Chapter Text
That horrible sound finally stopped. The silence that lingered afterwards was so thick, it could be sliced into neat bite sized chunks.
“What in fresh hell even was that?” Kevin deadpanned, unsure of what to make of what he just witnessed. “No expert, but I've seen a few last moments recordings taken from combat cyborgs and none looked like that.”
Boris scratched his chin with a slight frown, eyes burrowing into the screen. “You mean Gemini?”
Kevin remembered vividly watching the two cyborgs get killed, seeing the Protection system fire and Sundowner's horribly pleased mug as it all happened. His view of that day is here too. Somewhere.
“Yeah. But theirs were different, I guess? Just recordings of what was sent to the control team.”
“A cyborg's broadcast to their support is technically not too different from what you'd find on the holographic drive,” their resident technician clarified.
“What’s the difference then?”
“The broadcast omits codec calls and messages. You know, for privacy.”
“Those weren't Gemini’s last moments though, both of them survived,” Boris said from his desk; when he got there, Kev wasn't sure. He could be surprisingly stealthy at times.
"And this isn't a last moments log either, I would know,” Raiden’s voice in his ear rasped. “Son of a bitch didn't scream for me .” Very growly. Not good .
"Then what is this?" Kev hurried to steer the conversation back to the original question, sensing that his favorite unstable ninja cyborg was about to get even more unstable.
Doktor rubbed his hands enthusiastically, lenses of his glasses practically glittering with excitement. "Only one way to find out! Miss Collins, send me the clip ID."
"Sure thing."
Kevin sat back and rubbed his neck tiredly while he watched the display on Courtney's table disconnect from Raiden and hook up to the ghost of a dead man's cybernetic systems; Maverick's familiar horse head vanished from the corner it normally sat in. The sight of Desperado's logo that popped up there instead was awfully jarring.
Courtney squinted at the numbers. "Oh jeez…”
"GPS is having a moment, huh," Kevin noted when he took a closer look himself.
“It’s jumping around, but at least we can tell that he's somewhere in the central United States. The visuals are beyond saving though, it's all mush.”
“Damn, first interesting video in hours and it's been put through a blender. Lucky us.”
The cute blonde sighed. "Internal readings are mostly intact, but I'm not sure if I can trust them."
"What makes you say that?" Raiden perked up a little after this one recording, almost enthusiastic about their investigation it appeared.
"The entire recording is so corrupted that I have trouble trusting anything in it. Besides that, there's really no damage that would warrant a shut down, I don't think; all I can see flagged as damaged are… I'm not sure what these parts are if I'm honest, the name isn't very explicit."
“Auxiliary appendage attachment points. Don't see these very often, a shame because it's fasc-”
“Doktor.” Kevin stopped the incoming lecture before they veered off topic again.
“Ah, right.” Wilhelm fiddled with his pendant. “One of them is damaged indeed; they are a vulnerable spot, but the recorded damage is not enough to incapacitate, much less cause a system overload.”
“And here I was getting excited to have a resolution to this little murder mystery,” Raiden chuckled over the codec.
“Ohhh, Raiden, that's far from all there is to it. The real treasure is the error log! Give me a moment,” Doktor teased before digging into the data once again.
Kevin's head hit the back of his chair, body going limp. He wasn't sure when the atmosphere grew so suffocating; on one hand, his mind was restless and eager to do something to deal with the fallout of Armstrong's plan, but on the other, he couldn't help the dread that crept up his spine whenever he clicked on one of those blasted files. It was the unpredictability that did it for him: the sheer whiplash between utterly mundane recordings and what he could only call ‘The Horrors’ was somehow worse than if every single recording was reliably gore porn. And so, he was left suspended in limbo.
I'm sure they'll excuse a little bit of procrastination on my side, Kev contemplated with his eyes closed.
He just needed to keep his head above the water, it was not so bad. Breathe in, breathe out. The command center was nice and quiet, the ambient of clicking mouse buttons and light beeping of various devices added in a sprinkle of variety. A clatter of keys from behind him. Man, Boris is always so rude to his keyboard. Courtney’s mug slid against the table, followed by a disappointed little ‘oh’. Perhaps I should go get her a refill.
