Battered

The minigun whirred up before Kevin could react. All 9 barrels fired at once, peppering him with a hail of bullets. The devastating barrage tore through his artificial skin, heavily damaging his metallic exoskeleton.

Unable to think of anything else, Kevin focused on protecting his internal circuits by crossing his arms in front of his chest. This gesture triggered the exoskeleton's automatic defensive countermeasures. Immediately a couple of light armor flaps fanned out from his arms, shielding him from the gunfire.

The Neutralizer kept firing, but all the bullets ricocheted off the thin titanium flaps, leaving him unharmed.

// Warning! Warning! Warning!

User is taking heavy automatic weapon fire

Exoskeleton integrity compromised!

Current exoskeleton integrity: 80%

Suggest evasive maneuvers.//

"Thanks, you stupid shit! I never would have guessed!" Kevin grunted, holding back the bullet storm.

Any human would have been shredded to pieces by now, but Kevin's cyborg body was fairly resistant to conventional weapons fire. He still hadn't got the hang of all his internal systems, but he did remember the couple of defensive systems he had viewed previously.

"Access defense systems. Activate High-Frequency Signal Scrambler!"

In response to his voice command, a circular panel opened up in his chest, exposing a small black cube with three green antennas.

// Activating High-Frequency Signal Scrambler

Please select target type:

1. Communicator Bracelets

2. Holo Displays

3. Wi-Fi Systems

4. Utility Bots

5. Attack Robots

6. Attack Drones

7. Security Cameras

8. Self-driving Transport Units //

"Damn it! What the fuck does it look like I need?" Kevin yelled. "Select attack drones, you stupid AI!"

// Target type selected: Attack Drones.

Matching target Radio Frequency...

Emitting jamming frequency... //

A green light flashed inside Kevin's chest, and immediately the red laser sensor on the Neutralizer powered down. Soon after, the minigun sputtered out its last rounds and came to a whirring halt. The Neutralizer still remained airborne but showed no signs of movement.

Kevin carefully parted his arms and let out a sigh of relief.

"Time to say your final goodbyes," Kevin declared, aiming his right arm at the drone hovering aimlessly in the air. "Activate primary weapon: Auto-targeting Laser Rifle."

His lower right arm quickly rearranged itself, assembling a full-sized laser rifle, with an extendable barrel. Kevin saw a cross-shaped crosshair appear on his HUD and it automatically locked onto his target.

All he had to do was think, and the rifle fired automatically, emitting a burst of red laser light that tore a hole in the Neutralizer, frying its internal circuits. The armored drone lost flight stability and came crashing down like a useless hunk of scrap.

Kevin was still staring at the destroyed drones, when suddenly his right eye flashed a stream of green laser light on the ground, scanning the remains of the broken machines.

// Analyzing...…..

Core Fragments detected!

Rare weapon mod detected!

Peripheral augmentation detected!

Defense module detected! //

"What the hell does that mean now?" Kevin mumbled to himself. He bent down to dig through the scrap and see if there was something useful there.

As soon as he started sifting through the scrap, a small rectangular chamber housing an advanced extractor popped open right in the middle of his chest. It blinked green and chimed rhythmically as new notifications started popping up on Kevin's HUD. His left eye twitched sporadically as he tried to read through all the messages which kept appearing one after the other.

// 20 Core Fragments extracted!

1 Concentrator mod extracted!

1 Bionic scanner augmentation extracted!

1 Local hacking module extracted!

Neutralizer structural analysis completed.

Tracker Drone structural analysis completed. //

When the first batch of notifications disappeared, a new set of messages popped up. Unable to understand anything, he swiped left and dismissed them. This interface had a variety of advanced features and only Dr. Stacey could explain them to him.

As Kevin headed back to sub-section D-3, he heard Suzy's voice in his ear.

"What's going on there? Kevin, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

"I can hear you loud and clear. The drones have been dealt with and I'm heading back."

Almost immediately the door blocking his path opened up, and Suzy ran up to him. She looked past him and admired his handiwork. "Looks like you did a real number on them."

