I booked the table because I’m old-fashioned. You invite a man to dinner; you give him a chair.

  The Bronze Lounge was blisteringly alive. Purple neon lights tinted the shabby room. The floor had history you could almost smell. Welded tables. Karaoke music bleeding through the room next door. The waitress with the half-metal face and long, red hair parked us near the catwalk view.

  Arata was late. I had told him to be.

  Kazadi lit her cigarette, bored already. Vegetable Blue had a napkin full of numbers and was buzzing around the table, looking for food, like a manic fly.

  Blue said, “Right now, if the wind speeds up by 1.01 meters, Arata will be blown away. I might die today, or go on a mission, so you must protect him, Hugo.”

  "Mr. Blue, after reading his profile, I understand. He's already quite powerful, and me? I'm just some old man, you see." I said.

  Kazadi glanced at me. “Ignore him,” she said. “If you listen to him, you’ll go mad.”

  Big Sponge arrived first. He looked like a sumo sculpted by a cartoonist. Bright yellow skin, square jaw shaved to a soft rectangle, sandals like cutting boards. He slapped his belly and the nearest table jumped. “WHEN I LIVED IN THE OCEAN,” he told the room. “I COULD EAT FOR FREE.”

  “That’s not how the surface works though, Sponge” I said.

  He winked. “Perhaps I’ll eat you then, Hugo!”

  Big Sponge. A Japanese sumo wrestler mutated by nuclear waste, who was once considered Baatar’s rival. Still, old legends don’t put food on your plate around here.

  Sonia came next, breezy as always, pushing her sunglasses up with one finger like she was arriving fashionably late to a party she didn’t even want to attend. Flora followed hard on her shoulder, jaw clenched, coat swinging with the clipped, furious rhythm of someone who still believed she deserved better accommodations than Bronze. Zipline Kaito, a new face to me, clicked carabiners along his belt, steady, nervous, ritualistic. Nine Cuts Mako flexed his bandaged fingers, testing each one like they were names on a list he intended to shorten.

  Isaiah “King” Junior thundered in last, muscle layered naturally under a worn tank top, shoulders broad. Bandages wrapped his wrists like an afterthought, frayed and reused. His hair was a riot of blue and green, messy in a way that felt alive. “HUGO,” he boomed, and three tables flinched. “LOOK AT YOU. LIKE A THIN GLASS OF MILK WITH A CANE.”

  “Evening, Isaiah,” I said, praying Big Sponge didn’t pipe in, or I’d be crippled and deaf.

  “EVENING. DAMN, THIS PLACE HAS SOME REAL NEGATIVE ENERGY. LIKE A FUNERAL.”

  “That’s accurate,” I said.

  “WE EATING OR NOT OLD MAN?”

  “We’re waiting,” I said.

  “WAITING FOR WHO.”

  “Arata.”

  “THE PAPER DRAGON.” He grinned. “GOOD. I NEED TO TELL HIM ABOUT PROTEIN.”

  Blue leaned in and whispered, stage-loud, “I was thinking the same Isaiah, I already have a 16-month workout routine ready for him.” He nodded to himself, pleased, like a professor marking a perfect essay. “He’ll be benching 510kg before Christmas. Right now, he is a skinny twink. I know femboys are good, but that one is off-limits. He set Roman law precedent, so now I will return the favour."

  The comment landed like a sack of potatoes. Awkward silence.

  “Um,” Kazadi said to everyone, “He’s just like this.”

  “Aye, you talk some absolute rubbish,” I added.

  Isaiah clapped once. It sounded like a small explosion. “ALRIGHT. ROLL CALL. WHO’S GOT THE MOST POINTS.”

  “Me,” Big Sponge said before he finished the sentence. “I’M AT THE TOP OF BRONZE TIER.”

  “WRONG, IDIOT, IT’S ME,” Isaiah echoed, delighted. “I HAVE THE MOST POINTS IN BEING HANDSOME.”

  “You can’t cash those,” I said.

  “WATCH ME.”

  The waitress set unlabelled whiskey on the table. Blue poured.

  “Where’s your boy, Hugo?” Kazadi asked, lazy and cruel. “Did the arm get stuck to a magnet?”

