Chapter 4: The hunt for M4A1

District S11 Sector 4.

"Um, Miss…Persica? You're sure that data is still inside that safehouse?" lying on the hill overlooking a compound surrounded by steel fence and barbed wire, Eagle asked while scouting out the area with his goggles for it was completely overrun by Sangvis troops.

"Yes, I am certain. Those Sangvis autonomous dolls while annoying can never comprehend the importance of that intel and they don't even know what is it that they're guarding. Just ignore them, get in, get the intel then get out. Should be a cakewalk, right?" From his earpiece, a female voice replied.

"In theory, maybe."

"For us scientist and researcher, that's already good enough. I await your good news." The female voice then hung up, Eagle heaved a small sigh at how carefree this lady, Persica, is when the mission involves infiltrating a facility in the middle of enemy's territory.

"Chief, how's the camera feeds looking?" inside the car parked not too far from his position, Tiger was getting a bird's eye view of the area through three scouting drones deployed beforehand. Since this area is Sangvis-held, on-hands intel is limited and on the battlefield, going in blind would just be asking to get killed.

"Signal's good, though can't say the same for where you're about to venture into."

"Well, a job's a job so no use complaining about it." Activating his optical camouflage, Eagle then slid down the slope, made a run for the steel fence and leapt over it. The data that he needs to recover is inside the main building, or 'safehouse' like how Persica called. To avoid being stolen by enemy, all important data is stored inside the main server located in the basement and that'd be his destination.

But to get to the basement, Eagle must first get past all these T-Dolls and machines crawling about. Hugging the wall of the building closest to the fence, Eagle data synced his goggles with the camera feeds of the three scouting drones in the sky.

One sniper unit posted on the roof of each building, five patrol units and two units guarding the main building. Total number of enemy: 30 T-Dolls and 50 machines. Best way would be to go around and enter from the back door.

From his current position, Eagle darted to the destroyed wreck of a truck and waited for the patrol unit to past by before continuing his advance. There are combat vehicle wrecks and destroyed T-Doll bodies everywhere and considering that Sangvis had gone to the extra length of keeping all three buildings intact, this place must have been extremely important.

Navigating from one cover to another, avoiding both patrols and snipers Eagle had arrived at the back door of the main building. Technically, with both his optical camouflage and sound dampening he can just make a run for it instead of the roundabout way. Against these foot soldiers, maybe, but against the more advanced ones they can lock onto the disturbance on the ground and track him down easily for the exosuit could only hide his presence, not make him disappear. And it's never hurt to be too careful.

So far so good. Approaching the back entrance, the steel door slid open the moment Eagle touched the control panel. Power must still be on in case the Sangvis need to use this place as a Command Post. Successfully infiltrating the building, he began looking for a way reach the basement. But, as expected of when going in with limited information Eagle always have to be mindful about the number of enemy in his immediate surrounding and their movement.

Finally, taking the emergency stairway he managed to get down to the basement. Main server room was down on the second level and the door is sealed tight with an electric lock that will immediately trigger the alarm if someone forcefully tried to hack their way in. However, there is a way to bypass it. This kind of lock is connected to a secondary power supply in case of a power outage. In that brief moment for it to switch from the main to the secondary generator, the firewall will be disabled temporarily.

Remember seeing the generator room on the first level, Eagle quickly ran back up and rigged a small timed explosive into the main power generator before running back down. After 10 seconds, the explosive automatically detonated and the entire building was put under a blackout. Without a second delay, he quickly hacked into the lock before the firewall can go back online.

"Got it." Hacking successful. The moment the firewall managed to come back online, Eagle had already got into the server room. Lined neatly along the wall were dozens of supercomputers capable of performing hundred quadrillion FLOPS, and at the end of the small aisle was the main terminal.

When Eagle plugged the earpiece into the terminal, the passcode given beforehand by Persica then interacted with the system and immediately downloaded all relevant data and deleted the rest. At that moment, his goggles alerted him of several units moving down the stair. Must be to check on the generator and they will soon notice that it wasn't just a flipped breaker. Then it's high time to get out.

