“That would be some shit.” Mack chuckled. “Slide right through my barriers. I’d be the south side of useless.”
“It isn’t something we have to worry about. Do remember these tests are supposed to prepare us for things we may actually have to deal with,” Chiyo interjected.
“Not the superstitious type, Chiyo?” Kaiden jeered.
“I have not had to deal with anything that would make me think ghosts or phantoms should be something we have to worry about,” she answered.
“Gotta take you to New Orleans sometime. I saw a house for sale there once that pimped the fact that it wasn’t haunted.”
Mack laughed. “Oh, that place was definitely haunted. I don’t believe in ghosts either, but I would give that place a pass.”
“Perhaps a Sauren squad?” Genos suggested. “We haven’t run into any hostiles that are part of the other races, only human mercenaries.”
“Possible,” Chiyo said. “But I didn’t find any evidence in the vids or research that I went through to learn about the test that suggested there are alien opponents. But they could have added them in recent years.”
“A rogue Sauren hunting party or insane Mirus could be something to watch out for,” Genos warned.
Julius shivered. “Evil Mirus…they have a specific name, don’t they?”
The Tsuna nodded. “Yes, it’s different for every species as the Mirus’ telepathy instantly translates their companions, but I believe the humans call them Vesa?”
“It’s from the Latin word ‘vesanus,’ meaning insane,” Chiyo explained. “I have only read reports and seen a brief description in an E.E.T encyclopedia. They are apparently Mirus who broke away from the Mirus hive mind, and as their mental stability decays, they are powerful psionics and absolutely deranged. I don’t think anyone in the Master class could, but the top in the Victor class would be able to take them on.”
“Says you,” Kaiden scoffed.
She shook her head. “Confidence aside, I don’t think it’s something we’ll have to deal with.”
“Speaking of crazy, what about neurosiks?” Otto asked. Chiyo shifted uncomfortably behind him.
“If we run into those, start making deals with God or the devil, whoever will hear you,” Kaiden said solemnly.
“You’ve faced them before?” Julius asked.
“In the Animus, a couple of times, but those were with a group of other soldiers, and we were all armed to the teeth. Still vicious but you had more confidence.” He shrugged. “But before I came here, I had a buddy who was doing a gig over in Houston. They had to go in a slice shop where the owner had ‘borrowed’ something that he hadn’t given back, so they were going to ‘borrow’ it right back for the contractor. I don’t know what the hell they were doing in that shop, but they ran into a neurosik on a slab, thought it was dead, and got too close. Only a couple of them made it out.”
“How many went in?” Mack asked.
“Nine. The guys I used to run with were no pushovers and were well-stocked. One neurosik took out seven of them. They didn’t even take it out. They simply ran and were able to lock it in. Considering they didn’t run into any guards or gang members or anything, that thing probably took all them out too.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have started thinking about this,” Otto lamented as they finally approached the door. “Now, I’m wondering what the hell is behind this door.”
“Only one way to find out,” Kaiden stated as he walked over to the panel and pressed the button to open the door.
“Hey,” Julius shouted and drew his pistol.
Otto followed suit, along with brandishing a blade. “What are you doing?”
“Did you want to sit in front of the door for the rest of the test?” the ace asked. “I’m opening it. Let’s take a peek at what’s inside.”
The six looked into the room. It was much smaller than the last one, with two other doors to the left and right of the center of the room. It seemed to be empty—no nodes, consoles, or hostiles in sight.
“Looks clean,” Mack commented. “Then again, so did the last one.”
Kaiden took out his Raptor. “Should we venture in and see what awaits us?”
“Hold for a moment, if you would,” Chiyo asked, walking closer to the doorway.
“What are you doing?” He pointed the rifle into the air and rested it on his shoulder.
She withdrew a small disk from her belt. “Taking precautions.” With a quick motion, she tossed the disk into the room and a hologram of herself materialized.
At first, nothing happened, and the group looked amongst themselves to confirm that they were ready to head inside. With a low buzz, a laser barrier sealed the entrance, trapping them outside the room. Kaiden, Julius, and Otto jumped back. Four large turrets popped out of the ceiling, aimed at the hologram, and ignited it in torrents of flame.
They watched as the weapons continued to spew fire for at least thirty seconds. The flames were so hot they melted the hologram’s disk, and it disappeared. The turrets ceased firing and slid back into their hiding spot, and the lasers disappeared as well.
They were all silent for a while. Mack the first to speak. “You think it’s good now?”
He received only silence in response. Chiyo finally answered, “There is one other room we could try back down the hallway.”
“Let’s do that,” Julius acknowledged.
“I’m game,” Otto declared.
“That seems reasonable.” Genos agreed.
“Fuck that room,” Kaiden hissed, and the group chuckled.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The six initiates had doubled back from their failed excursion across the hall and now looked at their last remaining option. Julius glanced behind them to the door through which Kaiden and his team had arrived. “You sure we can’t go that way?”
“Lava. Lizards.” Kaiden deadpanned.
“It could have changed since then,” Genos said thoughtfully.
