Chapter 2: Mad Machine
"Man, can you believe this?" Anna exclaimed as she studied the bill in her hands for one-hundred Eurodollars while Gideon calmly counted the rest into piles divided by denomination, "I mean, seriously, the European Economic Council is the one that has set the world standard for money rather than the American dollar?"
"Considering the collapse of the American economy, a nuclear Third World War, and Japan getting devastated by the Second Great Kanto Earthquake, it makes some sense." Gideon replied as he began packing away the bills into a carrying case, "Frankly I'm more happy we aren't in Shadowrun. Can you imagine coming down with a case of VITAS or worse?"
Anna shuddered, "Yeah, good point." She tapped the bill to her chin, "Although finding out that Ghost In The Shell, Appleseed and Bubblegum Crisis are real as well is a pretty big deal as well."
"Limited nuclear World War Three, the invention of the Japanese Miracle and the Bioroid, the Second Civil War that reunited the United States by conquering Soviet America and Imperial Americana..." Gideon shook his head, "Goddamn insane is what it is Anna, we're looking at nearly two hundred years condensed into a much shorter time period. It's a miracle that GENOM has been able to still become the giant they are now with the political capital shifted to Newport City off Shikoku."
"The nuclear attack and the earthquake, yeah?" Anna thought out loud as she walked over and made to return the bill she was holding, but Gideon held up his hand.
"Keep it, might be lucky." Gideon explained and while Anna snorted in amusement, she tucked the bill into a pocket.
"Maybe I'll get it laminated so I can hang it in my cockpit?" She mused while Gideon finished packing away the cash. Turning, Anna noticed several people approaching, "We have company."
"I see them," Gideon replied, fingering the safety off his pistol as he put the cases away, "Probably a larger unit looking to add us to the roster, and I'm not surprised considering what we did." Anna smirked as she fingered the Third Class National Medal For Merit pinned to her jacket. Gideon had hung his inside the cockpit of his Armored Core, which the British-born Russian girl took as a sign of him claiming his own personal good luck charm.
"Just stay ready for anything," Gideon's words drew Anna out of her thoughts, "In fact, why don't you go do a check on the seventy mounted on the Stork." While it sounded like a a request, Anna recognized it as a command and began walking over to the massive helicopter parked nearby; while doing further checks after the award ceremony and subsequent party, the pair had discovered that the helicopter was outfitted with a large 70mm rotary autocannon in a retractable mounting.
Gideon had promptly rolled his eyes while Anna was at least happy for the ability to further defend herself without needing to rely on the missile pack on the right side of her aircraft. Now though, she was hoping that she didn't need to fire the monster gun tucked away underneath the cockpit of the helicopter as she opened up the crew access door and stepped inside.
Gideon meanwhile, finished packing away the Eurobucks into the traveling case, and then placed his arms on the park table he had been sorting the cash on while he watched the group of five men approach. When they came close enough to speak without having to raise their voices, Gideon smiled, "G'day, nice weather we're having aren't we?"
"Yeah, decent." The leader agreed before he sat down, "Heard about how you beat off a Spetsnaz attack with that monster behind you." He nodded at the Armored Core while Gideon didn't shift as the man continued, "I work for a group that take contracts all over the world, a group that some people have taken to calling 'The Illegal Army', which my employer has adopted for himself."
"Illegal Army?" Gideon questioned, mind remembering an old Bubblegum Crisis role play sourcebook about a group with the same name, "Never heard of 'em. Your employer got a name or should I start giving him one for my remembrance?"
The man smiled thinly, "No need. His name is Ethan Hollister. Perhaps you've heard of the man once renowned as the EEC's 'Real James Bond' during the War?"
Gideon shook his head, "Nope. Didn't really care much for propaganda. Not with searching for anti-rads and food a higher priority." He sighed in annoyance, "Look, get to the fucking point. I want to actually start spending some my payout on some actual food rather than have rations for lunch, and so would my partner once she's done with her maintenance checks."
