Less than thirty seconds after Space Force One crash-landed on the Dogtown highway, a black shadow descended from the sky at extreme speed, arriving beside the now-burning aircraft.
There was no dialogue, no hesitation. The instant it landed, it tore the cabin door off with terrifying strength.
The agent in charge of security opened fire without a second thought the moment the door came off, but the dark individual combat armor simply took a mechanical step forward and threw a punch, and the agent was smashed into two pieces.
The scream caught the attention of the crew inside, who were frantically preparing for an emergency evacuation. Two senior agents charged out without a word, both of them skilled fighters equipped with Sandevistans.
One agent aimed an assault rifle at the armor's head and opened fire, knocking its head back.
In that same instant, the other agent seemingly teleported behind the armor and, with his Thermal Mantis Blades, struck precisely at the joint connecting the helmet to the body.
The Mantis Blades sliced through the armor's neck like a hot knife through butter. The helmet clattered to the ground.
The agent wielding the Mantis Blades let out an unconscious sigh of relief, but his expression quickly changed. The armor before him executed an anatomically impossible motion, kicking backward violently.
The agent with the rifle, his expression one of shock, yelled, "There's no one inside this armor!"
No one!?
The Mantis Blade agent's mind went blank for a second, but it didn't stop him from immediately crossing his arms in front of him to block the mech's kick.
The immense force sent him flying backward. The agent with the rifle immediately dropped the weapon, which was completely ineffective against the armor, and activated his Sandevistan. Swinging his Gorilla Arms with all his might, he smashed the armor aside with a single punch.
The heavy individual combat armor nearly tore a hole in the plane's fuselage. In response to the attack, however, it merely raised its arm, and the machine gun mounted on it began to spit fire.
Unlike the armor, which showed no reaction to being attacked, this agent's flesh and blood couldn't face heavy machine gun bullets at close range. He moved at extreme speed. Fortunately, the mech now seemed to have lost its vision, its shots only aimed in a general direction.
The Mantis Blade agent, who had been knocked away, silently closed in, snatched the helmet from the ground, and unhesitatingly stabbed his blade through its visor.
With the built-in camera and imaging device destroyed, the headless individual combat armor's shooting became even more inaccurate.
Just as the two agents finished dealing with the headless, flailing individual combat armor, before they could even catch their breath, they suddenly heard a cacophony of rustling sounds.
The Mantis Blade agent risked a peek outside, and his face paled. "Shit! It's bots everywhere! And drones! We have to delta! Now!"
The other agent was about to turn and find Myers, but the cabin door was pushed open before he could.
Myers emerged with a grim expression, supporting a limping Songbird. "What's the situation?"
"We're surrounded! Drones, bots, even dogbots!" the agent reported immediately.
Songbird looked to be in pain. "Leave it to me... We need to contact Mercer as soon as possible. Have him send Barghest for support."
"What?" one of the agents said, stunned. "The bots outside are all Barghest!"
"It's a rogue AI!" Songbird raised her voice in anger. "Can't you tell? All these unmanned devices have been hacked!"
The moment she finished speaking, Dogtown's public address system crackled to life. As Mercer announced a state of emergency and ordered all Barghest soldiers to assemble, the agents immediately realized the gravity of the situation.
If Mercer were making a move on Myers, her personal safety would likely be guaranteed. After all, no one would be insane enough to assassinate the NUSA President in their own territory.
But if it was a rogue AI, who knew what a monster like that was capable of?
"But there are too many bots outside!" The Mantis Blade agent had barely finished his sentence when gunfire erupted. Bullets hammered against the fuselage of Space Force One, accompanied by the sound of a large number of bots approaching.
"Enough talk! Fight your way out with me!" Songbird's cyberoptics glowed. In a visual feed no one else could see, terrifying lines of black and red code spread rapidly outward.
The bots and dogbots that were swarming Space Force One instantly began to emit black smoke, crackling with blinding electrical sparks.
Without a doubt, this was the infamous Blackwall attack!
Myers, who had been silent until now, felt her nerves steady slightly. The tough-looking woman issued commands with extreme calm. "Immediately contact Militech and FIA agents in Dogtown for support. We need a safehouse."
"We're not seeking help from Barghest?" Songbird asked, her voice weak.
Myers replied coldly, "We can't be certain yet if this attack is truly the work of a rogue AI."
After a moment of silence, Songbird said directly, "I can. It's a rogue AI."