With that thought, Kevin took a deep breath, fully intending to get back into the flow.
“ Gott … Who would even do such a thing?” Doktor muttered, and Kev stopped dead in his tracks just as he was about to get up.
“What?”
“I don't think I've ever seen an emergency protocol trigger this way.”
“Something you haven't seen before?” Raiden's eyebrows shot up. “Must be exceedingly rare, huh.”
“Well, yes, I had to look up in the database what the error AQ509 even was, because it never comes up. Essentially it's what happens when the artificial nervous system receives excessive stimulus and feeds all of it to the brain, which, by virtue of being organic, can not process it. It's somewhat similar in principle to a brain-machine interface malfunction, but… as you can see, this is much more problematic,” Wilhelm concluded with a slight note of bewilderment.
Courtney's eyebrows furrowed slightly, her pink lips formed a small round pout. Kevin knew that look well, she did it whenever she thought really hard about something. “If it takes excessive stimulus, where did it come from? The damage is minor.”
“See, this is where it gets interesting. At first I assumed that his pain inhibitors were simply turned off, and they were, but there's a nuance. The inhibitor nanomachines are configured to do the opposite of what they normally do. I suppose they're pain boosting nanomachines in this context.”
Everyone gawked at Doktor silently.
“Why the hell is that even an option?” Raiden croaked through the earpiece; Kev supported the sentiment.
“Uh, you see, just because pain inhibitors are typically treated as a binary on or off switch, doesn't mean it's what they technically are. The intensity of the effect can be varied or even inverted, but it's useless, unless-”
“Unless you want to torture your cyborg,” Raiden finished the sentence bluntly.
“…Suppose it's the only reasonable application for this, yes.”
Reasonable. Kevin shook his head silently. Professional deformation is one hell of a drug.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself before clicking on another nondescript string of letters and numbers.
***
“Unauthorized ID detected on level -2,” a monotone female voice announced stiffly over codec.
Visor panels smothered the light.
When Sundowner’s sight returned, the world appeared even more cyan than it normally was; holographic outlines that highlighted every corner made it look more like a video game than reality. With softness uncharacteristic for his large, heavy frame, Sundowner stalked through the hallway, eyes fixated on the floor. The buzzing of fluorescent lights above increased tenfold together with every other ambient noise in the cyborg's immediate surroundings. Suddenly Kevin could hear a fly banging its tiny head into the ceiling lamp somewhere on the other end of the corridor. Those aural sensors are no joke, huh. He watched the commander grow perfectly still as the volume continued to increase.
The vibration of air conditioners resonating through concrete walls.
Barely intelligible news jingle from a tv behind a door somewhere.
A young woman's laughter on the floor above.
Faint footsteps below the gray tiles, muffled by a layer of rebar and concrete.
An XIFF code flashed below the floor briefly.
The view shifted, winding identical corridors blurred past the ‘camera’ as the Desperado cyborg hurried towards some unknown goal. A few turns later his brisk trek came to a halt in front of a large freight elevator. To Kevin's complete lack of surprise, the man he was spectating didn't bother with buttons and simply pried open the doors to be met with pitch darkness of the shaft. Familiar cyan glow conveniently picked out all the wires and armature that lined the walls and without much further ado, Sundowner jumped down.
He landed with a cavernous thud, the hydraulic plate at the bottom of the shaft groaned and sank under his immense weight. Somebody yelped behind the elevator doors.
“Found ya,” Sundowner growled at a very startled looking cyborg he found there; the mysterious intruder stumbled backwards and vanished into thin air… would have vanished into thin air if Sundowner's AR wasn't outlining his silhouette. Stealth camo really is becoming obsolete.
Kevin paused. Rolled back a couple of frames.
Lithe, sparsely armored design, intended for quiet infiltration rather than combat. A helmet covered the man’s whole head, flat and featureless with only two glowing red dots where the eyes were supposed to be; the whole suit was done in predominantly gray and white, decidedly not in the style of either World Marshal or Desperado.
Unpause.
