Mota dove behind the desk as paintballs shot towards him. He'd partnered with a lesser known hero known as "Datamine," a woman who specialized in espionage, hacking, infiltration, and using gadgets in combat, much like his own specialties. She'd given him some basic training for the first few days, then set up an elaborate test for him consisting of a multi-story mock-villain HQ. There were six different floors with varying levels of defenses for him to try and overcome. The higher up he went the tighter the security, there were more guards, the computers were harder to hack, increased sensors and cameras and fewer ways to ascend to the next floor.
The rules of the exercise were relatively simple. Ascend to each floor without getting 'killed' or trapped by the defenses on each floor and reach the goal on the 6th floor's most heavily fortified room. Guards and defensive structures were armed with paintballs on the lower floors, and rubber bullets on the upper floors. If he got hit, the special suit he was wearing would assess the severity of the injury and either call it a loss if the injury was considered fatal. If the injury was considered nonlethal, it would penalize him by giving him two seconds of warning to move the affected area into a workable position, then freezing up and immobilizing the 'damaged' body part.
He was only on the 2nd floor now. But he had already managed to trip the alarm on what was now his 38th attempt. The 1st floor had been easy, with barely any human guards and laughably amateurish cybersecurity. He'd have been able to breeze past it before even coming to UA, let alone now. According to Datamine, that was the average security level one might expect from low-level thugs in the streets, the weakest of the weak.
The second floor was exponentially more difficult. This floor represented security from low level criminal organizations. In terms of villain strength they wouldn't be much better than the thugs represented by floor 1, but they were organized and would have a reasonably intelligent leader keeping them in check, meaning they could assemble more resources and had better security. Mota wasn't having much trouble hacking the devices, even if he ran into minor snags his quirk let him control technology regardless to prevent any alarms going off while he worked around it. The issue was the guard patrols.
In order to unlock the doors to the next floor Mota needed to acquire a security key that would work for the door he wanted to use, then navigate his way to it. The issue with that was that he had no idea which terminals the keys would end up on for any given attempt, as the door assignments were changed with each attempt. So planning in advance which door he'd go for was futile unless he was willing to go in circles looking for the precise key. Meanwhile multiple guard patrols constantly roamed the halls, making moving from terminal to terminal and getting to the doors difficult. When a guard patrol spotted him, one would stick around and open fire, and the other would go set off the alarm, causing the other guards to converge on his location.
Mota poked his head out from behind the desk as the onslaught of paintballs stopped, the guard was reloading. He rolled out of cover and aimed a pistol at the man, pulling the trigger. The suit the guard was wearing registered a hit and changed color, indicating that the 'tranquilizer dart' had connected. Mota's pistol didn't actually fire a projectile; but was meant to represent a limited supply of darts he'd receive for each attempt. If he hit, it would disable one guard and said guard would get down on the ground as if passed out. Mota didn't wait for the guard to finish getting on the ground before he made a break for it, guards would be converging on that room soon, his only hope was to get far enough away to slip past the net and let the heat die down.
Mota ducked into a supply closet as he heard a guard patrol approaching and shut the door behind him, then readied his pistol. With luck, they'd bypass him, if not, he could blow two shots and drop the patrol, then make a break for it through the hole in the net they'd leave. If he used two shots for that he'd be down to 3 though, and that would leave him dangerously low if he got cornered again.
Holding his breath Mota used his quirk on the camera he could sense outside in the hall, taking control of it and hijacking the video feed so he could view it on a headset he'd made for himself. The guards rounded the corner, ran up to the closet… and moved on. He let out a sigh of relief and waited for them to round the next corner before exiting the closet. He rounded the corner of the hallway before releasing the camera and made a break for the door he'd retrieved a key for. With guards responding to the alarm in the other room, it was likely unguarded right now for a minute or so before they realized he'd escaped and returned to their routes.
After a tense minute of running nonstop, pausing only to disable sensors and cameras with his quirk as he passed by, Mota reached the door and typed in the security key on the access panel, the door slid open, and he stepped through. Behind him above the doorway a red light changed to blue and an automated voice spoke "congratulations, 2nd floor cleared, challenger Mota, attempt number 38, completion time, 16 minutes, alarms tripped, 1, shots fired, 1, rating, B minus"
"Tsk.. only a B minus huh?" Mota muttered as he ascended the stairs to the third floor, making it to a starting room lit with red lights. Once he stepped in the lights turned green and another automated voice spoke. "Challenger Mota, congratulations on your first arrival on the 3rd floor, you will now be debriefed on the parameters for this level."
