Era of Madness

Final battle 5

While Tyler was having the fight of his life, John wasn't twiddling his thumbs either: all while maintaining the Party Hall's trajectory, he had to keep coding at an astonishing speed so he could keep up with the hacker. Unlike what he hoped for, the mysterious hacker didn't seem to want to stop after simply taking off John's control over the inside of the Party Hall.

No, they also seemed to want to steal it for themselves, along with the control over the outside of it. And if he succeed, John, Tyler and Erica would be blocked into a gigantic structure full of Fefnir tech controlled by ennemies. Let alone cyborgs, they wouldn't even be able to escape the walls around them and the floor beneath.

So as he was using one hand and a small part of his concentration to pilot the Party Hall, the other was focused on reprogramming behind the hacker, and was what took the most of his focus.

But now, another problem was presenting itself: even if John was only an above average pilot, driving something like the Party Hall close to the Outergate wasn't hard at all, as it was a fortress that could simply move straight to it while ignoring the attacks thanks to its solidity. Even a beginner pilot could've done it.

However, with a single hand and being mostly distracted, the task wasn't easy at all anymore. In fact, sweat beads were rolling on his forehead due to the mental effort such a thing asked, as more and more lines of code scrolled and suddenly changed in front of him, and as more and more missiles were exploding on the Party Hall with hellish noises.

Something else that was even more problematic was the special agent and his cybernetic arm that could somehow shout several anti-matter rays in quick succession, and with minimal recharging time. John's knowledge on cyborgs was vast enough to know that, even among special agents, such firepower was abnormal.

The rays in itself didn't have a large impact point, especially considering the gigantic size of the Party Hall, it was the same as a mosquito bite. However, each time the rays touched a certain spot, the Fefnir tech around this spot was badly damaged, and it fagilized the entire zone around it, greatly lowering the defenses there. Currently, the special agent seemed to be just as much as a threat as the hacker that was menacing to take control of the Party Hall and use its Fefnir tech to kill them three, Erica, Tyler and him.

However, it was strange. Despite the menace, John was feeling as if the special agent wasn't really trying. Even if he could've definitly made much more damage by focusing all of his anti-matter rays at one point, he didn't, and it seemed like he was voluntarily shooting most of them randomly and mostly at the most useless spots. Actually, it was almost as if he was trying to make just as much damages to put on a show, to act as if he actually wanted to arrest them, but he didn't really want it.

'Uh... weird' John thought.

Was it because he was close to Enry Arsin and feared they would execute their hostage if they were forced to their last breaths? But that didn't make any sense, special agents were different of Guardians, they were under direct order of the Paradise Council. And considering the ideology of the Council, which was to focus on the big picture and neglect the individuals that were part of it, and the fact that he arrived on the planet around the same time as Erica and John, a week ago, which was not enough to form any true bond.

However, all those thoughts were washed away by a sudden realization John had as he was desperatly coding to counter the hacker.

This hacker... it wasn't a human! It was actually an autonomous program that was currently pushing John to the edge from the start!

But not any program. This one was so perfect that, if it wasn't for a slight part of a single line of code that wasn't made the way a human would've or could've done it, John still wouldn't have any clue about it.