by Samit Basu
Ignoring Anima, Jason, and three rifle-toting Tias, ignoring the slide of plaster and metal, ARMOR bends smoothly and catches Norio a few feet from the ground.
* * *
Anima leaps out of the gaping hole in the penthouse, a ball of green light exploding out of rubble.
ARMOR’s lower jaw slides down, it tosses Norio inside, and shuts its mouth. It squats. Plates on its back and legs slide lower, broadening and fanning out. The giant mecha shuffles, moving its legs further apart.
Anima lands on its shoulders. Green katanas grow out of her hands.
Jason leaps out of the building as well, on a metal skateboard torn from a pipe.
Holsters carrying rockets pop out of ARMOR’s calves. With a roll of thunder and a billowing cloud of orange smoke, the mecha jets off, straightening up and thrusting its right arm skywards as it streaks past Atlantis Apartments and into the sky.
Anima digs her katanas into ARMOR’s shoulders. There’s a sizzle and a shower of sparks, but the swords scrape and fizzle as Anima loses her balance, and falls.
Jason, all attention set on building a grappling hook out of concrete in mid-air, doesn’t even see the torrents of flame shooting at him. A second before he’s burnt to a crisp in ARMOR’s jet stream, a lasso of green light curls around his foot. Anima hangs on to ARMOR’s thigh with claws of power, and Jason roars in pain as she draws the noose tight, sending him flailing as he flies, higher and higher, columns of rocket-fire a few feet from his bobbing face.
* * *
Norio slides through the delivery tube down to ARMOR’s stomach. There are spare uniforms in the backup pod, but he doesn’t bother putting one on. Still unsteady on his feet, he clambers up to the central control chamber and gestures the passcode, wondering whom Azusa had brought along with her.
The door slides open, and Norio feels tears sting his eyes.
They’re all there. Standing on their control pods, display screens floating around them, combat-control holograms shadowing their every movement. Raiju, smiling grimly; Oni and Baku, shaking their heads and grinning. Norio looks at Azusa, but she’s too focused on the controls to meet his gaze. Her face is as serene and serious as it is in his guiltiest thoughts, and he can’t remember when he last felt this good. He steps up to his control pod, lets ARMOR’s scanners run over him, holds his arms out, watches the holograms cover his body, and breathes deeply. He’d thought he’d never get to do this again.
“Thank you,” says Norio.
“Save your thanks for Amabie,” says Baku. “She is our leader, just to be clear.”
“Of course,” says Norio. “What’s the mission?”
“We know what we’re here for, Norio,” says Raiju. “Amabie told us. And we’re only here because we think you’re doing the right thing.”
“And you should have just told us,” says Oni.
“Can he really make it happen?” asks Baku. “Can he make us all equal?”
“I believe he can,” says Norio.
“Then I’m glad I came,” says Raiju.
“How did you do that?”
“Flew.”
“And no one stopped you?”
“Phones were on silent.”
“Over China?”
“Told them we were going to make a lot of trouble in India.”
“And they just let you pass?”
“Yes. If I met a three-hundred-foot mecha and it wanted to go somewhere else, would I try and stop it?”
“Well,” says Norio, “thank you.”
“Look at us,” says Baku. “Team unity for humans and everything.”
“Should we do one of the group fist-pump things from the anime?” asks Oni. The others laugh.
“Do you know where Kalki is?” asks Azusa.
“No,” says Norio. “Do you have the coordinates of the mall where he was supposed to be?”
“Of course,” says Azusa. “So we go there and hunt him down?”
“One child. One three-hundred-foot mecha,” says Baku. “Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Unless he’s fighting against us,” says Norio. “He’s supposed to be a god. Amabie, is there any way of locating him as you did me?”
“No.”
“How many humans in the mall?”
“Unknown. The bulk of Sher’s army is there, but I don’t know if the surveillance footage I found is reliable. Aman might be tampering with it.”
“In that case, we need to smoke Kalki out,” says Norio. “How far away is this mall?”
“We’ll be there in ten minutes,” says Azusa.
“Let’s show them it would be a bad idea to stay indoors,” says Norio.
“Right,” says Azusa. “Time to turn around, then.”
