KarlMrax

I bring my fist up—
pure defensive reflex—and I swear
I nearly punch myself in the face
before remembering the age-old
question, Who wins when the
awesome power of the Nanosuit 2.0’s
artificial muscles meet the awesome
protective shielding of the Nanosuit
2.0’s armored faceplate? I don’t
know who wins but it’s pretty

KarlMrax

Actually, I believe you. I’d know
if you were lying, and even if I
didn’t they’d probably leave you in
the dark just on general principles.
So let me fill you in: Your bosses
just tried an emergency remoteshutdown
through a backdoor optical channel in the 
twentythousand-angstrom range. 
Didn’t you see that little laser light
winking in the air duct back there?

KarlMrax

The thing about radio, see, is you
can always jam the signal. Optics
are a lot tougher to hack. Pass a
light beam through a cyclotron and
it barely bends, you’re not gonna
scramble that signal until the day
we start building black holes for
the battlefield. As long as your
target’s line-of-sight, you’re golden.
So that’s the route CryNet went

KarlMrax

They hear me before they see
me; the cloak is good, but it doesn’t
mask the sound of boots charging
down a concrete ramp at thirty
klicks an hour

Crysis: Legion, CRASH

KarlMrax

They stop talking,
their guns come up, and suddenly
I’m right there, laying shotgun
blasts into all that Kevlar, bringing
the Marshal down like a club on
those shiny gray helmets, grabbing
one of them by the throat and
 watching her sail through space
until a convenient support pylon
takes her from sixty to zero in no

KarlMrax

I’ve got a chopper overhead and a whole
shitload of hostiles coming around
that crater (two, four, seven, eight,
nine targets SECOND tells me, and 
lays neat little ranges and
targeting triangles over each).

Crysis: Legion, CRASH

KarlMrax

I deke and I duck but it’s not enough
to keep me from taking hits; and
even though the suit can handle
them it just kills the capacitor feed,
the power bar stutters to a crawl
on its way up the recharge trail.

Crysis: Legion, CRASH

Note: "deke" means: a deceptive movement or feint that induces an opponent to move out of position.

KarlMrax

The charge bar tops up at six. I
fade, roll away from the planter,
get to my feet. I’ve noticed that the
cloak lasts a lot longer when the
suit isn’t pulling power for a lot of
other things. I can stay invisible for
forty-five seconds, maybe a whole
minute if I just stand still.
Maybe almost as long if I just
move very, very … slowly

KarlMrax

I line up my approach: five long steps to the
edge of the crater on turbo, then
maybe fifteen meters to cross the
gap near the left edge. I amp
strength to max and move.
I nail the launch: solid traction,
boots leave the ground maybe
twenty centimeters from the edge,
and the moment I’m airborne I
drop strength right back to

KarlMrax

Scan? But SECOND’s training
wheels take their own initiative:
broad-spectrum chemical sensors
built into the fingertips, according
to the graphical thumbnails
popping up on BUD. I saccade the
right dropdowns, switch to tactical
—remind myself it won’t actually
be me touching this shit—and lay
on the hands.