Losing all of his hope to meet any of his so-called friends, Wulfus stretched out his arm to grab a bottle of beer from the six pack, still cold due to a technology that allowed the material to keep itself thermally isolated from the environment, effectively so. As he was about to open the cap with a bitter look on his face, the large console screen flashed a large
"INTRUDER ALERT" window, along with a camera catching a certain wolf more or less "breaching" into his living quarters; his primary passion being inventing, Wulfus had set up quite a security clearance that contained proximity sensors, panels that would detect any anomalous electromagnetic activity which could possibly harm his lab entirely, thermal sensors, trip lasers and even pressure pads here and there. All these were wired, among other things, to the console and if one of this plenitude of alarms would be set off, the plethora of cameras covering most of his living quarters, his lab and even the street would fire up specifically where the anomaly was detected. This time, it was the entrance of his quarters all the way through the lab entrance; although startled by alert, he soon made a psychological check and scanned the live feed with great enthusiasm, convinced that someone had pity on him and showed up. Identifying that the man trying to punch in the code into the keypad was the most unlikely guest to appear, a Japanese gentleman he once met when Ray tagged him along in an experience trip there; Wulfus actually spent most of the time there and teach the wolf the English language, going as far as to buying him books to study since he proved to be quite a serious student. Meeting Sylas was a rather interesting encounter, since he pretty much defended him and the gang from some cocky locals picking up on western travelers like themselves.
And now he was here, Wulfus froze in place when the wolf's molten gold eyes met with his own green ones, a wide grin stuck on the hybrid's snout. He felt a bit too awkward to say anything at first, but once the wolf broke the ice with a greeting, Wulfus sprung up to his feet and immediately bowed down. Once he got back up from the rather-too-deep bow and shook hands with the wolf, he immediately opened up.
"Bloody 'ell, Sylas, it has been way too long, man!" he exclaimed, inviting the wolf to step in further in his astonishing laboratory filled with tools, apparatuses, working benches, robotic arms dangling from the ceiling, quite a peculiar meeting place. The "concentration" of scientific tech grew as one would advance into the hall, being divided at one point through a little flight of stairs leading to a platform where most of the heavy and high-end utilities, tech and tools were stowed away, along with three massive cylinders covered with white blankets. Having but one seat in the whole damn place, Wulfus had to fetch a placeholder for Sylas to sit on, namely, a tool trolley the hybrid pulled next to his own chair; after he relieved the guest of his bags and safely placed them on a bench near the monstrous console, he seated the wolf on the trolley, which groaned and clacked loudly in protest.
"Don't worry, these things are designed to hold half a ton of tools, so it's safe for a person to-" the trolley emitted a loud, metallic bang as one of the drawers crashed on the floor, scattering a number of bolts and nuts on the floor which quickly rolled under everything. Wulfus raised his hands and stated with confidence
"Now it's safe!" and started chuckling. He grabbed a second beer from the six pack and shoved it in the wolf's grasp.
"I know, it's not the best place to arrange a supposed reunion, which has failed anyway... Ray said he was still working at his office, Mia will not answer her phone no matter what and my sister is most likely out with some of her friends or something like that. But, hey, I'm glad that you, out of all people, showed up! I'm not sure how you ended up in Chicago, but I am really glad you did, not to mention you made it just in time to celebrate my latest failure." he ended bitterly, opening up his bottle of beer. He forcefully cheered with Sylas and gulped down one quarter of the bottle, enough to render him a little tipsy. He raised his snout towards the wolf and smiled weakly.
"So, how have you
been, then? Come on, show me how good you are with English now."Somewhere else, in a much less relaxed atmosphere. the only sound accompanying a certain guest was the ball pen tip scratching against the surface of the paper as it left a thin blue mark shaping his familiar signature. The fingertips of his hands slid the signed paper away only to reveal the next one beneath and since he had already agreed to lay down and sign them all, he could only scribble his name over and over again, anticipating the end of this ordeal that never seemed to arrive. At first, he would concentrate on each paper, skim a bit through it and hope that it was the last one, yet, he was proven wrong every time; at some point, everything became mechanical, his mind completely disconnecting from the issues as his hands entered in an automatic, complex reflex of his muscles. He realized it was over only when he nearly signed the damn table too, that would have been a terrible mistake which could have cost his life. The lion picked up the tonne of contracts and flicked through each and every of them, searching for any paper that could have slipped past unnoticed; as he did so, the guest turned his head away from the lion to stare off through the window, the air lifting some of the tense state outside, yet, something much more ominous was lurking out there in the wild, he felt. A pair of fingers snapped him out of his brief trance, his attention turning to the Shiba and the tanuki returning to the room; the female, to her dismay, picked up the papers and slid them back in the briefcase, but before she would seal it shut and send it away, she pulled out a small metal box which she placed on the desk. A small item that made the guest's inside twist in disgust, fear and dread; while he knew exactly what was in there, he also knew he will not be able to tell what is in there. Just then the lion finished whispering some directives to the Shiba, the loyal guard nodded and flicked a few gestures to a third person outside the room and out of the guest's line of sight. The door went shut once more, leaving the three men alone in the room.
