About half of Maizuru was underwater. What wasn’t flooded was a ghost town, inhabited only by strutting birds and the occasional wild dog, monkey, or deer that had strayed from the mountains. The same poster was plastered at every corner, on nearly every derelict building, with the exact same message: “Protect Our Future! Join The Force!” The letters were as faded as their meaning.
Each recruitment flyer starred a face, but not of a famous actor, or even an anime character. Only a comely, mortal young man. A soldier outfitted in a pitch-black suit accented by gold streaks, carrying a helmet under his arm. All of Japan knew his title—you would have been crazy not to—but fewer knew his real name.
He was one of the few chosen to don an Asura Frame. A war hero who’d been bearing the brunt of the front lines for close to three years now. He was Devicer Three, and he was Japan’s savior.
Survivors around the city with nowhere else to go gathered at Gorogatake and were being kept in an emptied warehouse. But the makeshift refugee camp was just that, makeshift, and it could barely contain the population of over a hundred. People crammed together and slept on the hard floor without a hint of privacy. Of course, anyone could take up shelter in one of the many abandoned houses, but they would be giving up the regular supply of food, water, and electricity that only the camp could provide. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. What kept people glued to the ruined military facility most firmly, though, was fear of the wild animals that roamed about. And of the enemy that could strike at any moment.
Life was hard, no one was happy, but they made it work. Power was precious, and when lights-out was called at precisely 1700 hours each night, they had to either grasp about in the dark or settle for candles or lamps fueled with salad oil if they wanted sources of illumination. But at least they still had him—the black and gold warrior.
A young boy clung to a matte-black figure of his armored likeness while an older man flipped through an antiquated, crumpled newspaper, skimming over articles from the past.
“Devicer Three Arrives at the Hokkaido Front!”
“Anomalies Neutralized”
“Swift Victory Against the Unidentified Life-Forms”
The man sighed. The black and gold warrior once toured all over Japan, defending the nation like a dream synthesis of mecha anime and American superhero movies come to life in one suit of armor. He was a symbol of peace. He was the one.
The only one.
Elsewhere, the few remaining commissioned officers of the Defense Force enjoyed their own private quarters. Lower ranking soldiers and enlisted refugees shared a common room, but were still provided crude beds to sleep on. It was a far cry from the warehouse, that was for sure.
Private Takeda was having the time of his life, surrounded by his so-called “war buds” and livening up the place with vulgarities about the women around camp that he indulged in “comfort” with. Most of the conversation consisted of obscene anecdotes that would have offended any halfway decent human being. Folks in the local Hokuriku countryside would have called his type “unsavory,” to put it lightly.
It was escapism, plain and simple. Belittling others, making someone else’s life worse than his—it all made it easy for him to forget the way things were.
He had a tattoo on his left shoulder—a cartoonish depiction of Devicer Three’s helmet. Nearly everyone in the Force looked up to the soldier of black and gold. They were proud of him, relied on him. He was their hero. And even men like Takeda had heroes.
The sun was far below the horizon, even when viewed from the top of the observation tower. 1900 hours. An older man stood where, unbeknownst to him, two fourteen-year-olds had that very morning.
“Devicer Three...” the former Defense Force colonel muttered. “Wearer of the Asura Frame. The centerpiece of our nation’s defense.” Even among the ruins of his country and military, he still made sure to wear his dress blues. “It’s been eight months now since we lost him.”
“And you’ve done a great job of keeping it a secret for so long,” Chloe Todo replied.
But her sarcasm was lost on the colonel. “Circumstances must. Believe me, we would have made a grand announcement of his death and lit a fire in the people if only we’d had a successor to take his place.”
“Over eight hundred candidates and the Mark III rejected every last one,” Chloe recounted matter-of-factly.
“And it’s thanks to that machine’s dithering that we’ve been pushed into this corner! We’re sitting ducks out here, Professor. Why in God’s name does an AI have that kind of power?! Why can’t it pick a Devicer?!”
“It’s not an AI,” she explained plainly for the umpteenth time. “It’s consciousness. The Asura Frame is a hybrid organism physically composed of ADAMAS nanomachines and artificial muscle fibers, coupled with a separate awareness linked to the liminal space between truth and falsehood. Under the right conditions, this organic nature is what allows such a high degree of adaptable functionality and...”
“Enough,” the man interrupted. “I won’t survive another lecture from you.”
For some people, no amount of modernization and no number of advancements in computer technology was enough to get them to learn. Some were just stuck in their ways and instead relied on family or coworkers to adapt for them. The colonel was one such person. Change, metaphorically at least, was a foreign concept to him.
Chloe gave up on the explanation. “Simply put, the Mark III was unsatisfied with its prior Devicer.”
“Unsatisfied?!” the colonel responded incredulously.
“Correct. Its last wearer was chosen for his image and patriotism, but he was unable to utilize the Frame to its fullest potential. This, ultimately, is probably why he was killed in action and why we nearly lost the Mark III with him.”
The professor glanced over at the clone elf resting peacefully within the sleeper pod beside them. It was likely that the Replicant had never truly accepted her Devicer.