“I’m quite aware. I paid attention in the technicians’ seminar during the first week and every subsequent warning over the year, but we don’t have a lot of time and our teammates are dealing with unending waves of death machines on our behalf. All of you could potentially fail because of my mistake. If I can end this as soon as possible, I’ll take the chance.”
Chiyo stared at him for a moment before nodding. “I…I understand your conviction. I’ll take care of any incidentals. Please hurry.”
Otto nodded. He looked at the node and placed his hands on his knees. “Schatzi, activate the suite.” His body froze and he went silent, his stare fixed on the node.
“Mack, have you fully recharged yet?” Julius asked.
“Eighty-three percent.”
“That might have to do. Those cannons are up,” the biologist declared. “It’s firing—get down.”
Mack activated his bounce again and leaped out of the line of fire as the cannons let loose. The blast hit the top right corner of the room, and large chunks of the wall fell and crashed onto a few unlucky droids below.
Kaiden slammed the butt of his rifle against the head of an Assassin droid before he leaped back and fired into its chest and neck. “Genos, you think you can rewire that thing like you did with the mech?”
“Possibly, but there are too many enemies nearby, and many are focused solely on me. In the field, I had the cover of widespread battle.” The Tsuna aimed at an Assassin and fired another shot from his cannon. The droid weaved around the blast and leaped forward. The plasma bolt exploded on the ground, and the explosion blew off the legs and part of the torsos of two other droids a few yards back.
As the Assassin droid moved in to attack, Genos side-stepped the cut of the blade and activated the clamp on his gauntlet. He blocked the droid’s second attack, ensnared the bot’s arm, and placed a foot against its chest. With a violent jerk, he ripped the arm off and then aimed his cannon at the attacker. He released a less-charged shot at its chest that created a perfect circle through its torso.
The bot fell in a heap as the mechanist deactivated the clamp. “If we want to try that, we’ll need to—”
“Look out,” Kaiden cried as he dove into his teammate and moved him out of the way of the goliath’s blast. The explosion slid them into a waiting group of bots. Genos yanked out another seeker and threw it in the air. It activated, attaching seekers to the bots and locking them in place before they could kill their catch. The ace stopped sliding and flipped over, fanning Debonair’s barrel and destroying the malfunctioning bots in a hail of laser fire.
He vented his pistol and looked at his companion. “You all right?”
“Better than I could have been. I was not paying attention to that Goliath. That could have been costly.” Genos sighed, still on his knees and breathing deep.
“Survive now so you can beat yourself up later.” Kaiden grunted and helped the mechanist up.
“Kaiden, the barrier,” the Tsuna shouted, pointing at Chiyo.
He looked back to see that it had shattered. She had pulled her gun and fended off a couple of Havoc droids as Julius hopped backward and several yards away from her, dodging the swipes of an Assassin droid.
Kaiden closed Debonair’s vent and aimed at one of the Havoc droids attacking Chiyo. A couple of well-placed shots took it down before he snapped the weapon to the other side and fired a shot through its head. “Dammit, why is that agent guy just sitting there? Wait, is he using the suite?”
“Otto, Chiyo look out,” Julius called as he slammed his semi-auto into the visor of a droid and fired. “The Goliath is—”
The Goliath turned to aim its recharged cannon at the pair of technicians.
“Get out of there,” Kaiden ordered as he switched to ballistic rounds and fired at the attacker, trying to divert its attention away from them.
Chiyo returned to working on her access device. “We can’t leave him. If the node is destroyed while he’s in the suite, he will—”
“If he’s shot by a goddamn cannon, I’m guessing it would be equally bad,” Kaiden retorted.
“It’s all right,” Mack shouted as he charged the Goliath. “I’ve got this one.” His armor glowed with bright blue energy as he rushed toward the larger droid.
“Mack! Take these.” Kaiden threw the vanguard a cylindrical container with the rest of his thermals.
