Juzo lay asleep, undergoing the Doctor’s treatment, while Vicky watched from behind, her own memories rushing back.

  Back then, she woke up with a sharp, searing pain in her left breast. A fiery stab that pierced through her flesh and reached her heart. Each heartbeat sent a hammering pain through her skull. Swallowing was like grinding gravel down her throat. Breathing felt like pouring acid into her lungs.

  “No… not again,” she’d sobbed.

  Unsteady, she tried to stand, but strong hands forced her back into the chair.

  “No… Please, not again…”

  The first part of the treatment was over. She’d survived. But a second part still awaited her.

  Someone tried to calm her, saying, “Relax, it’s going to be okay. Just breathe.”

  Who had said that? The doctor in charge of the procedure, or Pablo Rigel, her fiancé at the time? The agony had scrambled her senses.

  Oh, gods, the pain! Her body was on fire. Her skin felt like it was frying in oil.

  Finally, the torment ended. And then… nothing.

  She woke up to blurry shapes and bright lights—hours later, as she’d learn afterward—in a room full of people staring at her like she was a chimpanzee just coming out of a tranquilizer dart’s effect.

  “She survived,” said one of the many voices swirling around her. “She’s got your genes, Ulf.”

  “I told you! And you doubted Ulf had Ecuadorian blood!”

  “Can you blame me? How many Ecuadorians have blue eyes?” another voice replied, followed by laughter.

  Then someone grabbed her arm, and she heard a voice speak close to her ear, “I knew you’d make it.”

  This wasn’t just any voice. It was Ulfric Viveka—Ulf to his comrades, General Benetnasch to the rest of the world, according to his rank and Military name. Her father’s voice. The Stone-faced General stood beside her.

  It only took one look into those proud, blue eyes, so identical to hers, to ignite a deep fury within her. A rage that rose from somewhere near where the needle had pierced her chest, pushing her muscles to act despite the pain and dizziness.

  There, in front of everyone—veteran soldiers, doctors, Rigel, and the guards—a resounding slap broke the air.

  Silence fell over the room, heavy as a steel block.

  Vicky, Lieutenant Alioth, had just slapped the highly respected—and greatly feared—General of the Imperial Markabian Army.

  “You bastard…” she’d tried to say, though in her drugged state, it probably came out as little more than a slurred mumble.

  That day marked a turning point in her relationship with her father—a relationship that would come to an end the following afternoon as she packed her belongings into a suitcase.

  “I’m your goddamn daughter, and you didn’t give a damn what could’ve happened to me! It doesn’t matter how high the odds of survival were; the treatment was new, and it could’ve failed.”

  Standing in the doorway, Ulfric Viveka watched her.

  “How many times have we been through this?” he finally asked.

  Vicky froze, forcing herself not to look at him, her hands clutching the blouse she was folding into the suitcase.

  “Is this going to be like the time you left because I refused to sign the petition for Midori’s independence?” he said. “Or is it like when you were furious at me because, in your words, I ‘didn’t do enough’ to convince the Council to open the Empire’s borders? How long did it take you to realize that decisions of that scale aren’t made overnight? How long did it take you to come back home that time?”

  But unlike the occasions her father had just listed, that afternoon Vicky didn’t feel like a dramatic teenager. Her pain was deeper than ever, her disappointment suffocating.

  “This time it’s different,” she said. “You didn’t just shatter the illusion of some poor fool who thought her father had more power than he really does. This time, you offered up your only daughter as a sacrifice. And you did it to get ahead of your peers—to brag about having a Grenadier in the family. So you could say, ‘Look over there, under that V.1—that’s my daughter. Doesn’t the armor suit her well?’ Well, now you can find someone else to wear a Nemean. I won’t be your bodyguard, or another one of your trophies.”

  Vicky stuffed the blouse into her suitcase, zipped it shut, and walked out. From that day on, she never returned to that house or saw her father again.

  Now, years later, it was Juzo undergoing the treatment. Juzo becoming a Grenadier. And it was Vicky who had pressured him to go through with it.

  The situation was, of course, different—or at least that’s how she saw it. Vicky was the only Grenadier in Juzo’s group, and the physical strain was killing her.

  But for some reason, as she watched Juzo being operated on, she couldn’t shake the feeling that, in a way, she was doing the same thing her father had done to her. And when she looked at the conditions they were working in, she felt even worse.

  She had undergone her procedure in a Military base operating room. Here… well, the conditions couldn’t have been more deplorable.

  Of course, they couldn’t expect more. The Doctor, a prematurely aged man hardened by life in the shadows, was the best the paramilitary medical field had to offer. He was the only one capable of performing the complex procedure—thanks to his skill, his knowledge, and because, as far as anyone knew, he was the only one with the machine required to do it.

  No one knew his real name—was it Gami? She wasn’t sure. The Troublemakers just called him the Doctor. They knew he was from Neo Asia, an island near the Gondwana continent, that he’d arrived in Markabian territory a few years ago fleeing who-knows-what, and, of course, that he always reeked of cheap booze.

