31. New armor

"I can work with that and you can drop the mister.", from the holoscreen the man, Liam Cram said with a hint of relief and a smile forming.

Max brought a chair and sat next to Grace waiting for her to respond to the barbaric-looking man, he seemed rational and all but it didn't change the fact he looked like someone who would kill you after a long session of torture for the smallest of reasons.

Liam didn't inspire trust in him but judging only a book by its cover was illogical and Max was aware of this. It didn't change the fact that it was the case however as this man was very much dangerous, extremely intelligent, competent, and unknown on every point. 

He reused the drone N5 to communicate in such a way it was compatible with a speaker and a camera on their side. In and of itself it wasn't impossible to do, those drones are made to be versatile but doing it while at the last sighting, he was in medieval bronze armor told there was something else. 

And this man could modify and create electronic devices by unknown means. Either he did it all on his own from the ground itself or was with others but the second option which was the more reasonable was funnily enough not the right one. He needed to talk with Grace about this even if he was certain she was aware of this.

"Since you asked multiple questions I will answer some of them as anyone would when learning of me and trust is something we need. Who, you know my name but that's all I would say for now, what, I'm human, as far as I know even if I'm breathing perfectly fine where I should not. How I don't know, I wish I did… and as you can deduce I'm alone.", Liam let out, his voice getting quiet almost muted toward the end as he closed his eery and ethereal metallic grey eyes and took a deep breath.

'Oh… Shit.', Max thought, instantly feeling like the worst piece of shit seeing the man's body language changing for something that was but sadness and longing. The man was human.

Grace on her side wasn't much better, even worse considering it was her the reason for this reaction, this was someone who had lost a lot and endured a lot, and it was but a fraction physically shown that her gut told her making it even worse. 

She didn't know what he had lost or endured but it didn't change that he did, and she was right. Losing absolutely everything was something even the strongest of men and women couldn't simply shrug off.

'He didn't lie.', the xenobotanist thought with certainty, she was certain because it wasn't her first time seeing or talking to people that had gone through a lot, sadly. It wasn't acting on Liam's part and it changed quite a bit on the possibility of why he was here but it certainly seemed to be out of his scope of control.

She herself is not exempt from such rules even if she knew she was blessed compared to billions of others and was extremely lucky to be where she was without having suffered.

War, famine, diseases, pollution, depression, and death were ever-present on Earth, but to a lesser degree on Mars and the Moon because of their little human populations, only the richest were exempt from those problems, living in obscenity and perversion. There were reasons Pandora was such a sought-after paradise and why the RDA held an iron grip on it. 

"Now I suppose it is my turn to ask one… What is the date and time?", Liam asked with his composure fully back in less than two seconds as if nothing ever happened to begin with, his previous smile almost too white smile back on as well.

"The 21 April of the year 2154 and it is currently 9:56 p.m. and 54 seconds.", Max answered on instinct to this question before ending up confused but it was short-lived as his mind caught up as to why such a question would be asked. And it was not pleasant.

The man on the other side nodded pensively, then he asked another one, "Huh interesting… And how many drones were sent and what was their purpose if it isn't too much to ask?"

"Eight, eight drones of which six are completely out with only N5 in your possession and N4 destroyed after it got your message carved on the bark of a young Octorus Folliculus. The drones' objectives were to map the flora and to find you… A secondary objective that failed successfully, might I add.", this time Grace answered, to prove she was truthful she showed her holotablet to the camera, which also had a miniature map of the great plain showing the two remaining drones' location.

The man nodded again before looking up, frowning slightly at the darkening sky of the dusk that was progressively getting filled with dark clouds. It was sadly time to go as doing a call in the middle of the night was both dangerous and impractical. And the weather didn't bode to be pleasant either.

"I think this short Facetime call may need to come to an end, the night and a thunderstorm are coming,", Liam announced, not sounding the most pleased with this, reluctant even, "I reckon a time should be chosen to avoid this type of problem of me waiting for five fucking hours…"

'Right… N5 was active for several hours…', Grace thought regretting having used her Avatar today as it would have given the three of them way more time to discuss. But she couldn't randomly change her timetable, she had responsibility, and answering Selfridge for such change wasn't exactly the definition of pleasant.