Mota listened as the voice explained the new rules. The third floor represented a moderately successful crime organization successful enough to have claimed a territory in a major city. The guards would be tougher and more numerous, and the increased resources meant better security. Since the possibility of gang wars became a factor in this stage, more dangerous security devices such as traps or turrets would be deployed on this floor. He was not allowed to hijack these traps or turrets to use paintballs against the guards, as this would represent killing them, and lethal force would not be authorized for a hero to take down a group of this scale. He would however be given twelve tranquilizer darts instead of merely 6. However, the guards will travel in groups of three, and be able to wake up sleeping guards, making the darts less effective. To open the doors to the next floor, he'd have to hack two power sources, one inside one of the rooms, another in the door itself, and shut down the power. Fortunately, the power sources and the doors they corresponded to would be consistent here, allowing him to make a plan to target a specific door rather than relying on luck of the draw.
A map of the floor appeared on the wall for Mota to look at, allowing him to get a sense for the layout of the floor. It was a lot more straightforward than the other floors, but not in a good way. There were plenty of long hallways and choke points, meaning it would be harder to duck around a corner to get out of sight or take cover, harder to break through a defensive line, and much easier to get flanked and trapped.
"Geez, how am I supposed to clear this thing when I barely got through the 2nd floor?" Mota sighed, then got a call on his headset and used his quirk to answer it.
"I see you've reached the 3rd floor, good work Gearhead. You've progressed further than I expected you too over just one week. Most of my sidekicks take at least two in order to pass the 2nd floor." Datamine said, her voice sounded almost as artificial as the automated message voice, as she was always wearing a helmet with cables coming out of it like locks of hair that she used to interface with various technologies. He'd never seen her without it, and it was a full helmet that covered her entire face, so she always spoke through a speaker that distorted her voice to sound more electronic. He wasn't sure why she didn't just install a phone into the helmet to talk normally on phone calls and the like, but he supposed it was part of her aesthetic design.
"Yeah I made it, barely though, and looking at this third floor, I'm not seeing any good approach to this, not with the equipment I'm allowed to break in and not being allowed to use enemy turrets. I get that we're trying to stick to nonlethal force but… this seems extreme." Mota said "for one person to infiltrate a place like this without using lethal force seems impossible without a stealth quirk like invisibility."
"I will admit, this floor is challenging, in some ways more so than the 4th floor, due to the banning of lethal force. But it is possible with a solid enough grasp of the fundamentals and their applications." Datamine said "that being said, if you actually manage to clear this floor by the end of the week, I'll personally guarantee you a place at my agency when you graduate."
"So what she's saying is its so hard that clearing it would make me a prodigy worthy of reserving a spot 3 years in advance for" Mota thought with an internal sigh.
"I'll give you an advantage though, I'm sending you a video file of one of my sidekicks clearing the floor, perhaps her performance will give you the inspiration on how to do it yourself." Datamine said. Moments later Mota received the video file and played it on his headset. The operation went smoothly enough at first, the girl in question was obviously a skilled hacker whose quirk was well suited to the task, disabling most of the defenses right off the bat through electrical wires in the walls. Somehow she was able to interface with the security grid and subvert it all through the wiring, likely due to her quirk, leaving only the power supplies to the doors and the guards to deal with
The rest of the operation went less smoothly, she disabled one of the power supplies to the door of her choice, but was caught by a guard patrol on her way out of the room. One guard rushed off to trigger the alarm, which was disabled, leaving her in a one on two confrontation. Rather than rely on her tranquilizer pistol, the woman charged the guards, dodging their paintballs by observing where their guns were aimed and staying out of the line of fire. Once she was in close she engaged in hand to hand combat, swiftly disarming both guards and delivering punches and kicks that their suits registered as knockout blows.
