Fall of the Iron Gods

Book 2: Mechanists

by Olivia Chadha

Genres: YA Dystopian; YA Science Fiction

Synopsis

The compelling conclusion to the Colorado Book Award winning Rise of the Red Hand, perfect for fans of Marie Lu and Zoe Hana Mikuta’s Gearbreakers.

The sequel to Rise of the Red Hand, a searing portrayal of the future of climate change in South Asia. After inflicting a devastating blow on the autocratic provincial government, Ashiva, Synch, and their remaining allies must infiltrate the planetary government before it can exterminate the Red Hand and everything they stand for.

Despite hard-won victories, the revolutionary forces known as the Red Hand are more endangered than ever: the Planetary Alliance Commission—the PAC—has branded them public enemy number one, ramping up their efforts to eliminate the Red Hand’s remaining members even as the pandemic rages on.  

In order to protect the progress they have made, the team must adopt new tactics. Ashiva, armed with a new bionic upgrade, leads a team back into the fray on a dangerous mission across a toxic wasteland wracked by storms. Synch sets out to fortify their hidden Himalayan stronghold, but his presence may hurt their cause more than the Red Hand knows. And Taru, determined to prove herself, punches deep into the heart of governmental research facilities in a desperate gamble to bring down the regime from the inside.

Greedy and unyielding, the PAC is all too willing to sacrifice the people of a province to achieve their optimal results, leaving Ashiva, Synch, and Taru to save their homeland from a government claiming to act for the greater planetary good.

Release date: April 23, 2024

Publisher: Erewhon Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

Six Months Later . . .

Ferric jumps first. He botches his landing and stumbles. The rope ladder dangles from the transport, and I hold on with both hands as it sways four meters above the Narrows. It’s just like we practiced in the training room at base, except without the mats. He waves confidently, safe on the ground now, urging me to follow, blond hair framing his cheerful blue eyes. Typical US Red Hand, eager for action.

I release the rope ladder and land on my mechanical feet gracefully, then take a bow.

“Two points.” I wink at Ferric.

“Alright, kid. Zero to two.”

My breath makes a steamy mess of my helmet’s face shield. “Begin recording,” I say, and a white light flashes the words “video in progress” in my control panel view screen.

The transport hovers above us, then dips out of sight, swallowed by mist. My boots crunch and for a second, I’m going to slip. My gasp is muffled by the helmet that keeps me from breathing in the hot, polluted air. It’s only filtered and air conditioned for the Red Hand trainees. Our mission in the Narrows: excavate Masiji’s workshop and remove the contents of her safe.

I long to dig my bare hands into the debris, if only to find some remnant of my life here from before. My current life feels like the made-up one; my past surrounds me in piles of detritus at my feet. The world is divided into two parts now: before the fall of the Narrows and after. And here I stand on its rubble. Ropes of beads, prayer flags, drowned pictures of deities and gurus, the odd empty masala crisps bags litter the scene. And the dead lie beneath us like scrap.

The thought suffocates me.

Ferric turns toward me, his Golden Boy cannon slung across his chest and mech arm extensions strapped to his back, two massive metal limbs at the ready. He is so unmistakably one of the wheat-fed boys, raised in the North American Province, bionically enhanced by choice, not necessity.

“Lomri, Ferric,” Commander Luz’s voice rings out in our earpieces. “Quick there and back. We need anything that can help us put together a larger picture.” We need Masiji’s notes to learn the next stages of the Solace algorithm so we can finally be one step ahead. Maybe even a string of code or a failsafe that will enable us to destroy it. Commander Luz is in the air transport above us, just out of range, on hover, but her presence brings me little comfort. “And—do be careful.”

“—Yes, copy that.” I don’t want to hear it again, that I’m not ready for a mission. I thought questions ended when you proved yourself. I set the charge at the offsite. I helped organize the children to free themselves and fight. I know this place and Masiji’s workshop better than anyone. And yet, they nearly assigned a different Narrows kid with Ferric instead of me because the leadership thought I might not be ready to confront the ruins.

