The flickering of the neon lights in the street below his window caught Mike's attention. He glanced up from the TV (not wanting to miss much of tonights special of the Cooking for Unexpected Guests show - Serial Killers!).
It was 19:26 and Downtown was just waking up. He'd have to miss the last few minutes of the show if he wanted to make it to the arcade in time for the daily review.
He threw on his leather jacket, put a fresh clip in his CAF and jammed it in a pocket along with his gaming stats dataslug. He was out of the door in under a minute and swiped his finance card through the reader to lock his apartment.
The streets were just getting busy as he made his way to Frankie's on the corner of Wayland and 4th in the D'Lion sector.
He shook the water off his coat as he entered the bar, put his favourite song on the jukebox, then went over to the bar to get a drink.
Frankie the barman looked stressed. Then again, Frankie always looks stressed.
Mike asked for a pint of the bar's guest beer - White Goat. Frankie's was one of the few bars in Downtown where White Goat was sold, and because it was near the Masham sector where it was brewed it still tasted nice.
Mike looked at his watch - 19:48, 12 minutes to drink his beer and enter the building across the street.
He sipped at the pint as it settled, savouring the rich taste, then quickly drank it. He went to the toilets, a got a pack of condoms while he was there. Hopefully, if that new babe was at the arcade tonight, he'd make a move.
He crossed the road, dodging the taxis and motorbikes and entered the big glass fronted arcade. He went over to the front desk and leant against it.
Gillian finished his phone call and turned to speak to Mike.
"Got a good one for you tonight. Ol' Knight Jerome finally tested that new MC3. He took Hill 29 from SLA. You're on as soon as your opponent arrives. Go get comfortable."
Mike crossed over to some sofas, jumped over the back of one, upsetting its occupants who were snogging, and grabbed one of his friend's cola's.
"What you got tonight?" asked the girl he had interrupted.
"Thresher mobile c&c centre. 3 close-nitt's. Want in?"
"Sure!" came her reply. Her boyfriend, and the boy whose drink it was, asked to join as well.
A red light above the sofa's started flashing, and Mike looked over to Gillian who pointed to the Virtual-Ent booths.
Gillian was chatting to that new girl (man, she was cute!) as he entered the booth. He sat in the chair, inserted his dataslug and put on the control gloves, monocule and mike.
He flicked a switch and the booth generated the 3D holograms around him to simulate the mobile comand and control centre. 3 arrows started flashing on his radar, so he flicked to obital satelite view, zoomed in and saw it was his close-nitts.
He tongued the mike, broadcasting to all three powersuits, "Warm up your weapons, and give me a readiness check."
He switched views again to the MC3's exterior cameras. Niflheim. He hated this fucking planet. He'd lost replay's before on this planet when his 'suits fell into crevices or through thin ice. Well, at least he had plasma weapons and the hope that a blizzard might mask his approach.
He brought a terrain map up, then brought up his front camera, then the radar, then the on 'suit cameras. This MC3 was pretty nifty. He rearranged the views, settling for the terrain map in his primary field of view.
The arrows on his radar stopped flashing red and switched to green as they finished their checks. He brought the terrain map up on their faceplates, and using the drawing system he found attached to the chair (whoever had designed this C&C had thought of everything!) he drew on the targets position and the route he wanted them to take.
Hill 29 was just over 5 clicks to the west, hidden at the base of a set of large mountains. It wasn't really a hill of course. None of SLA's hills ever were. This place was a landing pad and storage bunker. He could understand why Thresher had wanted it.
He pulled up the available information on the bunker. - Manned by single operative, placed there due to a fuck up back here on Mort - Protected by 2 sentinel cannons, fired by the bunker outdated computer system - Nearest SLA reinforcements, 25 clicks away at Hill 76, ETA 17 minutes by APC - Orbital dropship ETA 7 minutes
He decided to send 1 of his close-nitts round the front, while the other two would drop in on the bunker from above. The frontal one would stay out of range of the cannons and provide guidance information for the other two 'suits. Hmm, this would be easy he thought.
He issued the command to proceed to the target then started the mobile c&c going. No longer would he lose video link with his close-nitts when they went out of range. Definately a good design.
He was absently switching between camera views from his MC3 when one of the arrows on the radar started flashing red. He pulled up the satelite view and watched as the close-nitt on the frontal assault was ripped to shreds by heavy automatic fire.
The close-nitt was still about a half click from the bunker and shouldn't have been in the range of the bunker minimal radar system. He switched to the camera on what remained of the 'suit and noticed a person in Body Blocker stood behind one of the cannons. Fuck, could they be manually overriden?
He left the view up, and tongued the radio on.
"MC3 to CN1, MC3 to CN2. Abort attack and assemble at designated safe-point. Repeat abort attack."
He was replied by the hiss of static. Something was blocking communications. He switched to their camera views and watched helplessly as they approached the bunker. He could just make out a shape the sentinel cannons and a figure darting between them.
"MC3 to CN1. Breakoff attack, sentinel cannons on manual."
But it was too late. The cannons opened up, ripping into the powersuits. Suddenly, the holograms faded out of existance and a computerised voice announced that he had lost.
He exited the booth and saw his team mates also leaving, all of them looking extremely down. Then he saw his opponent exit the booth. It was that new girl.
She sauntered across to him and smiled.
"Nice try, but I won the VEnt Games on New Paris three years running. Name's Phoenix, maybe you've heard of me?"
Then she walked out of the arcade.
Fucking hell he thought, it was The Phoenix, here, in his VEnt arcade.
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