by G Aliaksei C
“Relax,” I said again, noting her unsure movements, and forced out a tired smile.
True authority is when you can tell someone to calm down, and they actually do so. Mesharlia let her shoulders drop and smiled, judging the Corporate before her not to be in a murderous mood.
I took the large suitcase from her prosthetic hands and set it on my lap, unlocking and opening it. I then quickly disarmed the bomb glued to the inside with another code.
The items on the top made me grin. I extracted the fragile materials and parts with care, setting the boxes on the table. Vili squawked in disapproval of my manners.
Underneath the costly equipment were three sheets of paper. The first was a letter from Rarus.
Drake,
Here are the parts units you wanted. I hope the recruits I found are to your liking. I have reason to believe their performance will match your expectations. The Assaulter, in particular, is a lucky catch - that Human is from a family of famous, capable Waste Ringers known for their expeditions into high-Class zones.
Everything is going to plan, but there are Nova agents scattered across the major distribution branches looking for the source to the Technomancer. The Union has assigned me and almost every other Inson warrior on the Waste Rings a guard after Nova attempted unsanctioned, illegal arrests…
That was outdated information. The Nova were already on their way, less forward measures having failed the nation of spies and thieves.
I was also contacted by a representative of the Enchanter, just as you expected. I forwarded your recordings, and received two documents in return. They will be included with this letter.
I’m starting the search for the next team leader and members now.
Your friend, Rarus Merladosh.
The second letter was from the Enchanter.
To: The Technomancer.
If you sent a message along with the recordings, I didn’t get it.
However, I feel like we have really grown closer over our exchange, and should work together on other projects.
I thank you for the recordings of my sphere in action. I was a beautiful demonstration, I never expected the shell to be so effective. I will watch that video every day before sleep - I especially liked the sonic boom it created on arrival. You could make an amazing advertisement video out of that shot. What’s with that white armor?
As I said, I think we can work together. I noted the flying armor plates in your arsenal. I am very jealous. I can engrave and enchant that snow-white material to amplify its resistance and even give it a shield. I don’t want anything in return - this is too awesome of a project to be greedy.
I can’t believe you aren’t selling it yet.
I was also wondering if you can produce a larger, non-exhausting version of the Firebolter for my personal use. In return I can offer a full set of enchanted armor to install on a suit, to your specifications.
Again, you can contact me
Call me.
PS: I hear you recruited a Sirin Mage. I respect his determination and your acceptance of an unpopular class, and offer the following design of mine for their use.
From: The Enchanter.
“Fort?”
“Yes?”
“Is our Sirin a Mage?”
“Indeed. A Class 4, which is incredibly impressive. Barely anyone bothers with Mages. Or Sirins, for that matter.”
“Thanks.” I flipped to the last page in the stack.
It was a strange thing, some sort of Rune drawn on paper with something thick and soft, like rubber. I looked it over and set it aside.
My brain refused to spin up to full power, but a delayed question did float up to the surface. I looked up at Masha.
“I don’t remember you among the recruits yesterday.”
“I am a bit hard to recognize when I’m in the mech, yes!” The mech. Of course.
I tapped the letter from Rarus. “It says here that you’re from a famous family.”
“I am the youngest daughter of the House of Varson. We are the most famous Dragon killers on the Rings.”
I yawned. “Dragon killers? Great, we you can deal with ours if it starts causing trouble.”
“There’s a Dragon in this area?” They joy was gone from the woman’s voice. “Mr. Frost, this is my first contract! I’m not equipped for actual Dragons! You can’t rely on me if it attacks!”
“I, and everyone else in Vazanklav, rely on you. We trust you to do your best no matter the situation.” My voice was slowly rising, anger replacing sleep. “And if we can’t rely on you to do your absolute best, then perhaps you should go home! We live in a Class 8 zone, in spitting range of the Class 9 border. What did you think this was, training camp?”
“But I haven’t been trained for this!”
“None of us have been trained for this. Does that mean we expect you, along with every single person in Vazanklav to fight a Dragon if it attacks us? Yes.”
Miss Varson looked like she wanted to argue. But she also seemed to realize that further complaints would anger the massive, tired Corporate sitting before her.
“If that’s all Mr. Frost, I need to run. General Kenet wants us in ranks in five minutes.”
“Go,” I waved. It was doubtful that this small lady, even in her massive mech suit, could replace Jim in effectiveness, but I decided that either Rarus saw something in this one, or Inna would beat that something into the recruit.
I brought the sandwich closer to my mouth once more, careful not to eat over the equipment scattered across the table. My attempt at breakfast was interrupted once more, this time by a call. The call was directed at the Vazanklav Waypoint, and Fort rerouted it to me.