A thick mist ends my sight line at three meters.

“Can’t see shit,” Ferric mumbles.

“Me neither.”

“What the heck you call this Narrows weather, Fox?”

“Never seen a marine layer?”

“Not like this back home on the Great Colorado Sea.” His accent makes him sound like he’s always on the verge of telling a joke, but the punch line never arrives.

Water laps. The sea’s edge is concealed. It feels like we’re being watched by an enduring monster looming ever so close, taunting us, breathing us in. When the provincial government removed the sea wall, it flooded most of the slum. But the water receded. People drowned, and the survivors left for the other Unsanctioned Territories, where they will likely suffer a similar undignified fate. Our intel says the South Asian Province sent their C.O.R.E mecha soldiers to destroy the Narrows, quadrant by quadrant. The Province wants us out of its area, but outside the domed city, there can’t be life. At least, not an easy one.

With each step, another lesson from Commander Luz replays in my mind. Tread lightly. Be aware of your surroundings. Trust no one aside from your partner. Commander Luz is gifted at many things, and one of them is reconnaissance. She’s been training me and a few other Spy Crew members in the ways of her South American Red Hand faction’s military. Our Ghost Mission combines expertise from soldiers around the world in a three-tiered operation. A step closer to a genuine Red Hand Coalition. Factions are still siloed for security, but the mission will test how we might work together in the future. There are some things big enough to unite the arms of the Red Hand, such as the Alliance Space Colony and the problem that the potential space territories present. Commander Luz watches me from the transport deck, and Ashiva is probably asking for updates every five seconds over comms.

This is what they were arguing about when I volunteered for this mission: this moment. Would I choke? Commander Luz asked that question with her South American Province candor right in front of me, like I wasn’t even there. Ashiva was in the room, biting her lip. General Shankar glared at no one in particular. I promised. Did everything but beg. Ashiva is too valuable to risk her life for an errand mission; she’s battle-ready. And while there are other Red Hand members from the Narrows, I wanted this. I can’t slip up. Can’t let Ashiva hide me in a new kind of cage.

“Tell me about your home, Ferric.”

“Home?” He grunts.

“Yeah, tell me something nice about where you come from. Like what’s your favorite food?” Whistling in the dark keeps the ghosts at bay.

“Oh, that’s easy: pinwheels.” A grin creeps across his face, full of boyish triumph.

“Pinwheels?”

“Little candies that me and my crew would get from the market. They taste like cotton candy and watermelon. The best thing I’ve ever stolen. Like eating lamb’s wool made out of spun sugar.”

My mouth waters. “You probably had the best scraps living near the biodomes.”

“We all grew up on crumbs, right? Poor and starving, here or there. We might have better crumbs, I guess.”

“Dude, food scraps are better than the pods they ship out.”

“Yeah, you got me there. Manna products are the worst.”

“Manna?”

“They distribute the pods. Means something grandiose, like a gift from the gods.”

“Not that they think highly of themselves.”

We climb through my shanty, or what’s left of it. The rubble piles high as the seawater forces its way in between the crumbled building debris on the ground. My steps are unsteady. Ahead, papers protrude from the wreckage. A workbook that Mrs. Zinnat designed for me and the other children. It’s soggy and half scorched, but some words are legible. Cover gone, and about ninety percent useless, but the last bit is a treasure: A Lesson on Survival and Hope. Suddenly, I’m sitting with the other Children of Without on the floor of the orphanage’s school room. My fingers trace the words as Mrs. Zinnat’s voice echoes in my mind. The things we love and value are the things that will ensure our survival. If we care for one another, we are stronger than any law, decree, or algorithm. Today, tomorrow, and forever, we will endure.

“You look like you saw a. . .” Ferric’s voice in my earpiece shakes me to the present.

