A week after he went back to disposal, Caleb's sedan coughed and died outside the Defense Force testing facility.
He left the key in the ignition. The engine had struggled all the way here, and he could deal with the trip home after he had something worth driving home with.
Applicants passed through the gates in groups of three and four. Stadium lights shone above the steel complex. Caleb shut his door and pulled his jacket over the scar on his chest.
The written examination was behind him. Its result sheet sat folded in his pocket: a perfect score. Years of cutting Kaiju apart had finally been useful somewhere that did not smell of rot.
He still had to pass the physical tests.
A teenager sat on the parking barrier beside his car. An oversized track jacket covered his narrow shoulders. His knees bounced while he clicked a mechanical stopwatch open and shut.
"You'll break the spring," Caleb said.
The boy fumbled it, caught it against his knee, and looked up.
"I know. If my hands stop moving, I think I'll throw up." He stood and offered a hand. "Kei Hosoda. First time?"
"At the Runner trials, yes. Caleb."
Kei glanced at the gates. "You tried the academy?"
"Didn't get through the physical course."
The stopwatch clicked shut again.
"I've memorized the Defense Force testing matrix," Kei said. "Eight meters per second to clear the first gate. That's before the obstacles."
"You can run that fast?"
"With a working suit." He took a folded diagram from his jacket. Pencil marks crossed a printed grid. "I mapped the foot placements from the leaked structural blueprints. The shorter route puts you on the outside of the second landing. You lose time getting back across."
Caleb looked at the marks. Kei had measured the turns as well as the straight sections.
"What if they move the obstacles?"
"Then I have to look before I jump." Kei refolded the paper along its worn creases. "I know. A blueprint isn't the course. I'd rather have one anyway."
Caleb checked the tape around his palms. He had once reached the academy tower with less preparation and considerably more confidence.
"Fair enough."
"I heard the physical bracket's casualty rate is nearly forty percent this year."
Kei said it quietly. The stopwatch had stopped clicking.
Caleb pushed away from the car. "Let's get inside before you find a worse number."
They joined the line at the gates.
Beyond the security doors, packed dirt covered the stadium floor between strips of reinforced concrete. Runner suits hung from automated tracks around the perimeter. Their empty plates knocked together in the wind moving through the open canopy.
"Find a bay and strap in," the instructor called over the speakers. "Leave the rack locked until calibration is complete."
Caleb took the nearest open G-X4552 surplus suit. A scratched tag on its collar read R. Torres. The inner fibers hung heavy between the plates.
He pulled the gauntlets over his taped hands and stepped into the legs. The chest plate closed against his ribs. His applicant number, 4013, showed on the wrist display when he fastened the last catch.
A mechanism hummed behind his neck.
Biometric needles punched into the nerve clusters along his spine. Heat flared behind his ribs. The thing inside him tightened, and his muscles locked hard enough to drag his hands against the rack.
The suit pulled back. Its lining tried to read a body that would not settle.
Caleb held the frame and waited. He could not tear the armor off while its connectors were in him. His vision whitened at the edges, then cleared as the heat drew back into his chest.
The military display booted across his visor.
"Your suit measures the output it can draw from your body," the instructor said. "Unleashed Combat Power is shown as a sync percentage. High output gives you speed and force. Low output leaves you carrying armor with very little assistance."
The leaderboard filled with names.
Two bays down, Kei's plates sealed with a hiss.
[KEI HOSODA: 14%]
He let out a breath, bent his knees, and rose onto his toes. The joints answered with a small hydraulic lift. His shoulders loosened when he landed.
Heavy boots crunched the gravel behind them.
Suzu Shishido walked past the surplus racks in a white and dark-red prototype. Its plates fitted close to her body. No loose cables hung at the joints, and she did not need a rack to hold its weight.
The board flashed gold.
[SUZU SHISHIDO: 72%]
Applicants turned to look. Someone whistled. Suzu adjusted a gauntlet without acknowledging them.
Caleb's helmet pinged.
[CALEB TREADWELL: 1.2%]
The applicant beside him glanced up, then away. A laugh came from farther down the racks.
"One percent?" a rust-haired recruit in red-trimmed armor said. "The fibers are barely awake."
Caleb flexed his fingers. The suit carried its own plates, but when he tried to lift an arm faster, the lining dragged behind him. He shifted one boot and felt the same delay through his knee.
No useful boost. He would have to move all that metal himself.
Kei looked from Caleb's number to his hands on the rack. He started to speak, but the instructor cut across the stadium.
"Sync complete. Broadcast feeds are live. One-on-one brackets begin now. The guilds and public investors are watching."
Camera drones detached from the canopy. A dozen circled Suzu, lenses adjusting as she turned her head.
One battered drone came down in front of Caleb. The viewer count inside his helmet reached five, fell to three, and stopped at one.
The red-trimmed recruit jogged past on his way to a ring.
"Your mom tuning in?"
"Something like that."
Caleb adjusted the shoulder plate. Blue code broke across his display before he could check his bracket. The military menu dissolved into static, and purple text replaced it.
[BROADCAST OWNER: ???]
[PUBLIC CHAT DISABLED. VIEWER ACCESS: ONE]
The buyer had followed him into a different suit on a military network.
[??? : Look at her. All that money, and she still picked up a sword.]
Caleb looked toward the prototype. Suzu was coming across the field.
[??? : Hurt her where the cameras can see.]
[??? : I will reward you accordingly.]
He read the offer twice. The person who had bought him a weapon at the depot was now choosing who should feel it. That first gift had kept him alive. Nothing on the screen said what this reward would cost him.
"I request an evaluation duel."
Suzu stopped ten feet away and raised her gauntlet toward the proctor.
He checked his tablet. "Applicant Shishido. You're assigned to Bracket Four."
"My grandfather requires live-combat data on how this prototype handles unpredictable targets." She looked directly at Caleb. "Applicant 4013 has a perfect written score and a one-point-two sync. I want physical verification."
The proctor glanced at the gold insignia on her shoulder. He touched his comms unit and listened. Suzu waited without lowering her hand.
"Bracket altered," he said. "Clear a twenty-meter ring."
Kei caught Caleb's elbow as the applicants moved back.
"She's at seventy-two."
"I saw."
Kei let go. He retreated with the others, keeping his eyes on the prototype's thrusters.
Caleb stepped into the cleared space and flexed his hands to loosen the grip he'd kept on the rack. He had come to prove he could do this work, and the suit had already told everyone otherwise.
Suzu drew a training blade from her back rig. Its dull edge hummed with kinetic energy.
"You read a lot of books," she said. "Let's see if they taught you how to take a hit."
Caleb unclipped the wooden training baton from his thigh rack. He checked his grip and shifted his weight. The suit followed late again.
"Find a better target. This thing barely carries itself."
"Afraid of spoiling your perfect score?"
Purple text crossed his view of her face.
[??? : Don't make me wait.]
He tightened his grip. "Losing a fight won't change a written grade. Did your tutors skip that part?"
Suzu's visor snapped down. She lowered her stance.
"Begin," the proctor called.
Caleb planted his boots as her thrusters ignited.