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Bo raced low across the Arizona desert scrub. He felt his newest body thrum with more power than he’d ever felt before. His form looked like a sleek inverted teardrop of liquid metal, slightly flattened into a pointed lozenge. Its systems were tight and well-calibrated, although he expected no less.
His former college partner, Allison, always did good work. He had forgotten how much he liked working with her. In college projects, she had brought the brains and creativity and he had the intuition and balls to test out their designs.
This vehicle form, her startup company’s latest creation, had got him 5th place in the Diamond Man global Canyon Runner races. Bo knew that with the pair’s latest tweaks to the design, he could have placed first easily if they raced again today.
With a thought, he altered the surface properties of the craft’s outer edges, directing the air flows across its control surfaces. The response was instantaneous as he peeled up and to the left in a tight barrel roll. His comms ticked and Allison’s spoke up in his mind.
“[You ok there, Crash? That turn looked pretty wild.]
“[That was all me. Your improvements to both the power core and the smart skin have really improved the control system design and power flow, Ally.]” Bo responded.
“[I’ve got a good feeling about our match this afternoon with the RUSA weapons board. Are you sure I can’t convince you to sell me another couple of percentage points of equity in your company?]” Bo said.
He’d tried to make the comment sound like a joke, but he was dead serious. If this demo went well, Ally was going to make her company and him very wealthy.
“[Don’t get greedy, Crash. If this goes well, you’ll get your piece of the pie.”] Allison chided. “[If we can convince them of this design’s superiority, I can secure the contract and assure my company’s end-of-year profits. I have plenty more ideas for improvements that we can take to the private sector as well.]”
Bo maxed his acceleration and turned sharply into a vertical climb. The craft surged into the sky, a sonic boom crashing down upon the open plain, as Bo “felt” 12 gravities of pull trying to hold him back. A normal pilot would be unconscious, but Bo’s entire body had been reformed into this craft. His biological brain was merged with an artificial cognition module. Both were nested with distributed supports and augmentation, under high pressure, which prevented damage and increased his thought speed.
“[YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!]”, he injected into his comms. Allison was way too cautious and would never push the craft design as he did. The least he could do for her was to share a smidgeon of his exhilaration, so she could truly understand his appreciation. At the apex of the climb, he clicked the comms again.
“[This is now at least 20% more than anything I’ve ever piloted. It’s amazing! Seriously, Allison, what did you do to with the power-core?]”, Bo asked.
“[So you think that if I explain it for the eighth time that you’ll suddenly understand? Face it, Bo, physics just isn’t your kind of thing.]” Allison teased.
“[Maybe it is the teacher who cannot teach, rather than the student who cannot learn?]” Bo answered with deep feeling.
“[Arghh! Spare me your martial arts mantras, Crash. Ok. I’ll explain it to you, as I did to my daughter’s 3rd-grade class. Ready?]” Allison said with a sigh.
“[Yes, Sensei.]” Bo said, subserviently.
“[So, every child knows how psuedomaterials were invented in the 2060s. A matrix of quantum dots can be fed electrons and it holds them in place. This cloud of electrons, funnily enough, layers itself into valence shells just like ordinary atoms but without the meaty center nucleus. Thus was born the first artificial atom. Now these atoms aren’t mobile like normal loose atoms since it’s locked in a matrix, but it does act like an atom. Empty spots in valence shells want to be full. So now we had the ability to make both psuedochemistry and psuedomaterials.]”
“[Like every good scientist, those old boys in the ought-sixties played with this stuff; seeing what they could do with it. The matter they could simulate with their artificial construct was quick and easy. Now, did you ever wonder why the periodic table stops at the heaviest element 118?]” Allison asked.
“[It doesn’t come up frequently on the racing circuit, so no, and yes please tell me.]” Bo said. Ally sighed and continued.
“[Well, being completely honest, we still don’t know. The highest elements are very unstable and the heavier the element the less we have of them. Since heavy elements are formed only in Supernovae, perhaps if we wait another 14 billion years then current crop of heavy elements will combine in the hearts of stars to form even heavier ones.]” Allison lectured.
“[So, these smart dudes have been scheming and postulating for a long while, and some of them think there might be a chance for some super heavies to be more stable way up into the 180 weight class.]”
“[The unstable heavies frustrated them to no end ‘cause they evaporated too fast for them play with it. Now, these science dudes are salivating over getting some of these stable superheavies. Stuff that they can actually play with, but they certainly don’t want to wait billions of years for their fun time. Enter psuedomatter.]” Allison continued.
