Chapter One: The Rusted Homo Sapiens

The boy Yuki ran happily down the street, a whole heap of scrap metal rattling behind him. To everyone he met, he cried, "I have a father now! I have a father now!"

Most of the people in Scrapheap Town watched with amused smiles, though it should be noted that the amusement was mockery. Yuki's biological father had been killed years ago when a lithium bacterium invaded his bio-brain, leaving behind a woman and seven children.

To feed those seven children, the woman had no choice but to sell off her spine, cerebellum, and pons in exchange for an engineering machine. Scrapheap Town was called Scrapheap Town precisely because a garbage dump from the Age of the Sublimation had been unearthed here, and the whole town survived by living off its resources. Certain alloys and other materials from that same age had to be transported into the cities, and the demand for hauling them was enormous.

Once the woman had become an engineering machine, she no longer had the means to care for her children. Of the seven, four gradually fell ill and died; one was taken by the tax collector as a genetic levy to preserve the diversity of the human gene pool. The eldest son left for the city at an early age to make his own way, leaving only the youngest boy behind. He had been bullied since childhood.

Most of the residents had little interest in Yuki's "new father." Only a few children, with rough and careless hands, shoved Yuki hard. His body fell to the ground with a thunderous clang—that was a hallmark of cheap prosthetics.

"Haha... little bastard with no father, where's your dad? Huh? Go on, show us!"

The leader, an older boy, burst into laughter.

Yuki snorted and lifted the head in his arms. "Look! This is my new dad!"

It was a truly, truly pitiful head. The top of the skull was entirely gone, the rim of the metal cranium still twisted as though it had been mangled by tremendous force. Inside was a mass of charred blackness, some melted residue that made one doubt whether the bio-brain was still intact. There should once have been a layer of bio-skin, but now only the metal shell remained, and the eyeballs were tucked behind metal eyelids. A large chunk of the jaw was missing as well.

The older boy froze for a moment, then exploded with laughter. "Ahahaha... hahahahaha! That's a dead man's head! Hahaha! It really suits you! Dead head! Bastard... hahaha!"

"It's not a dead head!" Yuki said furiously. "He's still alive! If you give him a little water, his eyeballs can still move!"

"Hahahahahaha... that's priceless! A dead head!" At that point, the older boy had even lost interest in bullying Yuki any further. Still laughing, he waved a hand, telling Yuki to get lost at once.

Yuki hugged the thing in his arms—or rather, that half a head—and ran quickly home.

He had found the head deep in the garbage heap. He had accidentally dug into a newly exposed soft zone—that had been some sort of cushioning structure from a warship, and in this era high-polymer nanocushioning material was still worth something. The head was lying there. He had first thought it was a fairly rare piece of junk, and had been happy for quite a while. But when he was leaving the heap, he accidentally dropped it into a puddle of filthy water.

Then he saw one of the head's eyeballs move.

"I'll definitely fix you!" the boy told the head. "Then I'll have a father."

...

He dreamed a dream, a dream of martial arts.

In that dream, blades flashed and spears crossed.

Vector thrusters, steel staffs, ship-splitting sabers, Vulcan cannons, wireless signal receivers...

Every one of them was a wondrous weapon that could shake the ages.

Mobile steps, Demon-Subduing Staff, Vessel-Command Art, Gunlock Technique, Cloud-Dragon Hacking Method...

Every one of them was a famous and formidable art.

What...

His consciousness returned to his flesh. He opened his eyes, and the world before him swayed uncertainly; everything seemed to tremble in waves.

"You child... why did you soak this head in water? And you put copper candy in it too? You don't even have enough for yourself..."

"Mom! Look! Look! His eyelids are really moving!"

"Hm? They are moving?"

"Then I'll have a new dad!"

"We can't keep this dead head..."

"Mom!"

It sounded like an argument had broken out.

Then came the sound of a vehicle starting.

"All right, all right, I'll go get the town mayor to come and take a look."

A baffling conversation.

He could hardly continue thinking.

So, once again, he fell asleep.

But this time, he had a nightmare.

Countless fists and palms collided. He could no longer remember the forms.

And then... a cybernetic body five meters tall... a... a...

"Yawg..."

The man said through gritted teeth.

"What are you saying? Is that your name?"

Unexpectedly, another voice answered him.

The man opened his eyes. Before him was a wrinkled face. It seemed to be a natural one, though the upper half of the head had been replaced with machinery, and in the eye sockets rose cylindrical lenses like camera optics.

The man was a little stunned. "You... who are you?"

"The mayor of Scrapheap Town." The old man smiled. "And who are you? 'Yawg'—is that your name?"

The man thought for a while. To his surprise, his mind was a blank.

"I am... I..."

He tried to shake his head, only to realize then that he seemed to have nothing left but a head. The discovery startled him. He could only answer, "I don't think that's my name... 'Yawg' is not my name."

"But that was the first word you spoke after waking up," the mayor said after a moment's thought. "Then, for convenience, shall we just call you 'Yawg' for now?"

The man hesitated, wanting to nod, but discovered he still could not. He could only say, "Then... for the moment, I suppose?"

