, goggling around, occasionally pulling out a camera for pictures... it probably would draw attention, though he hadn’t considered that it might earn him a stalker.

I guess I overdid it. What a screw-up... he thought, as the man’s fingers dug mercilessly into his throat. He seemed to be holding back from killing him, but his power was incredible.

Just then, Lemon heard a woman’s voice coming from the alley’s entrance. “Knock it off, Dao.” He could see her over the man’s shoulder, but the light was behind her, so it was hard to make out her face. He could tell she was on the short side, and there was a childish quality to her voice.

“That you, Nami? Piss off,” Dao said in disgust.

“Can’t do that,” she replied, “Random muggings are gonna make the city’s reputation tank even worse than it already is. You want to chase away all the tourism the Arena’s been pulling in?”

“Who cares? It ain’t made this place any less of a garbage dump.”

“So unreasonable...” Lemon heard a clink of metal from the woman’s hand—a gun’s firing hammer moving into a cocked position.

“Wh-What the hell’re you doin’?!” Dao cried out.

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. Just put you out of action for... two, maybe three months.”

“You’re gonna shoot a member of House Ogre?! Over some asshole you’ve never even met?” Dao’s face went pale, and his voice shook with anger. Still, as he glared at the woman, his hands loosened their grip on Lemon’s neck.

“I didn’t say that,” she told him placidly. “If you just want drinking money, I’m happy to oblige. Here.” The woman walked up to them, and thrust a wrinkled banknote—riels, a currency often used in the region—in front of Dao’s eyes.

“You’ll pay for this,” he promised.

“Not today. Now, get lost.”

Dao snatched the banknote from her hand, spat on the ground, and then left the alleyway.

Lemon had been worried that Dao might leap at the woman despite her weapon, and that things might get bloody... so when that didn’t happen, he let out a sigh of relief. “Th-Thank you...” He sat up to get a better look at her. The woman—no, the girl—was indeed holding a gun. He didn’t know the make or model, but it looked like a cheap revolver, probably smuggled in from the Philippines.

Would she threaten him with the gun next? As if reading his mind, the girl smiled. “Oh, it doesn’t actually fire. It’s broken.” As she spoke, she pointed the gun at Lemon and clicked the trigger a few times.

“Wh-What are you doing?!” he gasped, recoiling in shock.

“So unreasonable!” she laughed. “I told you, it doesn’t fire.”

“What the...”

“Now, monsieur.” The girl’s large eyes sparkled, and she peered into Lemon’s face. “A commission for my aid, plus expenses... How’s four thousand dollars sound?”

The girl requesting the four thousand dollars was named Nami. Now that he was able to get a good look at her, she seemed about fifteen or sixteen years old. Her hair was brown, unkempt, and tied into a ponytail. She didn’t wear a trace of makeup, but her eyes were large and catlike, and she had an intelligent air about her. Her outfit consisted of oil-stained coveralls over a tank top; she probably worked at a garage or an electronics shop somewhere.

“Four thousand? That’s outrageously high,” he told her. It was evening, and they were walking around the entrance to Namsac’s entertainment district.

Nami twisted her lips into an unhappy frown. “C’mon, that’s cheap! That Dao guy is known all around town for his violent temper! He iced over thirty guys in the war! He really would’ve killed you if I hadn’t stopped him!”

“Oh, really? Thanks, then,” Lemon said with a scowl, wiping away the last of the dried blood from his nose. He pulled some bills from his pocket and held them out to Nami; it was the equivalent to about three hundred US dollars.

“Oh, please. This is nowhere near enough to cover it!”

“It’s enough to live in luxury in a city like this for a month, right? Besides, it’s all I have on me. Not that I’d ever give you four thousand anyway,” he grumbled.

“I’ll take your camera, then. Plus your PDA, your cell phone... you name it, I’ll take it!” Nami’s eyes sparkled like a child’s.

“Oh, come on! I need that stuff for work!”

“So unreasonable!” As Lemon picked up his pace, Nami continued to hang close. “So, you need the camera for work. You told that guy you were a reporter, right? That true?”

“Yeah,” he told her. “Hoping to be, anyway.”

“So you submit articles to magazines, right? And you get paid for them?”

“Barely, but sure. And... there’s no guarantee they’ll buy what I write. It depends on the story.”

“Ah-ha. The story, eh?” Nami smiled knowingly. It was the expression of a stray dog that had just stumbled onto a roadside feast. “If you’re coming all the way to Namsac, you must have a real angle, right? It can’t just be one of those stupid articles about all the poor people left behind in the post-war recovery, from that syrupy sympathetic first-world perspective, right?”

“Don’t be so dismissive. That’s a perfectly noble subject.”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe. But it’s not what you’re here for, is it?” Nami tapped Lemon’s cheek with her finger. He fell silent rather than denying it. “You can pursue a ‘noble subject’ like that in any town in the world. But Namsac... we’ve got something special. You came to watch that, right?”

