Chapter 85: New Tactics and New Gear

Summary:Working towards safety!

Warning! Chapters 81-85 all came out back-to-back! Don't miss the earlier ones!

Chapter 85: New Tactics and New Gear

As much as Izumi wished she could have ignored reality to focus entirely on the new underarmor design, as well as her and Momo's decision to more aggressively tempt a certain punk rocker girl, the truth was that other projects had a higher priority. Which is why all three of them were back in the field today. Jirou was along both to help out a bit…and to field test the new underlayer. In that sense, Izumi was still getting to focus on that project too, but it was secondary to the main focus of the day.

Their actual focus for the day was on their new Rift Area Denial System. The RADS was utterly experimental but could be critical to helping limit civilian casualties in the future. Not to mention being equally important to protecting critical infrastructure, which was still being periodically targeted by the enemy. The RADS system was based almost entirely on the teleport blocker that they had originally designed to keep the League of Villains out of UA and other vital sites.

They were almost sure that the intentional scrambling of the local QE fields by the teleport blockers were why UA itself hadn't experienced a single Rift opening within its walls, or even in a several city block radius around it. There was essentially zero chance they could set the system up on a country-sized scale, due to both the number of RADS scramblers that would require and the power needs of such a system. But they should be able to set it up on city sized scales. The UA campus itself was, after all, basically the size of a small city, due to all the false cityscapes and other training grounds. If they were right about the way the scramblers affected the ability for Rifts to form, then it should be possible to create safe zones around towns and cities, given enough time to manufacture more RADS arrays.

Of course, given the sheer scale of how many places needed to be protected just for infrastructure worldwide, let alone to cover cities, the original design for the teleportation blockers just wasn't good enough. They had deployed a number of such systems near places that had been frequently targeted, noting a major drop off in attacks on those sites within just two days of putting the blockers in place. But while that small test was occurring, Izumi and Momo had done a major overhaul of the design for the QE scramblers that made up the core of the system. They had, after all, learned a lot from studying the enemy's own methods. Which meant they could tighten up the scramblers to specifically effect the way Rifts formed. Which should make them both more effective and less power intensive to use.

In theory, at least.

Testing that theory was what they were out here for today. They'd come to a location that the prediction algorithm for Rifts said was going to have one such open within the next hour and set about setting up the RADS array. They did, of course, have backup on hand in the form of one of the first teams re-trained in the use of the new containment formations. With Izumi, Momo, and Jirou here in addition to that team, there wasn't much risk of a breakout if the RADS system didn't live up to it's potential. If it did work, then the team would remain here to guard a group of technicians that would watch over the area. Even Izumi and 2B weren't sure what deployment of the system would do to the local flow of QE, after all. Someone would need to both monitor for any Rift breakthrough and take constant readings in case the area of high QE density that wasn't forming into a Rift caused long-term issues with the prediction algorithms.

Izumi noted as the last RADS scrambler came online, the tablet that was tapped into the array displaying green for all nodes. She ran a quick test through the scramblers, noted down the QE field strength, then keyed her HSN comm.

"All scramblers online and passing initial tests. Initiating RADS system, standby and keep your eyes open for any odd effects."

She got a quick acknowledgement from the containment team leader, another from Momo, and nodded. With a simple tap of an interface button on the tablet, she activated the RADS scrambler network, then settled in to watch carefully as the local QE fields slowly began to hash as the scramblers went to work. The system itself was brutally simple, really. All it did was take in QE, alter its frequency, and project it back out. A single scrambler wouldn't hash the QE field much, but every scrambler in the array was a different frequency, and the local zone around the RADS array quickly hashed into a jumble of random QE frequencies as a result.

Originally, the teleportation blocker system the RADS had been based on was fairly power intensive. But study of how the invaders used QE had let Momo and Izumi massively simplify the process of altering the QE frequency. Their high-tech solution married well to the much lower tech method the enemy used, cutting the power requirements to less than a twentieth of the original teleport blockers. They still weren't exactly small units, and still required a hefty amount of power. But a portable generator could now power each RADS scrambler, and the array of twenty they were using now could hash the QE fields for roughly a square kilometer of space. More than enough to cover the area where QE was building up locally, as this particular zone was an underground one. Part of the high-speed rail system, in point of fact.