  Vicky watched him work on Juzo.

  Every so often, without getting up from his chair, the Doctor would take a drag from his cigarette, set it down on the steel tray beside the medical instruments, and continue his work. Like the drummer of a rock band, his limbs moved with astonishing skill, multitasking effortlessly. His feet operated pedals that powered the generators, while his gloved hands controlled a set of mechanical arms that moved like an octopus. The arms wielded various syringes, plunging their needles into Juzo and delivering their contents: a thick, fluorescent pink liquid that glowed intensely.

  Vicky observed the substance through the barrels of the syringes.

  “This Ambrosia is—”

  “It’s the same Ambrosia the Military uses!” the Doctor snapped.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “I know. I was going to ask where you got it from. Just out of curiosity.”

  The man shot her a withering glare.

  “I wouldn’t reveal my supplier, miss—that would ruin my business. Be satisfied knowing it’s the real deal; the same stuff that flows through the veins of every Grenadier. Sure, there are others doing what I do, but with cheap knockoffs. I’ve already told you—”

  Vicky held up a hand, signaling that she got the point, and stepped away.

  The Doctor continued with the procedure.

  The first injection—and the strongest, delivered with the largest syringe—went directly into Juzo’s heart. The second was aimed at his thyroid gland in his neck. The third struck his thymus in the center of his chest. The fourth targeted his solar plexus, brushing against his pancreas. And the fifth, just below his navel.

  Meanwhile, Juzo slept under anesthesia as though nothing was happening. Judging by the serene expression on his face, Vicky dared to think that not only was he sleeping, but he was also resting. Her friend was perhaps enjoying the deepest slumber he’d had in months. Juzo never slept well.

  Enjoy the rest while you can, dear. There’s a lot of pain waiting for you when you wake up.

  “Your friend is quite resilient,” the Doctor commented.

  He pulled one hand out of the gauntlet to pick up the cigarette that was nearly burned out, took a drag, set it down again, and resumed his orchestrated, almost mechanical performance.

  “Look at his stats on the monitor,” he said, gesturing with his chin.

  With her arms crossed to avoid touching anything, Vicky moved closer to the screens surrounding the examination table. She wasn’t a medical expert, but she could read graphs and make sense of the blue lines marking Juzo’s heart rate. Using a bit of common sense, she concluded everything was fine. No red lines indicated danger, nor was there any rapid beep, beep, beep signaling an alarm.

  “His vitals are stable,” the Doctor continued, exhaling cigarette smoke. “To be honest, I’ve never seen anyone handle Ambrosia as well as this kid.” He nodded toward the monitors again. “Look, look!”

  Searching for whatever had the Doctor so impressed—a small graph, maybe; an alert popping up; a drop in Juzo’s bio-rhythm—Vicky leaned in, suppressing a grimace at the man’s overwhelming scent of liquor. She focused on finding whatever was so remarkable.

  “His heart rate,” the Doctor pointed out.

  On the central screen, Vicky saw a numbered scale ranging from one to ten, with a glowing blue dot hovering steadily between five and six.

  “Usually, after I inject the Ambrosia into the heart, the patient’s heart rate spikes to eight or nine,” the Doctor explained. “That’s when I have to administer a blood pressure regulator, or they go into cardiac arrest and die. It’s happened before, and not because of this dump of a place where I lack the fancy equipment the Imperials have in their labs—it’s just how the human body reacts to the Fluo-Pink.”

  “Fluo-Pink?”

  “Yeah.” The Doctor pointed at the remains of the pinkish substance in the empty syringe containers. “Fluo-Pink is the cute little name we give Ambrosia around here.”

  She nodded politely, in that way that meant ‘Oh, how nice,’ then stepped away to avoid the man’s alcohol-laced breath.

  Juzo’s resilience probably came from that ninety-two percent Ecuadorian DNA of his; most who survived the treatment barely hit sixty-five percent—just above the required minimum. Even so, Vicky kept quiet. She wasn’t sure how much the Doctor actually knew about the correlation between a patient’s genetic profile and their odds of surviving the procedure.

  “Doctor...”

  “Gami,” he said, confirming the nickname. “Shini Gami.”

  Shini-Gami, she repeated in her head. A god of death? Seriously?

  Lifting his shirt slightly, the man revealed the large tattoo covering his thin chest: a skeleton holding a scythe, surrounded by incomprehensible Neo-Asian symbols—the same ones that stretched across his arms. He let out a silly little chuckle and turned back to Juzo.

  “Doctor… Gami,” said Vicky. “If my friend handled the first dose of Ambrosia, does that mean there won’t be any issues continuing the treatment?”

  The man raised the cigarette to his lips, only to find it had burned out. He stared at it, puzzled, then tossed it into a trash bin overflowing with used syringes, opened plastic packets, and wads of bloodstained gauze.

