Bows I'm sorry. I seemed to have forgotten the disclaimer in Chapter 1. No one has caught me on it yet, but might as well...
I am fully aware that I cannot claim ownership over anything except for my characters, my story, any origional aspects presented within said story, and my copies of various Armored Core games and soundtracks. Swim elsewhere, law-sharks.
David always wanted to pilot an MT. Even before back then he was fascinated by MTs. Back then…
"David! Break's not for two more hours! Quit slacking off!" The supervisor voice cut in though the com net. He always sounded livid on the radio.
"Roger, Boss," David responded in a cheery voice. "Just thinkin' 'bout Naomi. You know what I mean?" He lied, but David wanted something to take his mind of old memories, and starting something with one of his coworkers seemed to look like a good idea for a distraction.
"You wish, Mr. Blue Balls." Naomi said over the radio in a tone that was less then affectionate. All of the workers and Alex, the project supervisor, shared the same radio line. They had other frequencies, of course, but they usually used the same one to keep themselves entertained and informed. "Besides," Naomi continued, "you're way too short for me, kid."
Everyone on the line laughed, except for Alex. Heck, even David would have laughed, if it wasn't him she was referring to.
"Touché, you little viper. Touché." David replied. Although Naomi had neither the knowledge nor the occasion to know about such a thing, the insult in itself still stung a little.
Before Alex had the opportunity to yell at him again, David engaged the MT's boosters, which were mounted on its back and on the back of its calves. After gaining enough altitude to arrive at the third floor, he hovered above a reinforced I-beam, and as he slowly lowered his MT down, clamps opened up on the bottom of the MT's feet. Once he touched down, the clamps grabbed hold, after which David checked his footing. Finding it good, he switched to the support frequency and radioed in
"David, in position. Where's my spotter?"
After a short pause, another worker radioed in. "Negative on position, David. You're two sections west."
David cursed under his breath. He really hated walking on I-beams. It's too slow and too dangerous, but not because I-beams couldn't hold the weight of his MT. Hell, they were made for this kind of stress. It was the actual walking that drove him nuts.
In a Muscle Trace System, your movements move whatever you're controlling. That, combined with eight buttons (two for each finger), and a voice-command system, allows the system to be rather versatile. However, in some cases, it made things harder than they should be. Not that I-beam walking was one of them, but David still hated it nonetheless.
Vertigo sucked.
David pressed a button with his right thumb, disengaging the clamp on the right foot. He then brought his left foot forward. He could feel the apparatus that he was strapped into move various part of his body in response, simulating the change in the center of balance of the MT. David moved his head down to move the main camera towards the ground so that he could see where his foot was going. In the short time that the MT's foot was in midair, He felt as though he was about to lose his balance. However, when it came back down, the sensation stopped and he wasted no time to reengage the clamps. David continued this pattern as he walked from one end of the building to the other, grumbling every step of the way about how it was protocol not to use his boosters within the buildings frame structure.
He had made it almost halfway there when Alex came on the line. "David, drop what you're doing and come down. We've got a problem."
After mentally going through his library of curses, David disengaged both clamps and stepped off the beam. As he descended, he used the MT's boosters to slow his own fall to prevent damage to the MT's legs once it landed and he made a self-check to make sure his knees were not locked. Once he hit the ground, the apparatus' feedback system applied force to his legs that was proportionately the same as the force applied to the MT's legs. Neither the MT nor David received any damaged, but the force of the impact stung nonetheless.
"Command. Open." David said in a monotone. The voice command system confirmed his command, releasing him from the apparatus and opening the hatch. He removed his helmet, leaving it attached to the apparatus, and walked over to Alex's trailer, wondering what he needed to talk to him about now as he opened the door.
Despite his temper over the radio, Alex was usually friendlier in person. "Ah, David, sit down". He did, and did his best not to slouch. "We've got a problem."
Alex never started that way if it was our fault. David wondered what was up, but he knew that he only had to wait for Axel to continue.
"Since you are the head of your labor group, I thought it would be appropriate to let you in on this first," he continued. David knew then that it was definitely something big, so he listened carefully as Axel went on. "It seems that Murikumo is continuing to expand their territory, and they've almost reached this sector. In fact, they'll reach the south sub-gate about tomarrow afternoon."
Murikumo was a large corporation, second only to Chrome, that mainly dealed in AC parts, combat MTs, various military hardware, advanced electronics, luxury cars, and had footholds in many other industries. Their territories rivaled Chrome's, and armed conflicts between the two corporations over borders were all too common.
What made this bad news was that Axel, David, and the rest of the workers were all employees of Chrome.
