Then Bambam closed his mouth, opened it again, and said:
"It's wrecked."
Not unkindly. Just — accurately. The medkit pragmatism applied to a four-hundred-and-seventy-two-ton mech.
"Yeah," Zach said.
"The arm's—"
"Forty percent articulation," Zach said. "Sol gave me the full damage report this morning."
Bambam walked toward the left arm with the careful attention of someone trying to understand a thing rather than just observe it. He examined the joint from below, tilting his head, circling slowly. Reached up and touched the edge of the compromised articulation point.
The arm moved slightly. Not a threat response — more like a wince.
Bambam pulled his hand back. Looked at it. Looked at the arm.
"I can work with this," he said quietly.
"I was hoping you'd say that," Sol said through the chest panel — full register now, addressing the group, the voice filling the clearing properly. Not the bracelet whisper anymore. The real voice, the one that had the space it deserved. "You have mechanical aptitude. I could tell from the way you examined the joint."
Everyone looked at the chest panel.
"I'm Sol," Sol said. "ARTORIUS's AI. I've been listening to all of you since last night. I have opinions about most of you already. I'll share them as they become relevant."
Kai looked at the chest panel with the expression of someone who had just learned that the room he'd been speaking freely in had not, in fact, been private.
"Don't worry," Sol said, having apparently read his expression through the external sensors. "Nothing compromising. You're all more interesting than you think you are."
"I'm going to display the damage assessment and procurement list," Sol continued. "Pay attention. This is going to take all of you."
The chest panel extended a holographic display into the clearing's open air — crisp, blue-white, detailed. A rotating diagram of ARTORIUS with damage indicators mapped across every system. Red for offline. Orange for degraded. Green for functional.
There was a great deal of red and orange.
Tyler had produced his physical notebook.
"Primary ranged weapons: offline. Left arm articulation: forty percent. Cloak absorption layer: thirty percent efficiency. Grav-system: operational but fuel-inefficient. Cockpit seals: functional, non-factory-spec."
She paused.
"The procurement list."
The diagram rotated and became text. Components, specifications, quantities, estimated costs. A column on the right marked each item's source — gray market, relationship-dependent, or a single line at the bottom of the list pulsing with slightly more emphasis than the others.
"Three categories," Sol said. "Items available through gray-market channels — expensive but accessible. Items requiring specific relationships to procure — I'll help you build those. And one item" — the pulsing line — "that requires direct acquisition from a Haruki-Voss logistics depot. Sector 12, Midline."
"Stealing," Johnny said.
"Liberating," Sol said. "The left arm joint assembly is proprietary Haruki-Voss hardware. It exists nowhere else in a compatible specification. We need it."
Johnny looked at the line. "I know Sector 12."
"I know," Sol said. "I read your records too."
Johnny stared at the chest panel.
"Your knowledge of the Midline's maintenance infrastructure is impressive for someone your age," Sol said. "It will be useful."
"How does she—" Bambam started.
"She reads everything in dormancy," Zach said.
"Everything available," Sol corrected. "Thorough, not omniscient. There's a distinction."
Tyler looked up from his notebook. "Total cost. Gray-market items only. Rough figure."
"Forty-three thousand credits. Conservative estimate."
The clearing was quiet.
Zach had ten thousand from the fight club. Money he hadn't touched because touching it felt wrong — he knew what the arena had cost and what had happened immediately after. Ten thousand was a start. Not enough of one.
He looked at the crew.
Tyler already writing in the notebook, cross-referencing the list against whatever he was calculating. Johnny studying the procurement items with the focused attention of someone identifying which ones he could source. Bambam back at the damaged arm joint, physically mapping the geometry of it with his hands. Kai walking the perimeter of ARTORIUS slowly, examining every system, stopping at the sword arm to look at the blade the mech was still holding.
Ira still had his hand against the plating.
Zach looked at the bracelet.
At the two remaining charms he hadn't examined yet. The worn circle. The angular thing. Two pilots he hadn't known. Two sets of hands that had carried this before his.
His father's hands somewhere in that chain.
"You're thinking about him," Sol said quietly through the bracelet. Just for Zach.
"Yeah."
"Good," she said. "Hold onto that. It'll matter later." A pause. "Not yet. But later."
Zach closed his hand around the charms.
Held them for a moment.
Let go.
He looked at the crew.
"I have ten thousand credits," he said. "From the fight club. It's a start."
"It's a third," Tyler said without looking up. "Maybe less. Sol — volatility on the conduit components?"
"Moderate. Move on those first. A Haruki-Voss supply disruption in Sector 3 last week has been pushing component costs upward."
"So we move fast on the accessible items and plan the depot run for the joint assembly," Tyler said. Still writing. "Timeline?"
"The depot has a seventy-two-hour optimal window based on the shift rotation I've been monitoring. After that the schedule changes and the surveillance gap closes."
"Seventy-two hours," Kai said. He'd turned from the sword arm. Looking at Tyler, then at Zach, then at ARTORIUS. The calculation behind his eyes completing itself. "Enough time to scout it properly if we move today."
"We?" Zach said.
Kai looked at him.
"You crashed into us," he said. "We lied to corp enforcement for you. We're standing in a demolition site at dawn looking at an illegal guerrilla mech." A pause. "At what point did you think we were walking away."
Bambam raised his hand. "I was never walking away. This is the most interesting thing that has ever happened in the Gut."
Johnny had pocketed the piece of metal. Deliberately. The same motion as last night — something put down, a decision made.
"Three of these components," he said, nodding at the list. "I can have them by tonight. Maybe four."
Ira still had his hand against the plating.
He signed something with his other hand — a single motion, brief and clear, directed not at Zach but at the mech itself.
Through the chest panel, Sol translated.
"He says: I'll learn what I need to learn."
A pause.
"I told him: I know."
Zach stood in the clearing with the dawn coming up properly around them — real light now, the sky finally committing, washing across ARTORIUS's deep black plating and catching the red fracture lines as they pulsed their slow steady rhythm.
He thought about a throw. Every time. Regardless of the situation.
Because watching it fall never got old.
He looked up at the sky where the sword had gone and come back from.
Then he looked at the six people — five strangers and a mech and an AI who had read all of their records — standing in a demolition site in the Lowline at dawn with a list of things to do and no particular reason to do them together except that they were all already here.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay," Sol said through the chest panel. Full register. Addressing all of them.
"Let's begin."