The man's smile dipped slightly, "Very well. Mr. Hollister wants to hire you and you specifically to work for the Illegal Army. Our group can offer you a substantial salary and numerous benefits in exchange for you and your machine to become a part of our extensive complement of armored vehicles."
"Not gonna happen." Gideon snapped, "For one, you don't have the wide selection of weaponry I will need to engage and eliminate any targets I encounter, but my partner does. For another, you don't have the aircraft that can carry my mech with a full combat load of weaponry and ammunition, but my partner does. And finally, I have a seventy-millimeter linkless-feed autocannon aimed at you, you smarmy little shit."
The group looked in the direction of the helicopter to see the black-burnished quad-barrel muzzle of the Stork's concealed gun aimed squarely at them as Gideon continued speaking, "We are a team. I will not abandon my partner, and she will not abandon me. The very fact that you have dismissed my partner outright with your offer is an insult that quite frankly, I think she's rather peeved about."
The gun shifted to aim more fully at the group while Gideon's lip curled back in a sneer, "Piss off, and tell your 'Mister Hollister' that he's not getting my mech, or me." The man's escorts shifted as if about to make a move, but Gideon simply pointed back at the helicopter, forcing them to pull their hands away from their guns. Meanwhile, the man seated across from Gideon got back to his feet.
"Independents don't last long in this business, buddy. Especially when everyone's got a Boomer or two specced for anti-armor work." He waved his hand, "I'm sure you'll change your tune in a few weeks. So think about the offer, and I'll be waiting to hear your answer."
Gideon looked past the men to see that there was only the empty expanse of the staging area; most of the mercenaries had moved on to other cities or had found contracts taking them into the Ukraine to join the fighting there. Anyone left was camped out somewhere else, taking their tents and other mobile shelters with them.
Standing up, Gideon walked away from the table, held up his hand. And gave Anna a thumbs-down signal. Inside the cockpit, Anna's lips twitched as she armed the autocannon, sighted the group, and fired.
When the tearing-cloth sound of the autocannon faded, there was only a large red smear where five men had been walking away as Gideon walked up to the helicopter and entered the crew area, "Fucking pissants. You heard everything?"
Anna nodded, "You think this'll send a message?"
Gideon's smile was grim, "Oh yeah. In the meantime, we should consider moving on to another city. Strong chance of retribution coming our way."
Anna nodded, "Starting up the APU now, the engines will be warmed up in a few seconds. Better get in your AC." As Gideon left, Anna turned on the scanner pod, watching as the city map began to be overlaid with various dots. After a minute of watching, her lip curled, "Looks like they got the message." She watched Gideon climb up and enter the AC as the rotors began to spin and switched to their private channel, "Heads up, we have multiple high-speed ground contacts inbound on us."
"Must be Boomers," Gideon replied as the hatch sealed behind him, "Dumping the right Autocannon, switching to the Pulse Gun. Get in the air and be ready to cover me with the seventy."
"Roger." Anna increased the throttle and began lifting off, landing gear folding away as the scanner watched the inbound contacts while Anna watched Gideon drop the truck-sized Autocannon array as the shoulder weapon mountings rotated to bring a boxy gun into view with no visible barrel assembly, looking more like three hexagonal columns mated to a pistol-grip as the torso of the AC, which Gideon was still trying to think a name for, rotated to face the inbound threats.
Seconds later, Anna saw them, a group of large, olive-green humanoids leaping onto the roof of a building near the staging area as she raised altitude and contacted the Liaison,
<"This is Katyusha, being attacked by a group of unknown green humanoids.">
<"Major Vladimir here, that sounds like BU-12 Combat Boomers. What's going on?">
<"Is that what they are? Major, I believe they've been deployed to assassinate the pair of us. We are going to defend ourselves momentarily."> Anna armed the autocannon again, confirming that despite having fired at least one-hundred rounds, the ammo system was still full. Gideon was taking aim with the Pulse Gun but Anna was interrupted by Major Vladimir.
