The same place.
Evening.
Claire and Robert Stark stumbled into the house, exhausted but content.
As of today, their days off had officially begun, which meant tomorrow they could SLEEP IN!
For a working person, there is no greater bliss than going to bed knowing you don’t have to drag yourself up in the morning, pry your eyes open, and trudge off to that cursed job.
And even though the Starks’ work as Harbingers was far simpler than their past tenure in the KGB—purely due to a narrower scope of tasks and expertise built up over the years—everything had its downsides, which only grew more irritating with time.
Waking up early in the morning was a downside to practically any job.
Tomorrow, though…tomorrow they would lounge in bed, Omnissiah would bring them a deliciously unhealthy breakfast in bed, and then they would misbehave.
A couple of days ago, Claire had already bought an interesting piece of lingerie, and Robert had prepared their favorite sexual stimulant, the kind that could turn even an impotent man into a horny teenager.
It was bad for the health, but with their cybernetic enhancements, they hardly needed to worry about liver or kidney damage.
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad,” greeted Tony, emerging from his workshop into the light of day.
He looked exhausted and a bit pale, but carried the satisfied smile of a man who had done important work and done it well.
“Hey,” Robert said, tossing off his coat.
“You broke your schedule again,” he noted disapprovingly.
He and Tony had gone over the importance of sleep for a young, growing body more than once, especially when that body’s daily routine was calculated down to the minute.
“It was worth it,” Tony replied with a smug grin.
True, tomorrow he would feel as sluggish as a stale fish and would absolutely die during training with his father, but…he had been far too invested in upgrading Omnissiah’s body.
Heck, he had almost completely reassembled her framework, replacing nearly half of the original parts, and the composite armor he had dreamed up during a sudden burst of creative inspiration was his ultimate pride and joy.
In just a couple of hours, Tony Stark had invented a design that would protect Omnissiah 2.0’s sensitive electronics from kinetic impacts!
You could shoot a tank shell at her now and she would take it…granted, only once, but she would take it!
Now, if he only had gold and titanium, he could build an truly invincible machine.
“Omnissiah, encore!” he said, snapping his fingers with an obvious flourish.
“Wow…” Claire drawn out, catching sight of her son’s revamped robo-nanny.
“…” Robert remained silent, but was clearly impressed as well.
And with good reason.
Modern combat robots weren’t exactly known for sleek contours and grace.
The reason was simple: their market segment.
People were solely interested in them as extra, loyal security guards that knew no sleep, greed, or fatigue.
That was it.
The job of modern combat models was just to buy time until reinforcements arrived, whether in the form of a rapid-response team or the police, depending on where the attacked facility was located, which meant manufacturers didn’t invest much into them.
Primitive servomotors, segmented structural builds, cheap processors, and unimpressive armor that was completely non-existent at the joints.
All of this turned even elite humanoid combat models into mere fodder, whose entire purpose was to thin the enemy’s ranks and buy time until backup arrived.
Or, alternatively, to handle particularly dirty work, like clearing residential buildings and executing the wounded.
But what Omnissiah had turned into…for starters, those very contours had become strikingly flexible, elegant, and even alluring to a degree.
A pronounced waist and hips that not even every ripperdoc could pull off these days, a generous bust, long legs, and…were those heels?
Never mind, Claire decided, the moment she realized she couldn’t see any joints.
AT ALL.
Meaning they weren’t visible even at the bends of the arms and legs; everything was fitted and calculated that perfectly.
“Spin around,” Tony said with a smug grin.
And Omnissiah spun.
She even has a great backside!
Claire thought, bordering on indignant, as she stared at the new, red-and-gold aesthetic of their family robot.
“Are those…lasers?” Robert asked, his tone laced with disbelief.
Lasers weren’t exactly rare weapons, but they weren’t widespread either, given their gargantuan energy consumption.
Setting aside the cost for a moment.
“Yep.”
“The new battery allows the integrated laser weapons to be used up to thirty times in each manipulator, plus an additional ten times from the chest,” Omnissiah added, pointing to a glowing triangle at the center of her torso.
“The movements…are too fluid,” Robert noted.
As an engineer, he paid far more attention to the capabilities being demonstrated than to the new appearance of his and his wife’s joint creation.
“Indistinguishable from human.”
“I bought a couple of outdated military implants on the cheap,” Tony shrugged, seeing nothing unusual about it.
After all, they lived in Warsaw, the hub of underground trade for the entire continent, or at least for Europe.
“I stripped out almost all the neural-link components and replaced them with extra synthetic muscles and wiring. Turned out great.” The little kid nodded sagely at the end of his speech, not fully grasping that he had essentially pulled off an operation that high-class corporate engineers perform in specialized workshops.
And those engineers didn’t work with scrap implants; they used limbs pre-engineered for the task.
Furthermore, they usually built parts for sex androids, not combat machinery.
