119 An Armored Suit That No One Can Wear

"Thanks for coming, Sir," Yancy greeted Marshall as he exited the plane.

"I want to see your new development. I could not refuse such a thing." Marshal flew to the plant in Europe at the invitation of Yancy. He wanted to see the new project in person. In such things, you cannot be satisfied with the image on the monitor.

Together they went to the lower levels of the plant in the laboratory underground. Everything here was classified with restricted access, and the lower levels of the plant were no exception. They were underground not for protection, but for concealment. To begin with, the plant was built illegally, and its main purpose was to be hidden.

Taking the elevator down deep underground, Marshall and Yancy found themselves in a workshop where people were working on their projects. It was more like a car repair shop, except instead of cars there were a variety of drones and weapons.

Every engineer in this place was very talented. Half a year ago, they were given the task of developing a weapon against the White Thorns, and they worked on it without rest.

After walking further down this hall, they entered an area enclosed by a separate fence, which contained many spare parts for various robots. They did not work with microcircuits here, so the room was not white and clean. There was a lot of dirt from machine grease, and there were both CNC and laser 3D printers all over the room.

To create their projects, people here did not cast metals. They used a special metal powder that was laser-baked layer by layer, forming the metal shape they needed. This is the principle of 3D printers. If they needed a stronger shape, they cut it from a single piece of metal on CNC machines.

In general, it was painstaking and precise work that was not suitable for mass production.

"We have come. This is what I wanted to show you." The current director of this plant, Yancy, walked up to some object more than 2 meters (6.5 feet) high, covered with a tarp. It was a tradition to cover everything with a tarp for a more dramatic presentation.

"Perfectly. Take off the tarp and show me what's there!" Marshal did not like the theater.

"Eh… Okay."

Approaching the object, Yancy grabbed the tarp and quickly pulled it. An armor similar to a scaled-down version of a Jaeger opened up in front of them. This armor was very bloated with thick legs and arms. It was a suit for one person. The face shield resembled the dome of an astronaut's spacesuit, and two cylindrical coolers protruded from the back for cooling. (The armor is similar to marine from StarCraft 2)

The armor was painted blue and the faceplate was orange, like most Jaegers.

"It looks very impressive. Tell us what this armor is capable of and why you decided to make a suit instead of drones?"

"Sir, that's the only thing we could come up with at the moment. White Spikes shoot down aerial drones, and ground drones aren't maneuverable and smart enough to move around cities. To fight the White Spikes, you have to go into the buildings and even the sewers, otherwise the city will never be cleared," Yancy said.

 "Of course, we do not reject drones, but the main strike group must consist of people. Cities are filled with cars and debris from destroyed buildings, difficult to access even for tanks. Our technology does not allow us to create something without human participation, so we decided to create a suit."

"Okay, I can agree with that. Will this suit survive a direct spike?"

"Yes, except for the windshield. But this glass is a monitor capable of displaying information from external sensors. During combat, a soldier can cover his face with another layer of armor and close this gap in protection."

"Okay, but it's metal, in cities, soldiers will often fight in close combat. The acid of the White Thorns is the most dangerous, this metal is not affected by acid?" For Marshall, this was the main problem. This acid caused the loss of many Jaegers.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't create a metal that wouldn't be corroded by their acid, but we found a way out of this situation!" Yancy smiled widely as he spoke.

"Although it is not a panacea, our solution will allow the soldier to survive several acid attacks. Since the White Thorns somehow keep this acid inside and it doesn't eat away at them from the inside, that means the acid isn't fantastic and has its limitations. We have many samples of this acid stored in glass jars in refrigerators. Therefore, we came up with the idea to take advantage of this and make armor from several layers. One of the layers of this armor is just special glass."

"Glass?" Marshal was surprised.

 "Yes. Between the rows of metal, we added a special material that is very similar to glass. It looks like pressed glass powder and is very strong. Even if you hit the armor, this material does not crack, but deforms. We don't want acid to seep in through the cracks! That's why scientists invented this glass powder."

"Fine. Good job. I like it. We need this armor already, the situation in the city of Acapulco is still difficult. The soldiers were able to clear only a third of the city."

"Unfortunately, this is a problem for which I need your help. This suit is very expensive. And it takes a long time to create. It uses drift technology in a simplified form and there are a lot of details. We need to create a separate factory to make these things."

"That's no problem, Mr. Yancy! This is a disaster. We don't have time for that. Why did you call me here?" The marshal was not satisfied. He hoped that they would already have at least 1,000 such suits and would be able to send them to the front lines. "How many of these suits did you make?"