  “Of course there won’t be any issues, miss,” he said, eyes glued to the monitors. “Look, I usually wait for the patient to wake up, ask how they’re feeling and all that, then let a few hours pass before continuing.”

  Indeed, even though in her mind it had all felt like one long, drawn-out agony, Vicky had actually received the first dose in the morning and the second in the afternoon, as Rigel later told her. She had spent the time in between the two doses sleeping in the hospital room.

  “Look,” the Doctor added, “some folks tell me they’ll come back next week for the second dose but never show their ugly mugs here again. I don’t think your friend’s that type, though. And judging by how his body’s holding up, I’d say he could handle the second dose right now. I’m telling you, it’s a scientific miracle how well he’s taking the Fluo-Pink. I’m curious to see just how far his body’s resilience goes.”

  “I don’t like you treating my friend like a lab rat,” Vicky shot back. But after a moment of thought—considering Juzo’s good condition and the possibility he might resist completing the treatment later—she decided to finish it now. “Alright, let’s do it.”

  Gami stood, cracking his knuckles and neck like a wrestler gearing up for a fight. “The patient should do this part himself, but in this case… Take off his shoes and pants.”

  Vicky complied. She untied the laces of Juzo’s boots, slipping them off along with his socks. Then she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants to make them easier to remove.

  “Hurry up!” the doctor barked, programming the next phase of the procedure into the computer. He glanced over at her as she wrestled with the pants. “Oh, c’mon, miss! Like you’ve never done this before!”

  Vicky shot him a glare. “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing, nothing. And you can leave his underwear on, miss. No need to remove that. None of the injections go into his rear, and personally, I have no interest in seeing his private parts.”

  Vicky pressed her tongue against the inside of her teeth, holding back the insults that threatened to spill out. Damn drunk. If I didn’t need you, I’d…

  “Help me turn him over,” Gami said.

  He grabbed Juzo under the shoulders, while Vicky took his legs, and together they flipped him onto his stomach. Gami positioned Juzo’s face in the headrest built into the examination table, while Vicky adjusted his feet before stepping back.

  Gami sat down again in front of his octopus-like machine, pulled another cigarette from the pocket of his white coat, lit it, took a deep drag, and left it on the tray of instruments.

  He activated something on the computer, and Vicky watched as the pink substance—Ambrosia, or Fluo-Pink, as he called it—flowed from crystalline containers through a network of plastic tubes, filling the chambers of the syringes. Sliding his hands into the gauntlets, Gami flexed his fingers to ensure the mechanical arms responded properly, then began the second phase of the treatment.

  With the left gauntlet, Gami maneuvered the central arm to position a syringe over the nape of Juzo’s neck. He inserted the long needle there and slowly released the fluorescent substance, keeping a close eye on the data displayed on the screen as the Ambrosia entered Juzo’s system.

  “Incredible,” he murmured.

  Vicky moved closer to the monitors. According to the numbered scale, Juzo’s heart rate still hadn’t exceeded six. No red lights appeared, and no alarms sounded. She couldn’t see her friend’s face in that position, but she was certain he still wore the same calm expression as before.

  Gami activated the right gauntlet, distributing the four mechanical arms to Juzo’s legs—two positioned at opposite sides of his knees, right at the joints, and the other two aimed at the soles of his feet. The four needles pierced his skin simultaneously, injecting the Ambrosia.

  “His body… His body…” the Doctor muttered, as though an idea was circling his mind, waiting for the right moment to land. He was so enthralled that he forgot to take another drag from his cigarette. “It’s like… it’s accepting it. Yes, yes! That’s it! His body… his system accepts the Ambrosia as if it were his own blood!” he exclaimed, his neck veins bulging as he turned to Vicky with wide, manic eyes. “His genetic map must have at least seventy percent Ecuadorian DNA, right?”

  So, the Doctor did know the little secret. Even so, Vicky said nothing, offering just a blank stare.

  Gami took her silence as confirmation, swallowed hard, and turned his attention back to Juzo. “It’s unheard of, y’know?” he continued. “If all my patients were like this guy, I’d stop buying fuel for the incinerator. No more corpses to burn!”

  Vicky understood his surprise, but she was more interested in finishing and leaving than debating Juzo’s remarkable compatibility with the substance. She remained silent, making no comments. There would be time later to theorize about what made her friend such a unique patient—if there was anything truly special about him worth theorizing over. Perhaps Gami’s enthusiasm had more to do with his fondness for liquor than with any genuine scientific breakthrough.

  “Powder’s in. Now for the trigger,” the Doctor announced. “The implants?”

  Vicky pulled a small container from her pocket containing two tiny electronic implants and handed it to him. Gami opened the container, dumped the implants into his palm, and inspected them as if to ensure they were in perfect condition. Then he cleaned Juzo’s wrists with iodine and picked up a scalpel.

  “All right. Let’s operate on those tendons and complete the treatment,” he said.

  Meanwhile, the forgotten cigarette on the instrument tray burned down, releasing its final wisp of smoke.