Crysis: The Guardian Prophecy

Alcatraz exited the bar, and after entering a secluded alleyway he contacted Thermal Spark.

“Yo,” The playcolt billionaire answered.

“Spark, it’s Alcatraz. I think know what they want with your prototype,” Alcatraz began, speaking in his normal voice.

“Okay. I was about to contact you and send you the location where your makeshift tracker stopped moving. You first.”

“You said over ten-k units were rogue, right?”

“Yeah?”

“But they all have receivers to shut authorized units down in a pinch, right?”

“Keep going.”

Alcatraz explained his theory involving CELL and the missing units, and the multiple ways they could take control of Equestria.

“If they reverse-engineer that prototype,” He summarized. “CELL, or whoever their benefactor is, can overthrow the Equestrian government and install one extremely friendly to them, maybe even a puppet government. And even if no revolutionary intent is present, they can still essentially create a shadow army.”

“Shit, this is heavy. Look, I’ll get in touch with Twilight Sparkle, she’s the marefriend I mentioned earlier.”

“I know her, actually. But I’d bet a hundred bits she’d tell the Princesses, and they’d probably view it as a marketing ploy. And without any proof of this kind of plan, it’s conjecture that wouldn’t justify the kind of Patriot Act-style privacy invasion they’d have to pull in the name of ‘national security’.”

“Well I’m not just gonna leave her and her friends vulnerable if I can help it!”

“Look, just tell her to keep it on the down-low, okay? Send some mercs if you want.”

“I’m on it. I’ll send you the coordinates to your hillbilly tracker… Now.”

A waypoint appeared on his HUD.

“That’s too far to go on foot. I need a ride.”

“Uhhh…” Some typing could be heard in the background. “Yeah. I’ll send a chopper now. A black MH-50 is headed your way, it’ll be there in two minutes. It’s got some equipment onboard too if you need any.”

“Got it. Out.”

Alcatraz walked to a plaza and waited.

“What’s an MH-50?”

“It’s the multi-mission variant of the AH-50 Sparrowhawk attack chopper,” He answered, using his Jensen voice again.

“Um, you might not know this, but I’m not entirely familiar with modern technology; I stopped trying to keep up with technological advances sixty years ago; watching a city from an enchanted gemstone for so long and trying to keep up with current events just got too bloody tedious. Your suit has a library, I’ll just use that.” A brief pause. “Ah, so that’s what it is. A ‘rotary-wing aircraft’. Doesn’t sound very safe.”

“Relax, I’ve been in plenty of helicopters before. They’re plenty safe.”

After a couple minutes, the black helicopter neared, and it landed in the plaza. Alcatraz climbed in the passenger compartment. Only one side was open, the other had the door closed. On the inside of that door was a wall of weapons.

“Oh, good. They’ve all got gray furniture.”

“Why is gray so important on your weapons?”

“Because compared to tan or olive drab, it fits the urban setting better. But more importantly, it matches my Nanosuit 2. And this disguise.”

He took a SCARAB and attached a reflex sight, grenade launcher, and grabbed a silencer and laser sight to put on later if he needed them. After grabbing several hundred rounds of ammo, he collapsed the stock and slid it onto his back, under his black trenchcoat.

So I’ve got an M12 Nova, an AY69, a SCARAB, some frags, some C4, and my knife. That’ll do.

“This is as close as I’ll get; nowhere closer for me to land.”

The helicopter descended, and its skids touched down on the dirt. Alcatraz leapt out and eyed his surroundings. It looked like a dock, and not a nice one either. It was run-down, and most of the boats were of a similar condition.

Dockhands, and some dockhooves, tended to the boats and shacks. “Impoverished paupers” were the words that described them best in Alcatraz’ mind.

As he approached, he noticed a few humans who stood out. They sounded and acted like CELL contractors, but they were in plain clothes. They had a mix of black K-VOLTs and M12 Novae, all of them carrying knives.

Casually, Alcatraz strolled towards the quays and headed towards his objective marker, which indicated a boathouse. He really liked having a HUD without a helmet, because it made this kind of undercover work easier. Plus, he looked like a badass in his disguise, at least in his opinion.

Strolling by the mercs, he nodded at them. “Gentlemen.” He pulled out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, then lit it.

“Sorry bud, but there’s no access past this point,” A burly African-American man told him.

“You and what army, roid monkey?” He said casually, taking off his sunglasses and slipping them into his pocket.

