The Ironhands, had they any sense about them, knew that Adam and the kids were here. The staccato boom of the pistol in Adam's hand echoing through their tunnels should have told them. Even if they were stupid enough to not know what that was, their cameras being hacked and control over them being ripped away should have alerted their rudimentary security. Even if they were stupid enough to still not recognize the danger at that point, the systematic murder of their thugs should have alerted them.
If all of that was still not enough, then they should have been killed by some other gang long before Adam ever stepped foot in this abandoned railway. It was certainly possible that they were too small for larger gangs to bother with, and too defensible for smaller gangs to take over by virtue of their ACPAs.
If that was true, then this group wouldn't be a good test for the kids, and this entire exercise would be pointless. Thankfully, the voice of the girl over the comm (did they call it something else nowadays?) removed that notion.
"Operative Sigma, Five guns at the next choke point ahead." Ah good, they were already beginning to set up ambushes for him.
Unfortunately for them, he was Adam Smasher, and their puny guns were mostly ineffective against his plasteel frame. Not entirely ineffective though, so he grabbed the corpse of the gangster he just butchered and held it in front of him as he walked.
Up ahead, he could see a doorway that opens up into a larger room, but no guns. They must be to either side ready to fire at whatever came through the entrance. So the best way to approach this was…
Adam threw the corpse through the doorway, letting it fly through at his own chest height. Meanwhile he tucked into a destructive run and slid against the floor, tearing up the old concrete with his chrome body. The meats waste their shots on the corpse above his head as he enters the room at ground level. Three gangers to his right, two to his left.
Adam shot the two with shotguns first, their heads painting the old walls behind them red. The boom of the pistol echoed through the tunnel with the noise of their own shots. Like a symphony of violence, Adam's favorite music.
The others had mid-caliber rifles of some sort, although Adam couldn't recognize the model by sight. It was a common trend with all the gangsters in this particular gang so far that he noticed, all of them carrying guns that he couldn't recognize. It was suspicious, but their performance so far wasn't something he needed to be concerned with.
The others were finally beginning to realize that the corpse still flying through the air wasn't the thing killing their friends and began to turn their guns to his position on the floor. As they were doing that, he shot two more of them and threw his knife at the last. With all the red painting the walls and the new ornament nailed to it, Adam was beginning to realize he might have a career in interior decorating.
Uriel chuckled at the joke.
Adam stood and took his knife back, the corpse falling to the ground as he did so. That encounter brought him down another four bullets. He had one left in this magazine, and three full magazines on his belt. Thirty-one shots left, he'd have to use his knife more often from here on out if possible.
Normally he'd start picking up some of their guns and using them to help tide him over on ammo, but as he was not instructed to do that by the kids he refrained. That was one of the many small mistakes they made, but overall they were doing good thus far.
"...Another three coming your way, Beta."
"Affirmative."
"Side tunnel six cleared, move up when possible, Beta."
"...Targets down, moving up to side tunnel 7 entrance."
Their communication wasn't perfectly efficient, but it was good enough. Another passing grade in that regard. Adam continued walking through the twisting but mostly single-pathed tunnel.
A gangster waiting for him on a side-path corner, disabled with a knife stab around the corner before he could get his shot off.
Another with a shotgun, in a balcony above. Disabled by throwing his knife hard enough to shatter his un-chromed and un-helmeted head. He had meant for that to pierce, but he wasn't expecting the meat to have absolutely zero head protection. That was unfortunate, now his knife handle was bloody too.
Another two with sledgehammers and chrome arms. Killed by stepping into their attacks, letting the handle of the hammer ineffectually hit his shoulder armor, and donut-ing them with a punch immediately afterwards. Adam idly thought back to his own hammer, man that was fun to use. Turns meat into watermelons, they don't even really stand a chance.
"What's your status Sigma?" The girl said.
"Fully operational. Down to thirty-one shots." Adam replied.
"Affirmative, you'll be coming up to their main room. The ACPA's are inside. Hold your position until Alpha and Beta clear their side."
"Affirmative."
They needed the Yumi for the ACPAs for this exercise, which means it'll be Adam and the kid's job to clear out the rest of the fodder and then try to keep the ACPAs still long enough for the gremlin to line up clear shots on them from the end of the tunnelway. The best way to do that would be to have at least two of them in the room from different angles to split the gang's fire.
Another small mistake on their part, Adam could resist quite a bit more firepower than most. The best course of action here would be for Adam to make some noise to draw suppressive fire from the gang and the kid to use the Sandevistan to get behind them and start taking out key targets while Adam held off the ACPAs. Still, like everything else they have done so far it was 'good enough' and Adam would hold off on telling them until after the mission regardless.