[“Duh Duh DUUUUNNNNN]” Bo chimed to imitate music for a climactic reveal.
“[Right…So these guys pump their quantum arrays full of electrons and create artificial atoms and start doing psuedochemistry. Turns out that even the unstable elements work out to be stable when constrained in a quantum array. Now that they had a brand new box of toys, those scientists got busy. They configured all the atoms up to and beyond 180 and then they even started mixing them into combinations to mimic alloys and polymers.]”
“[They created a ton of crap materials, but every now and then, they found an exceptional material with valuable properties. Chryolite and Chryomite are perfect thermal conductors and insulators respectively. Xenoferrite finally gave us cheap room-temperature superconductors. Adamantium, a once mythical magical metal but now a very real and super strong alloy. But the secret of the power cores comes from a material called Ergonite. It’s actually about 10 very similar and adjacent alloys each enabling the capture of enormous charges of energy. Best of all, the more energy they get, the more stable and durable they become.]”
“A power core made from nested Ergonite, the size of a marble. It can store enough energy to run a car nonstop for a month. The best part is that the discharge rate is tremendous. The classic sci-fi laser pistol finally became a thing. It’s the world's most stable electron bomb if you release it all at once.]”
“[Now, the power core you’re wearing is about the size of a baseball. It’s layered with different grades of Ergonite shells, and each has added kinetic spin making it the most energy-dense container on the planet that I’m aware of. The patent is already filed, and this reveal will be the first public showing.]” Allison's voice was thick with smugness.
“[I think I actually understood a little bit of that. So, with that explanation, I’m thinking that I’m wearing a super bomb, correct? What if I do crash? It’s been known to happen.]”, Bo asked.
“[Like I said, the more energy it holds the more durable it is. Anything capable of cracking that core would vaporize you long before it cracks.]”, she said.
“[But if I release all that energy at once…..]”, Bo thought out loud.
“[DON’T! Just don’t. It’s not an issue if you don’t play with it. You have all the juice you need, just don’t go frying yourself.]” Allison warned.
Bo brought the craft up and over and hauled ass back down to the desert floor and made a beeline towards the staging area. All the top ten craft from the Canyon Runner Races would compete in mock combat against the RUSA Air Force’s 2123 Top Guns. They all flew what they believed to be the very pinnacle of flying attack craft, the Velociraptor Mk4.
Bo intended to show them just how wrong they were. As a prize, if they did manage to win it, was a guarantee that the RUSA Department of Weapons Research would ask for an exclusivity contract. With a 3% equity share in Allison’s company, Carter QuantumFlight, this could be Bo’s first big score.
Unlike a lot of Bo’s peers, he did not get pre-competition jitters. He only felt impatient to get in the air and do his thing. In his mind’s virtual display, he ran through the checklist of his systems. Air control surfaces optimized, power core maxed and humming with power, Bo had suggested and receive several upgrades after the Canyon Runner event; Allison had made it all happen.
Bo focused his multi-spectrum scanner over his own body. With a combination of visual, thermal, x-ray, and terahertz; Bo was able to inspect each of his systems as they worked. His aluminum composite structure was laced with adamantium pseudo matter.
His entire frame around those primary struts was polymorphic smart matter, capable of shifting its shape to support his desired aerodynamic form. Kinetic rail guns and laser armaments were positioned tight to his core with emitters both fore and aft. His primary thrust was directed aft but with multiple major channels and capillaries throughout the body to provide limited thrust in any direction.
Deep inside the craft, Bo’s brain and core augmentations resided. He was tied into the craft on a fundamental level. He was the craft. His spinal column was the central bus for all the vehicle's sensors, power systems, weapons, thrust, control surfaces, and special countermeasures. His “skin” was one of the more complex systems; armored but flexible, multilayered with chameleon pixels, and variable surface properties to alter the flow of air over its flat areas.
The power core was the final and perhaps most important of his subsystems. Bo was thrilled as he modulated its outputs to his primary thrusters. Diverting a fraction of its power to his shape and skin control and he flexed his new body’s shape, surface properties, armor cladding thickness, and even color.
Finally, Bo had his bag of tricks he had developed for this competition. Four core missiles, lightweight but blazingly fast, each with a mini-mind to track his targets and pierce them. Remembering Allison’s lesson, Bo quickly altered their code to add the potential to detonate their cores. His monofilament bolo, remora disabler, second skin, decoys, foglet flack, foglet bomb, and vorpal wing extensions completed his load out. If Bo still had a mouth, he would have been grinning ear to ear.
