Chapter 95: Dead man walking
Founder Beauregard Mazhyr’s confidential notice to the other Founders regarding Bioshards.
Very well, I’ve made the device you requested. A millimeter long Shard with Iron Warpcode to insert below the pituitary gland of newborns that also serves as a cure for cancer. I take it you’re satisfied now that you can voyeuristically scan anyone you want, but believe me, this isn’t infallible technology. I should know firsthand how humanity seeks to defy the fate they have been destined for.
For now, simply treat it as an update to the Sigil-tech I had made before. Either way, I made it compatible with them. Just don’t be surprised when someone or another finds the tiny chip and discovers how to pervert its use against you all. They’ll only be convinced for so long.
4:55 AM August 30th
[Western Shandian Facility: Floor B5 (Upper RnD Layer)]
Yuzhou Silver-Grade Guard Commander: Ayato Mizuichi
It was one thing to face a mercenary, it was another to face the R0N1N. Ayato had known it was a possibility ever since the last month where his presence at the hotel shook Yuzhou to its core. Yet, it was also a chance for greatness.
They’d all read the reports. The R0N1N was strong, possessing a Unique Feature that heightened his ability to perceive the world around him and magnify his output of Warp Energy to compensate. It also came with the fatal flaw of his own Shardware failing.
That was why he brought a technician with him today. Dreadwire, the scanners linked his cracked Bioshard to that identity — they had a skilled DataDelver on their side, and the name coming through the other Facility under attack was Mirage. Even more troublesome was that Dreadwire seemed to be a Gold Adapter much the same as R0N1N was, further information from the Abyssnet linked him to a murder of a Metal Heavens Priest alongside the falling of four other Bronze officers in the primary gangs of Westbrook.
Then came his strange Shardware, at first they believed it to be a modification of their own Tsuchigumo Exosuit, but upon further analysis of it appeared to be some variant of an Arachne. Shard Operating tech was brittle and high demanding of the brain for it’s precision, yet he maneuevered it with ease. Ayato had received word from his superiors to leave the Shardware intact if he came into contact with him. A deadly and precise weapon built to unravel their own technological architecture would serve his Founder well.
”Investigator Josephina.” He spoke to his right at the STRIKE Investigator who had been sent to us. “This is a confidential layer, you are to wait outside.”
“Oh come on!” The blonde woman whined, as most police did. “I’m already on your payroll! Besides, a little bit of hush-money never-“
His glare silenced her. Raising his hand, he commanded the rest of his forces to spread out and dig deeper into the lower levels. If they’d activated the Warp Transporter, none of them would know it. The isolation required for it to be concealed throughout the city meant very few had access to it’s usage notifications. Ayato hadn’t even known about it until a few moments ago.
But for them to even use it would require their own kind to betray them, and if that was the case, then they would pay in blood. Theirs and their loved ones. Ayato felt no particular way about it, such was the way of their business. For every perk, there was a cost.
“Reporting in, Commander.” His comms buzzed. “We’ve secured a survivor, scanners picking him up as a Bronze-Grade Guard… he’s saying… R0N1N killed Dreadwire. Otherwise, all of our remaining researchers are dead.”
Ayato’s voice was stern, unbroken. “I want to see him personally.”
His feet carried him down the winding hallways of the facility, its structure comforting. Even without a map, he could easily find his way to the Warp Transport chamber. He scowled at the sight of dead bodies of the researchers, their Neuroframes devastated and shattered by someone skilled.
But there were only two bodies of interest, one headless corpse with broken arachnid limbs spreading from his back. And the other was one of our soldiers, a gaping wound of blood seeping through the side of his cracked armor.
“Name and rank.” I walked over to the crumpled soldier.
“Yusuke Izumo.” A painful groan escaped the man through his helmet, a brief pause before he found the strength to continue. “Bronze-Grade Class C Infantry.”
Yusuke Izumo...
Ayato lifted up his arm as a green light beamed from a small bulge under his wrist. A Bioshard Scanner, not one of those simple Sigil-based ones used by the police. The light delved deep into the wounded guard’s body, searching for that tiny chip nestled within the pituitary gland.
