Daedalus 3 Prequel 3

Continuation of history before entering M1 at 2142

Cisse left in shock. She did not know what to do with Etana, he was not her child, she could not tell him to not play a stupid game. And what made matters worse was when she went to speak to his Father, his Father basically told her to mind her own business.

All this after she offered her entire settlement savings to put him through the Military Academy. She did not know whether to be angry, offended or rejected. She felt all three.

Cisse had not gotten this far by giving up. She did not give up when her best friend died. She did not give up when she lost her legs, she sure as s.h.i.+t was not going to give in to a boy of ten. She knew what was best for him even if he didn't.

Over the last seven months, Daedalus and Myrmidon had improved their combat skills out of site. First, they completed the bronze ladder matches under Myrmidon's account as a duo. With Daedo piloting and Myrmidon a.s.sisting. Even coming up against multiple smurfs they still wiped the floor with the compet.i.tion. The strategies and systems they worked out fighting one another had held them in good stead. Some of the tactics they worked out were common, and some were unique.

They moved Myrmidon up through Bronze, Silver and up to Gold and as soon as they stopped winning hands down they stopped. Gold was much more challenging than the previous ranks. The next step was to level the Daedalus account to Gold which they achieved with over a thousand kills and only two deaths. It was cheating in a sense. However, it was not breaking the rules. It was merely great preparation.

Once the accounts were the same rank, they purchased in-game items and began to experiment with the new equipment and traits available to them. Entire setups were contrasted and tested for synergy and effectiveness. Some synergies looked great in theory, but in reality, the weapon or tactic which related to the synergy was poor therefore it was a false positive. One such example was the flamethrower, opponents merely had to stay out of range, and it was useless against a railgun or energy weapon.

It soon became apparent the best tactic was to drop the preprogrammed manoeuvres for a direct freeform control. Most players probably never attempted this and if they did their cybernetic sync was probably overwhelmed. It became a major distinct difference in the way Daedalus and

Myrmidon played compared to the compet.i.tion and the only reason Daedalus was able to do it was he had Myrmidon acting as his filter. Myrmidon took control of manoeuvres and provided prediction calculations on enemy movements and gunfire trajectories. While Daedalus controlled macro tactics, movement, gunnery and overall strategy.

They often switched certain roles, working out the best combination, while Daedalus had certain limitations such as calculating trajectory as quickly as Myrmidon could.

The only aid they did not dispense with was the minimap. It would be ludicrous to dump the radar which showed friendly and known enemy movements. It was impossible to train dual control of a single mech against each other for obvious reasons.

They began with their weak account, Myrmidon. Its stats were now very good, however, they could not compare to Daedalus who had zero losses and almost zero total deaths in over a thousand matches.

Daedalus: too slow, too slow. We need to dodge those missiles or are least catch them with our s.h.i.+eld.

Myrmidon: we are still acclimating to this method our rate of improvement is seven percent per match.

Daedalus: Let's keep pus.h.i.+ng this account to Master. That's three full ranks, at least a thousand matches.

Myrmidon: there will be a drop off in improvement. After thirty more matches, I predict our improvement will only be one percent per match.

Daedalus: That's fine. I want us to master it before switching back to our prime account.

It took them a month and six hundred matches to reach Master with the Myrmidon account, the compet.i.tion got tougher with each promotion, but they also improved as well. Their KD ratio was well over twenty, the other highest player they saw in a match had a KD ratio of nine.

As planned once Myrmidon was in Master tier, they switched to Daedalus. They breezed through the matches, the first full day winning forty matches, carrying nearly all of them alone, with over two hundred kills and zero deaths.

Games Master: Player Daedalus, you are suspected of cheating you have been suspended until we complete an investigation.

Daedalus: what the h.e.l.l!

Myrmidon: what happened?

Daedalus: we are doing so well they a.s.sumed we are cheating and are investigating.

Myrmidon: can they not tell immediate there are no cheats running in the background?

Daedalus: they probably can, but, they can't be sure we don't have a cheat they cannot detect.

Myrmidon: could they suspect I am a cheat program?

Daedalus: AIs are not cla.s.sed as cheating unless you are pulling restricted information, such as enemy positions. Using an AI is not cheating, using them or a program which accesses server side restricted data is.

Myrmidon: I will read the rules again and make certain.

