Chapter 26: Test
The smell of synthetic gravy and rehydrated potatoes filled the low-ceilinged kitchen of the Iwari house. It was a warm, falsely comforting smell, layered over the older scents of damp plaster and the faint, ever-present ozone that seeped in from the city’s shielding. Rain still tapped a sporadic rhythm against the reinforced window above the sink.
“Ren, you’re pushing it around the plate. It’s not going to eat itself,” Aoi said, her voice cheerful but insistent. She nudged the ceramic dish of nutrient loaf closer to him. It was a dull brown slab, studded with the promised green flakes that pretended to be parsley. “You need your strength. Big day tomorrow with your uncle.”
Ren sat at the scarred wooden table, one hand in the pocket of the brilliant white jacket, which he had not taken off. The other held a bent fork. His eyes were fixed on the small, boxy television mounted on a corner shelf. The screen fizzed with static for a moment before resolving into the grainy, urgent image of a news presenter.
“...ongoing analysis of the previously unexplained energy surge in Sector Seven’s academy district,” the woman said, her voice tinny through the speaker. Behind her, blurred, shaky footage played on a loop: a brilliant white exosuit, angular and fast, moving with chaotic, desperate grace. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it shot, taken from a great distance, the Otowa a stark ghost against the dark academy architecture. “Unconfirmed reports suggest a prototype deterrent system was activated. Casualties were miraculously minimal. Commander Yui has scheduled a briefing for—”
Kaito reached over with his cane, which was propped against his chair, and tapped the power button on the wall. The screen died with a electronic sigh, plunging the room into a silence filled only by the rain and the hum of the aging refrigerator.
“Noise,” he grunted, sawing into his own loaf. “They don’t know what they’re looking at. Just filling airtime before the next ad for rust inhibitors.”
“It was you, though, wasn’t it, Ren?” Aoi asked, her eyes wide. She wasn’t frightened; she was fascinated. “On the television! My nephew!”
Ren finally looked down at his plate. The memory wasn’t of glory, but of panic—the screaming of the metal, the gut-churning lurch of the suit responding to his raw fear, the shadow-thing’s claws screeching down the armored chest. “It was an accident.”
“A lucky accident,” Kaito said around a mouthful of food. He pointed his fork at Ren. “That suit’s a twenty-ton tuning fork. You hit a wrong harmonic in the psychospike resonance and your brain turns to slurry. You got… phenomenally lucky.” He took a drink of water. “Your form was terrible. All instinct, no posture. You left your entire ventral plate open for a full three seconds during that lateral dash. A veteran Specter would have gutted the Otowa like a fish.”
Ren felt a flush of heat rise up his neck. The criticism, delivered so casually over dinner, stung more than the bullies’ taunts ever had.
“Kaito!” Aoi admonished.
“What? It’s true.” His uncle’s scarred face broke into a sudden, broad grin, his eyes crinkling. “But for a first-time, panic-induced, probably-pissing-himself activation? Not bad.” He chuckled, a low, rolling sound. “I’ve seen decorated pilots do worse on their fiftieth run. Of course,” he leaned back, his chair creaking under his weight, a look of theatrical nostalgia on his face, “back in my prime, during the Kobe Breach, I held a harmonic stabilization for forty-seven minutes while they evacuated two sectors. The suit’s coolant lines ruptured. I was cooking alive. Finished the containment protocol, landed, and then threw up for an hour straight. They wrote a song about it, you know. Very catchy. Forgot the words.”
Aoi snorted, covering her mouth with her hand. “You did not throw up for an hour. It was twenty minutes, and I had to clean the helmet.”
“The principle stands,” Kaito said, waving a dismissive hand, still smiling. “The point is, kid, you’ve got a flicker of something. A raw spark. Tomorrow we see if we can turn it into a pilot light without burning the house down.” He winked.
The tightness in Ren’s chest loosened, just a fraction. This was the rhythm of them. The towering legend of his uncle, always undercut by the mundane, grubby reality Aoi remembered. The boasting that was half-serious, half-self-mocking. It was a performance they’d done for years, a story told and retold to make the unimaginable horrors of the past seem manageable, almost normal.
“Will you teach me the song?” Ren asked, deadpan, picking up his fork and finally taking a bite of the flavorless loaf.
Kaito barked a laugh. “Maybe. If you can last thirty minutes in the simulator without redecorating the floor. It’s a traditional requirement.”
They finished the meal to the sound of Aoi detailing her successful hunt for real synthetic eggs at the market, a triumph of patience and bartering. Kaito interjected with exaggerated sighs about the cost. Ren listened, the white jacket sleeve brushing against his thigh. For a moment, it was just dinner. The jacket was just a heavy piece of cloth. The future was just tomorrow’s appointment.
Later, in the narrow hallway outside the bathroom, Kaito maneuvered himself with his cane. He stopped Ren with a look. The humor was gone, replaced by a quiet intensity. “You watched that news clip like you were looking at a stranger,” he said, his voice low. “That’s good. It was a stranger. That wasn’t piloting. Remember that. What starts tomorrow… that’s the real thing.”
Ren nodded, unable to speak.
In his room, small and cramped with relics of a childhood he’d abruptly outgrown, he finally shucked the jacket. He laid it across the back of his chair with a care that felt religious. The red stripe seemed to glow in the dim light from the hall.
He lay in bed, the unfamiliar ache of new muscles making itself known. The house settled around him: the groan of a pipe, the distant murmur of his aunt and uncle’s voices, the ceaseless whisper of the rain. He replayed the dinner. The joke about the song. The taste of the gravy. The warmth of the kitchen light on Aoi’s smiling face.
He clutched the edge of his thin blanket, feeling the coarse texture against his fingers. The calm was a tangible thing in the room, thick and sweet and fragile as glass. He held his breath, listening to the storm outside, knowing it was only a matter of time before it found its way in.