Lionel was already working on Guinevere’s proposal for the new MAC modifications. She was heading somewhere with her father to get his approval, though Lionel didn’t understand why she needed it.

Guinevere’s family had a long history of ‘military tinkering’ so to speak. Although Guinevere’s main job was as the city’s defense coordinator (planning out weapon emplacements, directing military assets, and most importantly serving as an eye in the sky for the MAC pilots) she still managed to find time to try to bolt on guns and armor to anything she could.

Lionel liked her quite a bit. If there was ever such a thing as ‘genius’ he was fairly certain he witnessed it when he walked in on her exhausted and half-dead form bent over schematics and mumbling gibberish. Her hands were somehow still moving, and by the next morning she’d finished her new project. A person like her should forge ahead without thinking of others or their worthless opinions.

But that was the bothersome bit with her, Lionel thought. She was so devoted to others. Her father, of course, but to the pilots as well. It was the main reason Lionel was picking up the slack. He liked tinkering with MACs as well, but his position as high commander for Atlantis didn’t give him much time for these things. But, with an impending doom on the way, he imagined he could stand to miss a few meetings.

Her design was hazardous to the pilot without a doubt. Well, all MACs are hazardous to the pilots, but this metal machine was truly quite the monster. As far as the math was concerned, it should be very effective, but Lionel understood this was a design that even the most self-sacrificial organizations would think twice before using.

Lionel rolled his neck and ordered around a few of the mechanics as they hoisted up one of the battered legs so it could be worked on.

He knew it wasn’t very kind or friendly of him to use Guinevere’s ideas without her permission, but time was of the essence.

And considering his own personal defense plan was centered around chemical warfare, Guinevere’s was the better option at the end of the day.

She’ll understand.

Lionel sat down at one of the data terminals, but before he could start tinkering with the hydraulic system, he smelled something unfortunately familiar.

Callista had a certain stench to her. He wasn’t sure if it was the booze or the murderous intent or if maybe she just didn’t take showers but it, without fail, announced her arrival before she could.

“Callista, I thought you were helping our little Jace to drink away his trauma?”

She didn’t respond.

Lionel rolled his neck again, this time out of annoyance rather than just stretching things out. As their little group all knew, Callista was a talkative drunk. Her not talking meant she wasn’t drunk. Her not being drunk meant Jace did not drink away his trauma. That’s exactly the sort of human variable that makes Lionel irrationally angry. He could forge the very god of destruction into a twenty-meter-tall pile of human-shaped steel, but he still can’t force a pilot to take on the role of murder-hungry guardian. Callista was close, but a bit frail contrary to appearances.

Her mind just isn’t quite up to the pilot’s job, which is why she’s had so much augmentation done to her brain. Always trying to compensate without realizing the issue is soaked into her very soul, “Well Callista, I’m not sure what happened, but it would be very nice if you could get him into fighting shape sooner rather than later. The Alley doesn’t seem to be keen on waiti-”

“I’ll do it.”

She locked eyes with him. Very rare. “You can’t.”

“I… I’ll do it.” Her face was flushed and her fists were balled up. Her body was shaking in frustration. She clearly knew how pointless this conversation was.

But a quick test wouldn’t kill her, though it would be a near thing. Lionel wanted a bit of data for fine tuning anyway. If Jace was going to drag his feet on protecting the city, then Lionel would need to move things forward without him. At least for now.

Callista wasn’t stupid. She knew very well what she was capable of and what her limits were. But, with Lionel’s nod of agreement, she climbed into the half-built machine and started to prepare herself for a test run.

The machine was fully functional after they bolted on a spare leg, it just lacked the armor plating as well as some specialty pieces here and there.

The important part was already installed: a cognitive-enhancing cord.

It’s honestly about as simple as one might imagine given the name. A wire that plugs into the pilot and helps to make controlling the MAC more natural as opposed to mechanical. To some extent it allowed the pilot to move the machine with their mind, but this wasn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds. The connection was generally weak. Lionel had only heard of three or four pilots who could fully utilize similar systems and he’d heard they were all practically brains in jars. Psychotic deviants that operated on their own with no affiliation to country or company. They were poor saps with too much money that wanted to be gods. Generous estimates for those pilots came out around three months of usage. Useful if your pilot is supposed to be doing non-stop fighting, but not nearly as useful for homeland defense pilots.

The real benefits of these types of systems were giving the pilot a bird’s-eye view of the machine and giving a large boost in reaction time. Very useful when fighting with massive robots that could be moving as fast or faster than any fighter jet.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

For this wonderful improvement, most pilots gave up at least one limb, usually multiple, in order to provide direct connection ports for the cord. Of course, this has had a decent track record of madness and a perfect track record of accelerating brain-death for the pilot.

The key difference between Guinevere’s design and these other cognitive enhancers was the direct connection into the pilot’s brain. It utilized a common augment: a signal enhancer. The signal enhancer allowed the brain to be wired to the body, especially augmented body parts, in a more efficient manner than messing around with the nervous system on the inside. You could run wires from the brain to enhanced legs, for example, and keep all the wiring out of the body. Connecting your brain to your body was, overall, harmless. It just made life easier these days.