After chasing down and effortlessly taking out the third guard while he was fumbling with the disabled alarm system, the woman made her way to the door she needed to open. She began the hack, but was apprehended by a team of guards part of the way through. Without hesitation she pulled her pistol and fired three rounds, dropping all three guards before they could even aim at her. She finished her hack, then stepped through the doors.
"Incredible… she made that look easy" Mota said in awe
"Indeed, I rather doubt you are quite as skilled at hacking as she is, nor do I expect you are quite as adept a marksman or hand to hand combatant, but perhaps there is still something you can learn from her methods regardless." Datamine said, "now then, I'll let you get back to it. Break time is in an hour."
The call cut off, leaving Mota to think about his options. Datamine was absolutely correct in that none of his skills were nearly on the level the woman in the video had. She'd taken down the entire security network in minutes from an access point nobody else would have even considered. She'd taken out two gunmen, dodging their shots and subduing them without taking a hit. And she'd effortlessly reacted to being discovered and perfectly hitting each guard with a shot in an instant while still hacking the door. He couldn't do that, he wasn't even in that league yet, but there was something about her approach that stood out.
"Her approach was quick, efficient, and aggressive." Mota mused "she didn't waste any time taking down the network or hiding, and when she encountered resistance she stopped it with ruthless force. These guards represent low level thugs and villains, they aren't especially skilled and they aren't using their quirks, they aren't strong opponents in small groups… I've got it then!"
Mota began pulling gadget parts out of his many pockets, he had a plan, but he'd need a new toy to execute it. He had an hour before breaktime, so if he took twenty minutes to design it, he'd still have plenty of time to get a shot at the floor.
- 30 minutes later -
It had taken Mota longer than anticipated to build the gadget he wanted, but now he was making his attempt at clearing the 3rd floor. The moment he set foot outside the starting room the battle was on. He had no time to waste locating a panel of the wall he could pry off to find some wiring. The video had shown that if one could interface with the wires, it was possible to shut down most of the security systems from one location. He didn't have a quirk that let him do that, but he pulled a new invention from his bag and attached it to the wires. It was a makeshift terminal with a keyboard and screen meant to turn the wires into a makesfhit access point.
"I probably can't hack everything the way the woman in the video did, this can't possibly be as effective as using a quirk, but there shouldn't be any patrols moving through the entry hallway at the start…" Mota mused as the screen lit up and he got to work. The security systems in this place were well defended, and he didn't have the luxury of being in range of them with his quirk to prevent any alarms going off. He needed to take his time and be thorough, but the safe zone he was in would only be temporary, a guard patrol would start sweeping this area soon enough. He made sure to take control of several cameras early on, keeping an eye on the hallways nearest to him, then worked on disabling a path of defenses that would serve as his escape route if someone came by.
With his escape route secured, Mota got to work on subverting or disabling any defenses he could. His reach was limited, only able to hit devices directly connected to the wires he was working with or that shared a network with those devices. Still a skilled hacker could jump between networks pretty easily if they knew what to look for, and so most of the major defenses were sitting ducks for him. Still, jumping from network to network and needing to disable each device individually was time consuming, and it wasn't long before he needed to detach his invention from the wires and replace the wall panel. A guard patrol was coming to check on his location, and he couldn't afford to linger.
A short run around the corner and down a hallway, around another corner, and into a room was all it took to get away from that first patrol. Mato had some extra time now, but this room wasn't nearly as safe as his prior location. Patrols would come through frequently, and the room was small and cramped, making a quick and easy escape difficult. Fortunately, he'd chosen this room for multiple reasons, the first of which being it was one of the rooms with a terminal linked to one of the exit doors. Secondly, he had cameras outside of both entrances to the room to let him know when danger was incoming.
Mato crawled underneath the desk the computer he needed to hack was resting on, hooking up his invention to the power cable of the computer. His plan was to use this hiding place to hack the computer from out of sight, hopefully escaping the notice of any patrols that came through. If he was noticed, he had cover and plenty of shots left in his pistol. The small room would make each shot he took an easy hit, allowing him to compensate for his lack of marksmanship.
The security on the terminal was top-notch, much more difficult than the other devices he'd hacked into. Even with his quirk able to force the computer to comply with his commands this program was clearly designed with countering quirk-based control in mind. It adapted too quickly for him to just force it to shut down the power supply, any time he tried to control it the code changed and shifted. He'd never seen anything quite like it. Hacking into it was similarly difficult, but more manageable.
