Ella and Luyan had a very simple plan: they would not leave the farm until Caroline had explained what was going on with Steve/Marvin. They pestered and pestered until finally, Caroline raised her hands in resignation.
"If you tell anyone, I'll blow up Immortal Ignition," Caroline said.
"We're not gonna tell anyone," Ella said, rolling her eyes. They'd all heard it from Bob: Hosaka was silencing anyone who publicized the murder of Marvin Yao. "Now what's up with him?"
Caroline explained it all.
After he'd been killed, Marvin Yao was turned into a consciousness implant. He was inserted inside Saberstar's Core, and then the mech itself was thrown in a junkyard. Caroline found it three months later and offered Marvin a deal: pilot for her team and win Mecha Realm, and she would help him find his human body. Most of the time, Marvin inhabited this human-sized robot body, went by the alias of Steve, and told everyone he was a cyborg. During mech battles, Marvin's head was moved from cyborg to mech.
"Is that how you beat The Everlancer?" she asked Marvin. "Did becoming a robot make you better?"
"I'm not a robot," Marvin said.
Luyan raised an eyebrow. "Now that's an interesting debate." He turned to Caroline. "Did he actually get better as a consciousness implant?"
Why not ask him that? Ella thought.
"I think so?" Caroline replied. "Marvin, what do you think?"
"A little bit," Marvin replied. "I'm still getting used to it."
Luyan smiled and Ella could see the cogs turning in his brain. "How so? Is the interface more sensitive?"
"I can't really describe it," Marvin said. "It's like I'm more myself."
Luyan nodded slowly and said to Caroline, "I'd like to examine this, if you don't mind."
"Sorry?" Caroline said.
"Imagine the technology we could build from this," Luyan said. "I'm not talking about full conscious implants, of course. Just enhancements for our current mechs. It'd be a new generation of mech-fighting."
Caroline narrowed her eyes. "How are you gonna investigate this? Are you gonna run experiments on him?"
"If you all wouldn't mind," Luyan said.
"Of course we mind," Caroline said. Marvin, Ben, and Renee echoed their agreement.
"We'll give you parts in exchange," Luyan said.
"We're not selling Marvin," Ben protested.
Despite how much she disliked Marvin Yao, Ella couldn't help agreeing with his teammates. Luyan had a habit of putting science before his morals.
"We don't have to take you back with us," Ella said to Marvin. "We can stop by here every week—"
"No, you're not going to dissect Marvin," Caroline said. "Anything like that is off the table."
Ella understood that. However, there were two things that made her want to keep bartering: first, she felt obligated to help out Luyan. Second, she didn't like how Marvin just stood there without saying a word, as if this conversation was below him.
An ingenious idea came to mind.
"You know, Marvin, someone tried to kill me last week," Ella said. Luyan winced but said nothing. "They tried to get me when I was synced with my mech."
To her satisfaction, that got Marvin's teammates to shut up. Ella continued, "It might be the same person who killed you. We can help each other."
"But only if I agree to this deal?" Marvin asked.
"You've got more to gain than me," Ella said. After all, Marvin also needed to find his human body.
"I thought Hosaka didn't want anyone else investigating the murder," Ben said.
"They'll take forever," Ella said. "I've got some leads, you've got some leads. If we team up, we can solve this in no time."
"I'm sorry," Luyan cut in, laying his palms out. "I'm confused. Why don't we just work with Hosaka? If… if the same person who killed Marvin tried to kill you, Ella, why not bring your accounts to the Roundtable?"
That was a fair point, but as Ella exchanged looks with the rest of Marvin's team, they all silently agreed that this could backfire spectacularly. Worst case scenario, they could get exiled like Bob.
Caroline was able to put this into words for Luyan: "Hosaka might not trust us to keep the secret. They'll take the evidence, but then they might lock us up till they've solved the murder."
"Huh," Luyan murmured. "They'd even lock up Marvin himself?"
Caroline pursed her lips. "It's what I would do."
"Yeah," Ella agreed. "But we can get a lot done on our own. The killer tried to get me at my university. Checking the security footage there is gonna be a lot easier than at a dueling stadium."
And I have a primary suspect. She could tell Marvin that later.
"I can also help," Luyan said reluctantly. "I have connections that can protect us from Hosaka." He shrugged. "I still mean this to benefit my research, but… this would be more efficient if you stayed at our place, Marvin."
Ella nearly smiled. If this was what it took to get Luyan to believe her, so be it.
A round of deliberating murmurs went around Marvin, Caroline, Ben, and Renee. For a moment, Ella imagined what it would be like having Marvin at their workshop. She'd finally get a chance to beat him in a duel. Show him that it was she who deserved the spotlight last year, not him.
It wasn't surprising when Caroline declared that they would need a while longer to make a decision, but Ella felt her shoulders sag a little.
"Take your time," Luyan said. "We'll check back in tomorrow."
-----
In the end, it was Marvin's choice to go. Despite the risks, despite the anxiety of being separated from his teammates again, the prospect of working with the greatest engineer in the megacity to solve his murder was too enticing. With Luyan and Ella, he had a far better chance of becoming human in the next month or two. As protection, Renee would stay with him the whole time.