But this? Lionel didn’t have much trouble imagining the consequences of connecting the brain directly to a foreign object, especially a MAC. Hell, even those brains in jars had a sort of buffer unit that made the connection less strenuous.

A quick death would certainly be the major consequence. Lionel guessed it would result in an upper limit of maybe five battles. Three if the battles were intense. And that’s assuming everything works. Guinevere’s data showed promising results, but the only other time this sort of system was experimented on, the connection was too unstable and fried the pilots immediately. Probably another reason why this specific method has never been put to use.

If things worked out though, if Guinevere was right, then they might come out on top in this battle. Even if the pilot can only handle this one fight, it will be good enough.

Callista gave the sign to the researchers in their observation post. The comms system hadn’t been installed yet. A few waves of a flag from the top of the tower and Callista began the test with the system fully activated.

An underground portion of the facility served as the testing ground. A few hundred acres of cityscape and desert terrain simulated the most likely fighting conditions for the defenders of Atlantis.

Callista closed the distance to the mockup city at a breakneck pace, managing to evaporate the two nearby gun emplacements while on the move.

Lionel’s fellow researchers scribbled notes on their tablets and kept eyes on the data streaming in.

Lionel just watched. He already knew what the end result would be.

She continued to burst through the city until she arrived at the central clearing: a sort of park. Her maneuvering was almost unbelievable. She converted a nearly insane level of speed into a multitude of spins in the open park. During these speed-reducing spins she managed to take out the occupied floors of the surrounding skyscrapers.

The strain on any human brain trying to complete such a task would be immense. Spinning around like that and still managing to pinpoint thermal markers and then sorting out which of those markers belonged to weapon teams and which ones belonged to civilian targets was quite the feat. Truly, this system was a work of militarized art.

And, Lionel thought to himself, the inherent self-sacrifice required might just make it that much more beautiful.

The first enemy MAC appeared on top of a nearby building and flew toward Callista with a basic melee attack. Although the MAC was attacking from behind, the bird’s-eye view functionality gave Callista plenty of warning. She wheeled around and began to level her rifle, but it stuttered halfway up and Callista ended up taking the hit. The successful enemy attack was recorded, and the test continued.

The second MAC was a long-distance type operating on a nearby hill. Callista dodged shot after shot as she closed in on the target. Again, the maneuverability of the MAC astounded Lionel. The pilot was part of the success, of course, but the heavy lifting of the system was amazing. She was practically sliding right beside the rounds as they hurtled toward her. She was dodging kinetic munitions as easily as a MAC dodges missiles.

She exited the city and had a clear shot at the enemy.

But Callista’s machine buckled. The joint attaching the foot to the MAC’s leg seemed to seize up in a similar fashion to her weapon arm. Incredibly, Callista and the machine were able to make the calculations required to compensate for the fall. They managed to land a killing blow on the enemy before hitting the ground and throwing a few tons of dirt and debris into the air.

Lionel glanced at one of the researchers’ tablets. A few of the graphics showed flatlines. The pilot’s connection to the lower half of the MAC had been completely severed. Partly due to the fall and partly due to the pilot’s brain deterioration. It went about as quickly as he imagined it would, though she did quite an impressive job with the odds stacked against her like that.

Lionel flipped the remote shut-off switch, forcibly powering down the MAC. This data was valuable, but the real value was in letting Callista learn her limits on her own. Not to mention, any longer and she might break completely.

But, if this little experiment could convince Callista to focus on piloting her basic MAC, then her fighting potential would be greatly increased. Lionel hoped that it would ground her in reality and make her a bit easier to work with. Those that go to the battlefield with hopes and dreams usually end up dead, and not in worthwhile ways either. Stupid deaths, Lionel thought, served no purpose.

Callista simply couldn’t take the strain. She reached her limit long ago and needed to accept that fact if she hoped to defend this city successfully.

It was better to let Callista have some time to herself to think about what had just happened. If Lionel tried to push the point it would only make things worse. He began to give orders on what to pack up and what calibrations should be made for Jace once he agreed to pilot the machine.

Surely he would.

But the dust began to settle in the distance and Lionel stared at the nearly impossible scene before him. Callista managed to get the machine out of the crater and halfway toward her next objective in the test.

Even with the connection severed and the legs unusable Callista managed to cover that amount of ground. Her brain was surely in a state of complete disarray after using the system. To think she forced herself to still pilot the MAC, even at normal levels like that… Lionel was surprised the life support systems still suggested she was alive.

“It’s a curse.” Lionel muttered.

“Sir?”

Obviously the researcher didn’t understand why Lionel would say such a thing. By any definition this kind of event would be considered a miracle. But Lionel knew Callista too well to indulge in that kind of sick hope, “As amazing as it is, willpower can only take you so far. That one,” Lionel nodded toward Callista’s distant form, “that one has more willpower than most, but that still hasn’t changed her body’s limits. She’s one half of the way to greatness. But the other half… it’s unreachable for her.”

Lionel’s emotions were getting the better of him. He thought he only had to deal with this nonsense when he was drinking with that little group of oddities. Lionel wondered why this scene was so impactful for him.

But there was no time to try to understand any of it, so he pushed the worthless emotions aside.

There was work to do.

A city to save.

And a sacrifice to prepare.