“Bhoots are everywhere.”

“Steady, we’re almost there.” Ferric’s bulky figure stands a few meters ahead. He carries his cannon casually, like a toy he just happened to find. I’m not fooled. He hit a target at fifty meters blind in training.

“Yeah, almost.” My boots get tangled in a cluster of cables, nearly tripping me, and all at once my lungs feel tight, my chest hurts, and an alert pings my screen. My heart rate is too high. Nothing like a pile of old wires to make a mess of things. Slowly, I unravel myself.

“You all right, Fox?”

“Might have taken one too many tabs this morning to wake up.” A lie I hope he empathizes with.

“Sleep is for the dead anyway.”

And the dead are all around us.

Masiji is gone. So many lives smashed underfoot by the C.O.R.E mechas. The Planetary Alliance Commission and the SAP don’t agree on the final casualty number. After I was captured with the Children of Without, they razed everything. They’re calling it the Narrows Insurrection. More like the Narrows Massacre. The leadership found it useful to rebrand the victims as villains, as is their MO. My heart monitor beeps again: blood pressure rising. Breathe, Taru.

“I got this.” My voice catches.

“I know you do. Come on then, Fox. Let’s get to the location.” Ferric stomps hard on the crooked ground. “Fifteen meters southwest.”

Silence stretches around us, like all the molecules in the universe expanding at once. The village is a jigsaw puzzle. Nothing looks the same, but familiar objects emerge, clues in the rubble. It’s strange what survives a disaster: a flyer for the Open Speak, a statue of a god, bloated housing material, ripped balls, drowned clothes, tools, and dishes. We had so little before, and all of it is garbage now. I stare at the debris until it ceases to be solid. The colors shift, my sight blurs, and my surroundings become a beautiful cubist painting; the pieces reform and then dissolve, melt, and disappear. Home but not home, my memories rewritten.

“Hey, Ferric. Why didn’t you come? Before, I mean.”

“General Shankar gave my team the thumbs up to join the Ghost Mission . . .”

“No, I mean why didn’t the US Red Hand send help to prevent this?” My voice trembles. “You have money, weapons.”

“All the factions separated to survive; you know that. But we’re trying to work together now, right? I’m on your team.”

My feet freeze. The old sign for the Children of Without orphanage peeks out from the litter. My gut twists and soars at the same time. I lean the sign against a block of concrete.

“For the fallen,” I say.

Ferric puts his hand on my shoulder. “For the fallen.”

“Her workshop can’t be far,” I say.

He switches on his mech arms. The sound of electricity sings and metal scrapes to life. From their locked position behind him, the mech arms extend up and in front of his body, one at a time. They’re expensive equipment only the US Red Hand can afford. I monitor the depth of the debris beneath our feet on my tablet as he sorts through piles of concrete, metal, and glass.

“How we lookin’?”

“Good. Judging by the rubble, we’ll need to dig about one and a half meters or so.”

I puzzle out the scene as Ferric digs: a table where Masiji did her surgeries, broken screwdrivers, jugaad batteries left and right. The whole thing was a genius hack. Now she’s gone, killed in the fiery explosion that wasn’t intended for her. I never would have set the bomb if I had known she’d be killed, even after learning about her connection to Solace and the Minister of Communications.

“Found something,” Ferric says. He speaks into our comms. “Commander Luz, we’ve located the safe.”

“Copy that,” Commander Luz says. “You have five minutes before the UAVs make their pass in your quadrant. Make it count.”

The body of the safe is cemented into a concrete pylon. Ferric uses the atomic arms to wrench the handle from the safe and break the door off the hinges. I thought it would take more, that Masiji’s most private possessions would be impossible to unearth. But there they are, her secrets exposed.

“Three minutes,” Commander Luz’s voice calls out in our earpieces.

While Ferric guards the area, I confiscate materials from the safe and place them into my pack: books, notes, devices, microdrives, and a set of gold bangles I never knew she had.