After that, everything went by fast. The man raised his Nova, only for Alcatraz to rip it from his hand and pistol-whip him with it. He dropped the gun and drew his AY-69, then fired a few bursts as he ran to cover.

“This Drab five, requesting immediate QRF, over!”

“QRF inbound. Codename ‘Razor’ is inbound from the boathouse.”

“You’re sending a na-” A 9mm Parabellum round passed through his skull, cutting him off.

“Sorry, did I interrupt your thoughts?” Alcatraz reloaded the weapon and peeked out to see if this ‘Razor’ was coming.

He was, and he uncloaked behind him, roundhouse kicking him into the water.

Alcatraz swam up for a breath, only to see Razor leap into the water. The nanosuited operative drew a knife and attempted to shove it into Alcatraz. He grabbed the man’s arm in mid-thrust, and held it there, using all his might. With their free hands, they began pummeling each other mercilessly.

Alcatraz knew he wouldn’t last long in an underwater fight, not without his helmet. He didn’t need to breathe yet, but he expected that need to arrive soon. Of course, he was so focused on defending himself that he didn’t have time to worry.

A knee to his groin made Alcatraz flinch despite his codpiece and suit softening the blow. That gave Razor the opportunity to shove the knife into his target’s chest, and then follow up with another stab to the abdomen. Blood trailed from the wounds, clouding the water near them, but the ex-marine continued to fight. With his opponent’s guard down, he was able to unleash a flurry of blows to his helmet, the suit’s power mode allowing him to crack the visor. In the reflection of his visor, a silhouette appeared, one that seemed to frighten the contractor. His eyes went wide, and he tried to swim away to no avail, engaging his own suit’s power mode.

The blood from Alcatraz’ wounds had attracted a massive great white shark.

***

Ruby Gaze was by no means a coward. That said, if she had a body she’d be quivering in fear about now. She was stuck piggybacking on a human’s body, and her host was drowning while fighting a highly-trained opponent. And now a shark was coming.

If she’d realized Alcatraz had been stabbed twice, and it was his blood drawing the predator near, she would’ve had a heart attack.

Still, she could feel confidence on her host’s part, that he was formulating a plan. Given that she was in his suit, which was part of him, she could get these sorts of intuitions about him. Vague, but still useful.

She began calculating how long before the shark reached them at its current velocity. Twenty seconds.

How long have we been underwater anyways?

***

As soon as he saw the shark coming for them, Alcatraz smiled, showing his teeth to his attacker. He spun him around, and continued clobbering him. He kept pounding the operator until the shark was close enough. At that point, he curled his legs up and kicked the CELL nanotrooper towards it.

The shark bit down on him, drawing blood. After devouring the entire upper half of the man, leaving his legs alone, the beast turned to the bleeding Alcatraz.
He punched the beast in the nose, but in its feeding frenzy it was undeterred. It bit his right arm, which had been exposed as the sleeve rolled up during the fight.

Alcatraz pulled out a frag grenade with his left hand and pulled the pin with his teeth. He shoved it into the shark’s gullet and activated his suit’s power mode to swim away.

As he neared land, the shark exploded, and the shockwave sent him straight into the concrete wall. He climbed up and out, his clothes dripping wet.

Shaking off his shirt, he noticed the points where he’d been stabbed. The artificial muscle had already regrown. The same happened to his arm; which actually healed before his eyes.

Looking at the clock on his HUD, he realized how long he’d been underwater.

“Six minutes on one breath of air.” He took a deep breath to see if it felt good, like it usually did after a long period without oxygen or a good workout. Or in this case, both. It did, but not anywhere near as good as it should’ve felt.

His mind drifted back to fighting near Wall Street over a month earlier. And then to the deep-layer scan that was run on his suit immediately after. All the damaged organs the suit had repaired, no, replaced.

While he’d known for a long while that his suit was part of him, he never grasped that it altered parts of him. He’d thought of himself as a human with prosthetics until then, really a just normal person stuck in a supersuit.

He rubbed his eyes, only to feel cold metal fingertips touch them. The only part of him not bound to the suit was his head; he could remove his helmet, but nothing else. He was trapped in this suit forever.

“I’m not a human anymore, am I?” Alcatraz lamented. He found a safe spot and sat down, leaning against the wall.

“I know the feel. It was hard, grasping that I’d been put into a sort of gem. Gifted with eternal life, but imprisoned without a body. It was fine when I was with Tau, but imprisoned in the Alicorn’s Heart in the Undercity I… I lost my mind for a while.”

