Sleep was a human weakness. A period of time that meat typically required in order to charge its biological batteries. It involved laying down in a position one could not quickly react to danger in, typically under the cover of something to weigh and slow you down, and ceasing higher brain functions so that hostiles could sneak up on you easier. It was the period in which you were at your absolute most vulnerable to attack.
To counter this, most creatures evolved a flawed mechanism called 'trust' and left their safety to the hands of their fellows. This worked well enough for most of history, but the solution was evolutionarily sloppy. Relying on your fellow man to not kill you in your sleep was a good way to never wake up at all. Some creatures lucked out, and managed to develop the ability to not require sleep anymore, but humans were not one of those.
Where nature failed, technology picked up the slack. With the advent of cybernetic enhancements, more and more ways to diminish or negate human weaknesses were invented, until the vast majority of flaws within the human animal were solved by the human intellect. Sleep was one of those great vulnerabilities he had gotten rid of a long time ago, so long ago that he forgot that he was subject to it at all.
He would make sure to kill anything that remembered this incident, all of them he could afford to. It was a tactical weakness to let your enemies know you ever needed rest.
Having said all that, it was quite refreshing to wake up without that constant slight pressure on his mind. The manner of waking up was another story though, as he was already having to deal with some womanly emotional bullshit.
"Shut the hell up." He finally turned his optics on again, turning his head to glare at the fucking woman who decided beating on his armored chest and wailing was a good thing to do.
His line of thought skipped once when he saw the woman.
Adam… Don't go…
'Uriel, cameras.' Adam mentally ordered as he quickly got up and grabbed the woman by the waist, moving her worthless bleeding self over to the computer desk and the standardized first aid kit that came with the ship. Fucking woman, you know how much of a pain in his ass it would be to pay for your second revival? You weren't getting a meat arm again, you clearly weren't responsible with the last one, you're getting chrome.
Uriel tapped into the cameras and evaluated the situation. The Ebunike was… in the water now? Irrelevant. There was an unknown outside the door, an unknown up in the comms room, and another heading down into the cargo. Robbers? Where the fuck were the brats? They better not be at some stupid club right now.
'Uriel, hack him.'
'With what cyberdeck? This frame doesn't have anything, I have the processing power of a fruit right now!' Uriel bitched at him as he rapidly cycled through cameras and tried to find solutions.
'Find something, dumbass!'
He went through the old army first aid basics as he ignored whatever the woman was trying to say. Stop the bleeding, wrap, inject some speedheal, ignore until it could be treated later. One hand grabbed the stump firmly, causing the woman to give a halted scream. The other hand ripped open the medkit.
The unknown outside the door was putting something on the door, breaching charge from the looks of it, and pulled back. The charge started beeping loud enough that he could hear it through the door.
He briefly let go of the stump to start wrapping the tape-stuff around, tightly, to make sure the bleeding stopped. None of the Mk31 HMGs he had on display had ammo inside, he couldn't use those right now. Three security turrets in one of the other cases, needed to be set up before he could use those. Spare guns along the wall, also currently empty of ammo, couldn't use those.
That left… the polymer katana on his desk… and…
He glanced over to his bench as he rapidly tied a knot, the beeping growing faster. Just as he finished the wrapping, the breaching charge went off, causing an explosion to plume into the room behind him and shaking anything loose.
That was his signal, he began to move. Assume the hostile is superior in all parameters, how do you win?
The intruder stepped forward enough, gun raised to begin shooting at whatever was moving inside.
Adam threw the polymer katana, both to test something and to buy him a moment to start moving to the right. The intruder sidestepped it cleanly, gun raising faster than it should. An APS-2 underwater assault rifle. It fired bullets more akin to crossbow bolts than standard, and was somewhat inaccurate outside of water. Perfect for him.
His single step brought him close enough to grab the bench. He planted his feet and twisted, bringing it along while letting the bolts of the attacker's gun bounce off the most curved sections of the alpha frame's body. He could feel grooves open in his armor.
He flung the bench forwards and close to the floor. It was big enough to completely fill the short hall leading into the room from the door. He immediately kicked off the wall behind him to chase the bench after the hurl.
The intruder was forced to jump to avoid the several-hundred pound mass of lightweight alloys from destroying his legs. This meant that he had nothing to push off of. This meant he had no way of dodging as Adam tackled him out of the air and grabbed him.
They landed a moment later as the bench crashed against the doorway. His 350 pound frame clearly knocking the wind out of the attacker in his aquatic gear and wetsuit armor. Unfortunately for the attacker, Adam's frame was armor, and he didn't have lungs.
