It was not surprising that Hawkeye’s team was ranked third in NA; they had tonnes of experience playing professional matches together, whereas the Neo-Angels were a new professional team. The experience gap and team synergy were miles apart.
While his team, the Neo-Angels, were being decimated, Daedalus had positioned himself behind the enemy. He needed to use the distraction of his teammates’ destruction to thin their numbers. One versus seven were not good odds. Not against professionals. There was the other lone Neo-Angel, but Daedalus discounted him altogether.
Before the decimation was complete, Daedalus was able to get the drop on Hawkeye, who had effectively used cover against the core of the Neo-Angels. He had protection towards the south, east, and west of his position. There was only one issue for him – it was ineffective from the rear where Daedalus was positioned.
Moments later, another headshot ensued, and he’d taken out Thresh’s two best players, the captain and vice-captain.
As soon as Hawkeye went down, his teammates began to swarm and converge on their captain’s last location, searching for Daedalus and revenge. This suited him perfectly, as he had height and line of sight advantage. And due to the fact that it had been a one-shot kill, there was no ping showing his location on their minimap.
Myrmidon: Chance of survival in the current position is seventy per cent. We should be able to kill four with the railgun before they close to medium range.
They hunkered down and used the cover facing north. Due to the earlier team fight, they had pings for all of the enemy mechs. Although these pings were now disappearing, Myrmidon was calculating their most likely pathing choices.
As the enemy approached the location of their now dead captain, they spread out, expecting an ambush. Due to their positioning, it appeared they prepared for an ambush that would come from their flanks. They had been studying vids of him; they knew Daedalus was predispositioned to flank an enemy. His most common tactic was to shadow an enemy, syncing with them in parallel movement while separated by obstacles, before striking with swordlance or railgun.
He waited for two heads to come into his line of sight and range before opening fire in quick succession. In two seconds, the HUD was spammed with the announcement of one, and rapidly two deaths. The second had turned towards his ping but was unable to take cover or dodge in time.
The remaining four now possessed his ping location. They knew exactly where he was.
They would expect him to move. So, he moved. Myrmidon informed him when his ping would have disappeared from their minimap. He then backtracked to his initial position.
Myrmidon’s assistance with pathing predictions, meant they were able to keep out of the line of sight the entire time. The enemy did not know this was possible. They would not have picked this up from the vids and merely put the Challenge league chatter down to non-professional players inexperience or inadequacy.
Daedalus waited for them to approach, using the cover and height advantages from the overwatch position.
The four were medium and heavy all-rounders, giving them versatility based on their strategical needs. Each player had medium-range weapons, medium to heavy armour, and probably a spread of detection and countermeasure equipment.
Daedalus’ noise dampening field was continuously on when he played. He could afford the power drain, and it was essential in minimising his exposure. His location ping disappeared within seconds of his last shot being fired rather than tens of seconds.
Myrmidon: The most likely scenario with us winning has us killing two with the railgun while finishing off the last two with the swordlance.
The enemy had lost their leadership, and the last four would not have comms with the dead players. Their tactics had suddenly become rudimentary as they spread out, attempting to envelop his predicted location based on his heading before his ping disappeared from their HUDs.
Three of them were now in his line of sight (LOS), while he remained unseen. One was heading to his location – not to flush him out but to utilise it.
Daedalus targeted the two who were not headed towards him, picking the one most likely to leave his LOS first when the firing began.
Boom!
One down, and a second later, Daedalus downed another. They were at medium range where his headshots did the most damage.
His location was revealed again, and before he could swing his railgun around onto the third all-rounder, his opponent had moved behind cover. Missiles from both enemies approached his position blindly. They didn’t expect him to stay and get hit; they wanted to flush him out so he would lose the height advantage. That was no problem. He ran directly at them, jumping down with a crash and sending a ping from the noise if it wasn’t already obvious where he was.
He held his railgun loosely by his left side with his swordlance directly out front as he skidded around the first building, using all the speed he had at his disposal.
If he could have sheathed the railgun on his back, he could use his spare hand to grip the building to pull himself around. But mass was everything, and the railgun was embedded into his arm. Every kilogram mattered when it came to speed, agility, and energy consumption.
Daedalus doubted the physics were realistic, it was a game after all, but the game had its own ruleset which mimicked reality to a degree.
As he rounded the third corner, he spied the second to last opponent just where Myrmidon predicted he would be.
Myrmidon was right ninety per cent of the time, even with pro players. Daedalus charged and impaled the Heavy Mech in the side. The player had no time to react; one moment Daedalus rounded the corner, and the next his swordlance was cutting through the enemy’s reactor core. The player had probably been focused on the last ping. He would not have expected Daedalus to arrive so quickly.
