Chapter Fifty - Salad

“It’s not just fine dining that changed with the arrival of the Antithesis. The first incursions popularized the purchase of long-lasting non-perishables, for good reason, but that had little impact on the world-wide market for food.

The biggest change appeared in 2023, during the central-Brazilian incursion. An incursion with few civilian dead, but one that landed quite close to some of the country’s largest agricultural areas.

Nearly one-hundred million heads of cattle perished during, or shortly after, the incursion, and with fears about possible biological weapons around incursion zones, the world-wide market for beef took a large downturn.

Shortly thereafter, large food conglomerates switched to using synthetic meats in full, something that had only been experimented with before that.“

--Except from You  Aren’t What You Eat,  2032

***

Lucy ate her salad while making these little noises that were--quite frankly--making me a bit jealous. I’d never heard her sounding so... pleased before. Ever.

Was I being outdone by a salad?

“This is so fucking good,” she said, mouth still full. “How’s your thing?”

I looked down at my plate and at the seven circles spread out across it. Each one had a little piece of meat, with some sauce expertly drizzled on it, and a little side of vegetables or greens or... stuff. I’d eaten one of them so far, a sort of slab of pork that was so soft that it came apart as soon as my fork (which was in fact silver) touched it. The other six were all different, but for the most part each was pretty small. “It’s good so far,” I said as I turned the large plate a little bit.

“This isn’t even the main course and I’m loving it,” Lucy said. “It was a good idea to come here. Cat, you need to find out if this place would sponsor you so that we can eat this every day.”

I snorted. “I don’t know, it sounds like a bit of work. Won’t the fun wear off?”

“Sex is a lot of work, but it’s never worn off, I can’t see how this is any different,” Lucy said.

“Should I be worried?” I asked. “You and that salad...”

Lucy nodded. “You should be. If this salad had an ass as nice as yours... well, sometimes a girl has to make difficult choices in life.”

I was being outdone by a  salad. That was effeminating .

I jabbed at some sort of brown meat. There was no way to know what it was, but it was juicy and soft and tasted stupidly good. “Mmm,” I started to say before I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “So, you think I should do the sponsor thing?”

Lucy tilted her head as she considered it. “I guess? Isn’t that what samurai do?”

“I mean, some of them have to be sponsor-less,” I said.

She shrugged. “I guess. Just figured that’s the way you’d go. It’s basically free money, right?”

“Yeah. Don’t know who I’d accept as a sponsor though. I wouldn’t just slap on anyone’s logo.”

“Can you imagine doing a commercial for like, Pear headphones, and then the week after you learn that they’re using child labour again,” Lucy said. “Oh, which company was it that had concentration camps with like, minorities working in factories?”

“There’s like, six,” I said.

“Urgh,” Lucy said. “Right, so you don’t want to work for one of those. Probably get Myalis to look into whatever corp you end up working with.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t want my face on a cereal box. Or like, someone’s underwear or something. It’s too cringey.”

Lucy giggled. “I love you Cat, but I wouldn’t wear you-themed panties, no matter how much you paid me.”

“I know,” I said. “Maybe like... uh, I hate myself for thinking this.”

“Ohh,” Lucy cooed. She leaned forwards. “Tell me, tell me!”

I rubbed at my brow. “I could be sponsored by one of those companies that do animal products.”

It took a moment for Lucy to catch on. “Oh, like a cat food company?”

“Not cat food! Shit, that’s worse than having your face on cereal.”

Lucy grinned. “Give your kitty some Cat, the best tasting pussy food around.”

I flung a napkin at her and she laughed. “You’re awful,” I said. “That wasn’t even a double-entendre. It was like... a single-entendre.”

“It’s the salad.” Lucy took another bite. “It’s making me feel things I’ve never felt before.”

I laughed and picked up a knife to cut into some sort of fish-looking thing. "Do fish count as a meat ?”

“If plants can count as meat, why not?” Lucy asked. She finished a bit before me, then stole a few veggies from my plate until I finished. The moment I was done, the waiter returned and took our plates away and brought us fresh water.

Then he returned with dessert.

“Ohh,” Lucy said as she looked down upon a thick wedge of cake that wouldn’t be surviving the next few minutes.

