Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 236
He holstered his pistols and drew his launcher from the back of his waist. “Get back! Charge your shots,” he ordered both remaining officers as well as two others who had heard the commotion and raced to reinforce their teammates. He aimed the weapon carefully and fired to launch three thermals. They exploded to create a tall plume of fire and smoke as parts and rubble scattered through the street. The elite was still standing with its lights aglow and electricity sparked through the smoke as it fired at him through the haze.
“Its shields should be down. Fire!” he ordered as he dodged the shots. His officers responded with their charged or rapid shots and the barrage finally forced it to the ground before it burst apart from the damage sustained. He landed, checked on the civilians, and gave them a thumbs-up as a sign of safety.
“Look out!” one of them yelled and pointed into the distance. Haldt’s eyes widened at a plasma orb that hurtled toward him. Instinctively, he flung himself aside and the projectile missed him by inches. He deactivated his jetpack and scrambled to his feet as the orb struck an abandoned vehicle behind him and erupted in a dome of blue light.
One of his men cursed and he whirled and echoed the exclamation when two more elites marched relentlessly down the street. The officers called out to one another as they took turns to vent their weapons. Two of them with personal shields landed in front of Haldt to protect him as he tried hastily to reload his launcher.
“Do you need help there, Haldt?” Wolfson asked a split-second before cannon fire streaked from above and hammered into the enhanced droids. Their shields held only momentarily against the assault before they failed and both machines were quickly obliterated. The defenders cheered as the head officer’s ship circled to land swiftly. Haldt deactivated the shield protecting the civilians and escorted them hurriedly to the vessel as the pilot lowered the rear ramp.
“Good timing, sir,” the officer complimented over the comms as he helped a limping woman aboard. “Did you see anyone else on the way here?”
“Nothing on visual or radar.” Wolfson sounded regretful. “I think we’ve saved all we can in this sector. Another sweep couldn’t hurt, but I did see another group of bots breaking through one of the weakened sections at the edge of town.”
“We’ll make it quick, then head over to section four and evacuate all the bunkers we can,” Haldt promised. “Have you any word on what progress the commander has made in getting us military support?”
A long pause was broken by the head officer’s heavy sigh. “Let’s go with less than we hoped for.”
“So there have been no changes since our last meeting?” Sasha asked General Hartman’s hologram inside the makeshift office he had been allocated by the city council of Seattle.
The general shook his head. “We can provide a destroyer at the end of the week, but it is to remain in the city for defensive purposes. You must understand, Commander, we are planning a counterattack but cannot condone private citizens such as yourself setting out to fight the enemy on your own.”
“You forget that the enemy doesn’t give citizens much choice on whether or not they wish to fight or not. They must either fight for their lives or they are kidnapped and forced to fight for the enemy.”
“That’s only a theory at this point,” the man retorted, his tone brisk. “Despite Merrick’s ravings. So far, we have no proof that the soldiers fighting for the Arbiter Organization do so against their will.”
“That’s the official stance—what you tell the media to calm the public and the soldiers so they don’t hesitate in battle.” He folded his arms and stared at the general. “Tell me, as neither one of those, what is the real truth? You didn’t request Laurie’s help for nothing.”
“Why? What did he tell you?” Hartman asked and a trace of anger edged his voice.
“He didn’t tell me anything other than that he was leaving, but it was in his demeanor and the tone of his voice.” He thought back to the downcast expression Laurie had worn as he boarded the military vessel. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t a surprise to see he wasn’t in good spirits, but this was the face of a man who had only recently been shaken to his core. He recalled that the last time he saw it was when he felt responsible for Gin’s sabotage of the Animus system. “So tell me, General, what and who are we facing?”
Hartman sighed and adjusted the cuffs of his jacket out of annoyance or nervous habit. “The soldiers out of the sixth Ark Academy—the first one that was to be officially under the jurisdiction of the WC and headed by the now traitor Damyen Orlov—all seem to be volunteers. They show loyalty that the other soldiers do not as well as a certain…intelligence.”
“Intelligence?” Sasha questioned. “In what manner? Mods or drug-enhanced brain activity?”
“Not exactly,” the man said evasively. “They obviously didn’t have the student numbers schools like Ultra or Nexus have. They were only open on a trial basis to get everything into place—proof of concept and all of that,”
“It sounds like you are rambling,” he pointed out brusquely. “What does this have to do with the differences between them and the others?”
The general grimaced and picked a tablet up off-screen. “They were all handpicked by Damyen. From what we’ve been able to discern from raids on the facility in the last few weeks was that they’ve been on an accelerated program working solely on combat, assassination, and weapons expertise, with the only deviation being courses on vehicle skills and knowledge for both large and small craft. Given that they stole our ships, it’s easy to see what that was for.”