Lemon said nothing. The sun had set, and it was getting very dark. He slowed to a stop. Past the neon-lit buildings of the entertainment district they’d been strolling through, a towering soccer stadium had come into view.

Rather, it had been a soccer stadium... the construction had started before the war, but once hell had broken loose, it had been left to the elements. Now riddled with bullet holes, it had been repurposed for something completely different.

Inside, the stadium hummed with passion and noise. Gasoline engines roared without the mitigation of mufflers. Metal shrieked against metal. And above it all came the cheers, the shouts, the gasps of the crowd. Light poured from the stadium; it was like a sake cup set out in the middle of the city, filled with fine iridescent wine that overflowed into the night sky.

“Is that it?” Lemon asked.

Nami grinned. “Yep. That’s the Arena.”

There were a terrifying number of spectators present. At the center of the modified pitch, two humanoid weapons—arm slaves—were locked in combat. Both of them were Savages. Though far from the latest model, the Savage was still in use, active in civil wars all over the world. They had been so heavily mass-produced that they were sometimes called the world’s most common AS.

One, colored an eye-rending fluorescent pink, was the archetypal Rk-92 model; this was the relatively newer Savage that used a gas turbine engine powered by jet fuel. The other, painted with black-and-yellow tiger stripes, was an Rk-91, from the first Savage line. Its basic specs were roughly the same as the 92’s, but it used a diesel engine instead. There were quite a few of them out in the world, as well.

Fluorescent pink-and-tiger pattern—with coloring as far from military camouflage as could be imagined, the two machines grappled, punched, and kicked each other to the frenzied cries of the crowd.

The pink one got a running start, then leaped. Its heavy body hung in the air for a moment, right before it channeled its incredible weight into a dropkick to the opponent’s neck.

Contact was made, and sparks flew. The tiger-striped model flew back, its head hanging on by a thread as it slid twenty meters across the concrete. It collided with a mountain of water-filled barrels that ringed the battlefield, thoroughly deluging its surroundings before coming to a stop.

A siren blared out to signify victory. Cheers and boos from the spectators washed over the stadium like a storm, and scraps of paper flew through the air.

“Winner, Bloody Queen!” The announcer’s voice echoed through the stadium.

Lemon, from the spectators’ seats, scowled as he heard that. “‘Bloody Queen’? That neon pink frog?” How’s that color supposed to be bloody? he wondered. It looks more like a porno queen.

Nami, sitting beside him, shrugged. “They probably couldn’t find the exact right shade. And anyway, it’s all about... style, you know?”

“Ahh. Still, it seems...” Violent, he finished to himself. Firearms were off-limits, naturally, but outside of that, it was an ‘anything goes’ situation. It was hard to believe that the operator inside could remain of sound body after a thrashing like that.

Indeed, when finally exhumed from his tiger-striped AS, the operator had to be carried off on a stretcher by the venue’s medical staff. Even from afar, Lemon could tell that the man was limp, and that his left arm was bent at an unnatural angle.

He was surprised by how the ASes moved, too. The Savage’s egg-like torso made the model look dumpy and slow, but their footwork had proved seriously impressive. They seemed to move with even greater speed and agility than even human pro wrestlers.

Yes, something like this would make for a great story indeed.

“Very impactful,” he commented.

“Right?” Nami looked a bit smug for some reason. “Nobody knows who started it, but it’s basically pro wrestling with decommissioned ASes from the war.”

“They’re former military weapons? I’m surprised that’s not illegal.”

“Oh, it’s crazy illegal, but the police look the other way,” she told him. “Maybe the promoters bribe them or something, I dunno. I mean, no one’s even really sure which country or what faction the police here actually answer to, anyway.”

“Ah-ha,” said Lemon.

Namsac sat at a key point in a region located on the border between three different countries. It had spent years ravaged by civil war and border disputes until UN leadership had negotiated a ceasefire. Still, the treaty’s ambiguous terms had left control of the city itself up in the air. It did guarantee that no country’s military was allowed to station troops there, but that fact really just added to the confusion.

Still, as a trading hub, Namsac had become a nexus for flows of cash and people, which was why it was so bustling with activity. Real control in the city wasn’t decided by politicians or the military, but by whoever had the most money.

“As you can see,” Nami went on, “the Arena does big business. At first it was just for all the Savages left abandoned in Cambodia, but now we’ve got old ASes from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa pouring in. We get French-made Mistrals, German Draches, English Cyclones, and American Bushnells. Lots of others, too. You can find anything here. It’s like a World’s Fair.”

Lemon glanced suspiciously at Nami as she rattled off the AS names. “You know an awful lot about it.”

“Hah! Of course I do. I’m a team owner!”

“Uh?”

“I lead an awesome team with an AS of my own,” Nami said proudly, puffing out her chest.

Lemon stared for a moment, then shook his head and turned to leave. “Oh, for the love of...”

“What?! Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I don’t. You’re a little girl who shakes tourists like me down for money in the streets. There’s no way you own a robot like that.”

“But I do!”

“Sell the robot, then,” he suggested. “It’ll probably fetch you tens of thousands.”