Bioshard Identity Confirmed: Yusuke Izumo
“How did you survive? And how did this one die?” He moved on, putting his attention on the dead mercenary. An internal strife, perhaps? The wound was clean, a precise cut on the neck that slipped in between the vertebrae to sever the spinal cord. As for the Arachne itself, it was clearly Yuzhou design, he’d had my own body worked on by them hundreds of times.
“It was this one, sloppy. Not like the R0N1N, wounded me badly. Shot him down, but the R0N1N took his head to secure the Implant.” Izumo was in no state to move, so the Commander clicked his tongue to his cohort.
“Take him to the medbay, I want a detailed report from him when I’m done.”
His underlings saluted him, taking the wounded guard away.
He seethed as Izumo left. Who did he think he was? Not addressing the Commander directly as his superior?
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He’d be disciplined soon enough, but for now, a question remained stirring as Ayato took in the sight of the corpses around me. How did R0N1N activate the Warp Transporter?
————
Ripley or...?
My entire head felt caged as I poured my thought and fiber into the newest facet of my Data Mimicry Feature. To become anyone, to shift the frequency of those shards implanted in our heads as newborns. Bioshards were simple tech… and linked to create a fingerprint only specialized scanners could read for officiated people to detect Implant Grade, identities, and even Features.
With Frequency Shift, Yusuke’s BUG sat firmly in my Mimicset, my entire body stealing away the memory of what it was like to be him.
“That’s a nasty wound you have there.” One of the guards helping me into an elevator idly mentioned.
I groaned, afraid to talk and spill something out. I just needed a way to get this armor off so I could use my Arachne. Not to mention, it was hella uncomfortable lodging a blood bag in between my clothes and the suit. I’d figured they’d have some sort of gene-therapy room here with organic samples, and I was right.
I’d only had around ten minutes to secure myself while the Warp Transporter was charging, so most of what I did was just tearing computers apart and thrashing entire rooms in search of something useful. While I couldn’t break into the files of the computers themselves, I’d torn out their contents into Datacubes prepared by Mirage. Once we were in the clear, I’d have a bunch of goodies for myself once they were decrypted.
For now, the elevator door clinged open, and I was brought to the surface where there were entire legions of standby guards and policemen alike. It was a bustle of activity, and would have been suicide to fight my way out.
They brought me over to a large truck that seemed to be a host of medical support, helping me in as a doctor guided his eyes over and down me.
“You’re not wounded.” He calmly said, his Silver-Grade eyes stripping through the layers… “And what’s that on your back-“
Hypermind Prime surged in my head, much more powerful than the first version I’d made now that it was sourced from a Silver BUG, I hurried right out of the truck as my legs whined over the pressure I was exerting through them.
Gripping my wrist, I tore off the pauldrons that concealed my claws. The suit was simple enough to take off and wear, and there were plenty of various modular components that could be customized depending on the Adapter’s Shardware.
Even as drawn-out voices raised over and entire squads went alert to my betrayal, my claw-tips had already dug into the fences above us. I kicked with every bit of force I could express out of my legs, my momentum rising through the air as the taut wires swung me forward and above the fence, like an upside down pendulum.
I disconnected the wires, letting my arc swing wildly as I brought my claw to drill into the first wall I slammed against. Quickly, I used my perch to pull me up onto the rooftop… where snipers and other guards were busy waiting.
Startled, they were just slow enough that my advanced perception of the world allowed me to aim my free claw at a baton wielding guard to drag their weapon away and throw it into another. Then I leaped above the rest of the snipers as they exchanged their bulky weaponry for smaller side-arms.
By then I’d already made it to another rooftop, and my right claw had just freed my left arm. Alarms chased me down as the buzz of some aerial vehicle hunted me down with a spotlight, but with two hands free I could now strip off the main chestguard and unleash my Arachne.