I laughed and picked away at my own dessert, some pie that sounded fancy and that tasted pretty good. “So, uh,” I hesitated a bit. What could we talk about? I didn’t want to go into anything heavy, not if it meant ruining the moment. “Did you ever want to try like, new  hobbies or something?” I asked.

“New hobbies? Like what, knitting?”

“No, no, like... I don’t know. What do rich people do for fun?” I asked.

“Golf?” Lucy asked. “Eat really  good salads? Hire whores? Mock the poor and downtrodden?”

I laughed. “Okay, so not that. I don’t know, but right now we don’t need to focus so much on... you know, surviving. We can do other things for fun.”

“I do want to buy a tennis outfit,” Lucy said.

“You want to try tennis?” I asked. That didn’t sound very Lucy-like.

“Hey, I’ve got bouncy legs now. Also, you get to wear those really short skirts.” Her eyebrows wiggled at me. “And then you get all sweaty.”

I swallowed a bite of my pie. “Yeah, uh, I’m sure we can find something. I think I might get into shooting.”

“Shooting? Like trying to hit things with bullets?” Lucy asked. “Don’t you already do that? You know, samurai and all?”

“Yeah, my aim is... bad. Awful bad. Myalis keeps mocking me about it. But so far I’ve been pretty much pulling the trigger and hoping for the best most of the time. I’d like to actually learn how to aim.”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “That’s terrifying.” She smiled. “You’re so incompetent.”

“Hey!” I said.

We finished our desserts, then slumped back. The meals hadn’t been too big, but they were enough that I was feeling full. Lucy kicked her feet up under the table and managed to only-just place them on my lap.

I felt like I could almost fall asleep. There was a faint bit of music playing in the background, nothing too exciting, but a nice lilting song on some string instrument that was accompanied by the clink of glass and utensils. I twitched my new ears and fiddled with their controls. Soon, that music was accompanied by the steady drumbeat of Lucy’s heart.

“Do the ladies require anything?” the waiter asked.

I jumped a bit, having entirely failed to notice him. “Oh? Uh, no, I’m good,” I said.

Lucy pulled her feet back and sat up straighter. “Me too,” she said. “We should probably head out soon.”

I reluctantly agreed.

The waiter nodded. “In that case, here is the cheque.” He placed a piece of paper on the table, then bowed and left.

I pulled it over, and winced at the number. There was a barcode next to it, to scan and send the money over via electronic transfer.

“Bad?” Lucy asked.

“Huh? Nah, just forgot that I could afford these kinds of things now.” I got up while my augs worked out how to pay.

I’ll take care of it.

I nodded and reminded myself to thank Myalis later as I moved around the table and helped Lucy up. She leaned against me, arms hugging mine close.

“Let’s go home.”

“Home?” I asked.

“To the kittens,” she said. “We need to pick something up for them.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I made a note for Myalis to see, telling her to tip the waiter appropriately, then I walked side-by-side with Lucy, all the way out front where our taxi was just pulling up to the curb.

Opening the backdoor, I waited for Lucy to get in, but instead she paused, turned around, and climbed to the tips of her toes to plant her lips against mine.

She tasted like cake and sweetness and Lucy... and maybe that salad. Damn, it was a good salad.

“Think we can fuck in the car?” she murmured.

I felt myself flushing a bit, even as I tried to hold back a grin that was no doubt a bit goofy. “Let’s find out,” I said.

***

Interlewd Two

I barely took in the interior of the cab, too busy wrestling Lucy’s tongue with my own as we slid into the long backseat.

“Greetings, honoured customers,” the taxi said. “Was your meal satisfactory?”

“Mmh,” I said. Lucy was scooting towards the middle of the seat, but she still had one hand around my neck and was making sure that my ability to breathe and think was a little on the short end.

We broke apart, for just a moment. “Yeah,” I said. “Hotel, bring us to the hotel. Myalis, turn off any observation stuff.”

I wish I could  off my own. There are some things I don’t want to see.

I snorted, then was cut off when Lucy grabbed the front of my jacket in a fist and pulled me closer. She was on one knee on the seat, her other leg extended to the floor to keep her at an angle.

I shifted, sitting up properly. “Lucy,” I said.

She paused, and panted, her warm breath whispering past wet lips. “What?” she asked.