"Any word from the city Guard?" David asked. He couldn't help but sound nervous. The thought of Murikumo's military division being just a sector away from where they were was not a very pleasant one.
Alex leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. He then performed his own personal ritual that he reserved for when he was either deep in thought or was getting very serious. He reached into the chest pocket of his business shirt, took a cigarette out of the pack that he always carried with him, lit it up with a Zippo that rested on his desk, and took a long drag before he answered David's question.
"They'll be too busy with the evacuation. Chrome knows this, but they aren't sure if they'll be able to spare anybody to protect this place, as everyone's either trying to slow Murikumo's advance, forming up at the subgate, or enroute to provide reinforcements. Instead, they're giving us Mark 14 multi-purpose combat MTs so that we can defend ourselves if Murikumo gets over here. Now, I know you people aren't soldiers, but you've all had plenty of experience with the Muscle Trace System, right? The units they're shipping over work the same way, so don't worry 'bout it. They also said that they'll be sending in a new ECM device for us to use. They don't know how long this conflict will go on though, and if it does drag on, they might lose some ground. In which case, we might have to cover this place. So, I'm endin' the work day early, 'cause tomorrow might be hell. Tell the boys, okay David?
David couldn't believe his ears! They were construction workers, not soldiers! "Why the hell do we have to fight? We may be Chrome employees, but what are those execs thinking? We're no soldiers and you know it!"
Axel took another drag off his cigarette and took a small folder from his desk. It was labeled "Labor Group L21-7A". He opened the folder and spread out the first few pages across his desk. "Says here that besides construction work, your all trained in…"Basic Unarmed Defense", "MT Systems Operation", "Basic MT Maintenance/Repair" "E-Sit Defensive Combat" "E-Sit Defensive Tactics"…piloting a biped MT is no different from using your own body. It shouldn't be hard for you to at least stall for time."
David wasn't so sure about this. Sure, he did have plans to one-day walk on the field of battle. However, this was just too soon. He wasn't sure that he was ready. "Shouldn't we just be evacuated?"
"Who'll guard this place then?" Axel asked as though he was the only one in the room. "The Guard? Nope, busy. Chrome's military division? Can't rely on them. Their hands are full and they're short on pilots as it is. The earliest they could get more people here would be the morning of the day after."
"Is this place really that important?" David found himself asking.
"This project has already been disrupted three times!" Axel immediately snapped back. "We're already over budget! If we end up having to start over because of Murikumo either destroying or renovating it, then Chrome'll have to sell the land off to another corporation just to avoid further financial damage! Now get out of my office, tell your group, and go home"!
After trying several times to get the card reader to cooperate, David finally got the door to his apartment room open. The lights came on automatically as he walked in, and then dimmed enough so that he could just make out his surroundings. It was one of those two room jobs, one large room for living, eating and sleeping, and a smaller second room for the toilet and sink. The apartment building provided public showers and laundry, which were charge by the minute and by use, respectively. The carpet was stained and worn all over from the use of countless people before him, and the floor was littered with various clothes and junk under his ownership. The one and only window had a perfect view of the apartment building across the street, and the sounds of traffic could be heard even when the window was closed. But what really made the place his own as what he had done to the walls.
The walls were covered with the telltale signs of and all-consuming obsession. Newspaper clippings, Network printouts, amateur photographs, and a collage of other items that all had one subject in common: a Raven by the name of Hustler One, and his AC, Nineball. Ever since that tragic day, David endlessly researched and accumulated as much information on Hustler One as he could. Nevertheless, despite thirteen years of searching, he came up with nothing but Nineball's AC parts list, a large collection of media coverage concerning Hustler One's activities and appearances of Nineball, and a low-quality photograph of a man wearing a helmet that covered everything from the nose up.
The helmet he wore, which was used by all Ravens, was designed to allow the wearer to see and hear even though it covered almost their entire head. It accomplished this by using two durable cameras where the eyes were underneath and a series of small microphones around the helmet. The only thing that was not covered was the man's chin, mouth, cheeks, and the bottom of his nose. However, he was sure that he was Hustler One, because the emblem design between the two cameras was identical to the one on the shoulder of his AC's left arm. A black billiard ball with a yellow number "9" on it.
From what David could tell from the photograph, Hustler One was a middle-aged man about 6 feet tall and probably had a solid, well-defined built. His hair, if he had any, was too short to be visible with his helmet on, and his whole face was cold, emotionless, and had an aura of professionalism to it. Next to the photograph was a sketch of what David thought his whole face looked like after studying the photograph for hours.