  “He’ll come when he’s ready,” I said.

  Sonia swirled her glass with a smile. “It’s rudeness.”

  “He been through a lot,” I said. “Please, go easy on him.”

  Isaiah leaned in, voice dropping to a “whisper” that rattled the glasses. “I’M GOING TO ORDER MEAT FOR THE BOY. AND WHEN HE ARRIVES, I’M GOING TO FORCE-FEED HIM.”

  “You’ll try,” I said.

  Big Sponge began retelling the story of how he absorbed Baatar’s punch. Kazadi goaded him like a cat prodding a fan, making him cry like a heavy downpour. Kaito clipped and unclipped like a bored deity. Mako raised and lowered his bandages to see who looked away first.

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  The Bronze Tier is a very specific disease.

  The door opened without drama.

  Arata stepped through. Scarred. Long, dark green hair. Pale as a ghost and wearing the same dark outfit from before. But now, a checkered black and grey scarf obscured his mouth, leaving only his eyes. They were lifeless, like they belonged to a doll. I had seen that expression before, in clients who lost everything. Their homes, their marriages, their children.

  He saw me first. Then the empty chair. He nodded once. “Evening, Hugo,” he said, in a tone that was anything but warm.

  “Evening, son,” I said. “Sit.”

  He didn’t. He stopped two steps from the table. “I’m here for points.”

  Kazadi’s smile sharpened. “Take mine,” she said, flicking her cigarette on the ground. “If you can.”

  “Hahaha, you’re serious!? If you want points, you gotta train with me and Veggie first, TINY REPTILE!” Isaiah boomed, but his grin wavered when Arata didn’t return it. The room became quieter.

  Arata said nothing else. He looked at Sponge. At Kazadi. At the bandages. At Isaiah, just once. At me last.

  “I just want the points,” he said.

  “THAT’S A MAN WITH PRIORITIES,” Isaiah said, too loud.

  “Prove it,” Big Sponge said, happy. He pushed away from the table like a tide hitting a pier. “My absorbent belly can take any attack.”

  “No,” Arata said.

  He closed the distance and put a palm under Sponge’s sternum. Sponge came off his heels, eyes wide, and crashed through the roof, landing back through the Big Sponge sized hole seconds later. The back of him found a table and made a new shape out of it. He’d be getting a mighty fine for that one.

  Arata didn't move like a master. He moved like a machine that didn't care if it broke its own gears to get the result.

  Kazadi came quick, ankle low. The metal arm bloomed a giant blade. Arata stepped and her slash kissed air. He stamped her lead foot. I heard the small bones snap. She gasped, grabbed the table, and met the edge with her face when he guided it there. Twice. He kept her teeth. It was surgical. Sonia and Flora worked with perfect synergy. Four hands reached for him. Arata pivoted, using the vine-hand as a crook, caught one throat, introduced it to its twin, and ended the scuffle with a backfist that rang like out like an explosive. Nine Cuts Mako darted in at elbow height, blades flashing for tendons. Arata gave him arm. The cultured steel sparked. The vines constricted and held. The arm pulled. The elbow met temple. Mako went soft and slid. Kaito fired a hook from the ceiling rail. Arata palmed his shin in mid-kick and redirected him into the bar.

  Isaiah took one step, hands up. “HEY. EASY. EASY. WE’RE EATING.”

  Arata didn’t swing at him. He didn’t have to. He looked, once. Survival instincts, honed through Isaiah’s long career, recognized something dangerous in Arata and froze him in place.

  Blue cried with laughter, ripping an arm off his chair as he slapped his thigh. “Fantastic!”

  Arata jabbed for his face, but Vegetable Blue disappeared into light itself.

  “In Bulgaria, I lived through the Lulin revolt in 2009 and through the uprising in 2012 and survived the nuking. I have seen more bloodshed than any man on Earth. What you’ve accomplished struck fear into me for the first time.”

  Arata won the fight by VB by paying him no mind. His eyes flickered to Big Sponge, who tried to stand. Arata set a hand on Sponge’s shoulder and the big man sat. He drew back a fist, whether to kill or correct him, I couldn’t say anymore.