"You can be certain?" Myers gave her a meaningful look but said nothing more, only repeating, "Delta first. We can't stay here."
The agents immediately began to scout a path. After opening the cabin door and confirming it was clear, one agent took over supporting Songbird, while the other stood guard in front of Myers.
"Comms are jammed! The network signal is down too!" the Mantis Blade agent said, a hint of unease in his voice. "Dammit, we're on a dedicated satellite!"
"That rogue AI is from the moon!" Songbird dropped another bombshell. Now, everyone realized the situation might be worse than they thought, but they exchanged glances and, with a tacit understanding, no one pressed the issue.
Myers simply said pragmatically, "What else do you know? What should we do now?"
Songbird hung her head, looking somewhat guilty. "I don't know..."
Their conversation didn't slow them down. They quickly moved from the crash site, taking cover as they retreated toward the surrounding buildings. The burning Space Force One billowed black smoke, and the ground was littered with the wreckage of bots and drones, a scene reminiscent of The Armageddon.
But they didn't get far, a white figure suddenly approached their position, moving at high speed through the air.
One of the agents immediately drew his pistol. "Prepare for combat!"
"Wait! That's Barghest!" Songbird shouted, stopping the agent.
And when the white mech landed, sure enough, a woman's voice came from inside.
"Holy shit, is that... Myers? Mercer! We're in deep shit!"
That one sentence was enough for the two agents to exchange a look and instinctively shield Myers behind them.
Myers, however, remained calm, waving her hand coolly to signal the agents to stand down. She walked up to the armor. "You're Barghest?"
"Name's V, Director of Operations for a Barghest special unit... Shit, this is a real mess!" V sucked in a breath, genuinely feeling that disaster had struck.
Myers looked at her calmly and asked bluntly, "What exactly is the situation? What's your objective?"
"The situation? I don't know what the situation is, just that everything's gone to hell! You'll have to ask Mercer yourself, he detected a large number of unmanned devices converging on the crash site, so he sent me to intercept... Anyway, come with me. I'll take you to the Black Sapphire!"
After V spoke, the two agents' expressions turned wary, but Myers just looked at V thoughtfully. After a long moment, she agreed. "Alright. We'll go back to the Black Sapphire with you for now."
The Mantis Blade agent looked like he wanted to object, but V just glanced around and said grimly, "We move now. Our support will be here any second."
As she finished speaking, an APC came barreling down the road from the side, screeching to a halt in front of them and opening its doors automatically.
Seeing the empty interior, Myers actually had the presence of mind to remark, "A driverless vehicle? Your development in Dogtown is truly impressive."
"It's alright..." V's mind was a mess. She felt like this was a total clusterfuck, the NUSA President crashing in Dogtown?
Myers got into the vehicle with no apparent suspicion, but her other hand was on Songbird's arm as if to support her. "Today has certainly been exciting. I'd forgotten how long it's been since my heart pounded this fast."
Seeing this female president, who should have been living a life of luxury, acting so composed and calm, V felt a strange sense of admiration. The situation in Dogtown was, after all, visibly dire.
She immediately took to the sky, then aimed the smart SMG Mercer had given her at a swarm of buzzing drones charging from the distance and pulled the trigger. "Dammit, you guys need to get going. Mercer said at least half the unmanned devices have lost control..."
"How many is half?" Myers asked calmly.
"Over a thousand bots, over five thousand drones." The numbers V spat out finally made Myers's expression change slightly. "Are you sure?"
"Ha, and I'm just talking about the ones in normal operation. If you include the ones in storage..."
V had barely finished speaking when a large group of bots appeared on the street in the distance. The bots opened fire indiscriminately, attacking V and Myers's vehicle. V, however, simply flickered and vanished from her spot.
The next moment, Myers saw what looked like a white comet falling from the sky. Like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, V dove from the air into the middle of the bot swarm.
Two ridiculously large Mantis Blades extended from her armored elbows, and she began to tear through the battlefield like a buzzsaw.
The APC carrying them drove automatically, weaving nimbly between obstacles and speeding along the path V cleared.
Before long, a few more aerodyne vehicles carrying Barghest soldiers arrived late to the scene. At the same time, a dense swarm of drones collided with each other in the distant sky, creating dazzling explosions like fireworks.
Myers just frowned at the scene outside the window. After a long pause, she remarked as if to herself, "It seems the deets we gathered severely underestimated Dogtown's current military strength."
Songbird just clutched her forehead in pain. "More than that... I need a doctor, President Myers."
