Chapter 4 : Welcome to the 16th

Location: "The Jackpot" - Pachinko Parlor, 16th District

The first thing Ren felt wasn't the pain. It was the pressure. Something incredibly heavy was crushing his chest, as if a piece of concrete had fallen on him. He opened his eyes.

A girl was sitting on him. Her long, purple hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her green eyes stared unfocused at something she was holding in her hand. The scent of her hit Ren: a mixture of chewing gum, gunpowder, and some cheap, sickeningly sweet perfume.

The girl didn't even look at Ren. In one hand, she held a greasy thick notebook, worn ragged from flipping through it-the Recyclers' 'Catalog,' in which brands, garments, and valuables from the Upper World were sketched and described for easier looting. With her other hand, she was fingering the lapel of Ren's torn, bloody school blazer, comparing it to one of the drawings in the book.

'Kinkyo Private Academy...' the girl muttered to herself, popping a huge pink bubblegum bubble. 'One hundred percent cotton blend, gold-plated buttons. Well, boom.'

Reality suddenly sliced into Ren's mind like a lightning strike. The explosion. The grinder. The Porcelain Doll. The darkness. His pulse shot to the heavens, and his survival instinct switched on instantly.

'Get... get off me!' he groaned, trying to kick and roll the girl off him with his hips.

It was like trying to move a steel pillar. Kana didn't just not fall; she didn't even budge. That thin body dressed in baggy techwear was unnaturally, physics-defyingly heavy.

Ren panicked and tried to push her away with his hands. That was when he noticed his left arm... was different. It was cold, hard, and snow-white. But before he could think about it, Kana simply, without any effort, pinned both of Ren's wrists down with one hand. Her grip was like an industrial vice. Ren's bones creaked under the pressure.

The girl slowly, boredly lowered the Catalog and finally looked straight into Ren's icy blue eyes. There was no anger on her face, no excitement. Only clinical, empty observation.

'Take it easy, Virgin Boy,' Kana said, as he later got to know that was the girl's name in a monotone voice, using her free hand to pull up one of Ren's eyelids, shining light into it from the neon sign. 'Pupillary reflex... present. Though your color is still like a fresh corpse by the wall. I'm just checking to make sure you didn't turn into a Discard while you were dozing.'

Ren tried to break free with a snort, flailing his legs, but Kana leaned her weight onto his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs.

Then, a sharp, beeping sound broke the struggle. It came from Kana's pocket. The girl let go of Ren's face, pulled out a plastic Tamagotchi, and sighed.

'Dammit, my dog died again...' she said dully.

With that, she suddenly jumped off Ren in a single springy motion, as if the boy were merely an uncomfortable gym mat. There was nothing human in the movement; she landed on her feet as effortlessly as a cat. She immediately lost interest in Ren and, pressing the buttons, headed toward the exit of the room.

Ren sat up on the torn leather sofa, coughing and gasping for air. He stared in shock at his own left hand, which had turned into perfect, snow-white porcelain all the way to the shoulder. At the ends of his fingers, sharp, cracked blades protruded. He didn't understand.

Kana stood in the open doorway, looking out into the hallway, and shouted:

'Hey, Boss! I think our little porcelain "Doll" is awake!'

A dull thud echoed from the darkness of the hallway. It was Gaiku, who had just kicked a coffee machine, speaking in his lazy voice.

'What's the diagnosis?'

Kana leaned against the doorframe, chewing gum, and gestured with the Catalog toward Ren sitting behind her.

'What he's wearing is interesting. I checked it in the book. Elite Academy set. Expensive-ass shit. It could be two things: either a real rich kid was thrown through the Grinder from Above for some reason, or he just scavenged the rags from the junkyard.'

Steps approached from the direction of the machine.

'I don't care much about his clothes right now; what condition is the boy in?' Gaiku asked, just opening a canned coffee.

'That's the weirdest part,' Kana continued, turning her green, empty gaze back to Ren for a moment. 'I examined him. He absorbed the raw ink, but his organs didn't rot. He didn't turn into a Discard. Only his left arm mutated into that porcelain shit. He literally digested the monster instead of it digesting him.'

