Interlude - A Normal Man - Part Two

  "What do you mean, the portal was done?" he asked.

  His secretary, a young--mundane--man that he'd only just hired recently flinched. He had been an intern at one of the larger corporations in Fortress ENE for almost two years when he had been sniped away from them because he had talent that was going to waste, but some of the... unfortunate reflexes of the corporate life still plagued him.

  "Sorry," Phil replied, "I didn't mean to raise my tone. Can you explain?"

  The secretary licked his lips, then retreated behind a tablet. It was early in the morning on a brisk Thursday. Under anything approaching normal circumstances neither of them would be at the office, but these circumstances weren't and so here they were.

  "The beta team arrived on site at... oh-six hundred, sir, and met with a representative of Seraph. The location of the breached E-ranked portal was confirmed, as were the type of portal-being at the site."

  He nodded.

  Beta team wasn't their second team, it was, if anything, their primary force. The name came instead from their primary task. They were the beta-testers for his new machines.

  The office they were in now was tucked away in the far side of a factory-turned R&D department. This was where he was creating his... Well, he wouldn't call it an army, exactly.

  So far, they had three fully functional suits that were ready for field testing. That was a more impressive step than it sounded. Field test readiness meant that all three were capable of a full range of motion, that all three could carry weapons and that all three were replicable.

  The main part of his R&D initiative wasn't just making combat-capable suits. It was making suits that could be mass-produced.

  The chips and some electronic components were third-party, unfortunately, but all of the armour, most of the interior panelling, and most of the joints and hydraulics were in-house. He had been very careful when picking suppliers to choose parts from companies that had at least a tangential relationship with his own.

  Now, if the project went well, all of them would see the benefit in increased sales of parts. At least, he hoped that would work out that way.

  In any case, the field-ready suits were a big deal for him. Now he just needed them to either prove themselves or come back from field-testing with a list of items that needed improving.

  "Go on," he said with a small wave of his hand. He was tired, operating on just a few hours of sleep, and not just because today was going to be a big day. He had been extremely driven for the past few weeks, and it was coming to a head now. Crunch was all he knew.

  "Well, sir, Beta team arrived on site and deployed the suits, then moved to the site. There was a technical issue with one of the suits, but it was of low-priority so they continued and--"

  "What was the issue?" he asked.

  The secretary blinked, then tapped his tablet a few times. "There was a... 'catch' in one of the legs?"

  "The knee actuators," he said. "I knew they'd be a problem eventually. Continue." Cheap parts meant cheap problems. He truly wished that they never had to cut any corners in this project, but there was no chance of that. Better parts often came with significantly greater expense and lead times and he had to find places to lower costs where he could.

  The knee actuators would have to be better, though. That wasn't something they could compromise on, and some of his engineers had already pointed out the flaws and potential issues.

  "Ah, well, Beta team arrived on site, only on arriving they detected high levels of fluctuation from the portal, consistent with a portal nearing expiry. Then the portal opened and, ah, a team exited."

  "A team?" he asked.

  The secretary shrugged. "They refused to identify."

  He felt his jaw clenching and had to make a conscious effort to loosen himself before he ground his teeth to dust. "Do we have anything on them?"

  "Beta lead took some images, but they didn't say much. According to his report they... insulted the look of the suits, then ran off. We tracked them for a ways with a drone, but lost them when they moved off the rooftops."

  Rooftops? He sat up straighter. "Any identifying marks? No, nevermind, give me a moment."

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He shifted his attention to one of his monitors and searched for the team lead's report. It was still incomplete, without a proper after-action or anything. In fact, it was mostly just compiled by one of the company's ever-listening AI. He chose not to believe the full veracity of it.

  The video captured from Suit Three, however, was far more convincing. It was a little off-focus, but the imagery was in high-definition. It was one of the advantages of his suits, in fact.

  On top of providing a strong platform for weapons and a capable defensive suit for the pilots within, the suits had space for a lot of peripherals. Scanning tech for mapping, cameras for remote viewing and after-action reports, specialized equipment of one sort or another... it was a system with a lot of potential, even beyond its base ability to make a normal soldier be able to take on threats that were usually reserved for E and D-ranked people.

  The footage loaded up and he watched it, eyes locked on the screen. The suits walked along, and he grimaced as he noticed the uneven gait. There was more work to be done on those actuators, but also on their walking assistance software. It could be far smoother and a smoother walk would mean less pressure on those more fragile joints.

  The team arrived in a large open space with a few containers and, in its centre, the active portal. E-ranked, and on the lower end of the scale according to the readings of the suit's onboard magiometre.

  They did encounter one portal-denizen, a large pillar of ice that toddled their way. The team lead made the decision to send out Suit Two to test out its melee capabilities.

  A reasonable choice, given the relatively low risk environment.

  Suit Two acquitted itself well. The large pneumatic penetrating hammer it was equipped with was more than capable of piercing through the ice elemental, though it was hit with a spray of some sort of magical cold that the pilot of suit two complained about.

  Maybe increased isolation? Both for the pilot and the parts. It may add some weight, however, and they were already on tight mass constraints.

  He continued to watch the video. One of the experts in the team noted that the portal was destabilizing and they formed up, expecting more monsters to come out from within.

  Instead, three figures jumped out.

  He paused.

  They were in a uniform. Black clothes, black capes of some sort, and most obviously, black hats with a similar logo on it. He zoomed in. A skull? That could be any number of smaller PMCs or teams, but he took a capture of it anyway and sent that to one of the other workers in the office. Someone would find out where it was from.

  In the meantime, he zoomed back out and took the three in. Who they were didn't matter so much as what they'd done, which was interrupting his experiment.

  He had an agreement with Seraph, or more appropriately, one of the many companies that owned a part of Seraph in the tangled corporate web behind Fortress ENE.

  They'd let him test his suits, and in return he'd let them exploit the cleared portal. An easy win-win, with the added guarantee that if things went poorly, support was at hand. He found the idea of needing to rely on rankers irritating, but he was nothing if not a pragmatist.

  This group had interfered. That put them on his... what was the term... ah yes, his shitlist.

  Not very high up, but still there. This was exactly the kind of thing he was fighting against; unsanctioned and unwanted rankers putting their noses where they didn't belong, and getting away with it because they had too much personal power to be stopped.

  He watched the rest of the video while stewing. Another opportunity lost. He had been hoping for some good combat footage, or at the very least actionable results from the test. Instead all he seemed to be primed to get out of this was a lost favour, and the knowledge that the problem he knew about already was real.

  Wasteful. Frustrating.

  "Sir?" the secretary asked.

  "It's fine," he replied. "Tell team Beta to pack up and return. They'll get their combat pay, of course. Perhaps... we can test our deployment system a little more? I'd like to hear about any issues they had using the off-ramps in the field."

  "Will do, sir," the secretary replied.

  "Thank you, you're dismissed. And... close the door behind you, I need a minute."

  ***