“Hello? Hello?”

Shapes. Colors. Nothing more.

“Hello? Are you Marvin Yao?”

Shapes. Colors. Movement.

“Roll your eyes if you can hear me.”

Things suddenly began to clear up. A workshop table. Nuts and bolts. A giant monitor. A row of drawers. A brown-haired woman wearing a white lab coat.

Marvin jolted awake and screamed. Or at least he thought he did.

“Where am I?! What happened?!”

Marvin swore he was saying the words, yet he heard none of them. Nothing in the foreign room seemed to acknowledge his presence.

Ishaan, the holoplayer, the dark room… Oh no no no no…

He needed to find his uncle. Some terrible conspiracy had gone down. Someone had tried to kidnap him, and chances were they were going after the whole team.

Marvin stood up, only to find that his perspective hadn’t changed. He moved his arms, stretched his legs, and tried again.

They’re not there.

He was suddenly aware that he could not feel anything. Neither could he smell or taste. It was as if he were synced with his mech.

The woman in the lab coat leaned against the table, looking at something to Marvin’s right. She let out a chuckle.

“You’ll be okay, Marvin.”

“Who are you?” Marvin asked.

The woman remained facing whatever she was looking at. “I’m Caroline. We aren’t personally acquainted or anything, I just know about you through the news. As to where you are and what happened… I think it’s better if I try to ease into it.”

Marvin couldn’t care less about how shocking the truth was; he needed to know before his teammates got hurt. But he couldn’t be rash either, especially when he was paralyzed like this.

“I guess we can start with where we are. This is an abandoned farm workshop in Sector 58.”

I’m still in my Sector, Marvin thought. That’s a good start.

Caroline continued, “It’s been three months since your last fight-”

“What?!” Has Mecha Realm already started? Why is this Caroline person waking me up instead of my teammates?

“Oh great,” Caroline stammered. She began pacing around. “Take a deep breath or something.”

That just made Marvin realize he physically could not breathe.

What’s happened to me?!

He caught himself from falling into a full blown panic attack. Think about Saberstar. Think about the Bessmer chair. Think about the arena. Under the bright lights, it was just him in that steel suit, no feelings, no sensations other than sight and sound.

“Just tell me what happened,” Marvin said between labored… not breaths, but some mental block that scrambled his tongue.

“So basically I was trading with a scavenger,” Caroline explained. “And he found Saberstar’s head in a dead zone junkyard.”

Okay, don’t think about Saberstar.

“And we’re trying to start a mech team, so obviously I brought it back,” Caroline continued. “But it also came with an implant. It had your Network ID.”

Marvin’s head was spinning. Did that mean his consciousness had been uploaded to his robot? No, that was absurd. He didn’t feel any different than before. He’d retained all his memories.

“Before you say anything, I’ve told the police,” Caroline said. “Their chief—this guy named Amir—said he’d look into it, but I don’t think he believes me.”

“What are you talking about?” Marvin muttered.

“I’ll show you.”

Suddenly Marvin felt himself being lifted from the worktable. Then he began to walk, weaving through tables and shelves of mech parts. The only problem was, his head was about fifty-percent lower than normal. It was a scene straight out of a fever dream.

Maybe this is a fever dream.

Or maybe Caroline was just holding him at waist level—whatever he was now.

They entered a bathroom and Caroline turned to the sink. Marvin was lifted a bit higher, and he came face to face with a mirror.

If he were still human, he would’ve fainted.

To call this Saberstar’s head was a disgrace. It was a metal ball with two eye sockets, dented and falling apart. Wires dangled out the neck. It obviously had no voice box, and it was a miracle that the microphones and cameras still worked.

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I’m done for, Marvin thought. It was hard to form any other coherent thoughts.

To prevent himself from spiraling into despondency, he observed Caroline’s reflection. The woman was only a couple years older than him. She had a youthful face, but her eyes seemed to contain a few extra years of wisdom.

“How’d this happen?” Marvin whispered.

Caroline said nothing.

“Can you try to find my uncle?” Marvin asked.

Still no response.

“Am I going to die soon?”

At that, Caroline widened her eyes. “Oh, sorry, I should plug you back in. I forgot to tell you, I can only see your dialogue on my laptop.”

Dialogue, Marvin thought. I’m actually a robot.

It was strange how naturally that thought slipped in. A part of him wallowed in despair, but not as much as he would’ve expected. The perks of being a mech pilot, he supposed. The gravity of the situation would probably catch up to him later.

Caroline brought Marvin back and connected a cable to the side of his head.

“You won’t be mute for long,” she reassured him. “Ben will be back with a voice box tomorrow. For the time being, tell me everything you remember.”

“I need to find my uncle,” Marvin said. “Do you know Lindon Yao?”