The ace crossed his arms and looked at his teammate. “You wanna pop it open? Besides, you’re missing half your helmet now. Your dome is gonna dry out if you go in there.”
“That sounds like a bad way to go,” Mack mused. “Then again, I can’t say there are many good ways to go, considering the circumstances.”
“Maybe the dumbass system running this thing will drop an elephant on us and we’ll make the year’s blooper reel.” Kaiden shrugged.
“What room did you and your team use to get in here?” Chiyo asked.
“Teleporter,” Otto answered. “You said you came in from that room. I’m guessing that’s the west side of the building.”
“Yeah…I think. Don’t have a compass,” Kaiden admitted.
“Well, we came in from the far side—the east side. When we got in, we went through a couple of rooms with some slight resistance, just a straight path, really. It ended in a room with a single teleporter.”
“By that time, the whole place started shaking and we could hear explosions behind us. Big ones,” Mack added.
“Probably mechs and tanks like what we had to get through,” Chiyo reasoned.
“Hope all the pilots and jockeys are having their fun out there. Don’t think they are going to have tank battle in… I already jinxed it, didn’t I?” Kaiden fretted, looking at Julius, who simply shrugged.
“We decided to take our chances and head through the teleporter. We got warped to this room. This exact spot in fact,” Otto finished.
“In that case, we should probably step back a few feet in case anyone else comes through,” Genos advised, taking a couple of steps back. “Should someone teleport into the position you are in, it does not turn out well when they are reconstructed.”
“I don’t think we have to worry all that much, considering you’re the only ones we’ve seen so far,” Julius said, although he did look down and took a few steps back himself. “If there is still a chance, however, I do wanna say that I don’t have any serum or concoction that�
�s gonna fix someone’s arm being recombobulated into your kidney.”
“So I guess that means we’re left with door number three over there,” Kaiden asserted, turning to look at the last door. “You have any more of those hologram disks, Chiyo?”
“No, they are a very limited gadget,” she stated. “If it is another empty room, I suppose we could try throwing in a piece of our armor to see if it sets anything off.”
“Should have kept the top half of your helmet,” Mack said, looking at Genos.
“I can retrieve it if you would like,” he offered.
“It’s all good. I still have a few grenades, or I’ll toss my barrier in.” Kaiden reached down and took out his barrier projector. He studied it. “Still only twenty-seven percent recharged. It took a beating.”
“That’s a long hallway we gotta go down.” Otto hummed as he stared down the passage. “Let’s get to it if we’re gonna. We racked up some points in the last room, but I’m guessing we’re lagging behind now, if we weren’t already.”
The rest nodded agreement and they began making their way to the final door, weapons at the ready.
Mack reloaded his hand cannon and began priming his barrier. “How long till the Honor activates? Anyone have a guess?”
“It varies. From what I’ve seen, it could happen anywhere within the first couple of hours—meaning any second now—to about twelve hours in,” Chiyo answered.
“You seem to know quite a bit about the test,” Julius noted. “At least more than we do.”
“I was able to find some brief vids on greysites and dug around the available information on the Academy network and a few articles in the library. It wasn’t that much, even when it was all combined.”
“Were a couple of those greysites Kara’s Den and Ebon Net, by any chance?” Otto inquired.
She nodded. “Yes, and they had the most vids available.”
The agent sighed. “I tried to do some research too, but I was locked out of those sites after I made a couple of rookie mistakes as a kid. Those guys don’t seem to forget or forgive very easily.”
“You’re lucky that you were caught by the moderators and simply banned. If you had been caught by a sting or fell for a hacker’s ploy, it could have been much worse,” Chiyo reminded him.
Otto chuckled. “Honestly, I’m only an above-par hacker. I make up for it with divine luck and natural charisma.”
“It’s honestly kinda shocking, the way he gets to the ladies and some of the stuff he can talk his way out of. That’s a gift.” Mack snickered.
“And yet the times that he fails, we’re somehow stuck cleaning up the mess,” Julius mumbled.
“That’s one of the jobs of a wingman,” Otto declared.
“I don’t remember applying for the job,” the biologist retorted.
Kaiden, in front of the pack, stopped in his tracks and held up a hand to tell the others to halt. “Hey, y’all hear that?” he whispered.
The group listened, In the silence, they heard clanging, along with the whir of what sounded like a drill or saw going through metal. The ace looked up and saw a hole forming on the ceiling.
“I don’t know who’s doing that or what the hell they’re thinking, but they don’t seem very bright,” he said in a tone of disbelief.
“You think they’re friendly?” Mack asked. “Maybe they’re other initiates who got stuck in a room and are trying to make their way out?”
“I don’t think so. Any engineer class who would have a way to cut through metal would use a torch. Most take them instead of a blade or melee weapon. Sappers would obviously use an explosive charge,” the Tsuna reasoned.
“Genos, mind using that cannon of yours to find out?” Kaiden asked.
“Priming,” he acknowledged. He held down the trigger of his cannon and aimed at the hole, watching the saw make it to the halfway point.
“Your hand cannon is the most powerful weapon we have in our team. Mack, could you help him?” Otto said.