It was that moment again. He knew he dreaded this moment for some reason he did not understand, or remember why; the lion seated himself right next to the guest, while the guard picked up the box and brought it closer. He broken open the seal and popped it open just as he started to work with the contents of the metallic box, the lion drew his guest's attention to him.
"The instructions are clear enough, I hope, but I will repeat them. You can never be too sure." the dog finished assembling the small apparatus which the guest easily identified to be a Somers intravenous auto-injector, whose reservoir was now being loaded with an unmarked, colorless serum.
"You are to return to your work as usual and just wait, be it three weeks, three months... three years. Neither me, or my men, will contact you, we cannot risk compromising your affiliation with us. But once that time span had passed, you will be relieved of any pain and torment your life might be. You will see. Until then, we still need to take the last few droplets of hell so we can cherish the eternal peace that awaits us." The guard then grabbed the guest's left arm firm enough to keep him in place, but not strong enough to hurt or discomfort him too much; he revealed his furred arm underneath the suit and shirt and started searching for a viable vein to puncture with the help of a blue lantern which mapped out the trajectory of the veins underneath the skin, ignoring the fur or any other tissue covering them. When the guest felt a trickle of sweat run down his temple, he decided to finally act and cover his arm with his left hand, surprising both the lion and the guard.
"I will do it myself." he said boldly, avoiding any eye contact. Astonished by this change of heart, the guard looked up at the lion to receive a confirmation or a denial; his boss nodded with a thin smile, thus leaving the guard to handle the injector to the guest. But not without showing the bold guest that if he tried any sudden move, he will sever his hand off, just by grabbing the tsuka of his katana. The guest grabbed the injector off the table and gave it a brief glance, a glance that nearly gave away his intention to end this humiliation here, suck some air in the reservoir and send them to his own heart; he'd suddenly die in the tram taking him to work, or maybe he'd drop dead in his own office or home. But was he a coward enough to take himself out like this, without fighting back?
"No" he thought
"I can still do something about this. I need time. Rest. Help.". Having nothing else to say, he rammed the injector against his forearm with a surgical precision, unloading the contents of the reservoir into his venous system; before he could stand up and walk away, his vision faded out into pitch black, his ears went deaf, his senses numb, his memory and cognition reduced to the capacity of creating dreams. His comatose body slid back into the chair and settled itself in place, the Shiba then quickly assessed his vitals and confirmed he was still alive; once again, he will not remember any important detail of this meeting, keeping him physically intact. The lion now shifted his face into a frown, being rather surprised of this gesture; he didn't know if he should take this event seriously, a threat maybe, or it was just a sort of symbolic act. This trivial matter did not concern him at the moment, considering he had much more important issues to focus on, so he pushed himself up and away from the table and headed towards the exit, the guard following him closely. As he stepped out, a couple of scurried inside to recover the guest and prepare to safely send him home.
The corridor heading towards the elevator was shrouded in a thick, grey atmosphere, as there was barely any light coming in. As the lion and his guard were walking down the hall, the latter quickly tapped his rather small ear to catch a sit-rep coming through the earpiece embed in his internal ear; as soon as he understood the gist of the message, he tapped the lion's shoulder to have his attention:
"Our squads are prepared to storm the Federal Reserve Bank, the Harris Bank and Northern Trust" he claimed with a husky tone bearing an exotic accent.
"Sources indicate that one of these might contain a Helyx Alpha drive, if not, our last resort plan is to triangulate a central HQ tied with these banks that would contain a high-priority vault."The lion chuckled lightly, glancing briefly over his shoulder
"So, you tell me that you can do all of these in one night? With these goons for hire working on the field?" He asked in disbelief, but the guard was unshaken by his superior's belittlement.
"Those goons are only capable enough to access the banks, rummage for info and get out. As for actually retrieving the drives, I'll send him" he stated, pointing with a thumb just over his own shoulder and at half-way distance between the meeting room and the elevator door. As soon as this third person was mention, he froze into place and merged with the darkness, so to make his presence but an illusion. The guard, though, knew him too well to fall for this trick anymore.
