Life is as fragile as a silken thread, yet as resilient as a reed.
Even in an environment so polluted, filthy, and chaotic—under the present enforcement of the Bird Extinction Act (to prevent zoonotic transmission)—wild animals and birds have not completely vanished. They still struggle to survive in the cracks of this dreadful city.
Chirp, chirp.
A barn swallow, frightened by the rockets and explosions screaming through the sky, let out a sharp cry and fluttered around the jagged edges of a cluster of buildings.
At low altitude, it saw that the human nests below were especially uneven today. There were more nesting materials on the ground than usual. Massive, lifeless 'kin' collided indifferently with one another—sometimes spewing flames, sometimes dropping explosive 'eggs,' sometimes simply detonating outright... making the swallow uneasy.
It dipped lower.
Then—boom!—a loud blast came from the alley.
In the swallow's shiny black eyes, two humans encased in iron shells grappled fiercely, smashing through a doorway.
At that, it chirped again, for its keen eyesight had caught sight of a water source.
Perfect timing—it was thirsty.
Flying into that human nest, it landed on a shattered washbasin, dipped its beak into the dripping water groove, and drank while observing the 'human courtship ritual' not far away—
Such frenzied shouting and aggressive posturing—was this not courtship?
And wasn't it rather violent?
The little bird didn't know and couldn't understand—because it was only a bird.
"Die, you bastard!"
"Son of a bitch!"
Their sidearms had been flung away in the struggle—an Arasaka soldier and a Militech soldier wrestled, trading brutal punches.
One moment one was on top, the next the other—choking, finger-breaking, eye-gouging, crotch-pounding... all manner of crippling techniques came into play.
Unfortunately, their combat cyberware was nearly equivalent. The presence of the [Pain Editor] plug-in, exoskeletons, and subdermal armor meant neither could easily break the other's defenses. And neither dared let the other pull back to draw a weapon, forcing them to brawl in close quarters.
They stayed locked like that for over half a minute.
In the end, perhaps Arasaka's [EXO Exoskeleton] overload capacity was stronger—or its built-in low-level AI medical system had injected a more potent combat stimulant. Either way, the Arasaka soldier overpowered his Militech opponent.
The moment he freed one hand, he grabbed a chunk of concrete rebar nearby. With the help of his exoskeleton's motor assist, he slammed it down hard against the other's faceplate.
Thud! A dull impact—stunning.
The Militech soldier's head snapped sideways, his visor dented inward.
Seizing the chance, the Arasaka trooper finally drew his EMP discharge combat knife, reversed his grip, and stabbed it into the gap in the opponent's neck armor—pressing the trigger with his full strength.
He had no intention to taunt or desecrate the corpse—there was no time. Hunching low, he scooped up his dropped firearm, fired a few covering shots, and dove into the building, tossing a Molotov behind him.
Realizing his carotid had been pierced and the combat knife's internal EMP discharger was throwing his cyberware into system-wide errors, the Militech soldier could only cough up blood. Powerless to resist, he glanced at the incendiary rolling near his head and stared blankly at the sky.
"Mom... sorry..."
Then—boom!—
A blinding flare erupted. Fire engulfed him like molten steel bursting from a furnace.
"You moved in too fast."
Thump, thump. A team of Arasaka cyborgs and combat drones vaulted over the wall to reinforce.
Across the street, the Militech defense line replied—ratatatata!
Heavy-caliber kinetic rounds rained down like water, followed by volleys of fragmentation grenades—boom, boom, boom! Rubble flew everywhere.
Someone grunted and fell.
In the blink of an eye, Arasaka's counterfire roared back.
A hail of bullets. Collapsing buildings. Both sides took hits—soldiers shot down, bodies flung aside. The reaper's scythe swung efficiently through the ranks.
By then, the swallow had long since finished drinking and flown off from the far end of the house.
Eastward.
Across the barren wasteland.
"Go, go, go!"
"Advance!"
The smoke raised by tanks and armored vehicles drifted across the city's outskirts.
Sparse lines of armored carriers, drone hives, anti-air vehicles, and radar trucks stood at the column's rear.