“Ugh. So unreasonable! The money’s for the hunk-of-junk’s replacement parts! And I only have two hours to get them!” Nami begged.

“Replacement parts? Two hours?”

“Yeah! Follow me, c’mon!” Nami started walking again, pulling Lemon by the arm.

As they cut through the crowd, he could hear her muttering, “So unreasonable”... It seemed to be her favorite phrase.

“Hey, now...” Though baffled, Lemon didn’t try especially hard to fight her. Of course, he didn’t intend to pay her four thousand dollars—an utterly outrageous sum of money—but he was becoming rather curious about the girl herself. She really had saved him from that lowlife before, and she could have used her gun to extort money from him, but she didn’t. She was the first person he’d met in this town who didn’t seem completely motivated by greed.

On top of that, now she was claiming to own an AS. He wasn’t about to take her seriously, but she probably wouldn’t have made the claim without some basis in fact. His interest was piqued, and there was no way he could just brush her off and go back to his hotel room now.

“Where are we going?” Lemon questioned.

“To our team’s paddock. We’re going on soon,” Nami said with particular intensity.

She led him to the field portion of the former soccer stadium. The outer circumference was made up of paddocks; these were spaces devoted to maintenance. The area, cordoned off by walls of scrap steel and sheet iron, formed a ring around the central arena. It was where machines waiting to go on could run their final tune-ups and refuel.

The air was full of a particular smell; a combination of jet fuel, diesel, machine oil, and other unknown chemical substances. Burning metal, too—though, as he looked around, Lemon didn’t see much respect for fire prevention in the area.

The noise was also incredible; a head-pounding cacophony of jackhammers, drills, buzzsaws, and hammers. There was also the humming of compressors and generators, and the roar of the diesel and gas turbine engines that powered the machines themselves.

“Here it is!” Nami shouted over the commotion, leading Lemon into one of the paddocks.

An AS was parked beneath chains and cranes, which dangled from the steel girders above them. It was currently on its hands and knees. Parts of its back armor had been removed, and three mechanics were messing around inside of it with power tools in hand.

“Well? Pretty great, huh?!” she insisted.

Lemon had to disagree; the AS was in an awful state. Model-wise, it was a Savage like many others he’d seen, but it was easy to see that this one was a hunk of junk. Many parts had damage that wasn’t being treated. There was a broken eye that hadn’t been restored; the armor on one arm was torn and wrapped in packing tape to keep it in place; oil leaked from its joints into black puddles. The hard points, antennas, hooks and other delicate bits had all been destroyed. It didn’t seem to have much going for it at all.

“Looks bad,” he admitted honestly.

“Okay, so maybe it’s in rough shape,” Nami said, clearly annoyed by his frank appraisal. “But with a little spit and polish, it’ll work just fine! We’ll swap out the muscle packages in the right arm and the right thigh, get some new hydraulics lines, fix the broken torque converter...”

“That’s a lot of work. Can you do it all in time?”

“Yes! We just need the money!” Nami said, balling up her fists and raising her voice.

Just then, a mechanic shouted at her from the back of the AS. “Hey, Nami!” The man was Caucasian, and looked a bit over thirty. His accent suggested German or Austrian origins.

“What is it, Ashe?!”

“We’ve done all we can here! We need a number 51 pipe and fresh shock absorbent to do any more! Have you got the money yet?” Ashe asked impatiently.

“It’s on the way! This monsieur here is gonna pay!” she shouted back. “Just give me a few minutes!”

“Oh! Thanks, monsieur! Just make it fast!” Ashe went back to work, without even a proper glance at Lemon.

Lemon, though, responded indignantly. “Hey!”

“What?”

“I never said I was paying! I only just got here!”

“The market near the arena is full of parts,” Nami whispered, nodding keenly. “But there’s a team with all the parts we’re missing, and they said they’d trade them immediately for cash.”

“Exactly four thousand dollars in cash?” Lemon asked, catching on.

“Yeah. And that’s where you come in. Please, be our sponsor!”

“I can’t give you money I don’t have!” he told her.

“It’ll be fine! You can do an in-depth story on our team! It’ll be a great scoop! Might even earn you a Peanuts Prize!”

“You mean Pulitzer Prize.”

“Yeah, that! So fork over the four thousand!”

“No. Even if I did write an article about you, it would only net me about four hundred, tops,” he said coldly.

Nami turned her eyes down and sighed. “Fine...” Then, seeming to summon up her courage, she slunk up to him, slipped her hand into his, and traced her other hand along his side. This left her chest, braless and covered only by a tank top, pressed up against his torso. “How about a night with me, then?” she suggested brazenly. “That should cover it, right? I’m worth ten thousand, easy, but I’ll give you a discount.”

“Why would I want that?!” Lemon protested. “I don’t go for underage girls, especially ones covered in oil and smelling like gasoline! And four thousand for one night is only for high-priced call girls!”

“I’m scared, to be honest... But you seem nice, and I know you’ll be gentle...”

“Listen to what I’m telling you!”