“Vazanklav.”
“Mhmm.” I gave him a positive noise through the chewing, refusing to let the call interrupt the satisfaction of my hunger.
“This is Mr. Frost, my name should be on both submissions.”
“I will answer what I can.”
“No. Even when I entered its vicinity there was no weapons fire. I believe it is designed purely for transport.”
“That is confidential, Mr. Vice-President. I am not at liberty to reveal the weapons systems employed in Vazanklav.”
“Both.”
“Look up the Drake Monument. We are located around it.”
I tapped open the map, compressed the coordinate and time marker of my location, and sent it over the call. The Menu could not be hacked or cheated, and such a marker was definite proof of your location at any one time.
“Any other questions?”
“That’s fine,” I laughed. “If they want to get to us with anything more than words, they will have to walk.”
The Vice-President asked several more questions about the Hacksaw, and requested weather data from a Class 8 zone. She explained that all information will be well paid for. How much? I asked, and was stunned by the answer.
I was getting a billion credits just for information on each of the Beasts. Half a billion more each was sourced from the kill data we provided - Waste Ringers valued information on how to kill something more than its anatomy.
The money was vital in that moment - I needed to purchase and ship in defenses at a rate that my Antimatter and Firebolter sales could not sustain. The Vice-President, satisfied, ended the call.
I finished my sandwich, packed the equipment on the table away into the suitcase, thanked Vili, and marched out of the Cafe. Walking to my home gave me the time to do reading on Mages.
In short, the Rings had a form of ‘actual magic’, not just technology beyond comprehension. I knew that was a lie - this ‘magic’ was just a mechanic enforced by some machine that maintained the Rings. It was an incredibly useless, unpopular skill that few bothered with. The source of the issue was the complexity of using and studying this magic. The system used for its activation was arcane and impractical.
The idea was simple - mental commands of sufficient strength and precision were taken as instructions by the same system that projected the Menus and powered the Gems. The rules and mechanics governing this system were directly tied to the Runes - and equally arcane.
I pulled up the simplest ‘spell’ I could find, a small-scale gravity manipulation. It consisted of a complex image of symbols and drawings, along with instructions on what to imagine and will. The psychic interface took the mental images as a commands, creating the desired effect.
This exercise proved absurdly challenging taking me half an hour to put into effect, and another ten minutes to actually notice the effect - a slight shifting of the air right before my face.
Useless, impractical, and exhausting. Almost as useless as the Runes… used to be.
“An arms race!”
“What’s that, Mr. Frost?” Fort replied through the ceiling speakers.
“We’re in an arms race with the Enchanter. They advance Runes and magic, while I produce more conventional weapons.”
“If this Enchanter figure was interested in competition, why would they send you examples of their work?”
I sat up. Fort’s words made sense. Our products were distinctly separate - we could expand production without stepping into each other’s territory. They could sell advanced Runes, while I sold Firebolters. They would distribute new ‘spells’ while I flooded the market with Black ammunition.
This was all a distraction, really. I was trying to think about anything but the inevitable Nova invasion, foreshadowed by their first stealth assault and current occupation of the nearest staging point. I was used to a very clear distribution of labor, where janitors janitor, engineers engineer, and strategists deal with enemy nations and their greedy invasions upon our sovereign territory. How was I going to deal with an entire nation state marching upon me questionable intent?
And suddenly, I knew how.
“Fort, call David. Tell him to bring all the Durasteel we have left.”
Hours later I stepped out of the bunker for a break, in time to witness Inna’s variant of training, if it could be called that. It was a purely Syndicate approach to the topic, involving beating on the subject of said education until they figured out how to fight back.
General Inna was standing still and tall, rapidly teleporting and occasionally slapping the Slime with a metal pole. The Slime dashed and dodged, trying to land a hit on the General with a large, straight blade that seemed to extrude from its mass. Implants and fibers flashed with power within the Slime in futile attempts to match the superior Infiltrator’s speed. It was an impressive effort, one I doubted I could match.
“Drake!” Inna teleported across a hundred meters, appearing to my side. At a lowered voice, she began to list. From a distance it looked like she was explaining something to yet another subordinate.
“The Inson is an Assaulter, a solid Class 6 fit, but entirely light anti-personnel fit and trained. I have almost never seen Inson fit anything but tank kits, and I can’t give a good estimate on how well he’ll perform. The Slime Jammer-Infiltrator and Human Assaulter are fine, and the Human girl is probably the best prepared of the four. My point of concern is the Sirin. It… he is a Class 4 Mage. Entirely useless.”
