ATLAS: Her, the Combatant, and Him, the Hero Volume 1 (eBook)

John Rohman (Autor)

John Rohman (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-9441-4 (ISBN)

Infos

In the futuristic city of NOAH, megacorporate moguls and zaibatsu barons rule humanity's last refuge through private security forces and superhuman agents called Sponsored Heroes. When topsider and average megacorp employee Genesis lets slip that he can glimpse the future, he's blackmailed into becoming one of those heroes. Using special armor that chooses its wearer, he now fights to protect the people-as long as it serves corporate interests. Meanwhile, Calli is barely scraping by as a Stratan from the untouchable levels of NOAH when she's recruited by ATLAS, a secret society bent on toppling the system. With their backing, she obtains power armor and her own mission: to fight for the people trapped under the megacorps's boot. Genesis and Calli should be enemies, but their clash sparks something far more dangerous. Thus begins a star-crossed romance between a corporate hero and a revolutionary caught in the crosshairs of power.

Welcome to Secret Society ATLAS, Combatants. Try not to die.

The Grand Prize winner in the first-ever J-Novel Club Original LN Contest!

Textauszug

September 6th, Year 0101 After Calamity

PROLOGUE

The Combatants

The mission had gone better than expected, to start with. They’d even gone into this one with something that resembled an actual plan! Calli had been optimistic for once, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t end up screaming their heads off and making things up as they went.

Fat chance.

They’d managed to sneak into the compound without getting spotted by any of the security cameras, walking into a laser grid, or rounding a corner and ending up face-to-face with a sentinel droid. This incredible achievement was likely only possible, of course, because she had ordered Roy to stay a block away on a neighboring rooftop to provide cover fire in case they needed it, thus rendering him incapable of charging in blind and causing a ruckus. She’d even patiently endured his constant wheedling over the comms every time a security droid walked into his line of fire and he had to exercise a modicum of self-restraint (for once in his life).

If they could just do this quietly, it would all be worth it.

They’d made it all the way to the security room before things had started going wrong. The night watchman must have heard Athena removing the outside panel of the electronic lock on the door, because the automated cameras in the hallway suddenly changed their search patterns. Calli had cursed under her breath, and, dragging Athena with her, only barely managed to dive back around the corner before the nearest one swept right over where they’d been standing and zoomed in on the wires still dangling out of the lock. The night watchman came out a few moments later with a gun in his hand and Roy chimed back onto the comms, helpfully informing everyone that the sentinel droids were sweeping the compound en masse.

Calli stopped him before he could even ask for permission to fire, mentally thanking her exosuit’s designer as she did so for making the inside of her helmet soundproof, then set about clubbing the poor night watchman over the head the moment he peeked around the corner. She was pretty sure she’d throttled the output on her suit’s servos well enough not to kill him... At the very least, his head was still in one piece.

Motioning to Athena, she disarmed the unconscious man, then picked him up by the shoulders while her bemused cohort took hold of his legs. Together, they hastily dragged him back inside the security room the moment the camera rotated back the other way, then shut the door and waited for the heavy stomping of metallic feet to fade into the distance as the droids continued their sweep. Athena froze the cameras using the night watchman’s fingerprints to access the controls, then slipped under the desk and commenced her unique brand of “hacking,” a variety of tools and parts appearing out of thin air around her.

Calli exited the room, peering back down the hallway to keep an eye out in case the patrol returned.

“This is command team. Things got a little dicey, but we’re all clear. Athena’s getting us into the mainframe, so we’ll be able to redirect those droids in just a moment. Just hang tight and—”

Her attempt at reassurance was cut off by a torrent of curses from the other end of the line, followed in short order by several muffled crashes from the ground floor, a series of gunshots, the distant rumble of an explosion, and alarm sirens wailing as a sudden flash of fire and a gout of smoke rose up from the building opposite her, blocking the neon lights of the city from view behind a roiling curtain of ash and ember.

“The damn brickies found us!” called one voice, between a continued tirade of profanity.

“I swear I didn’t touch anything! It’s not my fault this time!” exclaimed another.

“So does this mean I can start shooting now?” Roy chimed in, all-too-cheerfully.

Calli slapped her gauntleted palm against the battle-scarred faceplate of her helmet and groaned. Looking back through the door to her comrade for reassurance, she found Athena giving a thumbs up and nodding vigorously in front of a thoroughly disassembled databank, now with several new attachments hastily wired into ports that were never designed to be compatible.