“Tsk. So unreasonable.” Nami clicked her tongue, changing moods on a dime. “This is a good offer from a cute girl, y’know? I’ve got men asking for it every damned day. Or are you... you know?”

“‘I know’... what? I’m not gay, and I don’t have ED, if that’s what you’re asking,” Lemon said.

“I see! So you’re a sheep ’n’ chickens man, huh?”

“Why would you assume that?! Darn it!” Lemon mussed up his hair.

Then Nami brought her lips close to his ear, coaxing. “Seriously, though. If we win, we can pay you back the four thousand and then some. I mean it.”

Lemon side-eyed her suspiciously from close proximity. “Hmm. The odds must be pretty stacked against you, then, huh? Which means you’re a huge underdog.”

“We can win! Our machine’s not perfect, sure, but we’ve got an awesome operator!”

“Oh?”

“His name’s Rick. He’s a lifelong veteran who used to pilot ASes for the US Marines. They called him the Jungle Eagle. He’s danced with death on a thousand battlefields, and he’s destroyed over ten ASes! He’s really, really good, but circumstances led him here to Namsac,” Nami continued, rambling on about things that weren’t exactly relevant. “No matter how crummy the machine, with Rick as the operator, we’ll win for sure!”

“Are you sure about that?”

“It’s true! I’m telling you, he—”

“We’ve got a problem, Nami!” Just then, a young man ran to the paddock. It was a member of the maintenance crew. His face was pale and sweat-streaked, and his expression was dire.

“What is it?”

“It’s Rick...”

“Rick” was slumped over a toilet in a corner of the arena’s bathroom. He’d apparently been dead when they found him. He’d been stabbed in the back with a knife—they must have hit him right in the kidney. He must have died before he could even cry out.

They hadn’t caught the culprit. The one who discovered him had said that when he arrived in the bathroom, he’d caught sight of “a man with scars over the right side of his face.” It was a vague description, but it was enough for Lemon and Nami to know who it had been—Dao.

As they waited for the police to arrive, Nami remained silent, kneeling next to the corpse of the operator, who lay on the floor, covered in a tarp. Lemon couldn’t exactly leave now, so he just stood behind her silently.

Between all the strange encounters and odd conversations of the day, he’d completely forgotten that while Namsac was a bustling hub of activity, it was also dangerous. This was a place where human life was considered to be worth less than spit, and everyone around you would just accept that as normal.

“If I’m gonna be real,” Nami muttered, “I never liked Rick very much. I hired him because he was good, but he was still a shithead. He treated us like crap, and the second he had money he’d go into town to spend it on underage girls. He was constantly pawing my tits and my ass, and it almost came to assault a few times, too. He was a total freaking scumbag. But... you know?” Nami was trembling. “He’s not someone I wanted to see dead.” She patted the forehead of the corpse through the tarp, then stood up and made a beeline out of the bathroom.

Lemon followed her quickly. “Where are you going?”

“The paddock. We need to get out there.”

“But he was your operator, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll pilot instead.”

“Do you have any experience?”

“Not in combat. But I can handle it well enough.”

“But you haven’t even finished the maintenance—”

“Don’t worry about the money now. I can get it to walk, at least, if I forget the right arm and use the rest of our cash on hand. I’ll make it work.” Nami kept walking. In her anger, she seemed to have completely abandoned the idea of pestering Lemon for the four thousand dollars.

“Hey, Nami,” a man called to her as she approached their paddock. It was Dao, the ex-soldier who had assaulted Lemon in the alley, accompanied by a few members of his gang.

So he’s involved with the Arena too... Lemon mused.

“I heard Rick got his stupid ass stabbed to death,” Dao continued. “Scary story. Dangerous town.” As Nami glared at him wordlessly, Dao made a slow approach, and his scar-torn right cheek warped further in a smile. “I told you that you’d pay, remember? Not that I ever liked you from the start.”

“Then you should’ve come after me!” she shouted.

“Yeah? Well, I never liked that American either. He was always running his mouth and pissing me off.”

“You disgusting pig!”

“So, gonna forfeit the match or go in there yourself? Either way, more fun for me. I’ll make sure to give you a good time. See you, then.” Dao left with that parting remark, laughing as he went.

Even as Nami stood there, stock-still, Lemon spoke up hesitantly. “Hey, Nami. Is... the one you’re going to fight...”

“Yeah,” she said grimly. “It’s Dao’s team. And they have a pretty good machine.”

“But he’s crazy! He just killed a man over something that trivial... If you don’t call off the match, he’ll kill you, too!”

“I can’t do that!” Nami shouted desperately. “I need to win and make money. I have to. If I don’t...” She stopped herself, wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her wrist, and headed for the paddock. “Sorry to bother you, monsieur. Like I said, I don’t need the four thousand anymore.”

“Wait a minute,” he protested. “You’re looking a little desperate here.”

“Maybe I am. But I have to do all I can.”

“Stop it. It’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Nami said flatly.