God, I was embarrassed for that Silver-Grade Commander guy, if he had taken just a second longer to look at the slipshod arrangement I’d made to poor Yusuke’s back, then it would have been so obvious how I basically stabbed the Arachne in to make it look like he was me. That wasn’t to say I didn’t put an effort into it, it was surface-level work made to look deceptive.
Not functional. I reminded myself that, but the inadequacy of it-
Machine gun fire rained down behind me from the aerial vehicle above me, some slim and boxy aerodyne that had two free sides where guards aimed their weapons down on me. My legs ached as I pulsed a sonic burst from them to leap me through the growing forest of buildings, the sleek AV curving like a hawk to keep sight on me.
Not the best situation for me, but one I was fine with dealing with. An AV could only hold so many people compared to the entourage of reinforcements that had been up on the surface. But with time ticking away to the unknown, I needed to get to Missy as quickly as possible. That meant getting on my bike.
I couldn’t risk being chased down by that vehicle in the air.
So, with one quick and quiet zip that curved me between and then up rooftops, I was eye-level behind the AV. Whatever sensors it had picked me up immediately, as the electromagnetic air-motors that spun from its sides unnaturally turned their guards to aim at me.
By then, I’d already hooked my Arachne tips into the armor plating of the AV, pulling closer and then under it. I clung like a spider to the underside of the AV, plucking out one of the souvenirs I’d collected from Yusuke. A grenade. With a swing of my Arachnid limbs, I skittered into the inside of the AV — smacking one of the men into the outside air as I shot another point-blank.
Then with the grenade primed, I tossed it forward into the cockpit. My body had already been reeled to another rooftop when the explosion cannoned through the streets, the falling wreckage of flame and metal raining down on the unfortunate guards who’d tried to chase me down.
I felt some unnerving presence too, there was a flying Esper who seemed to walk on the wind aiming a gun at me, but a quick swish into the alleys of the city hid me away.
Only for a few minutes, I moved at a breakneck speed as my Arachne careened me through the hidden roads of alleyways and ditches until there was no one fast enough to find me. Still, I wasn’t out of the gutter yet, I threw off the Shandian helmet once I’d gotten to the van where my bike was hidden in, tapping my frame as the bulky metal plate on the back of my head expanded and pulled forward to seal over my eyes.
The Dreadwire mask fit like a glove, securing me into the power of its identity. In moments, my bike was free and the engine revved up, a glowing map showing I was a twenty-four minute ride from the next facility.
That was still too slow for my liking.
My bike sped around the corner, actually managing my first proper drift as I took off with the wind whipping around my mask. Looking over the possible routes, I’d received words of a rerouting due to police blockades being set up through this area. In fact, one was right ahead of me.
My Preservation Matrix activated on instinct, riling my upper Arachne limbs as I drove right for the policemen who were now taking sight of my masked face. The two spear-heads launched up towards the buildings on both sides of me, hooking in and then going taut. My bike lifted off the floor, arcing high as my Mantis Legs engaged and gripped the bike between my shins.
I swung right over the policemen, my bike wobbling as it touched the ground but steady enough that I could keep focus. My heart raced as fast as my bike was travelling…
That was badass.
It also now meant I was being chased by police cars and that Yuzhou would be back on my tail any moment now, but that hardly mattered.
My Arachne limbs hooked onto the side of a statue of Beauregard Mazhyr settled in one plaza. I’d recalculated that my route would be more efficient if I…
My bike lifted in the air as the hooked Livewire pulled no more, going horizontal in the swing as its forward momentum was turned angular, speed curving upwards to where an overpass ran atop my original route. Letting my Livewire free, my bike was freely flying through the air until I was soaring high above the bridge, still horizontal until my Arachne limbs swung sideways to rotate my bike into the right posit-
The landing was rough, I felt the suspension buckle and my bike briefly lose control, but it was back in my hands soon enough. Still, any more torturous stunts like that and the vehicle would crumble, though as I saw the map redirect me…
Fifteen minutes.
I was going to be there soon, with Missy and Topaz.
And I would win.