The transparent silhouette sprinted in the opposite direction, turned the corner and disappeared. Sundowner made himself a makeshift entrance once again and lumbered forward.
Turning the corner revealed rows upon rows of CPU racks. An actual, literal server room that wasn't called so as a euphemism for something vastly more sinister, unlike whatever it was that sat at the top floor of Marshal HQ. The drone of the ventilators was almost deafening, but not nearly loud enough to cover up Sundowner’s weighty footsteps while stalked through the server room.
A man's scream echoed through the concrete walls, a sound of something or someone falling over followed. In an instant, Sundowner was there, witnessing a very convenient blunder: the intruder, tangled in a colorful web of cables and lanky limbs of what Kevin could only assume was the server technician. A thoroughly terrified server technician.
“Wh-Who the hell are you?!! Get the hell off of me! Hel-”
The young techie's whiny voice cracked when the weight of the invisible assailant was abruptly lifted off of him. Sundowner held the wriggling spy by the scruff like a misbehaving puppy.
“Done runnin’?” the southerner mocked his catch while it thrashed around, pulling on the tangled cables and sending the attached hardware falling to the floor. A heavily modulated scream wobbled in Kevin's ears when Sundowner's machete stabbed through the intruder's stomach.
“L-let go of me! Or I-”
“Or what? Whatcha gonna do, bleed on me?” Sundowner laughed, backing out from between the racks with his human shish kebab in tow. “How ‘bout we go upstairs and you tell us all about who sent ya here?”
“No!”
“Wrong answ-”
Kevin flinched when the video assaulted his ears with the most awful, ear-drum ripping bang conceivable. The screen went white before it went red.
“Fuck's sake,” Sundowner groaned. The view panned around as he looked over himself, laminated in a thin layer of blood, and over his immediate surroundings, renovated to match the invading cyborg's insides now turned outsides. What a mess. A huge palm covered the screen and drew away, red and slimy. “Just amazing.”
“Oh… oh God …”
The bug-eyed technician peeped out from behind the rack. He squeaked again, even more pathetically, when the Desperado commander trudged over and heaved him up from the ground. Sundowner ‘dusted him off’ then and slapped a humongous hand on his shoulder in an attempt at encouragement that seemed to only terrify the nerdy looking guy further.
“Well, buddy, looks like you got your work cut out for ya,” the southerner sounded almost apologetic as he looked over the mess: the yanked out cables, the messed up servers, the blood. “It is what it is.”
The techie, white as a ghost at this point, stared back slack-jawed. Kevin couldn't blame him.
“”Uh… Good luck,” Sundowner muttered awkwardly and lifted his hand off the guy’s bony shoulder, a perfect impression of the cyborg's bloody hand left behind on his white shirt. “You can do it!” He added cheerfully and hurried out of the room, carefully trying to side step the gore pile left behind from the intruder's self-demolition.
“Got a new paint job?”
“Oh fuck off, Sam,” Sundowner shot back at the samurai in the doorway. “Actually before you do, go take a look at what's left of the fucker and report to the lab. I have issues to take care of.”
He snorted at the disgusted face Samuel made at the scene in the server room and walked onwards.
Recording over. Whether not being bothered by what he just saw was a good development or a bad one, Kevin wasn't yet sure.
***
“So Sundowner got hacked?” Boris offered quizzically.
Their resident technician tilted his head.
“What makes you think that?”
“I just don’t see any other way this would happen. There’s no reason for a PMC to do something like that on their own operatives.”
“Perhaps you’re right. I don’t see any signs of hacking here, but as Miss Collins said earlier, a recording in such a sorry state is unreliable. This is all I can do here, really.”
“Ah, so this will have to remain a mystery then,” Boris sighed. “A shame, but I suppose it wasn't ever going to be of much use. Why did we all jump on this one clip anyway?”
“Because it's different? Dare I say, exciting even? I'll admit, this was a welcome break for me; my task here isn't any more entertaining than yours.”
“Da… And we haven't even made a dent in this… And my brain is already melting.”
“Haha, now you see why this service costs a pretty penny!” The engineer laughed.