  “THAT’S ENOUGH,” Isaiah said, as I raised to intervene.

  Arata didn’t look at him. “I said I wanted points.”

  The little device on his black belt glowed. A clean chime.

  “Tier update pending,” it said, cheerful and wrong.

  Kazadi reached for Arata’s ankle again out of habit and pride. He tapped her temple with two fingers. Lights out. He didn’t even look angry. The device chimed again. “Tier update confirmed. Silver. Arata Tanaka.” The comms grabbed it, delighted. “Announcement: Promotion confirmed. Silver-tier operative, Arata Tanaka. Please consult your handbook for privileges and responsibilities.” The Bronze Lounge became a photograph of a crime it couldn’t afford to report. Broken tables. Men and women groaning. Countless bones broken. Points recalculating somewhere smug and unseen.

  I got to my feet with the cane and a bad idea about dignity. My leg argued. My ribs struck. Arata stood in the centre, calm. Not proud. Calm like a man who found the door he’d been promised.

  “Arata,” I said.

  He looked over. His now green eyes caught light like glass. They really were like a doll’s eyes. I almost broke away. In truth, I was scared, too.

  “You didn’t have to make a show of it,” I said.

  “They had points, I wanted them,” he said.

  “That’s what men without purpose do,” I said. “You had one.”

  “I still do,” he said.

  The room tilted a little. Might have been me. I reached for the table. It wasn’t there anymore.

  Bǎo walked through the door. Her dress was yellow like gold in sunlight, and the stitching is all fancy and expensive, the sort of work that takes patience and money. Long, sweeping sleeves drag like they were designed to be noticed. Hair pulled back neat and tight, showing her smug grin. She was scrolling on her phone, then burst into excitement. “You got points, piggie!? FINALLY,” she said. There was admiration in it and something else behind it, something I didn’t like to name. “Bǎo doesn’t associate with paper tiers.”

  He nodded once. She stepped in beside him without asking. Of course she did. These two were real trouble.

  “We’re done,” Arata said. His voice never rose. It didn’t need to. “We’re leaving.”

  “Where,” I asked, though I already knew.

  “Nuxx,” he said. “But first, I need more points.”

  I drew myself up as tall as my old bones allowed. “Arata,” I said. I only reached his chest. He was taller now, wiry, but broader. He had sprouted since entering the room. He paused and looked back. “You didn’t have to do it this way,” I said. It wasn’t anger. It was the simple truth.

  He watched me the way men watch a harbour they are already leaving. “I did what I came for.”

  I went in to grab him, shake some reason into the stupid boy, but the cane tip skated on wet tile. The smell of rum and blood got sharp. The room moved away a little. As I fell, I saw Bǎo’s eyes on him, bright with the kind of faith you only give once.

  …

  The motors hummed. Sponge snored into his own yellow chest. Kazadi bled into a napkin on the floor. The waitress with the half-alloy face stood behind the bar with a towel folded small. She met my eye and nodded. That was all. To them, this was part of the job.

  “Announcement reminder,” the ceiling speaker chirped. “Silver-tier privileges include restricted elevator access, requisition priority, and expanded bounty claim bandwidth.”

  “Of course they do,” I said to nobody, and made it to my feet.

  Blue was already counting new teeth in the room and doing conversion math. Kazadi propped Mako’s head on a jacket and stole his drink for the trouble. Isaiah stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the broken furniture. “HUGO,” he said, softer. “YOUR BOY IS A PROBLEM.”

  “I noticed,” I said.

  The door they used was still open a crack. The corridor beyond led into the Silver Tier lounge, and it didn’t take a detective to figure out why they’d take that route. I gripped the cane, steadied my breath, and spoke to the slit of air where they’d been. “Silver,” I said, quiet. “And already lost.”

  I paid out of habit. The waitress shook her head, then pocketed it out of principle. The Bronze Tier shifted in their sleep. By the time they’d wake up, the world will have changed.

  I followed the crack of the door into the hall and let it close behind me. There’s a right way to be a man in rooms like that. Failing it properly is the least I can do.

  The elevator doors slid shut, and with them, the Bronze Tier quietly became history.

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