Chronicle #2: March.14/The Final piece
July 21st 2023, somewhere off the coast of Melbourne...
A lone speedboat scurried across the Bass Strait which separated Australia and Tasmania in the middle of the day. On it, there were only two people, the captain and the passenger.
The captain was becoming increasingly irritated with the passenger's suspicious behaviour, or rather the lack of it. Normally, people would chat him up, but this person just stared off into the distance, thinking to himself.
"Just what is it with rich people these days taking cruises in the middle of the ocean? There's nothing out here!" The captain exclaimed to himself, unaware that his passenger could hear him speak.
"You need not worry about the business that I am conducting here, Mr. Williams. All that matters is the amount of money that I have promised you when I find what I want." the passenger replied, patting the briefcase he was holding which contained 1 million in Australian dollars, a fine sum of money for any sailor, which was verified by Williams before the enigmatic man embarked upon his seafaring vessel, the Storm's Siren.
"What is it that you want? There are very few shipwrecks around here, and none of them contain any sort of valuable treasure. Also, how are you getting back? You didn't hire me for a round trip. What are you gonna do, swim?" Williams snarked to his passenger.
"I am searching for an island that does not appear on any map, even today. It has the final piece of the puzzle I am completing. When I get to the island, I will contact my companions via satellite phone. They have already arranged a plane back to Melbourne for myself along with my cargo." Pi stated.
"Alright pal, whatever you say." Williams concluded in defeat.
Despite his cold and unforgiving exterior, Pi had a ghost of a smile on his lips. With the discovery of the island and its potential, the Project could now be completed at a greater pace.
***
1 month before...
"Sir, come down to the hidden basement! There's something you need to see!"
Pi was filing budget reports for March.14 when a young archivist rang through to notify him of something important. The reason that he knew it was important was his secretary would have answered mundane calls, as he was a busy man and did not have time to listen to the mewls of childish employees.
Pi walked over to the private elevator in his office and pressed the button for the bottommost floor. When the elevator dinged as it reached the ground, he walked into a smashed-up section of a wall that contained a staircase leading down to a cellar filled with filing cabinets. Once he had walked down, he saw the archivist currently combing the records of the secret cellar that had been recently discovered at March.14's headquarters. This was the latest secret that this building has shown to its new tenants, as it originally belonged to the secret United Nations sub-organization Multinational Energy Coalition Agency, or MECA for short.
MECA was a neutral branch of the UN formed after World War II whose purpose was to research alternative forms of energy in fears that the Cold War would cause an energy crisis. At the height of the Cold War in the mid 1970s, it was rumored that they had developed a device that could produce a large quantity of energy from something as small as a sugar cube, but these allegations were never proved true. However, at the turn of the new millennium, it suddenly disbanded and all the research done was left behind in its various facilities scattered across the globe.
Pi had been interested in what MECA was doing for a long time, and was secretly buying up all its facilities to continue their ambitious research in order to further his own goals. How he knew of the agency's existence and its purpose was not known to anyone except himself, but most people suspected that an associate of his either worked at MECA directly, or was at such a high position of the UN that they would be privy to this sort of classified information. Whatever the case, it was obvious that Pi intended to use MECA's innovations for completion of his mysterious Project, his personal magnum opus.
His own organization March.14 had risen out of MECA's ashes, and intended to use it's predecessor's creations for war and for profit, as opposed to MECA's purely peaceful intentions. It described itself a private paramilitary R&D organization, which meant that while it has its own fighting force, it specialized in weapons and robotics technology, and it still sells its finished technology to anyone who can pay the price, namely the 314P-001 Tank-Like Weapon that debuted 3 years ago against the terrorist group Isolation.
The reason that the 314P-001 was so powerful in combat was because of its special power source, known as the M² reactor. M² reactors were the completed version of the high-efficiency power source that MECA had been developing in the mid 1970s. They generated power by emitting a special sound frequency that breaks up the energy bonds between molecules, harvesting the energy left over with an absorption system, so they can function for quite a long time even with a small amount of material. However, they are challenging to produce even with March.14's advanced technology, and March.14 only sold completed M² reactors that were impossible to take out of a 314P-001. Even if a group managed to dismantle the tank to reverse-engineer its M² reactor, the outer shell was rigged with an explosive that would destroy the reactor and anything around it within a 250m radius.