Gaiku then entered the room. He wore baggy military training pants, a tight black t-shirt, and a black crop jacket. He was tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but as he looked over Ren sitting on the bed in shock, then at his porcelain hand, something flashed in his gaze. Something that balanced on the edge of danger and curiosity.

'How's the well-being, Kid?' Gaiku asked after a casual sip of coffee. 'Numbness? Nausea? An urge to eat others?'

Ren's brain was spinning at a thousand miles per hour. While Gaiku spoke, his eyes were already scanning the room. Exit. Distance. Odds. The door was four meters away, but Gaiku and the purple-haired girl stood there. The window was boarded up. His left arm felt incredibly heavy, but maybe if he broke through the boards... he realized he had no chance of escape.

'If that monster from last night...' Ren squeezed the words out, his voice hoarse and full of adrenaline. 'If it's still loose... you have to call the police!'

Kana stopped chewing and blinked at him. Then she suddenly laughed-a short, sharp, completely humorless sound.

Gaiku sighed and lowered the coffee can. His casualness vanished for a moment.

'Police?' Gaiku shook his head and stepped closer. 'Kid, look around you. This isn't the skyscraper-filled, clean Japanese district you came from. This is the Other Side of the Wall. There are no police here, no laws, and most importantly, no one here is going to save you if you mess something up.'

Gaiku's gaze changed; his voice became deeper, heavier.

'And that thing last night wasn't a "monster." It was a Discard.' Gaiku pointed to the boy's mutated arm. 'In your wonderful little World, happiness is mandatory. Everyone is perfect. But what if a little girl is abused? What if an adult can't process their traumas and wants to escape into suicide? They go to the clinic and have it cut out of them.'

A lump grew in Ren's throat. He remembered the many advertisements praising the Kinkyo Clinic, followed by the empty, always-smiling people on the street.

'Beneath the clinics,' Gaiku continued. 'All those expensive doctors you adore extract the traumas, the pain, and all those rotten, dark thoughts from your heads. But you better know that all that dark energy doesn't just disappear. They put it into defective objects related to the trauma. Then they vanish it from the face of the earth... which means they dump it down here, into the Junkyard, on our heads. These objects come to life. They grow a dark soul from the pain and hunt human souls to eat their beautiful memories-this eases their endless pain.'

Gaiku stared at Ren.

'What you killed yesterday was one of the 32 strongest Discards. According to our records, it was one of the first traumas that ended up beyond the wall. A trauma of a little girl who was abused by her mother; they locked it into a cracked porcelain doll that the little girl had received from her father before her purification. A few mutilated people who managed to escape at the beginning of the monster's existence told the story; we only knew it from legends. No one had seen it for more than 7 years. That bastard laid several villages to waste. It mostly attacked young girls and little girls-usually searching for victims that most resembled the monster's traumatic past. Psh, looking at it, it grew quite large; who knows how many people's deaths it's responsible for.'

Gaiku's voice became bittersweet. 'The point is, kid, they up there smile in the clean air, and we down here die from their nightmares.'

Ren remained silent. The weight of reality crushed him. His parents had worked for the elite that did this to innocent people. A machine that birthed such an unjust abyss between humans.

'Why is he still here?' a voice interrupted.

A tall, thin man stepped forward from the shadows of the doorway. His hair was tied in a tight black ponytail. Something in his hand glinted with a strange metallic sheen in the room's neon light. It was Ryaku. He didn't look at Ren. More precisely: he looked through him.

'We should have thrown him into the junkyard this morning,' Ryaku said, contempt dripping from his voice and gaze.

'Because he's useful, Ryaku,' Gaiku answered casually, returning to his previous comfortable posture. 'And because I said so.'

'Instable,' Ryaku snapped, finally lifting his gaze to Ren. 'He reeks of ink. According to Kana, he was capable of desecrating a kid's corpse from above just to get clothing. He isn't like us. He isn't a victim, but a thief who, on top of that, swallowed what a normal, sane person would destroy. If he changes, I'll be the one to cut off his head. I don't care what you say, Gaiku.'