“Whatever you're charging for this is probably not enough,” Courtney muttered, taking off her glasses. Her eyes were starting to hurt.
“To be fair, you're working with the least optimal conditions. When I go looking through these, I'm only looking for combat data, rather than intel, and I'm not trying to do it on a time limit.”
“But still, I don't get how you work with these at all! Is every cyborg drive this much of a nightmare to navigate or is it just Sundowner's last little ‘screw you’ to us specifically?” she continued.
“You mean the lack of timestamps?”
“Yeah, no dates, no proper names, what's even the point of recording all this when you can't even find the video you actually need?”
“Ah, that's just how the majority of holographic drives store their data: unless specifically programmed otherwise, the driver's internal AI will cut up the recorded video into clips based on context, assign it a random ID and store it.”
“But… But why not just keep it all in order? This seems counterproductive.”
Doktor smiled, clearly elated to assume the lecturer role. “Security, Miss Collins, security. It's a way to scramble the data even more in case it falls into the hands of rival companies.”
“I thought encryption was meant to do that.”
“Encryption has an unfortunate side effect: the more advanced the method you use gets, the more potential delays and inaccuracies it introduces into the recording. That's why combat data specifically is usually lightly encrypted or not encrypted at all - engineers want it as accurate as possible to make improvements based on it.”
“So the recording itself is not encrypted, but the date it was made is, is that right?”
“Exactly like that. This way you get to have something of both worlds. The data itself is precise, but the drive is scrambled so finding specific recordings is very difficult unless you have access to the address file.”
“Address file?”
“Yes, it contains the actual date - clip ID pairs that make navigating the drive possible.”
“And of course it's highly encrypted,” she grumbled.
“You're a fast learner, Miss Collins! Yes, it will be quite the undertaking to find and crack that.”
“So for now we just keep reaching into the trauma mystery box, right,” Kevin drawled, locking his computer. “With my luck I'll open one of these and it's gonna be this dude taking a leak, I'll never recover.”
“From my assessment, Sundowner was either a full body or mostly full body conversion, I highly doubt he had maintained biological functions like that,” Doktor assured.
“Small mercies. Courtney, need more coffee?” Kevin called out standing up from his desk.
“Oh, yeah, that would be very sweet.”
He hooked her mug on his finger in the same hand he held his own and headed for the exit.
“Alrighto, be back soon, have fun with the clips. Kev out.”
***
Scorching white sun rained down its light upon the dusty road. Millions of tiny suns fluttered either side of it: small, clustered yellow flowers with five petals each adorned the endless rows of stocky trees with large leathery leaves that the sunlight dripped off of like oil.
Rainbows danced in the steadily growing puddle of spilled gasoline.
“Behind you!”
The sight that greeted Sundowner when he turned wasn't a welcoming one. A well timed pause revealed that the rapidly approaching object was in fact a civilian pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on top of it. The car rammed into the cyborg at full throttle; though it wasn't enough to topple him, it easily pushed him forward through the crunching soil and clouds of debris. However strong Sundowner was didn't really matter, sand obliterated any chance he had at getting enough traction to stop the vehicle. Fifteen meters or so from the point of collision, judging by the tracker, Sundowner fell and the rusted underbelly of the truck shrouded the image in darkness.
One loud thud later, big blue sky was all the ‘camera’ could see. A loud crash and sound of broken glass followed. The armor on Sundowner's raised leg shone and glistened in the sunlight. Boris hummed approvingly once he realized that he literally kicked an entire car off of himself; even four years later, it didn't cease to feel surreal how such feats of strength were even possible.
Emerging out of the milky cloud of fine dust, the Wind found himself face to face with what could reasonably be assumed to be a cyborg, though far from standard: bare faced and armored… rather cheaply. A shield snapped into the frame and blocked the HF blade that was poised to slash straight through Sundowner's skull. White blood gushed out all over when the larger cyborg retaliated; his unlucky adversary was split precisely down the middle, edges of the wound sizzling from the red hot machete's touch.
