chapter 13 [https://i.imgur.com/jTpKAgZ.jpg]
Concept art for the weapons cache.
----------------------------------------
Zac traced back his steps until he found the manhole and began to slowly map out the facility. The banging and scraping from outside still persisted. In the back of his mind, he had a feeling the steel dome wasn't going to hold. It was going to be a long night.
Zac walked to a nearby room that had its door ajar and that found he was surrounded by lots of suitcases. One was open on the floor. He knelt down and inspected it closer. It was empty save the foam insert. The foam itself perfectly fit the shape of the suitcase and featured two holes perfectly carved out in the shape of two devices. One hole was cylindrical, the other in the shape of the device Ella held before. This must be where Ella found the phaser.
Zac pulled another suitcase and dropped it on the ground. It was locked.
He looked back at the other suitcase and then noticed noticed an indentation on one side of the lock. It seemed like Ella had smashed the suitcase open. Zac looked around the room and found her choice of weapon nearby: a giant shovel lay hidden in the corner. He struggled to lift up the shovel despite squatting and using his legs, back, and arm muscles to brace and support the damn thing.
How did she manage to lift this?
He grunted and heaved, but gave up and sat down on a pile of suitcases next to it. While seated, he inspected other suitcases. They also were all locked.
All I need is for the weighted tip to fall onto the lock. I don't need to pick it up.
Zac mulled over his situation and thought of a solution. He kicked the shovel onto the floor and then yanked it into the middle of the room. There he managed to lift the less heavy handle of the shovel and while propping it up on his back as he knelt, he shifted a suitcase under the shovel. Next to the head of the shovel, he placed the lock of the suitcase he was trying to open. He then placed the handle down and used the suitcase under the shovel as a fulcrum. Zac jumped on the handle and barely levered the tip into the air before he lost balance and the shovel fell off and toppled back onto the ground, but not before knocking the lock.
"PHYSICS BABY!"
Zac picked himself up and ran over to the lock. It was of course, still intact. The glancing blow wasn't enough. Zac tried again, but struggled to easily replicate the blow with the randomness of the shovel's movements. He was persistent and eventually was rewarded. His eyes went wide when the tip of the shovel struck true and the rusted padlock fell apart like Eric's ankles.
Zac jumped forward and opened the suitcase, and found two items inside. A phaser, made of reflective black material with a hinge in the middle and box for a trigger, and a small round metal container.
He picked up the first device. This must be the phaser. His fingers clasped around the hand grip naturally and his index finger landed squarely on the trigger, as if it was always meant to be part of him. Zac walked out of the room and roughly aimed down the corridor, realising there was no sights to this weapon, and clicked the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Confused, he looked closer at the phaser. There were two switches on the side. He tried all four combinations, clicking the trigger with each combination, but nothing worked.
Maybe there’s a safety lock? How did she get it working?
He smacked and shook the phaser in frustration, clicking the trigger a few more times, but decided to put it down. He didn’t want to break it, or worse, have it explode. He was very familiar with the power of these devices.
Zac instead picked up the metal container. He twisted the cap off and inside were four wafer thin, circular metal strips.
He took one out. It was the size of his palm, flexible, and beautifully gold. As he played with it in his hands, it felt oddly like the same material as his suit.
He had an idea and brought it close to his chest. Like a magnet, it was attracted to his black suit and quickly snapped on.
Scared he was about to rip it off his suit when his black suit came to life with blue veins travelling from the circle all the way to the fingers and toes.
A familiar voice sounded in his head.
⟡Battery detected.⟡
⟡Charging Reserves 50%... 75%... 100%.⟡
⟡Reserves full. Additional charge detected. Activating enhanced default mode.⟡
⟡Battle mode and turbo mode now available.⟡
His suit at the neck began to bulge and grow, and it burst out and snaked around his head covering his face. Zac clawed at his face, but couldn't stop the process. The suit was alive with power, and suddenly he felt an intense tingling as light burst back. Zac's vision was sharper and his hearing improved. Or rather he realised shortly after the fear subsided, that the world that he saw was different. Like it was a 3d representation of the world around him. The colours were slightly different, the shadows had more detail, he could pinpoint and isolate sounds, and now he could zoom in!
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Zac raised his hand and touched his head. It felt like there was a large helmet over his head that had tightly adhered to his head just like the suit had to the rest of his body.
Think Zac.
“Deactivate enhanced mode”
⟡Deactivating.⟡
The helmet disappeared and his senses returned to normal.
“Next time you are going to suffocate me, let me know.”
⟡Bing! The enhanced default suit does not restrict the user’s ability to breathe. You were simply holding your breath.⟡
“What are you, some sentient AI?”
⟡Bing! This AI is limited in assistance to key words.⟡
Apparently sentient AI was a keyword. Or maybe it has become self aware and is playing with me. Zac made sure to mentally jot down to meet the creator of this recruit suit in the future and give them a piece of his mind.