Gaiku sighed, then slowly lowered the coffee can. He didn't raise his voice, but his casualness vanished for a moment.

'All right, drama queens. That's enough.' Gaiku snapped his fingers. 'If the boy's presence is stressing the team this much, then let's play democracy. We vote. There are two options: either we throw him out the door and give him back to the hyenas of the other districts, or we take him in among us.'

Kana laughed-'The boss and democracy.'

Ryaku's eyes narrowed, but he didn't retract his wires.

'If he killed someone up there and they threw him over the Wall for it, then it's pointless for us to vote. I'll slit his throat myself right now. We don't collect rotten murderers.'

At this point, something in Ren snapped. The fear, the choking, and the humiliation were suddenly replaced by that raw, black rage he had felt by the burning car wreck.

'I didn't kill anyone!' he squeezed the words out, his voice hoarse but full of fury. He didn't care that the wire was cutting his skin right now. He looked straight into Ryaku's eyes, then lifted his gaze to Gaiku. 'I was a courier for the Kurogane Clan... I delivered their packages at night. And alongside that, I was a student at the Kinkyo Elite High School.'

Kana stopped chewing for a moment. 'Beside the elite school? Tough,' she remarked uninterestingly.

'My parents paid half my tuition while we lived in poverty...' Ren's voice trembled, but he immediately hardened it. 'I needed the money to maintain the appearance. I did everything perfectly for years. But one of the rival clans found out who I was. They put a bomb in our car.'

Ren closed his eyes; in his nose, he felt the smell of burnt rubber and blood again.

'My parents got in instead of me. They were the ones who died. And my own boss, the leader of the Kurogane, instead of protecting me... he made me disappear. So no tracks would remain. They threw me in here alive with a container.'

A dead silence settled over the pachinko hall. Even the sound of the buzzing neon lights in the background seemed to grow louder. Ren lifted his mutated, snow-white porcelain hand and clenched it into a fist.

'They took everything from me. My name, my family, and my life,' Ren said, and in his blue eyes now there was nothing but pure, dark determination. 'I don't want to be a victim. I want to take revenge on them. On every single one who is up there and feeds this system.'

Gaiku watched the boy silently, then slowly nodded.

'Motivated. I like that,' Gaiku said, then turned to the others. 'All right. Voting. I vote for staying.'

Kana popped her bubblegum bubble with a loud bang, then pulled her Tamagotchi out of her pocket.

'The boss is starting again; I hope this one lives longer than the last one... if he's for it, then I'm for it too,' she said indifferently, pressing the buttons. 'Besides...' and her interested green eyes wandered to Ryaku, 'I bet a thousand that he survives the morning. If we kill him now, I lose my money and I won't be able to buy gummy bears.'

A strange scratching sound was heard from the dark ceiling. Kenji's head hung down from the darkness, staring straight down as if his neck were dislocated.

'If you take revenge...' Kenji whispered, twitching, 'then at the end... can I eat the dead mobsters?'

Ren flinched but slowly nodded. 'On my part.'

'Then I'm for it too!' Kenji grinned and crawled back into the shadows on all fours.

Gaiku looked at Ryaku. 'Three yes. You're up.'

Ryaku's facial muscles tightened. Very slowly, reluctantly, he loosened his grip, and the thin, bloody wires slid back under his skin. He stepped back from Ren in disgust.

'No,' Ryaku said. 'He is still an anomaly who absorbed the rot of a Discard. But since you are three against one, according to the gang's rules, he must stay...'

Gaiku nodded satisfactorily and closed the debate.

'Then the vote is decided,' Gaiku declared. 'You are officially a member of Unit 7. Congratulations on the promotion.'

Ren raised his eyebrows, still rubbing his aching neck. 'I didn't say a single word about wanting to stay.'

Gaiku laughed softly and put his hand on his shoulder.