Several more of the truck’s occupants were struggling their way out of the flipped over truck while Sundowner was busy, but before any of them could escape a purplish glow slithered up the metal of the machine, and the whole vehicle groaned. The car frame started collapsing in on itself, imploding in slow motion as the warping steel crushed the screaming people inside. Red and white spurted out of the gaps between crumpled metal plates like yolk bursts out of a crushed egg.
The screams stopped.
The one ‘lucky’ cyborg who managed to wiggle halfway out of the jagged hole that was once a window was left wheezing in the puddle of his own fluids.
A Desperado soldier ran up to the grisly scene and pointed his gun at the lone survivor.
“Ah-ah. No.” Sundowner’s colossal hand rested on the muzzle and pushed it downwards. “He might be useful.”
“Apologies, sir.”
“That all of them sicaros?”
“We've not detected any reinforcements-’
“They're called sicarios, chief.”
Sundowner glanced towards Monsoon to presumably give him a stink eye, at least that's what Boris would do himself in that situation, and turned his attention to the soldier once more.
“Come again?”
“Intelligence hasn't detected any reinforcements coming in a ten mile radius.”
“Alright then, dismissed.”
The faceless soldier hurried away, his shadow beside Sundowner's promptly replaced by a taller, more elegant one with a distinct helmet upon its head.
“Our friends want any prisoners?” The shield wielding cyborg asked, placing his foot atop the still breathing enemy's skull.
“This one is not of high enough rank to be valuable.”
Wet crunch of bone and brain matter. Sundowner wiped his heel off in the sand casually as if he just stepped into something trivial like a dog turd rather than a human cranium.
“Urgh. And all that over avocados.”
Avocados? Boris rewound to make sure he heard correctly. He couldn't help but blink a few times once he got his confirmation.
“They're a resource like any other that humanity fights over,” Monsoon responded. The two shadows melted into one, joined together by the shields that hid the two elite cyborgs from intense daylight.
“Yeah, I getcha, but it's still odd.”
“How so?”
“Oh you know, as a proper American, I'm used to fightin’ for oil and gas. Doing that for fruit of all things… It’s different.”
“Narcotics aren't gas or oil, and yet you have no comments for those.”
“Drugs are illegal . It's typical that people involved kill and get killed all the time. Spilling blood for avocados is… uh, knowin’ that I'm somehow involved in this year's Super Bowl guacamole is surreal. Why does that Jalisco gang even bother with this?”
At last, actual names.
“It's lucrative and stable, so they chose it to diversify their sources of income. The sector moves over three billion dollars annually, there is a lot to gain from taxing the farmers. Especially once they control all of Michoacán.”
“At this rate it will be by next week if all of their cyborgs are this outdated,” Sundowner drawled, smearing more of the white blood into the sand.
“Their elite forces should be well equipped; I'm sure that fresh military grade tech found its way onto the black market by now. But you're right, it shouldn't take long.”
“Especially with both of us here. Just you alone would be overkill, but you really had to drag me in.”
“Are you not enjoying yourself?” Monsoon cooed, tilting his head.
“I am, I am,” Sundowner assured promptly. “Just not exactly the type of thing I'm used to. You're really in yer element though, which is why I don't get why I'm needed here.”
“To build rapport with the cartel. You see, it's more than just business in this world, it's about personal connections. Your direct involvement signals our dedication.”
“It also adds unnecessary costs,” the southerner huffed.
“ Connections. It will be worth it when we need to call in a favor or two.”
“Whatever you say, buddy.”
“Trust me. Anyway, we’re still not done h-” Monsoon grunted when his attempt to step away clanged against the inside of the shield that sneakily wrapped around his shoulders.
The magnetic cyborg tsked, turning to face his teammate. “I'm in no need of protection, Sundowner.”
“Ah, that must just be automatic. Internal AI, defence protocols, you know the gist.”
“How peculiar that it didn't trigger for that soldier you sent away.” Monsoon challenged, only to be met with silence. Cicadas screamed in the background.
“What if there are snipers?” Sundowner finally asked.
“We're in an orchard, chief, where would one even hide?”
“Ya never know…”
“Besides, I can stop bullets mid-flight.”
“...”
Monsoon grinned.
“Okay, I'm sentimental, gonna sue me about it?”
