The spider tank mechanically trudged through the snow underneath me. I sat leaning against its main chassis as if the tank was a throne carrying me further toward conquest. Or, at least, a few more kills. The more the merrier in this situation. Even if we didn’t get first place, we were on track to take Kill Leader, which had rewards of its own.
I shifted uncomfortably, and brushed off a mound of snow from my head. The motion exposed me to the sub-zero snowstorm that’d settled between POIs. I instantly bundled back into a ball and tried to think of literally anything else than my freezing fingers. Thankfully, there was plenty to think about.
[Points: 48]
Yeah, we’d gotten a ton of them. After taking out Conjurer and Summoner, I walked around the rest of the POI and grabbed up all of the unlooted chests. For my efforts, I was rewarded quite handsomely. Aside from the Rustek AP-38, the sniper Summoner used to pelt me from a seriously long distance, I snagged a wide variety of chrome. That was what brought me and Luna here, to the current situation.
I dipped further back into the radiator emitting waves of comfort from the spider tank, and checked my bag once more. “I could totally hit my shots with the sniper.”
”Have you ever even used a sniper rifle before?” Luna sighed and the spider tank slowed for a beat. “I’m telling you, a melee bruiser is the best way to go. You’ve done well so far.”
”I… I need to snipe, though.” I took a moment to sort through my bag of looted chrome. I had a bit of everything, though it all boiled down to three main archetypes I could pursue—Bladerunner, Sniper, or Netrunner.
The last of which was only partially an option. Although I’d gotten quite a few good looking hacks from my trip around the radar base, I hadn’t gotten any good chrome. Most of the programs cost more RAM to run then I had total even with the innate buffer granted by the DarkNet Battle Royale.
I pulled out a small crate covered in scales and held it up to the light. “Regardless, I should equip this one, right?”
[Rustek Grade-III Subdermal Armor - 40 Neural Load]
It was graded for rifle rounds, so I should have a massive jump in survivability… at least, assuming no one had crazy weapons. I somehow doubted the other Operators would all be running basic rifles. There were all sorts of wacky weapons out there. Hell, my sword alone would invalidate subdermal armor.
The real issue was the Neural Load. We were given a generous 80 points to work with at the start of the battle royale. Everyone started at the same baseline, though there were ways to up it. I hadn’t run into any of that, so I was still at 80. Equipping it would eliminate half my chrome capacity.
”Probably. It’d be a safe bet.” Luna shrugged. “It’s ultimately up to you, Shiro.”
”I know.” I eyed the subdermal armor. Honestly, this would be my only chance to use the stuff. In meatspace, real high-grade subdermal armor needed large frames to sustain and hold it up. I was in the subset that wouldn’t be able to get further than armor rated for pistols unless I custom made and innovated a brand new way of doing subdermal armor.
Still, that wasn’t a reason to commit. Not when I had other options that could be just as good. Was sacrificing survivability worth it, though?
[ThunderGod Greaves - Raijin R&D-738109 - 50 Neural Load]
The ThunderGod Greaves were a set of leg enhancements. Specifically, they were replacements for hip flexors, calves, and glutes. Basically, they’d make me run quicker. And substantially at that. It’d be like having Flashstep on draw whenever I wanted from the way Luna made them out.
Strength didn’t matter with the monomolecular blade, but speed certainly did. Going all in on speed would let me close the gap and cut my opponents in half before they could even react.
It’s just that, well, I really wanted to snipe. Not only would it fulfill a request objective, but it’d also be safer. I had a feeling melee would fall off once the node started closing in and everyone was forced into one area. Positioning would become incredibly important, and it was much harder to hold positioning with a melee weapon then a sniper.
[Sentinel Vantage-8 Cyberoptics - 30 Neural Load]
It was a bit cheaper than my actual eye in the real world, which was… kind of sad? My eye was 21 for just one, while this was 30 for two eyes. Maybe throwing every feature I could think of into one eye instead of specializing wasn’t a great idea? I’d have to rethink my chrome setup when I got back out of here. Especially if we were heading across country borders to find Kaynis.
Anyway, the Vantage-8 would give me a bullet drop indicator… yeah. I didn’t have to know how to snipe with that helping me out. ‘Course, if I did know how, it’d only make me even stronger. I’d take what I could get, though.
How did this thing even work? Maybe in real life I could jack into a gun and go through that? The gun would have to be specially built, though. Or maybe the eye held a catalog of conditions and different weapons? Not too sure. Everything in the DNBR was based on real tech, though, so…
“Maybe I take the eyes and legs? Totally skip the armor?” That way I could have the best of both worlds. With the legs, I wouldn’t be able to take the subdermal armor anyway. And there was no telling how useful that’d actually be here.
“Are you really dead set on sniping?” Luna asked. “If so, maybe just do the optics for now, and make a decision later. The AP-38 isn’t a super powerful sniper to begin with.”