<"
We're trying to find out where those Boomers came from. You have permission to open fire, but do not attempt to leave the Staging Area until we've found out what's going on.">
<"Understood. We're firing now."> Anna punctuated her statement by opening fire with the 70mm autocannon, catching on of the 'Boomers' in the chest with the burst and shredding it under a hail of high-explosive rounds, "Katyusha to Raven, these things aren't that heavily armored."
"That's because they're meant to defeat tanks and infantry," Gideon replied as the Boomers began opening fire, railgun slugs spattering against the armour as the machines continued to feed data back to their owner, and to GENOM. Gideon for his part simply pulled the trigger and fired the Pulse Gun.
There was a deafening electrical crackle in the air as clouds of electromagnetic energy and eye-watering green-white electrical plasma flew from the focusing array, crossing the gap in seconds and engulfing four of the incoming twelve Boomers while the roaring of the 70mm autocannon up above tore into the rest.
Far away, in a mobile command center, screens went dark as datafeeds became corrupted while operators began deploying more units. In the shadows, a fair-haired man watched in silence as more screens went dark before blinking on to display new viewpoints. As one of the cameras was suddenly bathed in a green-white glow before cutting out, the man approached the operators, "Are we getting any data on that weapon?"
"Apart from enough electromagnetics and electricity to fry a city? Barely anything. Whatever it is, it's frying the BU-12's so goddamn thoroughly that we're not even getting status update or error messages. So who knows what they're being hit with. Hell, if GENOM is managing to get anything from those 'hidden' feeds of theirs, they're welcome to it." As the operator spoke, more screens went green and winked out while the man in shadows watched intently, eyes always focusing on the screens that showed the massive armored machine.
"Activate the rest of the Twelves, and bring that new model we received from GENOM online."
The operator turned in his seat, "Excuse me sir?"
The man glared at the operator, "You heard me, activate the Fifty-Five and send it in! Lets see how GENOM reacts to this when we send in their prototype toy."
***
Across the world, in a private office at the highest point in the city of Megatokyo, Chairman Quincy of the megacorporation GENOM regarded the large screen impassively with two other people as Boomer after Boomer fell in combat against a massive mecha and its strange energy weapon, while others were torn apart by the blazing autocannon mounted under the chin of the huge helicopter above the mecha.
"Fascinating, wouldn't you say Mason? Madigan?" Quincy remarked, "And we have no idea as to who made this machine?"
"None sir," The woman replied, "All my contacts in Romania and the Mercenary Contract Management Division in AEGIS along with a few select individuals in Poseidon and the Public Security Bureau have no idea who made that machine. There's nothing from any governments, nor in our rivals such as Arasaka, Kendachi, Militech or Gulf & Bradley."
"A machine like that just doesn't appear from nothing, Madigan." The other man sneered, watching the live footage and already planning on how to secure the machine for his own plans in taking control of GENOM and dealing with his enemies along the way.
The woman, Madigan, shot her counterpart a venomous glare, "I'd be surprised if you actually found out anything at all, Mason. What with your little fetish for the Knight Sabers."
"Enough, you are both embarassing yourselves." Quincy snapped as the screen changed to different footage, "In any case, we'll have reactions soon enough. Apparently the independent journalist Sharp Clancy has managed to get his camera in the area." A glance did indeed show a raggedy-looking man festooned with various journalistic paraphernalia talking to the camera as BU-12s were taken out.
This time, the effect of the weapon could be seen as a BU-12 was caught in mid-flight and the camera zoomed in on a melted, broken husk smoking from every possible location before focusing on the giant mecha. While the journalist was speaking, all three of the executives tuned him out before Mason spoke up again, "That...is not a laser weapon, or a particle beam."