Minutes ago, the match had been seven versus two with his teammate nowhere to be seen. It was now reversed to two versus one. Daedalus could hardly blame his teammate for being of no assistance; even if he was trying to communicate, ‘Daedalus’ had muted him. Even team waypoints and markers were being filtered by Myrmidon.
The last enemy jumped atop the building he was using for cover and began to target Daedalus directly. But it was too little too late. The enemy should have been more aggressive when there were four of them remaining. If they’d led with a tank, Daedalus would not have been able to one-shot them, and the enemy teammates could have followed directly behind the tank. Even if they sacrificed one or two, they could have closed and at least exchanged fire. Currently, he had not been fired upon except for flushing missiles.
It seemed even the pro team’s tactics were average, or they underestimated him … which, after today, would not happen again. Combat was forever evolving; strategies that he introduced three months ago were being adopted across the entire player base. He would never win so easily as today. He should probably enjoy it while it lasted.
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Daedalus launched himself up into the air, kicking up onto the roof and facing his opponent. His opponent had taken 7.6 seconds to reach the roof in his heavy mech. Daedalus had taken 1.9.
His heavy opponent held the heaviest weapon – a particle cannon – in two hands. A totally useless weapon in Daedalus’ opinion. Too slow to fire, too heavy to carry, and its range was poor given its size. A railgun was far superior, but some players didn’t use it; they merely looked at the damage number, range, heat generation, and energy consumption.
Too many players ignored how long it took to turn a gun, to aim and fire, its ignition speed, and most importantly, the velocity of its payload.
This encounter was a perfect example. His opponent did have an audio warning that Daedalus was approaching from the east, but he had only just gained his feet and didn’t have time to turn his weapon in Daedalus’ direction before a foot came up through the roof and kicked him off the building. He fell twenty-five metres to the ground.
Myrmidon: Time for opponent to fall: 1.1 seconds
Myrmidon marked the most likely landing location – with eighty-eight per cent certainty – of their opponent’s head and reactor core.
Daedalus jumped, not waiting for the player’s landing. He could have directed his swordlance to the most likely location of his enemy’s reactor core. However, this was a rare opportunity to crush an opponent’s head with his mech’s heavy alloy boot.
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If Daedalus’ team congratulated him and Myrmidon, the two were blissfully unaware. Rightly or wrongly, Daedalus had decided to keep them on mute. He just didn’t feel like dealing with teammates. Let them do their thing and he would do his. People from this region were usually overbearing or pushy, which factored into his decision.
The other main reason was, despite being a genius, playing and beating adults at the age of ten, he was still quite capable of acting childish.
‘Daedalus’ had just earned sixteen bitcreds and it felt good. He had finally gotten competent enough at this game for it to start paying him.
Myrmidon: We should have an agreement that better reflects the impact upon a round.
Daedalus: Do you have a suggestion?
Myrmidon: Yes. It should be one bitcred for the first kill, increasing by one with each kill or major damage contributor to a maximum of eight bitcreds for the eighth kill. With no death penalty, if we were not good they would not hire us.
Daedalus: That’s an excellent suggestion. It rewards greater impact on a round. And if it was an important match, we could factor the rate in relation to the match significance.
Both Myrmidon and Daedalus loved math. This sort of conversation was what they considered fun. They also loved earning bitcreds; it had become a measure by which they judged their achievement. They did not have any needs right now, but there would come a time when these bitcreds came in handy, like the day he had to purchase CyberMech and the worldwide rights to the name ‘Daedalus.’
The last two rounds went by with underdogs Neo-Angels running away three nil winners against the number three ranked team in the region. Although Thresh improved their tactics against Daedalus, it was all within his calculations. Their adapted tactics were still predictable, and he used it against them. After three rounds, he had nineteen kills and zero deaths.
Daedalus: That went well. Better than I expected.
Myrmidon: We will not lose to this level of tactics, control, and coordination. Will the enemy improve?
Daedalus: They’ll always evolve. Even if they just steal ideas from watching us, they will improve.
Myrmidon: What can we do to prevent this?
Daedalus: Nothing. We must improve as well.
Myrmidon: This is sub-optimal. It would be better if they stayed dead after we killed them.
Daedalus: This is a game. If we fought for real, then that would be the case. But we could die also.
Myrmidon: We should back up my core and my data, so it will only be you who dies.
Daedalus: No, you must fight to survive like me. We live together, we die together.
Myrmidon: Very well, friend.
Although the pair spent most of their time playing CyberMech and designing in Spacebuild, Myrmidon was not only growing in those disciplines.
