DING!
~----~
[60 Hours complete!]
[Well-done soldier, reinforcement is here.]
~----~
The sound of helicopters came from behind the mountain.
For a brief moment, the chaos and the cacophony of the bloody battle in the mountain was overwhelmed by the sounds overhead as every soldier instinctively looked up… and then they appeared.
It was a lineup of aerial war vessels.
Three SM-Dragons led the reinforcement.
Each of them had two turret-mounted stabilized Miniguns at the sides, a gigantic flamethrower underneath it, and a 5-meter long cannon with a barrel that could swallow multiple humans!
Behind them were a lineup of over a dozen aerial vessels, ranging from Bell UH-9s to Bell AH-99 Gunships, and even a Dornier Adler Gunship, all of them heavily armed to the teeth.
These aerial vessels didn't arrive quietly, they arrived with the heat and thunder.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sky rained fire!
"We're saved!" The survivors of the military outpost immediately belted war songs of victory as the invading forces immediately tucked on their tails to retreat.
In this era, every soldier knew that foot soldiers stood no chance against aerial war machines. It was suicide.
The bombardment didn't stop as the helicopters unleashed hell.
But they didn't pursue as the Omnicore assault force retreated. This was because they knew of the Federation's aerial might; they had an aerial fleet that was even bigger than theirs.
If they forced it, the Federation's fleet would have the time to respond, and that was not a reality that they wanted to face.
They didn't come to fight and eradicate them, but to rescue their allies.
Only a few of these heavy helicopters stayed in the sky as they kept on bombarding the retreating Omnicore forces.
The rest came down as they immediately started evacuating the few survivors, knowing that the base was already compromised.
They were almost too late.
In certain ways though, they found it unbelievable how the military outpost managed to last against such a siege for 60 hours. It was practically unheard of against the Federation, the resilience shown by the base was legendary.
These men, these survivors… they've written their name in history.
In her reverie, Talia could hear the booming sounds that drilled into her ears, rattling her bones. For a moment, she believed that she was dead and this is what the underworld sounded like.
'If I'm dead, that means they killed me before I could mutate into a Neon Beast, right?' She inwardly heaved a sigh of relief.
She felt melancholic, but at least, death brought solace. It was better than turning into a Neon Beast. But then, she felt a change.
For some reason, she felt a bright white glow that inundated her vision. She didn't understand at first, but she soon discovered that this glow came from her body, illuminating everywhere around her like a pure white spirit.
In her reverie, she thought. 'What's happening?'
Then she felt her vitality returning, and she felt the blurry scenes in her vision turning clearer. Only now did she notice the HUD screen that floated in front of her… her Freegrid interface!
'I survived!'
And then, she noticed her surroundings.
She saw the river of blood and greasy oil that stained the military outpost, tainting the pure whiteness of the snow and drawing a gory painting.
She saw hundreds of dead bodies dressed in the green military uniform of the Synth Order. To her, these were not just people, they were her comrades, comrades that she fought alongside to survive for 3 unforgettable days.
She saw the heavy helicopters lifting the few survivors and lifting back up into the skies. She saw the relief in their eyes, she saw the pain, but she also saw the joy; she couldn't help it as tears flowed freely down her eyes.
"We did it," she mumbled. "We survived".
"We fought".
As she mumbled these words, the world in front of her slowly started fragmenting as all the images soon disappeared, replaced by an entirely white world where she was the only one in existence.
The void soon cracked, and from the cracks came neon lights that snaked into the void, morphing it into a replica of a virtual network.
Talia was the sole signal inside this network.
She looked in amazement at the neon lights surrounding her. Every single one of them was made of and saturated with pure ADE, uncorrupted.
Floating in their midst, she felt her whole body relax, all her mental exhaustion disappearing as she felt like an embryo who finally returned to the warm and gentle embrace of her mother.
'This is the psionic network'. She gasped, suddenly realizing. She had read of it in the records of the Freegrid Collective.
It was like a hive mind, a psionic domain, a collective network where NetRunners around the world could connect to. NetRunners only gain the ADE potency to connect to it at the E Rank.
As soon as she arrived here, within a few seconds, the world brightened as Talia felt like she was being bombarded by a barrage of knowledge.
Unfamiliar concepts surged into her mind: ancient networks, unprecedented lines of code… they all clashed into her mind, merging with her body.
Her body seemed to melt, merging with all the information.
Talia didn't feel pain, instead, she felt like a baby that was being nourished as she instinctively closed her eyes to digest her gains.
This continued for a few minutes before it stopped. When it did, she opened her eyes and they glowed neon green. It felt like there were hidden lines of code hidden in the depths of her eyes.
Her virtual body was whole again.
In that moment, Talia realized. 'I'm now a Neo NetRunner'.
She quickly comprehended the new abilities and innate talents that her body unlocked, as they were part of the barrage of knowledge that she gained.
The first thing she realized was a change in her perception of reality. Talia felt that if she wanted, her eyes could turn neon green and apart from reality, she would begin seeing into the psionic network.
It was not just a network of code, but also a network of consciousness encompassing all the sentient consciousness in the world. It was a network that transcended physical touch.
Instinctively, she knew that she no longer needed a computer to access a network. Her brain now had the instinctive ability to interface with any network.
In a way, her brain was now a pseudo-computer.
She also felt that by connecting and interfacing with the psionic network, she could vaguely understand the thoughts of people that were close to her, so long that they were not significantly stronger than her.
'Maybe when I get stronger, I can interfere with the consciousness and thoughts of other people?' She guessed.
She unlocked four new abilities: Neural Projection, Data Lash, Mirror Mask, and Overclock Mind.
With Neural Projection, her physical body can turn into a holographic projection through which she can enter augmented reality overlays where she can interact with digital ghosts and signals.
It turned her into an entirely different form of existence, a psionic ghost.
With it, she could directly interact with networks instead of needing to interface first, and it also meant that she could directly enter the psionic network as a data lifeform. It was the natural state of AI Constructs.
That was not what shocked her most. What shocked her most was the fact that this meant if she ever found herself in a situation that she couldn't survive, she could escape into any AR overlays around her.
That means she could hide inside electronic devices like a camera, a smartphone, and even AR glasses!
This was a whole new world for her.
As for Data Lash, it enabled her to convert her thoughts into a concussive psionic whip, and the amount of damage dealt was based on her WIL stat in correspondence to the WIL stat of her opponent.
Mirror Mask gave her the ability to spoof identity signatures, giving her a different approach to concealment.
At F Rank, she already had Ghost Line, an ability that grants her temporary invisibility on digital sensors.
Mirror Mask took it a step further. With it, she could create an entirely new but fake identity for herself. That means when hiding inside devices like smartphones, she could disguise herself to look like a harmless app on the phone!
This was basically undetectable, unless a higher-ranked NetRunner was personally running the search. And even then, it was not guaranteed to detect her.
In that moment, Talia realized. 'Invisibility is our strength!'
'Wait, with this ability, I won't even know it if a higher-ranked NetRunner infiltrated my smartphone!'
She could easily imagine a NetRunner combining Neural Projection + Ghost Line + Mirror Mask to invade a high-value target's smartphone, then easily completing an assassination mission when the target was alone.
She felt a chill run down her spine at the mere thought of it. 'How insidious!'
As for Overclock Mind, it's an ability than can double her mental processing for 10 seconds at the risk of later burnout.
At this moment, Talia felt like she was on a whole new level of existence.
Then suddenly, she felt a suction force that was dragging at her consciousness.
Talia smiled instinctively. 'I survived'.