"And if we have to pinpoint a different vault, I will take over the operation and go in myself with him."His superior hummed as he punched in an access code into the command panel right next to the lift doors and called the elevator back up.
"Why go in yourself? Don't you trust him enough to do this job alone? Of course not. Is it a two-man job? You can't know that yet. Maybe you still can't trust him, I feel. Well, worry not: let this task be his opportunity to convince you he is a trustworthy operator. I need you at my side for the following days." The guard and the lion entered the elevator and just as the metallic doors slid close, the Shiba took a closer, frowned glance at the corridor, only to spot a pair of red dots staring back at him with defiance. The guard growled lowly and bared his teeth just enough to send a discreet and strong message to the one hiding in the darkness
"Kuso kurae."Over at the central Harris Bank of Chicago, one certain janitor was finally ending his interminable shift and sign off. He was sitting on a stool in the changing room, gawping at his wristwatch in silence and as soon the annoying, beeping alarm went off, he stood up, killed off the alarm and headed towards one of the lockers. The raccoon rummaged at one of the lockers until he pulled out a duffel bag heavy with items that clung together and filled the small room with metallic sounds; he zipped the bag open and found a high-performance, near-silent drilling machine, some wires and a smart tablet. Knowing exactly what he had to do, he pulled the drill out and with no second to spare, he started to carve a hole on a certain wall which had to small dots marked with permanent marker; as soon as the tip of the drill pushed through final millimeters of fake wall, he shifted to the other dot and repeated the process, followed by sliding in the pair of wires in each hole until his ears picked a soft clicking nose at the other side of the wall, telling him that the wires had their magnetic couples attach to some hidden cables. He connected the other ends into the tablet and booted the hijacked software; all he had to do now was to wait until the next alarm of his wristwatch go off so he could release the electromagnetic pulse and fry straight through the cables. As soon as the firs beep blasted, his index pushed against the screen and with a muffled zap, the cables fried to crisp; hopefully, the other four men he was working with got the synchronization right. This was confirmed by a security officer watching over an immense console with most camera feeds displayed on the whole screen; as soon as his own alarm went off, he hijacked the console and inserted a recorded loop over the feeds and all of the proximity, pressure, temperature and trip sensors were cut off from any source of power, yet, they were tagged as "On-line" on the console screen.
"Cut." Muttered the security officer into an earpiece, the signal for the infiltration team to move in. Given the confirmation, seven men atop an adjacent, taller skyscraper, clad in black tactical suits comprised of tactical vests, spec ops overalls, recon boots, balaclavas fitted with eye pieces, took a small leap off the southern edge of the roof and rappelled down to a conveniently misplaced automatic window cleaning scaffolding almost at the same level with the roof of the Harris Bank of Chicago. All seven men safely landed on the scaffolding and checked the windows in front of them, hoping that the whole floor was empty; towards their relief, no one saw them slide down the building and arrive at the scaffolding. They all turned around in unison and took a good look over the rather frightening view just below their feet. The bravest of the team grabbed his rope, took a couple steps back and with the most amount of momentum his body could generate, he took a powerful leap off the structure and let his whole body be taken away by gravity; a few moments of weightlessness ensued while clearing a small bit of distance between the buildings, but to reach the other side, he had to pull a cord and release the wingsuit that would give his body some more air time before coming in contact with the roof of the bank. Once there, he had to retract his suit and land on the roof with a couple of rolls to attenuate the landing shock. After he made sure he was still in one piece, he quickly tied the rope he carried with him on a pole nearby and create a rudimentary zip-line for the rest of the team. One after another, the men leaped and latched unto the rope with hang buckles, crossed the distance between the buildings and safely land on the roof. After they looped the rope and cast it aside, the men advanced between the ventilation fans, cooling units and pipes, underneath the helipad and finally reaching the trapdoors leading to maintenance shafts. One of them pulled out a breaching charge and snug it tight just at the locks holding the trap in place, while another primed the explosive, cleared the area for safety and detonate; the blast was small enough not to light up the whole roof, but powerful enough to traumatize the metals holding the trap in place and offer free access to the maintenance shafts. Only five men dropped down, leaving two to watch their six. One knelt down and reached for a small pad device and monitored the progress of the team by cycling through the built-in cameras in the eye pieces, as the other one was pacing around with one hand grabbing the belt keeping his waist pouches safe and snug, while the other rested on the handle of a stun gun resting in it's harness on his right thigh. Scanning his surroundings and every possible corner, he considered that security was an unnecessary thing, since they made sure no one was to see them arrive, snatch and leave.
