Perfect Soldier: THE THREAD.

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"Enough squandering. Please proceed as usual."
 
"Squandering? That's an odd word choice."

As he couldn't stall any longer without risking being thrown out like a rotten potato, Richard proceeded as instructed.
 
There was the usual equipment - the suit, the weapons... although the weapons seemed to be microparticle-based electromechanical (Gauss, rail, particle projection and so on) weapons instead. There was also a much larger device with what looked a shoulder mount.
 
The larger device intrigued Richard. The fact that it was shoulder-mounted - while one of his arms felt like it was going to drop off - was something curious, to him.
"Mind telling me what this does?" He asked, pointing to it.
 
"It's an experimental weapon. We are not sure how it functions or how to activate it, but the tech is compatible with what's already implemented in you so you should, in theory, manage to find a way to fire it. But then again, records show you DID fail last time..."
 
Richard threw his hands up in frustration, and shook his head. He wasn't even going to bother wasting time arguing with this person - he didn't know the criteria for passing or failing, and he was fairly certain that he didn't want to know.
"Grab a weapon and shoot, they tell me," he muttered to himself, "Just kill the thing, it'll be fine, they tell me."
He continued to mutter similar things as he examined the weapons, feigning interest in what he thought looked like a prop collection for a bad sci-fi movie.
 
Terrible sci-fi movie indeed - half of them looked too angular to be optimal, the other half was all about curves everywhere and glossy white paint (while they didn't look much more functional, at least those didn't really hurt to look at), and most of them looked misassembled or at least too mishappen to be functional. There seemed to be a greater variety though - instead of only pistols and SMGs, he was now offered what looked like it could unfurl into heavier pistols, SMGs gave way to something which looked more like a compact assault rifle (a mess of one, but one nontheless), and as an extra he could also pick what, through the curves or angles and useless visual design, a hybrid between a short assault shotgun and a standalone, ultracompact flamethrower (if it had gone through a trash compactor, that is). And there was, of course, the boxy shoulder-mounted device which was supposedly a weapon.

The cherry on top of the sundae was that the jumpsuit he was supposed to wear, instead of being neutral grey, was now a VERY FLASHY neon blue two-piece combat suit. In shiny spandex.
 
Just as he was about to grab a weapon indiscriminately - as he was under the belief that they were all equally impractical - he noticed something. Just out of the corner of his eye. A glint, just a little indicator. He looked down, and balked at the change his jumpsuit had undergone.
"Jesus H Christ... What is this?! What is this?!"
He shook his head, and stood back. He wasn't dealing with this. Not today. He was willing to take a lot of things in order to get by, but he wasn't going to do it in a suit that made him look like a terrible Vegas casino's sign.
 
"This is your high-adaptive scout combat armor. It is designed to maximize mobility to infiltrate areas, and then to provide protection against projectiles and other weapons should eliminating targets become hazardous. The room will not open until the suit and the weapon has been put on. Failure to comply will result in failure of the tests as per article 5b of the test run protocol. You DO remember the protocol, right?"
 
"Oh, I remember the protocol. What I don't remember is agreeing to wear a onesie that makes me look like a tacky neon sign given life. Kill me if you want, but I am NOT going out there in something that makes me look as ridiculous as these weapons. Who designed these, anyway? It's like you're trying to make a budget reproduction of Star Trek. How do I even hold these?"
Given the circumstances, Richard getting belligerent would not have been surprising to most people. He knew he wasn't exactly in a position to argue for anything, but he wasn't going down without a fight.
 
A long silence was present. After a while, the case which used to hold the suit retracted into the ground, and about a minute later, re-emerged with a suit similar to the previous one with a few exceptions - it looked slightly baggier, had a belt with three nodes (a closer look to the weapons would reveal that they could be attached to the belt that way), and most importantly, was not an obnoxious color, being olive with grey stripes on the side. There was also a very feature-barren pistol (almost looked somewhat fragile) which looked about as bent and functional as the others - but several hinges, mechanisms and other joints made it clear that it could unfold into a proper and quite ergonomic weapon.

"Your objections have been noted, and with approval of the S1 supervisor, you have been authorized to use a prototype SAM-3 suit recolored to the last minute. It's more advanced than the previous planned suit, but is not yet fine-tuned and as such, inconveniences might occur. As for the weapon, we do not know what you mean or what Star Trek is, but we assure you all of them are functional once deployed. Regardless, we also added another weapon prototype based on the J-R Mark 3 if it appeases you. Now, would you kindly proceed with the prep and the test?"
 
