"Clang! Clang! Clang-clang..."
Accompanied by a string of crisp metallic clatters, a boy named Youji ran cheerfully down the street, dragging a huge pile of scrap iron behind him. He told everyone he met, "I have a dad now! I have a dad now!"
Most residents of Scrapheap Town watched with smiles-mocking smiles, to be precise. Youji's biological father had died many years ago after lithium bacteria invaded his biological brain, leaving behind a woman and seven children.
To feed her seven children, the woman had sold her spine, cerebellum, and pons in exchange for a construction machine. Scrapheap Town got its name from a garbage dump dating back to the Sublimation War that had been excavated there. The entire town lived off its resources. Things like alloys from the Sublimation War Era had to be hauled into the city, creating a huge demand for freight transport.
After becoming a construction machine, the woman no longer had hands or feet with which to care for her children. Of the seven, four died of illness one after another, and one was taken by a tax collector as gene tax to preserve the diversity of the Human Gene Bank. Her eldest son had left early to make a living in the city, leaving only her youngest. He had been bullied since childhood.
Most residents had no interest in Youji's "new dad." Only a few children roughly shoved him. Youji fell to the ground with a loud clang-a hallmark of cheap prosthetic bodies.
"Hahaha... you fatherless bastard, where's your dad? Huh? Come on, let us see him!"
The older boy leading them laughed loudly.
Youji snorted and lifted the head in his arms. "Look! This is my new dad!"
It was a... very, very wretched human head. The top of his skull was completely gone, and the edges of his metal cranium were still warped, as if they had been mangled by tremendous force. Inside was a charred black mass, apparently some kind of melted residue, making it doubtful whether his biological brain was still there. He must once have had a layer of synthetic skin, but now only a metal shell remained, his eyeballs tucked behind metal eyelids. A large chunk of his lower jaw was missing too.
The older boy froze for a moment, then burst into thunderous laughter. "Ahahaha... hahahahaha! It's a dead man's head! Hahaha! What a perfect match for you! A dead head! A bastard... hahahaha!"
"He's not a dead head!" the boy said furiously. "He's still alive! Give him a little water, and his eyes can still move!"
"Hahahahaha... that's hilarious! A dead man's head!" Now the older boy had even lost interest in bullying Youji. Laughing wildly, he waved him away.
Youji hugged the head-or rather, the half-head-and hurried home.
He had found the head deep inside the garbage heap. He had accidentally dug into a new soft section-a cushioning structure from a warship. Polymeric nanocushioning material was still worth something in this era. The head had been lying there. At first, he had thought it was fairly rare scrap and had been delighted for a while. But as he left the garbage heap, he accidentally dropped the head into a puddle of dirty water.
Then he saw one of its eyes move.
"I'll fix you, I promise!" the boy told the head. "Then I'll have a dad."
I...
The man had a dream, a dream about martial arts.
In his dream, blades flashed and swords danced.
Vector thrusters, steel staves, ship-cleaving blades, Vulcan Cannons, wireless signal receivers...
Every one was a magnificent weapon that put the ages to shame.
Mobile Step, Demon-Subduing Staff, Ship-Mastery Art, Gunlock, Cloud Dragon Hacking Method...
Every one was a renowned martial art.
What...
His consciousness returned to his body. He opened his eyes. The world before him swayed, every sight rippling.
"You silly child... why did you soak this head in water? And you put copper sugar in too? You don't even have enough for yourself..."
"Mom! Look! Look! His eyelids really are moving!"
"Huh? They really are?"
"Now I'll have a new dad!"
"We can't keep this dead man's head..."
"Mom!"
An argument seemed to break out.
Then came the sound of a vehicle starting.
"All right, all right. I'll get the mayor to come take a look."
A baffling conversation.
The man could no longer sustain his thoughts.
And so he sank into sleep again.
But this time, he had a nightmare.
Countless fists and palms clashed. He could no longer remember the forms.
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. A wrinkled face greeted him. The face seemed to be organic, but the upper half of the skull had been replaced with machinery, and lens-like cylinders protruded from the eye sockets.
The man was somewhat bewildered. "Who... are you?"
"The mayor of Scrapheap Town." The old man smiled. "Who are you? 'Yawg'-is that your name?"
The man pondered for a moment. But, to his surprise, his mind was completely blank.
"I'm... I..."
The man tried to shake his head. Only then did he realize that he seemed to be nothing but a head. The discovery startled him. He could only answer aloud, "I don't think that's my name... 'Yawg' isn't my name."
"But it was the first word you called out after waking up." The mayor considered for a moment. "Then, for convenience, shall we call you 'Yawg' anyway?"
The man hesitated for a moment and tried to nod. But he found that he still couldn't. He could only say, "Then, for now... let's do that?"