* * *
ARMOR stands in the sky above the gaping ruin of Atlantis Apartments, shining in the sunlight, the vertical boosters on its lower back humming and pulsing blue as they keep the mecha-bot in mid-air. It raises its wrists and launch tunnels slide out of its arms. One by one, missiles slide into place.
Anima flies out from below ARMOR’s waist. A beam of light slices through the air, stopping a hundred feet in front of the giant mecha. Anima turns, crouched in warrior-stance on a disc of light. The anime princess and Tokyo’s defender face each other, Anima’s round cartoon eyes never leaving ARMOR’s blank, sparkling diamonds. If Anima feels any fear at the sight of the tower-sized death-engine floating in front of her, she does not show it.
Seven missiles fly towards Anima.
But another figure, rushing up from below ARMOR, flies faster. Jason sits astride a spinning board of metal he’s ripped off a rooftop water tank. He extends his arms and kneels on his board as he flies towards Anima. The missiles swerve and stand in mid-air, shaking and hissing. Jason crosses them and stands up, and the missiles turn again, their noses pointing straight back at the mecha-giant.
Anima hurls her spear. It streaks towards ARMOR’s head, and the missiles follow it, smoke streaming in their wake.
ARMOR crosses its arms across its chest. A panel opens on its forehead, and blue rings of light emerge, barely visible in the bright sunlight.
The missiles snap out of their trajectories and fall spinning to earth. Anima and Jason watch helplessly as they land on the buildings below them. Seven fireballs blossom across the complex.
ARMOR spins through a sequence of attack katas, and launches another barrage of missiles that scatter across the development. Jason diverts some of them, but at least twenty escape him, and Atlantis burns.
Twin jets of fire stream out from ARMOR’s hands.
Jason builds a wall in mid-air and stops them, but a second later ARMOR charges, covering the short distance in an instant, smashing right through the wall, and Jason and Anima, swatted like flies, fall into the burning cloud.
As more explosions shake the complex, and burning towers fall like dominoes, ARMOR rises again, and heads east.
None of the mecha-pilots in the control sphere in ARMOR’s heart notice a lasso of light spin out of the inferno and loop itself around the mecha-giant’s left foot. Or the green ball of light at the other end of the lasso that rises behind ARMOR, bouncing about crazily through the crumbling towers, carrying Jason and Anima within it.
* * *
“This isn’t right, Amabie,” says Baku. “We killed a lot of innocent people.”
“They were soldiers,” says Azusa. “They knew what they were getting into.”
“ARMOR protects cities,” says Raiju. “This isn’t what we do.”
“You know what we’re trying to accomplish,” says Azusa. “This is a war. Lives will be lost.”
Baku disconnects from ARMOR’s controls.
“Not thanks to me,” he says. “I’m out.”
“Then get out,” snarls Azusa.
The others watch in silence as Baku storms towards the exit, stops, growls, and walks slowly back to his control pod. Azusa waves in adjustments, and ARMOR switches to five-man controls again.
“Large group at the mall,” says Azusa. “All moving.”
“Kalki will be with Sher,” says Norio. “Tias will run the defence while they make their escape. There should be at least one Tia with Sher when he leaves the mall. So watch out for Tias heading out.”
Azusa nods, and closes her eyes. A trickle of blood runs out of her left ear.
“Are you hurt?” Raiju asks.
“No,” says Azusa. “Now let me focus.”
“Raiju,” says Norio. “Give me a visual on the mall. Internal scans, too. Fill the room.”
Raiju waves her surveillance panels open. A floating model of the mall appears in the centre of the control sphere, but as the image begins to sharpen, it turns grainy and disappears.
“Lost the satellite,” says Raiju.
“Aman’s watching,” says Norio. “Turn off anything that connects to an external network. And I mean everything.”
The mall is visible on the main viewer now, and far below them Norio sees the ant-like figures of Sher’s soldiers on the roof. Sensors flash red: artillery posts are firing surface-to-air missiles at them, though nothing strong enough to breach ARMOR’s hide. The mall courtyard is a flurry of activity: cars, SUVs, motorbikes and armoured auto-rickshaws stream out of the parking lots and out on the street.