“Sit?” I asked, patting my lap.

She rolled her eyes. “Softie,” she said. “Fine.”

I grinned as Lucy shoved over and plopped herself down on my lap. I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her close to my chest. Lucy could call me a softie all she wanted, this, having her in my arms all soft and warm, was the best.

My head dropped to the nook of her neck and I started peppering her with soft little kisses. I knew that it annoyed her a little. Lucy was always a bit... rougher with her affections, and she liked it like that in return.

The taxi started to move, both of us swaying just a little with the shifting momentum. I felt Lucy’s rear wiggling a little, pushing down onto my lap as I continued to press kisses into her neck and hair.

“Cat,” Lucy whined.

I loosened my hug a little, one hand slipping under the stealth jacket I’d given her. It was warm under the coat. I pressed my hand over her stomach, then up until it was atop a breast. I squeezed, just a little. Lucy squirmed some more.

“For fuck’s sake Cat,” she muttered. “I wanted to fuck, not just some cuddles.”

“Cuddles are important,” I said.

Still, I could accommodate a little. Lucy was always very straight-forward about what she wanted. It was one of the things I loved about her. She could play coy too, but it was always easy to read through.

This kind of kissing and cuddling and hugging, that just got her worked up, which might have annoyed her, but it always made things a lot more fun later.

Lucy pushed back into me. “Cat,” she muttered.

I reached my free hand lower, passing over her belly and down towards her crotch. Lucy was quick to undo her belt for me, and I chuckled as she shifted and raised herself up a little. I reached my hand down, into the warm interior of her pants, then paused.

“Cat, come on,” Lucy said.

I nuzzled the collar of her coat aside and nibbled down on her neck. She gasped, chest heaving out a little. I squeezed a bit harder as I started peppering her with kisses again. My other hand dipped lower. I could feel the soft, synthetic cloth of Lucy’s panties, the band on the edge elastic and springy. I hesitated a little before moving my hand over the panties rather than in.

Lucy leaned to the side and turned her head so that I could better kiss her.

My searching fingers dipped down between her thighs and over soft warmth. I caressed something velvety and damp. “Wet already?” I asked.

She giggled. “It’s the salad, I swear.”

I laughed and pressed another big kiss onto her cheek. “That damned salad,” I said as I started to move my hand up and down in a long, oval motion.

Lucy took a deep breath and shifted a bit, legs open wider and back arching just a little. She was like a cat pressing into a petting hand. I continued the motion absently while fondling her breast with my other hand.

She had great breasts. I could say that with no bias at all.

“Having fun?” Lucy asked. Her voice had dropped a little, becoming more sultry.

“Mmhm,” I said. “I’m just contemplating how lucky I am to be able to play with these.” I squeezed again.

“You’re just playing with the one,” Lucy said. “The other’s going to get all lonely.”

“I’ll kiss it better later,” I said. My fingers continued to trace little circles, sometimes pushing in a little deeper. Lucy might have been acting a little casual about things, but I could tell she was really starting to get worked up.

Not that I could blame her. I’d gotten nothing more than a few good kisses in, but I could already feel my underwear sticking to me. There was an aching, tingling sensation in my core, a want that had my heart thumping just a little faster. Feeling Lucy sitting on me, all soft and warm, only made it worse.

There was always this sort of... zap, when things started getting steamy. It was this sensation that started in my toes and raced up my back. I knew that my face was a little on the warm side, my ears burning up.

It was nice, it was hot, and it left me feeling... empty? Like something was missing. I wanted Lucy to grab my ass the way she always did, I wanted her to squeeze my breasts and press her tongue into my mouth, I wanted to feel her fingers slipping into me.

At the same time, the moment before all of that fun happened, the moment we were in right now, with me slowly teasing Lucy, that was the best. I could hear her heart beating wildly , felt every shift of her hips on my lap as she got worked up. She was getting more and more wet and that felt great too.

Maybe I was weird, but I imagined that need that she had, the same emptiness for something that I felt, and I imagined that she wanted me  to be the one to fill that emptiness. She needed me, she wanted me, and of course, I was there for her.

It was probably a bit creepy to think that way. It’s why I never really told her. Lucy was a lot more straight-forward about that kind of thing than I was.