Since it revealed itself to the world on that fateful day, March.14 had become the biggest private paramilitary organization and the 5th largest defense contractor in the world after 3 years, selling its creations to several countries that were edge with one another, or big spenders such as the United States or China. Other 'conventional' rival paramilitary organizations either bought March.14's weapons for their own use, or tried to attack and destroy them. Needless to say, all attempts failed as March.14's private squadron of 314P-001s wiped out all enemy forces instantaneously, scaring away other potential attacks on March.14 bases.
As Pi reminiscenced about the origins and rise of his organization, he swiftly took the tattered file from the archivist's hands and began to read it:
MECA Internal Report No. 3254:
The first test of the Mechanized Reactor Housing/Defense System (MeRe) (blueprints attached) will be held at MECA's Australian base on February 25th 1980. All personnel involved in this project will have to arrive at least 7 days before the activation test. Since this base is on an unmapped island, it is advised that personnel charter a boat to arrive on the island. DO NOT tell anyone about your intentions on the island, as there are people who will kill for this technology. The Finances Department will cover all fees used on the journey. Directions to the base are as follows...
Pi raised an eyebrow. There were 20 known MECA bases in total across the globe, and he had already bought all of them beforehand with his vast resources, while also converting them into March.14's facilities. If there was one more base that existed, it would surely be the one that housed the first prototype of the M² reactor, and if the blueprints that were attached to the document were any indication, MECA already had a functioning model of that M² reactor inside a housing unit that could defend itself against any attacks from others that may seek to destroy the technology inside it.
While his harsh demeanor remained, Pi was ecstatic inside. The housing unit for the M² reactor shown in the blueprints resembled the planned weapon that March.14 planned to roll out four years later. Now, the time from rollout would be shortened to two years thanks to the information the blueprints provided, and if the housing unit still existed in MECA's Australian base, the weapon could be more advanced than what he had initially planned.
"You have been of a valuable service to March.14. You are deserving of a promotion from the lowly role of an archivist to the position of an analyst in the Intelligence Department as well as added benefits and a raise. I will make the necessary arrangements. Go home and rest, for you have more daunting tasks ahead of you in the future. Good job." Pi said to the archivist.
"Thank you sir!" The newly promoted analyst squealed in delight.
"These matters are of little concern to me." Pi replied as the analyst scurried away to get home. "Now, I will have to make arrangements for a trip to Australia in the near future. I wonder if there are any discounts this time of year..."
***
Present day...
Pi handed the briefcase to Williams as he stepped off the boat. The ill-fortuned sailor snatched the briefcase off Pi as he sailed his boat back to Melbourne to spend his newfound wealth. The pristine air of the island and the cool sea breeze hit Pi's rugged face as he continued his walk on a beaten path to the center of the island. He had saw a tall antenna poking out near the center, so that was most likely where the base was. The path was a sure sign that people had traversed the island previously, so he trusted his instincts and blazed on.
When he reached the end of the path, what he saw caught him by surprise. The 'base' comprised of little more than an observing deck, a control station with the antenna on top, and a makeshift hangar composed of only wood, with nails holding the weathered planks together. However, inside the hangar laid the most expensive object on the island: the Mechanized Reactor Housing/Defense System, or MeRe for short. It stood 5 meters tall, and resembled a decapitated human with a camera on its chest, shoulder armor, and claws at the end of its 'arms'. It was held up by little more than bamboo sticks expertly tied together, suggesting that this machine's stability was not good. Beside it laid what looked like a cannon from a tank and a 5-tube missile pod with spare shoulder armor, indicating that the machine could equip those weapons for defense. There were also schematics for a scaled-up riot shield and rocket boosters, presumably equipment that was designed initially but not built.
"Hallelujah!" Pi cried out in triumph. Rarely would he display such a strong burst of emotion like this under regular circumstances, but if this discovery meant the Project would near completion quicker, it would be a dream come true for him.
When he regained his composure, Pi reached for his satellite phone and dialed his private line to March.14 headquarters. "Hello? This is Pi. I have found what I wanted on the island. Send the cargo plane over. Make sure it has a full fuel tank. We will return to headquarters immediately to analyse and reverse-engineer it. Thank you very much. See you."
Pi smiled as he hear the roar of the cargo plane's engines in the distance. This was just one small step for him and March.14, but a giant leap for the future of mankind as a whole. As the plane started to touch down on the island, he recalled a phrase from a television show he liked to watch, and thought that it would be appropriate for this moment.
'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.'
However, Pi had no intention of letting God sit back in heaven and let the world be right. Rather, his goal was to bring His divine power down to the realm of mankind, and by extension, Himself.
***
Next Chronicle: The First True Mecha/Battle in the Ural Mountains
