PRINCIPIA V, AURELIUS CITY, JULY 3311
Steve Firebird wore a mask. That wasn't unusual. He was a sport fighter in the most watched interplanetary sporting league in existence. Mecha Galaxy. If you were watched by more people than any number you could safely hold in your head, including gamblers, stalkers, merchandising agencies, lawyers and other opportunists, you might wear a mask, too.
There weren't any fans out on the streets of Aurelius City though. No groupies, autograph hounds, no reporters. Sports weren't a big deal during a plague.
Today, that was the reason Steve Firebird was glad he wore a mask. The mask he wore was molded into a gunmetal, sepulchral half skull of a grin with yellowed fangs that covered the bottom half of his face and his nose. Pale skin held red rimmed, exhausted eyes above it. His hair was dyed in sheaves of yellow at his hairline over orange and then red trailing down his back, surrounding his face like a fiery wreath of feathers, the same as he would have done in the arena, as much to retain his identity off the cameras as to play the hero on them for so many.
Hunching over in his cockpit, he opened his local communication channel. "If we are on this planet, and it has a plague, we should be in special uniforms. Environmental suits outside of the Mechs. Everyday life has to be miserable here to a extent, Just because of the suits we should have to wear outside. While inside our compound, we would have the air filtration system... but all should be available to do their part while on planet side... so... why aren't we in environmental suits?"
Across the intersection from him was a matching thirty ton iMech, the paint job standard white, but with broad silver striping bordered in checkerboard that marked them both as members of the Combined 123rd Alpha Strikers. Its cannon arms glided back and forth, mostly to keep the wary, weary civilians aware that it was watching and loaded with elite military weapons far beyond what any planetary army Mecha might have.
Inside was Richard Millich, known as Zax in the field, commander of half of the 123rd's relief forces on planet. "The old plague is gone," he sighed, running a tired hand over the stripe of electric blue hair amid the salt and pepper brown on his head. He took a sip of Hatoraide, that tart orange beverage that kept them all going. He sighed, remembering the faces of Principia from the mission before, many of them dead now, from a different disease that the Shogunate had quarantined here, leaving an entire people to die.
"The second plague has Bioptics as its host, not bacterial. And thank the RNG it can't become airborne like the last one did." Zax sighed, and his iMech bent over as if to nod in sympathetic grief. Zax pulled up on the manual torso controls to compensate.
"Okay," Firebird pondered, "Then we all must be checking and scanning all the Bioptics that we have on hand, in cargo and in storage. Just one leak will spread like wildflowers to all the uninfected."
Zax took another sip. After a month of this, the Overwatch Orange Hatoraide was starting to taste like acid and aspirin. "Absolutely. Thankfully, we already had all of our Bioptics dated as standard protocol when the RND received shipments, and we put a 3304 quarantine date on them. That's because 3304 is the earliest we could tell that Gorax's infected Bioptics started affecting the Prince of Iron and General Fujiwara's troops."
Years before, the mysterious Gorax had spread infected Bioptics through the highest echelons of Shogunate society, infecting half of that empire's elite with madness and causing a civil war. Anyone using them as connections to computers went half mad: paranoid, aggressive, violent. "Good thing we backed the Prince of Flowers. Rumor has it the Emperor was affected too. If the mutagenic reprogramming from the Bioptics hit him, the Shogunate might have a Monkey King by now." Zax chuckled darkly at that image, yet he didn't wish that dark consequence on anyone.
"Okay, so with all the checks being done, and with the 3304, all of our bioptics are safe and secure. With the plague still around and about, how many more people can be infected and be cured?"
Zax made his iMech wave through a convoy of covered hovertrucks bearing local soldiers. Traffic control wasn't the main reason the Combined 123rd was here, but it made for a good use and a good image.
"The vaccination is 100%, but if and only if the full course of vaccination is taken. How many are affected? Well, look around. Have you seen any Mechanized police lately? I think some of the civil forces in their police Mecha got some of it. That's why we're doing a little bit of everything while the government catches up to it. They know more than we do on the who and how many front."
Suddenly, the policing function they were doing made a little more sense. "Right. With the local police being infected, how many people are running around and getting into stuff that could be infected with the plague, just waiting for a host to come by and pick it up? With the vaccination being around, how many more are getting reinfected by a mutation of the original plague?"