A ganger was sent up to investigate the tunnel he was in. Adam didn't want to go in front of the doorway yet, so he had to use another pistol shot. The meat fell, and Adam changed his magazine out for a fresh one. Thirty shots to go, ten before another reload would be needed.
Another meat came up, and was about to chuck a grenade down the tunnel. This was a good idea, indirect fire at an unknown hostile, but unfortunately for them he was Adam Smasher. He used another shot to hit the grenade in the meat's hand, causing it to explode prematurely. Smoke and blood filled that section for a brief moment, and the meat was now a scattered pile of chunks.
They were nervous now, and probably wouldn't send another meat for the slaughter for a while. By that point the kid and gremlin would be in position and the real fun would begin. Sure enough, a few minutes of tense waiting on their end (it was downright leisurely for Adam) later and the girl called over the comms.
"All operatives in position, begin the final procedure now."
Adam picked up the corpse and threw it ahead of him again. It was one of his favorite strategies for drawing fire away from himself when entering chokepoints. They almost always fired at the corpse for about a full half-second before realizing he was there, at which point half of them were probably dead already.
As he entered he saw lines of guns behind barricades in a semicircle in front of an old office of some sort. Probably the main building from which they operated out of. Hunkered behind two massive pillars were the apparent forms of the ACPAs. Each one held a vehicle-sized machinegun of some sort with belt-fed ammunition that came from an ammo pack on their back.
Adam didn't recognize the models. Unlike the guns, that was actually a worrying sign. Unknown guns were one thing, unknown ACPAs are a completely different story. He wasn't particularly worried, but it was something he had to consider moving forwards. Where was the nearest cover?
There, the pillar that had fallen over…
And it had an explosive laser-tag trap at its base. A single shot with his pistol disabled the laser before he got there, rendering the trap inert until it could be wired to a new trigger. That is to say, long after all these meatbags were dead. Now behind cover he could start picking off meats that decide to poke their heads out for longer than half a second.
Six more dead meatbags later, the ACPAs finally started firing at his position. He ducked back and saw what the kid was doing. Using his Sandevistan every time he poked out of cover to fire to take out more targets, moving minimally while he did so. That was something Adam beat into his head, the mechanics of using the Sandevistan.
You see, all chrome has little quirks to it that makes using it less strenuous on the body. Junkies who pick up Sandevistans burn themselves out really quickly most of the time because they're using it to physically move faster. The real value to the Sandevistan was the faster reaction times. The less one physically moved while using it, the less straining it was to use. Thus, a simple movement of the arms and eyes to take out six additional targets was both more effective and less damaging to the user than running away from gunfire with it.
Sandevistan speed thinking was cheap, actual movement was expensive, in terms of cost to the body. The way the kid was using it now would let him keep up the pace for hours rather than half an hour or similar. Move with efficiency, and you can move for longer periods, fucking simple in concept and so many just don't realize it. It's also why the kid burned himself out so fucking fast in the Cyberskeleton, moving around three effective tons of weight was fucking taxing no matter how you sliced it.
Good, passing grade, A plus kid. Keep this up and you might be a good fight in a couple years.
By about this point, a dozen or so of the gangsters in cover were now thinly spread over their allies, and they realized that there were only two guns that were doing this to them. Needless to say, their morale was in tatters. They also knew that they wouldn't be surviving if they surrendered though, so they kept shooting ineffectually.
It was at this point the pillar Adam was behind was about to disappear, on account of the vehicle machine gun using ACPAs firing at him. He had to find new cover fairly soon. He looked down to the plastic explosive that was intended to explode on him as he approached this pillar.
Uriel armed it, Adam threw it around towards one of the ACPAs, Uriel detonated it. The armored form of the ACPA staggered out of its cover. The explosion probably didn't do more than shake it up a bit, it was fine overall.
But it was now out of cover, and the gremlin nailed it with a railgun round through the center-torso. A titanic boom echoed through the tunnel and probably deafened every one of the gangsters that didn't have cyberaudios installed. The ACPA fell as a hole appeared where its wearer used to be. Good, it was strong enough to take out something of this level. Adam fought down the grin on his face as Uriel sang a lyric.
'Shot through the heart! And you're to blame, darling you give guns a bad name!'