Zac looked down at his armour and the battery. Blue lines of power snaked slowly across his suit.
"Well I guess this hasn't been the weirdest thing today." He decided to accept that this was happening and moved on. His mind was still holding onto something the AI had said to him earlier. Wanting to confirm, he spoke a command out loud.
“Activate battle armour.”
⟡Activating battle armour.⟡
Just like when the default suit appeared over Ella’s body, the default suit seamlessly changed into a metal exoskeleton, similar in design to Ella’s. Interestingly, the suit itself wasn’t any heavier.
Zac clenched his fist, taking a stance, and waved his arms around. He didn’t feel particularly stronger than before.
Dejected, Zac absentmindedly bent down and jumped up, and then quickly had to put his hand up to protect his head, because he flew straight towards the ceiling. The ceiling of this room was beyond his normal capabilities to reach, but somehow the suit had added additional thrust to his jump.
His hand slammed into the ceiling and the ceiling cracked as all of Zac's momentum was transferred into the ceiling. Again Zac was surprised when he froze. The deceleration was instant and he felt no impact.
Zac was left hanging with his hand half penetrating the ceiling. Shaking his hand free, he fell back down to the ground and landed with a light tap. He was reminded again that the armour, though incredibly powerful, was as light as the default suit. He looked around and saw the heavy spade on the ground. He reached over and picked the head up with one hand. Compared to before, it was easy to lift. He didn't even feel its weight. Zac didn't need to squat, brace himself, or pivot; he just picked it up like it was an insignificant pebble. Zac swung it from side to side, laughing at the ridiculous strength that the exosuit gave him, and then swung it down. The side of the spade was razor sharp and it sliced straight through the open suitcase, leaving a transecting gash on one side. The spade continued down and anchored itself into the floor.
“Oh rift”. Zac tried to pull it out but it was stuck, buried in the concrete.
⟡Ding! Battery 95%. Time remaining before battery depletion, 10 minutes. No enemies detected in visor, Host’s adrenaline levels are normal, and HR not elevated. Recommending to switch back to default suit mode⟡
“Fine. Deactivate battle mode.” Zac’s armour disappeared and his skin tight black suit returned.
Zac just left the spade there and began to tidy up to leave. He packed the suitcase, yanked it away from the shovel and popped it back on the shelf. He took the battery container and then grabbed the phaser with its holster and tied it securely to one of his legs, but when his hand touched the phaser, the AI voice spoke again in his mind.
⟡Drawing battery source. 95%. 90%. 85%.⟡
Zac could see the snaking blue lines join together into a blue channel that travelled from the battery down his arm and into his phaser. A number appeared on the phaser and quickly grew to 100.
Zac held the phaser in his hand. On the back of the phaser, a holographic menu appeared:
Shot: single, continuous, charge.
Type: cauterise, cut, explode.
Power: 0 ---|---------- 100%.
He fiddled around with the settings and settled on single, cut, and moved the slider for power up to 100%. Zac imagined this would be the ideal setting for enemies. He walked out of the room and aimed down the corridor again.
One more time.
⟡Detecting phaser usage. Enhanced mode activated.⟡
Again a helmet appeared over his head. Looking through this visor, he now saw a little circular target sign appear on objects he focused on. On his phaser there was also a virtual sight. He aligned the phaser’s sight onto the target in the visor and the phaser naturally aimed for a small crack in the wall on the other side of the corridor. He clicked the trigger. A bright and intense blue light shot out of the phaser and instantaneously hit the crack. This surprised Zac deeply. He could see that the shot had left a smouldering hole in the plasterboard and continued to burn through the underlying metal as well, leaving a gaping molten hole in the wall.
Seeing that, Zac marvelled at his weapon and quickly turned the power down to 1%.
I could have blown my foot off. Rift how do I turn this damned device off now. Zac was again afraid of the power within this device and he definitely wasn't going to smack it again, no matter how compelled he was. Though he was certain that smacking always fixed things. He changed the type to explode and aimed at the door to the weapons storage. Bang! The metal door blasted forward, swinging until it hit the wall and bounced back, but was otherwise undamaged.
Okay, good enough. Just a big shock but no actual damage.
“Neat.”
He had an idea. What if I try using continuous/cauterise/1%. Would that stop Eric's bleeding? But I'd have to cauterise half his body. He shelved the idea for now. The treatment was too archaic. He remembered that the drill sergeant had used some spray solution to heal Lucy’s wounds with no cosmetic or physical side effects. Maybe there was something similar in the facility that he could use.
He pulled another suitcase out, changed the settings of his phaser to single/cut/3%, and shot the lock. It managed to burn a small hole through the lock, suitcase, and travelled into foam. Thankfully the additional battery pack and phaser were unharmed. He picked up the other phaser and his battery dropped another 10% as the phaser came online. He strapped it and the metal container to his other leg and walked out of the room, looking further around the mine.