The sharp toothed grin stretched ever wider.
“No. Do let me go though.” Monsoon chuckled; he pushed at the shield and after a moment of resistance it smoothly moved out of the way and assumed its original position at Sundowner's side. “Come, we have more fruit gardens to deal with.”
“Can't wait,” Sundowner muttered sarcastically and followed.
Recording finished.
Boris shooed Courtney's cursor away from the last line of their document and pasted in the clip ID with a note:
[Cartel connection, check the date later if possible.]
***
“So that's our prize, huh,” Sundowner hummed.
Most of the shot was occupied by a holographic screen, on it were displayed the insides of a dimly lit hangar filled wall to wall with UG's; Boris instantly recognized them as IRVING’s by their distinct triangular head shape. Over them loomed a large silhouette twice as tall as the bipedal tanks, as much as he strained his memory, this one didn't feel familiar.
“Mhm, an AT Corp prototype, supposed to do what RAY does, but cheaper,” Mistral's smooth voice crackled through the codec.
“And somehow it's in the hands of rebels in the middle o’ nowhere, interestin’.”
“Intel says it was sold off because ArmsTech couldn't get the model cheap enough to be appealing over RAY. Should be quite effective, but it needs to be tested.
As whatever was providing the video feed, likely a tripod, scuttled along the ceiling, the full shape of the approximately ten meter tall UG came into focus: it was a quadruped with a head similar to that of the standard gekko, but attached to the bulky, barrel shaped chassis it made for a remarkably bovine silhouette.
“The cattle theme is still goin’ strong with their lineup, I see. Should fit right into your lil' menagerie.”
“Hopefully. I'll see if it can be modified or trained better and if worse comes to worse at least it will be good data for the engineers.”
“Security’s real tight,” Sundowner pointed out as he observed all the XIFFs being picked up in the hangar.
“As expected.” Her voice gained a concerned note then. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“Yep. Now’s not the time to hesitate, Mistral.”
A sigh could be heard on the other end of the call. “You're all alone out there.”
“Eh, I can handle myself.”
“I didn't think you'd even give the go ahead on this plan, much less put yourself on the line for it.”
“Hey, when you’re trying to destroy an army on a shoestring budget, you gotta take some risks. You go hack and I'll make some ruckus.”
Sundowner pinched the holographic screen and it collapsed, leaving behind the brittle web of cracks plastered over dry red clay of the ground below. Glancing off the sharp drop off he was crouched at, the cyborg took in the landscape. Nestled between jagged cliffs was a pair of massive doors, the flaking white paint of which contrasted sharply against the rust colored rocks.
A well protected guard post outside was quite populated with guards, human and cybernetic soldiers alike. The view zoomed in on a few as if Sundowner was picking out the best one to start off with.
With his choice made, the shielded cyborg jumped down from his perch. Sirens blared.
Boris drummed his fingers along his desk while he watched the fight drag on and on. Even sped up, it wasn't particularly interesting to observe; as crass a comparison as it was, Raiden shot ‘movies’ that were much more to Boris's liking, lighting fast and elegant. The ninja's battles were over as soon as they started, meanwhile Sundowner seemed almost sluggish in comparison. His reflexes were impossibly fast, of course, but his approach decidedly wasn't, it was very apparent when he fought to kill, and painfully so now that he deliberately held himself back.
At least it was now obvious what Sundowner's chassis was specialized for: brawls against many weaker opponents. Man was like a living castle, an easy target to hit and yet few of the blows that landed did anything. That strategy didn't work out against a single powerful opponent like Raiden, but here the cyborg was like fish in water, easily juggling attacks from over a dozen opponents with his shields.
[Explosive charge below 30 %]
His heart rate was starting to pick up.
“You done there yet?” Sundowner challenged through the codec.
“Working on it,” Mistral answered.
“Work faster!”
Two cut down soldiers were replaced by four new ones.
[Explosive charge below 20 %]
[Heart rate: 130 BPM]
Sundowner was slowly but surely being backed into a corner.
[Explosive charge below 10 %]
Boris was honestly impressed, this brawl had lasted for over 10 minutes judging by the time stamps and Sundowner had yet to take an actual blow.