Completely unaware of any of these unfolding plots, Wulfus listened patiently to Sylas's story, chugging down one beer and over a half; the light fur on his cheeks did not do a very good job at hiding away the drunken blush, neither was his rather reddish gaze doing him any service. Once Sylas was finished, Wulfus stood silent for a few moments and suddenly chuckled, almost out of context. The folf was handling the beer bottle around, giving it a miserable look.
"Ya know" he lamely started
"I never told you why I invited you here." Although it seemed completely out of the blue, Wulfus definitely felt the need to let go of the anchor that was drowning his heart in sorrow and Sylas was unfortunate enough to be his company.
"There's been this... hm, competition-kind-like-thing, ya see. A design contest, if you - hm - will. There's this big, BIG Pee Em See running most of the West Coast security and with abroad activity, Dragon Super Star Troops and- wait. No. D-Dragon. Star. Echelon. Yeah. 'N they needed a new body armor design, a fresh kind-of-thing from anyone who's not engineering in their company. So, anyone could join, even small-time guys like me. And, after I studied real hard about their general activities, I thought they'd need, like, a body armor for scouts, recon - yaknow, sneaky kind of people. They have a lot of heavy-duty armors, some really basic stuff, experimental mech-like tank-thing. Heck, they have exoskeletons lined with artificial muscles that makes you stronger tenfold! But no recon... uh, things!" Wulfus then burped, moment in which he decided to stand up and walk around as he continued on with his (a bit incoherent) lament, gesticulating with his free hand and nearly spilling his beer with the other.
"So, I started to study and refresh my physics notions... with regards to, like, light spectrum, light absorption and reflection and the likes. I've made suits before, so I basically know how to make your standard body armor, but this... this was no ordinary body armor. Lined with a thin exoskeleton that enhances the user's entire skeletal muscle system hidden under an outer, thin layer of thermal and electrical insulant which is then covered with a thicker payer of buckypaper! You know, carbon nanotube aggregates, a tough-as-shit composite material; I wanted to add some graphene plating, but you'd get instantly electrocuted by anything, not to mention it would have costed me a fortune to procure. Oh, and, I've found this funky pattern to layer the buckypaper in which, not only it protects you from bullets, but it deflects them! I'm not shitting you, I made an armor that stops bullets and drops them on the ground! Not to mention that you can take a severe beating from a street gang and you'd still be able to walk it off with your insides intact!
Now for the best parts: it enhances one's strength roughly fourfold, meaning you can lift stupendous weights, jump up to five meters when standing in place and cover large distances with enough momentum; the strength distributed in one's legs can raise one's average speed up to one-twenty kilometers per hour, or seventy-four miles per hour if you're American. So, yes, it's kind-of-a hit'n'run design, not a tank that can take limitless amounts of punishment, I mean, we are talking about a covert ops body armor-suit-thing. Also, with the help of some fine lining between the artificial exoskeletal muscles and the helmet movement-detection systems, the suit can increase the speed of one's reflexes once it has become used with one's general behavior and tendencies and help react to things with greater efficiency. It doesn't force your body to dodge things, it's not an A.I. we are talking about, but it does give you that WHUMPH you need if you dodge a rocket you normally couldn't have with the limitations of your body. It may feel heavy on one when you just wear it, but once you fire it up, the exoskeleton will inflate with some good hydraulic liquids resembling a blood-like tissue that keeps the muscles active and constantly charged. With all those, it's still very flexible and all, but I still have problems with energy consumption and distribution; yes, using the suit without abusing it too much will mechanically recharge the batteries stowed in the chest and back plates to some extent, but you'd still need to get back to base and recharge. It lasts for about twenty-four hours of moderate usage before it shuts down.
Also, the suit allows tactical vests and other harnesses with great ease, I even placed some clamp-type connective modules on the hips and the back part of the suit so you can stow away rifles, pistols, heck, swords and knives without needing a sheath or a sling for them! In fact, you know what..." thus, Wulfus invited Sylas to follow him with a gesture of a hand, taking him towards the elevated platform where the three cylinders were lined up. The folf barely made it up the stairs without toppling over and as soon as Sylas had made his way up there through all of the crates, components and assmbly robots, the engineer pulled the white cover off one of the cylinders, only to reveal a sight out of this world: the very suit the folf was describing.