“My arsenal has been updated with melee weapon proficiencies,” Omnissiah supplemented, raising an arm as a blade snapped out.
“The archive has also been expanded with skills for throwing knives, axes, grenades, and blunt objects. Close-quarters combat efficiency has increased sevenfold from baseline parameters.”
In grand scheme of things, Omnissiah’s appearance wasn’t entirely shocking.
In a world of runaway progress, where even old age had taken a serious beating and death was no longer viewed as an inevitability awaiting every human regardless of status, but merely as a disease that hadn’t been cured yet, people went crazy in all sorts of ways.
Some swapped their skin for a gold alternative, some grafted animal traits onto themselves, others linked their thoughts and feelings with another person.
And those were just the cliché examples that came to mind immediately; there were far more “creative” lunatics out there.
The real shocker here was the creator behind this piece of work—a nine-year-old punk who had managed to give a hunk of metal a more-than-seductive form and movements that left the impression of a human in high-tech armor rather than a robot.
The Stark couple shared a silent look, realizing a new tier of their son’s genius.
As people who knew each other inside out, they understood one another without words, which made them both realize their child had just forced them to reevaluate a lot of things regarding his future.
Again.
“Dinner is served,” Omnissiah interrupted, heading into the kitchen…swaying her hips provocatively.
How on earth did he pull that off?!
Claire continued to fume, harboring a wholesome envy toward her son’s emerging talents.
Seriously, anything requiring even a shred of design was her Achilles’ heel; they didn’t let her anywhere near it at work out of fear of reputational damage.
They sat down at the table as usual—which meant fighting Robert for the head of the table.
Even though he liked to act like an iceberg for whom a couple of extra words was the pinnacle of affection, he allowed himself to goof around in the company of his family.
And as always, while the two titans clashed, the crafty but, most importantly, small and therefore unnoticeable Tony sat down in the chair first, casting a smug look at his parents.
“How’s your project coming along? Hit another dead end?” Claire inquired, taking her first sip of tea while waiting for the main course.
“No, I’ll have it finished in a couple of months,” Tony stated confidently.
Even though he had to rewrite the entire hardware code again, polishing it to perfection in an effort to minimize margins of error under heavy loads, it was worth it.
Now, his overall sub-par equipment would actually be able to handle activation instead of blowing to hell and ruining everything for a third time.
“Oh? Then don’t forget to show your father and me when you’re done, we’ll look it over.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I must note…” Omnissiah said, setting down deep plates containing a literal mountain of pasta topped with ketchup and sausages.
“…that this time, calculations show only a 0.7% probability of a total explosion. This is a significant leap for Master Tony’s projects.”
“Sounds promising,” Claire smiled, ruffling her son’s hair as he instantly pouted.
“What about you guys? You’re late today.”
“Swamped at work,” the matriarch sighed in exhaustion and frustration.
She had found the fixer who took the contract on her head, but tracking down the client proved impossible, which was bad news.
Even the accidental killing of a Harbinger was investigated with the utmost scrutiny, ruthlessly punishing the guilty—a fact known even outside of Poland—and here they had a full-blown contract.
Worst of all, the client KNEW who she was, meaning they were deliberately choosing conflict, which had everyone in their agency and the president’s administration on edge, declaring a state of high alert.
In fact, that was why Claire and Robert had been given days off; less critical tasks were canceled while headquarters drew up a sweep plan to purge dangerous elements.
Meaning, the significantly overgrown and entrenched gangs and other organized crime syndicates capable of posing even a theoretical threat to the government and its infrastructure.
The process was long established; the underground market was used to it and generally didn’t suffer much from it, since no one would touch the finances, only the muscle.
And since everyone would be weakened equally, no shifts in spheres of influence were anticipated.
As for losses among the tech-shredders and street soldiers…who was counting them?
The main thing was keeping the cash flowing into pockets.
“Mmm,” Robert frowned.
He didn’t like the activity unfolding in the city, initiated by persons unknown.
The shadow puppeteers were skillfully pulling strings and severing them just in time, ensuring optimal protection and anonymity for themselves.
The Harbingers simply couldn’t figure out where to strike to put an end to this mess, while the enemy, in the meantime, probed their capabilities and defenses, scouting for weak spots.
And unlike his wife, who favored far more radical solutions to problems, Robert viewed the upcoming sweeps as a mistake.
The enemy couldn’t possibly be ignorant of them, meaning they were prepared.
The agency would deploy a significant portion of its resources, expose many operatives and squads fiercely loyal to the president, but above all, they would map out the flashpoints in the city.
Essentially, on the day of the sweep, they would rip the veil off the underground world, exposing every moderately significant figure in Poland’s shadow market, and that…was bad.
For a whole slew of reasons.
Headquarters was convinced that someone from their own ranks was stirring the pot, but Robert seriously doubted it.
