Asteroid Blues

Byung Ryul gave one last shake before pushing up his gut to zip and button his uniform trousers up and then awkwardly folding his shirt round the flab. He turned away pissoir and strode out the door without so much as a glance at the sinks. He checked the time. Seven minutes till he was back on shift.If he hurried he could make it to his locker and back and grab his mid morning extra strength jade dragon energy drink.

The fast walk broke him out in a sweet and by the time he was back at his cubicle he had damp patches under his arms. His division leader looked at him with contempt.

The pencil pushing twat had always been resentful of his talents.

As Byung Ryul sank back into his armchair and the technicians started to connect the cables nd get the VR systems ready, He smiled at the division leader and indicated to the newest medal pinned along the cubicle wall and enjoyed the sour glare. It was a good way to start a shift.

As the systems came online Byung Ryul could feel his reaction speeds increase to inhuman levels as the combo of integrated neural systems a lab made chemicals spread their influence through his nerve system.

He started off running the same warm up and calibration programs he always did. Trying to push for higher scores and performance accuracy.

He knew he was a fat overweight mother fucker, but he was the best at what he did. You save as many lives as he did, it did not matter what you looked like when your at the military bar. Plus it was his choice. He could get the genetic upgrades to burn all the shit he liked to eat, but he liked to stand out.

Byung Ryul was state of the art. He was recruited for his aptitude with VR combat games. He had won three sphere wide titles by the age of 15 and was the first player in history to successfully defend three tiles in a single year.

Since then, he had been part of research that aimed to give REMs that human edge of unpredictability and improvisation without sacrificing processing speeds.

It was highly illegal stuff, but that is why it was being tested at Jiyuan away form the usual oversight of O-12 and the Pan`O spies.

The last thing to be hooked up was his Jade Dragon in its holder on his chest with straw in just the right place.

An alert popped up and a five second countdown. His assistance as being called upon in the field.

Byung Ryul scrolled rapidly through the terrain maps, gravity specs the positions of friendly assets and he had already sent locations where he wanted smoke deployed by the time the battlefield hacker had linked him to the Ruishi on the edge of the Jiyuan facility.

Before the Ruishi Byung Ryul could see a Kuang-shi team advancing up the east flank of this conflict towards where the enemy had been spotted.

He was glad to see the controller had taken note of his instructions and smoke was eruption exactly where he needed it.

He stated forward and ran a quick sim to see what targets he should hit first as he pushed forward and switched the Ruishi`s sensors to MSV mode.

As he turned the corner one of the Kuang-Shi had tagged the location of a Russian scout and he opened fire on it before it could even flinch.

He pushed the REM forward and took down two more Ariandans before they were able to start re deploying.

Byung Ryul detected vibrations through the REMs pressure sensors and rotated to get a view of the path behind him and opened fire on the corner of the building and watched as a dog warrior dropped to the floor.

Before the barrel on the spitfire stopped steaming he opened fire again on two Streloks who managed to return fire.

Byung Ryul could see the most likely angle in the moment the gun stopped moving into position and flattened the REM before the trigger was pulled.

His next burst of fire got his 6th confirmed kill in 73 seconds. Almost a personal best.

With the immediate area clear Byung Ryul pushed on.without slowing he mowed down a line Kazak before strafing around a corner to get LoS on a second as he and a Frontovik waited in ambush. Unfortunately for them they had expected him to come the other way.

Turing was he fired he just saw the two start to drop as the left his vision and the Ruishi raced round the back of the Tartary lines to assault the troops on the west flank.

As he rounded a corner he caught sight of a Tacktor Mul and a dozer. He had the time to cap the engineer and the shity Robot to clear 10 kills in 98 seconds. In the real he muttered “One fucking more.”

“There!”

The second traktor Mul was down.

“shit. 102 seconds”

Pissed he continued. And was almost caught off guard by a camo sniper who missed his mark. Byung Ryul punished him for it swiftly.

He rounded the very edge of the conflict zone to find an Antipode controller looking confused at what had just happened. The look only lasted a second before she was gone too.

The Tartary forces were in full retreat and started to fall back.

Out of nowhere an antipode pack descended on the Ruishi. Byung Ryul smiled, stupid animals. He was the weapon that killed them. The Rushi was just the shell casing.

Byung Ryul took a sip of Jade dragon as he dropped back into simulation games. That was a good run. He was finally getting a real streak going with this current crisis.

He made sure to remember the name Lt Myongsun. His whole team owed him a drink of that one.