With the toys in my backpack, my job is to hold the Intruder for five minutes. I am backed with a photon shotgun, tactical grenades and two drones that continuously fly on top of me, fending off any projectiles.
The Intruder starts the show with a scatter shot from his pistol, sending twenty or more red pellets bouncing around the hallway, but then they all head to my place. I snap my finger, and the two drones block the bullets by flaming the area in front of me, burning the red pellets into self-detonation. Then, I charge forward with my loaded shotgun.
I press the trigger as my sight aligns with his head and my spectacles signal me to shoot, but then the powerful electromagnetic energy packed in the photon pellets gets blocked when he raises his left arm, blocking them. The shirt is torn, but then his arm is still intact thanks to the armour.
I jump back, right before he fires another round of bouncing bullets. The drones shoot down some of them, but almost half passes through me and the drones. As expected, the bullets eventually bounce and fly back to my place, but I manage to determine their trajectory and bend down, dodging both of them. They hit a random wall and explode into pieces, blowing smoke clouds everywhere.
At that moment, I realise I forget that I am not one-versus-one an Intruder. I am trying to buy time. I tune the wavelength of my pellet shots, pretending that my shotgun suddenly breaks down in the process.
- Ha, your only toy to actually deal with me is broken. What are you going to do?
The Intruder complacently declares, as he charges forward, planning to corner me.
- After I send you to hell, your partner is next.
- You fall right into my trap!
As he approaches a good range, I suddenly lock the forend to load the shot into the barrel, and press the trigger. This time, a bird shot consisting of many photons at the wavelength of visible light, results in a blinding flash. The Intruder manages to block some of them with his arms, but the rest of the photons make him blind for a few seconds. He loses navigation.
Gamma rays or just the normal light rays all belong to the electromagnetic spectrum. By adjusting wavelength, a characteristic property that defines what wave group it belongs to in the spectrum, I change the piercing, energetic gamma rays into high intensity white lights, effectively screwing his vision for a few seconds.
- Argh! What the hell is that? - The temporarily blind Intruder roars at me.
But then, unfortunately for him, there is more to Physics that he would not expect.
I tune the wavelength to a higher group, and repeatedly fire at him. Up a wavelength group, visible light becomes infrared radiation. The high temperature shots slowly melts his armour, while the unexpected heat that comes immediately after a blinding flash is torturing him. He leaps backward to hold his ground.
- Enough! - He shouted.
After the shout, a short range electromagnetic pulse vibrates through the air, directly jamming my two drones. They fall onto the ground.
- Seems like you are triggered by a mere human. How pathetic. - I intentionally provoke his anger.
Right after my saying, a stream of bullets bounce around the room, coming at me. I throw a grenade into the air and shoot it. The grenade explode, triggering a cascade in the air that blow up all of the bullets like a domino chain. In the smoke cloud, I quickly place a Compact Shield onto the ground, which then expands into a human-sized shield that blocks all of the bullets emerging from the smoke.
One minute left. It should be easy, but then something changes.
The Intruder loads the pistol with a cartridge of yellow ammo. After the reload, the pistol vigorously vibrates in his hand, then it grows a compensator barrel.
- Cannot I will be wasting an enhanced .50 CAL on a brat. - The Intruder shoots.
The bullet is just supernaturally fast. Even with reaction time, I barely have enough time to place a Compact Shield on the ground, just for the overwhelming momentum of the bullet to uproot the shield, blow it backwards and explode.
The impact of the shot makes the Intruder fall a few steps backward. Not caring about his stance, he fires another few shots. The bulelts, which lock me as the target, swoosh through the air at speeds that far exceed the most advanced fighter jets, leaving smoke traces, at me. I try to stop them by continuously firing photon birdshots at the coming bullets, but my shots just cannot do any significant effect. Having no choice, I block the bullets with my shotgun.
Although it works, the shotgun, although built with physical damage resistant metals, breaks down into pieces, and the impact sends me backward, hitting a wall and collapsing onto the ground. I try to stand up, but as I regain my power to stand up again, I feel the coldness of a compensator barrel pinning my forehead.