The other ACPA's fire cut off as it noticed its fellow die, and the wearer obviously panicked at that, ducking further behind its own cover. That was annoying, but it didn't matter too much as now it wasn't firing at him. Adam looked at the rest of the gangsters, and noticed the remaining ones all had low-caliber guns. Good, the kid correctly prioritized higher firepower targets. Nothing else out there could threaten his chrome, so Adam just stood openly and started firing at the stragglers.
Bullets ricocheted uselessly off his chrome, barely scratching the fucking paint as he casually eliminated them. The coward in the ACPA was the only thing left that could hurt him, and it was currently shaking in its seven hundred and fifty (by sight estimates on Adam's part) pounds of plasteel. A potential monster of combat and these fuckers wasted it on sentry duty, Adam was almost insulted. Give it a shotgun and let it roam the tunnels, that would fucking be unstoppable for most everyone short of a full borg in straight combat.
Goddamn he hated meatbags sometimes.
The kid took their firing on him as an opportunity to move into their ranks, taxing but probably worth it at this point, getting to their sides and putting a bullet or knife hole in the fuckers that hid themselves behind cover the entire time.
It was all over at this point. The ACPA tried to fire at Adam while behind cover as much as it was, but couldn't get a good angle before he was upon it. He punched the gun out of it's hands and grabbed it by the wrists. It struggled, but his chrome was top of the line.
Adam took a step back, dragging the ACPA into a firing line for the gremlin. Grooves of concrete torn up by their feet and he took another step. The wearer was screaming something that he didn't bother paying attention to. Eventually another boom echoed through the tunnels and the ACPA was torn in half at the waist by the shot.
There didn't seem to be anything else firing at them in the area, but it was best to make sure of it. So he and the kid went through the standard procedure for gang-clearing missions by stabbing everything that looked like a corpse at least once, before slowly clearing the office interior room by room.
It looked like everything was dead, so Adam called over the comms.
"Ironhands gang eliminated, mission successful, passing grade."
There was a bit of cheering from the kids as they chatted a bit about their job done well (enough). Uriel went ahead and called in the second responders to sweep the area and loot everything Arasaka cared about here. Their jobs were over, and they could leave once the second responders were on-sight.
Adam let them celebrate a bit before running their mood with a mental grin.
"Now we review your mistakes, I counted forty nine."
The three immediate groans caused Uriel to start laughing.
—
The kids were tired as they sat in front of him on the other side of the kitchen table. Adam had just finished telling them, in exhausting detail, everything they did wrong or inefficiently and exactly why. It was a debriefing session that took the better part of three hours, but it was educational for them.
It happened after he visited Chiri, of course. He gave the kids a few hours to unwind and try to figure out where they went wrong themselves. He gave partial credit if they could.
Adam was satisfied, if they kept improving at this rate, they might be an actual help against the meatfucker.
"...hey big guy, we did good, right?" The gremlin asked, a bit unsure.
"Overall, yes."
"So we deserve a little reward, right?"
"The reward is learning."
The gremlin gasped dramatically and threw herself on the table to grab at his chrome with her grubby little hands.
"Come on big guy! We've been cooped up in the tower for a month! Can't we go out!?"
Oh, that's what she wanted? Adam considered it. His vacation days didn't technically expire until noon tomorrow, and they needed at least eight hours of sleep. He supposed a bit of walking around would do them good (the girls that was, the boy had been going out regularly with Adam to kill random scavs. They had to stop that because the scavs began wising up about two weeks in, or their population was too low now, one of those two.).
"We stay out no later than 3 AM, you all sleep by 4 AM." Adam eventually said. All three of them cheered at that. Fucking ungrateful brats, he should throw them out to see if they're still cheering.
"Come on, let's go to the old lady's place! She has the best drinks!"
Adam supposed he should bring out his gemini body for this, but his well-honed instinct told him that going out without his full firepower was probably still a bad idea at this point. Eh, he'd just remove the shoulder missiles (but not the arm missiles, he kept those) and throw on one of his old leather dusters. That'd keep his branding hidden underneath and with his new face he should be mostly unrecognizable. Most folks don't associate 'Adam Smasher' with 'wearing clothes' after all.
His duster was another custom order, designed in such a way he could strap it on around the bulk of his shoulder-guards. The end result was that it looked like he was wearing the duster underneath the shoulder-plates. It was a bit awkward to put on with his new aesthetics changing the exact layout of his plating, but the end result looked about as good as ever.
How long has it been since he wore clothes?
Soon enough he and the kids were ready, and they stared at him a bit. He stared back until they shrugged and the four of them got into the elevator. They went out and Adam followed the kids absentmindedly, looking out for threats as they led him to wherever they wanted to go.