“Ready to go here, Captain!” Athena declared confidently. Though Calli couldn’t see the young woman’s expression through her exosuit’s opaque visor, the tone of her voice left no doubt that Athena was already grinning from ear to ear. “Once the power cycles, we’ll be in!”

“You heard that. Right, Stanley?” Calli rapped a knuckle against the side of her helmet, cycling the comms channel once again. “We need to cycle to emergency power to get the mainframe to reset. Think you can take care of that for us?”

“I most certainly can, though I’d suggest you cover your ears and find something to hold onto,” came the reply, as an old, rough voice gave a quiet laugh.

“Make all the noise you want. Thanks to Cas and Pol, the whole neighborhood knows we’re here.”

“Well, in a moment, the entire city is going to find out.”

“Wait a second,” Calli asked, growing concern in her voice. “How many charges did you actually—”

Her half-asked question was answered by a significant explosion, the force of which knocked her flat. Her head slammed against the padded back of her helmet, then the floor, and it took her a moment as she clumsily scrambled back to her feet to realize that her vision wasn’t going white from the impact, but from the towering plume of fire that had erupted from the nearby power station, lighting up the horizon like a second sun at midnight. Behind this blinding pillar, the neon lights of the surrounding cityscape had suddenly disappeared, and the lights of the viewscreens in the control room behind her followed suit, leaving the whole room in pitch darkness.

“About that many,” came the delayed reply, once her ears stopped ringing.

“What the hell was that?! Didn’t I tell you this was supposed to be a stealth mission? We were supposed to make this look like an accident!” As she regained her bearings, a distant hum reverberated from the floors below, and a moment later, dim red lights kicked back in and the sirens resumed.

“Fuel explosions are a well-known type of industrial accident; the story is still sound,” the old man replied absentmindedly, whistling to himself as he admired his handiwork. “Besides, his Lordship said we’d get a bonus for damages caused.”

“Yes, but—”

“So that means I definitely can start shooting now, right?!” cut in another, increasingly annoying voice.

“Captain, please help! They’re everywhere!” screamed a second, increasingly desperate voice.

“Quit your whining! They can’t even get through our armor, so— Augh! Why do they all keep shooting at just me?!” cursed a third, increasingly furious voice.

Calli facepalmed again as the last, frayed thread of restraint she had left snapped completely. Yes, it had been naive to hope that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t end this one screaming their heads off and making things up as they went... But, well, that was what they did best, she supposed.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

“Shoot whatever you want, Roy! Cas, Pol, I’m on my way to you, so just don’t get yourselves killed before I get there! Athena, lock yourself in and get those droids disabled, then open the vault doors so we can snatch and grab and get the hell out of here. Stanley... I don’t even know. You got any bombs left?”

“But of course,” the old man replied with a tone that was at once perfectly calm yet indescribably eager. Seriously, he was worse than Roy sometimes!

“Great. Then have fun. I don’t care what you blow up, just—” An idea occurred to her at that moment and she stopped short. “Actually, scratch that. I do care. I’m marking a target for you now, so get to that location and start setting up.” A three-dimensional grid and map of the compound flashed up on the display inside her visor. She flicked her wrist several times, swiping her finger in the empty air in front of her—damned false perspective interface, the illusion of depth made it so hard to see what she was actually selecting!—and tabbing clumsily through the individual rooms until, after only a couple of misclicks, she found what she was looking for.

“Captain, this appears to just be an empty warehouse. We won’t get any bonuses for—”

“Check the floor plan again and you’ll understand. If... No, when things escalate, this may be our best way out. Set your charges, then hang tight and cover our escape route.” Closing the map, she turned to the window, reached down to her belt, and grasped the hilt of the weapon sheathed there.

“I see. Then I’ll be sure we make a spectacular exit.” With that, Stanley signed off, leaving her with just one more pressing matter to attend to.

“I’m glad that you guys are having so much fun with your cryptic conversations and all, but if you could maybe come down here and save us, that’d be just great!” Cas’s angry voice called her attention down to the courtyard below, where she could already see a few dozen towering shapes all swarming around the front entrance, illuminated by the muzzle flashes of their blazing...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.8.2025
• Reihe/Serie: ATLAS: Her, the Combatant, and Him, the Hero
• Illustrationen: John Rohman
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: coerced hero • Futuristic • Heartwarming • Light Novel • mech suits • poor versus rich • Star-crossed lovers
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-9441-1 / 1718394411
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-9441-4 / 9781718394414