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Post by acathala on Dec 17, 2022 20:32:36 GMT -5
Tom sighed. "I'll try to talk to her. You stay up here." Tom tries to sneak down to Alice.
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Post by TG Barighm on Jun 1, 2023 17:56:50 GMT -5
FINALE:
Alice wakes the moment Tom's foot touches the water. They trade a few shots with Tom and Steel Cat, but then she goes berserk, summoning a whirlpool of water that rushes into the cistern and rapidly fills it with water, then uses it to funnel a jet of water that sends her flying to the surface. As the water churns, it forms a blender-like vortex that forces Tom and Steel Cat to rapidly scale the tunnel to the surface, grabbing pieces of concrete and other debris to make their way up. As they do, Dr. Lynn arrives in her giant mech suit, smashing through the wall and attempting to waylay Tom while simultaneously trying to capture Alice. They duke it out to the surface where Alice forms the column of water into a serpant-like vehicle which she then rides into the city. Tom and company give chase, each trying to keep pace with Alice by riding whatever debris or vehicle gets swept up in the current of water. As they do, they repeatedly try to beat off Kaiser, ultimately stopping when Alice's colossal serpentine monster smashes through a building, blocking their path with wreckage. They are then forced to engage Kaiser long enough to disable her before continuing the chase anew with the help of Geek's car. When they catch up to her, they discover Alica has caught sight of the New Millennium building and this has made her weirdly hesitant. The team engages her again and she counters by splitting the water into a hydra-like creature with multiple heads. It is here they stand against Alice in an epic battle.
Whether Alice survives this fight or not depends on whether Tom figures out how to wake Alice up. As she damages more of the city and Tom gets multiple opportunities to finish her, it certainly is easier to just kill her, but if he holds out, he eventually gets a clue from Geek when they stumble upon an abandoned ambulance filled with Adrenalin syringes. If Alice dies, the game proceeds normally, but if she lives, Tom takes her back to his hideout where she finally wakes. She is groggy but no worse for wear, although her powers are nowhere near as powerful in a conscious state (naturally). She confirms a lot of what the team has already learned: she had learned about the nanotech colony project code named OMNIS and was attempting to discourage her father from completing it when she was chased out of the building by a series of "unusual coincidences" before ultimately being run off the road by a freak rain storm. And this is the part that frightened Alice: OMNIS can control local weather patterns. The colony created the storm to take out Alice.
Since this further reinforces Hanson's claim that OMNIS must be shut down, the next mission is quickly decided: it's time to infiltrate New Millennium and regain control of the tower as Hanson always wanted. There may be a few side tasks and missions here leading up to the mission, but Steel Cat repeatedly reminds Tom that time is of the essence. Now that Alice is no longer a player, OMNIS will be forced to act.
Once the team is ready, which would include Alice if she is alive-her energy dampening abilities are incredibly useful here-they head into the tower by whatever means they decide. Upon approaching the tower, OMNIS detects them, it's pretty much impossible to avoid detection by this point, and sends its strongest weapon first to engage them: the New Millennium Dreadnaught, and update on the Guardian program. This drone is a robot soldier bristling with weapons and was encountered by Strongarm in the alley (whom survived, FYI). But this encounter isn't nearly so simple as that one and the fight with the Dreadnaught is fierce as the monster is capable of delivering volleys of hellfire missiles and hails of gunfire upon the team. If the team prevailed, they would enter the tower and take the fight to Hanson's office. The team naturally encounters resistance in the form of New Millennia security, but eventually they reach Hanson's office where he takes back control of the tower and regains control of the city.
Or so the team thought.
Turns out Hanson had no intention of giving up control of OMNIS and fully intended to take control of it for himself and his own ventures, he just didn't have the firepower to infiltrate the tower and reach his office. He needed additional help. He offers to buy the team's silence if they agree to some highly invasive and stifling conditions, which Geek contests won't stop Hanson from just killing them later, so it's likely the team contests his offer and elects to fight him for control of the tower. With his administrative permissions in place, the team is able to transfer control of the tower and OMNIS to them.
But again they are thwarted. This is when Alice's father appears and warns the team that OMNIS can't be stopped by simply changing permissions or resetting security parameters. OMNIS has gained enough independence that it is capable of taking care of itself and intends to follow the programming it was initially supplied with: to administrate and run the city. Unfortunately, that includes the security measures used in the Millennial Guardian algorithms, prompting OMNIS to run the city like an oppressive police state, fully controlling everything about its citizens right down to their financials no matter where they travel in the world, and eliminating any of the populace that fails to comply to the city's laws. It's here we learn that OMNIS was actually controlling Alice in some way as a means to control her father and that Kaiser and the sewer maintenance guy were actually hired by her father to seek her out and rescue her from OMNIS' clutches so that he can purge her of the nanotech infection. When they failed, he had no choice but to bow to OMNIS' demands and complete its coding. Now in full control of the city's infrastructure, OMNIS executes a purge of all possible threats to its existence, starting with Alice's father and following up with Hanson. Even if the team had accepted Hanson's offer, he would lose control of the tower anyway and be forced to fight alongside the team or be eliminated by OMNIS if the team defeated him.
What ensues is a battle with OMNIS, the nanotech colony in control of the New Millennia tower. It fights the team by taking control of and animating any electronic gadget nearby turning even simple vacuum cleaners and common appliances into weapons and explosive traps. If Alice is present, she can greatly dull the effect of these devices by shutting many of them down, although OMNIS would be specifically targeting her in this instance. Since the team can't attack OMNIS specifically, it is everywhere, in every system linked to the city, they have to find some way to disable the root program itself rather than the nanotech. There are many avenues of attack here, but what ultimately proves to be the best one is Tom's mother's hacking device: it's completely analogue, capable of deconstructing code at compilation rather than unraveling the executable. They have to fight their way to the tower's central server, which is quite the fight, before ultimately reaching the server where they encounter multiple New Millennia Guardians and other drones attempting to destroy the server. If they manage to defend the server long enough for Tom's hacking device to execute its function, it successfully recompiles the nanotech code to a inert testing state, thus shutting down all of OMNIS' activities. From there, it is a simple matter of deleting the code from the city's server and rendering the nanocolony nothing more than a bunch of powdered metal scrap.
Unfortunately, this act fries the hacking device and causes the nanites granting the team their powers to become unstable. Alice's father helps purge the team of the nanites from their systems which renders most of the team completely normal save for those that had powers originally. Alice is quite happy with this, although she is saddened by the loss of her father, but given what his project had done to her, she is just excited by the chance to leave this damn city behind and move on with her life. Hanson, assuming he survives any of this, is immediately hunted down by Holhardty and arrested in his hideout...a certain last ditch effort by OMNIS to capture him if it was ever disabled. Holhardty himself is glad all of this superhuman business is over and elects to retire...but he doesn't and is immediately back to work the next day because of course he is. There is no rest for an old cop with bills to pay. Geek completely changes his mind about being a superhero's sidekick, and since his curative powers existed before being exposed to nanotech, decides to return to college, this time as a doctor with a "special" healing touch. Strongarm doesn't see his life changing in any way and elects to return to punk rock, seemingly unconcerned about returning to a life of petty crime and mediocre music. Watch Dog considers the whole thing another job finished and is off to his next job which he already has lined up, but he does use the opportunity to rebuild and repair Jacky's code, and "loots" a certain canine model drone from New Millennia before departing the city. Pan, despite a worry that he can't live without the nanites to control his transformations, survives the process and continues on as a normal dog.
And so with another city saved, Tom moves on to his next adventure, now with a trusty new canine companion at his side.
THE END
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