Rows of rocket launchers tilted wildly, unleashing relentless fire.
The power armor maintenance units were stationed at the most heavily guarded center of the formation.
Crowds of personnel moved about—disordered at a glance, yet in fact, organized and purposeful.
Amid the dusty sky, silhouettes of hovercrafts faintly appeared.
A series of airborne transport ships arrived, each carrying multiple container pods beneath their hulls. When they reached the frontline, they began their drop sequence.
Buzz, buzz, buzz—thud! Thud! Thud!
The containers fired their lateral thrusters to decelerate before slamming into the ground with heavy impact.
Click! Click! Click!
The hiss of airtight locks disengaging echoed again and again as swarms of armed robots marched out in neat ranks under the coordination of cluster algorithms.
Before long, the Arasaka field unit commanders, after receiving their assignments from logistics officers, were handed their respective batches of robotic auxiliaries. After partitioned authorization transfers, they merged the units with their troops.
Then, according to their missions—some boarded vehicles, others marched on foot—into hell they went.
Sigh. Before the Fourth Corporate War, deploying mechanized AI forces was never this cumbersome.
Simply program the central command node within the warzone, establish firewall regiments, and all AI units within that region could be coordinated under unified control.
But ever since the Old Net's DataKrash, when vast numbers of AIs were unleashed, drifting rogue, birthing hate-driven intelligences... deployment now had to be conducted in small, segmented groups. Each operated independently, with mandatory cooperation under human field commanders.
That way, even if one AI cluster was hacked or went rogue, the scale of the failure remained limited—contained, recoverable, with redundancy.
"Damn Bartmoss!"—a common curse among corporate netrunners. For all their admiration of his legendary skill, they despised the virus he unleashed upon the world.
In combat, should a frontline commander fall, control authority would cascade downward until the last human remained.
Units like armed humanoid robots were essentially cannon fodder anyway. No one in their right mind would treat mass-produced bots as precious assets—sacrificing human soldiers to spare robots? Impossible.
Above the humanoid units were the higher-value assets: compact infiltration drones, standard multi-legged mechanized beasts, medium quadruped assault vehicles, and heavy multi-legged tanks—advanced machines that could be either manned or unmanned depending on the mission.
Whoosh—whoosh—
At the fringe of the still-closing battlefield, the swallow struggled free from the deafening warzone.
As it descended to regain stamina—
"Oh? A wild bird? Species... barn swallow (Hirundo rustica)."
A rough voice murmured. A shadow loomed overhead.
A capture net dropped—inescapable.
Looking down at the trapped bird was a towering iron giant clad in thick black armor. On his shoulder shone the Arasaka insignia and the emblem of the Special Assault Team (SAT).
"Commander Vela, are you interested?"
Within the non-standard power armor, a bald, grey-haired veteran spoke toward the retinal display projected before his eyes.
Beep, beep.
[Vela: Of course. Why not? It's a gift from old Rahm himself. Besides—keeping it might count as saving a small life. North America is likely heading toward another total biological extinction.]
The speaker was Rahm Hessman—First Deputy Director of the Security Bureau and commander of the SAT.
[Vela: The coming days will be tough, old friend. As my right hand, you'll spearhead the central offensive—press hard through the Grand Island–Norfolk–Omaha metropolitan belt, threaten Lincoln, and push into Iowa. I need you to sustain high-intensity assaults for half a month. During this period, aside from the Death Camps, I won't be assigning you many reinforcements.]
Rahm nodded. "That'll be enough. Attack where they must defend—strike east to distract west."
After a pause, he asked, "But regarding the pipeline strike—you truly intend to use the old U.S. energy conduits to launch a surprise assault on the Great Lakes region? Forgive my bluntness, Commander, but heavy units won't make it through, and light infantry alone may not suffice."
[Vela: It's a gambit—a spare move, nothing more. I don't pin my hopes on tricks. To achieve our full objective, everything depends on whether the northern offensive can break Myers' defense line. Hansen's calling for aid on the southern front—his situation's worsening by the hour.]
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