'You don't have to say it. Out there, living in the shadow of the Wall, the ink-addicted hyenas or rival gangs will butcher you. If you walk out that door, by evening you'll only have your nice little uniform left on the black market.'

'Here, however, you get food, a roof over your head, and most importantly...' Gaiku's eyes glinted. 'Maybe a chance for revenge.'

Ren looked around at everyone in the room. These people are crazy, he thought to himself. Completely nuts.

But he knew that out there... out there only certain death awaited him. Moreover, since he got here from the Grinder, this was the first place where they didn't want to kill him in the first five minutes. And maybe-just maybe-with these trained, mutated killers at his side, he really has a chance for revenge against the Upper World.

Ren took a deep breath and lowered his porcelain left arm to his side.

'I'm staying,' he said firmly.

'Perfect. Then put on your uniform,' Gaiku threw a bag at him. 'If you perform well, Arata will eventually make a real Unit 7 uniform for you that actually fits.'

'But I have one condition,' Ren added.

Kana, who was messing with one of the cables hanging from the ceiling, yawned loudly. 'Well, what is it? Do you want a pony?'

'No,' Ren looked at her with a sharp eye while taking off his pants. 'I want you not to stare when I'm changing.'

Kana stopped chewing for a moment, then grinned wickedly and sharply. She said nothing, just slowly, provocatively popped two gummy bears into her mouth while continuing to stare at the boy intensely, without blinking.

Ren shook his head, then pointed to the back of Ryaku, who was already heading out.

'And you... if you choke me one more time, I swear that...'

Ryaku stopped at the threshold. He turned around slowly.

'That what?' Ryaku asked in an ice-cold voice. 'You'll break your mutant porcelain hand on my face? Just try it. I'm curious how fast I can slice off your fingers before you even lift your arm.'

'All right, testosterone overload: switch it off!' Gaiku interrupted, gesturing toward the exit with his hand. 'You'll polish the gang dynamics during combat. Now let's get out. We'll show you around the district, Kid. It's time you see where you're going to live.'

Ren finished dressing; he was in all black, in a simple and light-structured outfit.

'The boots are by the entrance,' Gaiku added while sizing the boy up.

'Not bad,' Kana stated. 'You're a bit thin, but the Unit uniform suits you. At least the color of your clothes and your eyes now matches your inner state. Gray and boring.'

'Kenji! Get off the ceiling! We're moving!' Gaiku said.

Kenji dropped from somewhere in the darkness, right next to Ren. He landed on all fours, his neck twitching strangely. He grinned at Ren.

'Hi, are you Gaiku and the others' new toy? If you die, can I have your shoes?'

Ren sighed.

'I hate this place.'

Kana stepped next to him and slapped him on the back in a friendly-but hard-way.

'Look, try not to die in the first five minutes like my dog in the Tamagotchi, okay? As I said, I bet a thousand with Ryaku that you wouldn't last until noon. I bet on you.'

'Really?' Ren looked at her with a bit of hope.

'Yeah. I said you'd last until one in the afternoon. Don't disappoint me; I need the money for cigarettes and bears.'

They headed toward the exit.

When they stepped out from the dim light of the Pachinko hall, the 16th district hit Ren's face with its full rawness. By the wall where he had fallen yesterday, he saw only trash, darkness, and rot. Here, in the heart of the district, however... here there was life. A chaotic, suffocating, yet throbbing life.

The narrow streets were covered with thick rising pillars of steam. Between the buildings, built on top of each other and cobbled together from rusty metal sheets and concrete blocks, tarps were stretched, with yellow and red neon tubes hung on them. The streets were packed with people. Vendors were shouting, meats of questionable origin were grilling on grates improvised from oil drums-Kenji's neck immediately began to twitch wildly as the smell of spicy grease hit his nose.

But there was something that immediately grabbed Ren's attention as he looked at the houses.

The walls.

Not a single building, not a single wall surface remained bare. Everything was covered with paintings. These weren't simple, lettered tags or street scribbles. Figures applied with raw, angry, vibrant colors covered the concrete. Distorted, crown-wearing, leering skulls, falling-apart asymmetrical anatomies, jagged lines, and screaming faces. It was like the nightmares of a crazy child mixed with some visceral, throbbing, ancient cave art.

