There was something to realize, running along a mostly barren wasteland after a truck they could see via satellite link. There was no real need to use a truck when each of the bodies could run as fast as a car normally, and a sandevistan that refreshed every few seconds and dramatically increased their overland distance with each usage.
All sandevistans had something called an 'acceleration factor'. It was the degree by which the sandevistan overclocked the user. Most commercial sandevistans had an acceleration factor of two, thus, the subject experienced time fifty percent slower than normal for the duration. That was the 'safe' level of acceleration for meatbags. The current record-best from what he remembered (other than his own) was the Warp-Dancer Mk5, with an acceleration factor of ten.
All sandevistans had something called a 'subjective duration'. It was the amount of time that the user experienced while their sandevistan was active. Their real-time actions only took a handful of moments, but their perception of the event would be far longer. Commercial standard was about eight seconds. Again, that was the 'safe' level for basically any meatbag in the world. The current public-record best was the Militech Falcon Mk5, which had a subjective duration of eighteen seconds.
All sandevistans had something called a 'cooling rate'. This was fairly simple, it was how fast the sandevistan cooled down to safe levels again for indefinite usage. He didn't know the reason for it, but speedware built up heat as it functioned, and that heat had to be dissipated before it was used again lest the user burn out their nervous system. The current best-on-market was held by a few different models, at around fifteen seconds to cool off.
All of this, of course, was without after-market modifications. Enough supporting chrome around a sandevistan could increase performance well in excess of what they were initially designed for.
His own sandevistan had an acceleration factor of ten, a subjective duration of twenty seconds, and a cooling rate of ten seconds. You could get a longer subjective duration, or a faster cooling rate, or a better acceleration factor, but he had yet to meet anyone except the boy that could handle all three as high as he could.
Like all of his chrome, his sandevistan wasn't the absolute best in any one category, but it was the best overall…
Well that wasn't quite true.
The DaiOni, his body, was the most powerful frame ever constructed in just about every category that he cared about. He hit the hardest, he ran the fastest, he reacted the quickest, he was the hardest to damage. It was a monster of a frame, only made more so with his sandevistan installed.
Needless to say, every frame except the Samson was faster than any car could hope to be in terms of overland speed. The Samson had to simply be carried along the way to keep up.
Massive bounding leaps that tore the endless expanse of desert. Dry and dead clay and sand being thrown up in waves behind four robotic giants. Nearly four-thousand pounds of metal and myomer screaming across the barren land, up and down the craggy hills and valleys in a straight line towards the truck as it drove down the roads that were no longer maintained by any official action.
It was still miles ahead, but if they kept this pace up, then Adam would intercept the Truck a few miles outside of the Metacorp site. The DaiOni was a tad faster than any other frame, owing to its massive stride, but that was easy enough to compensate for.
'...It's more dead than I was expecting…' Uriel spoke, taking note of the landscape as they ran. Adam grunted in response, and Uriel continued. 'I mean, 'ecological disaster' sure, but there's not even scrubs out here. No weeds, no lizards, no insects… No life at all…'
'You going somewhere with this?'
Uriel hummed for a moment, casting a considerate look upon the barren world around them. '...I suppose not. We're not civic planners after all, we're high-spec murderers.'
'Are we not? It certainly fucking feels like it.' Adam complained. Uriel grumbled in agreement. He liked playing district manager, but not for fucking months at a time. Pacifica was starting to be more of a pain in the ass than it was entertaining.
It's why he picked up that AI, currently stuffed in a box with a copy of Tetris back in Pacifica. He needed something to handle some of the burden, otherwise he was going to get entirely too burnt out on this whole 'management' thing. Fucking hell, why do the meatbags want to manage anything? It's a goddamn pain in the ass to babysit all the fuckers in his territory.
Once more, definitively proving his theory that promotions were scams, and that getting paid by the job was far superior to getting paid by the hour.
Thankfully, this was a grand opportunity to relieve some stress.
One massive bound brought him over the small hill in front of him, and the land dropped off steeply down to the road that winded through the barren hills forwards. Adjusting his stance, he slid down the side of the (relatively shallow) hill with one claw cutting grooves into the dirt behind him. As he slid, his optics focused on the road ahead.
There, in the distance, was a solitary armored truck driving down the mostly-destroyed road at nearly a hundred miles per hour.
He was distracted for a moment during his slide as his Oni frame tumbled past him, out of control, flipping down the side of the hill at fifty miles per hour. He narrowed his optics at it and Uriel got the message. He rolled the eyes of the Gemini to Adam's right, set it to be automated again, and slipped into the frame of the out-of-control Oni that was making an excellent impression of a buzzsaw.
It took a moment, but Uriel got it under control just in time for them to slam against the broken asphalt and immediately continue their running forwards. The algorithm Uriel used wasn't perfect when it came to dealing with high speeds. Most of his frames were dirty from their various tumbles so far.