There was a smart matter stand of chairs, incongruous amidst the desert scrub full of observers. It was swathed in foglets, keeping the heat and dust away from the audience. Bo ran his identification skill over the crowd. Mostly scientists, system engineers, and project managers from the weapons board. Several executives from the Diamond Man were eager to see how their racers did against the government forces.
One person stood out as the focus of the entire group. Bo gasped as his system displayed her details. Lena Lee, the Samaritan nicknamed Samurai. She was the president and founder of Bodywerks, the premier augmentation design firm on the Earth. Bo was more determined than ever to impress, imagining his future with her as a sponsor.
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This demonstration would be a live fire, last-man-standing fight. If the RUSAF won, they retained their prestige as the best air combat force on the planet. With modern vehicle design, a completely destroyed vehicle was unlikely. Everyone did have backup scans of their brains, just in case.
Finally, the field marshal signaled the start of the match with a flare fired into the air. Bo charged fast down the runway and pulled a hard turn straight up with a 10g acceleration. No sense revealing my full power just yet, he thought. His competition had similar reactions. The RUSAF pilots seemed to be moving quite a bit slower than the Canyon Runners.
The rhyme “Slow feet, don’t eat” played in his head. This was a free for all. There were no teams, but Bo knew that the USAF pilots would likely form an unofficial alliance to fight the Canyon Runners. The Canyon Runners would cut anyone’s throat, but slow movers were vulnerable and therefore likely to be their first targets.
At the apex of his flight, Bo inverted his climb and dove down into a cold dive. The technique was a no-power ballistic drop with his Chameleon layer painted sky blue. With his EM signature minimized, no heat source, active camouflage, and the blinding sun behind him; he would be extremely hard to see.
With passive steering only, he lined up with a target, his biggest threat, the winning pilot of the Canyon Run event, Jo Jo Barnes. Jo Jo was already mixing it up in a dogfight with a pair of RUSAF Raptors.
Jo Jo was still unaware of his approach, as she made her move and cut between the Raptors. In that instant, she popped up between them, and each instinctively opened fire with striker missiles.
Somehow, Jo Jo spun into a seemingly erratic tumble which perfectly slipped past all five of the incoming and crossing missiles. Her assailants were not so lucky. Each found that being in the path of friendly fire had devastating consequences.
One Raptor exploded outright, and the pilot's core ejected violently out of the shattered craft. The other craft survived its hit but was swiftly dropping out of the sky with serious engine failure.
I need to strike now, Bo thought, while she stabilizes and reviews the skirmishes happening right in front of her to the north. Bo shot his Remora bolt using a minimal pulse thru his rail gun. His EM shield should hide the field fluctuation. The bolt had a cold gas assist to help push its closing velocity up even higher without EM or heat signatures. Bo’s tension and excitement climbed as the Remora fell directly into Jo Jo’s unsuspecting path.
Bo was about to yell a victory call when Jo Jo’s craft spun into a barrel roll at the last possible second. Her wing tip hit the Remora and flicked it into open space where it would drop powerless to the desert below. Simultaneously with her defensive roll, a laser swept across the sky. The high-energy maser tore into Bo’s left wing, ablating the chameleon skin right off but partially reflected by the highly reflective, extreme albedo, anti-laser coating underneath.
Bo’s aborted victory cry turned into a surprised yelp and finished as an agonized scream. Another of Bo’s methods of maintaining the highest effort to win was that regardless of his equipment; he always ran a pain analog into his nervous system for damage. Bo was not a masochist, far from it. He went to great lengths to avoid it. That motivation carried him towards winning smart, not through relentless tanking of damage.
Bo, with his cognition still amped, reacted immediately. He ignited his power core-driven air turbines and boosted over Jo Jo at a full 12 g, headed directly for the massive dogfight to the north. His craft surged with its full power unleashed, Jo Jo’s follow-up rail gun kinetic shots missing by inches.
God damn it, Bo thought. That Remora cost me 10,000 UN credits! I hope the tracker works so I can recover it after the match.
Bo raced towards the fight in the north as Jo Jo quickly lined up behind him. He jinked constantly, even though she hadn’t opened fire yet. He knew she was planning something, and he didn’t feel good about his positioning. He was ten seconds from meeting the scrum and Jo Jo fired a pair of striker missiles.
She fucked up! Bo thought.
If she was counting on him slowing down to avoid the fight, she was so wrong. He would enter the fray at least two seconds before the missiles closed on him. Bo activated his jet casings Peltier array, a lining made of a mix of chryolite and chryomite to pull the excess heat being generated by the compressed air jet and divert it into his decoy-drones. The decoys were made of stacked chryomite shielding to shine with absorbed heat. As he ran, he didn’t want the smart missiles to lock on him, so muffling his thermals served two purposes.