Five minutes passed, and Mota saw a guard patrol headed his way. He was mere moments away from completing his hack, but they'd be on him before he could finish and get away, so he paused. The guards entered the room and began to look around. It looked like they were about to look behind the desk and find him, but they stopped short. There was nothing between the desk and the wall but an empty chair, so the guards gave a glance over the work area and moved on, not bothering to check underneath the desk.
Mota held his breath as the guards finished their search and moved on, then breathed out a sigh of relief. He finished his hack of the power supply to the door, then tapped into the security cameras he'd hacked and checked on the status of the door. It appeared to be unguarded as the feed came live, but a light had changed color on the door from blue to red, making it clear it was running on its own internal power now. Anyone who saw it would know it'd been hacked and that he was coming. He had two options now, double down on his plan and go for the door, hoping to hack it before too many guards arrived, or he could let them think that was his target and instead hit up another door.
"My strategy to subdue the guards will probably only work once or twice before they catch on… but they haven't seen the door yet, and haven't found me yet either…" Mota mused as he began to crawl out from under the desk "furthermore they have enough guards to post a squad at each door, even if I try to use the door lights to throw them off, it would likely end the same way."
Mota weighed his options, then checked the time. He'd taken 30 minutes to prepare for this attempt, and 24 to get as far as this, which meant he had 6 before the simulation was called off for everyone's break anyway. Playing the long game would be a waste of his progress so far. And so he darted out of the room and made a break for the exit door.
He got about halfway there before his video feed showed him two guard patrols converging on the door and noticing it had changed color, then staying put to guard the hallway. He cursed his poor luck. With a team stationed at either end of the hallway, even if he got the drop on one and brought them down the other would get him for sure. He needed a way around the problem, but what could he do? The guards were expecting him to go there now, they wouldn't just wander off.
Mota thought about what to do, then got a risky idea as he tapped into the security network again, using the administrator privileges he'd granted himself to reactivate several alarm sensors he'd previously disabled around the floor, then deleted the file they used to differentiate between friend and foe when tripped. Then he waited patiently in the closest hiding spot to the door her could find. Soon enough, as various guard patrols made their rounds, they began tripping the alarms in multiple parts of the floor. The guards staying put in the hallway had no choice but to react to the multiple calls for aid. They compromised by posting two guards at the door itself, and the remaining four guards rushing off to respond to the alerts.
"Didn't get all of them to leave, but that's alright, I figured I'd need to fight a few" Mota said as he began running. He needed to be fast, the confusion and chaos from his trick wouldn't last long. He rounded the corner and charged at the two remaining guards, drawing his pistol.
The guards noticed Mota coming and turned to fire at him, pulling their triggers to unleash clips of paintballs at him, but nothing happened, their guns were unresponsive.
Mota grinned as he approached the two guards, getting in range while they looked at each other in confusion. He'd taken advantage of his quirk to control the technology in the guns and cause them to become unresponsive. Normally he couldn't exert much influence over technology as basic as a gun, but these training guns had various electronic components that ensured only the guards could use them. By forcing those parts to malfunction, the guns no longer recognized the guards as authorized users, and refused to fire.
The guards soon realized their guns were useless and dropped them, pulling out rubber knives as their backup weapon. Mota hadn't had any encounters with the guards using knives yet since they'd only been in gunfights so far, but he was relatively sure they would link up to the hit-detection suits on contact just like the paintballs would. It was too little too late though, as Mota was now in close range with his pistol, and even a novice marksman like him couldn't miss at this range. Two trigger pulls later, and the guards were disabled. He was free to hack the door now, and he wasted no time getting started.
Moments after he started his hacking, the alarms sounding throughout the floor shut down, his diversion had been figured out and countered, he'd probably have half the security team bearing down on him any moment now. The door's security was significantly weaker than the terminal earlier, but it was still taking too long. He needed time, but how could he get it? Ideally he could turn the traps and defenses against the security team, but he wasn't allowed to hit them with those since they were meant to represent real deadly traps… but in that case, would they serve as deterrents? No real villain would willingly walk into a layer of suppressing fire or a deathtrap after all. So long as he didn't actually hit anyone and "kill" them he was technically within the rules.