As I empty the safe, there’s a mechanized buzz. It could be the ground settling, or the unfamiliar suit I’m wearing. But then there’s another buzz, this time below me. I kneel and lean into the safe. Under a pile of plastic cables sits a palm-sized bot. His one working wheel spins, but the second wheel is mired in sand. He looks curious and a bit like a frightened animal, with a strange full pouch at its belly, bloated and overflowing with garbage, and two large round photo receivers sit in the middle of its face like blinking eyes. One of Masiji’s projects, surely.

“Hello, who are you?”

He spins his wheel, photo receivers blinking.

Ferric’s back is to me. “Nearly done, Fox? Let’s ready our exit.”

“Shh,” I say to the bot and stuff it into my personal pack. I turn to Ferric. “Yes, all done. Let’s go.”

A rumble shakes us. The low vibration comes from the ground, sky, air—everywhere at once. A sickening pit opens in my stomach. The aberrant sound of screeching metal on metal. The timbre of nightmares.

Mechas. They’re here.

“Go, go, go!” Ferric covers me as I seal up my pack and swing it over my shoulders. The ground sways under the weight of something beyond us in the mist.

“Too late.” I switch on the emergency alert.

Ferric positions his cannon and pulls his mech arms to his sides. “Ready yourself, Fox.”

I set my hypervelocity pistol to kill.

“Soldiers, fight like hell,” Commander Luz says, steady and calm in our comms. “We can’t get a clear shot. The mist is too thick. Can’t risk hitting you.”

With each step, the mecha shakes the ground, and water floods between gaps in the rubble underfoot. We lurch. A heavy mist blankets everything. Then it goes quiet, aside from the lapping water against concrete. Back-to-back, we scan the area.

A gust of wind, then a shimmer of metal to my left. “There,” I whisper.

“I got it.”

We both turn toward it. At first it looks to be our height. Then the mist parts, and we realize we were looking at only its leg.

“Stay sharp, Fox.”

The mecha towers about eight meters high and half as wide, glossy black and chrome, liquid onyx and silver. A nightmare fully armed with a rocket launcher and arm cannon. A new type of guardian stands beside it. The fog obscures the details.

“Scrap,” I say.

The guardian’s voice synthesizer is sinister. “You are trespassing on Central grounds.” It thrusts the cannon at us and my gut sinks. “Under Statute 75.1, you will be contained.” The mecha’s cannon spins with fire as it prepares to blast us to ash.

“Show me your weak spot.” Ferric uses his scope. “Come on, baby.”

The ground beneath the mecha shifts. I whisper, “Six o’clock. Together. On my mark.”

He nods.

“We know our rights. Trespassing is a minor offense,” I yell.

The monster takes a step toward us, then another. The guardian backs away, giving the mecha a nod as it passes.

“Ready?” I whisper to Ferric. The mecha pauses on the precarious bundle of cables that tripped me earlier. “Now!”

We blast the ground around its feet, and it stumbles into the web of cables. We double our fire, and it crashes to the ground. Our transport spins the air around us, and we both dash to the rope ladder. Just as we climb up, the mecha rises and takes aim. Too late. We’re in the mist and out of range. Its cannon misses us by several meters; the heat grazes our bodies.

The transport carries us into the sky, far away from ground zero. Even if Central or the Province can pick up on our position now, we’re too small to follow. At least that’s our hope. When we’re beyond Central’s gaze, we all exhale.

I yank off my helmet, and my partner does the same. “Too close.”

“Did they identify us or was the mecha only guarding the area?” Ferric asks Commander Luz.

She wipes her bandana across her face, and suddenly I realize how well she’d disguised her nerves over the comms. Maybe this mission was more dangerous than I knew. “It came out of nowhere. We won’t know until we get back home. They don’t want to bring PAC attention to that new mecha though. Probably won’t pursue us. You were able to empty the safe?”