Bo dove between missiles and maser fire as he corkscrewed between several active exchanges. He popped loose his decoys and sent them towards his closest obstacles, RUSAF or Canyon Runner. He didn’t know and didn’t care. This game’s rules were every man for himself and the last man standing won!
Bo whooped as he extended his vorpal wing and sliced the wing off a Canyon Runner as he exited the other side of the scrum. Oops, Bo thought, I just took down Ramirez. I’ll have to buy him a beer later. Hopefully, he won’t shank me in our next bout.
Two explosions boomed, a RUSAF Raptor and a Canyon Runner that had been the unfortunate final destination of Jo Jo’s volley at Bo. Bo howled with delight at the good turn of events, at least 4 of 20 were already out of the competition. He banked left in a hard turn that would have snapped the wings of a lesser craft and battered a human pilot unconscious. Bo could not stop grinning mentally as he lined up for his next shot.
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Bo was getting desperate. He had taken down another three Raptors and now his Striker missiles were depleted. All the RUSAF Top Guns had been eliminated. He had managed to avoid another head-to-head with Jo Jo. She was engaged with her top rival Yusuf right now, which left him to being ganged up on by the last of the Runners: Emil and Sonya.
Both harried him with lasers and railgun rounds, scoring his skin and punching small holes in his body. Neither would come close enough for a wing strike; they had seen what he had done to Ramirez. Bo was dying a death by a thousand cuts; he deployed his nano fog flack to get a breather. He was pretty sure one of them must have a striker left. All he had was his vorpal wings, his bolo, and the foglet bomb.
Bo was never one to quit. He flipped his craft and charged his flack cloud. As Emil burst through the cloud, followed tightly by Sony, Bo surprised them. He raced directly down at them, in a game of high-speed chicken. He deployed his bolo but kept one of the bolo anchors locked in his launcher.
Bo screamed, as he jerked his craft hard right, wrapping Emil in the extended bolo. The two tethered fighters spun wildly, right towards the following Sonya. Bo released the locked bolo anchor just as Sonya collided with Emil. The pair crashed in a flaming avalanche of metal. Bo skinned past, scraping another layer of skin off his body/craft, as they plummeted towards the desert floor.
Damn, that’s gotta hurt, Bo thought. Maybe as much as I’m feeling it right now.
[Good moves, Crash. Now why don’t you follow them!], a familiar voice sounded off on his event channel radio. Jo Jo must have finished Yusuf before he dealt with his matchups. He spun around but Jo Jo’s striker missile was already far too close. No time to run. She had timed that comm perfectly to make him freeze up.
Time to make the donuts! Bo yelled in his head. He had to time this perfectly or he would be a flaming wreck in seconds.
From Jo Jo’s vantage point of the high ground, Bo’s craft appeared to erupt as her striker missile connected. The entire craft peeled apart with fiery pieces that scattered quickly. As the cloud of flaming debris began its descent to the ground, Jo Jo did a victory barrel role and opened her radio channel.
[Another first place for Jo Jo Barnes!] Jo Jo yelled to the audience and the Field Marshal. After a moment of static, the line clicked open.
[The event is not over yet, Ms. Barnes], the deep voice of the Field Marshall responded over the line. The comm crackled and hissed.
[Ya missed me, Jo Jo Mamma!] Bo taunted over the line and peeled into laughter. Jo Jo thought that she heard the audience in the background laughing as well. Furious, she dove; opening and maxing her full scanner suite to find the bastard.
Those last seconds from Bo’s perspective were much more nerve-shattering and tense. Bo had to perform several simultaneous actions to present the illusion that he needed to survive. The move was risky in the extreme, and he had never practiced it. It was only a theoretical option…until now. Unfortunately, he had no choice.
The first piece was to ensure the missile did not connect. It was aimed center of mass, but Bo’s power core was nestled in his tail with his jet turbine while his pilot core mind was in the prow. His midsection contained his armaments which were almost completely depleted. The Donut Time command reshaped his midriff to create a hole. A well-aimed missile should, theoretically, pass right through.
The obvious flaw in this ploy was that the missile owner would see the tactic and remotely detonate it. This required some extra sleight of hand. Bo shredded and shed his top five layers of “skin”. In combination with launching and detonating his foglet bomb and thermal decoys forwards, his “destruction” would appear guaranteed from his attacker's perspective.