It had become self-aware and thought beyond their finite world. The limits of its experience channelled its development, but it was still able to research and discuss the wider world with Daedalus. An adult would have been scared by its lack of controls and its unchecked growth. But Daedalus was a child and had no fear of his AI. It may have been naivety, or he was simply brilliant and was at ease with its growth.
Daedalus did not train for the Fortescue Military Academy entrance exam in 2040, and he missed 2041 as well. Cisse and Ikaros waited for him to grow out of his CyberMech phase. He would not be the same age as most cadets in M1 until 2043 in any case.
All pressure from his father and Cisse had ceased. There were no reminders to train physically. There were no questions regarding whether he would take the entrance exam in 2042. There was only one event on the calendar which affected him profoundly. An event which would cause him to miss a world championship if it fell on that day.
The anniversary of his mother’s death.
Daedalus and his father would bring flowers to her hilltop, and Daedalus would listen while his father told him a story about his mother. Even if it was a mundane topic like cooking breakfast and how she used to over scramble the eggs until they frothed. They would then throw the flowers as they had thrown the ashes.
In two years, Daedalus had never joined a team in CyberMech. He and Myrmidon were perennial loners, hiring themselves out for competitions. This allowed them to auction off their services and set up their own direct streaming contract.
In those two years, no one doubted who was the best CyberMech player on the planet. Daedalus single-handedly brought championships to whoever paid him.
He had polarised the community between a legion of hardcore fans to innumerable detractors who hated his lack of teamwork and mercenary style with zero loyalty to any team. The latter group usually consisted of fans of the championship favourites who lost to the team that hired him.
In the year 2041, Daedalus and Myrmidon made fourteen hundred bitcreds from Spacebuild schematic shop sales. And that was dwarfed by his CyberMech earnings of over ten thousand bitcreds from all sources. A normal person’s stipend was sixty bitcreds per year in the European Union. The house he and his father lived in was worth approximately one thousand bitcreds.
But CyberMech’s appeal had started to dwindle for Daedalus. He and Myrmidon had already helped teams win two world championships.
And despite concerted efforts by teams to defeat him, and even direct nerfs from the developers, he prevailed using his game theory systems. Daedalus and Myrmidon developed new strategies based on the new paradigm after each nerf.
Nerfs didn’t hurt you when you are the fastest to adapt. They helped you.
The developers learned that one cannot nerf skill and brilliance; nerfs just changed the landscape the players operated in.
No one knew who Daedalus was. He was both the star and an enigma in CyberMech. All requests for public appearances were declined, and if a competition required a live feed of the players, he refused to participate.
Etana was now twelve years old. He stood in front of his mother’s resting place with his father, listening to another story about her. His interest in CyberMech had waned, and he remembered her wish for him. She had wished for him to attend Fortescue Military Academy, and the entrance exam was in a month.
Daedalus: What do I need to do to train for the FMA physical tests?
Myrmidon: I will map out a thirty-day program. Do you wish to excel or pass?
Daedalus: Pass with a contingency factor of 1.2
Myrmidon: The program is in your calendar, Daedalus.
Daedalus: For the next six years, I will be ‘Daedo.’ Daedalus was our CyberMech handle. At the military academy, I will be Daedo.
Myrmidon: Am I still Myrmidon?
Daedo: Always. It’s your handle and your name. We own the rights. No one can take it from you in any game or application.
Myrmidon: Thank you, Daedo. I like my name.
Without any prompting from his father or Cisse, Daedo began training the next day. Myrmidon had laid out a plan for him after analysing the competencies required and the most successful thirty-day training regimes.
On the first day, Daedo was convinced the plan was impossible. He was supposed to run one kilometre then walk one for a total of ten kilometres in under ninety minutes. He discovered while running his first kilometre that his lungs were bursting, and by the end, his legs were dropping off. The one-kilometre walk was a blessing.
Myrmidon: You need to walk faster in order to achieve ninety minutes.
Daedo had barely recovered from his fast walk before he had to run again. For someone with such a sedentary life, this was torture.
Myrmidon: Perhaps we should play some AR games. At least you will be moving, and your muscles will be in better condition.
Daedo: Not helping.
He completed the ten-kilometre run-walk daily. After he recovered, he completed the circuit training Myrmidon set out for him. By the twelfth day, he was able to at least jog the entire ten kilometres.
Myrmidon kept him informed that his progress was enough to pass with a small cushion. And in the final week, they practised in an obstacle course his father had built over the past several days in his spare time. To be accurate, Ikaros had used a few old robots from work to build it. He merely designed the plans for the course and programmed them into the robots.
On the day of Daedo’s entrance exam, Cisse turned up at their house, uninvited. A full three hours early.