MaxTac: The Cyberpsychos Who Hunt Their Own When a cyberpsycho strikes, standard police forces (NCPD) immediately retreat, establishing a frantic perimeter just to keep civilians back. They pulse the emergency channel for the Maximum Force Tactical Division, universally known as MaxTac. Within minutes, the distinctive, heavy thrum of an armored AV-9 aerodyne echoes from the sky. To the street-level criminal, that sound is a death knell. To the average citizen, MaxTac is a terrifying paradox: a squad of legal monsters authorized to tear the city apart to kill a worse monster. Operating with absolute legal immunity, MaxTac is the ultimate apex predator. They answer to no ordinary court, and they don't arrive to negotiate, establish a dialogue, or take hostages; they arrive to liquidate. Their mandate allows for total collateral damage, meaning any civilian or building caught in their crossfire is written off as an acceptable corporate expense. In an ironic and deeply cynical twist of corporate psychology and budgeting, the city realizes that ordinary humans simply lack the cognitive speed to kill a high-threat borg. The most efficient way to kill a cyberpsycho is to weaponize one. Cyberpsychos who are subdued rather than vaporized are brought to secretive, high-security facilities. There, they undergo brutal neural reprogramming, a psychological wipe that overwrites their identity with absolute loyalty to the squad. Pumped full of heavy chemical suppressants, sensory dampeners, and behavior-locking software, these reformed butchers are forced into the ranks of MaxTac itself. They are functional, highly controlled psychopaths, kept on a digital leash until they are dropped into a combat zone to unleash their repressed bloodlust. A standard MaxTac drop-squad behaves like a single, telepathically linked organism—an optimized engine of death consisting of specialized, terrifying roles: • The MaxTac Heavy (The Breacher) • Augmentations: Subdermal plating, titanium bone laces, and internal synthetic organs designed to absorb catastrophic kinetic shock. • Gear: Enclosed in towering, military-grade power armor that makes them look more like a light tank than a human. They wield heavy machine guns, automated shotguns, or shoulder-mounted light cannons. • Tactics: They are the first out of the AV, slamming into the concrete to act as a walking ballistic shield. Their job is to draw the target's aggro, pinning them down under a ceaseless hail of suppressive, armor-piercing fire while absorbing damage that would disintegrate a normal squad. • The MaxTac Netrunner (The System Fryer) • Augmentations: Military-spec cyberdecks wired directly into an upgraded nervous system, deep-dive cooling ports lining their spine, and advanced ICE (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics) protection. • Gear: Monowire links for physical overrides and highly encrypted, mobile signal repeaters. • Tactics: Staying safely in the rear or inside the hovering AV, the Netrunner locks onto the target’s cybernetic signature. They wage a silent, lethal digital war, overloading the psycho’s internal hardware. Within seconds, they force cyberware to malfunction, trigger painful neural feedback loops, blind optical sensors, or forcefully activate the target's internal cybernetics to lock up their joints. • The Mantis Blade Soldier (The Executioner) • Augmentations: Kereznikov or Sandevistan neural processors that slow down time to a crawl, reinforced cyber-legs for explosive leaps, and heavily modified forearm housings. • Gear: Retractable, thermal-heated or monomolecular Mantis Blades extending from their arms. • Tactics: Stripped entirely of human fear and pumped with combat stimulants, they move as a blur. Once the Heavy pins the target and the Netrunner drops their defenses, the Mantis Blade soldier closes the distance in a fraction of a second. They weave through gunfire, using their blade arms to systematically dismantle, dismember, and shred the target into scrap metal. • The MaxTac Sniper (The Overwatch) • Augmentations: Smart-linked optical suites capable of x-ray imaging, thermal heat-mapping, and atmospheric compensation tracking. • Gear: Heavy-caliber, tech anti-materiel sniper rifles utilizing electromagnetic rails to accelerate projectiles to supersonic speeds. • Tactics: Positioned high above on the AV’s open door or a nearby skyscraper roof, the sniper acts as the squad’s omniscient eye. Their tech-rifles can charge up shots to punch clean through solid concrete walls, vehicle armor, and heavy sub-dermal plating, delivering a sudden, catastrophic end-point to the target from half a mile away.