The old man’s not moving, but his beast still hums.

The problem with genius, Rhodes thinks as he straps himself in, is that it rarely concentrates on user-friendship. He thinks he knows where the triggers are, and the gravdamp’s kicking in, but his hud’s a mess. Bootup babble scrolls over his reticle. Something’s yelling at him about failures in block ASCII caps, but a line right under that says to ignore it. Hacker UI.

But Rhodes kicks off and the armor’s with him, huge and strong and beautiful. Bare metal, said the old man, is the only way to ride.