Once the earpiece was removed from the port, all supercomputers in the server room simultaneously went offline as there was no data left for them to work on. Exiting the server room, he waited until the group sent down to check on the server room had passed by before dashing up the stair.

With the generators down for good, he can't get out using the way he came in since all the doors will be locked, so Eagle headed for the second floor and tried the window. The windows were also locked, but they are definitely easier to force open than giant steel door, and since there's no power there's no alarm. On the battlefield, nothing is absolute. A momentary setback can become the greatest advantage one can get later on and vice versa.

After exfiltrating the compound, Eagle made his way back to the car and contacted Persica.

"Miss Persica, I've got the data."

"What did I tell you, cakewalk. Now there is one last piece of data that I need you to retrieve, Once you have, please deliver them to the closest G&K branch. Again, thanks a bunch."

A few minutes later, District S09, coordinate HVVQJ.

"Well, we're here but as far as 'data', there are only ruins here and not research facility." Eagle said after double checking the coordinate on the map, making sure that they did not arrive at the wrong location.

"Research facility or not, I'm seeing some Sangvis activities inside the ruins. This part of District S09 is under G&K jurisdiction and their number does not suggest a normal patrol troop." Immediately deploying the scouting drones upon arrival, Tiger counted at least a few dozen Sanvgis T-Dolls inside the ruins.

"Seem like they beat us to the punch about the location of the data. But if they're still here, it must still be in there somewhere. Better make this quick then." The two got out of the car and when Eagle was about to run for the ruins, Tiger threw at him something that looks like two stun grenades, but inside was a blue glowing cylinder instead.

"Since you need to be quick, that should slow down whatever's on your tail by a great deal. Tread carefully, Eagle."

"Copy that, Chief."

Inside the ruins.

After entering the ruins without being detected, the search for this 'data' proved to be quite difficult but in a different sense than the research compound. All that Persica gave them was a coordinate, not even an exact location or a clue to identify this 'data' so Eagle had to figure that out on his own. And with the Sangvis's sudden visit, having to remain in the area long is anything but ideal.

Then, much to his surprise, when Eagle turned on his goggles' tracking, among the many footprints of Sangvis's T-Dolls, one set was distinctive from the rest.

"Well hello there." He mumbled. As Eagle followed them, he noticed a few peculiar things. When indoors, the footprints tend to be small steps and near the wall where there are exists such as window and doorway, cautiously keeping an eye out on the surrounding while also enabling oneself to make a quick escape should things go south. Whereas when outdoors, they are large strides to quickly cover ground while limiting down one's excessive movement as much as possible. However, the length of each stride was much longer than anything a human could achieve even with training.

So, a T-Doll with high degree of skill possibly special forces or even Ranger, a military grade. Is this what Persica was looking for?

The tracks then led Eagle to a large building of sort and ended there. Inside, light shone down from the bole in the ceiling and under a pile of rubble which was carefully stacked to form a small, hidden space, Eagle found a video tape.

"A tape?" before Eagle could wonder who would use a video tape in this day and age, his goggles immediately alerted him of a nearby enemy and at the same moment, from the other side of the wall a giant black blade appeared and came right at his throat.

A dust cloud filled the inside of the building as the wall was instantly reduced to pieces. Eagle rolled a few times on the ground before getting back up to make sure that his head was still intact. A second later and that would've been a reality. But just who was it that his goggles could only detect when they were already right next to him?

"Strange, I was sure that something was here." Long black hair, pale skin, pistol in the left hand, an oversize mechanical right arm holding the giant black blade that almost took his head. A Sangvis Ferri Ringleader.

Seeing that, Eagle immediately retreated into the next room and contacted Tiger. A confrontation is of his least interest right now, especially when it's close range engagement against a Sangvis Ringleader who, obviously enough, specialized in such fight.

"Chief, I've got the data but also a Ringleader on my tail."

"Got something on my end also. Stay out of her sight and get out of there now. I'll try to swing by once I'm done. Until then, exercise radio silence."

Just right on time when their communication was turned off, the Sangvis Ringleader entered the room that Eagle was hiding in.