“At least I'm in good company,” He responded sincerely.

He noticed how quickly his clothes had dried, and stood up. He headed to the bodies of the guards he’d killed earlier, and searched them. In one of their pockets, he found an access card. Running his thumb over it, his N2 scanned it for any barcode or magnetic strip, or some method of validation. He found it had one, which cleared him to access most of the facility. Checking the others’ keycards revealed it used a universal clearance code and a name, rather than a code that identified each user. It was an anonymous card, making it practical for contractors to borrow one if they lost their own. So he took the card and pocketed it.

“Only lost my AY69. I’ll make it,” He muttered to himself. He headed to the waypoint on his HUD and found a small motorpool. There were cameras though, so he couldn’t risk trying to get it out without looking suspicious.

“Didn’t they say something about a boathouse?”

“Yeah.” He headed for what looked like one, and swiped his card on a machine connected to the lock. He could’ve easily broken in, but discretion was a better idea here.

“Welcome, John Corben,” The machine said.

“And now I’m Metallo, I guess.” Back in his disguised voice again.

The door opened, revealing a lightly-populated room with an elevator at the end. He walked to the lift and entered. There were only two floors, and he was on one of them. He punched the button labeled “OC”, and the box hummed downwards.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Find a terminal. SECOND, my suit’s AI, will be able to hack it and find any information we need as long as it’s on the network. Doesn’t matter how many firewalls are up, this suit is a hacking godsend.” He took his shades off and tucked them into his coat.

“And after that?”

“We act on any intel we find.”

The elevator stopped and beeped. The doors slid open, revealing a clean-looking, hi-tech lobby. There were walkways heading in several directions, which was normal. But what wasn’t normal was that not only were the walkways rounded in their shape and turns, but they were transparent. It was like the time Alcatraz had gone to Sea World, and there’d been that tunnel surrounded by water, with fish and other aquatic life swimming all round him. He couldn’t help but grin.

Nearby was a stand with a map on it, the type normally seen in malls and museums and such. There was a general-use employee computer room a few hundred yards away. It was surprisingly easy for him to act casual, considering he was inside a base that belonged to a group who wanted his head on a silver platter, sliced thin and served with a side of mashed potatoes and some gravy made from his buttocks.

As he proceeded to the computer room, he snuck glances at the security. They were wearing the close-quarters uniform he’d seen in Manhattan; standard gray-white fatigues, but with a more flexible white vest instead of black, and white shoulderpads. They seemed to be armed with low-caliber weapons, although it was likely because rifle rounds could pierce or crack the windows.

AY69s, M12 Novae, K-VOLTs, and some shotguns. Probably loaded with hollow-point slugs. That’d reduce the effective range and penetration by a lot, but increase accuracy and damage compared to buckshot. Wouldn’t surprise me if they use rifles and Felines in lower levels, though.

He reached a door, and slid his captured card through it. After a few seconds, the light above the door winked green and it opened. He strolled in. It looked like an average office space, with the exception of it being for recreation as much as work.

The SCARAB hidden under his trenchcoat would make it very uncomfortable to sit down on a chair, so he found an empty computer and merely leaned over. His suit began tracing the keyboard, mouse and monitor to the computer proper, which it seemed was simply under the desk.

Okay. You’ve done this before, it’s easy. Just wave your hand over it.

He waved his hand over the device and his N2 siphoned data in a heartbeat. He walked to the mini-cafeteria and bought some Kettle chips in sea salt flavor, which made him chuckle given his current location. He got a Dr Pepper with real sugar and sat down on a stool as he munched on his snack.

“Analyzing data… Facility map compiled. Searching for possible target locations…”

“This suit you’ve got really is something… How much was it worth?”

Alcatraz sucked some salt and oil off of the gloved fingers of his right hand, and after cleaning his pinkie, he left it by his mouth.

“One billion dollars,” He answered in a stunningly accurate imitation of Dr. Evil.

“Target location confirmed. Spark Industries Replicant XG3-FEM-UN-PROTO located. One floor below, research level. Waypoint updated.”

A waypoint appeared on his level, apparently leading to either stairs or an elevator. He decided to finish his snack first.

“It looks like this base was owned by one of the wealthier gangs. They had to move out after a rival gang overtook the area. I guess CELL found it and renovated it.”

