Elias thought the night would end with cold coffee and a bruised ego. He had not counted on learning the rules of a thing that did not belong to him.
Calder walked with him along the pier as if pacing a familiar route. The Gear stayed at Elias's side, its bulk a constant pressure against the night. The city smelled like oil and rain and something older—metal warmed by use. People leaned from windows and whispered; phone screens winked from balconies. The footage from the alley would spread before dawn.
"You can sit," Calder said, motioning to a battered bench under a dim lamp. He removed the cap and ran a hand through hair that had gone prematurely grey. Up close, Elias saw the lines around Calder's eyes and the faint, pale webbing on his forearm—old scars, the kind that read like entries in a ledger.
Elias wanted to ask everything at once. He did not. Instead he let the night do its slow work and pushed forward with the one question that burned brighter than confusion.
"What is it?" he asked. "What is that thing?"
Calder's face hardened into the same flat expression he'd worn back by the docks. "Gear. You spawned it. That—" he nodded toward the hulking silhouette "—is your Gear Soul, your combat frame. Different people call it different names. I call it the most dangerous thing you'll ever want."
Elias blinked. "Dangerous how? It saved me."
"It will save you again," Calder said. "And it will ruin you if you let it. Those two are not mutually exclusive."
The Gear shifted. It rolled a fist and tapped the bench as if testing the wood for sturdiness. When its knuckles met the surface, the bench complained in a small, bell-like groan. Elias felt the sound through his bones.
Calder unfolded a small notebook from his inner jacket and flipped a page. He wrote nothing—just looked at Elias with the deliberate patience of a man cataloguing a specimen. "Rules," he said. "You need to know them."
Elias swallowed. "Rules?"
"First: it is real. Not a ghost, not energy. It's matter. Weight, mass—force. You feel it because it is connected to you." Calder tapped his forearm where the pale scar webbed like dried lava. "Second: any trauma your Gear takes, the user takes. If the Gear breaks an arm, you'll break an arm. If the Gear burns, you'll burn. If the Gear dies, you die. It's the balance."
Elias laughed too loudly. "So it's like carrying someone else's life inside you."
"Think of it as carrying your fight in a second body. If your second body is reckless, you will pay." Calder's voice was flat, not cruel. "Third: the Gear spawns close. Never more than a meter. Keep that in mind. It will not fly away. It cannot be used as a shield for a crowd. It is intimate. Personal."
The Gear tapped Elias's shoulder again—an affirmation or a warning—and Elias felt the pressure bloom into a purple bruise as if the thing had left its signature under his skin.
Calder continued. "Fourth: Gears have types. Some smash—Brawlers. Some move like lightning—Speeders. Some keep things frozen—Lockers. Those are the basics. Later, you'll see hybrids. For now, you landed a brawler. That's why your thug lost a face punch instead of a lecture."
"So it's… a fighter?" Elias asked. He looked at his hands, at the skin where the smudge of blood from the alley had dried. The reality of it—of being the host—settled in like cold iron.
"It's a weapon with its own inertia. It wants to assert itself." Calder eyed the hulking outline beside Elias. "Fifth: gears have hunger. They want tests. They respond to threat—they awaken most easily when you are threatened or furious. That's why they spawn in alleys and on battlefields—not in bed."
A question that had been lodged at the base of Elias's tongue broke free. "Why me? I'm not special."
Calder smiled without warmth. "Special isn't the right word. You've been marked. Some bloodlines carry it. Sometimes it skips a generation. Sometimes the city chooses at random. You got the wrong end of chance or the right, depending on what you want to do with it."
"How many people—how many Gears are out there?" Elias asked.
Calder's lips thinned. He walked to the bench's edge and looked out at the water as if measuring distance. "More than you can count by sight. Fewer than the city would be comfortable knowing. There are dozens recorded, hundreds whispered. There are registries, rumor networks. There are people who hunt them and people who collect them. There are governments that turn a blind eye until it suits them."
The word collect hit Elias like a blow. "Collect?"
"Some people think Gears should be studied. Contained. Put to use." Calder's jaw tightened. "Some think they should be erased."
Elias felt something knot in his chest. "And you? What do you want from me?"
Calder's expression softened for a fraction. "I help hosts learn. I make sure they don't self-terminate in their first week. I keep an eye on the fallout. Occasionally I take a recruit. Sometimes—if the host is reckless—I'm the man who tells families who can't be told and burns the rest of the evidence."
Elias could not tell if that was a threat or a promise.
The night gave a long breath, and a buzz of a phone came from somewhere on the pier. Calder's phone vibrated with a tiny, obstinate insistence. He checked it and his mouth tightened.
"Video's spreading," Calder said. "East Dock Alley uploaded an hour ago. You'll be known by morning."
Panic threaded through Elias. "Can you make them take it down?"
Calder shook his head. "Digital things don't unroll. They spread. But you can choose what you do when everyone's watching. You can run, hide, or strike back with strategy. I'm offering you the first."
Before Elias could reach for the decision, a shout snapped from the far end of the pier. A man sprinted toward them, panting, eyes wide. He wore a jacket plastered with reflective strips—the sort of thing maintenance crews wore. He skidded to a halt, breath a ragged storm.
"You—are you the one from the alley?" he asked, pointing at Elias. His voice had the frightened edge of someone who had seen the impossible and preferred to name it.
Elias opened his mouth and closed it. The Gear stood like a sentinel, its shoulders tense. There was something almost possessive in its posture.
The maintenance worker swallowed. "Look, there's talk. A dude with… with iron. The foreman sent me—said we should get security. People are recording. Boss wants everyone cleared."
Calder waved the worker to calm. "Not the time to start a scene." He said to Elias, "You can stay here for now, but you should come with me. I'll take you somewhere out of the glare. Somewhere you can sleep and think without cameras and teenage messiahs."
Elias glanced at the Gear. The hulking silhouette reflected the pier's sodium light in dull shards. Its bulk made him feel both braver and more like a house with a cracked beam.
"I don't know you," Elias said.
Calder shrugged. "No. But I know what the first week does to hosts. It rips things out of them—family, friends,… sleep. I can smooth the cut."
Elias's head ached with the weight of decision. Part of him wanted nothing more than to go home, pull his hoodie over his head, and pretend last night had been a fever dream. Part of him wanted to run and never look back. Part of him felt a trembling ownership of the Gear—a strange loyalty to the thing that had acted before he had words.
"Why do you help them?" Elias asked softly.
Calder's gaze sliced to him. "Because someone has to steer new blades so they don't cut everyone in the room. Because the alternative is worse."
They walked. As they passed the dockyard gates, a figure in a hood lingered in shadow, watching. Elias noticed the movement at the periphery and walked faster. Calder's hand on his shoulder was a steady thing; the Gear kept pace like a heavy promise.
Before the bench disappeared behind them, Elias asked, "What happens if the Gear breaks?"
Calder's reply landed as if he'd thrown a stone. "Then you know the trade. The first host I lost—gear shattered, user shattered. I watched the pieces and learned how to stop it from happening again. You don't want the lesson that costs you everything, Elias."
They didn't use Elias's last name. Calder had not asked for it, and the night didn't feel like a place for full introductions. As the pier lights thinned and buildings swallowed the sound, the viral buzz of cameras and the low, mechanical echo of a Gear fist tapping the night followed them both—one a promise of danger, the other a countdown.
Elias walked because he trusted the weight at his side more than the quiet that waited at home. He walked because Calder offered a path that might teach him how not to die.
Behind them, unseen, someone took a picture. A shadow peeled from a doorway and slipped away like an afterthought.