[Explosive charge below 2 %]
The flickering panels slotted together into a solid wall and the mercenary barreled forward through the crowd of attackers, bodies caught in his way flying in every direction.
[EXPLOSIVE CHARGE DEPLETED]
Out of the shade of the cliffs, Sundowner was under the open sky again. His eyes zeroed in on a ledge in the mountainside that would put good distance between him and the guards.
Hydraulics whirred as he crouched down, preparing for a jump.
“Firing RPG!”
A rocket introduced a major correction to Sundowner's trajectory and the cyborg tumbled back to the ground, his protective plates pinned under him and underbelly exposed to the world, like a flipped over turtle. The first opportunistic blow was skillfully blocked, the second - bounced right off the armor plate on the cyborg's stomach, the third -
The third slid right in between the plates, piercing deep into Sundowner’s gut.
The southerner yelped as small warnings popped up in the corners of Boris's screen. The attacker was kicked away and the blade went with him, unleashing a thick stream of blood from the Desperado captain's chassis. A thin shadow blocked out the sun for a brief second - an HF blade raised high in another guard's hand. The cyborg's eyes in the thin slit of the head wrap glowed red.
The ground shuddered when a mighty bellow rattled the dust off of the rocks and fences.
Another, louder. Brazen bull scaled up a thousand times over. The soldier stumbled backwards, piercing eyes glued to the gate.
Chunks of concrete and armature exploded in a cloud of dust and debris, massive doors completely broken in with one monstrous strike; a humongous horned head peered out of the darkness. Red fire glowed through the powder suspended in the air, a fire which turned out to be a singular eye the size of a car tire. The prototype.
A stampede of gekko burst forth from between the metal bull’s legs, leaping, ramming and stomping their way through the outpost, killing the guards who froze at the sight of their own UG’s pouring out of the hangar. Their powerful legs kicked up sand, cloaking the sunlit outpost in terracotta clouds.
The daunting size of the prototype barely fit through the hole it bashed through the doors, metal screeched as if in pain when it squeezed its massive bulk out into the open.
And then it leaped.
It sounded like an earthquake. Sundowner was sent onto his back once again.
Boris silently begged Sundowner to turn on infrared vision, but the man seemed paralyzed, staring blindly into the coppery veil of dust. A ray of sunshine peeked through the dissipating cloud.
Where there was once a guard was only a red stain. In it, a sturdy metal ‘hoof’ that smoothly blended into a leg about as thick as a tree. Red light painted the ground and colored Boris's screen crimson when it shone straight into Sundowner's eyes. The giant bull bowed down.
Atop its head, right between the turret ‘horns’ sat Mistral, dusty, heaving, but glowing with pride.
The two gazed at each other in silence as the distant gunfight raged on with the occasional ‘moo’ of an IRVING sprinkled in.
“Oh hi, yer late.”
Mistral's face twisted into an outraged grimace.
“Chief. I was doing my best.”
“Your best is kinda late,” Sundowner retorted.
“I-” the Frenchwoman hissed before her expression softened into one of worry. “You're losing blood.”
“Ain't losin’ nothing. I know exactly where it went: right over there,” he motioned at the crimson spray in the dust that separated the two.
The pink haired cyborg rolled her eyes and slid gracefully off of her oversized steed’s head. “I’d rather have it be inside you,” she said, extending her red palmed hand towards Sundowner.
“This wouldn't be a problem if you guys hacked faster.”
“No.” Mistral's fingers wrapped tightly around her Captain's hand and she pulled the man to his feet without any effort. “This wouldn't be a problem if you weren't such a cheapskate.”
“Exuse you. ‘Frugal’ is what I’d call it,” Sundowner argued, clutching his wound; it wasn't bleeding anymore with the blood in it having turned a thick jelly-like consistency thanks to nanomachines working their magic.
Mistral made a disapproving noise as she led her teammate onto the giant bull’s smooth sloping back. Sundowner secured himself to the safety handles on the back of the quadrupedal tank’s head just in time to not get thrown off as the thing rose to its full height once again. The woman called out something in french into the distance and loud stomping followed: the IRVING's. Her eyes followed along as the bipedal tanks ran from the outpost’s cradle in the cliffs and out into the wide steppe.