He left the rec room and headed for the marker. He shortly came upon an elevator, one with a lab-type heading to use it. She put her face against a device, seemingly a retinal scanner, and the door opened. A camera was also watching.

Alcatraz hadn’t infiltrated security like this before. Had he?

A smile crept across his face as he realized he did.

Big Shell, Core 1. A combination of the 1F camera check and the B1 Hall retinal scanner. I know how to spoof the scanner… The camera on the other hand… Got it!

When a scientist headed to the elevator, clearly to access the research level, Alcatraz’ suit fried the camera’s circuitry for a few moments when he brushed past the power source. He waited for the scientist to open the lift, and rushed in to follow the scientist.

He grabbed the man’s hair and slammed his head against the wall, knocking him out cold. His body slumped to the ground, and a trickle of blood flowed from his forehead. Alcatraz put on his sunglasses and felt for his silenced pistol, and when the doors opened, two guards rushed in to tend to the egghead. Another drew an AY69 and tried to pin him against the wall.

Alcatraz grabbed the wrist holding the weapon and headbutted the guard before pulling it from his hand. He then followed by grabbing the others’ helmets and slamming their skulls together. He picked up a second AY69 to use in his off-hand.

An alarm klaxon sounded, and a flurry of boots could be heard rushing into the level’s lobby. As the ex-marine exited the lift, his hands rested by his sides, each machinepistol locked and loaded. The lobby was filled with pillars, presumably to help bear weight, but covered in fancy stone panels; abruptly emptied desks filled the room as workers fleed. Really, the whole room looked more like an upscale office building than part of a research facility.

“Twelve grunts against a single encumbered N2 wearer. Hardly seems fair,” He muttered.

“Can’t you turn invisible or something? This seems a bit risky. But why listen to me? I’m just the civilian passenger who’s going to die with you. What do I know?”

“Freeze!” A black-clad officer with a Jackal shouted.

Alcatraz took a moment to assess the situation, and darted to his left. Bullets knocked apart chunks of flooring as they impacted. He approached a trooper and roundhouse kicked him, and hit the man behind the first with a burst of fire. He advanced to cover, firing as he went. His left weapon was empty, and his right was full.

He cartwheeled between pillars, firing his weapon nonstop at a group of CELL. He only dropped a few of them, and by the time he landed back on his feet, two arrivals had replaced every man he’d dropped.

Realizing his weapon was empty, he threw it on the ground. “Fuck this Matrix shit.” He pulled the SCARAB from underneath his trenchcoat and extended the stock. Then he tossed an armed grenade in the general direction of his enemies, and rolled to cover behind a desk.

The moment the explosive detonated, he peeked out and fired a burst of 4mm sabots at the contractors, followed by a 30mm grenade from his launcher. He fired several more bursts to kill the remaining guards before his magazine emptied. By that time, the room had fallen silent.

Alcatraz stepped from behind cover and stood at his full height. He knocked his current magazine out of the weapon with
a new one, and slammed that one home. After that, he loaded a new round into the underbarrel launcher. He pulled back the bolt to chamber the first round and stepped over a pile of corpses nonchalantly. He could sense the revulsion Ruby had towards his indifference to death at that moment.

A cowering scientist tried to run from him, only to fall and try to crawl away. He could understand his fear, he did just kill a score of CELL soldiers. “Relax,” The still-disguised post-human rasped in his incognito voice. “Killing civilians isn’t my thing. Of course, that can change.”

“Wh-who are you?”

Did he seriously ask that?

“A disgruntled employee.” Alcatraz lifted the egghead by his shirt, his rifle still in his right hand. “Where’s the android?”

“I can’t, they might kill me…”

He slammed the man against the wall. “They might. I will. Where is it?”

“A few hallways down. Lab 412. Please…”

Alcatraz set him down gently. “Get out of here.” He ran for his life, or at least he thought he did; really he was just running.

Meanwhile, the sole invader walked down the hallway to his objective. At the first intersection, a pair of CELL troopers appeared on his left. He hit one with the butt of his SCARAB and fired a single round into the other’s skull.

A few more appeared in the next hall, and he casually hipfired a 30mm grenade at them, dispatching them easily. He loaded a new shot at he strode towards his objective.

He reached the door to Lab 412 and slid his captured ID card through it. It didn’t work.

“Guess they got smart.”
He shouldered his weapon and prepared to breach. He curled his body up and kicked the door in, extending his back as he extended his leg. The metallic rectangle flew to the other side of the room and smashed a guard.