“Yes, Commander. We got everything.”

Commander Luz lifts her chin and crisply nods. “Good. Now the hard work begins.” There’s something distant in the Commander’s expression, almost as though her mind is already onto the next mission elsewhere.

The cargo hold is small: just Commander Luz, Ferric, the pilot, me, and the bag stuffed with Masiji’s possessions. Ferric and I smile like we’ve just fooled death.

“Woo-hoo!” He high-fives me. “I think that was ten points each. Sound fair, Fox?”

“Ten points at least.”

We laugh so hard that tears come and then I cry a snotty cry.

That was the last time I saw the Narrows.

It sunk into the sea a week later.





Accept.

< . . . >



The training mech extends four of its eight weaponized arms into the air, preparing to unfurl its fury down upon me. On what species of arachnid did Bastian model his mech? Tarantula? Wolf spider? Maybe a scorpion? I’ve got nothing against insects, but weaponized ones taller than me are a problem. And this problem was built by Bastian, the mechanist who programmed this bot to evaluate me and my new SynGenesis system.

“Ready.” Both my arms are in striking position, the new SynGen’s fist near my jaw, right flesh hand tucked lower beside my body.

“Let’s begin.” Bastian retreats a couple meters and swipes on his tablet. The spider mech buzzes to life. Two of the bug’s clasper grips are holding staffs. Well, this might hurt.

Its first strike is direct. The mech charges and swipes my feet, but I jump out of the way. In its next attack, it doubles down. One clasper grip grabs at me, while the other bludgeons me in the midsection. Not even my SynGen can catch it. I grip the mech’s limb and pull hard. It reels. My left bionic arm is still new to my brain, which makes me slow. I twist the mech’s limb off. Sparks fly. I’m feeling pretty good about myself when three of its metal arms crash down on me faster than a heartbeat, and I’m crushed flat and face down in the dirt.

“Ashiva? Do you require assistance?” Bastian’s voice booms in my ears. All I want to do is lie there with cold filth in my face, and let the earth open wide its gaping mouth and pull me under layers of sediment. Better to disappear than lose to the bug bot.

“Nah, Bastian. I’m good.”

The Northern Fort is what’s left of a fallout shelter in the heart of a lesser-known Himalayan mountain half damaged by the nukes in WWIII. I wonder where that saying “in the heart of” comes from though—the fort feels more like it’s sitting in the guts of the mountain rather than the heart, because some days a putrid stench permeates. Bat droppings cause the ripe air vapors that make even the dirt stink. Today is a good-smell day. Good news for me, because I’m face down in the grime.

My nosebleed thickens the dirt to mud, but there’s no time to wipe it off. The spider mech backs up to wait for me to stand, tucks four of its eight metal arms behind its chassis. Breathe in, one, two, three, and I leap to my feet like a tiger: no stumbling, no flinching. I hold first position—still as still, right fist close to my body, left bionic fist defending at chin height, both feet planted—and wait. But I’m slow. Slower than I used to be.

Adjusting to a new replacement is unlike anything else. From muscle to nerve, to tendon and bone, my entire body must adapt: the way I walk, sleep, dress, and eat. The things most take for granted, like simply wiping their nose, I have to consider carefully to avoid injury. The med team calls it “seeing the ghost.” The mind knows the original limb is missing and must adjust to that idea while accepting a new limb. Acceptance and rejection and acceptance again. I’ve been through, like, ten cycles now, and my brain is slower to adjust, as though it is confronting all the ghosts of the former limbs before it settles on which one is primary. And today I’m experiencing them all.

“If you visualize the connection, I’ve heard that helps the process,” Bastian says. Bro has zero replacements.

“Has that worked for you?” In my mind, I try to give the SynGen more space to make decisions without my interference.

He smirks. “This equipment isn’t easy to come by, trainee.” He doesn’t look up from his tablet when he speaks. “I’m sure there’s some expectation from the leadership . . .”