Yes, the enemy navigated their internal workings flawlessly, but for that, one only needed a fixer acting as an advisor, and the former KGB officer highly doubted that headquarters was capable of keeping a tight leash on over a hundred slippery kingpins of the state’s dark side.
Overall, over the last few years, Robert had begun to notice a certain complacency settling into the ranks of the Harbingers.
No, recruitment screening remained as stringent as ever, and seasoned veterans trained the rookies thoroughly, but a decent chunk of those rookies, having never faced anyone more dangerous than street gangs, had come to believe they were an unstoppable force in Poland that nothing could threaten.
A dangerous delusion.
Robert knew the rough headcount of his colleagues, and there weren’t all that many of them—fewer than five thousand across the entire country.
Some might call that a small army, but to police Warsaw alone, where all illegal finances intersected along with the interests of major international players, well over half that number was required, leaving fewer than two thousand agents for the rest of the country.
Unacceptably low in the old intelligence officer’s opinion, especially when it came to cities neighboring the capital.
The situation there wasn’t much better than in remote regions, making it far easier to pull off operations there.
Now, let’s picture the sweep.
Everything goes according to plan: gang members shoot back, state military forces take casualties, and Harbinger agents are universally involved in the raids, acting as coordinators and handlers.
And then, out of nowhere, mercenary squads arrive from neighboring cities with netrunner support, their primary objective being to hunt down agents.
The casualties for an already small organization would be catastrophic.
Worse yet, Warsaw held the highest concentration of veterans and literally irreplaceable assets, upon whose loyalty, skills, and knowledge the entire structure of the organization rested.
One successfully executed operation, and the main pillar of the country’s political stability would be bled dry, if not destroyed entirely.
And even if forces loyal to the current government controlled the city and its outskirts, and even if the country’s entire military was on standby—making such an operation look impossible—Robert’s paranoia, bred since his youth, clearly dictated that even a slim chance was enough reason to take precautions.
Alas, as is often the case, the desk jockeys at headquarters had to choose between two bad options, the legendary giant douche and a turd sandwich.
One shouldn’t assume Robert was the only smart guy in the room; not at all.
Yes, back in his day, he had been a top officer in Soviet intelligence, whose peers were solely their American counterparts, but old wolves also sat in Poland’s intelligence agency, well-trained by the intersection of interests of vast masses of the global elite within their zone of responsibility.
They understood all of the above too, but the problem lay in timing and preparation.
Anything Robert proposed would either take too long or be too noticeable, which was unacceptable in their predicament.
While they stalled, the enemy gathered intel and mustered forces for a strike; if everything leaked ahead of time, the entire raid would amount to nothing, organized crime wouldn’t be weakened, internal tension in Warsaw would spike, and consequently, it would grant the anonymous threat extra room to maneuver.
Because of this, generally intelligent and brave men decided to take the risk, limiting themselves to an increased military presence near the capital under the guise of exercises.
This would also buy time for the overall preparation of the operation, but only three weeks, which was entirely acceptable.
But the problem lay in how readable such actions were from their side.
Robert was a staunch adherent of Suvorov’s doctrine: surprise your enemy to defeat him.
It was this very principle that allowed him to survive multiple life crises, including his retirement.
To act subtly, carefully, and unexpectedly, never letting your opponent dictate the terms.
Here, however, they were acting conventionally, predictably even to an outside observer, let alone local kingpins.
And he didn’t like it; it flew literally in the face of all the tactics he had honed over his years of service.
If Robert were drawing up the counter-strategy, he would have orchestrated mass transfers for the Harbingers.
He would send the majority of agents out of Warsaw to audit their colleagues’ work in other cities and restore order there—paying special attention to those neighboring the capital.
He would conspicuously scale back their presence, feigning weakness, and closely monitor the actions of every key figure in the city.
Through such a maneuver, he would not only rob the enemy of the chance to scout their forces but also dictate their maneuvers.
Later, when they attacked the government building or began inciting riots—revealing all their agents of influence and command structure—he would strike with pre-staged forces, instantly crushing the rebels.
And while the collateral damage would be horrific, and the chaos had every chance of spilling onto the streets and engulfing ordinary civilians, the enemy would be obliterated, and the criminal underworld would receive a harsh, rigid reminder of who ran the show.
“Darling, is everything okay?” Claire pulled Robert from his thoughts, gently placing her hand over his.
“Yes. Just thinking about work.”
“You can think about it after the weekend,” Claire said, pursing her lips in displeasure.
“We rarely get to rest as it is, and more importantly, spend time with our son.”
“It’s fine,” Tony chimed in.
“I get that it’s important, and you’re the ones earning our keep. It would be selfish to be upset with you guys over it.”
“Aren’t you a little wise guy,” Claire cooed.
“…” In response, Robert simply patted Tony on the head, offering a genuine smile.