He grabbed it as he jumped and smashed into the massive frame. When he reactivated his nova, the Goliath fell backward and fired its cannon at the ceiling. The blast created an opening in its chassis. Quickly, Mack activated the grenades and shoved them into the hole, leaping off the Goliath as its body exploded behind him.
Kaiden ran over to Chiyo and looked up to see a chunk of the ceiling fall to the floor.
“Alert disengaged. Deactivating and recalling remaining droids,” the voice announced.
Chiyo pulled her connection from the port. “He did it. Now he needs to—”
“Move, Chiyo,” the ace shouted, pushing her out of the way of the falling debris scant seconds before it crashed to the ground.
Julius did the same for Otto and they rolled away from the wreckage to avoid getting hit themselves. As Kaiden recovered, he looked up to see Mack push himself off the floor as the remaining functional droids powered down and disappeared.
“I like the way you destroy things.” The soldier chuckled, sat up, and rested a hand across his knee. “Reminds me of myself, but you seem to like it a bit more up-close.”
“Grit and grind, baby,” Mack declared, beating a hand on his chest a couple of times. “Thanks for the boom.”
“Happy to do my part.”
The vanguard nodded, then looked at Julius. “How are the jewels, Jules?”
The biologist used a chunk of the ceiling to hoist himself up. Kaiden noted that his armor had taken a beating, with a number of cuts along the chest and the arms and parts of his leg armor missing. “Intact, fortunately.”
“You gonna be all right?” Kaiden asked. “Looks like you’re missing parts.”
“Still got my underlay. I’m a biologist. As long as I’m still suited up, I’m swimming in healing gel and antibiotics. Nothing hurts much or injures me for long.”
“Good to hear.” The soldier looked up to see Genos offering him a hand. He grabbed it, and the Tsuna pulled him to his feet. “You all right, Chiyo?”
“No!” she cried. He ran over to her, fearing that she had broken something or had been wounded by one of the droids before they deactivated. He saw her raise a hand and point to the node. He looked and saw that the node had been crushed by the wreckage.
Kaiden kneeled beside her and place a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong? Why are you freaking out?”
“He needed time to get out or deactivate. If he hadn’t—” She sounded distraught and kept looking between the node and Otto’s body. “Julius, check him!”
Julius looked at the unmoving agent, taking an injector out as he began walking toward him, “Otto, you all right?” He and Mack knelt beside their teammate and raised his torso, supporting it between them.
“What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he moving? Is he dead?” Mack asked.
“No, or at least not yet. His body would disappear,” Julius stated, “He has a pulse and I don’t see any serious injuries, but he’s unconscious, Did he—”
“He used his suite to deactivate the alarm,” Chiyo informed him. She and Kaiden walked over to them. “I don’t know how much he explained to you about it, but if a technician uses their suite and they don’t have the time to properly de-sync or the device they are using it on is destroyed—”
“It leads to— Otto, wake up!” Julius commanded, shaking him.
“I know there’s pain and all that in the Animus, but aren’t you guys being a little melodramatic?” Kaiden asked Chiyo in a lowered voice.
“It’s not that simple with our suite, Kaiden. If Otto’s de-sync was botched, it could—”
&nbs
p; Otto coughed and sputtered, then inhaled deeply as he leaned against Mack.
“Otto, you all right, man?” the vanguard asked worriedly.
“Did I get it in time? We still in the test?” the agent asked.
“Yeah, we’re good. Are you?” Kaiden inquired.
The agent leaned back. He would probably have laid down if there hadn’t been a piece of rubble from the ceiling propping him up. “I’m all right. Got a bit dark there. Let me tell you, mentally interfacing with any sort of tech…it’s a trip, man.”
“The door is unlocked,” Genos called to them. “We can depart whenever everyone is ready.”
“Good work.” Julius looked around the group. “All of you.”
“Especially you, Otto,” Chiyo added.
“I would just say I broke even.” He sighed. “I was responsible for trapping us in the first place.”
“That was a bad first impression.” Mack chuckled, and he looked at Kaiden. “Sorry about roping you into that, although I have to say I’m glad you were here to help with the mess.”
