From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Home Invasion
This article describes the second collected volume of A Complicated Surgery Will Take Place on the Beach Tonight (manga). For the story arc itself, see Chapter 1.
The second collected volume of the manga serialization, covering the intrusion into the McRae apartment and the escape into Newcastle's lower streets.
Katita wheels the unconscious Leif across the parallel wires and into an ordinary apartment—that of elderly Mr and Mrs McRae, who regard the sudden occupation with serene unconcern. They deploy their Mighty Mechas—pendulum exoskeletons suspended from the ceiling—and what follows is a precisely choreographed, almost balletic combat: mechanical grinding punctuated by the McRaes' gentle laughter; Leif's unconscious body a weapon in Katita's hands; the apartment rearranged into an arena.
Escaping down the twelve-storey stairwell, they arrive at a hotdog eatery where a vendor, unremarkably, informs them of the coming Dirtheart protest. The volume closes with them acquiring food and intelligence—and the first true encounter with the cycle's indifference: even violence, here, is ritualized, domestic, survivable.
Mr. McRae: You can't stay, but you can finish the fight.— Volume 2, p. 67
Editors dispute whether the Mechas represent genuine threat or ceremonial reenactment; the manga renders the McRaes' expressions identical before and after combat. Related theses read the exoskeletons as a doubled self bleeding through.