David didn't bother to hang up his leather jacket; he simply threw it to the ground and walked in as usual. Without looking, David moved across a sea of clothes, wrappers, and miscellaneous junk to the TV. He turned on the TV with one hand, opened the cooler next to it with his left hand to get a cold one, and stood in front of the TV to watch the newscast.
"-despite the fact that they are poorly armed, they are determined to hold off Murikumo if they break through Chrome's line of defense. We now go live at the scene." The screen cut from the broadcast station to the entrance to a construction site. The vary one I was just working in.
Alex was on the screen, a microphone held near his mouth. "If Murikumo tries to absorb this site into their assets, I will make sure to send every unit they throw at us packing 'till reinforcements arrive. We will not stand by idly and let Murikumo take control of our site for use in their military campaign. This city desperately needs more housing, and, as citizens of Isaac City, we are determined to do what is right for Isaac!" As the news coverage continued, David later learned that Murikumo was planning to convert their project to an MT repair hanger to strengthen their recent expansion campaign.
It figures.
It also didn't help that Murikumo and Chrome were at each other's throats almost constantly. However, to deprive a rundown residential sector of badly needed housing in order to gain territorial assets and fuel military conquest was questionable in the public's eyes.
Losing interest in old news, David sat down on the side of his bed and pulled out his budget-priced laptop computer from underneath. Once it finished booting up, he wirelessly connected to the Network and ran a search on Lana Nielsen in various chat rooms. Lana Nielsen was a contact of David's that he had originally met sometime around his late teens. He was in the middle of a tense and fast-passed hack of a server that he thought would likely have information on Hustler One, when all of a sudden a message appeared on his screen from Lana saying "And just what do you think you are doing?" Eventually, he learned that she wasn't a part of corporate security, but was actually a part of the Raven's Nest.
The Raven's Nest was an underground organization of mercenaries who pledged allegiance to no one but themselves and took missions based solely on their own skills, values, and how good the pay was. With the way it was all set up, practically anyone could be a Raven without anyone else ever knowing, except of course for other Ravens and a handful of Nest employees. The Nest had their own internal rules and regulations, provided maintenance services and equipment shops for their Ravens, and was publicly sanctioned by many of the corporations, who saw the Ravens as a sort of militaristic temporary worker union. All of this effectively made The Raven's Nest a legal business.
David's original meeting with Lana was volatile to say the least, as she was a part of the Nest's confidentiality division. The Raven's Nest's confidentiality department, which is a part of their PR division, made sure that no one knew about anything that they shouldn't need to know about the Raven's Nest, including other Ravens. However, after she found out that he had plans to join the Nest once he could get his hands on an AC, the situation relaxed a bit, and Lana said that the Nest would take no action against him and that he would be welcome to join. They would even give financial assistance in the purchase of an economy class AC to get him started. In return, however, David had to keep his mouth shut about what he knew about other Ravens and had to stop snooping around 'till then. David readily agreed with this, and Lana kept an eye on him since then. She also helped him out from time to time while on his way to becoming a Raven, providing advice on how to prepare himself for the life of a Raven and sending him documents on AC operation and maintenance.
"Looking for me?" The message appeared on the screen suddenly while David was searching around, nearly filling the whole screen. She seemed to enjoy being both subtle and loud at the same time.
"Took you longer. Getting rusty?" David typed on his keyboard. His words did not appear on his screen, but he knew Lana was reading his keystrokes.
Her response appeared a little while after he finished typing. "Busy day. Some jackass hacked one of our servers. We're all running around trying to find the SOB. What's up?"
"CITC4." CITC4 stood for Chrome Isaac Television Channel Four, one of many news and entertainment channels ran in part by Chrome. There were others channels, of course, but most of the ones in Isaac were owned and operated by Chrome.
There was a long pause, and then she replied with "Looks like things are getting lively. You work there, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good luck. I'll be watching you. gtg."
David put his laptop away and walked into the bathroom. The size of it was small enough to require someone to press against the back wall in order to close the door properly. The room was bare, save for a sink, toilet, and a full-length mirror mounted onto the door. The reflected image a man in his mid-twenties, with short blond hair, well defined built, deep blue eyes, and two scars that seemed to form the number "7" on his right cheek stared back at David.
David allowed himself a moment to reflect on the events that had given him those scars as he traced them with his left hand, after which he went though the usual human hygiene routines and retired to bed earlier than usual.
He had to take a sleeping pill before he could fall asleep. He couldn't help thinking about how this was all too soon.
"Am I really ready?" David said as he slowly drifted off to sleep.