“Oh fuck, the food,” Lucy said.

I snorted, then laughed, a cold wash moving down my spine and pushing back some of the fog. “Right, I forgot,” I said. “Uh.”

Lucy turned a little and looked up to me. She was a little flushed, though it was hard to tell on her darker skin. “Do we have to stop to grab something?”

“My hands are already full,” I said.

She jabbed me with an elbow. “Idiot. I mean... fuck, can we just order something?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Myalis?”

Yes?

“Food, for the kittens? Like, don’t blow our budget. I... just like, burgers and stuff.”

How succinct. You know, it’s not my job to help you order fast food for your charges, right?

“Please Myalis,” I asked.

For some reason, I could imagine the AI rolling her eyes.

The sacrifices I make.

The taxi banked, and the world outside went dark for a moment even as we slowed down. “We’re here already?” Lucy asked.

“Oh,” I said. I could see the hotel’s front door just outside, a valet already moving to open the door for us. “Oh shit.”

Lucy jumped off my lap, then arched her back and tugged her pants up to redo the button on the front. There was a certain smell in the cabin now, one that I hoped no one noticed.

The valet opened the door, and I stepped out. I was hyperaware of the wetness in my pants, and I could only imagine that it was worse for Lucy who followed me out. I shoved my hand in a pocket, my fingers were damp.

We didn’t say anything as we crossed the lobby, though Lucy did hang off my arm as we walked, just like she used to when she forgot her crutches before. “Holy shit,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s leaking down the side of my leg, I swear if you don’t do something about this I’m locking myself in the bathroom with Mister Tentacles.”

I chuckled, the squirming warmth in my stomach twisting at the thought.

We got to an elevator. It was empty.

The moment the doors closed Lucy shoved me against one wall and got onto the tips of her toes, her mouth jammed against mine even as her hands reached out behind me and started gripping onto my ass so hard it hurt a little. “Fuck Cat,” she said as she broke the kiss for just a moment. “Can this thing move faster?”

The doors opened and we stayed where we were for a moment, at least until we had to break apart to breath.

I noticed that one of the hotel guards next to the door was red-faced under his little helmet. I’d have been a little embarrassed, but my mind was too foggy for that.

We raced over to the penthouse and shoved the door open. I saw kittens in the living room, a couple of them draped over the large mecha-tigers as if they were huge toys rather than war machines.

“We ordered food from... somewhere,” Lucy said as she ran ahead of me. She dipped into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a pair of water bottles . “We’re busy,” she said.

I grinned at the kittens, made sure none were dead, noted that Katallina was sitting with Junior on one couch with Catkiller’s head on her lap, then waved before moving to the bedroom.

We made it one step in, and slammed the door behind us before we were back to ravaging each other. Lucy flung the water bottles to the middle of the bed while we walked over, mouths barely coming apart for more than a second.

My core was burning, my entire body tingled, only finding a bit of relief  whenever Lucy’s arms and hands brushed by.

I flung my coat off and Lucy did the same with hers. I was wearing my skin-tight armour underneath, and it took some squirming to get out of it. We separated for just a moment as we tore our clothes off. I kept an eye on Lucy the entire time though.

Her old t-shirt flew off to the side, leaving her in nothing but a ratty bra that wasn’t quite sized right. She tossed that aside with just a moment spent with her arms bent back.

My boots came off, then I shoved the bottom half of my suit down my legs. I glanced up and saw Lucy using the edge of the bed to keep balanced as she tugged her pants down. She was trailing juices down the inside of her thigh.

My mind was a little foggy as I stepped up behind her and hugged her close. Skin on skin, so warm it burned. I gasped in the scent of her and she pressed into me for just a moment before she started to turn around.

I pushed her back, catching her forearms as she squeaked and I lowered her back-first onto the bed, her knees right on the edge.

Sliding a foot forward, I pushed her legs aside and fell down atop her, my head landing right between her breasts. “Which one did I miss earlier?” I asked.

“Cat,” she protested.

I kissed her breast, then worked a trail of pecks over to the nipple of the neglected breast. I nibbled on it.

“Cat!” Lucy squeaked. She was trying to push herself up farther onto the bed, but I grabbed onto her hips, stalling her motion so that I could leave a trail of kisses down her stomach and across her abs.