“For what exactly?” The spider mech is taller than me, but I might be able to deactivate it by hitting the battery core at its center. With this thought, a symbol blinks to life in my sight and zeros in on the cell, encouraging me to strike.

He laughs and with his clipped European accent says, “Let’s run through the sequence. Go again.” He places an aluminum staff in each of the mech’s four grips and tosses me one as well. My new SynGen arm catches it above my head without hesitation. It’s like the SynGen is thinking for itself, with reflexes faster than my own. As I offer control to the SynGen, the noise in my mind recedes.

“Begin,” Bastian says.

I spin the staff overhead to get a sense of it and then hold it vertically at my side, waiting. When the spider mech closes in, I slam its chassis twice. As I spin the staff, my body syncs with the new technology.

Our weapons connect with a lightning crack. Neither one of us is going to let this go. Bastian smiles, like playing smash-the-girl with his bug bot is his favorite pastime. I try not to grimace, but it might as well be permanent now. Is there a glimmer of kindness or hope in Bastian? His brown eyes are so familiar, they remind me of . . .

And then her face appears like a goddamned ghost.

Masiji. She is standing there, clear as day. Her honey-colored eyes are both fierce and radiant, like she has a secret only for me. And then I’m torn from this plane of existence and thrust out of time and space into the past.

The transport’s ramp recoils with every wave. The offsite recently liberated of the stolen children from the Narrows is scorched by fire. Blood ebbs down my chest from the gaping hole in my shoulder, the empty socket courtesy of the mech that dove into the deep still clutching my replacement. I wonder if the mech is still holding my arm at the bottom of the sea, tumbling along the seafloor like war wreckage. Before me, a mecha-suited guardian battles Masiji. My scream is useless over the gunfight and roar of the transport’s engine. Could it have ended differently? Is there a scenario where Masiji could have survived?

It all goes quiet, and suddenly, I am standing in a white room with a younger version of The Mechanic that I’d only seen in photos.

Masiji says, “I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to end like this. Look inside yourself for forgiveness.” Her hand reaches out to me. “Promise me, Ashiva. Live.”

I am ripped from the white room and thrust back into a battle scene.

“No!” My voice is drowned out by screams and explosions, throat scorched raw from trying. Fire engulfs the transport and the offsite explodes, taking my teacher, my mentor, my guardian with it. A bitter burning stench fills the air. If only we had more time. If only I’d asked the right questions. If only . . .

Thwap!

The spider mech’s staff cracks across my face. I crumple to the cold subterranean floor. Red drips on the dirt, another bloody lip wiped on the back of my flesh hand.

“What is distracting you? Is it that boy? Or maybe your sister.” Bastian’s razor-sharp words cut my pride. He stands beside his spider mech and looks down on me. “Perhaps your system is too much for you to understand? Maybe we should downgrade you to a simple replacement in the meantime. The SynGen could be out of your league. It happens, I assume. Though General Shankar won’t be happy about it.”

“A malfunction. . .” I repeat the message still flashing red in my vision. The SynGen has only succeeded in uploading about half of the updates even though I’ve accepted them all. My skin is hot from the conflagration in my mind mere moments ago. What’s happening to me? Flexing my new arm, I blame the metal, not my brain. But it’s not clear which is glitching.

“I’ve heard the SynGen opens the human mind to indescribable capabilities. Some say it’s like being a god.”

“I wouldn’t describe it like that exactly.” Yeah, something isn’t firing properly.

“Power down.” His bot creeps to the corner of the room and freezes. Turning back toward me, he offers his hand. His condescending tone grates. “You must allow the updates to run, or else you’ll just be a girl with a very expensive prosthetic, with absolutely no capabilities. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

I take the assist. “I have. I . . .” I can’t tell Bastian the system is malfunctioning. “It’s connecting fine. That was . . . I just had a . . .” I search for a lie that might appease him until I figure out on my own what’s happening with the SynGen. “It was in the middle of an update.”

