Will waved the smoke aside and dove in. The suddenness of the breakdown had startled him, but he had already gone into fixer mode. He disconnected wires and applied insulation foam. The rig looked stable for now, but who knows when it would break down again. He cursed and fished out the plump techie's tab and went through the machine's diagnostic system. A window popped up, and he could immediately see the problem.
The power transformer was on the fritz, causing the bridge rectifier and the psion regulator to malfunction. They all had to be replaced.
Will cycled the machine into half-power mode and began his work. He had made adjustments like this thousands of times, although not under gunfire. Other than that, this was standard. There was plenty of work in the undercity for a fixer. They didn't bother asking for someone certified either and preferred someone cheap. That wasn't nearly enough money to support a household. Hopefully, he could get his license and move up.
Will ignored the rain of bullets around him and focused on fixing the machine. His hands were fast, and his movements were smooth. The sync rate must be on point. The floating VR window was present in the corner of his eye, and with a few eye commands, he brought it up. 85%... 87%... 86%...
The numbers fluctuated as he worked. The selection criteria for O.A.Ts had always been a bit opaque, but Will suspected that sync rate level played a major part in it. A hidden variable that measured their talent.
All the other tests had been completed. But sync rate was a whole other matter. It signified something much deeper. How well could you meld with a machine? How deep could you go? Sync rate was related to all of this and could indicate how far you could go as a psypher. The corpos would be very interested in knowing their future aptitude.
Will slid the new regulator in place and brought the machine to a full cycle. There was a thrum, and his skin prickled like a live wire. The shield generator was back in action.
Will slotted the generator's cover back on when the borrowed tablet beeped. He fished out the techie's tab and read the new message.
"Oh for the love of..." He bit back his curse. There was another generator breakdown.
What were the odds? There was no way that another generator would break down the exact second he was finished with the first one. This was just the O.A.Ts being the O.A.Ts. And now he had to leg it all the way to the other side of the floor without getting shot. Several flechettes pinged past the generator's shell in acknowledgment of that fact. He ignored the stray metal heads and sneaked a look at the breach.
The soldiers were still there, and the guns were still firing, but this time there was something more. Something reached out of the breach. Shadow-like flesh and long, spindly limbs. It was big as a man and thrice as fast. So fast its afterimages left a smear of shadow in its wake. There was a blur of movement and the flash of eight compound eyes.
"Shit!" He cursed as the chittering began. "Spiders."
He couldn't breathe. His skin crawled, and his vision swam. They were everywhere, chittering-scuttling, eyes-on mouths, fangs on teeth, biting, clawing, eating.
He tore his eyes away from the amassing horde and hid behind the generator, breathing hard. He hated spiders.
Will shuddered. It took a while to bring himself back to a place where he could move again. His heart raced, but he put a lid on that screaming part of his mind - Used logic when faced with terror. The questions will keep the mind occupied. He forced himself to look back at the breach.
The mutant arachnids moved with such speed that they were barely visible. They only paused to fire projectiles from their mouths. There was a ping as the flechettes left their skulls, almost like a gun.
That was very unrealistic; there was no spider species that had that kind of ability. Even their swarming pattern was wrong; they moved too strategically. In fact, they were behaving like proper infantry despite their suicidal mass charging.
This entire scenario was pure fiction. The devs could have substituted humans as the opposing force, and it would have made no difference. Granted, the spiders were way more terrifying and wasted more resources, but a smaller human force would be making the same moves the arachnids did. Which begged the question: why have spiders at all?
Maybe, it's because the examiners didn't want them fighting human-looking opponents? Imagine the scandal of a student suffering from PTSD from a VR kill. The PR alone would be a nightmare. He shuddered. If only they had picked something other than super gun spiders.
Will let out a breath that he had been holding and gritted his teeth. He had wasted enough time already. The alert that he had received from the tab was still active, and the second generator still needed to be fixed. As soon as he spotted a gap in the enemy fire, he shot off towards the next generator. Stray flechettes zipped past him, but he somehow managed to dodge them all. It was when he reached the generator that he noticed the machine was giving off acrid smoke.
Will made a quick connection to the machine diagnostic and found a mess. Every major component was blinking red, and the data was nonsensical. He touched the generator's side, which housed the electronics, and found it unnaturally warm. The control board must have fried, which meant the sensor data was useless. The inspection would have to be manual. Just great; one curveball after another.
Will half-cycled the generator and crawled into its internals. He pulled apart wires and disconnected all non-critical components. The burnt control board would be the first to go. He tossed the electronics out and started on a new board. The work was tedious, but he had the generator up and running after fifteen minutes.
The tab beeped once again right after he slotted in the generator's outer cover. He groaned. He had a pretty good idea what the message would say; sure enough, the third generator now needed fixing. The exam was predictable at least.
He made it across the floor in record time and went to work on the third generator. The fix this time was a small one, and he managed to wrap it up in five minutes. As if on cue, the tab beeped once again, and he was off to fix another clunker. This continued for a while. Generators needed fixing one after the other, and he spent the better part of twenty minutes on the run.
Will panted for air as he sprinted, his heart rate up and his breath coming out in shallow gasps. Tired and out of breath, he stumbled behind the very first generator he had fixed. Couple of flechettes slammed into the big machine, but he was too spent to care. There were thirty minutes left for the exam to end. Even with the clock ticking, he had to take a break.
He breathed in long and deep. The last few problems had a certain pattern to them. Thirty minutes would mean two laps around the floor; so six generators left to fix. He would have to pace himself. This was the final stretch, and the finish line was close. He just had to hammer the goal in.
Will took another deep breath but coughed. His breath came up short. No matter how hard he breathed, his lungs felt empty. There wasn't enough air around him. His head spun. His hands trembled, and the tab hit the floor with a thud.
"What is...this?" Will rasped. There was something wrong. He blinked the eye commands and brought out the VR window. The floating screen was filled with red numbers. His heart rate was through the roof. Blood pressure was high, and the sync rate fluctuated wildly. It was the same for his other vitals.
"This can't be right." Will brought out the data history. Graphs popped out in front of him; with a few adjustments, he flattened out the variance and saw a pattern. His condition was in a steady decline from the start of the exam. That made no sense.
He swiped the window aside and brought out the medication log. The VR administered a few drugs to keep the users under. This was to separate the motor control of the real world and the virtual one. He ran through the numbers, and two stood out. There was a slight uptick in Dextroamphetamine and Termadol. The machine wasn't calibrated properly and had upped the dosage by two percent.
"Oh no... oh no no no." Termadol wasn't even supposed to be in this machine; it had always been Lupropion. The drug switch and increase in dosage would have been trivial for anyone else, but not Will, not in his condition. He reset the dosage to its proper setting, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. A shudder ran through him, and his whole body shook.
He was about to have a seizure.