She was still wearing panties, the dark grey, store-bought things marred by a proud wet spot on the front. I tugged them down across the soft skin of her thighs.

I dipped in, and slowly, carefully, licked her from the bottom up. There was that familiar taste, the one I’d come to associate with a really good day. Lucy’s thighs shifted, squeezing her legs shut before me. It was just something she did whenever she got too excited.

I knelt lower, lifted her knees up, and placed one on either shoulder before diving in again.

A glance up and I saw that Lucy had her eyes closed, her bottom lip bit, and both hands  kneading at her breasts. I grinned as I pressed in. Slow and gentle, teasing. Lucy had once described it as starting like a butterfly landing on a flower, and ending like a dog drinking out of a bowl.

I had free hands, so I brought both of them up and spread Lucy open just a little more, then I started  to press circles into her opening with the end of my thumb.

I’d look up every so often, Lucy’s face, the way her cheeks puffed, the way her eyes squeezed shut whenever I pushed a finger just a little deeper in, it all made me feel warmer and warmer inside. Hell, I’d once gotten off on just teasing her for long enough.

Her thighs tightened around my head, and I felt her tensing, stomach going taut for a moment even as the flesh around my finger tightened for a bit, almost pulling my finger in deeper.

“Oh, fuck,” Lucy whispered.

Not a full on orgasm, but close.

My free hand dipped down to my crotch. I still had my panties on, but they were easy enough to push to the side.

It was a little like rubbing the top of my head and my stomach at the same time, but I managed.

“Is it my turn yet?” Lucy asked.

“Hmm? No,” I said as I came up. “Not until I have you panting for real.”

Lucy huffed and spread her legs wider while sitting up. She sat on the edge of the bed, reached under my armpits , and pulled me up. Or well, she tried.

I gave in with a laugh and climbed down atop her until I was resting over her, my face over hers. “You didn’t like it?” I asked.

“No, I just want my turn,” she said. She pushed me to the side, and I didn’t resist as I rolled onto my back and Lucy climbed atop me. “Mister Tentacles,” she said. “Come over here.”

***

Chapter Fifty-One - Fashioning a Home

“There has been a noticeable shift in style and fashion. Not to say that fashion wasn’t changing rapidly already. By the mid-2000s, international communication, the internet, and the easing of travel restrictions allowed fashion from different cultures to come together and be mixed, occasionally homogenized, and often brought to extremes.

Now, this shifting has become so rapid that to stay on top of the latest trends means keeping a constant eye on the fashion feeds and paparazzi rags. A trend can start, flourish, and die in the space of an afternoon.”

--Fa-Fa-Fashionista, On The Evolution of Trends, 2057

***

I walked over to the other side of the display and leaned forwards to look at the wire-mesh interior. It showed most of the museum--and we’d have to find a better name for our new home soon--in red, with a few sections in green.

Myalis had determined that all of the red sections would need to be replaced and reconfigured sometime soon, preferably before anyone moved in.

“So, this is the final floor plan?” Lucy asked.

I nodded along. “Yeah, I think so,” I said.

The floor plan gave us ten double bedrooms, good enough for a pair of kittens each, two bigger dorm-style rooms with a few beds in them for any newcomers, and a master bedroom one corridor over. Not too far that we couldn’t run over, but not right next to the kittens either.

The main museum area would be split into a kitchen and dining space, a playroom that was frankly absurdly large, and another little area that could serve as an office or library of sorts for the quieter kittens.

We had one bathroom for every two rooms, with showers in each,  and a smaller washroom next to the kitchen. The old vault was right where our bedroom would be, with the rear half of it marked to be replaced by a small armoury where I could store stuff.

The outside wasn’t going to be touched much. We’d hire someone to remove all the ads and signs and such, and maybe we’d add a carport over the parking space for... well, we’d have to buy a van or something. I’d pick whichever old beater would give Gomorrah the biggest headache.

Lucy nodded. “I like it. We’ll have to see about getting nice furniture too.”

“I think we can afford that,” I said before glancing to the side. We had brought over the Dumbasses, both to guard the museum, and to allow us to better communicate with Myalis. It was one of the drones that was projecting the image of the building’s wireframe, and another was sitting nearby, waiting patiently. “Have you found any reliable contractors yet?”