As he walked in another one stabbed him, but he simply picked the assailant up with his left hand and used him as a shield as he killed the rest of the guards. When Alcatraz finished, he headbutted the captive and threw him to the floor.

He pulled the knife out of his shoulder, wincing at the pain. Seeing his reflection in a mirror across the room, he grimaced. His disguise was in tatters, full of bullet-holes, as well as the marks of slashes and stabs. Underneath it all he saw the familiar gray of CryFibril artificial muscle. Even his sunglasses were scratched, and one lens was shattered.

He remembered that these garments were only a disguise, and ripped them off. His trenchcoat tore off his chest, and he threw his shades on the ground, crushing them beneath his boots. Next came his cargo pants, and the covering over his boots. Then he tore off his shirt. All of his equipment remained attached to his suit by the magnetic plates of his N2. He put his helmet back on, and the suit sealed with a hiss.

He wasn’t Victor Stone anymore, though perhaps he’d use that alias and an identical disguise again sometime. Once again he was Theodore Alcatraz.

In the middle of the room was the android prototype. It looked mostly undamaged.

“Spark, you read me?” He asked in his normal voice.

“Yeah, I got you.”

“The prototype’s safe and sound. Thing is, we’re underwater. Actually, the first floor was on the seabed. This level’s below that. Is the thing waterproof?”

“To two kilometers deep, even with exposed circuitry. Think you’ll need to swim?”

“Um, I was looking at the plans, and there’s a garbage disposal chute, two meters wide. It leads to the surface, and it’s only a few dozen meters from here. We should be able to get out that way. The loo is closer, but that isn’t wide enough. And I don’t need to say it’s bloody filthy,” Ruby Gaze chuckled.

“Is this the mare I heard about? The one trapped in the Alicorn’s Heart?”

“Yes, ummm, that’d be me. Uh, Alcatraz, I’m marking the chute now.” She seemed a bit put off, being addressed by a person other than Alcatraz. Perhaps she was just shy around ponies she didn't know.

A new marker came up on his HUD. Alcatraz picked up the limp android chassis, which must’ve weighed just a bit over a hundred pounds. He sprinted to the waypoint, only to meet a wall.

“Let’s rearrange some architecture.” Alcatraz planted a C4 charge on the wall and got back. He squeezed the clacker and reattached it to his suit as thunder rang through the halls.

Water began to rush in, and he needed to use his suit’s power mode to swim against the current fast enough. He entered the chute, and strained to exit it while carrying dead weight. After what felt like an hour, he reached the surface.

“Sending a pickup chopper now. You did me a real solid here Alky, I won’t forget it.”

***

Several hours later, Alcatraz sat at a desk in the gratuitously large Legion Noire compound, which he and his team had bought a few days earlier. Thermal Spark had been nice enough to send a few mercs his way, and he promised another bonus to be given later on. For now, half a million bits into the fledgling mercenary group’s bank account was plenty reward for him. Sure, most jobs wouldn’t be this rewarding, but that didn’t mean he was going to offer a discount for risking his life.

At that moment, he was planning out the basics of his group, which he hoped had potential for significant growth. Uniforms, which he looked forwards to designing, would have to be put off for now. Logistics would be a higher priority, because an organized force needed to eat, and any foreseeable centralization would require that kind of autonomy. Projecting force into areas that lacked a conveniently accessible food and ammunition source would be a prime example of why they needed a supply chain.

The LN had enough money to purchase a few tons of food and ammo, but without someone to supply their organization, that money was useless. In fact, in their current state they classified more as a collection of guns-for-hire than a legitimate mercenary group. But with the wealthy benefactors they’d already served, they wouldn’t have to make the ascent without help.

They had operational efficiency, they had connections, and they had good propaganda potential given their current repertoire of personnel; they had a pair of post-human badasses, a famous adventurer, a high-profile scientist, and a fairly well-known griffon mercenary. What they’d need was numbers, supplies, financial sustainability, vehicles, and equipment, to name a few.

After setting up a basic logistics system, one that he couldn’t yet implement, Alcatraz decided to outsource this sort of thing to his contacts’ underlings until he had his own set of pencil-pushers to rely on. He may have had mild OCD, but that didn’t make him good at organizing.

After making a few calls with his suit and once again feeling awe at how omnicapable his N2 had become, he contacted Psycho to see how he was doing.

“I’m gonna need a lot of C4, a black pair of trousers, a black blazer, a red button-down shirt, and a red tie.”