“Even so, if it’s only been a smaller group of students over a couple of years, they shouldn’t be able to take on a military force with such ease. They’re working on a version of Animus that’s only several updates newer than those I used when I attended Nexus.”
“That would be one of the complications. It appears they somehow got their hands on the current patch of the Animus software—or a cracked version of it, rather—designed to further increase the students' abilities and performance and trade out the talent system for a pure experience increase.”
The commander was aghast, both at the fact that they had the Nexus’ version of the Animus system—something only Laurie should have access to—and the information on how the students were so advanced so soon. “Doing something like that could yield good results but it is much too dangerous. You’re basically forcing the mind to accept these rapid changes at gunpoint. The stress and potential for sync issues are immense.”
“That would be one of the reasons we called the professor in. We need his help to determine how they found a way around it. As you can guess, reports say they should have had many casualties using this method but from what we can tell, they’ve only had a few.” Hartman lowered the tablet. “Although it’s the other thing that we are concerned about—the intelligence.”
“And what would that be?” Sasha frowned and tried to grasp what was inferred.
Hartman looked to either side, his demeanor cautious. “You are alone, aren’t you?”
He nodded and the other man returned the gesture. “This is not for you to talk about to anyone, understood? I’m telling you this in confidence.”
The chancellor folded his arms. “Very well. Let me hear it, General.”
The general drew a deep breath as he locked eyes with Sasha. “I’m sure you’ve seen the Ark soldiers without their helmets—the white eyes and faint glowing lines. We all thought it was some kind of augmentation. It is more akin to biological modification, the result of special chemicals that have been absorbed by these soldiers.”
“What are the chemicals for?”
“To help with the integration of the chips.” Hartman moved his hand beyond the frame again to retrieve a small box and opened it to reveal a coin-sized chip. “We’ve found them at the base of the skull of several soldiers, both Damyen’s and others. It seems similar to the device the WC used in the golem program.”
“Which was secretly the Arbiter’s program,” the commander—now chancellor of Nexus—said flatly.
The other man frowned but continued. “They do receive orders and messages, but they also intertwine the functions of an OS with the human mind.”
“Do what? An OS? Like an operating system?” Sasha demanded, appalled. “That can’t be—what good would it do? If anything, it sounds like it would cause massive mental—” The pieces clicked as he spoke his thoughts aloud and his eyes widened.
“Indeed. It’s a grim picture isn’t it?” The general closed the box and put it aside. “Damyen’s soldiers have used it to get around the complications of their misuse of the Animus. The OS in the chip is what would have been their EIs. They act as a filter, disperse the information absorbed in the Animus, and allocate it somewhat safely to the soldiers. That’s why they don’t have a high mortality rate.”
“But what does this have to do with the other students?” he asked. “They bond with their EIs over the years, certainly. But this shouldn’t be possible. Even Laurie couldn’t make it work until he met someone with the Gemini syndrome.”
“His purpose was to make a harmonious connection between a human and an EI,” Harman stated bluntly. “The chip cares little for either. From what we can tell, when an Ark student from any other school is put through this procedure, their EI is broken down to its base systems. All are focused to not only enhance the human but mute their free thought. In other words, they keep the skills, training, and experience of the person and even improve them but leave their personality suppressed.”
The commander grimaced at a sudden sense of weakness in his legs, no doubt the effect of shock at the revelations. “So they become golems, then?”
“Except golems are fragile. They have a shelf life and can only perform actions within reason. Essentially, they have no real skill of their own and it’s all downloaded and not ingrained,” Hartman corrected. “But these are Ark students who have trained for years—specialists, in many cases. This process makes them super-soldiers. They may feel pain and may tire, but their command pushes them on so they ignore those weaknesses or they compensate with mods and armor. They are super-soldiers.”
“And that’s what they are doing? They are taking the Ark students—my students—to simply turn them into grunts?” Sasha stared at the general in shock and disbelief.
Hartman nodded grimly. “They want your soldiers, Sasha. They have no interest in the people.”
Chapter Three
The enormous ship pierced the clouds, which warped and swirled around the massive hull as it broke into visibility. The townspeople below looked up in horror as a vessel almost half the size of their city hovered menacingly above them. Some began to run but others fell to their knees in shock. Police tried to hurry as many as they could to safety and what few fighters they had quickly tried to engage, no matter how fruitless that would have been, even if they had the time.
Energy coalesced in the main cannon of the colossus and created what appeared to be a miniature star at its peak. The light was absorbed into the lining of the weapon before it fired and found its target in the middle of the city center. A wave of energy surged in all directions like a ripple of death and anyone and anything caught in it was instantly turned to plasma. The land itself blackened and a thin sheet of glass formed as the energy wave subsided.
In a single stroke of unrestrained power, the city of Centennial was no more.
Kaiden slammed the tablet on the table and dragged a breath through clenched teeth. “They aren’t even pretending this is about the greater good anymore, are they?”
