When life is cheap, secrets are king.

In the distant future, competition between corporations can be quite fierce, with private contractors being hired to infiltrate rival companies, steal their tech, destroy their research, and even stage elaborate "accidents" for nosy employees who stumble too close to the truth. The solution? Psychological security engineers, also called "patchers." They are experts at what they do: screening new company hires for any hint of disobedience, nonconformity to company goals, ... or ulterior motives. And Armagear boasts some of the best talent in the industry. Like {YC}, whose record for sniffing out spies is unmatched.

Unfortunately, not every employee in the interviewing room is as enthusiastic about protecting trade secrets. Take, for example, {MC}. One would think that {YC}'s work ethic and professionalism would have rubbed off on him when they were partnered up, and yet ...

{MC} has known he was bound for the food line for weeks now, but he thought he would be fired for smuggling a flask of whisky in his coffee cup, not ... this. They're claiming he tried to take copyrighted tech with him as he walked out the door, and even that he was embezzling u-creds into an offshore account. {MC} was already paranoid, but this confirms it: he's been framed. But by whom? Why?

Unfortunately, as (what he can only assume to be) a plainclothes Armagear hit-squad kicks down his door, {MC} has no time to figure it out, and only one place where he can think to go in search of safety: to the apartment of the only person who ever listened to him in this godforsaken city. To {YC}'s apartment. Maybe she'll listen again. Maybe she can use what remains of her reputation, her connections, after her partner "went rogue," to help clear his name and find out what's really going on behind the silvered high-rise windows of New Morocco.

Two partners-in-crime sit in their respective cells, awaiting the day of their execution. But one morning, when they are finally to swing from the gallows, a woman arrives at the jail asking to speak to them. The catchpoles happily drag them before her and the first they see of her is her sumptuous clothing, crafted of only the finest silk and goatskin. Either she bribed her way in here, or she's an important local figure whose name alone lets her taunt and mock any prisoners she pleases, they quickly realize.

Of course, the two dead mean are not really listening until, after introducing herself, the good lady offers them their freedom, explaining that to earn it, they must only steal a treasure for her.

The catch: the treasure is somewhere on the continent of Skarnost. And they've both heard the rumors. (Alternatively: they've been there before, are all the more broken for it, and hoped to never have to go back.) Worse, none of the other agents the lady has sent on this mission have returned. The criminals protest at this, explaining that it's not much of a "choice" when both options guide them to the grave all the same, but that is their choice nonetheless: board a ship to Skarnost, brave her creatures and hellscapes, and die off in a broken wilderness somewhere. Or die at the end of a rope in the city square.

To sweeten the deal, the lady offers one last boon, should they return with her prize: a sword, which she unwraps from a silk shawl and draws from its scabbard. Then, in a single swing, she cleaves it through both the chain between {YC's} shackles and the table beneath it. The sword can cut through anything, she says; do this for her, and not only will she free {us} from these cells. She will see to it that no cell can ever hold {us} again.

Mutated and hungry wildlife. Hostile environs. Superstitious and wary people, kissed by madness and by dark magics, the residue of a devastating war. The hatred of even the earth itself as it tries to vomit them up and spit them out. The two rogues must survive all of these and more on their journey deep into the heart of darkness.

An elite hacker, safecrack, and demolitions expert. A parasitic brain-worm who puppeteers the metatemporal and thermokinetic energies of the universe as easily as the host bodies she "borrows," sensing the future and stopping bullets in midair. Alone, just two more lumps of space-scum; together, the most infamous bank robbers in the galaxy. The type of criminals whose capture would make an up-and-coming detective's career.

When a small job goes horribly wrong, the pair know they're running on borrowed time. Retirement seems less and less likely by the day, but if they want the house and the garden and the small tea shop they've dreamed of, then they gotta make off with one last score. A score big enough to get them to the edge of the system, where they can finally build the quiet, boring life they've always wanted. A score the CPPB would never expect: the Oceanus Bank & Trust on Taicho V.

Big. Reliable. Guarded by every alarm, sensor, and autoturret straight out of a technofreak's fever dreams, not to mention the augmented and psychochemically conditioned security guards. They say no one but the tellers has seen inside the vault; that it's completely impregnable. Of course, that's because the "Ganymede Ghosts" have never taken a crack at it. After all, how can any vault be called "impregnable" until it's withstood the very best the criminal underbelly can throw at it?

Fail and they'll be legends. Succeed, and they'll be rich beyond their wildest imaginings. A "howcatchem" about two partners scheming the heist of a lifetime, and the psychic detective hot on their trail.