"In a week we will be able to collect 10 pieces. But that's all. And all 10 will be prototypes assembled from working parts, they won't be perfect like this one."

"Ten are better than one. Will do it. We need to discuss whether we need to build a new plant."

"Sir. I have another armor project, but it is very specific and requires special conditions. We developed it after I learned about Mr. Newton's project." Yancy wasn't sure if he should show it to Marshall. He talked to Dr. Newton and learned about his project. He believed him and decided to create something that could be combined with the results of Dr. Newton's research. But all these were simply not reliable and if nothing works, then he will be a fool in the eyes of the engineers. They looked at him so strangely when he asked for help.

"Is this also related to the fight against the White Thorns?"

 "Yes, you know he works on genetically modifying people. He wants to add the Torterra`s gene of the Titan to the human gene and according to him the new humans will be very strong."

"I received reports from him, he is almost finished and ready to conduct tests on people. What does this have to do with your work?" Marshal didn't want to guess what Yancy wanted to show him.

"This armor I showed you is very heavy and requires a lot of motors and hydraulics to operate. To allow a person to move freely in it, it was necessary to make a miniature Jaeger, and this is expensive and difficult. If Dr. Newton succeeds in his work, then we shall have strong soldiers. But these will still be people who can be killed by spikes or bullets. So I decided to take the initiative and create another armor variant specifically for new people."

Yancy turned on the laptop on the table next to the armor and revealed another armor design. On the monitor you could see almost the same armor and for people who do not know what they are looking at, this armor did not seem special.

"It is almost identical externally, but it does not have such hydraulics and engines. Explain, Mr. Yancy."

"According to Mr. Newton, the new soldiers with the titan gene will be very strong and tall. This armor lacks engines and has no drift interface. This armor is just a heavy suit that humans can't even take a single step in, but demi-titans can wear it! And most importantly, such armor can be manufactured 10 times faster and is 100 times cheaper." The main cost of the armor is electronics and various sensors, without them the armor is just a high-tech medieval suit.

Marshal looked at the monitor for a long time. He understood why Yancy was unsure about this project. Talking about human half-titans was already strange, and creating armor for them without even seeing one could be a manifestation of madness. But he was right. This is what people need right now. An army of super-soldiers in impenetrable armor that will be able to clear the city of alien monsters.

"To fight monsters, we created our own monsters. It seems that this principle works even after 11 years of war. You did a good job and your idea for this costume is also good. I also believe that Dr. Newton will succeed, so I give you permission to prepare the production for this simplified version. As soon as there are the first successes in his research, I want you to create more than 100 costumes in a month."

"Thank you, Sir. I have one more question. Does Torterra know we're going to use his DNA to change people? I remember him not being very happy when he met the clones and kept saying that they were created without his permission. We are now making the same mistake as the criminals we imprisoned."

There was silence for a minute. The marshal had forgotten to tell Torterra, and he wasn't sure if he knew about it. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to let him know in advance.

Without saying a word, Marshall took out his special phone and wrote a message: "Dr. Newton has figured out how to add part of your gene to people. He can create half-titan people. Soon he will be able to conduct the first tests. Alas, we need soldiers to fight the White Thorns. I would like permission to use your DNA."

The marshal wrote a message to Torterra. With a communicator that was made for him to fly into space, he was constantly in touch with him. Although this was the first time he had directly written something to him. Marshal had a strange feeling of excitement. He was late with this question and now a drop of cold sweat ran down his back.

`What will we do if Torterra won't allow it? To do it without his permission? That would be treason.` Marshal thought.

Yancy stood next to Marshall and they waited in silence for an answer. They didn't talk, and even though they were in charge of millions of people, they now felt pressured by their superiors. A long forgotten feeling.

BIP

After a few minutes, the signal sounded. A new message arrived on Marshall's phone, and he immediately read it out loud.

"Secretly copy all the research! Follow him!"

This answer puzzled both Marshall and Yancy. They looked at each other with surprised faces. They could not understand the message. More precisely, they could not understand what made Torterra write something like that.

 "From this message, he allows the research to continue, but he doesn't trust Dr. Newton. Do they know each other?" Yancy made a simple analysis of the situation.

"Yes, they met once on the island. Your brother brought him to introduce them."

"Come to think of it, Mr. Newton is pretty weird, and he has a lot of Kaiju and Torterra posters in his lab. Maybe he's one of those fanatics?"

The marshal was silent. He sensed something familiar in the message. It was similar in nature to the information Torterra had told him about the portal on his island. This confidence was in Torterra only then, and everything he said then is still coming true.

"Never mind. Let's just do what Torterra said. I don't see anything wrong with playing it safe." Marshall said.

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