Zax scrunched up his face in a half scowl, annoyed with himself for not explaining the Gorax Plague in finer detail before getting hundreds of Mecha moving. Revisiting this haunted place was getting to him.
"Well, thank goodness Gorax made his plague static and contained to the Bioptics that people plug into to run complex, top end machines like Mecha, supercomputers or military tanks and planes. It's more of a cybernetic computer program than a biological virus. Otherwise we'd have a gigantic problem. I sure hope Gorax isn't learning what you're talking about over at Novum Dolorum..."
"Right, a big mega virus for anything that has a computer in it. Now the question is, with the Mecha infected, how will it respond to the controller? if the virus is anything like the RAIDS virus for the computers back in 3258, how will mankind use their Mecha at all?"
"It's not infecting the Mecha themselves like the rogue Artificial Mind did. It's going through the cybernetic interface to reprogram the brain biologically, going after the pilots. Forget Mecha. This extends to science labs, research institutes, the police force..."
Zax thought back to his first WarHorse, tuning it up in his garage before taking to the stars. He straightened up in his seat. "Yeah, I didn't think about that. There are some civilians who didn't join the game of Mecha Galaxy or the army or police. You know, the hobbyists. Damn. Good point." He reached over to his control board, typing up a memo, his lips pressed into a grim line. A car horn blared in the intersection. They'd have to wait.
"Okay. I'll send a communique to the planetary command noting that even a guy restoring an old Red Ant in a garage could be infected now. Anybody who bought Bioptics anywhere in the past what... ten years? Principia has got to cast a wider net once they get their army and local Mecha police forces back. Until then, the cops are stuck in hover cars with inferior gear to fight any Mecha." He took a moment to rub knuckles across his forehead. "What a mess."
Firebird played out possible scenarios in his head. "...And if there are infected Mecha still around, what is the percenage that the Mecha will work. Even martial law has a point to it, but not severe law. All the police force is doing is getting in the way of the other Mecha, trying to do their job. This plague must be stopped at all costs."
Just then, something chirped in his left ear. An alert. It was Sean Wadey, one of his best commanders. "CIC, you've got combat close by. Two clicks east. I'm pinned down fighting a breakaway Principia tank force. Task Force iBinary under Captain Ive is ten clicks out, but the XO, Lieutenant Sculley, is wounded and they need to run through the rapid refit base, which will take... two to three minutes before they can pivot toward that location."
Zax did quick math in his head. The car horns multiplied in the intersection below. His fingers fluttered, and a holographic circle expanded in front of him. Satellite readout. He swiped his fingers in the air. Two clicks east. Yes. Large, mobile heat sources in a battle line. Twenty to forty tons each. And their energy signatures vibrated in spikes. Large scale weapons fire.
"Wadey, stay put. I've got this one." A flick of a wrist. Switch from high command to local command frequency. "Looks like what you said was right, Firebird. We've got civilian police shooting it out with the military." Zax was relieved for the chat he'd had with the mayor that week. Another flick of the wrist. A different, wider communication. City wide. "Heads up, Chessmen. Targets. Two clicks east of us. Central Square. Police will be in uniform, wearing white armbands and white stripes on their gear and vehicles that check out as vaccinated. Military Mecha are... Shocklites in brown chocolate chip cammo, led by a Nifthel."
All over Aurelius City, calm, static iMechs whined to life, stomping onto pavement.
Zax watched a net of white dots start to contract. He smiled. "Throttle up, Chessmen! This is live fire. Vector on me!" His iMech's legs whirled to a higher pitch, his plodding thirty ton stomp lifting into a nimble, pounding run. "Let's keep it mean and clean, people. They're infected military, not bad guys. Let's show 'em what precision can do. Arms and legs only. Gimp 'em and strip 'em. Kick 'em in the jimmy if you can."
Firebird barked in, quick and crisp. "Tango in the brush, two clicks south. Permission to scare off the hiders in the brush."
Zax barked back, the city street and skyscrapers lightly bouncing in his view. "Do it. You've got right flank, Firebird. Take your five south. I'm going to reinforce the good guys." He narrowed his eyes. "Big time."
