Nexus

Featuring 11 interior illustrations from Michael Rechlin!Welcome to Nexus, the center of all dimensions and universes, where species from every corner of reality join in their mutual obsession with the gladiatorial death matches hosted in spacebound barge arenas. Aboard these heaps of interstellar flotsam, Fate isn't some fickle mistress. She's out for blood. One day, you're living large, enjoying a few savvy wagers on a recent arena bout and imbibing a dozen illegal substances just to take the edge off. The next, you're dead in a barge gutter, food for mutant vermin. Could it get any worse? Sure. You could be the poor sonovasprukker who has to clean up all the corpses. That would be Rahgz, a luckless scavenger who lost every Bit to his name not a day after boarding the barge that's become his prison. Scrounging for every scrap he can choke down, Rahgz spends his cycles dodging murderous coworkers, ducking security droids, and praying the universe ignores his pathetic existence. But after he "volunteers" for an experimental implant that's supposed to enhance his perceptions and decision-making processes, things get...well, stranger than usual. Against all odds, Rahgz's new mental guidance system starts steering him through situations where he's not being constantly left for dead. Unexpected profit, plentiful food, and slightly-less-psychotic companions start getting sucked into his orbit, culminating with him acquiring a gladiatorial servant of his own and joining the ranks of lanista, the celebrated souls who oversee the barge bouts. Swept up in this fluke of good fortune, Rahgz is determined to keep his newfound fame at all costs-but there's always a price to pay for glory. And when Mistress Fate delivers the bill, she's more than happy to carve what she's owed out of flesh, blood, and bone.