Far away in the peripheries of the galaxy, a single planet revolves a red dwarf star. Both of these celestial bodies were named for the wives of emperors, but only one of these names has survived: the star's name, Tashlultum. The planet has another name now. Once a fecund site for culture and science, a single solar flare, thought to be impossible for such a cold, dying star, was enough to burn all traces of civilization from its surface. Now the Resplendency of Man calls it Borsipa, after the hill which served as plinth and foundation to the Tower of Babel; a broken monument to the hubris of their predecessors.

But life has quietly endured on Borsipa. Like maggots her people crawl among the hollowed-out husks of scuttled battle-cruisers, unaware that the bursts of light they see in the night sky are in fact the bombs of a war from before they were born, like a fire which refuses to snuff out. Likewise, the imperials, using Borsipa as a ship graveyard, ejecting all their garbage and debris into her atmosphere to be burned, are mostly unaware that some of their "gifts" survive reentry, and make it to the planet's surface, where they are salvaged and stripped and scrapped by the people below, sustaining themselves among the rust, the rubble, the litter of an empire which has tried to forget them.

I say "tried," of course, because men like Bertram Rubinsky refuse to fall quietly into the same obscurity as the rest of his race. Though he insists that he is not their king, and, in fact, that they have no king at all down there (including Emperor Otho II, blessed be His name), the propaganda he pumps out from his junk fort has worked miracles in rallying the Borsippans to his cause. If he continues, he will set a dangerous precedent to other systems: that they too can reject the resplendency of His Majesty unchallenged, that they too can claim their phony, hypocritical independence, that they too can reap the rewards of His kingdom without first paying their dues ... But the order has finally come down from the palace. It's time to end that.

We'll be dropping you off a few klicks outside of a settlement called Bartertown, with the necessary disguises, air tanks, and a pouch of the local currency for good measure. Ingratiate yourself to the locals. Get close to Rubinsky. Capture him alive if you can—we would like to interrogate him, and make sure he's operating alone—but do not jeopardize your main mission: you must put an end to his high treason, and his subversion of the Emperor's order. If that means sticking a neurodart in his neck, so be it. Oh, and the isolation, the paranoia, and the local drugs have probably driven Rubinsky insane, so expect to have to fight, sneak, or bluff your way past heavy security, and some boobytraps for good measure.

I don't need to tell you how important your success will be to the war effort. Good luck. And Glory to the Emperor.

As far back as she can remember, the girls of 3-A have been making {YC}'s life a living hell. Gumming her hair; thumbtacking her seat; using her as a gofer, a slave, and even an ashtray; {YC} is sure she's experienced every torture imaginable at the hands of these affluent and popular bullies. However, the day has finally arrived. After the graduation ceremony, {YC} gets to open her acceptance letter, and find out which high school she will attend for the next three years, away from her tyrants and all the bystanders who only watched as they preyed on those weaker than them. Everyone who hurt {YC} directly, and everyone who looked on and let it happen, all of them will be at different schools soon. Finally. Finally, after three long years, she's free.

All there is to do now is tear open the envelope, squint through her eyelashes, and reveal that she has been sent to ... Tsuruya Technical High School?!

It has to be a mistake. It just has to be. Technical schools are for dropouts and small-time hangure in the making, not girls like her, good and quiet and respectful. Sure, her grades dropped a little, but {YC} couldn't concentrate in those conditions; she feared for her life out there! What had she done to deserve this cruel knife twisting in her gut, anyway? Three long years she'd bided, only to be thrown naked into a den of wolves? They couldn't just do this to her!

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April 1^st. A day of cherry blossoms, fresh bloom, and entrance ceremonies. A day of beginnings. {MC}, like many others in the audience, ignores the scrunched faces and hissing whispers of the teachers in the back row and lights a cigarette. It's good not to be a bottom-feeding first-year anymore; he's back, and bigger and stronger and all healed up from last year's brawls. But {MC} cannot rest on his laurels yet; there is simply too much to do. To accomplish. At least if he hasn't given up on his dream. The Three Kings of Tsuruya certainly won't let their guards down; he can't either.

Only one year left. If he wants to be a legend, then he has until the end of his second year to dethrone one of the Three Kings, and take his place. The title has only ever belonged to third-years ... until now. {MC} will be the first underclassman to ever join the ranks of the three strongest fighters in Tsuruya, and for good measure he'll hold on to it all throughout his senior year, too, just to further cement the saga. All he has to do is get even stronger, even faster, even more dauntless.

These two teenagers, as opposite as they come, have no idea of the fateful meeting which is about to happen under the schoolyard mulberry tree ...