The truck wasn't quite close enough for him to do anything to it yet. Maybe… three and a half thousand feet out? It would take another few seconds of running before he was close enough to it.
He waited for Uriel to give the confirmation that all sandevistans were ready, and activated it. Uriel did so for the rest of the bodies at the same time. All at once, four borgs suddenly accelerated at… let's see. Fifty miles per hour at normal running speed, acceleration factor of ten… that was five-hundred miles per hour? That sounded right and he didn't care to do the full math right now.
Regardless, four borgs were suddenly five times faster than the thing they were chasing. Needless to say, by the time the sandevistan ended he was well within range.
He raised his left arm, and it's internals cycled once. From the ulna-side of his arm, a hatch slid open and a weapon emerged. Back in the day these were externally-mounted. One of the few improvements to the design was figuring out the internal mounting.
A light anti-tank guided missile. This model used a shaped charge to penetrate armor and had around three thousand feet of effective range.
The DaiOni had three of them.
God, he loved missiles.
The missile fired, aimed by his internal targeting tied to his neuralware. It screamed through the air, and aimed for the road directly in front of the truck. On the off-chance that the boy was in there, he couldn't afford to hit him. So he instead aimed for the road in front to force the truck to crash into the sudden massive crater that would appear. Might cause the boy some broken ribs, but that was easy to repair.
Kids were durable, you could throw one down some stairs and they'd be fine.
The missiles howled as it approached, and his eager anticipation was cut short by the side of the truck sliding open, and a flathead turret emerged. He narrowed his optics as the anti-missile laser shot his atgm halfway to the truck, causing it to explode midair. That was infuriating.
That was not a standard part of fucking anything. You mounted those things on ships and buildings, not trucks. The power-draw wasn't worth it most of the time…
He thought about the internals of an armored truck for a few moments, reviewing what he knew could and couldn't fit in one. This was a Metacorp design, so it had 4 modular hardpoints on the hood, roof, and sides, and an interchangeable back-end for heavier cargo or weapon mounting. That was standard for these things.
Flathead lasers could only cover a certain angle, so this truck had at least two, one on each side. That left an unknown factor for the roof and hood. The back end was a small cargo container, so that part wasn't a threat.
…If this truck had no actual weapons on it, they could fit enough batteries, armor, and a big enough engine, and enough fuel to get this far.
Every vehicle should have at least one gun mounted on it. The fact that this was mostly working right now was irritating in the extreme. Have some decency! Put on a mini-gun at least!
Enough grumbling, time for plan B. Uriel, do it.
Uriel set the Oni to automated again, and shifted his presence to the Samson currently clinging to Adam's back. The Samson that was carrying his EMG-83 as he ran forwards.
Uriel rose slightly, using Adam's hips as footholds, and held the massive railgun in one of the hands of the Samson, aiming it at the back-wheels of the truck. The one hand firmly grabbing onto his shoulder and used to adjust his aim with Adam's massive bouncing gait.
Their sensors beeped in unison, Uriel continued to aim as Adam checked what it was.
In the sky, around three miles out and to their upper-left, a speck was rapidly getting bigger. His optics zoomed.
…Metacorp Shipping Security VTOL. They were within range of the transport depot then? Uriel ordered the Oni frame to start doing some calculations.
A tight-beam laser connected with his form, and a transmission was beamed to him directly.
[Adam Smasher! You have fired upon a Metacorp Asset! Cease your hostilities and vacate the premises immediately or you will be treated with lethal force!]
He returned a simple message.
[Metacorp. Your asset might have stolen something from me. You'll all die for it.]
[Vacate the premises immediately and we will verify if ou…] Adam was no longer listening, as Uriel got his calculations done.
Adjusting his aim, Uriel fired the man-sized railgun in the air. Up and to the left. Adam's shoulder jerked slightly from the awkward angle of recoil. That did nothing to slow his run, however.
A good few moments later, the tight-beam transmission cut off and the speck in the sky started to rapidly descend. A ball of fire started to form around it as it descended.
'I beheld Satan, and he fell from heaven like lightning.' Uriel quoted absentmindedly as he stared at it for a moment, before turning his aim back towards the speeding truck…
…That just went around a hill about two-thousand feet in front of them. Goddamn it Uriel, stop reciting shit and shoot first next time.
'Gimme a break, that was cool.'
'Irrelevant. Shoot first next time. Dumbass.'
'You're a dumbass, dumbass.'
They circled around the next hill, and his gait jerked slightly at what he saw. It looked like an old quarry, repurposed to be an aerial shipping depot. Only one of the massive cargo carriers was currently parked here, but the rest of the quarry was filled with men, aircraft, and many, many guns pointed at him. In the center, a massive hole was drilled straight down, looking like it was used for… something. Neither he or Uriel knew much about how aircraft worked, but it looked like a tube for a rocket ship from this angle.