"Evidently since I don't want to be discovered by others it needs to be a moment where one of you or you two are not disturbed by others to not risk putting me at risk.", he explained further, blunt and honest a recurring factor with him it seemed.

There was a moment of thought and exchange between Grace and Max that consisted of them going over the when this lasted until Liam, enough of waiting for the two, was going to snap his finger in front of the microphone but there was a bright flash of light from the sky. 

Grace surprised by this immediately began speaking, "In five days at 9 p.m should be possib-*CRACKBOOOM!

Max flinched at the loud sound of thunder over the microphone while Grace stopped mid-sentence and immediately the screen turned black then the image flickered back with a distorted static sound the face of a very annoyed Liam that even with the quality of the flowery language receiving the weather didn't go unheard before it turned completely turning black. 

"That was an interesting way to say goodbye. He should be fine… If he live there it won't be his first thunderstorm.", Grace muttered merrily, slumping in her comfy chair, hand going to bring her mug to her lips only ending disappointed by the lack of liquid life in it.

"It did go surprisingly better than I anticipated and I think you need to follow his regime my friend.", she added snarkily, standing up yawning loudly, Max deadpanned her at this. 

The word 'better' was very much the understatement of the millennia for a rational and civilized discussion with a being of alien origin unknown to humanity. 

And he might have reminded her that this amount of muscles wasn't ordinary by any means of the words, that this individual was surely genetically engineered but she still might be right and he might need to lose some weight. Blaming the lower gravity was an old excuse that didn't hold much value after years of use.

Day 143.

Liam was in his basement with a multi-purpose tool in and focused on his future helmet. Polishing a plate of titanium alloys he just added to the front part of it, a piece that had multiple layers.

After the outermost one he was working on was a thinner titanium plate hiding a layer of a non-newtonian fluid made of polymer akin to kevlar, then another titanium plate followed by this same material and another titanium plate. And it was one of the weakest parts of the helmet.

Then the interesting part, an internal portion of the circuit that connected to his implant and 10 high-definition cameras that had a night vision and thermal sensors functions switchable at will, all gave a nearly 360° vision, in theory. Not full-blown 360° as this helmet didn't let him see through matter.

It was aliment in energy by five of the same self-replenishing hydrogen batteries he used everywhere and the new cables made of the big flying jellyfish tentacle graphite cores that had barely any energy loss due to heat with short distance and constant use. 

Logical considering it delivered a minimum of multiple thousand volt worth of electricity for an extended period of time. Why it was this way could be put to the very minute amount of pandorium/unobtanium in their molecular structure. 

It was no superconductor at ambient temperature however, it was still slightly worse than silver in conductivity but he didn't have any silver adding that it could handle more heat than said metal. Why complain? Copper would work as well but why cut corners on such important things? It's asking for problems.

Back to the batteries, sadly it was still the hydrogen magnetic filter bone from the cave viperwolves that was used but here it was sculpted to the shape needed as they needed to be inconspicuous and malleable to a degree, he still couldn't make this very important component as of now. He didn't even understand it fully too but that was more on the strange magnetic metal unknown property than anything else. 

The batteries were hidden and protected at the back and easily interchangeable for newly charged ones and with a command could be ejected.

Let's say the viperwolves population underground took a hit, the funniest or most depressing part was that he didn't even hunt them and since running was not an option, with how hellbent they are on finding and killing him killing them was the only option. Knocking them unconscious was basically a death sentence too.

It was an experimental helmet that used designs found in Tek, the Mek in particular, that consisted of being one with it as if it was an extension of your very being. 

Evidently, it was way simpler, modified to feat here, and worse in every aspect due to technical limitations and not vital at all for the rest of the armor to do its job properly. But a very important tool all the same.

Electricity or not it will still protect him against most calibers of bullet, his compound bow could still fire arrows through it so likely Na'vi should as well but it greatly reduced damage in either case and it was from a close distance in a perfectly controlled environment. 

So in a real-life scenario, it will be overall better, and in the first place, he wouldn't let himself be transformed into a porcupine.