- Any last words? - The Intruder, after losing all of his calmness, makes a maniacal laugh, as his finger is settled on the trigger, ready to press it any second.
- It is nice fighting you. Well, see you in hell.
- All talk and stuff, and now look who is here begging for mercy, HAHAHAHH!
- Who says I am begging for mercy?
- Just shut up!
BANG!!
That is a familiar sound of a gunfire right there. The bullet pierces the air at eight thousand metres per second, making the whoosing sound like explosively expanding air particles that make thunder noises in the air, and hit the Intruder's core in the head. The whole head and a small part of the upper body blows up, leaving a headless body that lacks any cognition to stand up properly. It collapses onto the ground.
Now, see you in hell in probably fifty years. The shotgun shield is just a bluff to lower your caution level near the end of five minutes. If I still look able, there is no way you would not notice a second murderous aura with a deadly, trump card level weapon that also gives out the same aura like that.
- Phew! If I just come late for one second, your head would be so damaged that I cannot even retrieve your memories to insert a humanoid robot shell. - Mirai shows a smug smile on her face, as she approaches me with the Railgun held tightly on her right arm.
- Nah. I would prefer dying if I cannot do some early morning exercise, ahem... - It is intended to be a joke, but I pretend to clear my throat instead of executing it.
- Anyway, jokes aside, that is a very perilous move of yours. Do your brain have a screw loose in it?
- I have trust in your timing, that is all. - I slowly stand up, dusting my clothes which is stained with some smoke of the hallway battlefield.
Now, the threat is cleared. Mirai picks up the Intruder's armour-like shell sample, along with his pistol and the cartridges hidden inside his body, and stores them in the archive. Then, we proceed to fix the generators.
- Bruh... They just plug out some wires and swap the positions of some other wires. There is not even a damaged part here. - I complain, as my spectacles scan the generator and connections, but all of the faults are highlighted in red, meaning incomplete or wrong connection, and not a single dark red, which means damage or potential damage.
- Huh, why are you complaining? You must feel lucky that we do not waste our own resources into repairing a damaged machine, like how you just discard a shotgun worth like four digits within a second. - Mirai talks back.
- Hey, this is also a part of the strategy to lower the Intruder's alert. Don't you even think that he would notice you, if I do not carry out such an act?
- And are you underestimating the sleath skills of a highly advanced robot from the future wo constantly update herself to suit combat needs?
The quarrels just never stop.
_________
- My head hurts... Where am I? - Albert slowly wakes up, to find that he is already safe and sound in the train carriage with fully operating air conditioning and filtering.
Right now, the generators are all fixed and calibrated. Electricity has returned to the rail systems, and so does the train carriage. We bring the unconscious Albert back inside the train carriage, use his key card to activate the engine, and turn on the air conditioner.
- It's OK. We have already calibrated the generators. Maybe a rat or two bit the wires, so we just solder the damaged conenctions with the tools they have in the first floor. - I tell him.
- Oh, that is good. Thanks... - Albert stands up and still for a bit, as if he is trying to recall what happened, then goes to the driver's carriage. - Do you still want to visit the sight-seeing station, before we head back.
- Nah, I prefer we go back now. - I reply. - Let's call it a day.
- Well, if you insist.
The wheels start rolliing, sending us from the production station back to the entrance station. I have another chance to take a good look at the factory layout of the underground facility, and store the vision in my tablet.
After bidding a farewell to Albert as he drops us back at the hotel, the overly exhausted us go back to our rooms, preparing to take a bath, and then a dinner and a good sleep. Just at that moment.
- Yuusha, I think your phone is vibrating.
- Is it? Let me check.
I open my phone. There is an email.
"Hi Yuusha,
Regarding the platform door, I can help you handle at most three-fourth of the cost by negotiating with the higher-ups regarding your help to fix the generators before the assistance arrives. However, with twenty-five percent of the cost left, please try to transfer me the money via cash or any cashless method within a week. The amount is..."
Two and a half thousand Australian dollars, roughly two hundred and fifty thousand yen. Equivalent to two to three projects.
I sigh as I switch off my phone, and I take a bath.