“From what we can gather, this wasn’t ordered by Merrick,” Cyra explained and took the now damaged tablet away from him. “We believe it was in retaliation for an attack on the ship a couple of days ago. Centennial had a small military base stationed near the city.”
“They destroyed the entire city!” he protested and pushed up from the edge of the table. “It seems a little drastic, don’t you think?”
“I would argue that everything that has happened during the last couple of months can be classified as drastic, Kaiden,” Chiyo pointed out.
He almost snapped at her, offended by what appeared to be an attempt at humor. When he looked up, the retort ready, he saw the helplessness in her eyes. She plainly struggled not to give in to despair or worse, apathy. This might have been the most devastating report recently but tragic reports had become commonplace. Even victories against the Arbiter Organization, big and small, elicited only momentary joy before they encountered two or three setbacks or losses in quick succession.
The ace sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t let this get to me. After all that shit I talked after the invasion, I can’t show that they have beaten me before I’ve even fought them properly.”
“Exactly,” Cyra agreed. “Remember to give it back to them twice as hard for everything they’ve done when you get the chance.”
“Right, but when will that be?” he asked and looked from one woman to the other. “This is the second time the colossus has returned since the invasion. Last time, it was only here for a few days. How long will it stay this time?”
Cyra looked at Chiyo, who approached Kaiden and opened a holoscreen. “From what we can tell, the flagship makes stops to reinforce certain cities and battle zones. At this rate, it probably won’t return to the Academy for a few more days.”
“Assuming they can resist the temptation to destroy another city along the way,” he muttered.
The infiltrator frowned. “Speaking...purely scientifically, it would be in their best interest to do so. Not only for their personal mission statement to ‘save’ humanity”—he almost spat at the idea—“but also because this colossus was based off an old model, one that was decommissioned. While I can’t tell what they’ve changed or improved, one of the biggest issues was the blowback on both the structure of the ship and the power core from using the cannon. From what the engineers have told me, using the weapon frequently—and by frequently, I mean even once every couple of weeks—could lead to massive damage to the vessel.”
Kaiden thought about what he’d learned about the usage of the cannon and realized that even with that in mind, they still used it for such a petty reason. “It sounds like the guy in charge is losing it.”
“It’s a possibility,” she agreed. “Which would be fortunate for us. At this point, we can use every possible little advantage.”
He merely nodded in silence because he hated the feeling of agreeing with something that sounded so desperate. “If we have a chance now, I want to take it,” he announced and folded his arms. “Is Genos around? I want to hear what the engineers have tinkered with to get back into the Academy.”
“I can put you in touch with the professor. He’s helped with the project today since Genos left,” Cyra offered.
“Genos left? Where did he go?”
Chiyo changed the screen to display a map of a snowy locale. “He and Jaxon left on a mission. There was an opportunity to recover a device the Omega Horde stole from a military facility in the Arctic.”
Jaxon and Genos leapt out of the dropship and observed their surroundings as soon as they landed. It was nighttime and they stood on a frozen tundra in a few feet of snow, surrounded by large frosted trees and low ridges.
“Remember to be cautious, kin. We may handle the cold better than humans, but should our armor be compromised or heaters destroyed, we will experience difficulty,” Genos advised.
“I agree, although the mercenaries are probably the most pressing concern right now,” the ace replied and closed the mission details screen. “We are to make our way to a stronghold approximately twenty-two miles from our current location. Once there, we are to retrieve the sat-marker and disable the base if we can. Destruction has been authorized.”
“Understood,” mechanist acknowledged as he took his machine gun off his back. “Where shall we start?”
Jaxon drew his blade and flipped it as he examined it. “You take point.”
“Pardon?” Genos asked in obvious confusion.
“I wish to see how you handle command for now. We haven’t had a chance to examine one another since the invasion. I was always curious.”
“And you think now would be a good time for that? Although I am not saying I am not up to the challenge.”
The Tsuna ace nodded and slid his blade into its sheath. “Let me know when we can begin.”
Genos raised his head when both heard a low rumble in the distance. They ran up the closest hill and immediately saw lights approaching. “They have responded rather soon, it seems,” he muttered and pointed to the vehicle. “I assume they must have seen the dropship on approach.”
“It makes this much faster—if you work quickly,” his companion said and they crouched to conceal themselves behind the ridge of snow. “Can you disable the vehicle without destruction?”
The mechanist drew his long-distance pistol. “Of course,” he said. “You know I am always prepared, kin.”
“We have company! Repeat, we have hos—” The Omega Horde merc’s warning cut short when Jaxon’s pistol thumped into the back of his head. He toppled and joined the other two unconscious figures in the snow.
“I’m finished.” The ace turned to where Genos crouched over a fourth man a few yards away. “I see you managed yours with ease but I didn’t hear you fire a shot.”