There was no reasoning with her. Unable to bring himself to accept it, Lemon followed Nami into the paddock. Ashe and the other mechanics looked depressed. They raised their ashen faces to her, as if expecting the worst. Nami nodded to confirm it, and they all let out deep sighs.

A heavy silence followed. The sounds that filled that silence—ASes clashing on the pitch, the cheers of the audience beyond—just seemed to kick them while they were down.

The truth was inescapable: Dao was the operator they were about to face. She’d said he was ex-military, so he must be fairly skilled. There was no way this girl, a stand-in pilot for a rustbucket machine, could possibly stand a chance. Her machine would be bashed around and destroyed, and she’d end up humiliated at best, killed at worst. There was no way he could let it happen.

Just then, an almost inappropriately calm voice broke through the atmosphere of despair. “Is Rick here? I’m an old acquaintance of his...” They looked up and saw a young man of East Asian descent standing at the entrance to the paddock.

He was probably Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Medium build, medium height, dressed in cargo pants and a black T-shirt. He carried a worn knapsack on his shoulders. His hair was black and disheveled, hanging over a sullen expression that was punctuated by a tight frown. There was a small scar on the left side of his chin.

He wasn’t simply young; he looked like he was still a boy. He might have been the same age as Nami. But... there was none of the shiftlessness or immaturity typical of boys of that age in his tightly controlled expression.

The most striking things about him were his eyes; although he was probably in his teens, he had the eyes of a seasoned veteran at least twice his age. They shone with the light of unwavering will, always focused on a single point, while still perfectly aware of the whole of their surroundings.

“Where’s Rick?” the young man asked again.

“He died. Just now, actually. Knifed in the back in the john,” Nami muttered in annoyance.

The young man’s eyes widened slightly, and a wrinkle appeared on his brow. “I see. I was always warning him to watch his back... a shame.” Despite the words of regret, there was no particular surprise or sorrow in his tone. It seemed he was likely—no, almost certainly—used to this kind of thing.

“Who are you?” Lemon asked.

“An acquaintance of his,” the young man responded. “We were mercenaries in a civil war together three years ago. I heard he was a fighter here, so I came to see him.”

“Oh, yeah?” Nami said tiredly. “Sorry, but it’s like I said... If you came to shoot the shit with an old friend, you’re out of luck. Get going already.”

“We weren’t especially close.”

“Then what did you want?”

“I came to become a fighter in the Arena,” the young man told her. “It seems insensitive to call this ‘perfect timing,’ but would you consider hiring me in his place?”

Nami and the mechanics stared in disbelief for a few seconds. “You? You can work an AS?”

“A little,” he said modestly.

“A little... Whew.” Nami smiled sarcastically, and glared at the young man. “You know, we see it a lot around here. Young guys like you come in, acting like hotshot AS pilots... but these aren’t like the super robots you see in manga. They’re complicated machines, former military weapons. Fighting in one covers you in bruises. Most people get seasick and barf their first time in. You end up with sprains and broken bones. It’s beyond what some half-baked amateur can handle. You get it? Go home and watch TV, kiddo.”

He can’t be much younger than you, Lemon thought, but he opted not to say it.

“Hmm...” The young man stepped into the paddock to peer intently at the old Savage that had been left out for maintenance.

“Hey, keep your eyes off that! And your grubby hands, too!” The young man had begun grasping at the arm’s frame and armor plates, as if to test their sturdiness. Nami, having lost her temper, strode up to him and seized his shoulder. “I said, knock it off!”

“Are you sending this machine into the fight?” he asked, ignoring Nami’s hostile attitude.

“Yeah! You got a problem with that?!”

“No... It could be made competitive very quickly,” the young man said. “But it will be difficult. Even for someone like Rick, it would have been difficult...”

“Big talk,” she retorted. “What do you know about this machine?”

“This machine?” The young man stepped away from the AS and began an emotionless explanation. “This is a first-edition Rk-91. They weren’t given a particular model number. Only about 130 were produced, a small number compared to the 91M and 92M that became popular for export later. The lack of a gas turbine engine gives it a weight and output inferior to the 92, but that’s only relevant for high-level combat maneuvers. The frame strength is superior to that of the 92, which gives it a considerable advantage when dealing in pure melee combat. Higher weight at the extremities can make the torque difficult to manage, but that issue can be solved with a few software alterations. Nothing a skilled operator can’t compensate for.

“The main problem with the machine is its cooling system. From what I can see, you’re intentionally using all 91 parts. Don’t. Common knowledge is that it doesn’t get along well with the more readily available cooler for the 92, but if you’re only turning it on for fifteen minutes at a time, that’s not an issue. In addition, it’s far more cost-effective; the money you’re devoting to that would be better spent purchasing mint-condition muscle packages. In a competition like this, explosive power should be your first priority.”

Lemon barely understood a word of the young man’s string of dizzying specialist jargon. But Nami’s reaction, her eyes opening in surprise, made it clear that the young man’s words were all right on the money.

“Hey...” In fact, she looked a little self-conscious, her face turning red.