“Don’t fret about it.” The ace shrugged. “Turned out all right and we got plenty of points, although this place is really starting to earn its reputation as a death trap.”
“You good enough to stand?” Julius asked Otto.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He grunted as he struggled to his feet with some help from Mack. “Or I will be fine soon enough. What now?”
“Well, not many options really,” Kaiden mused as he looked at the now-open door out of the room. “Guess we’ll go poke our heads into those other rooms and see what tries to kill us. Wanna come with?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kaiden made his way to Genos as the others rested and Julius examined them. He found the Tsuna removing his helmet and looking it over as he approached. Genos studied his helmet with pursed lips, which were a darker, more purple color than his periwinkle skin. There was a slight bulge above his mouth with two small slits, the closest thing to a nose on his face. Kaiden hadn’t thought about the fact that Tsuna didn’t need the infuser masks in the Animus. The ace began to feel slightly like a Peeping Tom as he continued to stare at his teammate, who seemed none the wiser. He snapped himself quickly back to reality.
“Good shooting, buddy,” he complimented him. “Might want to make sure to keep your six clear of giant-ass guns, though. Also your twelve, four, ten…you get the picture.”
Genos nodded slightly in acknowledgment as he ran a hand over the helmet.
“Something wrong?” Kaiden asked.
The alien looked up and blinked in confusion. “Hmm? Oh, yes, sorry. My helmet took some damage during the fight and fall. I was hoping to repair it, but it seems that it is mostly inoperable.”
“That bad? You are an engineer. I thought armor repair was pretty basic for y’all.”
Said engineer nodded. “Light and moderate damage are fairly easy to repair, assuming we have the right tools and materials, but the upper half of the inner mask and the visor… I don’t believe I have the means to deal with it.”
“There’s nothing at all you can salvage?” Kaiden asked, worried about the Tsuna’s survival chances without the aid of at least some defense for his noggin.
Genos rolled the helmet around in his hand. “I could disassemble the top part and keep the underside. Might as well remove some of the chipped and cracked pieces. It won’t be much, but my comm will remain, and I’ll still have a re-breather.”
“It’s something. When we inevitably run into a room that has a fog of poison in it, that will be a life saver.”
His companion cocked his head. “You know for a fact that we will deal with gaseous or aerosol poisons?”
The ace shrugged. “So far, we’ve dealt with a mech warzone, a room that turned into a lava pit with giant lava lizards, and a room that spawned a horde of robots because a hacker hacked a thing they were supposed to hack. I’m starting to respect the fickleness of this test.”
“Understandable,” Genos agreed as he activated the crowbar again. “This should only take me a few minutes. Are we leaving soon?”
“In a bit. Julius is looking everyone over. We’ll travel together for the time being. You know, considering the death traps and all.”
The Tsuna planted the crowbar into the underside of his visor, using some force to pull it out of the helmet. “Are you sure that is wise? We are a couple of hours in, so I’m sure the Deathmatch portion of the test will activate soon.”
“They seem like good guys, plus Otto just risked his neck to save us. I don’t think they will turn on us.” Kaiden looked back to see Julius check Chiyo and put a serum into her neck using an injector. “Or at the very least, they won’t shoot us in the back. If they try, I’ll bet my trigger finger is faster than theirs. Plus, your cannon is bigger than any weapon they have, except maybe Mack himself.”
“If the vanguard attempts to attack us, I have one last seeker grenade ready along with my pistol, which fires a projectile that will let me deactivate his shielding. He is of no concern,” Genos stated with an eerie calm as he used a small buzz saw to remove the top half of his helm.
“Good to keep the options open,” the ace said, a little taken aback with the Tsuna’s rather robotic demeanor. “You feeling all right, Genos?”
“A few minor injuries. Would be a lot worse if it hadn’t been for your assistance. Thank you for that.”
“No worries, but you seem a bit more…hostile than usual.”
