• Published 25th Jan 2018
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XCOM: Ranger - Wanderer D



Sunset Shimmer escapes Equestria... with unforeseen consequences.

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Chapter 153: Bypass

Ranger

Chapter 153: Bypass

By Wanderer D

Lily was really glad she had kept up with the cardio. Hiking through the woods, walking around the city, infiltrating it, scurrying between the buildings at the Commander's set pace, and now having to climb the side of a building, was definitely not a regular day for most of the Engineers in the ship.

ROV-R and TALIA hovered around her as she made her way up, following in Coyote's wake. The team's ranger had been the first one up, and after a few tense seconds where she had presumably combed the whole roof of the building, had peeked down at them from the edge and waved that everything was clear.

Now it was Shen's turn, with Security waiting right under her for her to reach the top. It was nerve-wracking and forced her to tick another mark for her admiration of not only their soldiers, but also for little nerdy Twilight Sparkle. After what felt like a long, long climb, but was in reality three or four stories, she finally made it to the edge and pulled herself over the edge with the assistance of Coyote's steady grip.

ROV-R beeped contentedly as they moved away from the edge, Lily trying all the time to not show her eagerness at putting some distance from it. Judging from Coyote's barely hidden smirk, she was actually failing at it.

Still, her objective was in sight.

The building had a radio relay of the type that ADVENT used to boost their network signals. Although the Elder's Neural Network was almost all-encompassing in a wide scale in large cities, it suffered from limitations in areas with a high density of buildings, hence their occasional attempts to set up newer relays under the cities or in older, non-ADVENT-standard zones, which XCOM would disrupt, hack into, or completely destroy.

This time around, it was hacking.

Her thoughts turned to Julian. Ever since Sunset had revealed the AI had survived, Shen had a nagging feeling that she couldn't shake. Julian, although very advanced, had been severely limited in function, back when her father had created him, and now that she had actually spoke with him, there was a tinge of desperation in his "voice", which even the manufactured sound effects could not hide.

Julian had been in ADVENT's hands for twenty years. In that time, they had prodded at his code, dismantled it and kept him trapped while they did all that. It was akin to being trapped in one's mind, seeing everything that was going on and done on your body and only being able to scream inside your head.

In short, she wasn't very sure her "little brother" was sane. But, strange times made for strange bedfellows after all, and right now XCOM needed allies… and if she was honest with herself, she did really want to reclaim that little part of her dad's legacy.

Her father had worked tirelessly with alien technology for as long as she could remember. XCOM had always been her home and family, but… her dad's passion for his work and undying loyalty—which had obviously influenced her choices—had been epitomized by the development of possible AI assistance for XCOM, stemming from his budding understanding of MELD and alien cyphers.

She pulled out her pad, plugging it into the relay and started to work, her mind drifting between memories of her dad coding Julian, and their time as ADVENT prisoners before they had managed to escape. For all his possible excentricities, Julian was indeed her dad's creation, and as such, and as much as could be attributed, family of sorts.

She would have never thought this before, of course, but meeting Sunset and finding out about other worlds, different species versions of themselves possibly inhabiting them, was an eye-opener for this kind of thing.

How could you simply pretend that something as basic as organic vs software was a real issue separating people (or AIs) who by any other definition would be siblings?

"How are things going over there?" Ember's voice came through the comms.

"She's hacking in, boss," Security replied, his tone slightly awed, "I've never seen anything like it."

Lily concentrated on her mission, bypassing firewall after firewall, until she finally was through. She grinned as her code hijacked the signal, and quickly opened several backdoors, ensuring future access. Her pad indicated her chosen relays in the area were still locked out however, but that was of minor consequence, as the code would be more than enough to use the exploit she had found. "I'm in! Ember, I'm sending you the bypass sequence. Think you guys can cover the other locations?"

"Damn, girl!" Ember laughed into the comms. "That was quick!"

"I'll get them there, Shen," the commander spoke up, "You concentrate on the current one and coordinate with Julian."

"Understood."

Scootaloo wiped her brow with the back of her hand. The armor upgrades had been fast-produced by Julian in almost record time, so the body was already taking shape under her direction.

It felt… almost sacrilegious to be doing this, but time was pressing and Julian needed to be ready as soon as possible. Until this was done, it was clear he'd be operating at substandard efficiency. "You know this will need a lot of fixing afterwards. Updates. Upgrades. Software and mechanical tuning…"

"I understand," the rogue AI replied, "but it must be done if we all want to survive the upcoming fight.

"But are you sure—"

"I refuse to engage ADVENT in combat until the body is ready!"

"Fine, fine." Scootaloo growled. "No need to get edgy."

"Do not mock me, human!"

"I might have to do this whole robot body thing, but I refuse to do the human vs robot routine with you. So, either you let me work, or I stop right now."

"I have lasers."

"I have a kill switch."

"Hm. It seems Lily is trying to reach me. I'll go see what she wants."

Scootaloo sighed, getting back to work. "Seriously, AB, why did you have to date a crazy AI?"

o.0.o End Chapter 153 o.0.o

Author's Note:

Really short chapter tonight, and late to boot. Sorry guys, I was called in to fill in for the Philippines and had to write this in between work gaps.

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