I slowly drew the scroll out of my front coat pocket, handing it over to Inna. She stared at it, then yelled, “Swivel!”
I turned away for a moment to hide the smile. What a name. The sphere of silver armor plates floated closer, a black eye staring straight at us.
“Greetings, Corporate.” The words were clear and audible, but they felt like they were meant to be a mixture of thought and emotion. I recalled reading about Sirins, initially a species that communicated with radio rather than sound. During the integration into the Corporation the species underwent several changes that allowed smoother coexistence with other species.
“Private Swivel, tell me, what is this?” Inna raised the unfolded scroll.
“That, General, is something I want,” replied the sphere without a delay. “It is a reusable projection engraving.”
“And it does, what?”
“Project.” My eyebrows went up, impressed with such ham, while Inna’s eyebrows came down, much less appreciating of the humor. Swivel, clearly capable of reading Human expressions, explained. “I cannot tell from the document itself exactly what it does. I would, however, like to try using it.”
Inna glanced at me, and I nodded my approval. She offered the scroll to the floating ball.
A single square plate of steel-Durasteel alloy armor floated to the front of the mass, and extended outwards. For the first time I was able to see what held the armor in place - tiny white webs reached out from behind the plate and gently took the engraving sheet by the four corners. Turning it around, the webs pressed the sheet into the armor plate, holding it there as the plate lit up.
The sheet fell away a moment later, blank, leaving a glowing orange copy of the complex pattern on the plate. The white webs pulled the plate back into the collective mass, shifting and settling it in. The sphere rotated to point its eye and plate away from us.
It looked exactly like what I imagined real magic should look like. Rings of orange light formed before the Sirin, and a beam of fire lanced out over the fortress wall and through the energy dome overhead. To compensate for the substantial knockback Swivel assembled and shot out three limbs of armor, digging the ends into the ground to hold himself still. The flames died down, leaving a line of smoke to drift across the base.
The other three recruits began applauding and cheering in unison.
Swivel was ecstatic. “This, this should have been shown to me first when I came here. That’s amazing!”
“That has never happened before, Swivel.” Inna glanced at the smoke, deep in thought. “I know for sure magic comes down to smaller things, like lighting fires and making light wind, and even that usually consumes more mental strength than is reasonable. How is this possible?”
“No one had a catalyst like this before, General.” A Menu appeared before Swivel as he examined the engraving of interest, stabilizing appendages slowly retracting back into the main mass. “This is something entirely new and amazing. Who is this Enchanter, the one who made this, sir?”
“Competition,” I
growled, feeling the Firebolter on my wrist. I sell the bracelet, this Enchanter sells this Firelance Enchantment. I sell the antimatter armed Black munitions, they sell… something else. “Someone figured out this damn overcomplicated magic system of yours.”
“Oh, amazing,” said Swivel, somehow feeling my focus on the bracelet on my wrist. “Is that a Firebolter? Those are exceptionally rare! Where do you get all this equipment?”
“Secret!” I raised a finger.
Swivel seriously bobbed up and down in response.
“Mr. Frost,” Inna turned to me. “We need your weapons.”
“You need my weapons?”
Inna raised an apologetic hand and tilted her head. “Yes, correction, I want you weapons, the others need them. Specifically, we all collectively want your Flying Armor. Soon. How’s the progress on that?”
“Huh. That one really got popular.”
“It’s genius. Brilliant. Excellent.”
I frowned, watching Gray appear out of nothingness and float up to Swivel. The two spheres stared at each other for a few seconds. Swivel extended a row of plates, and lightly poked Gray. Gray projected a smile.
Sphere friendship.
“I am almost done with the upgrades for your people. I can quickly install them later. It’s not exactly perfect technology. The user needs to be in close proximity with the ground for momentum anchorage. Otherwise any impact would directly hit the wielder. The anchor system is extensive - I can’t risk installing it into your Class 9 armor, or I’ll just ruin it. Mr. Ember’s and your people’s Class 8 armor is doable, though. I might even have time to laminate the recruits with Energy Durasteel.”
“I’ll get them to agree once they see how useful it is. Is there anything else that you can do?”
“Yes. Black ammo. I can give everyone the latest Black rifles, though they are still less effective than your rifle.”
Inna shook her head. “I never thought I would see Class 8 soldiers fighting with slug-throwers.”
“And that is exactly why I think we stand a chance against the Nova invasion. They will be high-Class units, likely wielding high-power energy or hybrid weapons. I can significantly reduce the effectiveness of those weapons with Flight Armor and Energy Durasteel. They, in turn, will be expecting us to wield energy and hybrid weapons, which will make our shield-piercing kinetics more effective.”