The Stark Family.
The next day.
A hellish racket blasted into her ears, torturing her mind worse than the most gruesome torments.
Misery and anguish pierced her heart, so profound that any human possessing even a shred of compassion would have empathized with her and ended it without hesitation.
Alas, the only other occupant of the room was an identical sufferer.
“Time to get up,” Robert’s quiet voice drifted over.
“Mm-hmm,” Claire answered softly.
Yesterday they had gotten a bit carried away; Robert hadn’t brought home their standard stimulant, but a new one that made human bodily secretions incredibly appetizing and desirable, which meant the two high-level mutants hadn’t quieted down until close to nine in the morning.
It was noon now, but sleep held a tight grip on two exhausted but satisfied souls.
“Are we getting up?” Claire pried one eye open.
“We are,” Robert answered.
“…” She didn’t move.
“…” And he didn’t move either.
“We need to get up.”
“We do. But I’m lazy.”
“Lazy,” the wife agreed whole-heartedly with her husband.
“But we have to. We need to take Tony to the lawyers today, sort out the patent paperwork.”
“Send Omnissiah?”
“At least one parent needs to be there.”
“Bummer.”
“Plus, Tony has training today.”
“Right. We need to get up.”
In the end, they didn’t manage to get up until one o’clock, more or less making themselves presentable in the shower before heading down to the kitchen…
where a deeply drowsy Tony sat with dark circles under his eyes.
“We need soundproofing,” Tony said right off the bat, staring dead into his parents’ eyes with murderous seriousness.
“At least for my room.”
“Uh…” Claire looked embarrassed, and Robert averted his gaze as well.
“…” An EXTREMELY awkward silence descended upon the room.
“Breakfast is ready,” Omnissiah shattered it, placing breakfast on the table.
“Today we have omelet sandwiches with tomatoes, fried beef sausages, and a touch of ketchup.”
“Real meat?” Claire looked surprised.
“I thought we didn’t buy any.” She tilted her head.
After the last corporate war, when all sides employed viral weaponry among other things, a vast number of diseases wiped out nearly all vegetation and livestock, hitting farmers first and foremost.
And while Europe, where biological modifications were far more popular, fairly quickly began producing enhanced animal breeds, in the NUSA, almost all meat began to be manufactured from processed crickets.
But even so, finding real meat in stores today was incredibly difficult, since it was only sold in elite boutiques.
“I went out and bought it last night,” Omnissiah dropped the bombshell.
“At the same time, I tested the platform’s increased combat capabilities.”
“The verdict?” Robert inquired, taking his first bite.
“Exceeded expectations. The increased strength parameters require calibration; current levels are excessive and result either in the explosion of standard organic tissue or clean over-penetration of the target, followed by a time expenditure to remove the corpse from the limb.”
“I see.”
“How did the blades perform?” Tony asked the question that interested him, also sinking his teeth into the toast.
After all, he had gone to serious trouble gutting surgical tools, salvaging their ultrasonic modules, and packing them into a single assembly so Omnissiah’s weapons could slice through metal without a hitch.
“I discovered a minor design flaw in the mount; prolonged activation of the weapon loosens the bolts. Thermal treatment will quickly remedy the issue.”
“Alright, I’ll look at it tonight,” Tony nodded.
He hadn’t expected everything to be perfect.
Even though he had done his best, running hundreds of calculations and dozens of simulations, teething issues with new designs were unavoidable.
He was lucky the core skeleton of the modification project had been designed back in the twenties, otherwise it would have been far more complicated.
“Everything else normal?”
“The laser weapon draws 6.8% more power than calculated. It appears to be a micro-defect within a portion of the power conduits. No other anomalies detected.”
“Only two issues? That’s an excellent result,” Claire smiled, encouraging her son, though he hadn’t even thought of being discouraged.
And indeed, only two glitches, and far from critical ones at that, was an excellent turnout.
“Omnissiah, what rank are the new knowledge bases?” Robert asked.
“Rank four,” she answered instantly.
“Claire, can you handle it?” he turned to his wife.
“Uh-huh,” she replied with her mouth full.
“I actually have a rank-one sword proficiency databank lying around somewhere.”
“Good. Any ideas on increasing efficiency?” This time, the question was directed at Omnissiah.
“A miniaturized power source,” Omnissiah answered immediately.
“Currently, my primary vulnerability is the requirement for external charging over extended periods. Total charge volume is sufficient for relatively long-term operation, but it occupies an extreme amount of space that could otherwise be allocated for additional processing power.”
“No luck there,” Claire intervened.
“The Kotov family, who dealt in advanced USSR tech, were recently wiped out, and without them, a miniature nuclear reactor is impossible to source. Unless we build it ourselves—thankfully the schematics exist, but it’s expensive.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Robert replied thoughtfully, finishing his portion.