"Hm, funny. I think I do too." Myers looked at her own arm, one of them was hanging limply, unable to move.
During the crash landing, the nose of the plane had been crushed due to the unstable descent, causing a massive fire. The two pilots had died on impact. Myers, who had been sitting near the front, had been lucky to escape, but her arm had still been hit hard enough that she couldn't use it.
The APC drove on automatically. Outside, the sounds of bullets and shells never ceased. Dogtown wasn't large, but it still took Myers a full twenty minutes to get from the crash site to The Black Sapphire hotel.
Myers could see the vehicle being forced to take several detours. On the roads they bypassed, she could see Barghest soldiers and unmanned devices fighting everywhere.
But Myers also keenly observed that as they got closer, the out-of-control unmanned devices would be quickly hacked, breached, and returned to normal, and as far as Myers could tell, it wasn't Songbird's doing.
On the contrary, ever since getting in the vehicle, Songbird had been clutching her forehead, letting out low moans of pain from time to time, her eyes squeezed shut as if she might pass out at any moment.
"What exactly happened?" Myers retracted her gaze, trying to use the time in the car to get more information from Songbird.
But Songbird's reply was mumbled and unclear. "It's a rogue AI... a very powerful rogue AI..."
Myers pressed for more, but Songbird couldn't provide any further information.
She had to give up for the time being. When the car pulled into the Black Sapphire, a girl in pink and green armor personally opened her door.
Rebecca sized up the impressive-looking woman before her, feeling a little excited. This was the first time she had ever met a real big shot face-to-face.
"Follow me. Mercer is doing his best to clean up the mess. He's arranged the top-floor suite for you."
After Rebecca spoke, Myers asked the question she had asked more than once: "What exactly happened?"
"An unknown rogue AI launched a full-spectrum network attack against us. Its objective is currently unknown."
This time, Myers clearly heard a calm male voice in her ear.
She turned to look. A humanoid bot was standing nearby, a pair of cold mechanical eyes scanning her up and down.
"You're Mercer... or rather, you're controlling this bot?" Myers studied the scene with interest. "Remote network control?"
The bot nodded. "I am currently in a deep dive, fighting to regain control of the unmanned devices. President Myers, please rest in the top-floor suite for a moment."
Myers said bluntly, "I need you to provide me with a way to contact the outside world. I will immediately request support from Militech's agents."
"Unnecessary. This mess was most likely caused by your people. We'll talk about that later. For now, what happens in Dogtown is my call."
Mercer's tone was somewhat firm, but Myers showed no airs at all. The moment his tone hardened, she replied very agreeably, "Alright. We'll have a good chat after you're done."
The two NUSA agents' expressions were grim, but they silently followed Myers, supporting the unsteady Songbird, and rode the elevator with the armored Rebecca and the bot Mercer was controlling.
The elevator ascended slowly, soon reaching another vacant luxury suite on the top floor.
After entering, Myers even had the mood to exclaim, "Very nice. No wonder those guys rate the Black Sapphire so highly... The standard of this suite is every bit as good as those luxury hotels."
Rebecca didn't leave after they entered the suite. Facing the stares of the two agents, she put on what she thought was a deep, imposing voice and said, "I'll be responsible for your safety here."
Myers smiled and nodded. "Thank you so much. Is that a modified Tank armor you're wearing?"
"No, it's a new custom-made private armor." When it came to her armor, Rebecca couldn't keep up the act. She said proudly, "It's completely different from that mass-produced Tank armor. I call it the Peacemaker."
She liked the shotgun Mercer had given her, including its somewhat goofy name. She ended up calling her armor model the Peacemaker One as well.
Myers offered a few words of praise, from the paint job to the materials, before asking casually, "Is this type of armor much stronger than standard Tank armor?"
Rebecca just chuckled. "I wouldn't know about that. I don't understand the tech. As long as the paint job looks good, right?"
At that, Myers immediately changed the subject. "Mr. Mercer just said this cyberattack might be related to us. What did he mean?"
The bot at the side suddenly spoke again, Mercer's voice still calm. "Reed and Alex, two of your hidden FIA agents, accidentally released a rogue AI trapped in the Neural Matrix while exploring the Cynosure facility. This, in turn, caused that rogue AI's boss to target us. According to the deets we have so far, this rogue AI is very likely a super AI known as the 'Lunar Madonna.' This super AI uses the moon as its base and commands a large number of extremely dangerous, anti-human, anti-social, highly intelligent AIs..."