Maybe he knows even more than she does? Lemon thought to himself.

“You think you’re pretty smart, huh?” Nami said, laying into him suddenly, “But that machine’s really important to us! And you—”

“Of course. I can see you’ve worked very hard to maintain it,” the young man acknowledged, his tone absolutely genuine. “Just seeing an original intact 91 is a surprise; most people would have stripped it for parts ages ago.”

“I th-think you’re just a nerd who memorized a bunch of trivia. Quit acting so smart, you amateur—”

“I’m not an amateur,” the young man quipped. “I’m a specialist.” There was nothing argumentative or defensive in his tone. He simply said it, like it was a statement of fact. That, more than anything, made his words sound persuasive.

“Hey, Nami...” Ashe the mechanic said. “What’s the call here? This kid wants to fight. Maybe we should let him.”

Nami didn’t seem capable of refusing him out of hand. In fact, she appeared to be completely lost at sea. The kid’s explanation must have proven to her that he wasn’t a total novice, and there wasn’t any time to lose. Even if they got the parts they needed immediately, the final adjustments would still come down to the wire.

Most importantly, she didn’t trust her own skill. If she went out there herself, she’d be eating pavement for sure. Which meant they had nothing to lose by gambling on this boy who’d appeared out of the blue. It was natural that she’d be so strongly divided.

Eventually...

“Okay, fine! Might as well try it!” Nami said, as she mussed up her hair and glared at the young man. “Yeah, fine. We don’t have an operator right now. If you want to do it, you can.”

“Good.” The young man nodded. He didn’t smile, but Lemon sensed the slightest trace of amusement in his blank expression.

“But the machine’s in awful shape!” she said defensively. “We don’t have any money. No parts, either. So don’t blame me if it falls apart on you.”

“Understood.”

“Er, about that...” Hesitantly, Lemon spoke up.

“What now? Are you still here?”

“Unfortunately,” Lemon said ruefully. “But I just remembered something. If three thousand will cover it, I might be able to spare that.”

“Huh?” Nami stared at him, dumbstruck.

Her surprise was only natural; Lemon could barely believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “If I use all my cashback allowances on my credit card... I might be able to cover it. Is there an ATM nearby? I’ll withdraw the money right now.”

“That would be great, but... you sure?” Nami asked, still in disbelief. “You seemed pretty reluctant before.”

Lemon winked at her with all the pretension he could muster. “I’ll get it back if you win, right? Though if you lose... I won’t be able to afford a ticket home. Still, nothing wrong with gambling big now and then, right?”

“No, the odds are in our favor,” the young man whispered in reply.

Lemon laughed. “Maybe they are. Let’s do it, then.”

“Thank you, monsieur!!” Nami’s face melted into a smile, and she leaped onto him with a hug.

Lemon turned flustered as her show of affection nearly threw him off balance. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said as he turned to the new operator. “I’m Michel Lemon, a journalist. That’s Nami. And you?”

“Rick called me Segal, but...” The young man thought a minute. “Sagara. Sagara Sousuke.”

“Japanese?” Lemon guessed.

“Yes,” the man said in a low voice, while gazing into the distance. “I came here looking for something.”

Once Arena management had Sagara Sousuke registered as a substitute operator, Nami and the others started channeling all their energy into getting the machine patched up.

The maintenance crew had done an admirable job in the limited time they had, managing to scrape together the bare minimum of parts their machine would need to get it working properly. The subsequent movement tests suggested it might actually put up a decent fight.

But as for whether the busted-up first-generation Savage could actually win...

Yeah, it’s not gonna happen, thought Nami, the team’s owner, with a sigh. She was using up whole rolls of packing tape to hold the plates of the upper arm in place. She’d known she didn’t stand a chance going out there by herself, which was why she’d accepted Sagara Sousuke’s offer in the first place. But still, she felt nervous.

“It’s almost our turn. You done messing around yet?” Nami asked Sousuke. He was sitting in a corner of the paddock, which smelled of burnt metal, typing away at a beat-up old laptop. The screen was a black-and-white LCD, and the OS was a relic from five years ago. He’d asked the maintenance crew to rig it up, as the language used by first-generation Savage programming wasn’t compatible with modern software. “Hey! You ready or not?” she prompted again.

“Almost,” Sousuke said, still messing with the dry lines of code on the screen.

Just then a violent crunch of metal echoed from the central arena, followed by a peal of cheers and applause. A fanfare played and the announcer named a winner.

The match preceding theirs had ended.

“Next combatants! Get ready!” a member of the staff shouted. Whether he’d heard him or not, Sousuke pulled the floppy disk out of the PC, stood up slowly, and leisurely began to work out his shoulders.

“You heard him, right?” Nami said. “We’re the next match. Last chance to bail out if you want to.”

Sousuke held the floppy disk out to her. “I was swapping out the motion manager’s registry and CF65 data for this.”

She looked at him, confused. “What in the...”