Strangulation might be his favorite way to kill a person. It was a rare event, because normally he just didn't have the time. Doing it this time let him count how long their speedware lasted. 8 seconds, as standard.
Progressively weaker and weaker fists attempted to beat on his armored form as the intruder's life slipped away more and more by the moment. Soon enough, they weren't trying to fight back anymore. To make sure it wasn't a trick to get him to drop his guard, he snapped the neck with his grip still tight, then snapped it again the other way.
He pushed up and sighed in satisfaction. 'Uriel, solutions?'
'I could try using the frame's internal agent, but that's about the best I got.'
He considered it for a moment. 'Do it.'
Uriel quickly poured his data-fire into the little computer that managed Adam's current frame, and emerged in virtuality…
Adam started laughing.
'Adam this isn't funny.'
Adam laughed harder.
'Adam, this is serious, I'm small now.' Uriel spoke, now standing about a foot tall and gesturing at himself with both hands.
Adam kept laughing as he strolled over to pick up his bench by the handle on the underside, and then the intruder's sidearm, a comparatively puny pistol, but it would have to do for the moment. Hefting both, he moved to stand in front of the woman, currently holding her stump and curled up in pain.
He gave a blank stare down. He almost felt like rolling his optics in brief annoyance. Fucking weakass meat, being so dramatic. "Oi, woman."
The woman turned her gaze from the floor to stare up at him. She didn't say anything for a moment, so Adam took it as his cue to talk again. "Get up. I need you to be useful."
An emotion passed through her eyes that he didn't recognize. She staggered up, briefly leaning against his chest to steady herself, before pulling back. She looked pale and haggard, which made sense. He handed her the dinky little pistol, which she took in her remaining hand and swallowed.
"Situation." He demanded. "Barebones only." He clarified to cut off any rambly bullshit she was about to spout. She thought about it for a moment, eyes slightly unfocused.
"We… We were attacked… the kids went out to fight them, I stayed to wake you up, but they came in from the water and-"
He cut her off by grabbing her cheeks and squeezing her lips together, having gotten what he needs to know. He was about to say something, but a muffled explosion going off below the room made him pause for a moment, before turning back to the woman.
"Stay behind me, shoot at whatever moves that you don't recognize, got it?"
She nodded, eyes wide, and he pulled back, hefting the heavily reinforced bench and moving through the doorway. The smaller footsteps following behind him told him that she was capable of following basic directions, at the very least.
He had this handlebar installed just in case he ever needed an emergency shield, such as a missile attack directed at his room in Arasaka Tower. It was rated for close to a thousand pounds to sit on, and for anything short of a vehicle-grade gun to shoot at without a scratch. Right now, it was coming in handy. It was almost too heavy for this alpha frame to handle, but 'almost' didn't mean jack shit.
Truly one of his greatest purchases. He was a genius and should be applauded.
There was an explosion below, which was closer to him than the cargo. He needed to take care of that first. He snatched up the polymer katana as he moved, bench raised and cautious. He paused for a moment at the corner.
Uriel moved forwards, speed mostly unaffected by his decrease in size, and filled the nearest camera of the room interior. There was another intruder, this one checking the whole of the room in a very professional manner. She had already used an explosive of some kind to blow up the computer that was set up inside, and would be leaving in just a few moments.
Uriel almost tried a net attack, but then remembered how small he was. He was pretty sure size correlated to processing power, and if he tried his normal methods right now he'd probably make a good impression of a bug touching a flytrap. Depending on how much ICE they had that he couldn't see immediately.
He frowned, mind racing. Alright, no direct attacks, that left… indirect distractions? He raced back and expanded as much as he could to find a suitable system.
Intercoms were down, the computer upstairs was useless for this, as were the cameras, there were a lot of very big Icons in the distance so that was out too…
The radio at the end of the deck maybe? He filled it, interfaced with it's systems, raising the volume to max and defaulting to his instincts.
He started to sing.
The warden threw a party in the county jail
The prison band was there and they began to wail
The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing
You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing
Let's rock, everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock~
Adam huffed as the old song blasted out of the radio at max volume, probably waking up everyone in a hundred meters if they weren't already up. He waited behind the corner for the door to open, knowing that the intruder was just beyond it and undoubtedly alerted. He glanced back at the woman and raised a single finger to make sure she was ready. She nodded as firmly as a meatbag with blood loss could, and he turned back.
The sound of the doorway sliding open was barely audible over his own voice singing. That wasn't as important as the next sounds he had to wait for.