Mercer's voice faltered for a moment, then he seemed to let out a sigh of relief. "Fortunately, they gave me some time to prepare, and their objective is clearly you. That's the only reason Dogtown didn't completely fall."
Myers frowned. "A super rogue AI? I've heard that one of those things can often take on a whole group of top-tier netrunners..."
"Correct. So you should be glad you crashed in Dogtown, and that Dogtown's current master happens to be me."
After the bot finished speaking, the roar of thruster engines suddenly sounded from outside the window.
Then, a man in black armor slowly landed on the suite's balcony. His helmet's faceplate retracted, revealing Mercer's slightly weary face.
"Mercer? Is the problem solved?" Rebecca asked with genuine concern.
But Mercer shook his head with a grave expression. "The situation is much more troublesome than we thought..."
At this point, Mercer suddenly turned his head to look at Myers.
This was the first time the two had met in person, but neither found the other's face unfamiliar at all. Having seen each other's files and photos many times, the moment their eyes met, they both broke into "natural" smiles.
"A pleasure to meet you, President Myers. I'm Mercer, the current administrator of Dogtown."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mercer. Thank you very much for extending a helping hand in our time of crisis."
They smiled and shook hands briefly, but then Mercer's expression turned cold. "You're welcome. Now, let's talk about the source of this trouble."
"What the hell did you hide in the Cynosure facility?" Mercer demanded, striking first. "That rogue AI said it will only stop if I hand 'it' over. But what is it that she wants?"
President Myers looked puzzled. "The Cynosure facility... As far as I know, that's just an old facility for researching AI network technology. It was shut down long ago... How do you know about the Cynosure facility?"
Mercer just curled his lip into a humorless, ambiguous smile. "Alright, since President Myers doesn't know what's inside either..."
He turned his head to look at V, who had just arrived late, landing on the balcony. "Go bring those two FIA agents over."
"What about the Militech one?" V asked, not even having caught her breath.
Mercer's expression was cold. "Notify Militech to come pick him up. With compensation."
V nodded, then flew off the balcony again. In less than two minutes, she returned, carrying an unconscious agent in each hand.
Myers took one look. Who else could they be but Reed and Alex?
Seeing the agents she had dispatched in an unconscious state, Myers immediately put on a worried expression. "What's going on? Mr. Mercer, what happened to them?"
"Three days ago, I discovered them infiltrating the Cynosure facility. Considering their special status and their unfamiliarity with the facility, I decided not to alert them but to observe their actions and gather evidence. But I didn't expect that after those guys got in, they would mess with something that released a rogue AI, and made a complete mess of Dogtown's entire network. I'd just spent two days patching things up, and then this happens... Without a doubt, the reason that rogue AI returned is that its target is one of you."
"President Myers, I'm not one for beating around the bush."
Mercer paused, then his sharp gaze fell upon Songbird behind Myers, before turning back to Myers. "You, or rather, the Cynosure facility, must have something that rogue AI wants.
Now, I want to know what that thing is, otherwise, I can't guarantee I can protect you when that rogue AI attacks again."
Myers continued to play dumb. "Something? To be honest, I didn't even know there was a rogue AI in the Cynosure facility! You have to understand, this facility has been around for fifty years. It's been shut down and reopened many times.
There shouldn't be anything of value there, otherwise, why would we have just abandoned the entire underground facility in Dogtown and paid it no mind?
As for us... perhaps they want to kidnap me? Or assassinate me to achieve some special objective?"
In response to Myers's words, Mercer just gave a slight smile, then his expression turned cold. "President Myers, I suggest you tell me the truth."
"I really don't know..."
Before she could finish, Mercer stared at her coldly, interrupting her rather bluntly. "Did you know, Lilith gave me an ultimatum."
"What do you mean?" Myers realized the gravity of the situation.
"Twenty-four hours to send what they want to the moon, or they'll send something down from the moon... I have reason to believe this damn rogue AI even has a mass driver."
Mercer spoke with a deadpan expression. "I don't want my home to be smashed by a meteorite in twenty-four hours. So, President Myers, we must cooperate now, give her what she wants, and ensure both your safety and mine. It's for the best for both of us."
Myers fell silent for a moment, her eyes narrowing. Then, she slowly turned her head to look at Songbird, who had remained silent the entire time.
"Songbird."
She only said Songbird's name, but Songbird's whole body trembled violently. Then, she spoke in a despairing tone, "It's me..."
"This person called Lilith..."
"What she needs is me!"