“I’ll get ready now,” he told her, while pulling a black leather jumpsuit out of his nearby knapsack. No, it wasn’t a jumpsuit—it was an AS operator’s uniform. The fabric was thin but sturdy-looking, with a matte black finish; the only color came from red lining on the shoulder pads and thighs. Sousuke removed his cargo pants, then slid the uniform over his underwear as easily as a duck took to water.

“I’ve never seen an operator’s uniform like that before...” Nami observed.

Sousuke didn’t bother responding. He zipped the suit up, fastened its pads in place, and adjusted the neck ring cushion.

“Are you sure you can win?”

“I believe I can,” he told her.

“You know what the opponent’s machine is, right?” Nami asked incredulously. “It’s a first-generation, but it’s a freaking M6!”

Dao’s team ran a machine called an M6 Bushnell, which was an American-made machine. That made it a rare sight in the Arena. It was older than the now-popular M6A1, but its power and endurance still greatly exceeded that of Nami’s Savage. Dao’s team was well-funded, and they could afford all the best parts and fuel. Not to mention their superior operator...

She hated to admit it, but Dao was good. His record up til now was fourteen wins, three losses—the latter all being forfeits caused by mechanical issues.

He’d also killed two of his opponents in the ring. One had been an accident due to a breakdown in the shock absorbent system, but the other, rumors said, had been intentional; the dead man had had an argument about a woman with Dao and his gang a few days before the match.

There were two kinds of Arena matches: barefist, and melee weapons. That day, both machines were armed with bludgeons. Dao’s opponent was in an Rk-92 Savage, a relatively new machine, but Dao’s had the superior specs, which let it quickly knock the Savage over and tear its limbs off.

The match should have ended there. But despite the Savage’s total immobilization, Dao just kept slamming it in the side, in the place where the Savage kept its gas tank. The repeated hits warped the armor and ruptured the tank, which sent highly-flammable jet fuel leaking out. Despite the sounding of the siren to signal the end of the match, Dao kept hitting, until a spark ended up lighting the exposed jet fuel. The Savage had gone up like a box of oily rags, and the operator inside was roasted alive.

Dao’s people insisted he just hadn’t heard the match-end buzzer in his frenzy. The excuse was accepted, but everyone knew that he’d done it on purpose. In fact, a few days later, he and his men mockingly regaled the story to the patrons of a local bar.

Rick hadn’t been the only operator Dao had assaulted before a match, either. Several rising Arena stars had ended up mugged or hit by cars, badly injured or killed. Namsac wasn’t exactly a city of saints, but the behavior of Dao and his men was especially nauseating.

Still, he was good. That was one thing Nami had to admit. Even without all his dirty tricks and schemes, Dao and his machine were hard to beat. Even when she’d had Rick... she hadn’t been entirely confident that he was good enough to beat him. Now the team could work their hardest, but with a substitute operator in the ring, anything could happen.

While Nami worried and fretted to herself, Sagara Sousuke seemed entirely composed. “All right,” he announced. “I’ll be back soon.” Then he walked off towards the rusty Savage.

The old engine let out a dull rumble as Sousuke’s Savage stepped toward the ring. The Arena burst into cheers and jeers. “Kill him!” shouted the people around them.

Wincing from the noise, with his camera in one hand, Lemon said, “Are you sure about this?!”

“About what?!” Nami leaned in to hear him, removing one ear from her beat-up foam-cushioned headphones.

“I’m getting nervous,” he admitted. “If he dies, I’m partly responsible.”

“So?” Nami said. She sullenly turned her eyes downward for a second, and shook her head. Then she spoke again, in a whisper, more to herself than to Lemon. “He might really rise to the occasion.”

“Ahh. I’d love to hear why you think that. It would certainly set my mind at ease!”

“One, he was right about those Savage parts. Two, there’s his build—long arms and legs, no wasted muscle, brawny around the neck and shoulders. That’s something you see in AS operators who see a lot of combat action.”

“Oh?” Lemon asked curiously.

“And when he was getting changed, I saw he had thick calluses on his wrists and elbows,” Nami continued. “Those are the parts that end up chafed if you use master arms for a long time. This Sousuke kid might actually—”

In that moment, Sousuke’s Savage, on its way into the ring, tripped over its own feet and toppled. Nami fell silent as thousands of spectators roared in laughter and the Savage slowly picked itself up.

“Okay, so he just tripped,” Lemon observed.

“I take it all back. He’s hopeless.” Nami pitched forward in her seat, cradling her head.

Sousuke’s voice came in over the radio headsets that Nami and Lemon were both wearing. “Sorry. I think I have the hang of it now.”

“Oh, yeah?”

The opposing team’s AS also entered the ring. It was an orange M6 with monstrous eyes drawn on the armor of each shoulder. Decorative illuminations here and there on its body—probably replaced after each match—glittered extravagantly under the night sky.

The MC’s announcement echoed through the venue. Dao’s ring name was Ogre, just like their team’s name. The Arena had its share of over-the-top ring names, but when you looked at Dao’s record, it was clear that this one was no exaggeration. Meanwhile, Sousuke’s ring name—also matching Nami’s team name—was Crossbow.