Out of the backside of his shed skin, Bo swiftly dropped, keeping the wreckage between him and Jo Jo. He needed some space, and he needed a plan. Fast! If he closed with her, into knife fighting range, then maybe he had a chance. However, if she still had any explosive ordinance left, she would burn him down before he got anywhere near her.
It was a bad bet and Bo knew it. Bo wasn’t a gambler. He worked for every advantage he could find and put it all on the line. With a sudden inspiration, Bo realized he did have another weapon. He just needed to get to it. Bo maxed his thrust, diving towards his last hope. Time to pull a win out of the hat.
Hearing Jo Jo’s comm, Bo couldn’t help broadcasting a snarky response. He needed her angry. He needed her to come after him hard without too much time thinking. He was glad that he worked well under pressure. Timing, again, was going to be critical. He would need it to be perfect.
Bo dropped to the floor of the desert. Jo was in hot pursuit, screaming for his blood. Bo diverted thrust down and to the sides as well at pushing forwards, creating havok on the desert floor. Jo Jo was trying to hit him with masers and kinetic rounds, but the dust cloud he was raising made it hard for her to get a target lock.
Bo found his target and dispatched his last drone, concealed by the cloud of dust. He began a long gradual turn to the right, pounding the desert floor with his thrusters, raising hell with every meter.
“[Bo, turn around and fight! You can’t keep running forever.]” Barnes screamed over the line.
“[Sure thing Jo. You just shoot off your last remaining missiles and ordinance and we’ll settle this hand to hand, or wing to wing, as nature intended.]”, Bo answered laughing.
“[I’m already there, Bo. I used my last missiles against Yusuf. Turn around and let’s finish this!]” Jo Jo demanded.
“[Well damn! Guess I’ll just have to trust you on that one, Jo. How about I just slow up and let you not send your already deployed missiles right down into my teeth?]” Bo quipped. “[Darn it, I can’t seem to find my aerobraking controls. Guess we will need to wait a little bit longer. Getting tired yet, Jo Momma?]”
“[Fuck you, Crash! I can do this all day, but you make one mistake and it’s all over for you.]” Jo Jo raged into the comms, pushing her power core into the red zone.
Just a little more, Bo thought, almost there.
Bo sent the command to his advanced scout drone. It only had one task. Bo passed over its head, with Jo following far too close behind him. After he passed, the drone launched itself upwards with its acquired payload. Bo’s lost Remora bolt was still armed and still deadly. It impacted and penetrated Jo Jo’s hull directly on the stern. The delivery drone was crushed and thrown to the side with the impact.
Jo Jo had less than a second to register the foreign object hitting her hull, as all her systems shut down. The Remora injected a focused EMP directly into her hull, past the craft's EM shielding, disrupting her systems. Her power core, her thrusters, her armaments, and even her personal nervous system augmentations were deactivated in the blast. Jo Jo was blind and deaf as her craft drilled into the desert floor creating a kilometer long trench in the scrub.
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“Seriously Crash. I can’t believe your dumb Donut tactic actually worked. That was a super bad plan.” Allis,on had finally caught up with Bo, in the back of the bar at the victory party. He had disentangled his central nervous system and was reconnected with his own heavily augmented body again.
“Hey, it’s not dumb if it works, right? So gimme the news. Did you get the contract?” Bo asked as he pressed a beer into her hands. Alison tried to look stern but took a quick sip and beamed at Bo.
“Yes! We have a 3-year contract! The funding round is already in my accounts. Are you ready to cash in?” Allison asked with a devious expression.
“No way! I sense that you and this company are only just beginning. I’m an equity partner and don’t you forget it.” Bo said with his sternest expression. Unfortunately for Bo, his expression came off as more constipated than dignified. Allison burst into laughter and reached into her jacket, producing a folded document. She suddenly had a much more serious expression.
“All kidding aside, Bo. Take this. You’ve earned it.” She said pushing the document into his hands. Bo looked confused. He opened the document and scanned it.
“What the hell Allison? Another 2% share. With your company’s new contract, the valuation of this is….is…. I have no idea how much this is, but it’s way more than the test flight deserves.” Bo pushed the document back. Allison held up her hands.
“Keep it, Bo. Your efforts today helped this company immensely and today you, more than anyone, have put us on the map. If you must, then consider this a downpayment. I have a lot of ideas and I'll need your help testing them out and making them work.”
Bo raised his glass, motioning her to join him.
“To Carter QuantumFlight, onward and upward!” he said.
“To Carter QuantumFlight, onward and upward. But absolutely no more Donut Time!” She spoke. With a smile, Bo clinked her glass.
Today had been a very good day, he thought with satisfaction.
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