After briefly surveying the tunnel, she turned her attention to Kevin. She noticed the damage his exoskeleton had sustained. His artificial skin was full of holes, and parts of his metallic framework peeped through the cavities. The bullets hadn't penetrated deep into the exoskeleton, but they had dented it in multiple places.

"We need to get you back to the lab," Suzy said with a note of concern in her voice.

"You mean your dad's one?" Kevin asked.

"Nah, I don't think we need to go back to the hardware lab for this. Even mom can repair such minor dents and cracks."

The Security Chief thanked Kevin personally and led him to the lift. If Kevin hadn't shown up when he had, a lot of his men would have died fighting the Neutralizer, and even then he wasn't sure they would've been able to stop it.

When Kevin and Suzy returned to the armament lab, Dr. Stacey quickly led Kevin to the ACMAP. Typing a few lines on her console, she let out a sigh of relief. "You look pretty busted up. But I'm glad your internal circuits are intact. I'm guessing you took out that Neutralizer?"

"I did, but it wasn't easy," Kevin replied, climbing into the pod.

"Well done, Kevin. We owe you for this one." Bringing up her holo-display, Dr. Stacey manipulated a few floating icons and ran a quick diagnostic scan. "All your vitals look normal and the internal circuits and processing chips haven't sustained any damage. Alright, initiating rapid external repair."

A stream of blue light washed over Kevin's body and in a few minutes, he was as good as new. He stepped out of the ACMAP and looked at his arms and legs in surprise. There was no visible damage on the outside, and his exoskeleton integrity displayed at 100% again.

"Thank you, Dr. Stacey."

"No, I should be the one thanking you, Kevin. You did well out there. Things could have unfolded a lot differently if you weren't here."

"I'm glad I could do my bit," Kevin replied. "You were right though, I still know very little about this system."

"Well, let's get started then. I'm sure you've managed to obtain some resources from your recent encounter."

"Yeah, quite a lot actually. I don't even know what they mean."

"Please have a seat." Dr. Stacey snapped her fingers and spoke into her Zen watch. "Seating arrangements please."

At once, a hidden panel opened up in the left wall and 3 levitating white cubes came out and arranged themselves in a triangle. Each cube had a cushioned top and internal heating.

Dr. Stacey and Suzy were quite comfortable in their bizarre chairs, but Kevin's felt like he would fall off at any moment due to the small size and lack of arm-rests. He really didn't understand the purpose of having such odd-looking fancy chairs instead of the regular ones.

"Just relax yourself. The chairs are built to offer maximum structural support. You're not gonna fall off," Dr. Stacey assured. Putting on a large holographic display of Kevin's exoskeleton, she began explaining. "Your interface or system allows you to upgrade your exoskeleton to suit a wide variety of needs. However, to perform the said upgrades, you need resources."

She opened her clenched left fist and brought up 4 different resource categories on the holo-display: Core Fragments, Modules, Augmentations and Mods.

Darting her eyes towards the display, she began. "Core Fragments are required for upgrading your exoskeleton. You can use them to increase the exoskeleton's durability, make it corrosion-resistant, or simply add extra utility slots. Unlike the other resources, you can only obtain Core Fragments from destroyed machines. Next, we come to the modules. Modules allow you to equip new weapons and defensive mechanisms. All you need to do is install them into your module slots."

Dr. Stacey looked at Kevin to make sure he was following, and then continued explaining. "Now let's talk about augmentations. These are used for enhancing your peripheral units such as eyes, ears, arms, etc. Augmentations allow you to add extra functionality to your peripherals, making them both versatile and efficient. And last but not the least, the mods or modifiers. All mods allow you to modify your weapons, altering the way they behave. Sometimes, they also increase the effective range and fire rate."

"That's gonna take a lot of time to process," Kevin replied after a good deal of staring at the holo-display.

"It's actually a lot similar to the mecha systems in Robo Warrior," Suzy added. "You'll get the hang of it, eventually."

"I think the best way to get used to it, is by upgrading your system!" Dr. Stacey exclaimed, rising from her seat. "Are you ready to give it a try?"

Kevin jumped down and nodded. "Alright, let's do it."