10. Armor and Value

"ACPA?! Are you sure this is an ACPA?"

Hearing Oliver’s words, Jack looked quite astonished, as everyone knew exactly what an ACPA was.

ACPA, short for "Assisted Combat Personnel Armor," could best be described as a wearable suit of armor that possessed the firepower and protection of an armored vehicle or even a tank. In the parlance of modern braindance games, one might also call it "power armor."

"I’m certain, Jack. The 6th Street gang is hoarding three sets of small-scale riot-control ACPAs. I honestly didn't expect to find data on them in a Scavenger den. It’s truly bizarre, especially since the peace treaty between Arasaka and Militech strictly prohibits their presence in Night City."

"Are ACPAs not allowed to appear openly?" Karl recalled a scene he had witnessed. "But I remember seeing NCPD officers blocking roads, and sometimes there’d be a fully armed mech standing right next to their cruisers. Wasn’t that an ACPA?"

"At best, that’s just an exoskeleton equipped with an ACPA weapons platform," Oliver explained. "A true ACPA, in terms of firepower, armor thickness, or operator safety, completely dwarfs those exoskeletons that merely mimic the shape. When it moves, it feels like a tank, you know? The kind that can plow through absolutely anything."

"That brings up a question for me, then." Karl twirled a lock of hair on his forehead. "If power armor is so strong, why do corporations prefer researching cyberware? Is it possible that in a real battlefield, cyberware is actually more useful than power armor?"

"You really are a sheltered young master, aren't you, Karl?" Jack chimed in to answer for Oliver. "Cyberware is a matter of life and death for those corporate suits. They can swap out a heart or a lung and still look like people. But if you stuff a whole person into a suit of power armor, replacing their flesh with machines and keeping them alive on nutrient fluid—leaving them looking like a tin can—they’d basically be a human in a can."

It felt as though some dreadnought veterans from other stories had just been insulted.

"It’s more than that," Oliver added. "Operating an ACPA requires relying on the human body to control the machine. The G-forces generated during movement are immense; a fragile human body might not withstand that kind of stress. It’s not so much that they prioritize cyberware over ACPA; rather, only a body with a strong enough cybernetic foundation can actually endure the strain of piloting an ACPA."

"I see... but what does 'G-force' mean?"

"Didn't you watch the aviation guide braindance I recommended? Simply put, it's the gravitational acceleration experienced during high-speed movement."

"Yeah, didn't finish it. Don't really get it."

Even though Karl said that, he roughly understood the relationship between cyberware and ACPA. They weren't mutually exclusive; they were complementary, much like a wooden pole and the iron spearhead mounted on top. Only when combined did they become truly powerful.

Once that mystery was resolved, a new one emerged.

"But speaking of which, if Militech and Arasaka don't allow ACPAs to be seen in Night City, aren't they worried that some corporation or a gang like the 6th Street might hide them and launch a surprise attack on their key personnel in the city?"

Oliver explained this aspect as well:

"That’s because, despite their power, ACPAs aren't invincible against cyberware. Do you know how much a good ACPA costs, Karl? Take those small ones the 6th Street gang has—those are the cheap ones, and they still run about 1.4 million eddies each. But do you know how much it costs to take one of those down on the battlefield?"

"Money?"

"For corporations, human lives don't count for much; money is what matters. Everything is measured by cost. I once heard a 6th Street veteran who fought in the war say that on the battlefield, you don't even need to worry about those 1.4-million-eddy light ACPAs, or even the medium or heavy ones. All it takes to deal with them is sending in a few veterans equipped with Sandevistans and tech weapons. And do you know how little it costs to deploy those 'consumable' veterans?"

[Sandevistan]: A piece of cyberware that boosts human muscle and reflex nerves to their absolute limit for a short period, allowing the user to perceive the outside world in slow motion.

To take down a high-value ACPA, one only needed to send in cyberware-enhanced veterans to risk their lives...

Karl realized: "In other words, the values aren't equal."

"That’s about the gist of it. Corporations only look at the bottom line."

***

Having understood this, Karl didn't foolishly ask what would happen if a veteran with a Sandevistan wore an ACPA. According to Oliver, an ACPA pilot already needed a significant amount of cyberware just to function, and adding a Sandevistan—something few could handle—would likely result in the pilot succumbing to cyberpsychosis and slaughtering both friend and foe alike halfway through a battle.

Every street punk knew the fate of over-installing cyberware.

The discussion about the ACPA armor had gone on long enough. Karl checked the message from his client; the vehicle would be downstairs in a minute. It was time to move the target. He copied the image data regarding the ACPA armor from the Scavengers' computer and then raised his pistol, smashing the machine to pieces.

"We can talk more about this over food and drinks later. Let's finish this job first."

Finding data on ACPA armor in a Scavenger den was certainly strange, but without further intelligence, knowing it was just knowing it; there was no way to investigate further.

"Fine. It'll be a good topic to chat about on the way back. But before that..." Jack glanced at the room filled with scattered cyberware. "I need to call the NCPD. We should be thankful there aren't many bodies here, just a lot of scavenged cyberware, or I’d definitely have a nightmare tonight."

Jack was joking, of course. As a man who had come out of the Valentinos, he wasn't going to be scared off by a few corpses.

Oliver raised an eyebrow at Jack’s suggestion to call the NCPD.

"Call the NCPD? They’ll probably just confiscate this gear and turn around to sell it to some back-alley ripperdoc."

Despite saying that, Oliver dialed the number anyway. Compared to scum like the Scavengers, the NCPD at least had a baseline of ethics.

Though not much of one.