"They're shooting again…"
From her garden chair, Tia looked up again at the group of gunships hovering about 2 kilometers in the sky above her and saw them shooting again, their rockets drawing trails as they launched towards a target out of town.
"So it seems… You still can't contact Mac?"
Hanna likewise looked up into the sky at the craft which had appeared around sunrise, while it wasn't entirely out of the ordinary for her employer to place visible defences around her nowadays, they weren't usually shooting at things, and Hanna had never personally witnessed them shooting this much either.
"No, there's no response, but the emergency function appears to still be working."
Normally Mac would contact Tia and Hanna anytime there even was a remote possibility of danger near them, but perhaps due to their somewhat forceful manner of taking a vacation he hadn't reached out, nor could they contact him at the moment.
(I might've been too harsh…)
While Tia felt like Mac had failed to protect her at that moment, the strange drone didn't really seem dangerous. After some time to calm down, Tia agreed she might've overreacted slightly.
(And I can't even apologize when he doesn't accept the calls… Or not, there might be something else going on.)
If Mac had just been ignoring her attempts to communicate, Tia would be annoyed, but with all the activity in the sky she figured there was something else going on. Mac had increased the visibility of his craft somewhat after starting the RED transport service, but gunships this close to a city seemed out of the ordinary.
"I guess there's no other choice…"
Picking up the necklace she had gotten from Mac, Tia took a deep breath before contacting them.
"... R3D? Are you there?"
No response.
"I guess that was too long of a-"
Click click click click click.
Unsettling clicks sounded out of the necklace, like that of a bug, but as Tia waited for some sort of response she understood, nothing happened.
"Hello?"
[Did you know the human brain maintains function for up to several minutes after decapitation?]
"... I did not. Thank you for that."
Having finally gotten a response she could understand out of R3D, Tia still wished she could unhear the last 20 seconds but nevertheless persisted.
"Do you know what's going on currently? I can't seem to contact Mac."
[There are a bunch of things going on.]
"..."
[But I'm guessing you want specifics, so needy although you treat him so unreasonable.]
Stabbing directly at Tia's heart, R3D continued unabashed.
[Mac is currently unreachable because his uplink is fully tasked and at capacity.]
"Meaning?"
Seeing R3D shared Mac's propensity for saying things that made no sense, Tia nevertheless persisted.
[Mac's neural uplink, the thing he uses to talk with you when far away, is currently busy as he is using all of its capacity to talk with other things… Don't fucking tell me.]
Turning its attention back to the planet, R3D gleamed a lot just from the systems it was locked out from. Digging deeper and looking at drone activity confirmed things.
[Mac currently can't talk to you because he fractured his mind and is conducting massive drone operations. Does that explain it?]
"No."
Feeling the need to sigh deeply although it had no restoratory system to do so, R3D dumbed it down for the flesh based processors on the other side.
[He's multitasking, you know, doing multiple things at one time. Or in specific he's doing 2096 things at once, all the time, at every moment, for the last day or so. Apparently those 'monsters' are coming out everywhere and are threatening normal operations he cares about, that includes you, judging by the gunships above. You should be able to contact him when this situation passes.]
(This situation really isn't passing, what the fuck is going on?)
[Treat the symptoms, not the cause.]
"Yeah yeah, but I would really like to know the cause at this point."
It had now been 4 days since Tia had started her vacation and Mac had fractured his mind to deal with the massive jump in monster activity. At this point he had been forced to bring ammunition out of cold storage, but the situation had also become manageable enough for Mac's fractured mind to start working on the why of the situation.
"It almost doesn't feel fair."
[Yeah, that's the point.]
Although Mac had no idea about the mechanics behind it, he had nevertheless isolated the areas where monsters spawned out of thin air, leading him to think about the problem as the monsters inside and around the Victoria dukedom were neutralised before they were even finished materialising.
"Bring up the feed from 224 again."
On the outskirts of an abandoned limestone quarry sat Lynx IFV #224, it vigilantly scanned its surroundings but were particularly keen on any changes in the centre of the quarry where bipedal green skinned humanoid monsters, ogres, materialised out of thin air. As the air slightly shifted, 224's turret snapped to attention. With a flash, bones appeared out of thin air, rapidly growing muscles before it was annihilated by 41mm autocannon fire.
[The events are somewhat irregular, but there is some sort of rhythm behind it.]
Having a communal autistic staring contest with the gravitational, visual and thermal sensors, all of Mac's selves started seeing some kind of reason in the madness of monsters appearing out of thin air.
"But I still can't see what I can't see…"
[So true bestie.]
(All of these datapoints I'm collecting might merely be the effect, but we need the cause.)
As much as Mac's fractured selves were masters of physics, material science and gravitational quantum field theory he had no idea how monsters just appeared out of nowhere.
[I really need a mage, or someone who knows about magic…]
"So true bestie."