One barely audible footstep.
Two barely audible footsteps.
On three he twisted out, letting the bench slide down in his grip and swinging it as an improvised bat. The intruder clearly activated their speedware and threw themselves to the side, away from the massive bench. They were on the ground long enough for the woman to nail them in the side with a pistol round as the bench crashed against the doorway and let out a thunderous bang of metal on metal.
He threw himself forwards, letting the curved armor on his forearms bounce the hastily fired APS off his form and to the sides, the grooves in his armor were irrelevant at best. He stomped at the legs of the intruder, who was able to move to the side and keep firing at him.
Too bad meat. That stomp wasn't for you. He grabbed his bench again and twisted, swinging it yet again. Another wide horizontal swing, the timing wasn't quite right.
The intruder dodged, and kept firing grooves into his armor, getting closer and closer to his head. The woman landed another shot on the intruder's armor torso, throwing off their aim. He let the swing twist his body into another stomping swing.
The momentum carried. He swung down in a vertical slam this time.
The intruder tried to dodge. They flinched.
8 seconds had passed.
Their speedware had timed out.
The reinforced bench turned them into a thick red paste on the deck, splattered over a good five meters.
Let's rock, everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock~
He almost felt like smiling, if this frame could do that. Music and a murder, that was fucking nostalgic. Two down, one more to go down below. He glanced over to the woman, who was staring at the meaty chunks. She detected his stare and returned it.
…Oh yeah, meatbags like it when you state the obvious.
"Good."
An emotion he wasn't familiar with passed through her eyes again. She nodded firmly and raised her handgun to press against her bandaged stump. He turned to look at the stairs leading down to the cargo, and narrowed his optics at it. He grabbed the intruder's gun and left his bench for now. He needed suppressive fire and the bench couldn't be swung as effectively down there.
He glanced at his armor integrity. Ninety-six percent from guns that weak. That was somewhat infuriating.
He glanced at the woman again, before walking over and snatching the grenade off her belt. Moving his sword to under his arm, he walked back towards the stairs leading down before opening it and moving forwards.
There was a twist down here, and if he were an enemy who was still alive, and not a dumbass…
He jumped down, landing at the bend in the stairs and twisting. At once APS rounds began to bounce off his form. They weren't expecting him to be here if they were using guns like that. Or the aquatic team was just here to sabotage the ship and alert the wider force of his presence. They didn't need to survive for that, so the enemy was winning in informational advantage right now regardless of this team's ability to kill him.
He snapped out his arm, throwing a grenade down the stairs. As his aim was solidly above the head of the man at the bottom of the stairs, the intruder didn't bother dodging, instead continuing to fire at him.
Exactly as Adam wanted. He kicked off the wall and threw himself down the stairs at the intruder, raising his arms to shield himself from the fire slightly.
The intruder was now left with two choices. Try to back up away from him, or try to dodge by jumping above him.
This intruder proved himself smarter than his compatriot above, and dodged backwards out of the choke point away from Adam and kept firing. This would, normally, be the smartest option. The intruder proved that he still wasn't smart enough, as he stepped back within range of the grenade.
The resulting explosion blew the intruder's legs off.
Adam rolled when he hit the bottom, and drew his polymer katana from under his arm as he raised up.
His aim was off, and he slashed halfway into the torso instead of through the neck. Still, the intruder was dead regardless. He grunted and pushed the corpse off his blade. Three for three, intruders dead. Assess the situation and move on. Armor integrity at ninety-two percent. He glanced behind him to see the woman stumbling down the stairs after him. She was still functional.
Now what about… Grayson? He should still be here.
Uriel went through the cameras before finding his distinctly bright colored armor vest slumped against a storage container.
Adam walked over to it and looked down at Graysons form. He reached down and quickly assessed for a pulse. No pulse, but no apparent damage to the head. He rolled his eyes and hefted Grayson over his shoulder, quickly dragging his corpse up to the deck and making a call.
"Trauma Team hotline speaking." A familiar tired man spoke over the call.
"I need a revival at my location. The corpse will be wearing a red flak vest and on the deck of the ship. Sending the payment now, I have shit to do." He grumbled out as he hefted Grayson to a location where he'd be easy to see from the sky.
"...Location marked, please note that if the corpse is unable to be revived you will not be eligible for a refund."
Adam rolled his optics and ended the call. It's been less than a minute, meatbags. Of course you can revive it. He grabbed his bench and nodded at the woman before moving towards the stairs leading off the ship.
Uriel… find the brats.