"Where did you scurry off to now? Come out, come out, M4A1, and I promise you won't get hurt, much." The Ringleader said aloud while tapping the pistol onto her shoulder.

"M4A1?" Eagle thought. It seems she mistook his presence for someone else. Not only that, she only knows that someone's here but not the exact location. If that's the case, he might be able to pull this off.

"Time to see just how effective this thing is." From his pouch, he took out one of the grenades that Tiger gave him and pulled the pin. When optical camouflage is activated, anything that came in contact with the suit will also become invisible if they have been registered within the goggles.

The moment the grenade left his hand, it became visible again and caught the Ringleader's attention, turning into the perfect distraction for Eagle to dash toward the exit.

"Petty tricks!" the Ringleader swung her blade and cut the grenade in halves while it was still airborne. The cylinder shattered and the blue liquid inside, being exposed to oxygen, exploded into a blue smoke and assaulted the Ringleader.

"Guh! The heck is this!?" looking at her own body, the Sangvis Ringleader noticed that wherever the smoke touched glacial began to form, greatly limiting her movement. Cryo grenade, upon detonation the liquid nitrogen inside the cylinder is dispersed over a wide area, causing rapid freezing to anything that came into contact with it. Very effective against machine and extremely lethal against human target.

It took her a good while to completely break free from the glacial. The grenade proved to be quite effective, but as expected of a Sangvis Ringleader, they don't go down easily. However, by the time she managed to do so Eagle had already escaped.

15 minutes earlier.

After Eagle had infiltrated the ruins, Tiger stayed with the car to observe the enemy's movement from above. But he was none the wiser about the mysterious figure watching him from atop the tree.

As Tiger was watching the camera feeds, Persica suddenly contacted him.

"Hello again, Mr Boss."

"What is it? Eagle is still looking for the data, we'll deliver it to the G&K once he returned with it."

"Yes, I know. But are you not gonna ask about the content of the data? I heard from Ms Helian that you're an old acquaintance of Mr Kryuger, you'd be at least curious."

"Beside the mission essential, we don't ask too many question. It's sort of an unspoken rule in this kind of work, you need only know enough, nothing more and nothing less. Yet a certain old coot just love to work people off while being secrecy about everything." Tiger's eye twitched slightly upon the mention of Kryuger.

"But since you've brought up the topic, and I also find it rather strange, I'll ask. Just what is this data that you're looking for? Gotta be important for Sangvis to send this big a troop into G&K's turf."

"Oh, nothing much. Just some 'sugar cubes' I left behind the last time I moved."

"'Sugar cubes', you say." Tiger replied calmly. 'Sugar cubes' is most definitely the codename of the data that Eagle was looking for. Blurting out the full name when something is supposed to be important is the biggest mistake of all rookie mistakes. Having done this kind of job for a long time, Tiger could discern what is a joke and what isn't.

"Whaaat~? And I was expecting more of a reaction out of you. Booo, spoilsport!" Persica began throwing a small tantrum. Able to discern a joke, but seems like his ability to follow up on one could use some work.

"'Sugar cubes'?! Is he the one who Ms Persica mentioned? S-should I reveal myself now? No, from his conversation there is still someone left inside the ruins. If I was to make contact now, they might get involved." Hearing the word 'sugar cubes', the figure hiding on the tree became a bit faltered. She pondered between whether to come out now and have a chance at returning to the G&K, or to continue her mission alone and not risking the lives of two.

During that period, the sound of a twig snapping caused them both to be alerted. Tiger then turned around and readied his gun whereas the figure quickly looked down to check but it was not her who snapped the twig. Then who…

At that moment, from the forest a group of Sangvis T-Dolls rushed out at Tiger. They were the troop that was sent to chase her down, and now because of her delay someone else was involved.

"Please, run!" the figure was about to yell, but too late, for Tiger had already engaged in combat.

To start things off, he threw down a smoke grenade to impede their vision. They may be able to coordinate their attack with clockwork precision, but if they can't see they can't shoot. In the brief second it took them to switch to motion tracker, Tiger kicked the ground and bolted toward the three Guards in front and headshot two. The last one, he grabbed her by the face and from his prosthetic arm, a surge of electricity was released instantly frying all of her internal circuits.