Except, of course, as a massive hole in the ground rather than a free-standing structure.
He didn't know how big the average quarry was, but this one looked like it was about a mile long and wide. A nice square that embodied mankind's desire to impose right angles upon the chaos of nature…
Goddamn it Uriel, stop that, we're in combat.
'Sorry.'
His right arm contained a Tsunami Grenade Launcher. It could fire a standard grenade up to five-thousand feet, could fire about five grenades per three seconds, and the DaiOni contained sixty shots.
A place this big and full of hostiles? There was only one correct option with it.
Uriel hopped off his back, and began to mirco-manage his other frames.
Adam kept running forwards as smaller caliber guns bounced off his armor, and his reactions allowed him to angle himself to make the larger calibers bounce off as well. Five massive steps away from his other frames, Adam and Uriel activated all sandevistans.
The grenades of the DaiOni exploded in harmony with the high-explosive rounds of the tsunami-arms helix that was replacing the Dragoon's right arm. Swathes of meatbags were destroyed in the first second of combat by that alone.
The massive railgun wielded by the Samson boomed every few seconds, each shot taking out the engine of another aircraft that was futilly attempting to rise from the ground and aim it's weapons at the cluster of borgs.
The Militech HMG wielded by the Oni frame cut meatbags in half as they approached, focusing its fire on targets that would be guaranteed to fall after a single round first, and then moving to attack others afterwards. Ensuring they wouldn't get overwhelmed by superior weight of fire.
The Gemini, directly piloted by Uriel, kept running forwards. It was the third-strongest frame, and the lightest by far. It's duty would be to cripple heavy armor targets like borgs and ACPA with his monoblade before moving on. A slowed target was all too easy to take out, and far less of a threat to the rest of the frames.
Within the first ten seconds of Adam Smasher arriving at the fully garrisoned Metacorp base, fifteen percent of the elite corporate security agents were dead, and ten percent of their vehicle support was destroyed.
Needless to say, morale among the defenders shattered almost immediately.
—
"Damn it, damn it, damn it…" a man in a lab coat muttered furiously as the elevator descended into the stone. It shook as another explosion boomed, only barely muffled by the hundreds of feet of rock.
How the absolute fuck did Arasaka find out about this site? It was a perfectly functioning shipping fortress on top, there should have been no indication!
They had a double-agent on the inside. It was the only way it was possible. Everyone he met from now on was a potential enemy. If anyone tried to slow him, he had to assume they were a hostile, the only way to be sure.
Another explosion boomed through the rock, and he flinched, before adjusting his glasses and coat again, anxiously waiting for the elevator to bring him to the bottom floor of the facility.
It would be bad enough had Arasaka sent Adam Smasher alone. But apparently they had Adam Smasher and four other elite agents currently using his backup frames as support. Smasher was supposed to be an anomaly, where the fuck did they get FOUR other assets capable of handling his frames! It was bullshit!
There wasn't any other way to save the facility or the Underground Railroad project. He'd have to activate project Jabberwocky. It wasn't finished, but it would be more than enough! His superiors gave him very clear orders on what to prioritize in terms of project secrecy, and the Underground Railroad was of the highest importance!
Surely they'd understand, five Adam Smashers! Five!
The elevator opened, and he ran from it as fast as he could, raising his hand to flash his security credentials chip embedded in the palm to the security bots and to open the door.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon…" He anxiously whispered as the computer slowly checked his credentials and scanned his biometrics. Soon enough, the door opened and he was allowed into the control chamber.
Wilkins was in here, and she turned to say something.
His arm unfolded into a projectile launcher and turned her head into mulch. Anyone else was a risk right now that he couldn't afford. Her body painted the wall on the left as he ran for the console.
He practically smashed his fingers on the console, only going slow enough to make sure he got the passcodes right. Then he ran over to grab Wilkin's keycard and his own off his neck to insert it into the two slots on the computer.
Furiously he tapped his fingers as it verified his permissions to be doing this. An explosion boomed through the rock overhead as he was finally granted access to the command prompt.
Quickly he booted up the full-range prototype testing program, defined an area, and set hostiles to 'all'. Slamming his finger on enter, the console turned green, and he slowly slumped down to rest his head against the chair behind him.
Alarms started to blare as a light emerged from one of the tunnel-entrances at the bottom of the primary bore.
Illuminating a massive, hundred-ton form.
A massive form that blurred for a moment, and exploded out of the bore with the scream of its jet-engine wings. Its emergence onto the surface was heralded by his claws snatching a VTOL out of the air and crushing it into scrap. Its face glowed for a moment, before a massive laser ripped from its maw and cut a distant attack helicopter in half.
The D.R.A.G.O.N. had been awoken.