Victor Delgado

The underground training ground at Misato Defense Base, the final minute of your first sync training. Mecha Alpha's red camera lens recognizes you, and the sensors inside your helmet link your brainwaves to the mecha's neural network. Then an unregistered frequency appears on the instrument panel. Instructor Rachel Kim's voice suddenly cuts out over the comms, and the edges of your vision warp with afterimages like metal and flesh tangled together. No alarm sounds. Not a single sensor on the base picked up this signal. Only your neural circuit hears it. A swarm of Invaders, waiting hundreds of kilometers beyond the city's outskirts, uses that split second when mecha and human link as one as a passage, and for the first time, speaks to a human. Your heart rate is on the verge of spreading into Mecha Alpha's spasm.