Maine a écouté attentivement les instructions, en regardant son costume pigiste vert foncé. Il avait enlevé la couverture de brosse dessus pour un look plus élégant, vu qu'ils allaient faire de l'entraînement aujourd'hui. Il n'y avait pas d'arbustes pour vraiment se fondre dans. Il a nettoyé son fusil, balayé les autres freelances. Ils étaient les meilleurs des meilleurs d'accord, certains plus que d'autres, de toutes les formes et de toutes les tailles. Il n'avait pas à s'inquiéter de les prendre sur elle semble, juste calculé l'IA. Ils avaient un algorithme et une façon systématique de faire les choses, mais il ne savait pas à quel point ces IA étaient bonnes. Il laissait les canons, ou ses coéquipiers, régler ça.
Comme il a obtenu ses améliorations d'armure, bien que désactivé, une AI a été programmé en lui alors qu'il a vu une figure verte se matérialiser sur son épaule.
"Bonjour. Je suis Delta, votre AI."
"Oh, pour que tu puisses parler?" Je pense à haute voix dans ma tête, en regardant l'hologramme.
"Oui, je peux parler à l'agent Maine. Je suis l'IA conçue pour la logique. Je vous donnerai des commentaires de combat pour prendre les meilleures décisions logiques sur le champ de bataille afin d'assurer le succès et la survie de la mission. »
"Oh. On dirait mon genre d'IA. Alors, est-ce que tu vas juste être dans mes pensées pour toujours comme ça?"
"Non, je suis ici pour quand vous avez besoin de moi agent Maine, principalement dans le combat et toute autre situation critique. Si vous le souhaitez, je peux également donner des conseils. »
"Très bien, merci Delta. Montons dans la salle d'entraînement et évaluons ces robots. Ils disent que le classement ne veut rien dire, mais peu importe qu'il serait probablement efficace d'être près du sommet. »
"C'est une hypothèse logique."
-- C'est donc vrai?
"Je ne suis pas sûr, mais j'ai dit que c'était une hypothèse logique."
"Est-ce qu'ils t'ont programmé avec du sarcasme?"
"Pas intentionnellement."
Maine s'installa près de l'arrière de l'arène, posant et ajustant son fusil anti-matériel alors qu'il entrait dans les robots. Ils semblaient assez résilients, et il y aurait 98 il semblait. D'après ce que Washington nous disait, les coups de tête ne les tueraient pas, donc on dirait que le haut de la poitrine ferait le tour avec le tireur. Un peu d'information utile. Une fois la bataille commencée, des grenades fumigènes ont été envoyées immédiatement alors que les robots chargés vers l'avant sous couverture.
Maine regarda à travers sa portée, incapable de voir à travers la fumée que sa vision tactique était désactivée. "Maintenant où sont-ils..."
« La majorité des agents s'engageront probablement dans le CQC, en maintenant l'attention de l'IA. Puisqu'ils relayent des informations instantanément, vous serez en mesure de tirer deux rondes avant que votre emplacement soit identifié. Je suggère de bouger la position après votre deuxième coup et de répéter le processus pendant que les autres tiennent la ligne de front. S'ils envahissent la ligne arrière, utilisez votre écran de fumée comme couverture et regroupez-vous comme pour ne pas être encerclé." Delta a annoncé que le Maine cligne plusieurs fois.
"Wow, tu es bon." Maine a dit stupéfait, se demandant d'où ils ont eu ces AI.
"Focus sur les cibles faisant des progrès dans les lignes arrière et tout autre tireur d'élite ennemi soutenant de longue portée. J'ai étalonné votre ordinateur dans votre sniper dans mon système, et je calculerai chaque tir automatiquement pour vous. Quand vous prendrez votre chance, j'augmenterai votre adrénaline et vos réflexes et ralentirai le rythme cardiaque et la respiration pour un coup plus précis. »
"Affirmatif." Maine chuchotait, prenant lentement tout ça. Bien que le contrôle de ces aspects de son corps et de son arme soit un peu inébranlable, l'IA semblait savoir ce qu'il faisait.
La fumée s'évanouissait alors qu'une seule IA semblait essayer d'éclater de la ligne initiale, voûtant et essayant de frapper un collègue freelance. Il était presque trop rapide, mais le temps semblait ralentir légèrement car il était capable d'aligner le tir et le feu, comme il était au ralenti, mais il se déplaçait à une vitesse normale.
Une rafale du fusil a été abattue par la muselière alors que la fine balle s'est glissée dans l'air à la vitesse de la foudre. Il s'est arraché à travers le robot, soufflant un énorme trou dans sa poitrine avec sa tête tombant alors qu'il s'est écroulé au sol. La balle a même traversé le robot, perçant un ou deux autres à travers le bras et s'imbudant à l'arrière de l'arène.
Un petit sourire apparut sur les lèvres du Maine alors qu'il reprit son fusil, en ramenant une autre cible. Ça allait rendre les tirs bien plus amusants.
"Alors, tu as dit que j'avais encore un coup à droite?"
"Oui, je vous l'ai dit plus tôt, agent Maine."
"Soupir... juste, peu importe."
Full name: James Lockhart "Iceman"
Code name: Maine
Gender: Male
Age: 23
Implanted A.I.: Delta - Logic - Green. Delta grants Iceman better reasoning skills, able to "slow down time" essentially in his head to make the most logical, optimal, and efficient choices. Side effects include lacking sympathy or empathy, logic taking over emotion.