Though deep inside him there was a voice shouting loudly, reminding him that this name carried a profound meaning... that it absolutely was not his own name... that even if he forgot himself, he must never forget this name... he simply could not remember why.

Yuki bounced up. "Mayor, Mayor! Could my dad be a warrior from the old era? The super amazing kind?"

The man was startled... though there was nowhere to jump. "I have a son?"

"No, no, you were picked up," the mayor explained, then said, "As for being a father, that's just this child's idea. He lacks... necessary affection."

"Mayor!" Yuki stamped his foot. "You still haven't said whether he is or not!"

"Heh... this garbage dump was unearthed fifty years ago. And the age of the Sublimation War was even earlier. No brain cells could possibly live that long," the mayor said, but seeing that Yuki did not understand a word, he could only shake his head.

"Maybe he was garbage from the city that arrived a few months ago?" A strangely mechanical voice came in from outside the window.

The voice was almost like static, so loud it made the glass tremble. The man rolled his eyes and saw a truck parked outside...

It should probably be called a truck? He could indeed see a huge cargo bed. But the cab was very small, too small to hold a person. On the front of the cab, a camera was staring at him.

Only then did the man realize that he, or rather his head, was lying on a bed, with a large lamp mounted above him. The lamp must have been brought by the mayor, and its cable was plugged directly into the port on the mayor's neck.

And this bed was placed right against the window.

"To raise money for her child's treatment, Juliana sold her spine, cerebellum, and pons, then used the rest to buy an engineering machine," the mayor said, pointing outside. "That earns a little more than before, but a body like that can't fit through doorways, so the room has to be set up like this."

The man was a little stunned.

He had a vague feeling that... humans should not be like this. This was not how a human ought to be.

Yuki looked at the mayor with eager expectation. After some thought, the mayor said, "Maybe he really was somebody important in the past? Perhaps an athlete?"

"Wow!" Yuki cried in delight.

The man, meanwhile, was still completely lost.

"Well, thinking like this must be tiring, right?" The mayor turned to him and shook his head. "I still have a drive chip here, one my grandson just took out. I don't know what you've been through, but all the equipment on the outside of your bio-brain has burned out, leaving only a few components. Fortunately, your neural barrier is quite reliable..." The mayor's hand pressed against the top of the man's head. "I cleaned it up for you. It looks like there are still a few usable ports, so I'll replace them for you!"

Only then did the man realize that he seemed to have only half a head, no tongue, and a sound emitter directly connected inside his mouth.

Why only now... ah!

A sudden, electric jolt shot through him.

New device detected.

Installing required drivers.

Fresh signals raced through his nerves.

This feeling...

The man suddenly felt that his body had come alive.

His one and only body, suddenly vivid and warm with life!

"Without a drive chip to assist it, a bio-brain has a hard time controlling a prosthetic... And your eyes look pretty good. They might be worth something. Think about it? Sell them to me, and I can get you a prosthetic."

The man tried to shake his head again. Soon he made his refusal clear. "No, thank you for your kindness. But I think... perhaps there are clues about my past in my eyes. I don't want to replace them yet."

The mayor shook his head. "Then there won't be a free prosthetic..."

Yuki jumped up. "I can go look in the garbage heap!"

"Not that easy, kid." The mayor clasped his hands behind his back, bobbed his head, and left.

Yuki jumped up. "Tch! I can find one..."

"Enough!" Juliana's loudspeaker gave a stern blast. Yuki immediately fell silent.

In the evening, Yuki fell asleep clutching the man's head.

Outside the window, Juliana's camera focused on the man. The man, for his part, looked as though he could not sleep at all.

What was this "Yawg" thinking?

Juliana could not help wondering. She did not feel much of the bashfulness old-world women were said to have. Apart from her bio-brain, every part of her body was steel now. With a body like this, what was there to be shy about?

Her only wish now was to watch Yuki grow up, give him a decent set of prosthetics, and then... and then...

She could not even imagine the future.

That was also why she had not firmly insisted that Yuki throw away that head. Perhaps it made the child a little happier.

Still, there was no way their family could afford prosthetics, no matter how cheap. Every coin had to go toward replacing Yuki's body with an adult prosthetic. In a few more years, the biological part of Yuki's body would exceed the maximum limit for a child's prosthetic.

But adult prosthetics were expensive.

Sometimes Juliana even wanted to sell off her temporal lobe and frontal lobe again. But she had heard that those who sold their temporal and frontal lobes were no longer human—only machines.

Becoming a machine wasn't so terrible. But if she could no longer love Yuki, then could she still work?

She had to save money, and soon!

She hoped this dead head could work in the future too.

Let that be repayment for the kindness Yuki had shown in saving him.

The man had also seen Juliana's gaze. To be honest, the "gaze" of a camera like that always made him feel somewhat uneasy, though he did not know why.

There were other things that made him uneasy as well. For now, the name "Yawg" had become his temporary label. But that left him with a very bad feeling.

In the darkness, he finally became certain of one thing.

The true owner of the name "Yawg" was absolutely, definitely, his enemy.

His mortal foe.

I am... a rebel...

What am I rebelling against?