There’s a huge difference between its “fast” mode and what’s happening now.
“Heat buildup via the exertion of force and its own regeneration,” Shiiko answered, biting on her thumbnail. “The sheer thickness of its combat-ready armor coupled with the capacitance of its drive system would explain its size... But its surface area—”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Consider that it’s a weapon designed with the sole purpose of exterminating mankind in the twenty-first century and the fact that all the resources are procured locally. A human-sized weapon would therefore be the most efficient choice. Naturally, it can fit into any space a human could and use that to its advantage. Kind of like how you’d ideally want a human-sized caregiver robot, although their intended uses couldn’t be further from one another.”
It’s like she’s trying to confirm something by putting it into words rather than actually explaining it to us.
“Its hefty, bullet-resistant build can only maintain inhumanly athletic feats by producing an inordinate amount of heat. Add its self-regenerating properties to the pile, and the only conclusion is that its cooling systems aren’t catching up.”
“Mind dumbing that down for us?”
“I’m not sure to what extent, but basically, intense physical feats and self-regeneration make it lose speed. To put it simply, it’s going through heatstroke,” Shiiko concluded. “Different animals have different means of thermoregulation—humans perspire, dogs stick their tongues out—but basically, the bigger the animal, the easier it is for heat to build up. Heat is Brownian motion’s greatest enemy. Not only does it increase the entropy in objects, but it also messes with magnets, too, which is to say that it’s the cause for many electronic device malfunctions.”
This reminds me how fans in VRFPS arcade machines start spinning like crazy when the player enters a resource-heavy zone. Don’t magnets also lose their magnetic properties when heated?
“Got it,” Otoha mumbled, then ran off toward the skeleton.
“Otoha, what the hell?!”
“Now’s our chance.”
“You’re being reckless!”
Although weakened, it hadn’t slowed to a complete halt and could move about as fast as your average human, not to mention its self-regenerating properties and metal armor.
There’s no way a human armed with a shovel will put a dent in that thing.
“Screw it!” I took aim with my Lightweight Stalker and fired.
Self-regeneration builds up heat, so as long as I keep landing my shots, it should stay slow.
Shino took notice and joined in on the fun.
Tetsuko, strategically positioning herself in between Shiiko and the skeleton, brandished her Mossberg.
Seeing as Tetsuko only had buckshot left, landing a shot on the skeleton without Otoha getting caught in the crossfire would be next to impossible, so she chose to abstain from shooting.
“You’re mine now.”
Two meters away from the skeleton—just barely outside its effective melee range—Otoha hit it with a sidestep. She then rolled into a forward somersault and, with a little help from the shovel, sprang back to her feet.
Holy moly. I watched in awe as Otoha leapt in the air behind it and brought her shovel down on its skull.
However, the blade was stopped in midair.
The skeleton had effortlessly twisted its upper body with great finesse, as though it had seen Otoha’s attack coming, then blocked her shovel with its steel pipe. It then pushed back with full force, sending Otoha crashing into a wall.
“Otoha? Otoha!”
I thought she’d pass out on the spot, but she started getting back up.
“No broken bones. I’m fine,” Otoha said as she held down her left shoulder, breathing heavily.
Guaranteed fracture. Must hurt like hell.
“Otoha, watch out!” Shino cried out as the skeleton began walking over to her.
We fired relentlessly, but it shrugged our bullets away like they were nothing. The bullets slowly chipped away at it, but they were evidently nowhere near enough to finish the job.
Do I throw the grenade? No, Otoha’ll get caught in the blast.
Not only would using a grenade indoors be risky, it likely wouldn’t do much damage against an armored target. An incendiary grenade, on the other hand, would at least slow it down a notch, but it still wouldn’t be worth putting Otoha’s life in danger.
“Uemura,” came Shiiko’s voice from behind me, “take me to door number two. Hiroaki, buy us a little more time!”
“What? Hey!” I whipped my head around only to see Shiiko heading off toward the door all by herself.
Tetsuko looked at us as though awaiting orders.
“Do as she says!”
“As you wish, my lady.” Tetsuko darted off in pursuit, throwing her shotgun my way as she ran. “Catch!”
“Thanks!” I tossed aside both my MP9 and my Lightweight Stalker and sprinted off with the Mossberg in one hand.
Because of its armor, bullets couldn’t penetrate the metal skeleton deep enough to do any real harm. However, the knockback from a shotgun blast or two would probably do the trick.
“Eat this!” As it reached out to grab Otoha, I shot it in the kneecap.
Predictably, the skeleton fell. The armor did little to protect the already weak joints, which meant that one clean shot to the kneecap was enough to knock it down for the count. I quite literally had brought it to its knees.
Good one, dude, good one.
“Run!” Otoha rolled out of the way.
I, meanwhile, got in even closer and fired at its left kneecap once, then twice. The skeleton turned around and, seemingly unprovoked, hurled the steel pipe right at me.
“Argh!” I instinctively held out my Mossberg, which was immediately bent in half.
The impact sent me flying to the ground butt-first. Had it not been for the Mossberg, a few of my bones would have seen some serious breakage.
That’s quite the throwing arm you’ve got there.
To make matters worse, the skeleton started walking toward me.
You saved Otoha. Now save yourself!
“Dammit!” I scrambled back to my feet and made a break for it, but the sharp pain in my (presumably broken) tailbone hampered my speed.
The skeleton was so close I could feel the heat emanating from its body. It leaned forward, and the warm breath from its gaping jaw tickled my neck.
According to Otoha, you couldn’t technically categorize it as a zombie, but if I was going to take all that nanomachine gobbledygook at face value, a bite from that thing would mean one thing.
I’ll turn zombie.
“Hiroaki!” A gunshot rang out, followed by a heaping serving of lead gracing the skeleton’s face.
Attagirl, Shino!
Shino landed a clean shot right in its eye. The faintly reddish glow coming from one of the eye sockets lodged deep inside its metal cranium had faded.
“Hiroaki, quick, over here!” Shiiko called out to me.
Scooting away, I turned around and saw a vehicle resembling a golf cart roll out from one of the shutter doors. In it were Shiiko and Tetsuko.
Is that a humongous satellite dish stuck to the roof with a giant cable coming out of it?!