Ren stopped and stared at the three-story art towering over him, which depicted a multi-eyed, melting figure.

'These... what are these?' he asked, mesmerized, as he sank his porcelain hand into his jacket pocket. 'Who painted all of this?'

Gaiku stopped next to him and poked toward the wall with his hand in his pocket.

'Pretty, isn't it? But here, this isn't decoration, Kid. This is a security system.'

Ren looked at him uncomprehendingly.

'What do you mean, security system?'

'The paint,' Gaiku spoke softly. 'The paint is mixed with the ink of strong, high-level Discards. The smaller, weaker Discards that wander in here feel the scent of the stronger beings on the walls. The ink's radiation terrifies them, so they stay far away from the district parts. It's a kind of psychological safety net. The other larger districts use this too. Whoever sleeps out in the unpainted zone... for them, death is fixed by morning.'

They walked further into the whirl. Ren tried to take everything in. In the elite academy and the districts on the other side of the wall, silence and order ruled. Here, chaos was the master, yet people still laughed, bartered, and lived.

Suddenly, a team of ragged, dirty-faced kids ran across the street in front of them, shrieking and laughing. One, a boy about eight years old, had pulled a leaky metal bucket over his head with two eyes painted on it, and wires were wrapped around his arms.

'I am the Lacer!' he shouted from under the bucket and threw himself after the others. 'I'll hug you in the name of Beauty until your ribs crack!'

'Aaa, watch out, a Discard is coming!' the others screamed and threw themselves behind a noodle-vending booth.

Kana popped a bubblegum bubble loudly as she looked after them. 'I love the local folklore. So educative,' she remarked with complete apathy.

A few blocks away, the crowd began to thin, and the din grew quieter. They reached a massive, dark gray concrete wall, which was the only surface in the area not covered by neon or raw, colorful graffiti. This wall was covered with hundreds of names written in thick white chalk and paint. In front of a few names lay burnt-out candles, half-smoked cigarettes, or cleaned, valuable pieces of plastic. Two elderly women were quietly praying in front of one of the inscriptions.

Ren fell silent. He didn't have to ask what this was.

'The Wall of Remembrance,' Gaiku said softly. The usual lazy cynicism had vanished from his voice. 'Here we write up those who were snatched by the monsters. And those Unit members who... pushed the Ink too far and lost themselves in the fight.'

Ryaku didn't say anything. He just stared silently, with a clenched jaw, at a certain point on the wall, at an old group of names.

They got back to the main road, and Gaiku looked at Ren.

'Well, but enough with the nostalgia,' he clapped his hands together, snapping back into his previous style. 'Time to equip the team's newest unpaid laborer.'

They turned into a narrow, neon-lit alley where a blue sign above a shop entrance flickered and crackled continuously, announcing the store's name: 'U-BUY-IT.' Below it, on a smaller painted sign, the motto: 'No refunds. No crying.'

As they entered, the inside of the shop looked like the love child of a military warehouse and a junkyard. Gas masks, modified iron pipes, weapons, and carefully cleaned relics from the Upper World hung everywhere. Behind the counter sat a figure tattooed in black, who nodded surly to Gaiku.

'A Basic Pack for the rookie,' Gaiku said, throwing a handful of crumpled yen onto the counter along with a small jar of black liquid.

The seller went to the back, then placed a heavy black waist bag and two thick, leather-bound notebooks in front of Ren. Gaiku pushed the stuff toward Ren.

'In the bag is a "Graffiti Pack." Three spray cans of paint mixed with ink. If we liberate a district, we have to draw a safety net over it first; you'll get into the local art and expression later. However, it's good for other things too: if they corner you and there are too many Discards, you spray it in an arc in front of you. It'll keep the weaker trash away for a few minutes until we get there to save your ass.'

Ren carefully buckled the waist bag, then looked at the two notebooks. They were the same as what Kana had held in her hand earlier when she was sitting on him.