Their mount groaned and broke out into a thunderous gallop after them. The sun shone through Mistral's hair, casting her face in a warm pink glow; her soft locks bounced when the prototype leaped once again.
“Whoa there, cowgirl!” Sundowner grunted.
“What did you call me?”
“Cowgirl!”
“Don't think I quite fit the type,” she chuckled.
“Maybe, but ya got yourself a herd and a ride. You even have a shepherd dog to complete the puzzle. How's the pupper doin’ by the way?”
“Ugh…”
***
“Raiden.”
The cyborg ninja nearly jumped out of his seat in response to this text-to-speech jumpscare. Bladewolf's flickering red eye shone back at him.
“ Oh G- you're awake.”
“I have been for approximately fifteen minutes.”
“Why didn't you tell sooner?” Raiden asked incredulously once he regained his composure.
“I did not find it necessary; you seemed preoccupied, though the context of just your side of the conversation did not make the topic clear,” the AI droned on, not bothered to move a muscle still.
Raiden squinted at him, lips stretching into a sly grin.
“So you were eavesdropping .”
“The definition of eavesdropping implies that it has to be done in secret. I am in your direct line of sight and you chose to talk around me regardless. I-” Bladewolf raised his head off the floor with a concerning creak “- am not at fault.”
“Not faulting you for anything, Wolf, just joking,” Raiden sighed, both exasperated and amused at his robotic companion’s poor ability to read tone.
“Your style of humor is rather accusatory.”
“Can't help it.”
Wolf carefully laid down again, his tail curling up in a spiral against his damaged side. You really are a lot like a real dog.
“My internal clock says we are eleven hours and three minutes away from estimated landing time. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, exactly. You're better off going back to sleep, to be honest.”
“I would rather not,” the electronic voice gained an unexpectedly stern note.
“Why? There isn't much to do.”
“I have been forced into obligatory idling frequently under Desperado command. I have found the experience unsatisfactory.”
Raiden slumped against his seat, suddenly stricken with the question of whether an AI was capable of having psychological traumas. That wasn’t the issue he needed to deal with at the moment though. “And no internet connection for you, yeah?”
“That is correct.”
With only one option left in his shortlist of things to occupy himself and now Wolf with, Raiden clicked on the UG’s codec contact. “Alright then, get in here.”
Whatever conversation was going on in the call abruptly stopped when a high pitched plink announced a new user joining. Courtney paused the video she was streaming.
“Heeeey, K-9000!” Kev laughed.
“Ah, Bladewolf, awake so soon! Your new automatic repair systems are outdoing themselves I see,” Doktor piped up excitedly at the sight of his sentient robotics project.
Raiden watched Wolf tens up ever so slightly. “...Greetings,” he finally answered, sounding about as awkward as an AI could sound. “What is the purpose of this… meeting?”
“Long story short: Sundowner's left hand, trying to find intel, lots of videos, eternal suffering.” Kevin punctuated each ‘bullet point’ with a wide lazy gesture. “Get the gist?”
“I see.”
“Been watching this like a live detective drama. A slow, meandering one, but it's more entertaining than nothing,” Raiden explained.
Kevin's face scrunched up into the definition of annoyance.
“Hey, man, how about you try this for yourself if you don't like the viewing experience ? Meandering, my ass.”
“Oh I would love to, but I don't think I got the space or the connection speed to download all of Sundowner if his drive was really so big.”
“You could request remote access to Doktor's system and bypass the need for downloading the files yourself completely,” Wolf interjected.
“I could?” Raiden's eyes widened. “Doktor?”
The scientist's lips tightened into a thin line. He looked to the side guiltily before sucking in a breath through his teeth. “Oh… Right.”
“And according to my knowledge, with access to Doktor's network you would also be able to automatically flag conversations between specified individuals, which would solve the ‘meandering’ issue you mentioned.”
A faint smack could be heard; Kevin held his face.
“So we've been rawdogging this drive for no reason.”