Now, all she had to do was wait. Hmmm, maybe she could check out the video feed to see if Jirou had taken the bait last night? She really shouldn't do that in public, right? Then again, she could do it using her internal systems, on the partition that she kept private from 2B. So no one would have to know…and she could totally send the stream to Momo if it was good. Her girlfriend would be totally into watching it on her suit systems while standing like two feet from Jirou! Hmmm, this was a good plan. Actually, it was probably a bad plan. But it was a good distraction! So she was going to do it anyway! Making sure to keep her face as blank as possible, Izumi accessed their home security system remotely.

She could always blame this on Momo being a bad influence!

... ...

Izumi was very glad that they'd managed a nice date-like lunch with Jirou. Most places were still under martial law, with only critical services operating because of the continued danger of monsters escaping Rifts. That hadn't prevented them from arranging a picnic of sorts, using the top of their own building as a location. Momo and she had gotten a lot of fun out of a flirting offensive with Jirou, making it more clear to the punk girl than they'd ever signaled before that both of them were interested in her. To their surprise, Jirou had managed to rally a bit and flirt back, seeming to have gained courage from somewhere. She'd still spent half the lunch red faced and blushing, but she'd landed a few good hits of her own with return volleys. Frankly, the whole thing had been a breath of fresh air amid the ashes of the last month.

Which is why Izumi was glad they'd managed it before the meeting that she was now taking part in. Many of the usual suspects were present, with this meeting being a sort of all-call to update everyone on how the situation was looking, both worldwide and for Japan specifically. It wasn't a truly international meeting this time, with it being mostly Japan's Heroics, Government, and JSDF higher up involved. But there were representatives from the World Heroes Association and a few of the major international power blocks, present to update everyone on what the international strategic picture was looking like.

In a few words, it wasn't pretty.

In a lot more words, the temporary breathing room they'd gotten through use of the Distortion Bombs and the enemy being forced to shift around elite units and logistics was now played out. The QE fields around the locations the bombs had been used had completely stabilized on Earth's side in under a week. Likewise, intelligence gathered from the still temporarily named Planet X indicated that even on that side the fields had settled enough that the enemy was establishing camps near the sites the Distortion Bombs had previously devastated. Worse, reports indicated that the enemy had actively drained the QE from those sites, indicating that one of their initial fears was accurate. That, while the Distortion Bombs might offer short term gains, in the long term they were potentially harmful to the war effort as they gave the enemy exactly what they wanted…lots of highly concentrated QE to harvest.

The news really only got worse from there. The Era of Chaos had taught the world brutal lessons about strategic reserves and self-sufficiency. The world as it existed now was, thankfully, much harder to disrupt just by affecting global trade. Unlike in the Pre-Quirk Era, disrupting trade wouldn't cause global famine or major power disruptions. Not quite as easily, at least. Though since everyone was being hit on a local level, there were problems with production beginning to surface. The fact there were plenty of Quirks out there that could be pressed into service to help quick-grow crops, boost power production in places with collapsed infrastructure, and so on, did help a great deal. Unfortunately, the world also hadn't had that many years to recover from the Era of Chaos. So the local attacks were biting into reserves at varying rates around the world.

The result was that, despite solid attempts in recent decades to rebuild strategic reserves and create emergency systems for disasters, over a month of mass global disruption was beginning to bite deeply into those reserves. It was being managed, barely, with only the worst impacted areas experiencing serious shortages of things like power, shelter and food. But the worldwide ability to stave off those looming issues was rapidly being whittled away. They needed to shift the strategic balance from the loose stalemate that had been achieved if they were going to be able to maintain civilian safety and welfare. Already, virtually every country worldwide was mass recruiting for their military and Heroics industries, as well as converting manufacturing plants to attempt to keep up with demands for replacing the higher-tier military ordinance that was being used so prolifically.

None of which even began to address the worst elephant in the room. Africa was, for all intents and purposes, lost at this point. Only a few of the countries there, which had possessed strong militaries before the invasion, were still holding out. And even those were only managing it with serious aid from other governments and the WHA. The global powers that be had actually risked using the remaining Distortion Bombs as air-burst weapons on the Earth side of reality, just to fuck up the QE fields around Africa enough to prevent too many additional Greater Gates from forming. Izumi couldn't even find that she blamed them for risking it, and it thankfully had worked to cool things off…sort of.

The problem, the one that had all of them actively grim when it had been covered, was that they now had evidence that the monsters already present in Africa were breeding. It wasn't, thankfully, true of the more intelligent species. But the species that had only animal-level intelligence were actively reproducing, and somehow being directed outward to attack the remaining countries. Given the number of Gates that were open in Africa, some of which were being fortified into what looked disturbingly like walled cities, that entire can of worms was going to need dealt with sooner rather than later.