'And these?'

'Those are your Bibles,' grinned Kana, who in the meantime had taken a pair of sunglasses off the wall and was trying them on. 'Volume One: Upper Trash. In this are descriptions of the most valuable brands, jewelry, and watches. If we kill a monster or find a fresh shipment thrown down from Above, from this you'll know what's worth taking for sale on the market and what we leave to rot.'

'And Volume Two is the Discards,' Gaiku took over. 'The inks of certain monsters are worth a fortune to the engravers and ink thinners. What we kill, we recycle. Clear?'

Ren nodded and put away the notebooks.

As they walked out the door of 'U-BUY-IT' back into the bustling alley, Ren looked back through the shop window.

'There's something I don't understand,' he spoke up while adjusting the strap of his new waist bag on his hip. 'I saw that you threw a handful of Yen on the counter, but before I took the bag, you placed a tiny vial next to it. It was black. Why did you pay with ink?'

Gaiku shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a casual shrug.

'Good eyes, Kid. Down here you have to forget the economy of the Upper World. In all the districts by the wall, the real currency is Ink; Yen is only in second place, that's just small change for food and basic supplies.'

Gaiku stopped for a moment and poked toward the surging, dirty crowd with his chin.

'Pay attention later in the market. Sometimes you'll see people smoking cigarettes whose smoke isn't gray, but charcoal black and cyan blue. Ink cigs.'

'Ink cigs?' Ren frowned.

'A decommissioned Japanese soldier makes them at the foot of the Wall, in no man's land. In very small quantities, because he only uses the best, purest quality ink for them. A single puff from it gives such a power boost as if you were injecting pure ink into your veins, but without dying from the mutation. With a pack of those, you can literally buy anything and anyone in the district.'

'And where will we get ink to pay with?' Ren asked, though he already guessed part of the answer.

'From the notebook you just got,' Ryaku spoke up softly from behind them. 'We hunt down the Discards. And we collect the discarded luxury relics of the Upper World. We sell the lower quality ink to the thinners and quack doctors for Yen and premium quality ink in exchange. That's the big cycle.'

'But why don't they need the premium ink?' Ren asked surprised.

'Because they can't process it,' Gaiku snapped. 'That requires special knowledge that the Recyclers' engravers have.' "

The blood of a Discard is worth a fortune, but it can only be utilized in specific, dark corners of this world. Thus, for the locals, it's a fair trade to receive "weak ink"-something they can actually use-in exchange for the pure, volatile strain.

Before Ren could press them for more answers, a sharp, rhythmic beeping sliced through the stale air. Gaiku reached into his pocket and produced a massive, shockproof pager. Black characters blurred across the small green display. In an instant, Gaiku's face hardened; his trademark laziness evaporated.

"Dispatcher," he said curtly. "We've got a 'Stray.'"

"What class?" Kana asked, bored, as she blew a fresh, wobbling bubble of pink gum.

"Some kind of discarded, synthesizer-type Discard. The report says it's burrowed into the local homeless colony and has started... consuming the residents."

In that tense, cinematic moment, an incredibly loud, guttural growl vibrated between the alley walls. It sounded like a prehistoric beast rumbled to life. Everyone froze. Ryaku's hand blurred to his wires; Kenji pressed himself against the concrete, hissing as he scanned for an invisible foe.

But it wasn't a monster. It was Ren's stomach.

The boy's face caught fire with shame. The sheer weight of yesterday's trauma and the physical exhaustion had finally hit; his body was literally screaming for calories. Kana exploded into a loud, mocking cackle. Even Gaiku cracked a smirk as he reached into his inner jacket pocket.

He tossed a foil-wrapped package to Ren. It was Yakisoba Pan-a soft, slightly sweet bun stuffed with fried noodles. To Ren, it looked like the most appetizing "junk food" he had ever seen in his life.

"That's your breakfast. And your lunch," Gaiku said casually, turning toward the main road. "We'll see about dinner... if you survive the afternoon."