The alarms sound again as ARMOR makes its first sweep over the mall: to the south, an attack helicopter approaches, firing missiles. ARMOR’s shoulder-pads slide apart to reveal plasma cannons.
One burst, and the helicopter’s crew are the first casualties of the battle at the MegaMall.
Suddenly all the lights inside the control chamber turn red, and a hologram of ARMOR appears in the middle of the sphere, its left leg red and blinking.
“Hull breach,” says Azusa.
* * *
Anima’s out of breath, but her strength and stamina are unrelenting as she smashes the point of her power-lance into the joint behind ARMOR’s knee. It has taken a while: the mecha’s left leg is covered in dents and burns, but she’s finally managed to pierce ARMOR’s skin. She falls back, screeching in triumph.
A few feet below her, Jason yells too, and slides his metal harness upwards. His face contorts with strain as he reaches up, and thrusts his hand into the metal gash. The crack in ARMOR’s hide widens, and Jason peels the mecha’s knee skin like a piece of fruit. In a few seconds several square metres of complex circuitry and wiring are revealed. ARMOR’s innards are laid bare. Jason’s lips curl upwards; Anima is less restrained, howling as she flies forward, katanas raised.
They go to work.
* * *
ARMOR twists and turns in the sky above the MegaMall, ignoring the missiles fired from below. For a giant mecha, ARMOR is remarkably flexible, but no kaiju has ever required it to touch the back of its legs. It shakes its leg about, but Jason hangs on grimly, and Anima is too quick.
“We’re going to lose the leg,” says Baku. “We need to split up.”
“No,” says Azusa. “Our communications might be jammed.”
“Crash down into the building, then,” says Raiju. “That’ll shake them off.”
“Too many casualties,” says Norio “If we destroy the mall and the kid hasn’t left, all this will be for nothing.”
“Focus on the mission,” says Azusa. “This is a distraction.”
“Tell me,” Norio says to her. “Where is Kalki?”
In response, Azusa brings up three screens. One shows a convoy of orange and black SUVs pulling out of the mall’s driveway. Another shows three armoured rickshaws, heading west, about a kilometre from the mall’s gates.
The third visual is of a single vehicle leaving the mall through the rear entrance.
“No Tias in that one,” says Azusa. “But I think it’s our prime suspect.”
It’s obvious why. The vehicle is a tank.
“We hunt them down, one by one,” says Azusa. “Let’s start with the tank.”
“No,” says Norio. “The tank seems obvious. They know we’re watching. Both the other possibilities are convoys. With Tias splitting up in a hundred directions we could be looking forever.”
“What then?” asks Raiju. “We’ve almost lost a leg.”
“I have a plan,” says Norio.
“Not you,” says Baku. “Amabie. What do we do?”
Azusa walks up to Norio. She grabs his head and kisses him. Oni breaks into applause. Baku and Raiju look away. When Azusa lets Norio go, they’re both smiling.
“Here’s what we do,” says Azusa.
* * *
Anima pulls Jason away just in time.
ARMOR’s leg snaps backward, plates sliding and interlocking, three blades bursting out of the space where Jason’s body was a second ago. The gaping hole they’ve created in ARMOR’s leg disappears in a melee of moving parts as ARMOR transforms.
Anima and Jason keep attacking: she sends light-shuriken sizzling into every undefended gap she sees, and he sends parts of ARMOR spinning out of the whirl of machinery, building a sphere of metal parts around himself. But, despite their efforts, two minutes later, five complete demon-mechas hover above the MegaMall.
* * *
Oni and Baku engage Anima and Jason immediately.
A sonic blast from Baku sends Anima spinning downwards; while Oni goes straight for the kill, sending a horn-missile bursting through Jason’s defences.
Jason dodges and the ridged rocket misses him by a whisker, but, in the process, Jason loses control of his whirling metal shield, and falls helplessly towards the mall.
Baku and Oni’s demon-mechas follow their opponents down into the combat zone, bullets from machine-gun fire on the roof pinging off their hides like endless rain.
Baku looks down at the column of tanks and artillery vehicles crawling out of the mall’s parking lot, and swears as he steers his mecha away, lining up his weapons for a bombing run.