By then, all the others had switched motion tracker and started to retaliate. With the Guard still in his hand, he lifted her up to use as a meat shield for the attack coming from the left while returning fire to those on the right. About a few hundred rounds, the Guard in his hand was turned into a beehive and became useless.

"You can have this back now!" With a C4 charge stuck to the corpse, he threw it at the left wing and triggered the detonator. Quickly, Tiger then raised the two shields on the ground for cover as he reloaded his gun. It was at this moment that Eagle contacted him.

"Chief, I've the data but also a Ringleader on my tail."

"Got something on my end also. stay out of her sight and get out of there now. I'll try to swing by once I'm done. Until then, exercise radio silence." After that one short contact, Tiger picked one of the shield up and rushed at the remaining T-Dolls. Among the ranks of Sangvis Ferri, the Guard is considered a high-end model T-Doll. But, as expected from a mass produced model, just from this level of gunfire and the shield already started falling apart.

But it matters not as Tiger continued to dispatch the remaining units using anything and everything available to his own advantage. Tools and equipment are necessary, but victory or defeat is dictated by one own skill. By the time the smoke cleared out, all of Sangvis T-Dolls were reduced to no more than corpses lying on the ground.

"Position compromised. Time to move." Without any time to waste, Tiger got into the car and drove down the hill.

Forest to the west of the hill.

After the close call with the Sangvis Ringleader, Eagle thought that he had shook her off his tail. The Ringleader, however, deeming that such tactics are cowardice then became enraged and after breaking free from the nitrogen, immediately gave chase.

"What's wrong? Ran out of your petty tricks already?! And I was expecting so much more, what a disappointment you are, little rat!" spouting constant taunts and provocations, the Ringleader continuously swung her giant blade wildly. Each swing sends out shockwaves that easily cut down even the biggest trees like nothing. As a combat model, her system was more adept at tracking down small movements and unusual details in the surrounding than commanding troops. Thanks to that, while she still could not see nor hear her enemy, she could still tell the general location whenever he moves.

"Seems that grenade was a little too effective in an unintended way." Dodging both the falling trees and the shockwaves was annoying enough, now Eagle must also take all of his movement into careful consideration to not expose himself. With one nitrogen grenade left, he planned out his final escape.

But suddenly, Tiger arrived at the edge of the forest with quite a few Scouts on the pursue. Not good, now the Ringleader will definitely go for him, and with their current gear it'd be hard to fight both the Ringleader and her mooks at the same time. Making a gamble, with all his might Eagle ran for the car.

"Don't think you can escape that easily!" the Ringleader also kicked off the ground and dashed toward the car. With the remaining nitrogen grenade, Eagle threw it at the Ringleader which this time, she responded with her pistol. Seeing the incoming shot, Eagle aimed his handgun and shot twice. The first shot knocked the grenade off the initial trajectory, keeping it from being destroyed prematurely. Then the second was carefully aimed and timed so that the cylinder would explode by the time the Ringleader was within the blast range.

"Same trick won't work twice on me!" gripping her blade tightly, the Ringleader blasted the nitrogen away with a shockwave. Fortunately, it still managed to buy enough time for Eagle to get into the car.

Tiger then pressed on the pedal as the speed indicator jumped straight up to 110km/h. From the backseat, Eagle grabbed his sniper rifle and started fending off their pursuer. The most imminent threat was the persistent Ringleader as her blade was mere inches away from cleaving the car in halves. Taking aim, Eagle shot at the giant blade and knocked her off the air. However, in that period the Scouts had already closed in.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

Six consecutive shots made quick work of the Scouts, but they were neither from him nor Tiger. They did not know who this mysterious helper was, but now is the chance for them to escape.

"Hang on! We're getting out of here!" still pressing on the pedal, Tiger drove both of them away from the hot zone and it didn't take long before the Sangvis disappeared from their rearview completely. And on the hill where the duo initially was, the mysterious figure heaved a sigh of relief.