Ren ripped the foil open and took a massive bite of the bun, rushing to keep up with the others as the sugar began to stabilize his brain.

"Wait..." he muttered, his mouth full of noodles. "A synthesizer? You said we're going up against a synthesizer?!"

"Yep!" Kana chirped, slapping Ren on the shoulder. The girl's strike wasn't human. Thanks to his porcelain arm, Ren didn't shatter, but the sheer force nearly sent him face-first into the asphalt. He stumbled, catching himself on a rusted oil drum just to stay upright.

"But watch out for the Discards built into the speakers and amplifiers, Virgin Boy!" Kana winked, laughing as she looked back. "It's not the keys you should fear. Their bass will literally vibrate your internal organs into liquid pulp if you get too close!"

A few minutes later, they emerged into a wide, cratered section of the road where the Unit 7 rig was parked. A massive '7' and distorted skulls had been sprayed onto the side in angry, neon-red paint-part of the local graffiti defense.

The van hit a pothole so deep Ren's head slammed against the metal ceiling. The interior looked like the love child of a tank and a garbage truck. Reinforced with rusted metal plates and littered with ammo crates instead of seats, the air was thick with the scent of stale coffee and gunpowder.

Ren sat on the floor, trying to map the district in his head. At the Kurogane Clan, every shipment had a briefing. A route. A Plan B.

Here? Here, Kana was holding a funeral in the passenger seat.

"Someone call the time of death... it's over," Kana announced dramatically, holding a pink Tamagotchi aloft. "Poor 'Pudding.' Its heart couldn't take the stress of Gaiku's driving." She pulled out a black marker, drew a small cross on the plastic egg, and tossed it out the window into the filth of the 16th District. "Rest in peace, prince. Be free."

Gaiku just flicked the steering wheel with one hand while slapping the radio with the other, trying to catch a signal through the static. "Kenji, get off the ceiling. You're messing with the center of gravity in the turns."

Ren looked up. Kenji was indeed clinging to the roof like a spider, defying gravity. He was busy tearing strips of foam out of the seat cushions and chewing them. "But the sponge has the best flavor," Kenji muttered, his head swiveling 180 degrees to look at Ren with a sickening crack of his neck. "Want some? It tastes like cotton candy, but with a hint of dust mites."

Ren's stomach turned. He tried to remain rational. "Listen," he said, his voice dropping into a serious tone. "We're approaching the zone. What's the team protocol?"

Silence fell. Even Kenji stopped chewing. They all stared at him.

"The... what?" Kana asked, unwrapping a new piece of gum.

"The plan," Ren repeated impatiently. "The insertion plan. Who covers the entrance? Who's on recon? What gear do I get? Do we even have a map of the building?"

Ryaku, who had been sitting in the corner with his eyes shut, cracked one open. "A map?" he asked mockingly. "Discard aren't architects. They grow the walls out of their own flesh and metal constantly. Yesterday's map is just toilet paper today."

"But there has to be a strategy!" Ren snapped.

Gaiku caught his eye in the rearview mirror. His gaze was lazy, but there was something unsettling in it. "This isn't the mafia, kid. There, you shoot at people who hide in cover because they're afraid to die. We hunt Discards. We hunt traumas. Those things don't hide. They wait for us."

"The plan is simple," Kana added with a grin. "We go in. If it moves, we shoot it. If it doesn't move, we kick it, and if it moves after that, we shoot it too."

Ren massaged his temples. "I'm going to die," he whispered. "I'm locked in a cage with a squad of lunatics."

The van screeched to a halt, the worn brakes screaming as they gripped the wheels. "Last stop," Gaiku announced.

Location: Edge of the District - Ruins of an abandoned entertainment quarter.

When Ren stepped out, the first thing that hit him was the silence. And the smell. It wasn't garbage; it was the stench of burnt rubber, ozone, and clotted blood. The environment was grotesque. The buildings-former arcades and clubs-looked as if they had melted. Thick, black cables dangled from the walls like eviscerated veins. On the ground, thousands of old VHS tapes and cassettes slithered like dead worms in an ankle-deep sea.