* * *
Raiju heads west after the armoured autos. Goryo speeds off east after the SUVs. The tank, to the south, is Amabie’s.
The lightning wolf makes the first strike. Raiju’s wolf-mecha lands heavily on the road in front of the autos. The first few are thrown off the road by the sheer impact. Tiger-tattooed Tias roll out of the vehicles, bathing the red wolf in gunfire. More Tias leap from the other autos, carrying rocket launchers.
Suddenly, Raiju faces a mob.
But the mecha strides on, its fangs crunching through one auto after another, methodically checking for any signs of Kalki, alive or dead, and shuddering under the impact of rockets and grenades. When Raiju’s sensors show critical damage levels, the wolf squats on its haunches. A cannon emerges from its mouth.
The Tias crumble into dust as Raiju bathes them in chain lightning. The wolf-mecha looks down the road, where four more autos roll resolutely westwards.
Raiju leaps forward in pursuit.
* * *
Goryo’s ghost-mecha flies over the SUV convoy as it speeds up a flyover. Inside his control chamber, Norio feels as if his body is on fire; every nerve is tingling, time has slowed down. He’s never been more in control.
Skylights flip open on the SUVs. Tias emerge, wielding heavy rail guns.
Goryo strafes from left to right, minimising the damage to his bodywork. The mecha’s black skull slides forward with an eerie moan as it falls back. Its teeth lengthen and start to spin as it moves lower, and lower still, a line of fifteen razor-sharp spinning blades.
Goryo darts forward, he’s just a few feet behind the last SUV. One plasma-burst destroys a Tia. Goryo moves lower. The blades shred through the SUV’s roof in a second, like the world’s deadliest can opener. Even from inside his demon-mecha, Norio can hear the squeal of anguished metal, see the shower of sparks. He rises swiftly, and scans the SUV. No Kalki. A plasma burst melts a huge circle on the road, and sends the SUV spinning, leaping, tumbling off the flyover.
Norio steers his mecha forward again.
* * *
As he mows his way across the mall’s roof, dotting it with machine-gun fire, Baku remembers the first time he’d played a First-Person Shooter. It had been a World War II simulation, and he’d been amazing at it. If he’d stuck to it, just played the tournaments, never ventured into online quests, he’d never have met the ARMOR squadron. If he hadn’t been so good at the shooters, he’d have killed fewer people on the roof. Sher’s soldiers die screaming as he chases Jason across the roof; Baku tries not to imagine their families.
The telekinetic moves fast, pulling himself close to any heavy object he can find, darting from corner to corner as Sher’s men die around him. When he finds a heap of moulded aluminium sheets, he stops. As Baku streams ahead, Jason sends them flying after the mecha. The sheets curve and wrap themselves over the metal demon. One cam-feed after another disappears. In one remaining side-cam, Baku watches Anima and Oni battle above the courtyard. The teen princess shields herself well from Oni’s attacks. She doesn’t know Oni could out-princess her in five seconds anywhere else in the world. Baku smiles grimly.
And then a volley from the tanks below finds its mark. Oni’s mecha shudders and lurches. Anima hurls a volley of light-arrows. And Baku watches helplessly as Oni explodes.
Baku tries his communicator again but it doesn’t work. He hears his own voice in his head, telling himself calmly to get out while he still can, to turn back time, to fight monsters again, not superheroes.
But he sees his hands waving a change in his flight path. As if from far away, he hears himself screaming in rage as he turns his mecha and races towards Anima.
* * *
The tank had left the road a while ago. It’s ploughing through an abandoned construction site now, trundling steadily over any obstacle in its path. The gunner is good: the tank’s turret swivels with remarkable speed, the main gun firing shells at Amabie with fearsome accuracy as she hovers above it. There’s a fast machine-gun on the tank’s hatch, sending a steady stream of bullets pounding into the mermaid’s body. Azusa ignores it. Only the main gun has the capacity to pierce her scales, and Azusa’s reflexes have always been the best in her squad: even Norio could only defeat her half the time. She times her sideways darts perfectly, waiting for the right moment to strike. She’s beginning to enjoy herself, to find patterns in the gunner’s behaviour. It’s only when her tail-cam picks up the mid-air explosion in the distance above the mall that she remembers her teammates need her help.