The suit itself was of matte dark grey with a very light inclination towards blue, as it was observable on the portions lit up by the white neon lights above. Although it had the aspect of a plated body armor, the texture of the material clearly told otherwise; there were visible crevices between the torso piece and the limbs pieces, where a muscle-like structure would connect the two components together, so to not compromise flexibility. The entire aspect and style of the suit was definitely inspired from some work of science fiction, maybe even from videogames The shoulder, arm and forearm were fleshed out by the material, all held together with the internal exoskeletal layer; the hand itself was complex in shape, offering full mobility of the fingers. The knees and elbows were protected by protective caps made of the very same material, perfectly incorporated into the suit itself so t would not stand out as obvious targets; also, there was a tail sheath made of the same material as the other limb and torso pieces for universal usage. The helmet had an interesting build, having an elongated shape to fit a longer canine snout in it; the mandible was separated from the rest of the structure, hinting that it may be possibly to retract the upper part off. Another characteristic of the helmet was that it had no visor, no slit hole, no transparent component to look through.
(Reference) Wulfus took gawped at his own creation with regret, taking another healthy gulp of beer afterwards.
"Beautiful, isn't it? Took me five months of non-stop work. Heck, I moved here, as you can see. I wanted to deliver a finished product, not an useless sculpture. I mean, it's got proximity sensors: the moment your suit detects another person disrupting the light, undetectable electromagnetic field it creates, you will be alerted of that guy's presence AND it will point you to where he is! The helmet has multiple cameras embed into that hard material to simulate the world around you, but adding visual enhancements such as night vision, thermal vision, long range scanning; in fact, the helmet is kind of a computer, it's made so that you can talk with your squad, view a YouTube video while sneaking from one corner to another, all in the while you can monitor the integrity of your suit and yourself!" Now that he was talking about his creation as if it were his child, Wulfus had seemingly lost some of the alcoholic buzz, yet, he could barely keep his balance, even if he was leaning against the railing behind him.
"And guess what! Those motherfuckers refused it. They picked another exoskeleton design made by one of the C.E.O.'s grandson, a rudimentary and utterly crude thing it was. Plus, they wouldn't want to give away any money to a skinny, shady freelance." he said with a bitter taste on his tongue.
"So, that's what we celebrate today. The failure I had yesterday. Cheers, to a road of success and everything implicated... in such things!" He raised his beer and immediately downed the rest of it's contents; he settled the empty bottle on a keyboard desk just next to him and returned to gawping upon the glass cylinder. Out of an impulse, he opened it up with the press of a button, exposing the suit to the exterior; the helmet was staring down right at Sylas, as if it had become suddenly interested in this guest. Of course, the suit was an inanimate thing, yet, something about it gave it life. Wulfus traced a line down the forearm of the suit, feeling the surprisingly smooth texture under his finger buds.
"I'll get another beer." he muttered as he turned around and accidentally toppling the empty beer bottle on the ground, which rolled off the platform and right under some crates.
"Faen i helvete!" he exclaimed with frustration. By the time he returned with a new bottle, he observed that Sylas had some sort of admiration for the invention too, even though the folf only covered about 30% of what it could do; the sight by itself maybe was enough to impress the wolf, since he had grown in a traditionalist village in central Japan. Charmed by the moment, the engineer walked up to the wolf and patted his shoulder with a rather unnecessary force, his breath reeking with alcohol.
"Those motherfuckers didn't even consider putting it on for a test run. I think that model is actually your size, I reckon. Say... wanna try it out? Come oooooon, we both want it! I need to document some firsthand experience for it, you get to run around with the thing. Maybe I'll sell this suit elsewhere; sure, I'll get no money or copyright for it, but it's better than having my hand stuck up my ass. There should be a diagram there, showing you how to put it on... it's made so that everyone can put it on, even the retard next door with diaper issues! Or maybe not. Oh, and, once it's on, you hafta switch that large... knob articulation thing on the left of your head and you should be set. Careful, not the one on the right, that one opens your helmet!"And indeed, there laid a diagram showing how the external components would clip off by maneuvering the connecting buttons in a certain order, buttons that were scattered on the chest, abdomen, back, shoulder, arms, forearms, hands, thigs, calves, boots and finally the tail sheath. The exoskeleton was basically an overall held together with a few more clasps and buttons; the whole process would be a bit tiresome at first, but by the way the whole process was ordered, it would become an easy routine. The suit did have some weight to it, the helmet was actually quite heavy. But the synargy that was about to come would definitely defeat theses apparent imperfections.
Member
Zamokra41
A pretty blade, but hopefully, it will never serve its main purpose.