Ren acted on instinct. As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he looked up to see what the others were doing. Gaiku was strolling down the middle of the street, lighting a cigarette. Kana was absentmindedly kicking the cassette tapes. Kenji was licking a lamppost.

No one was looking for cover.

"What are you doing down there?" Ryaku stopped next to Ren's hiding spot, looking down at him like he was a bug.

"Securing the perimeter?" Ren muttered. "What the hell are you guys doing? You're targets in the open!"

Ryaku sighed, his wires humming softly between his fingers. "Get up. Now."

"But"

"Get up!" Ryaku's voice was sharp. "Discards react to fear. If you hide, you're prey. If you're prey, you give off a scent. And if you reek of fear, the whole district will descend on us."

Ren slowly stood. His knees shook, but he understood the logic. Psychological warfare: show no weakness.

"I don't have a weapon," Ren said, dusting off his pants. "My left hand is still cracked. I'm useless."

Gaiku spoke over his shoulder through a cloud of smoke: "We didn't invite you to fight. We invited you as bait."

"What?!"

"Just kidding. Maybe. Come on."

They arrived at the target. A massive building with a collapsed roof stood at the end of the street. Above the former entrance, a giant, broken synthesizer keyboard hung as a sign: "THE SILENT BEAT."

But the building didn't look like it was made of brick. The walls were pulsating. The entrance wasn't blocked by a door, but by a massive, gray membrane-like the eardrum of a gargantuan speaker. The entire structure vibrated with a low frequency that made Ren's teeth ache.

"This is... disgusting," Ren said.

"It's a 'Concert-Monster' nest," Kana said, tightening her bag straps. "Hope you like techno."

Ren stepped toward the membrane. "It looks sealed. No handle, no hinges." He touched the surface; it was cold and slimy. "If we blast it, the shockwave might collapse the structure. But if we cut it, the tension might cause-"

He began to analyze the statics, looking for a weak point.

"Ryaku," Gaiku said uninterestingly. "Ring the bell."

Ren didn't even finish his thought. Ryaku didn't look for a structural weak point. He simply raised his hand.

ZING. A single, barely visible silver flash. The massive, fleshy membrane door split diagonally. It didn't explode; it didn't tear. It simply slid apart as if sliced by a laser. The two halves fell away with a wet thud, oozing thick, black fluid along the cut.

Ren watched with his mouth open. "Or... we could do that," he finished softly. "But that wasn't very... discreet."

"Leave discretion to the postmen," Kana slapped him on the back and stepped into the darkness. "We're Recyclers."

They entered. The interior was vast and black. The air was thick with dust and a metallic tang. As Ren's eyes adjusted to the gloom, what he saw made his blood turn to ice.

The walls weren't concrete. They were made of speakers. Thousands of monitors, subwoofers, and mixing consoles were piled high, but not like building blocks. They were fused together. Organic matter-flesh, tendons, skin-wove the technology together. The cables pulsed, pumping black ink into the machines.

In the center, on the remains of the stage, stood It.

It wasn't a humanoid monster. The Discard was the DJ booth itself. A gargantuan mass of meat into which a human torso had been fused. Its spine was made of cables that ran into the ceiling. Its face... its face was nothing more than a distorted, screaming mask, where a subwoofer membrane vibrated in place of a mouth, and VU meters twitched in the red zone where eyes should have been. The creature's arms-long tentacles made of wires and bone-hung in the air as if mixing invisible records.

"Oh god..." Ren backed away. This wasn't a "synthesizer." This was a biological nightmare.

"Quiet!" Ryaku hissed.

But it was too late. The mass of flesh on stage shuddered. The VU-meter eyes swiveled toward Ren. The membrane-mouth opened. No sound came out. Not yet.

But the air began to vibrate, and the dust particles began to dance across the floor. A mechanical, crackling, yet soul-shatteringly human voice spoke from everywhere at once-the walls, the floor, their own skulls:

"NEW... AUDIENCE..." "SOUND... CHECK... BEGINS."