Jacko - a retired fighter.

This is your home now. Get used to it.

Well, ain't that the fuckin' truth?

This was always your home, jus' you been out now for a couple years. Hard to keep track with the med boys pokin' and proddin' and restartin' you with a new set of organs every few months. And for obvious reasons, you couln't move around even while they was lettin' you rest. Jus' had to lay there an' take it like the groupies and hookers your ol' owner used to treat you with after a big fight.

Things have changed, in the arena. The frames you jus' saw batter each other are slicker, more fluid. You fought once for a season in a frame the same size as the one that dead girl was wearin' and it almos' got you killed a few times: sluggish and heavy. But you can see this one moved real easy. Maybe you'll give one like that a go, this time around. Her don' bother you. Way you see it, it was careless and bad luck. If that harpoon hadn' pulled free, or the green dude had missed, things woulda been real different and they'd prolly both be alive still while the lady got showered with booze and stims, and pussy or cock or whatever she was into.

The smell of the oil and ozone tang of the fuel cells brings it all back. You had it all, down there on the arena floor. Five years in the rankin's, and two at the top. You made a lot of people very wealthy: always the favourite in the bets. The ol' boss, Grayson, kept you comfortable and looked after you, and you kept bringin' him the victories. He even bought you some top of the line non-combat augments - real fancy regular limbs, not so far off the real thing - so that you could live an almos' normal life in the big house downtown. He kept you tanked up on dope and pussy and you lived like a goddam king.

Then Brutus stepped into the rankings. You fought him once, early on in an unranked match, and smashed his frame to pieces on the arena wall. You broke his jaw, and ruined an eye, and bathed in the victory over yet another upstart punk. But then he began to rise, and rise. Topplin' seasoned fighters you'd been thrown up agains' for years. Finally he started appearing in your ranked fights and he started givin' you a run for your money. You still beat him, mostly, but now he was able to turn the tables sometimes.

One day he turned them real hard, and paid you back in spades for the beatin' you gave him. He crushed your chest through the frame armour, destroyed your lungs and ruptured a kidney, intestines... you name it, it was fucked. Your injuries were compounded with a toxic mix of coolant and various lubricants that leaked into your ruined chest cavity, poisoning your remainin' healthy organs such that nobody thought you'd make it.

What little loyalty toward you Grayson had once disappeared, though whether at the moment of your defeat or at sight of the projected medical costs you'll never now. Instead some chancer lookin' to get into the biz offered him a half mill - less than one percent your worth two hours ago - and took you in to try and keep alive.

Your saviour, you discovered later, was called Gideon. A weedy little man makin' a play at bein' a gladiator owner for fuck knows what reason. He invested a small fortune in patchin' you up, when everbody said you should be put down like the mad dog you were.

Funny that you don' feel no gratitude to the man. You got the sense already that if you don' start payin' off on the investment he got no hesitation to do what many say he shoulda two years ago.

Lookin' round Gideon's booth you take in the sights. At the front is the big-little man, still gogglin' at the spectacle of as the techs haul the dead frame off the winner. You'd be willin' to bet that he backed the right one in this match. Seems to make those right sorts of decisions. You can see the sweat glintin' through his thin hair and the slight movement of his grinding jaw, tension in his neck making the thick band of the Blocker bob up and down, but the rest of him is hidden from you by shadow and his no-nonsense black coveralls. You got no idea what this guy does, or used to do before comin' here but you get a bad, bad feelin' about him. Like he ain't a killer yet, but that he made the decision long ago that he don' got any particular objection to becomin' one.

Behind him are the kids. Another clear example of the boss' unique outlook on life. The boy, Edd, looks to have been a fresh faced heartbreaker once, but he got half his face reconstructed outta titanium that replaces the missin' cheekbone, eye socket and bits of jaw destroyed in the crash. There's some kinda evil-lookin' lens sunk in the metal there that never blinks, just glows that sickly orange constantly. His face and jaw look stoic... but that's mainly because he ain't got a lot of natural movement left. His human eye looks terrified, though, at the brutality he's jus' witnessed. Zee still ain't lookin' lively. She got a real pretty face and killer body, but right now it looks like there's no soul in there at all. She's slumped against her brother staring blankly forward, just now at a point about your chest height.

Those two... they ain't lookin' much right now but you got a good idea why the boss brought them in. A shrewd manager would see the huge potential there. A tag-team pair of sexy-lookin' twins. There ain't been a fight act like that ever before, far as you know. Pity about the boy's face, but he won't be the main focus of attention no-how. Probly a good thing he looks a little scary.

Poor kids. You've only known 'em about two weeks, and got none of their story yet apart from the obvious. The crash fucked 'em up bad, but it was Edd that got the visible injuries. Both of 'em had their share of internal hemorrhaging, broken ribs, pelvis, arm... whatever - it was a fruit-basked selection each. But the boy had his legs crushed; one severed clean by the weight and pressure, and the other trapped for so long the only way he wouldn' die when cut free was if they cut it off higher up and early. The two of 'em spent months in intensive, kept in a coma, and costing the hospital a lot of money. She woke up and admitted they had no insurance, nothing at all. Some sick fuck in the management guessed a fight manager might want the boy and put it out there a young kid might be ready to get in the ring... when Gideon came lookin' he snapped 'em both up.

You got no idea what he paid, but it certainly wasn' a fraction of what they could end up bein' worth in the future because only a scumbag with no morals could take the next step. See, far as the boss was concerned, they was a pair. But they weren' quite ready. He had her legs taken off so that the two of 'em could be a matchin' team. That happened two days ago and she ain't said a word or really even moved since. Edd's been tryin' to bring her round, with barely remembered kindnesses that neither of 'em has felt since before their lives changed forever. You try and do your bit, when the three of you are left alone, but there jus' ain't nobody home right now.

Turnin' back to the boss, you see he's finally seen enough of the arena, and pours a tall shot of blue ice, leanin' agains' the handrail and lookin' at his little fight team.

"Well, Jack. What do you think of the new frames? Changed a bit in two years, yes?" He hands you the beverage. You ain't got used to the new arm augments he got you - or the legs, for that matter - so instead of riskin' smashing the glass with the fingers you take it on the back of the hand and maneuver it to your lips and down in one. The limbs are not bad. Not as fancy as the ones Grayson provided, and certainly don't look as good, but they have an impressive natural range of movement, strength and dexterity. Gideon would never have paid for anything expensive, so this quality must be more or less standard these days.

"Yeah. They're good, boss. Like these," you gesture with the arms, point at the legs. "These woulda been close to top of the line back in my day."

"Quite right. Another drink?" You shake your head, but your eyes flick to the kids.

"Of course, how rude of me." He pours two more shots and hands them to Edd. The kids natural, strong, human arms take them with no hesitation, and he downs one in a heartbeat. Turnin' to his sister, he tries to get her attention, and then tries to pour it past her unmovin' lips but spills it all down her front. "Oh for heaven's sake," the boss yelps. "Anton, Richard - if you could, please."

His two attendants - goons, or servants, or whatever - step forward. One tips her head back and opens her jaw, and the other gets the Blue bottle and tips a good slug down her throat. Edd freaks out, tryin' to get them off her. The boss looks at me, then at the kid, with expectation in his eyes.

"Jack, if you would be so kind?"