“I have,” Myalis said. “From looking into their records, I have found three suitably accredited teams with overlapping specialties. I would suggest hiring all three.”

“All three?” I repeated.

“Indeed. One has done satisfactory plumbing work on past installations, another has an entire team of electricians, and the final construction company has experience working with both Vanguards, and glass-fronted skyscrapers. The other two lack experience in both.”

“Ah,” I said. So hiring specialists to do the specialist-requiring... stuff. I was so far out of my depth... “That sounds reasonable. Do you have an idea of their price range?”

“Seven, nine, and twelve million credits, respectively. That’s not including the entirety  of the material cost, but I’m assuming some of that will be defrayed by the use of Vanguard-grade materials.”

I held back a wince. That was... twenty-eight million? An insane amount of money. “So, for the materials, we can’t build this whole place with samurai-grade stuff, it’ll take way too many points.”

“That is accurate,” Myalis said. “To purchase enough material directly to rebuild this entire area would cost--assuming you want to purchase quality materials--something close to nine thousand points.”

That was a lot lower than I’d guesstimated. “That’s just normal materials, or fancier stuff?”

“Materials that are of a higher quality than commercially available, of course. Glass that can resist temperatures high enough not to melt on contact with your local sun and able to resist considerable impacts, hardened plates for the walls and floors and ceilings, doors that read a person’s bio-signature, temperature regulating systems, and a few more commodities of that sort.”

“Fancy,” I said.

“Standard for a Vanguard’s abode,” was Myalis’ reply.

“Sounds nice, but kind of expensive,” Lucy said.

The Dumbass Myalis was speaking out of   shifted , and the wire-frame of the museum changed to a hovering image of some sort of confusing machine. It looked like it was the size of a minivan, with a large hopper on one side and a large screen on the other. “This is a Mark Two Creation Engine. It takes in raw materials, sorts them by their atomic structure, then fabricates any needed material, components, or items.”

“Oh!” Lucy said. “I’ve seen something like that! It’s a big fancy printer. You toss stuff in, and it makes stuff out of it. They have them in some of the really fancy arcologies.”

“Where’d you see that?” I asked.

“Media feed,” was her quick reply. “How much will that cost, Myalis?”

“Aren’t I the one supposed to ask that?”

Myalis bobbed the Dumbass up and down. “The first tier catalogue--matter reconfiguration machines, will cost a mere seventy-five points. The second tier costs one of your tokens, as well as an additional four hundred points. The device itself will cost two-thousand six-hundred points.”

“Yikes,” I said. “But I can make anything with it, right?”

“Not quite. The device defaults to allowing you to only make anything from a blue-print you have purchased, as well as a host of items that would be considered tier-zero. That is, items that require no catalogue to make, such as simple tools and basic materials. That extends to things such as cement mixtures, metal structures, glass panels, and other such devices. Basically, it would allow the contractors to make all the materials they need.”

I crossed my arms and thought about it. It was a damned big purchase. At the same time, if I got blueprints in the future, which were usually a bit cheaper than outright buying something, I could have... basically infinite stuff from those blueprints. Bullets and ammo and things that I’d be reusing a lot were a no-brainer. I’d recover those three-thousand points in... well, last time I’d spent maybe a hundred points in all on ammo, so in thirty more incursions.

That didn’t quite seem worth it. But I could also get guns and maybe it could be used to make stuff the kittens would need. If I died out in the field, Lucy could use the machine to mass produce things. Maybe. “Anyone can use it, then?” I asked.

“Anyone you whitelist. I can monitor the machine and only allow the contractors to pull materials they need.”

“And can you whitelist Lucy and the kittens?”

Myalis bobbed the Dumbass up and down. “That can easily be done. Perhaps a ban on the purchase of weapons for the children.”

“That’s reasonable,” I said. I opened a text file and sent a message to Myalis. Can it run even after I die?

Are you worried about your charges being able to care for themselves? In either case, yes, it can. I will ensure that Lucy and your kittens are always whitelisted by your security protocols, even if you die.

“That sounds cool. Maybe we can place it where the armoury would be?”

“We’ll need another way to get to it, then,” Lucy said. “We don’t need people walking through the bedroom just to get a hammer or whatever.”