Adam drew stares as he walked the streets, but that was because he was eight feet of pure chrome. As far as he was aware PR was keeping his actual appearance under wraps until they could do a big reveal for it on his next job. Same thing with the kids, he knew the civvies didn't know the full details of their apprenticeship under him, just that Adam Smasher had some kids following him around now. Info Brokers probably knew a lot more though, and surely some people would connect the kids in front of him to 'Adam Smasher must be behind them'.
He had only a passive interest in this little trip, and was fully planning on sitting in some corner where he could watch them all and staying there until they got bored of their outing. It was a good plan.
The kids walked down to some bar lit by blue and yellow lighting. Uriel recognized it as the bar that Maine's crew went to, although he felt like he was forgetting something important. So did Adam, for that matter. There were all the typical bar things that Adam recognized, and that Uriel recognized as well.
The bouncer there greeted the kids with a 'holy shit, thought you chooms were dead.' and there was a happy reunion between them all. The bouncer didn't recognize him, and the kids saying that Adam was with them got him in without trouble.
It was inside the bar itself that Adam and Uriel saw the sign above the Bar that they realized where they were.
'Afterlife'
'Fucking hell Uriel, get a better memory.'
'Fuck off Adam, you forgot too.'
The kids went in and greeted the bartender like old friends, which they probably were. They too had an almost tearful reunion, but Adam had very little interest in it. Adam knew that any second now he would be set upon by one of the most dangerous predators of the concrete jungles of NC…
"Fancy seeing you here, Smasher." The voice of a mature woman called out to his side, and he saw Rogue Amendiares with a pistol pointed at his head, five other meatbags with guns pointed in his direction behind her. She did not sound happy.
…The cougar.
Adam could kill all of them right now, probably faster than any of them could really respond, but that would ruin the kid's night out. The kids looked back and seemed to simultaneously remember that Adam fucking Smasher had probably killed more people that most people in NC combined, and would undoubtably be subject to hostilities in bars. Adam was used to this, and didn't really care besides, he didn't go to bars anyways.
But the kids were looking nervous, so Adam let Uriel handle the de-escalation here. Uriel knew just what to do.
"Your sense of fashion is still garbage." a simple observation, a true opinion from Adam Smasher, and something completely inappropriate to the situation. In short, the perfect way to force everyone here to suffer a soft reboot. A pause as everyone processed that statement.
"...excuse me?" Rogue said, baffled but still furious.
"I stand corrected, it's gotten worse." Adam continued. Before they had a chance to process that part of the statement, he continued.
"You shaved the sides of your hair, I don't know why meatbags do that, it always looks ugly. You did that forty years ago too and it was trash then as well. It's marginally improved by the length but that's not enough to make up for the sides."
"Your choker used to be hot, but now you have the neck part of a turtleneck sweater there. The ugliest part of an ugly sweater and you decided that's what you wanted there."
"Your jacket used to be fine, black biker leathers can look good, but now it's some yellow bullshit with square holes and a midriff. The midriff can look fine but the rest of it clashes horribly, and the words in the center are more meaningless bullshit. "Survive"? You might as well have a necklace with the words "Breathe" on it."
"And your chrome is more pointless bullshit. You have vents on your face, what are they even there for? You have non-functional vents on your face, and they look ugly."
"I know for a fact you can afford rejuvenation treatments, why the hell do you look so old? Did you give up?
"The only part of you that isn't ugly now are the pants."
"Three out of ten, fix everything and try again."
Dead fucking silence in the room.
They completely forgot why they were initially hostile towards him as they took in the fashion based rant he just directed towards one of the most powerful women in NC. Everyone in the room was dumbfounded, except Rogue herself, who was furious.
She lowered the gun and stomped up to him, grabbing his jacket collar.
"You motherfucker, you don't know jack shit about looking good, you're wearing a duster and nothing else!"
"Still look better than you, you couldn't seduce a recruit in basic with the way you look now." Adam attacked one of the abilities she had the most pride in.
"You dumb borged-out bastard!" She took the bait. She had to prove him wrong now.
Uriel drew Rogue deeper and deeper into an argument about her looks, completely distracting her from whatever she was thinking about before. This had the intended side effect of causing all of her back up to slowly lower their own weapons and back down. This lets the kids talk to them and get back to socializing.
All Adam had to do was endure this conversation with this woman, who was the ex-girlfriend of a cheerleader he killed years ago. Still, as Uriel was simply reciting his own opinions on the woman, he let it happen.
Heh, it was surprisingly fun to rile this woman up. He should insult her more often.