“That’s not something you remember.” Before Marvin could protest, Caroline continued, “I’m just kidding. But sorry, I don’t know any Lindons. Honestly, I think it’s best if you don’t go looking for your old friends immediately. Or let anyone know you’re alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“People might try to track you down. Something fishy is going on. Someone killed you and stuffed your brain inside your robot and zero news sources are talking about it. We should first figure out why.”

“I got killed?”

“Yeah. One way or another, your human self is dead until we transfer your consciousness back.”

It was a lofty promise, but certainly not impossible. Consciousness uploading was not a common practice these days, and the reverse was even less heard of, but it had been done before and was pretty safe.

Marvin gave an imaginary frown. “Why do you care?”

Caroline leaned back and looked at his robot head. “Call me an agent of justice.” She cringed. “Sorry. I’m curious, that’s all.”

Marvin wasn’t sure if he should be suspicious. Although Caroline seemed like a genuine person so far, curiosity was not a strong motivation.

She’s right either way. I can’t endanger my uncle and the others. As soon as they unraveled this mystery, he would seek them out, and hopefully in his human body.

“Ishaan,” Marvin said. “He saw something before the holoplayer disconnected.”

“Who’s that?” Caroline asked.

“Gammagrade’s pilot.”

“Oh, perfect. We’ll find him at Mecha Realm tomorrow.”

Marvin’s nonexistent jaw dropped. Tomorrow! What were the odds? And how had Caroline gotten a ticket? Was she the daughter of some CEO?

As if reading his mind, Caroline said, “Don’t worry about how I got the ticket. Are you sure Ishaan isn’t involved with this conspiracy?”

“He didn’t seem like it,” Marvin replied.

“But you said he saw something. I’m pretty sure he’s still alive right now—at least Gammagrade’s status on the website hasn’t changed.”

Marvin frowned. “Maybe it’s not that deep.”

“Or it’s because they can’t go killing pilots on a whim lest the Roundtable gets suspicious. That makes sense.” Caroline tapped her chin. “Still, Gammagrade had the most to gain from killing you.”

“I don’t think they would do that,” Marvin said. “At least not Ishaan.”

“You sure?”

“He tried to warn me when he saw someone in the room.”

Caroline nodded. “Okay. We should try to talk to him in private. Getting his attention will be easy—we just have to give him a time and place to meet up and say something about how you’re alive. He must be suspicious.”

Now that Marvin thought about it, contacting Ishaan at Mecha Realm didn’t sound like such a good idea.

“We could just visit him at the Sawblades’ garage,” he suggested.

Caroline tilted her head. “Oh. That works.”

“Can we still go to Mecha Realm, though?” Marvin quickly added.

“Of course. We’ll probably find some answers there as well.” Caroline pulled out a tablet, which was shaped like a two pronged scroll, and extended it to reveal the screen. She transferred Marvin’s wire from the laptop to one of the thin side bars. Lines of text flew across the translucent screen, then cleared out.

“Say something,” Caroline said.

“Hi,” Marvin said. He saw the letters h and i appear on the screen.

Caroline tucked the tablet behind her ear and extended the screen to cover her right eye. “Awesome. Let’s go.”

Marvin felt a sudden surge of anxiety as Caroline reached over to pick him up. “Wait, we’re going now?”

“Why not?” Caroline said. “Do you need to pee?”

Marvin laughed awkwardly. Heh heh appeared on the tablet.

“I just… I barely know you,” he said.

“You can trust me. I’m one of your only allies in this place.” Caroline frowned. “I don’t know why I said it like that. I’m just saying, if I was a bad guy, I wouldn’t have revived you.”

Maybe this is all part of your plan. But voicing his doubts would be futile. There was no one else offering to help him, was there?

“So, you ready?” Caroline asked.

Marvin nodded his phantom head, then realized his mistake and replied, “Yeah.”

His point-of-view immediately shifted, rising and turning and making its way to a pair of doors. They slid open, and light flooded into Marvin’s sensors.

They were in a large clearing. Golden grass swayed gently beneath them and birds chirped overhead. Up ahead, a silver shuttle was perched on a large rock platform, and beyond that was a field of tall, yellow shalewheat. The skyscrapers in the distance—the ones on both sides of the megacity—looked like mere apparitions.

Growing up, Marvin had only known the bustling streets of Nagatown. He never knew his sector could be so serene.

Caroline brought him into the shuttle and set him on a magnet on the dashboard, giving him a good view of the outside.

Hopefully this magnet doesn’t short circuit my Core or anything, Marvin thought. He was clueless when it came to the technicalities of his robot.

With a roar of its engines, the shuttle lifted off. Individual stalks of shalewheat blended into a golden canvas, and birds parted in front of the window. The skyscrapers lost a bit of their grandeur as Marvin and Caroline grew level with them.

Then they were off.