”I know… an anti-material rifle would’ve been really nice.” Especially with how many people were likely chromed up by now. Even if I hit my shots with the Rustek AP-38, it might not do any damage. Sure would’ve been nice to get any other weapon than shotguns and pistols back at the radar station.
The main issue with slotting in the eyes and legs was the legs, actually. I wasn’t sure how the loot system worked, but it was similar to the Warhost’s Unstoppable Saber. It was a cut above the rest. It was cool, but I frankly didn’t have the brain space to capitalize on them.
Sure, Dexterity could help quite a bit. That’d be forcing me to have a gun out at all times if I wanted to use the ThunderGod Greaves, though. Otherwise, I’d have to find specialized speedware chrome to get the most effect. It just wasn’t very achievable at the moment.
“We’re doing the eyes.” I grabbed the two cyberoptics and held them up to my face. After a moment, a system prompt popped up.
[Equip?]
“Chek.” My vision instantly blanked out, and discomfort washed over me. It faded after a moment, and my vision snapped back. This time, it was far clearer than what I’d been using so far. I could actually see a bit through the snowstorm if I focused hard enough. The real benefits wouldn’t come till I pointed a sniper at someone, though.
I wish it was that easy in real life. They really simplified chrome here. I didn’t have to worry about my body rejections the chrome, glitching, or even the initial pain of the installation. With just one click, it was done.
A shiver went through me, and I tucked back into the warm chassis of the spider tank. Up ahead of me, lights appeared through the dense snowstorm. The bright lights made a dense shadow rising up from behind even more prevalent. My attention instantly turned away from the chrome, and locked back onto the matter at hand. “Are we here?”
“Should be.” Five points deducted, and map data opened up across the place. There wasn’t any combatant positional data since it didn’t come from a radar console, but it was enough to get the lay of the land.
[Research Base Main Airfield]
[Drastovosky Research Base, Northern Sovet]
An airfield? I checked the rest of the map, and tried to get an idea of where we were. We’d moved far to the north at some point, and were just shy of a massive mountain standing in the middle of the snowfield. Inside the mountain should be the main research base. The airfield stretched between us and the base.
I eyed the topographical map, and pointed toward a certain spot. “Let’s head there, and get posted up. We can figure out what we’re doing after that.”
”Okay.” The spider tank relentlessly trudged forward toward the airfield.
— — —
Saint checked the kill feeds, and refocused back on the fight at hand. Shiro went off to loot, so he couldn’t just keep following her around. He had a show to run, and people’s attention spans were incredibly short these days.
The camera adjusted slightly, allowing the wider battlefield to be seen. Reverent, a giant in the mercenary field, walked down the halls of a research laboratory in a Rustek Experimental Balshy Suit. It was like power armor, but lacked the defensive properties of armor and went all in on destructive power. It relied more on the user’s chrome to stay alive than external protections.
A missile pod strapped to his shoulder popped open, and a small missile launched out. The man clad in the metal frame suit staggered backward with the sheer force of the backblast.
Boom!
The room at the far end of the hall erupted into a fireball. Reverent made a cross sign of his chest, and continued moving without a second thought.
[Reverent > BornForThis]
| DarkRun: That isn’t even fair
| Distinguished Gentleman: This guy’s going to be a menace later
| Cyberpunk_Blue: Shadowshot should’ve put him down.
| ShadoWalk: Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!
Saint flicked the camera back out to a satellite image of the entire map, and shook his head. “Luck is also a form of skill. They should've found the suite first if they didn’t want to be wiped out.”
| DarkRun: Isn’t this just going to be boring at this rate?
“Not necessarily. First off, let’s not forget the terrain. The suit’s going to be a hindrance anywhere else.” Saint highlighted the no man’s lands between POIs. Most of them were empty snowfields or snow-coated forests. “And also, this is just one weapon. We’ve already seen some crazy shit, chat. Let’s not forget Nightshade’s monomolecular blade, or Shadowshot’s compressed shadow rifle.”
| Distinguished Gentleman: Him getting the shadow rifle is absurd
”Yeah, well…” Saint had nothing to say to that. It was a dumb stroke of luck to the point he suspected someone pulled some strings in Monarch.
| Conjurer: Hope they wipe the floor with Nightshade and Moonfall
| DarkRun: lol, sore loser?
| Cyberpunk_Blue: You’re lucky she let you even live to see another day
”Still with us?” Saint smirked and shook his head. He thought Luna flatlined both of them. “Don’t forget our deal!”
| Conjurer: yeah yeah. I’ll send it shortly.
Saint flicked to a new contestant just in time to watch him get his head cut off by a wash of black pixels. The man’s avatar glitched out and started to seize rapidly before melting out of the server entirely.
[ 100 Contestants Remaining ]
[ Node Failure Imminent]
A global announcement broke out, and the map on one of his screens started to flash an ominous black. A ring appeared around the edges, and slowly started to close into the research base. Beyond the ring lay the uncontested masses of rogue AI’s pressing into the DarkNet server.
“Ah, the Node’s financially closing.” Saint pulled the map up onto the stream. “Things are about to get crazy.”