The vanguard aimed upward. “If they are friendlies, good thing we can’t kill each other yet.”
“Firing,” Genos stated, sending a blast of energy at the target. Mack responded with several shots of his own. His shots put several holes into the ceiling before the mechanist’s shot blasted the ceiling apart. Several dark figures sailed through.
“Back up,” Julius shouted. The group stepped or jumped back as a few bodies decked out in Red Sun merc outfits hit the floor.
Kaiden walked up to them to see several large holes in a couple of bodies while another had its entire left side blown completely off. He kicked the one that seemed the most together. When he heard nothing, he rolled him over with his foot to see two shots in his right ribcage. “How did that even happen? Was he lying down?”
“Well, we got a few points.” Mack shrugged, venting his hand cannon. “But that was a bit anticlimactic, wasn’t it?”
“You think this test is just messing with us at this point?” the ace asked.
“I suppose every event can’t be a hellish scenario or droid horde,” Otto surmised.
“Breaks up the monotony, at least.” Julius sighed.
Mack closed his gun’s vent. “I’m sorry, you bored already?”
“Wanna take point?” Kaiden asked mockingly.
“Well, I simply meant that all we’re doing is… No, I’m good. Let’s enjoy our little walk.” The biologist sighed as he continued toward the door.
The others followed and grouped around the entryway. “It sounds like there’s something on the other side,” Genos cautioned them.
“Weapons ready,” Kaiden ordered, raising his rifle, “Get the door if you would, Julius.”
He nodded and walked to the panel as the rest readied for an attack. The biologist raised three fingers and began counting down, pressing the switch to open the door at zero.
“Whoa,” Kaiden gasped as the door opened. “What’s going on in there?”
The door opened to reveal a large cylindrical shield glowing white at the center of the room. The two teams walked in, and the door closed behind them. They reached the barrier and stepped onto a walkway that circled around the shield and led to a ramp that ascended on the far end and another that descended several yards to their left.
“Hey, look,” Otto said, pointing down and across the way. “There are more teams in here.”
Kaiden looked down to see at least six other teams below, all traversing various paths. Some were circular like theirs, and others were long catwalks or even triangular. One team moved along a floating pad. The shield seemed to stretch down at least several floors to the very bottom.
“Not just down there, either,” Chiyo observed. “Look up.”
Above them, the cylinder extended another few floors, at least sixty or seventy feet. Kaiden couldn’t tell how many initiates were above them, but from his angle, he could see at least a couple other teams, along with someone who wore familiar armor and had a contraption on his back similar to Genos’.
“Hey, Genos, is that Jaxon?” he asked, pointing to the soldier.
Genos walked over to Kaiden and looked where he was pointing “I think… Yes, that is his usual armor loadout.”
“Think he would hear us if we called to him?”
The Tsuna shook his head. “He’s at least three stories above us, and the hum from this shield would likely drown out our voices.”
The ace waved his hands to see if he could get Jaxon’s attention, then saw Izzy walk up beside him. Both seemed to be studying the barrier. “No good. We can’t hail him on comm, can we?”
“No, our comm is only linked to our team,” Genos stated.
Kaiden sighed and tapped a finger on his arm. “That’s true, but we do have someone who could probably get their attention.” He slowly looked back until he stared at Chiyo. “Think you can get up in there, Chiyo?”
“More than likely. I don’t think they would have any way to protect themselves from me accessing their comms,
but it will take me a few minutes to hack in without completely compromising their systems. Is there a reason we need to contact them right now?” she inquired.
“Eh, say hi? Compare notes? See how badly we’re beating them?” he suggested,
“This is the first room where there’s something of interest and nothing trying to kill us. We should probably focus on figuring out where we are,” she reasoned.
“I’ll look around with Genos and the others while you do your thing,” Kaiden suggested. He looked around for a moment and turned off his open mic, speaking solely through the team comm link. “Besides, this place just gave me an idea about our personal plans.”
Chiyo closed her open mic. “About the whereabouts of the EI director?” she asked, her voice hushed. “I made a similar assessment, considering that it would be sound reasoning that it would be at the top of the building like most main computers or systems. But given that it doesn’t need to act like one to control everything here, it would probably be in a place that was harder to reach and not in a destination where most teams would want to be.”
“Underneath the place where all the action is happening,” Kaiden finished, pointing down with his hand. “This shield thing goes down pretty far. I figure we head down that ramp over there and see where it leads. If it turns out we’re wrong, then we can just head back up.”
“Sound reasoning, but again, should we be making calls right now when we have a place to be?”
Kaiden looked at Genos, who was watching Jaxon and his team. “I mean, it could be tactical. You said the Honor could come into play at any moment. Better to have communication with another group that we could use on our side if anything goes down.”
Chiyo sighed, shaking her head as she brought out her holoscreen. “A reasonable decision, but your delivery makes it obvious that it’s simply an excuse.”
“And yet I’m still convincing.” Kaiden chuckled. “Thanks, Chiyo. Let me know when you got him.” He looked back to catch Genos’ glance and saw that the other team had gone. “Where did the others go?”
Animus series Boxed Set Page 82