“Crossbow? That old hunk of junk?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” Nami asked defensively. “A crossbow is a keen, powerful weapon you want to have at your side. It can take out a target in one blow.” She had meant it as a genuinely powerful and heartfelt ring name, but as she felt Lemon’s dubious gaze on her, she began to feel self-conscious.

But Sousuke said through the radio, “It’s a nice name, though it can’t beat an arbalest.”

Being unfamiliar with that term, Nami just cocked her head in confusion.

The Ogre and the Crossbow faced each other down at the center of the pitch. There was a brief moment of silence before both engines started to rev up, snarling like threatened beasts. Wind from their exhaust pipes kicked up dust around them as they both hunched down low in preparation for a charge. Around them, the spectators’ chants grew louder. The siren rang out, and a repurposed street light lit up, acting as a countdown.

Dao let out a mocking laugh through his external speakers. “I can’t believe you really went for it. I dunno who’s in there, but it ain’t too late to beg for your life, get it?”

Sousuke said nothing to counter Dao’s provocations. The Crossbow’s external speakers were broken, anyway.

The shouting of the crowd continued: Kill, kill, kill! Tear its arms off! Smash its head! Rip off its chestplate and drag the operator out!

Nami found herself grasping the cross on her chest, and whispering, “Please,” in a weak voice.

The countdown proceeded. One. Zero. An even louder siren rang out, and the electric signboard displayed the word “START,” and the match began.

The two ASes charged each other immediately. The M6 had greater spontaneous power by far, and Dao’s Ogre took off with the force of a raging bull. In contrast, Sousuke’s Crossbow seemed to plod forward with an almost agonizing slowness. It was obvious which one would be sent flying when the two collided. Except...

The two machines didn’t collide. As the Ogre went in for a powerful tackle, Sousuke’s Crossbow suddenly pitched forward.

Did it trip? Nami wondered, and it seemed everyone else was thinking the same thing. But a split-second after the two machines passed each other, the Ogre slipped, lost its balance, and wound up in a somersault.

“What?!”

No—a half-somersault. As the Crossbow straightened up nonchalantly behind it, Dao’s Ogre cracked the back of its head against the ground below with an ear-splitting crash and a huge plume of dust.

This sudden turnaround had the entire arena in a hush.

The Bushnell just lay there, spread-eagled and still. No one could work out exactly what had happened; there was no sign of damage to Dao’s machine. The quiet discussion in the stands lasted for about ten seconds. At last, the judges determined that the Ogre wouldn’t be getting up again, and the Crossbow’s victory was declared.

The spectators launched into cheers and cries of disbelief. The unexpected upset had the arena in pandemonium, and betting tickets went flying like confetti.

“What in the world?” Lemon whispered in confusion.

His words snapped Nami back to reality. She couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. “I think... the operator lost consciousness.”

“Th-That easily?”

“Easily?” she scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. ASes have a shock-absorbent system to protect operators from rough falls. They’re designed to keep you safe, even during the equivalent of crashing a car into a wall at a hundred kilometers per hour. But...” she gulped. “If you get flipped that hard that fast, the dampeners can’t keep up. It’s like pushing down on a spring that’s already completely compressed.”

“So it can’t absorb the shock?” Lemon asked.

“Yeah. But the only way you could plan something like that is with encyclopedic knowledge of both machines, plus a perfect sense of balance and masterful control. In other words...” It would take a truly exceptional operator to pull off. “He’s good. He’s amazing.”

“Ah-ha.”

Nami said it all bluntly enough, but what should have been joy at her win was overshadowed by a sense of shock, a fear of Sagara Sousuke, and a sensation like goosebumps rising on her skin. Who is he? was the main question on her mind. Her original operator, the now-dead American pilot Rick, had been very good. He’d logged hundreds, thousands of hours of training with his military of origin.

But Sousuke was on another level. In all her time coming and going at the Arena, she’d never met an operator who could pull off something like that.

Sousuke turned her Savage’s back on the cheering stands, and returned it to the paddock. His manner was completely nonchalant.

“It wasn’t that impressive,” Sousuke said, coming out of his machine to find himself surrounded by a beaming crew. “Operators as good as I am aren’t that hard to find, if you know where to look.”

“It was still amazing!” Lemon said, beaming with joy. He embraced Sousuke so hard that Nami thought he might lay a French kiss on him.

Nami remained silent for a moment, fighting with a tangle of feelings. “I guess I should say thanks,” she said at last, sullenly. “So, thanks. You saved our butts today.”

“Not an issue. More importantly...” Sousuke peered closely into her eyes.

“Wh-What?” Nami asked, and felt her heart skip a beat. She didn’t find his gaze frightening. It was the opposite... there was something endearing about it. It was like a large, hungry dog begging for his favorite food.

“I want to know if you’ll continue to employ me,” Sousuke asked earnestly. “If you can guarantee lodging and three meals a day, I’ll do what I can for you.”

Nami saw no reason to refuse.