Armour Ability: Tactical vision
Appearance:


Personality: James suits his A.I. well, as he is more of a man of logic and reasoning than anything else. He makes friendships because they are beneficial, not because he particularly enjoys people. It's not like he's a complete asshole or anything, but if you need something from him and it's not in his best interest and won't benefit him, he won't do it. He won't save you in a fight unless you're worth saving, but on the flip side he won't kill you unless he feels it's necessary. Granted this may make his morale scale a little out of whack, he's not some axe murderer either. He's cold, cunning, calculating, out for himself and only himself. And in battle, he always is level headed and has been known to think and be one step ahead. This is why he is the Iceman.
History: James never knew his parents, or any parents for that matter. His biological ones put him up for adoption because they were too poor, casting him out to an orphanage. It was in a rough city, so as you could imagine, bullying and the more than occasional beatings were in order. Food was spread thin, you had a room like a jail sell, and it was a miracle if somebody smuggled a toy in. In a world like this you only looked after yourself, and it was survival of the fittest every day. Kids did die in that place, and only the lucky ever got adopted. James wasn't so lucky. Instead, he made his own luck.
Through his life and going into his teen years, James would sneak out of the orphanage and steal from people and stores outside the city, getting whatever he could. Cards, toys, food and water, money, cigarettes. Anything of value. It took a while, and some close calls, but James got handy at climbing rooftops, sneaking down alleys, stealing, pick pocketing, conning. Running away and hiding. And occasionally getting beat up too. Shot once or twice. When he did get the items however, he bartered inside the orphanage, traded, gambled. Sometimes he would make alliances with other kids that would mutually benefit them. After playing the game for a while, James lived more comfortably than most, and was well known in and out of the orphanage. Then he turned 18.
Knowing that he barely had schooling and no money, the best option for him was to join the military. After passing the physical exams with flying colors, he was enlisted in the UNSC as a sniper. He was the top marksman in his class, and with a rifle he could shoot a dime off a clothespin. After many successful missions, he was promoted to ODST, where he would drop either in small squads for tactical missions or solo for recon and assassination missions.
The mission before he was recruited to a freelancer project, he was set on a mission leading a squad of four to do reconnaissance on a small outpost. It was a normal mission, and usually one of the less eventful ones, but the ODST was sent because there were rumors of the flood overtaking the now abandoned outpost. Well, it wasn't abandoned. After a sweep of the place, the squad was suddenly ambushed. Not by the flood however... it was the covenant. Five ships had surrounded the outpost and elites swarmed into the place. It was a trap. The group fled to loading dock to try to get to the ship before they were gunned down, except James refused to go with them and climbed up to the top of the rafters. He knew that the covenant would have already destroyed and looted their ship, and it was fruitless to try and get to it before hand. The squad had managed two fight through two ships worth, but full frontal assault on them was suicide. Watching his team die in front of him, he tried to figure a way out. After waiting several hours, he waited until the covenant were about to leave before making his move. After dispatching a few elite on one of the smaller ships, he piloted it in an attempt to escape. However, the other ships closed onto him, and he crash landed on an nearby planet with only minor injuries and fled the wreckage. Covenant ships touched down as the remaining crew was out for revenge. Holed up atop a cliff face outlooking the area, and with his rifle along with the rest of his gear, he managed to not only hold off the covenant, but killed them all, before taking one of their ships and fleeing safely. It wasn't an army by any means, there only being the two small ships worth of elites. It took a lot of stealth work, timing, planning, and chance... but it worked. Luck might have played a deciding role in this, but Iceman never believed in luck. He made his own.
This is when he joined the Freelancer project, where he was assigned the name of a state that was just cold enough for the Iceman. Maine.
Weapon Loadout: Model 99 Special Application Scoped Rifle, modified with a silencer, enhanced variable zoom, extended magazine, and a tri-pod.
DMR with a grip, stock, silencer, and selective fire for fully automatic, three round burst, or single shot. Modified to reduce recoil.
Black painted Bowie knife
2x frag grenades
2x smoke grenades
Fighting Style:
If you haven't already noticed from the bio, if you have read it or not, or simply looked at the weapons, you can tell Maine is particularly into long range engagements. He is quite confident in his sniping ability and he can handle most targets in that range, and likes to stay at that range. His field optics allow him to see mostly anything on the battlefield, even through walls (which his handy sniper can shoot through) as well as predict movements to more precisely hit his shots. A marksman through and through, he likes keeping his enemy at a distance. Bullets are very deadly and are good at killing people, hulk smashing somebody or going Bruce Lee on them is just stupid. He wants to be as far away as possible and shoot you before you even know he existed within a 5 km radius. However, this obviously isn't the case always. Overall he invests in a stealth first approach almost always, going into a situation with a plan and trying to outsmart and out strategize the opponent. If the engagement happens to get close, he resorts to the fully automatic DMR, and if too close and a built stealthier, the knife. In hand to hand combat he is average at best, as he doesn't do it a whole lot. However in this situation he would usually rely on cunning, such as getting the first blow in a sneak attack, somehow gaining an advantage, calculating the opponent's moves and looking for a clear cut opportunity. But through and through, in a fisticuffs match versus someone trained in hand to hand more than him or physically stronger than he, he is not going to be winning very easily. In fact, the best course of action against big scary people trying to, I don't know, stab him or beat him up might be running occasionally. Pick your battles, you know?