Richard examined the new equipment - and was satisfied. He wasn't entirely sure how practical the other things he had been told to use were, and wasn't willing to find out. He needed room in his clothes to be able to move properly, and he didn't like it when his weapons looked more like they should have been wielded by a B-list actor in the fifties, as opposed to something used in proper scientific experiment.

Richard took as little time as possible to change. The new suit wasn't quite as comfortable as he had hoped, but it seemed practical, and he could move around in this one without chafing every five seconds.

The pistol was nice as well. He looked it over quickly, and attached it to a node on him. He figured that it'd be best to keep it stowed when it wasn't in use. It was technology unfamiliar to him, and he wanted to activate it only when it was needed. For good measure, he took two other weapons with him, but it was more out of necessity than choice. A Gauss Rifle, and what looked like a handheld focussed wave projector. Given the size of the weapon, it didn't look like it could cause much damage, but the splash damage could come in handy.

The shoulder-mounted device, however, intrigued him. Just what was it? how did it function Did it function?

He hesitated for a moment, and with the other three weapons on his nodes, he mounted the weapon on his shoulder.

"I'm ready."
 
Every weapon unfolded into quite the pieces upon touch, before becoming folded again once on the nodes. The shoulder weapon beeped twice and... it seemed he could FEEL the presence of it, almost like if it had been a lifelong extra limb, but was otherwise inert aside from clamping solidly - and causing a very brief, sharp pain as pins tore through his skin and attached to anchor points into his bone, which wasn't painful. His arm, oddly, felt lighter with the weapon on - back to normal weight, as a matter of fact. There was some muffled giggling through the intercom as the shoulder-weapon beeped, and then silence for a little while. The door opened - this time, the scenery outside was a tall cliff overlooking along dead Ultrapolis - a city of an unfathomable size, seemingly coming from a very technologically advanced civilization. There was a stiff breeze coming in - the air was not quite stale, but there was no... feeling to it, similar to the nose as a piece of food completely stripped of it's flavor is to the mouth. No smell of dust, no thickness, but not thin air either. Almost like breathing nothingness, or breathing air from a rock planet that had never known life in the first place. The city seemed to have a very thin layer of brownish fog in it's empty streets.

"You may proceed. Best of luck to you."
 
Richard winced as the contraption dug into him - however, the pain was bearable. Not that the giggling did anything to make him feel better, however. Now, he felt like demanding an explanation, as to what was so funny. However, he'd already pushed his luck once. Even he knew - incensed as he was - that making more demands would be foolish. So, instead, he carried on with the task he had been given.

As dead and barren as it was, Ultrapolis was still a sight Richard had never seen before. A few moments passed where he took it all in, before he snapped back to reality, and headed forwards.

A minute or two was spent wandering around awkwardly on the cliff, before he stood back to think. It may have just been the angle he was standing at, but he couldn't see anywhere that would provide a potential foothold. Not while he was carrying the thing that had attached itself to him.

With little else to do, Richard started experimenting with the device, like a curious child with a new toy. He had no idea what it was - but he figured that finding out could help him. Or blow him to bits. Either way, he was getting off of the cliff.
 
As he fidgeted with it, the device was almost completely inert - the only reactions it had to anything was not opposing any force placed on it (as long as it went along the limits of it's joints), beeping and humming - at least, it was beeping and humming ever since he reinforced his resolve at getting down that cliff. After a while of pointless manipulation, the device finally came to life on it's own - spouting cloth straps that wrapped around him like a harness, and the device itself spouting two long metallic prongs - which after a few seconds, deployed itself into a rotor not unlike those founds on helicopters. The device beeped twice, almost in confirmation.
 
"Well, it's not quite a jetpack, but let's hope it works."
Richard was just about to take his leap of faith to test out his new toy, when he noticed something that would have made his flight one with a very permanent destination. "The bloody thing doesn't have any controls, does it?" He muttered to himself.
Richard stepped back again, and scratched his head, examining what bits of the device he could. Not that there was much to see, given the angle.
"Come on, come on... Work,damn it, work! I'm not just jumping!"
He felt it was futile, just willing something to happen angrily. Inside his own head, no less. But ti was all he could do, without risking ending up as a bloody stain on the floor.
 
There was nothing much to see indeed - a rotor affixed to a smooth rectangulary thing. However, a few seconds after he swore after the machine for it to start, it beeped twice and the rotor started spinning, slowly lightening him before eventually inching him up. The wind wasn't particularly pleasant, an ozone smell radiating from the now-functional device.
 
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