His teammate released a deep breath as he finished removing the top portion of the helmet, throwing it to the side. “Yes, I suppose I am feeling not quite myself. This test has gotten much more ‘real,’ as you usually put it. Normally, in the missions we undertake there is a clear pathway for us. Even when we run into a problem or have to change the strategy, it is not usually so dramatic. We simply reconfigure our plans slightly and keep moving forward.” Genos pried off a few pieces of compromised plating around the mouthpiece. “I suppose I am starting to feel a little out of my depth now. I have thought the scenario over in my head these last few minutes. If it had been just us in here, do you think we would have survived?”
Kaiden looked at Otto for a moment before moving closer to Genos and leaning in. “To be honest, I don’t think we would have had to deal with it at all. I doubt Chiyo would have fallen for a trap like that. She seems more methodical than that guy.”
The Tsuna chuckled as he slid the remainder of his mask onto his face and attached nozzles from the container on his back into the sides. “I suppose I hadn’t considered that. I would have to agree. She is as fine an infiltrator as I am a mechanist.”
The ace smiled under his mask, knocking the back of his hand against the alien’s shoulder. “Keep up that kinda spirit. Better that than falling into a funk.”
“Funk? Isn’t that a type of music or a synonym for a bad smell?” Genos asked.
“It can also mean a feeling of sadness or worry. I’m only saying you should remain in good spirits. We still got a lot of test to take and all.”
“Quite true,” Genos agreed, looking out the open door. “I suppose my concern is simply whether or not we will take on something we are not prepared for.”
“I haven’t been prepared for almost everything I’ve dealt with so far, and I’m talking the entire school year, not just the test,” Kaiden pointed out. Genos looked back at him. “But sometimes, you just gotta roll with it and rely on your personal bag of tricks, maybe pick up a few new things along the way.” He focused on the Tsuna. “And just remember-—you, me, and Chiyo, we got each other at least. Whatever we run into next, we can knock three heads together instead of only one.”
“Another good point. Rather surprising that you seem so open to working on a team now, Kaiden. I remember the first couple of months, when you always seemed to go off on your own on a whim.”
He shrugged and crossed his arms. “It’s something I wish I had learned before I got here. If I had, well, maybe
things would have turned out differently for me. But then I wouldn’t have had a reason to be at that bar in Seattle, which led me to being here. Like I said, you roll with things and learn along the way.”
“And if I hadn’t found the courage to greet the human who was staring at me, we might have not become friends,” Genos added.
“Maybe. Probably. You really consider that a good thing for your mental health?” Kaiden joked. “Things can work out all right if you take chances. And I do have to say that it’s rather cool that the first alien I ever met turned out to be a teammate.”
“Same here.”
The ace tapped the side of his mask. “You know, I keep forgetting that humans are technically considered aliens by all the other races.”
Genos snickered. “Well, we are on your planet. But should you ever visit Abisalo, I’m sure it will be quite the shock.”
“Yeah, then I’ll be the one walking around in scuba gear all the time,” he responded, mentally picturing walking around on a planet that was mostly one large ocean. “I’ll make that a bucket-list item. You ready?”
“I am.” The Tsuna nodded as he pressed a button on his gauntlet that activated the pack the nozzles were attached to. “You should see if the others are ready.”
“You guys good to go?” Kaiden shouted.
“Feeling good,” Mack yelled back. “Julius shot us all up with happy juice. I kind of feel bouncy.”
“Just don’t fall over on top of me and you can do whatever you feel like,” Kaiden jeered. “Let’s go check out our options, shall we?”
The two teams made their way to the door immediately across from the room they were in.
“What do you think will be in here?” Julius asked.
“We’ve dealt with mechs, tanks, mutants, and droids so far,” Genos stated. “I expect almost anything at this point.”
“Maybe ghosts?” Kaiden suggested sarcastically.
“You know, I wasn’t concerned about that,” Otto muttered. “But since you brought it up, I’m now considering it, and that honestly sounds terrifying.”
Animus series Boxed Set Page 81