"Quite." Madigan mused, "But what interests me is the amount of power that would have to be provided to allow such a comparatively small weapon to have such a dramatic output. Not only that, the other weapons are interesting as well; it appears the entire mech is designed to operate as a single strike unit in conjunction with that helicopter."
"The reports from Romania did indicate that the helicopter was always nearby and there was something in the report about a radar dish on one side of the aircraft...there!" Mason pointed as the camera swept up to the helicopter, showing the large missile pod on one side, but also a large disc on the other side, rotating slowly as the gun on the chin of the aircraft fired away, a rain of shell casings falling to earth in the process.
Quincy nodded, "And the report did mention something about replacement weaponry during the attack on Bacau. Mason, do you know who is deploying those BU-12s?"
Mason shifted to focus his attention on the Chairman, "The Illegal Army, a private military company under the control of one Ethan Hollister. As per your orders regarding data acquisition for the 55-C project, several units were issued to him for live product testing."
"Ah yes. The IA has proven to be one of our more favored clients for Combat Boomers, I believe." Quincy mused as the news footage received a window displaying another viewpoint, "And here comes one of those test products now. Lets see how it performs."
As the three executives watched in Quincy's office, in a briefing room halfway across the country a group of people were watching the footage before one of them, a well-built man with grey optical covers, spoke up, "Reminds me of some of the tanks that were used back during World War 3, in Africa. Only difference was that those were mobile fortresses."
"Well, this one may not be a mobile fortress, but it has enough firepower to take on an army, and win." An old man remarked as he turned to the rest of his hand-picked team of experts, "What we are looking at here is a mystery weapon with no known analogue that appeared one night and singlehandedly became a national hero to the Romanians along with that helicopter. And no-one, from Moscow to Washington to Megatokyo and Olympus, has any clue on how it was built, where it came from and for what purpose was it built."
"Could it be a prototype made by the Neo-Soviets before the war?" A woman with dark hair and piercing eyes questioned, "They were working on a number of experimental weapon systems before India and Pakistan set everything off."
"As cyborgs? Yes. But not as a full-blown mecha." The old man shook his head, "How a weapon like this or an aircraft like that support helicopter managed to avoid being discovered until know is something that every intelligence agency on the planet will be trying to find out, especially if there's the possibility of more of them. But more than that, there will be a lot of people looking to acquire it."
"Not surprising," Another man spoke up as he ran a hand through a shaggy mullet, "I doubt anyone wants that thing to remain independent or at the very least out of their hands. Not to mention there's the fact that even though it's a giant tank with a torso, it's chewing up those Boomers with those guns. I'd say that's what people are going to want to grab more than the mech."
"Indeed. For now, I want everyone to keep an ear out for any rumors concerning other weapon systems like this one. If the source of this machine is found, you can damn well bet that everyone is going to want to lay sole claim to it."
Meanwhile, back in Megatokyo in an affluent part of the city, a group of five people were watching the independent newscast in the apartment above a rather exclusive women's boutique store as the BU-12s finally were wiped out. After a few minutes of Sharp Clancy going on some ranting tangent, the sole male in the group announced in English, "I know what that is."
When the other four, all women, looked at him, the man called Crag A. Reed had a serious expression, "It comes from an obscure Japanese video game back home."
"A Japanese video game?" One of the women, a petite redhead, cocked her head as she looked at the machine, "Doesn't really look like a Gundam to me."
Craig shook his head, "No, its not a Gundam. It was a game for the Sony Playstation, where you played a mercenary pilot called a Raven, and the main weapon was machines like that."
"And you recognize it as being a machine from that game?" Another woman, with dark hair and eyes, wearing clothes that were much more expensive than the others, questioned.
He nodded, "Yeah. The design was for the slowest of the machines, one that could carry the big guns, and while it's different, I know exactly what it is." His eyes narrowed as he recognized the blue Boomer that had rocketed above a building, firing a laser down at the machine to carve a glowing line in the armor, seconds before the mysterious machine fired its weapon and obliterated it.
"It's called an Armored Core."