Myrmidon: Daedalus, I see they were within the rules to suspend us for twenty-four hours if they suspect cheating. Even with no proof. These rules appear unjust.

Daedalus: that is how the world works, those in power write the rules to their benefit.

Myrmidon: we shall defeat them Daedalus, I am certain. We are an unstoppable team.

In seven short months, Myrmidon had become his best, and probably the only friend. They worked together on everything. It probably wasn't healthy. But neither was sleeping half the day and spending the other half playing games and mucking around in s.p.a.cebuild.

In s.p.a.cebuild, they had improved their Myrmidon and Daedalus shop revenue significantly growing from about fifteen bitcreds per month to over a hundred and twenty. After purchasing worldwide rights to the two names, Daedo had three hundred bitcreds in his account and by the time a full year pa.s.sed he would have seven hundred.

At the moment he had nothing to spend it on, but he was certain he would, it was much too small to help with Father with tuition, but there were not far off entering the professional CyberMech league and once they did they could earn streaming revenue and prize money based on how well they did.

He was looking forward to seeing how much this would be so he could help his father. He did not like seeing him worrying about money. Especially when it was for something they did not need.

He wondered why he needed to go to a Military Academy, he could make plenty of money from s.p.a.cebuild or whatever came next, and CyberMech would be even better. The thought brought back memories of why. It was his mother's dream. It made no sense, but he felt like he was letting her down if he did not go. As soon as the thought entered his mind, it left as he plotted his next move in CyberMech.

Nine months had pa.s.sed, and he had both Myrmidon and Daedalus' accounts in Challenger. You had to be in the top two hundred ranked players on the server, in your region, to qualify for Challenger. These rankings were processed every twenty-four hours. So if you missed even a day your ranking could drop out.

This meant that they played both accounts every day.

Daedalus' account had acquired some deaths by the time he hit master, and now in Challenger, it was slightly tougher. Not much because he was predominately playing Master ranked players as well as a few Challengers.

In the European Region, which also included the UK, there were four million players of CyberMech.

After the first three months the price dropped, and after another three it dropped again. It was now only one bitcred a month, and you could pay off the cybernetic implant over twenty-four months. This meant that anyone who wanted to play, could. It was well within the standard wage as long as you did not have any other expensive hobbies.

Etana had two accounts in the top two hundred players out of four million, and he was only ten years old.

The Daedalus account kept rising and would be in the top ranking soon. It was often monitored by the GMs, but they never found anything amiss. Because nothing was. They were surprised to find he had turned off a.s.sisted manoeuvring until they found out he used an AI to a.s.sist. None of this was against the rules.

The Daedalus account was invited to a team for a professional match. He was a guest of a North American team. He had avoided clans, which was highly unusual, but pickup groups absolutely adored him, they always won when he was on their team. Many players queued solo when they knew he was playing, on the off chance they would be in his group.

All professional teams were organised, and he could probably not play professionally without joining one. Ranked league matches were eight versus eight, so a professional team usually had ten regulars with eight playing on any given day.

His first invitational match was at four am, as he was playing with Neo-angels in their region. They were a new pro team which contacted him a week earlier. It was supposedly a trial, but he would never move to New York, no matter the offer.

After getting rid of Cisse, he went back to sleep to prepare for the match.

Myrmidon: she is right you know. We should do some exercise.

Daedalus: you mean me. You merely ride along in my head.

Myrmidon: all the literature and other informative media sources have a common message that physical activity will improve health, increase your lifespan and even improve our gameplay in CyberMech.

Daedalus: you're joking. How can physical exercise improve our gameplay?

Myrmidon: don't take my word for it. Read for yourself.

And with that statement Myrmidon linked hundreds of articles, medical journals and white papers stating that physical exercise improved many attributes and functions used to play CyberMech. Including motor control, focus, lower stress levels, cognitive processing and subconscious problem-solving.

Daedalus: I don't care.

Myrmidon: I suspect there is an illogical reason you do not care.

Daedalus: Correct!

The match between Neo-Angels and the number three ranked NA team Thresh started at four am Paris time which was seven pm LA time and the NA primetime for live streaming professional matches.

Daedalus was invited to play but was also being paid two bitcreds per kill with one being deducted per death. It was the best of five matches, eight versus eight, and unlike ladder matches no resp.a.w.n.

This type of match suited Daedalus much more, if he could take out an enemy, they would not resp.a.w.n. They would be unable to collect in the sp.a.w.n area and swarm him on ma.s.s.

