“Sir, the information you procured was right on the money. Arcology module three is still inhabited, though it is yet unknown just by how many.” the squad captain said. “We’ve successfully breached the upper layer of the module and are awaiting new orders.”
“Captain Wing, you and your team are to capture Riot and his associates by any means you see fit, collapse the module on their heads if needs must.” Bright Suns voice said through the comm-link in the captain’s helmet. “You’re free to eliminate his associates if need be, but you are to capture, not kill, Riot himself. I want to be the one to teach him that you don’t fuck with the corporation that owns him now.”
“And if he refuses to co-operate, sir?”
“It should go without saying, Captain, but if you or any of your troopers kill him, you’re going to lose a lot more than your bonus checks.” Bright Sun growled maliciously. “Blow his kneecaps into dust if you have to, just stop him from escaping.”
“Yes sir.”
Captain Wing waited for his boss’ voice to fade from the call before he let out a loud exhale. The assault had progressed just as planned with only a few small skirmishes between themselves and the module’s inhabitants so far.
Bright Sun wasn’t someone you wanted to let down, let alone betray, and it showed. All of Equi-Tech’s most elite hunter-killer squads were here in their entirety, six in each of the four squads that had been able to deploy this rapidly, adding up to twenty-four heavily armed, well trained, and very eager killing machines.
They’d been warned that there would likely be more than Riot to contend with however, as Bright Sun had passed on the information procured by Cobalt to the ground team. None of them were using their usual equipment and more than a few of the crates that had been airlifted down to them were marked as highly dangerous, a strange statement to write on a weapon crate of all things, but Cobalt himself had remarked that it would help them bag their secondary targets too.
“Sir, may I ask what these crates are for?” one of the troopers called. “I thought this was a routine clean-up mission?”
“Scrambler Grenades, complements of the boss. A little something to force our secondary and tertiary targets into submission. Open it and distribute three to each trooper, don’t waste them and don’t get caught in the blast or they’ll cook you too.”
“Any luck, Access?
“There’s definitely someone here. I tried that one program I used way back at the Darkspace office to breach the walls, but it barely made a dent.” he responded, pointing to a small stain on the walls where his program had scorched a small portion of it. “Reinforcement isn’t that quick unless there’s someone actively working against us.”
“We’re not some script kiddies Access, surely you have something in that deck of yours to help us beat this?”
“Just one, that nuke program we stole from a security firm that one time. You know the one, it can breach anything in seconds!”
“How likely is it that the dweller will notice that?” Sheet Rock inquired “I have tools of my own, but if you think that’s our only option…”
“If they didn’t know we were here before, they certainly will once that little pipe-bomb goes off.” Access said sarcastically. “Do you have your emergency exit mapped out and loaded?”
“Obviously, after what happened at the Darkspace office I have to admit I spent more than a little more time preparing.”
Access nodded and called up a menu. He had many a tool up his sleeve for nearly any eventuality, as in their line of work, to be unprepared meant that you were unlikely to complete your job, or at the very worst killed in the process.
The program he’d mentioned, the aptly named “Nuke” program, assaulted a system with so much input that any security would become overwhelmed within moments, but the problem was that it was very noisy, to the point where anyone else who was connected would notice its use, and if the system had a resident AI or dweller, it would be upon them in milliseconds.
A large, glowing, orange ball of flame manifested in front of Access, hovering just above his horn. As he turned his head to face Sheet Rock, it followed the very point of his horn perfectly as if it were glued to it. If it were real flame, it would most certainly have been hot enough to melt even the strongest of metals.
“You ready? The moment this so much as touches anything in here is when all hell will break loose.”
Sheet Rock nodded, and Access flung the burning ball of flame into the walls blocking their way. It started to burrow its way through the walls, which started to “melt” into a puddle as it made its way through. Almost immediately the two felt a presence watching them from out in the treeline, and in the distance a flash of light followed by a loud roar that immediately set them on edge.
“Looks like our dweller friend is here, take cover!”
Not a moment later, a thin beam of light swept across where they had just been standing and a jittery, glitched out avatar slowly stumbled out from the treeline. Its features were wholly unrecognizable and scrambled, save for an angry grimace on what passed for a face.
Its head snapped toward Access and Sheet Rock, only to unleash another one of its sweeping laser attacks which swept toward them at a terrifying pace, forcing them to get up in a hurry and take cover behind the only other objects nearby, the treeline itself.
When the avatar’s attacks couldn’t cut through the treeline, it let out an annoyed, stuttering growl, and continued to slice at the treeline, and the ponies behind it, as it got angrier and angrier.
“What is this thing?” cried Sheet Rock in a panic. “It looks like a runner’s avatar… but, it’s not right somehow.”
“That’s what happens when you leave a dweller plugged in for too long, Sheet, I don’t suppose you’ve seen too many of ‘em?” Access shot back as one of the avatar’s lasers whisked past him, missing him by inches. “I don’t like the look of those lasers it’s slinging at us either, we should flank it and get a better look.”
“I don’t think it’s gonna give us the chance, can you get off a shot at it?”
Access lent out of cover for a brief moment, only to be caught by one of the avatars many sweeping laser attacks. It shredded his avatar’s rear left-most leg, making it crumble into digital dust and sent him to the floor.
Sheet Rock went to help, but a raised hoof from Access and another laser sweeping just above her head gave her pause. By now, the nuke program had burrowed a hole in the wall closest to them but that would amount to nothing if they couldn’t deal with this glitched avatar.
She heard a rapid, clicking stutter from the avatar, likely it’s attempt at a laugh due to the damage it caused to Access. Rage filled her mind as she readied a program of her own, a simple, but effective killer program, strong enough to freeze the dweller’s deck long enough for them to get out of there.
A few breaths to steady her rapid heart rate and a few happy thoughts later, and Sheet Rock popped out from cover to loose an attack of her own, but the avatar had expected this and swept a laser over her avatar’s throat and legs, severely damaging them.
“I told you stay behind cover!” croaked Access, struggling to keep his avatar together. “Ready everything you have left, the next attack will drop us for sure!”
The avatar approached, seemingly proud of itself for repelling yet more intruders. It stuttered out a few incomprehensible words, perhaps a victory speech of some kind, and just as it was going to dump them out to realspace, a golden blast shot out of the treeline and struck the glitched avatar square in the back of the head.
Its head broke into several large and chunky pieces, fading away as the body collapsed to the floor like a heavy stone.
“Oh great, more trouble.” Access grumbled, clutching his shattered limb.
“Not quite.” came a familiar synthetic voice. “I remember voicing my concern for your well-being a number of times now, but it seems that you have yet to take my advice.”
“No way in hell is that who I think it is,”
A shining silver angular avatar with a flowing golden mane stepped into view, crown emblazoned on its flank. The avatar wasn’t one they recognized, but the voice and the emblem turned cutie mark on its flank most certainly was.
It was X9, the AI they had met what seemed like eons ago now. It was unknown just how it found them, much less how it managed to gain access to the Subnet, but a wave of relief washed over the two runners as it loomed over them.
“You have a job to do, and since you two seem insistent on jumping into strange systems with little idea of what you’ll face, I suppose I’ll have to finish your job for you.”