Although a voice deep inside him was shouting that this name absolutely held some profound significance... that it absolutely wasn't his name. Even if he forgot himself, he must never forget this name... yet he couldn't work out why.
Youji jumped up. "Mayor! Mayor! Could my dad be a warrior from the old days? A really amazing one!"
The man jumped in fright... except he couldn't jump. "I have a son?"
"No, no, you were found." The mayor offered a few explanations, then said, "This business about a dad is all the boy's idea. He's a little short on... the affection he needs."
"Mayor!" Youji stamped his foot. "You still haven't said whether he is!"
"Heh... this garbage dump was excavated fifty years ago. And the Sublimation War was even earlier. No brain cells could possibly survive that long." The mayor tried to explain, but found that Youji didn't understand at all, so he could only shake his head.
"He's probably from the rubbish brought out of the city a few months ago, isn't he?" An unusually mechanical voice came from outside the window.
The voice was almost noise, making the glass shake. The man turned his eyes and saw a truck parked outside...
Could that vehicle be called a truck? The man did see an enormous cargo bed. But its cab was tiny, too small to fit a person inside. A camera on the cab was watching 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 mayor must have brought the lamp; its power cord was plugged directly into a socket on the mayor's neck.
And the bed faced the window.
"Yulia sold her spine, cerebellum, and pons to raise money for her children's treatment, then bought a construction machine with what was left." The mayor pointed outside. "She earns a little more that way, but a body like that can't come indoors, so this is the only way to arrange the room."
The man was bewildered.
He vaguely felt... humans weren't supposed to be like this. This wasn't how a person should be.
Youji looked expectantly at the mayor. The mayor thought for a moment. "Perhaps he really was somebody once? Maybe an athlete?"
"Wow!" Youji cried in delighted surprise.
The man, meanwhile, remained utterly confused.
"All right, thinking like this must be exhausting, isn't it?" The mayor turned to the man and shook his head. "I've got a driver chip here that my grandson just replaced-I don't know what happened to you before, but all the equipment outside your biological brain is burned out. Only a few components remain. Luckily, your brain-machine barrier is very reliable..." The mayor pressed a hand against the top of the man's head. "I cleaned things up for you. Looks like there are still a few working ports. I'll put this in for you!"
Only then did the man realize that he seemed to have only half a head, no tongue, and a sound generator connected directly inside his mouth.
Why am I only noticing something so important now... ah!
A sensation like an electric shock.
[New device detected] [Installing required drivers]
New signals raced through his nerves.
This feeling...
The man suddenly felt his body come "alive."
What little body he had suddenly sprang to life!
"Without a driver chip to help, a biological brain has a hard time controlling a prosthetic body... Those eyes of yours look good. They might be worth quite a bit. Want to think about it? Sell them to me, and I can get you a prosthetic body."
The man tried to shake his head again. He quickly voiced his refusal. "No, thank you for your kindness. But I think... perhaps there are clues to 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 body..."
Youji jumped up. "I can look in the garbage heap!"
"It's not that easy." With his hands behind his back, the mayor shook his head and left.
Youji jumped up. "Bah! I can find..."
"Enough!" Yulia's loudspeaker blared sternly. Youji immediately fell silent.
That evening, Youji fell asleep hugging the man's head.
Outside the window, Yulia's camera focused on the man. He seemed unable to sleep at all.
What is this "Yawg" thinking about?
Yulia couldn't help feeling curious. She had little of the embarrassed indignation of women from the old days. Apart from her biological brain, every part of her body was now steel. With a body like this, what was there to feel shy about?
She had only one wish now: to watch Youji grow up and get a decent prosthetic body, and then... then...
She couldn't imagine the future beyond that.
That was also why she hadn't firmly insisted that Youji throw the head away. Perhaps this would make the boy a little happier.
But their family couldn't possibly buy a prosthetic body, no matter how cheap it was. Every bit of money had to go toward replacing Youji's body with an adult model. In a few more years, his biological parts would exceed the maximum capacity of a child's prosthetic body.
But adult prosthetic bodies were expensive.
Sometimes Yulia even wanted to sell her temporal and frontal lobes. But she had heard that people who sold those were no longer people, only machines.
Becoming a machine wasn't such a big deal. But if she could no longer love Youji, would she still be able to work?
I have to save up quickly!
Hopefully this dead man's head will be able to work someday too!
He can consider it repayment for Youji saving his life.
The man saw Yulia's gaze too. To be honest, the "gaze" of a camera like this always made him somewhat uncomfortable, though he didn't know why.
That wasn't all that unsettled him. For now, "Yawg" had become his name. But that felt deeply wrong.
In the darkness, he finally became certain of one thing.
The true owner of the name "Yawg" was absolutely, absolutely his enemy.
An enemy with whom he could never coexist.
I am... a rebel...
What am I rebelling... against?