Caroline and Ben dropped off Marvin and Renee early in the morning. Ella and Luyan lived in Sector 88, the third largest Sector in the megacity. It was so populated that it sent five teams to Mecha Realm every year instead of three.
Sector 88's layout couldn't have been more different than Nagatown. Instead of the ancient-Gao stone architecture and neon lights, these buildings were made of marble and concrete. The unobscured walls were pearly white, but graffiti covered almost everything. Colors burst from the smallest crevices to the giant canvases of skyscraper walls. Though the art seemed freely drawn at first glance, it became clear that each piece was carefully themed for its location. From left to right, purple seeped into blue, blue seeped into green, into yellow, orange, red, and finally into pink. Where there weren't towering obelisks and brutalistic housing complexes, there were recreational parks and outdoor mech arenas. Sector 88 represented the love of the game more than any other Sector.
Deeper into the city, individual buildings began taking up more space. There were pantheons and colosseums, crosslinked skyscrapers and domed arenas. Marble seamlessly morphed into metal and back.
Immortal Ignition's workshop was located at the top of a cylindrical skyscraper. Marvin's shuttle landed on a landing pad that jutted out from a curved glass panel. As he and Renee stepped off, they promised Caroline and Ben that they would return if they made no progress after a month.
Then it was into the workshop. It was a ringed design, encircling the training grounds. It mirrored some mech pods Marvin had seen at colleges, but a dozen times larger. The marble walls were as vibrant as the rest of the Sector, each section of the workshop a different color. Cyan for the cryostations, red for the melt-tech, yellow for the assembly tables, and purple for the mechanical testing machines. There was orange and green and turquoise as well, but Marvin didn't recognize those sections. Many pieces of equipment had blueprint holograms next to them, subjecting them to constant improvement.
This was how Immortal Ignition became so good. They used a ton of money to buy this stuff, made their mech better, won more money, and bought better stuff. It was a positive feedback loop.
Marvin and Renee found a staircase spiraling to the second floor, where Luyan was waiting. He wore a dark green suit and a golden watch and golden rimmed glasses, meaning he was either going to a conference or to a party.
"I'll show you to your rooms," he said, leading them up the stairs.
The floor above the workshop was more or less normal. They entered a living room first, decked out in gold and marble and glass, and just beyond was a divot in the wall with three doors that led to the bedrooms.
"We'll get that room ready for you, Renee," Luyan said, pointing to the rightmost door.
"Thank you," Renee said through her voice box. "Where's Ella?
"She's staying at her dorm tonight," Luyan said.
Renee nodded and gestured to her room. "Can I take a look?"
"Of course."
While Renee went inside and unpacked, Luyan guided Marvin to the corner of the living room to something that looked like a hybrid of a Bessmer chair and a massage chair. It had an indent for the head and a monitor on the right side of the headrest, but no neurobrick or piloting helmet.
"Made it for you so you can sleep," Luyan said. He tapped the monitor and a timer appeared. "You can adjust how long you're on standby. One-hundred-percent power efficient."
"Wow," Marvin murmured. Leave it up to Luyan to create something so elaborate just to accommodate one person.
After Luyan showed Marvin how to use the chair—set the timer, sit down, and lean back—the two of them sat down on opposite couches separated by a mobile coffee table. Renee came out shortly after and sat next to Marvin.
"This murder of yours," Luyan began. "Where do we begin? Do you have any leads?"
Marvin shook his head; he had suspects like Ainsel AI and Hallowshard, but he didn't want to reveal too much right now.
"Do you?" he asked.
"No, but we have an area to search," Luyan said. "That person tried to sabotage Ella at her university. Hoxing."
He enunciated "sabotage" more carefully than the rest of his words. Marvin could understand—this must have been quite unbelievable for him.
"How do we search Hoxing University, though?" Marvin asked.
"They weren't a student, but they knew Ella's habit of going late, which means they might be nearby. Put the university on lockdown. Round up the students and faculty and see who still remains," Luyan said. Seeing Marvin's head tilt and Renee's eyebrows scrunch, he continued, "That's… not the best option, though. We could find someone suspicious and follow them or something."
Marvin took note of Luyan's hesitancy and glanced at Renee. You wanna say something about it? Marvin thought.
Renee caught his drift and leaned forward. "Mr. Cai," she said, "do you actually believe someone tried to kill Ella?"
Luyan sighed and rubbed his temples. "I'm just confused why they're so stupid. A university of all places. You're asking to get caught."
Marvin raised a phantom eyebrow. "Well, I was killed in a dueling stadium," he said.
Luyan laughed. "That's true. Look, I'm mostly doing this because I won't see any harm come to Ella. If something is afoot, I'd be damned if I didn't do something about it."
"You two have known each other for a while, right?" Renee asked.
"Yes. Her parents and I have been friends for decades," Luyan replied. He smiled. "And, if that's not enough to not want killers coming after her, she carries the future of my mech on her shoulders."
Your mech. Marvin supposed that while a mech was only as good as its pilot, pilots could come and go. The mech's creator never changed.
Am I Caroline's mech, then? After all, she built both bodies I use.
That didn't count. He still had a unique Core in his head.