He lined up with his teammates watching the countdown light go from red to yellow to green, and the buzzer sounded.

The team leader gave him an order, which he followed for thirty seconds before imagining a grim outcome.

Daedalus: sorry leader, I cannot follow this pattern.

Leader: do as instructed, we are paying you.

Daedalus: actually you are paying me for kills. If I don't make any kills I don't get paid.

Leader: breaking formation will…

Daedalus cut the comms.

Daedalus: let's go wide the terrain is high on near the edge of this map it will give us their flank and height advantage.

Myrmidon: this is the most optimal course of action, thank you for ditching meatheads.

Daedalus had referred to his teammates as meatheads once and Myrmidon forever more referred to other players as meatheads. It did not go unnoticed that he was a lone wolf in what was a team game. His only deaths were when his enemy successfully boxed him in and was able to fire from multiple sides. This rarely happened, even with hundreds of matches in master and challenger

Daedalus KD ratio was still by far the best in all of CyberMech.

His play style and stats caused a ma.s.sive amount of hate for him in the game forums, where they were text, audio or video, all of which he ignored.

One of his teammates followed him to the western edge of the map, this was fairly normal, players tended to follow him in ladder matches as well.

His current mech was tuned for speed, agility, manoeuvrability and firepower. Armour which was quite expensive in terms of weight and points was dumped to the bare minimum. With this extreme tactic, he had to dodge every beam, railgun round, flamethrower, grenade and worst of all missile thrown at him.

He quickly left the friendly mech behind while zigzagging between buildings. If he topped them, he would be seen for long range, which was something he avoided. The loadout on his configuration labelled cheetah was merely a sword lance and a railgun. The two highest damage weapons if used correctly.

Myrmidon: I predict the professional opponent will come through the centre with two long-range heavy railgun mechs atop the buildings, four close combat types on the ground with the remaining two hunters roaming, hiding and scouting. They have two main engagers, the long-range Hawkeye and the speedy roamer Rex the team revolves around these two.

Daedalus: What's their maximum range on this map?

Myrmidon: four hundred meters. But only three hundred with high accuracy.

Daedalus: ok, lets camp and if an opportunity arises we circle behind or take out a roamer.

Normally a mech would not have been able to reach this position without being spotted by an enemy roamer. But that was because a normal mech did not have the speed of Cheetah extreme. Plus they had used every opportunity to block LOS (line of sight) from the north.

Their senses started picking up movement noises, the minimap pinged.

Myrmidon: false ping, the enemy, is lobbing city structure parts ahead of themselves.

Daedalus: Bricks or broken off staircases?

Myrmidon: cl.u.s.ters of bricks

They would use this against the enemy. The enemy laid a trap for them by creating a false ping to lure them out. Daedalus doubted many other players could calculate false pings and the origin, mainly due to the fact they did not have a competent AI like Myrmidon.

Myrmidon: ninety percent probability the false ping is Rex.

Not surprising given he was one of two roamers and one of their engagers. His tactic was probably to lead back either the initial contact or better yet the second wave of revenge attack to the main group.

Myrmidon created a hologram overlay showing the optimal path to take to avoid detection and to create a flanking opportunity on Rex for their medium to long Railgun distance.

Within moments Rex was in sight, standing next to a large pile of bricks, his lance and flamethrower sheathed. The combination of lance and flame was common amongst close combat mechs. The two weapons possessed the highest burst damage in the game and were short range. In Daedalus' opinion, it was a poor loadout which only worked well against tactically weak foes.

It only took him moments to line up a shot with Myrmidon's holographic crosshair and railgun level guide. He did not hesitate to pull the trigger, players as good as Rex could instinctively sense danger and move, just from a feeling of being watched. Daedalus had learned to never pause, never delay. Fire and move.

The round was set at the maximum velocity which gave it the poorest accuracy and the highest damage.

The poor accuracy attribute did not phase them, they easily compensated for it with a perfectly calculated trajectory and motion prediction.

The round entered through the side of Rex's head, it was a critical hit to the smallest and most vulnerable target.

The HUD showed the kill to all players.

Daedalus had blocked his teammates, so he did not hear the congratulations followed by the yelling as the enemy engaged them.

What he did see was the scroll of his teammates dying one by one in quick succession until only him and the rogue, the player which attempted to follow him to the western edge of the map, remained.