Mota smiled as he activated turrets on either end of the hallway he was in and set them to fire continuously down the hall at any would be defenders trying to enter it. They wouldn't have infinite ammo, and the time they'd buy was limited, but a quick check of the cameras revealed that they were doing as he intended. The guards were assembling at the corners of the hallway, unable to progress further without getting hit. Seeing as he wasn't getting a message saying he was disqualified yet, he could only assume that meant this was an acceptable strategy.
With the time bought by the turrets, Mota easily finished hacking the door. The red light illuminating it shut off, and the door slid open, allowing him to step through. The door closed behind him, and once again a light lit up and an automated voice began to play.
"Congratulations, 3rd floor cleared, challenger Mota, attempt number 1, time, 29 minutes, alarms tripped, 8, shots fired, 2, rating, D+" the voice chimed
"Ah… I guess my rating would be pretty low, the computer can't tell those alarms were tripped by the guards and not me." Mota chuckled as he ascended to the next floor. He was about halfway up the steps when his headset received another call from Datamine.
"Well well, looks like you cleared it, I watched the whole thing" Datamine said, their voice was unreadable, Mota couldn't tell if they were happy or upset.
"Yeah, got a little hairy at the end, but that video you showed me gave me the hints I needed to pass." Mota replied confidently
"By exploiting the rules, tampering with the equipment of the guards, and alerting every villain in the base their security systems had been compromised." Datamine said "all while facing guards who were not using their quirks."
Mota's smile faded at that, when put that way his performance seemed rather abysmal. He had definitely exploited a loophole in the rules at the end, and in most real situations he couldn't count on being able to disable guns with his quirk, not unless he got a lot better at using it. If he hadn't been able to shut down the guns with his quirk, he'd have been blown away before even covering half the distance he needed to in order to land his shots. Not to mention he had been counting on the guards not using quirks. His suppressing fire would've done him little good if someone had a hardening quirk of some kind and was able to take the shots freely. And his strategy with the alarms was a double-edged sword, it would've put a real base on high alert and made whatever he'd come there to do exceedingly difficult to achieve, not to mention getting back out afterwards.
"Your clearing of the floor was by the skin of your teeth and relied entirely on subverting the rules and taking advantage of this being a simulation." Datamine continued as Mota hung his head in shame, "and it was absolutely brilliant."
Mota's head perked back up in surprise, he thought he was in for a stern lecture, not praise. "It… was?" he asked.
"Granted in a real scenario you'd be dead a dozen times over if you tried that for real, but your outside the box thinking, clever workarounds, snap judgements were a delight to observe." Datamine said, her excitement actually coming through in her voice in spite of the distortions. "And what's more, you're the first person to ever spot the loophole I intentionally left in the rules when designing this place." She continued, "nobody has ever thought using the defenses as roadblocks without actually harming the guards was a valid tactic because of how the rules say using the defenses on the guards was prohibited. But I never said you couldn't use the defenses at all."
Mota blushed a bit, was he really the only one to come up with that idea? It made him feel warm and tingly inside to think he was more creative than anyone who'd attempted this course before. His chest swelled with pride as he continued his upward march to the next floor.
"The recording of that performance is going to be saved and used as useful review material in the future," Datamine said "now take the elevator down, it's break time. Oh and even if you didn't get through it the normal way, I'll make good on my promise. You're welcome to join us after graduation, I'm eager to see what kind of hero UA will make you into."
Mota stepped into the briefing room for the 4th floor, then went through a side door into an elevator that brought him back down to the ground level, allowing him to exit the building. He'd barely made it, but he'd pulled it off, clearing the 3rd floor of this security gauntlet and securing himself a guaranteed job after graduation. He was fairly certain he wasn't about to make any headway at all on the 4th floor, but he didn't mind. He had a few days to give it his best shot and learn from the numerous failures he was bound to endure. Even if he didn't even come close to progressing any further during this internship, it was already time well spent.
Mota stepped out of the building and walked down to the next building adjacent to the training facility, where his lunch break would be held. He'd have plenty of time to train over the next few days, but for now, he'd earned this break.