Chapter 431 Blackwater Plans 3

"Interesting – wait, what?" Feather's eyes blinked several times. "You don't mean that, do you?"

He looked at Aldrich's stare, a look that had no room for a joke behind it, and then at Fler'Gan's highly inquisitive, highly ready to cut into flesh gaze and knew that Aldrich meant everything he said.

"Yes," confirmed Aldrich. "Fler'Gan's done some tests on you while you were telepathically sedated. It's given me some good insight into the full extent of your powers, and to be honest, I'm rather impressed. You can regenerate from even a drop of blood as long as some part of you remains."

"Wait, you've been doing what to me now while I was asleep?" Feather stared at Fler'Gan as if he had shoved a knife in his back and indeed, the Mind Eater had. And much more.

"Necessary experimentations," said Fler'Gan, waving away Feather's look. "You are an infinitely renewable source of Alter biomass. Your Alter Organ, in particular, provided me exceptional insight into its structure through repeated dissections and-,"

"Alright, alright, I'm about to vomit over here, so let's cut this out," said Feather. He shrugged, accepting his fate. "Least I was knocked out for all of it. Anyways, what do you need my little bits for?"

"V, pull up a map of Blackwater and its surroundings," said Aldrich.

"Here we go." V's eyes flashed blue and in an instant, the holotable projected a large map showing Blackwater as a walled compound surrounded by large stretches of forest with a massive lake nestled beside it. There's going to be a dropoff of ARMA, Imugi, and Aztech weaponry, drones, and droids. Top shelf stuff."

"Yeah. Italian Trident is pulling out all the stops on this. Emptying the coffers, ya know?" said Feather. "Dropoff will be done through the air."

"Air? The Panopticon won't be keeping an eye on this? It is their job to manage airspace after all," said Aldrich.

Feather scoffed. "You and I and everyone else whose seen the streets knows that rules only matter to some. Shit don't matter to the megacorps, I'll tell you that."

Aldrich nodded. Perhaps it was his time in the other utopian world that had made him gloss over the harsh reality that this one had corruption leeched into every little crevice of its broken edges.

It was a world he was very close to changing. Once he got the Machineheart, it would bend under his will.

Then, he could unite mankind.

Then, he could send them away from earth and the Voice, to the faraway stars full of infinite possibility and hope.

"Italians managed to get stuff from the best of the best like this?" said V. "Surprising. They're criminal bigshots, but even the biggest of the baddies are a grade below the megacorps. Megs would hesitate sending anything easily, but this is a huge shipment.

A whole fleet of Jaguars, Cyclops, and even a freaking Stalker."

As V spoke, diagrams of the bots she mentioned popped up. The bulky, tank-like design of the Cyclops, the four legged feline forms of the Jaguars, and the black visored, katana wielding figure of the Stalker all rotated around slowly.

V listed off the names of battle droids - humanoid mechs hand crafted by multiple engineering Alters to be avatars of war capable f standing toe to toe with even the toughest heroes.

The Cyclops from ARMA were the weakest of the bunch but the most mass-producible. These, Aldrich did not foresee issues dealing with.

But the Jaguars from Aztech were a grade above that with their four-legged agility and state of the art viblade claws capable of splitting matter at the atomic level.

The Stalkers from Imugi were a notch above even that. They were deadly ninja robots with speed, strength, stealth, power, and a host of versatile weaponry said to even be able to take on a S class hero.

"The megacorp fatcats don't know about the Machineheart. If they did, they'd be sending a hell of a lot more. Probably their own armies to boot," said Feather. "They still think it's just a civil war gona outta control between Trident prongs, so they're only dipping their toes into the fight.

Italian prong's convinced them that if the corps back them, once they win, they'll be in massive debt to the corps, and you know how the corps are. Sharks, the whole lot of em'. Smell blood and they're on your ass faster than a broke hooker."

"But once the Italian prong secures the Machineheart, they'll turn on the megacorps," noted Aldrich. "Take over their infrastructure. Their tech."

Feather nodded gruffly. "Naturally."

"Still, this is quite interesting." Aldrich put a hand to his chin. "I thought they'd be avoiding mechanical war power with the whole stint that A.I.I. pulled off in the Judicata."

"I figure it means they've found a suitable replacement for Mad Jack," said V. "Happen to know anything about that, mob man?"

She tilted her head towards Feather.

Feather scratched his scruffy beard. "Well, see about that, I was supposed to be filled in on stuff like that in my next capo meeting. Which was going to be at the convoy when it stops for a refuel in the Wastelands."

"Excellent. That brings me naturally to our plan: you'll attend that meeting," said Aldrich. "You don't happen to have any of them suspecting you, do you?"

"Nah," replied Feather. "They just think I'm being extra safe holed up in a bunker somewhere. Which is precisely what I'd be doing if it wasn't for our whole, er, kerfuffle."

"Well, 'kerfuffles' aside," said Aldrich. "If nobody is suspecting you, then this should work. You're going to that meeting when it lands."

"Oh, are you gonna put that crystal ball in me again? Look, I have nothing against going 'balls deep' - it's 2117 for christ's sake - but it'd be nice to do something a little more, uh, gentle."

"So many complaints. Typical of you weaker willed humans," sighed Valera.

"Hey, you try having that guy's ball inside of you and tell me how it feels," said Feather, but once he saw Valera's face light up, he just said, "Nevermind."

"I won't be risking my phylactery again, especially not in the presence of that much firepower," said Aldrich.

Feather nodded. "Whew, always knew you were the most reasonable one here."

"What I am going to do is strap a bomb to you."

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