Thankfully, there were a few spots of hope. The WHA, for example, had managed to use the period of lull caused by the Distortion Bombs to completely retake the Laos-Cambodia front. In doing so, they'd also been the first ones to achieve shut down of a Greater Gate without resorting to a nuke or something equally nasty. As Greater Gates had physical support structures, and the WHA had managed to take one of them intact, there was now in-depth analysis being run on it. Izumi and her group's study of how the enemy QE manipulation worked, as well as what they'd discovered about the Rifts while trying to shut down Gajajima Island space-time Rip, were being put to good use as various think-tanks studied the enemy's Gate 'technology.'

Finally, of course, there was Izumi's own project. Which Nedzu was now asking her to brief everyone on. Straightening from her slightly brain-overloaded slump, she took control of the holoprojector system and brought up a series of images. The most prominent three displayed were an image of a RADS scrambler, a mapping of the QE energy field from their ongoing test, and a technical schematic that outlined power requirements, materials used, and so forth.

"Ladies, gentlemen, I'm pleased to report that my own project is currently showing successful results. At 09:00 this morning, I deployed with a small team to install a series of RADS scramblers. The RADS, short for Rift Area Denial System, are an array of QE field scramblers designed to hash a local QE field, making it either extremely difficult or even outright impossible for a Rift to form within its area of influence."

Everyone present straightened at that description, any sign of tiredness from the various attendees vanishing as that statement processed for them. She pushed through her discomfort at having every eye focused on her, having sadly started to get used to it.

"The first fully operational test array was put into place in an area where the Rift prediction algorithm was 98.7 percent certain a Rift would form within an hour of our placement. As of the current time, nearly seven hours later, no Rift has formed in the location. Obviously, we'll need considerably more observation time to be sure that this can outright stop Rifts from forming, rather than just delay it or make it harder. But current projections, based on what we know of how Rifts form, are promising."

There was an immediate uptick of noise at the reveal, but most of these men and women were highly disciplined and waited for Nedzu to acknowledge one of them. He did so, indicating for the WHA representative to ask their question first.

"The area you mapped out is only around one kilometer squared, yes? How viable will this system be for wider application, assuming it continues to work."

Izumi nodded in appreciation of that question, as the rep got right to the heart of the matter.

"Setting expectations here, this isn't something we can deploy worldwide as a complete defense against Rifts. Covering the globe would be completely impractical. However, we've managed to make the system energy efficient enough that we do expect to be able to cover entire towns and cities if we can produce enough of the arrays. This isn't a solution to stop the invaders cold. But it is a potential solution to turn our cities and towns into safe zones where Rifts can't form, letting us engage the enemy away from both civilian populations and major infrastructure nodes."

That straightened a lot of backs, as everyone present realized how big of a win that would be. The next man to speak was a JSDF general who Nedzu indicated.

"How hard are these RADS arrays to manufacture? How long would it take to get the kind of coverage that could protect critical civilian and infrastructure zones?"

Another good question, and one Izumi thankfully had at least a partial answer to.

"There are far too many logistical questions to answer that in full. However, I can say that we did our best to hold down the quantity of exotic materials and the complexity of the devices. The majority of facilities that are currently able to make MK II siphons could also produce RADS arrays. The sheer number of them the world is going to need is going to mean months of massive production runs, at minimum. But, assuming the concept works out, we can produce enough of them quickly enough to start securing major population centers in a matter of weeks. It will, of course, be up to the various strategic think-tanks out there to determine which areas we need to cover first."

A bit of hope kindled in quite a few eyes as the questions continued from there. Things were still a bit bleak…but there was some good news on the horizon at last.

... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Whew! Oversized update this time! That, frankly, is because this is a dump of the combined early access chapters from last month. I took a very short break from this fic earlier this month in order to flesh out more of my outline for upcoming content. As a result, I actually released an entirely different work for supporters, which a teaser of will be available publicly of come next month.

A/N 2: That said! There are still more early access chapters for My Hero Automata! Chapters 86-89 were just released into early access on my Page, adding another 11,000ish words to the fic! As always, none of my Fanfiction work is permanently paywalled. It will make its way here for free if you're just a little patient :-). For the impatient, or those who simply want to throw a little support my way (or vote in updates!)? Well, my is waiting for you, and it's not exactly going to sting your wallet much, given access to all new content as its released is only a dollar a month ;-).