Chapter 19 - Chapter Nineteen

Adam Smasher didn't waste time with rumors but he paid attention when those rumors reached the kind of voices that paid him, and for weeks the talk circling around Corpo channels, mercenary comms, and even the low-grade chatter in bars had carried three names that kept repeating like static—Vault-Tec Medical, Aperture Science, and Black Mesa—and normally he'd ignore the noise because most "new outfits" were flash-in-the-pan scams or some Corpo's pet side project, but this was different because people weren't just talking about chrome installs or weapons deals, they were whispering about weapons that melted chrome into slag, about rifles with housings no one had seen before, about security guards that moved like a disciplined unit instead of half-baked rent-a-cops, and the whispers kept circling back to the same two words, plasma and energy, and Adam leaned forward at that because he'd been in enough wars to know that when something new cuts through the old, it shifts the field. He replayed the fragments of footage the corpos had managed to get out of their failed probes, one intruder limping with an arm half gone, chrome turned into bubbling green sludge, another stumbling from a shaft lit by white-panel walls like some old-world lab, alarms echoing, no data captured worth a damn, but Adam didn't care about the details, he cared about the proof of force: weapons that didn't just punch holes but annihilated metal, armor that didn't flinch, drones that didn't drift, and convoys that rolled clean on time without the panic that marked amateurs. He'd fought men and machines on half the continents, replaced more of himself than most people had to give, and every new toy he picked up had to prove itself, but the idea that someone else had already built plasma sidearms and energy rifles while the rest of the city still threw lead got his blood hot because it meant there was a real fight somewhere, not just meat getting chopped but a clash where every edge mattered. He thought back to the war years, when experimental tech got handed out in bunkers to see who came back breathing, and he remembered what it felt like to stomp through mud with a gun no one else had, the look on enemy faces when their armor failed against something they didn't understand, and he wanted that again, not just as a tool but as a thrill, because Adam Smasher lived for the moment when two forces met and one broke. In his den, surrounded by racks of chrome limbs, spare servos, heavy plating and weapon mounts, he sat polishing a forearm cannon that had taken him through three tours and thought about how long it had been since anything had really tested him, since anyone had stood on the same ground and traded blows without folding, and he laughed to himself because the corpos were scared, the mercs were scared, but he wasn't scared, he was excited, because plasma and energy meant someone had teeth, and if they had teeth maybe they had a spine, and if they had a spine maybe they'd stand and fight. He flicked through Corpo reports, laughing at the careful language, "unknown metal," "possible exotic alloys," "energy discharge inconsistent with catalogued weapons," and he muttered, "You mean you got scared because someone burned your toys," and pushed the reports aside, standing to flex his frame, plates grinding against plates, servos whining, body more weapon than man, and in the mirror he caught his own grin, wide and mean, because the thought of stepping into a field where Black Mesa guards were waiting with plasma rifles didn't scare him, it thrilled him. He walked through his memories of jobs that had bored him, gangs that crumbled the second he moved, mercs who ran when they realized what he was, corpos who paid him to be a monster on a leash because they were too scared to be monsters themselves, and he clenched his fists because boredom was the real enemy, and if these new outfits were real then maybe boredom was finally dead. He thought about Vault-Tec Medical too, not because he cared about patients but because he knew chrome when he saw it, and the field reports said their installs ran cooler, smoother, safer, and that pissed him off in a way he didn't like to admit, because safety wasn't supposed to be part of the game, the game was strain, push, break, rebuild, but at the same time he respected it, because an install that ran cool meant an install that ran longer, and an install that ran longer meant a fighter that could stay on the field until the blood really started to pool, and Adam wanted fighters who stayed, not trash that folded. He imagined some punk kid with a dermal sheath walking up, looking normal, hiding heat-dispersing mesh under skin, running a Sandevistan three times longer without frying, and instead of sneering he grinned wider, because that meant more fun before the kill. He walked to his workbench where blades lay scattered, steel, carbon, chrome edges, none of it excited him anymore, but then he picked up a shard with Corpo analysis of something called "Saturnite," an unknown alloy they couldn't place, a blade recovered from the probe clash, edges still sharp enough to cut the table when he dropped it, and Adam turned it in his hands and muttered, "Now that's a knife," because it reminded him of the first time he saw monowire cut through steel, a new sharp, a new thrill, and the idea that Black Mesa had more of these sitting in racks made his pulse run fast. He imagined fighting one of their guards, plated, disciplined, carrying a plasma pistol and a Saturnite blade, and he laughed again because that was what he wanted, not to break toys but to break equals, to test himself against something real, and if the corpos were too scared to poke harder, then he'd do it himself, because Adam Smasher didn't wait for permission, he took fights when he wanted them. He stood, heavy boots clanging on the steel floor, servos whining, plates locking, and he said to the empty room, "Soon," because the idea of plasma bolts slamming into his armor, blades that cut deeper than chrome, guards that didn't run, was the closest thing to joy he'd felt in years, and he wanted it, he needed it, he craved it. While the boardrooms whispered, while the cops wrote "monitor," while Maine and his crew muttered about patience, Adam Smasher sharpened his grin and thought about how much fun it would be to meet Black Mesa face to face, not to steal, not to sell, but to fight, and in his world that was the only reason that mattered.