The air in the workshop had grown heavy, saturated with the scent of spent ozone and the metallic tang of cooling iron. Jake sat frozen, his fingers tracing the jagged, rusted grain of the tank-hatch table. His mind was spinning, trying to reconcile the life he had once known—a life of homework, weekend movies, and quiet family dinners—with this grotesque reality of floating shards and cosmic trials. The concept of "The Trial" felt like a suffocating shroud, turning his entire existence into a high-stakes game of survival he hadn't even realized he was playing.
He desperately wanted to ask more—about the lotus-drones, the other shards, or if there was any way to signal his home—but the look in Brock's eyes warned him that he was pushing his luck. The giant's mechanical arms had stopped their constant hissing, and for a fleeting moment, the shop felt deathly, unnervingly still.
"One more," Brock had growled earlier. "Make it count, kid."
Jake took a steadying breath, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Why... why is it called 'The Trial'?"
Brock didn't answer immediately. He stared at the flickering holographic light reflecting in his water cup, and then, a low, guttural sound began to emanate from his broad chest. It grew, bubbling up into a harsh, erratic laugh that sounded more like metal scraping against glass than a human emotion. Brock laughed until he shook the entire table, his massive, bionic shoulders heaving with a dark, manic energy.
"A trial?" Brock wheezed, wiping a streak of engine oil from his eye with a mechanical thumb. "Because that's exactly what it is, boy. It's the universe's way of sorting the wheat from the chaff."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "You survive the collision, you overcome the nightmare the Shards throw at you, and you are rewarded. It's not just about staying alive; it's about earning your place. Depending on the difficulty of the trial, depending on how close you dance with death, you gain… leverage. Rewards. It could be high-grade weaponry, life-extending stimulants, exotic toxins—anything your mind can conceive, provided you have the currency to pay for it. We call it Bet Point, or BP for short."
Jake, his pulse racing, couldn't help himself. He felt the gravity of the information dragging him down, and a final, burning question clawed its way out of his throat. "Wait—why 'Bet'? Why bet your life on a point?'
The silence that followed was absolute. Brock didn't laugh this time. He stood up slowly, the hydraulics in his spine whining under the strain of his weight. He slammed a heavy, palm-like appendage onto the table. It wasn't a violent strike, but the sheer force of it caused the entire shop to tremble, rattling the hanging tools against the walls.
"Because, kid," Brock growled, his voice a low, warning rumble that echoed in the hollows of the room. "You aren't just playing for prizes. You are literally bet your life on a point. Every trial, every risk, you are putting your existence on the line. You win, you get your BP. You lose... you become nothing but more scrap metal for the shards to recycle."
Without another word, Brock turned on his heel. His heavy, armored boots thudded against the concrete floor as he walked toward the exit. The door hissed open, a gust of cold, polluted air swirling into the shop, and then it slammed shut with a finality that rattled Jake's teeth.
That night, sleep was a cruel stranger. Jake lay on his tattered pallet in the attic, staring up at the neon-stained sky through the jagged hole in the roof. His mind was a battlefield of Brock's words. Betting his life on a point. It sounded like a gamble designed for losers.
He knew Brock was holding something back. He could feel it in the way the giant's eyes had shifted when he mentioned the "cleansing," and the way he'd avoided discussing the origins of his own bionic arms. There was a layer of truth—the most important, most dangerous layer—that remained buried beneath the surface. Jake stared at the shadows on the wall, his jaw set in a hard, determined line. If he was going to survive in this city of broken pieces, he would have to become a better gambler than his master.
He would have to find out what Brock was truly afraid of.
After finishing his work, Jake let his exhaustion take over, collapsing onto his bed and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next day, Jake woke up late. Late? He felt that something was terribly wrong. Brock never let him sleep in, and Jake couldn't hear the familiar clanging of metal from the workshop. No, he couldn't hear anything at all. The silence was deafening.
Jake scrambled into his pants, grabbed his coat, and bolted outside. The streets were busier than usual, bustling with an unnatural energy. He rushed back into the workshop, tearing the place apart. All he found were blocks of raw metal waiting to be alloyed, and the machines sitting exactly as they had been the night before.
"Brock, what the hell happened?"
Without hesitation, Jake dived into Brock's room. He searched frantically until his fingers brushed against something cold hidden behind a painting: a strange, unfamiliar firearm with a handful of peculiar cartridges. He chambered a round instantly and ducked into his own room, peering out through the shadows. He didn't know exactly what he was waiting for, but he knew it was nothing good.
He sat in the corner, trying to collect his thoughts. What did I miss? His eyes landed on the gun in his hand, and he froze. Since when did he know how to handle a weapon like this? It was something he had never seen in his entire life. Suddenly, it hit him: he had forgotten that the body he was inhabiting once belonged to another soul—a soul still lurking deep within, patiently waiting for him to slip up so it could take back control.
Jake cursed under his breath, shaking off the thought. This wasn't the time to spiral. He looked out the window again and noticed the streets were now packed with people—men, women, and even grotesque mutants. They all looked incredibly battle-hardened, their eyes scanning the area with lethal intent. They seemed to be waiting for something, and somehow, Jake knew exactly what it was.
Suddenly—SLAM! The front door was kicked open. The sound of ragged, heavy breathing reached him, and Jake knew it instantly: Old man Brock was back.