The front part could split open either to show his face completely or simply have two reinforced glass eyes slit that let him see. It was designed for complete protection so even those eyes slit could be protected by another layer of titanium, normally it would remind him blind to the outside and exactly what the cameras are for. 

"Let's test it…", Liam said with child-like excitement in his voice, a great contrast with its timbre, he was already wearing the interior most of the armor.

A form-fitting bodysuit composed mostly out of nylon reinforced with an overall titanium chainmail, pretty much a reinforced scuba diving suit. 

Easy to put for him and even easier to get out as he could simply store it in his inventory. And also comfy as this point was just as important as anything else.

Grabbing the helmet he spun it to be rightly oriented and put it on, it was snug and perfectly fitted for him. The world turned dark. 

Then with a mental command his implant thrummed, the filter in each side of the helmet activated and he saw from everywhere around his head all at once. Filter that could be connected to modified regulators and a tank for potential aquatic use.

It was very disorienting at first, a normal human brain didn't evolve to understand this kind of sensory overload and that would have resulted in the individual having an epileptic feat before feinting, or entering a more or less permanent comatose, or if unlucky dying due to internal brain damage. 

But he was quite literally built to be able to do this, the survivor was different than the regular human, so that is why he knew he would be disoriented at first and at worst feeling lightheadedness or a headache with potential ear and eyes, and nose bleed. And most of those symptoms will be after a long time of synching with the helmet.

He stayed still, and not even after half a minute, all started to feel normal. Too normal in fact. 

Focusing on how in sync he was by using a microchip in the helmet for the purpose to treat and give real-time data to his implant of all the helmet systems he noticed to his shock that it was nearly 100% in sync with his body and mind.

He predicted it would be around 60-70% at most, he might have underestimated himself, and he could guess the only reason it wasn't 100% was because of the helmet's limitation. 

This meant there was barely any delay, that all camera data were sent to him even if he didn't always fully focus on each, and why it felt so normal, natural even like he just gained many new eyes if comparatively worse than his real ones in all aspects but the capacity to detect thermic shift and a better sense of sight in the dark. 

It was something to be happy about that was certain but it was strange it didn't go as calculated either way and a point of study for later.

"That's still trippy as fuck. I can see my back and ass… I will need more time to get used to it.", Liam said aloud, voice distorted and muffled by the helmet, making him soon even less friendly than usual. Maybe adding a microphone and speaker would prove useful as well.

Opening the titanium visor for lack of a better term he could see normally again but the input from the cameras was still there in the second seat, no one would be able to sneak up on him. Moving around for some time he grinned, this was incredible.

Walking up to a wood mannequin with a black and grey armor on, the rest of the sets he so eloquently called Titanium Seer V1 because of the helmet and that it was mostly made of titanium, exactly 17.365 kilograms (~38.3lb) of it was put into it. Basically 50% of all his titanium.

Putting on the armor Liam clipped each piece with the body suit and with one another until he was fully armored, from boots, gauntlet, shoulder, arms, legs, abdomen, and chest. It was a black armor reminiscent of riot and flak from the game taking the best of both worlds but also one of their main defaults. It kept heat very well, but feeling a bit hot and bothered was better than feeling a lot dead. 

This problem even if a small ignorable one could be fixed later down the line. And the armor itself could and will be upgraded.

Picking up a bulletproof vest that was next to it he added it on top of the titanium chest plates with also an integrated bulletproof vest below. There never was enough protection. 

With the 40 kilograms (88lb) of armor on he deactivated the helmet and jumped slightly before punching and kicking punching the air a few times, he brought up his war scythe and did swings of all types, did multiple one-hands sit up on both hands, backflip all of this for a good half an hour to test how he felt in the armor and his grin widened.

'Feel great, a bit hot but great! Can't wait to test it tomorrow down there because, with all of this, I'm freaking poor. Hmm, and it's 11:48 a.m time to eat, tartare or barbecue? Why not both…', he thought, also happy to now have a clock and a calendar of incomplete thanks to Max. 

He could track the time now, having updated it after the meeting with the two scientists because, for the last few months, his implant showed nothing on that aspect, normal after all the implant can't magically know the time and date. 

*

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