He nods to my replacement. He’s evaluating me. Not as a person, but as an investment. Or maybe both. “That’s put a target on your back. We need to make sure it wasn’t all for nothing.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“No, but we had it ready to go, and you were a bloody mess about to die of infection if we didn’t get you up and running.”

“Ready to go? So, it was designed with someone else in mind.”

“Yes. We made some adjustments to fit your body. It was either this replacement or go without forever, and the General was adamant. He wanted you to be functional.”

“Just to be clear, boss, I don’t need two arms to be complete.” Waking up with a new limb without approval makes it all the more difficult to adjust to the SynGen. Opting into a replacement was a part of our ethos in the Narrows. If a child didn’t want new tech, we always made their world accessible to them. “No one is without, truly, Bastian. It’s the world around us that’s deficient. It’d be helpful if you remember that.”

“Right, but if one wants to be a super soldier in the righteous battle against fascism, it doesn’t hurt to be weaponized.”

“All I need is a knife or a sharp bit of glass.” But he’s already checking his tablet. My words are better saved for someone who will actually listen.

My new replacement would have been out of reach in the Narrows. Permanent body armor on my left side, lighter but stronger than steel. The supports are fused into my shoulder blade and central ribs in my chest and back. Embedded weapons are hidden like treasures inside my body; some, like the opti-link that scans my environment for threats and the neuro-mod that shifts chemical levels in my body and brain, I’ve already figured out. But the rest is out of reach, blocked by failed updates.

“You’re lucky. I was about to install it in another recruit.”

“I bet they’re pissed.” And if this was meant for someone else, I have some serious questions.

“I’m only telling you that because you will experience an adjustment period as your brain and the operating system align. The updates are important, so try not to ignore them, though ultimately you have the override. Log a daily report. It might be your arm now, but it’s categorized as a full body-mod weapon.” He pauses and takes in my bruised side exposed through my loose tank. “No pain?”

“I bruise easily. It’s nothing.” I lie. Good luck getting that report, bro.

“I have no doubt about your physical ability.”

“But?”

Bastian leans closer. “One piece of advice? Play the game. Simply try to pass the exams. Or else you’ll become even more of an outsider than you already are.”

I drop my arms but not my guard. “Yes, sir.”

“The SynGen is a powerful system. It can be overwhelming at first. Let me know if the arm needs an adjustment. See you back in one week.” He swipes and types on his tablet.

“Will do.” My lips tighten over the words I want to say: go shove your exam.

The symbol for the new Red Hand coalition is stenciled on the back of his jumpsuit: a mechanized fist surrounded by a star. He doesn’t look up from his tablet and is already walking away when he says, “One more thing: he asked for you now. I’ve sent the General my report.”

General Shankar. The War Hammer. The Iron Ghost. Both his arms are replacements, and he might have more hidden weaponized adaptations. He led the charge on the Last Vidroh. Masiji told me he set the explosives at the gates. They were ambushed, and as he tried to save his whole crew from the inferno, seventy percent of his body was scorched.

When I pass through the command center, all eyes are on me. I’m not offended; I’d be staring too. This place is only for leadership, not grunts.

“Where do you think you’re going, recruit?” Commander Bolade Decker asks. We call her Bone Breaker behind her back because her trainees pride themselves on their fractures from her intense hand-to-hand training. Her muscular form blocks my way. “Back in the African Province, our recruits know their place. The command center is only for—”

A deep voice rings out, “Leave her, Bo. I called for Ashiva.”

“Lucky girl,” she says. “Guess the General wants you after all.”

I check my temper and lower my eyes. Commander Decker’s exposed steel-toed boots have clearly been used to kick some shit. She’s not only an expert fighter, but she’s also a pilot, a key asset for the mission.

“Wait,” Decker says and hands me a towel. “You look a