Realising he wasn't going to gain more insights by maintaining his fractured state and that all of the monster spawning sites near or inside the Victoria dukedom were locked down, Mac started the long process of putting his mind back together.
-
"Urgh… I need a break."
It had been 2 days since the irregular monster surge had passed, and after that shitshow of overtime and constant emergency deployments she now found herself stuck behind the desk with an endless sea of paperwork.
Reports, inventory lists and injury statements all had to be inspected by the knight captain (her) and anything less than a perfect job would land her in another inquiry.
(At least my dukedom mostly handled itself, thanks to Mac and his machines…)
The only bright side of this surge had been Mac's ironclad protection of his 'business interests', thanks to that quick act Anastasia didn't have to spread her forces even thinner than necessary, reducing costs and casualties.
(Of course him supporting my family like that has its own problems with my position as a knight captain, but that's a headache for future me to deal with.)
In the aftermath of the irregular monster surge the kingdom's political scene had seen quite a shakeup. While the centrist royal faction still remained as it was, most of the conservative faction had centered around the finance minister Duke Willow in their rejection of Mac and everything he offered. In response to that shift, a new front had formed around Anastasia's dad, this new faction consisting of formerly bitter enemies didn't quite accept Mac and his induction into the Kingdom, but they were open to considering how he could aid the Kingdom.
(It's a straight up clusterfuck, thankfully the people around me realise I'm not made for politics.)
Anastasia's position as a knight captain made her relatively safe from this political shift turned quagmire, but she wasn't really all that neutral.
"... I still need to thank him for curing Mari."
Absentmindedly muttering whatever was on her mind as she struggled through the seemingly endless sea of paperwork, Anastaisa had failed to notice Mac walk in.
"You can do that right now."
"WAH! W-why are you- No, how long have you been there!?"
Almost falling out the back of her chair Anastasia instinctively reached for her sword as Mac succeeded in giving her a fright.
"Since you said you needed a break. Anyway, let's go for a break."
Practically dragging Anastasia to her feet, Mac didn't let her interject with a single word of refusal and no time at all she was outside on the street and could no longer slap Mac.
Or break his nose.
"... Why are you bothering me like this?"
"All in due time, dear grasshopper."
Dodging a fist meant for his face, Mac's smile remained unfazed.
"Mind your position, Knight captain."
"..."
Glancing to the people of the capital around them going about their day, Anastasia made a face like she had bit into a lemon as she realised she had missed her opportunity to smack Mac.
"Fine, you win for now. What are we doing?"
"Taking a break, my synapses are fried from fracturing my psyche and you look like you could do with a change in scenery."
Ignoring the first part of the sentence, as she had no idea what it meant Anastasia found herself reluctantly agreeing with the situation she had been forced into.
(I guess I'll play along, he might need to talk with me where there're less eyes and ears.)
Seeing Anastasia misunderstand his intentions, Mac's smile got a little smugger before he was promptly distracted.
"Wait, what is that creature?"
Across the street walked a small fury creature with a long bushy tail, although it wore a collar made out of leather it seemed a free spirit sauntering about with no apparent purpose.
"That's… That's just a cat, are you serious?"
"I haven't seen anything like that before, so yeah, I'm serious."
Remembering that Mac was an alien from another world, Anastasia felt a bit wrong for teasing him.
"Cats are pest control that mostly move by their own tune. I've seen people pet them but they don't seem to trust me or most people all that much."
"I see."
Seeing Mac take a prolonged interest in the feline creature, Anastasia felt the need to warn him.
"I will scratch you."
"Nah."
Needlessly confident and smug like always, Anastasia watched Mac approach the cat and imagined him getting scratched in the face as a smile started creeping onto her face.
(I warned you.)
As Mac approached he whistled to get the cat's attention, then watched its creature for a few tense moments before extending a hand it headbutted before he started petting it on the head like the two of them were best buds.
"What did yo-"
"I just talked with it. You are aware that it took me 3 hours to learn your language, right?"
"-... Whatever."
Watching Mac and the cat be best buds as it started purring loudly, Anastasia was forced to admit he had some idea of what he was doing.
"I see this- What are you doing? Come on closer."
Turning to talk to the knight captain, Mac found her standing quite a bit away and beckoned her closer. After a bit of awkward silence where Mac continued to beckon her over like a cat before Anastasia finally walked over.
"What?"
"You see, I view this cat and me like I see myself and this kingdom."
As he finally had the audience he required, Mac continued his monologue unabated.
"A bit ago we didn't even know how to communicate, but now we're friends, even if I just want the best for this creature and it doesn't really care that much about me."
"... If you were making a point, you're starting to butcher it now."
"So true- Ahm, sorry."
Anastasia could somewhat see where Mac was going with this, but she didn't really appropriate his boundless and childlike optimism.
"What I'm saying is that mutual cooperation greatly benefits both parties, even if the trust isn't all there yet. I'm sure you've seen the reports pertaining to the Victoria dukedom. What if a surge happens again but all of this kingdom is under my protection?"