“We can add a door to the armoury linking back to the main room.”

“Shall we continue with the purchase then?” Myalis asked.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I said. “Let’s...” I looked around, we were still in the main museum room. “Let’s move over to where the armoury will be, that way we won’t have to move anything. Also, we’ll have a bunch of cash left over, right?”

“A significant amount, though less than half your initial amount.”

“Right, let’s set some of that aside for decorations and furniture and stuff. We’ll need tables and chairs and... wait, we can just fabricate those, right?”

“With the correct blueprints, yes.”

I rubbed at my nose. That was annoying. “It’ll probably be cheaper to just buy normal things then. Don’t need to get a blueprint for a dozen beds.”

“Not even our bed?” Lucy asked.

I considered that. A samurai bed... “Okay, so we get one bed, but the kittens can sleep on whatever we can afford for a few million.”

“Speaking of monetary concerns, the list of requests from companies who sold you this location has come in.”

“Oh? Can I see it?”

Myalis connected with my augs and I soon had a list hovering before one eye.

Purchase Cost

Quantity or Type

Name

Details

45

Blueprint

Anti-Adware Suite

Basic Cyberwarfare  Catalogue - Protects simple devices from non-whitelisted ad intrusion

75

Blueprint

Anti-Spyware Suite

Basic Cyberwarfare  Catalogue - Protects simple devices from non-whitelisted spyware intrusion

25

Blueprint

Micro Acoustic Listening Device

Stealth Catalogue - Miniature listening and recording device

1275

Blueprint

Clothing Creation Fabricator

Decoy Catalogue - System to create clothes from modelled template

720

Blueprint

Hard Light Projector

Decoy Catalogue - Miniaturized hard light projector for small cosmetic items

260

Blueprint

Decoy Super Aug

Decoy Catalogue - A false version of the Vanguard customizable eye gear

525

Item x 35

Nano- Regenerative Suite

Medical Utilities Catalogue - A suite of nano machines that circulate through a person's body and fixes it rapidly

290

Blueprint

Feline Cat Reflex Augmentation

Sunwatcher Technologies - Reflex enhancing brain implant

285

Blueprint

Prosthetic Ears

Sunwatcher Technologies - Ear Augmentation

Total:

3500

“Nearly all blueprints, which, alright, and... lots of decoy stuff.”

“From the bickering I was listening in on, it seems that some companies came together and desperately wanted to buy a clothing fabricator system. I suspect you might cause a bit of a fluctuation in some global markets. Congratulations.”

“Wonderful.”

***

Chapter Fifty-Two - Fab

“Fandoms are an interesting social phenomena. People who enjoy a piece of media or a celebrity congregate together to discuss the things they like. At the onset, this is completely normal human behaviour.

What makes the phenomena more interesting is how modern society’s trend towards mass communication allows this communication to spawn new artwork, new memes, and new sub-groups. It turns into an echo chamber, where ideas are reinforced and repeated and reiterated upon.

It isn’t terribly uncommon for early fandoms to focus on something entirely new, for example a freshly emerged S amurai. They will find, research, and dissect any bit of information they can about the new object for their obsession.

This can come as a shock to some S amurai. For example, Hairumas, a S amurai interviewed in 2034 said, “I didn’t expect it. All of a sudden these guys and girls with afros just kept asking me to sign stuff. It was wild!”

--Excerpt from a Scientific Yesterday paper, 2036

***

“Okay,” I said as we reached the vault. It was in about the same condition as I remembered, minus the dead bodies. The floor had little pock-marks as if something had eaten away at it, mostly round where I remembered the corpses being. That felt like it had been months ago. “We’ll start by paying the corps their due, I guess.”

“Huh?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, Myalis gave me the list of shit the building sellers want. It’s all blueprints except for a bunch of nano-regen things,” I said. “Think there’s a box around here we could dump them in?”

The Dumbass following up piped up at that. “The containers most items come in are stackable. Shall I inform the broker that the thirty-five Nano-Regenerative Suites are ready for pick-up?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “We can leave them at the door I guess, with one of the Dumbasses.”

“What else did they buy? And what’s those nano-whatsit do?”

“They inject these little bots in you that un-messes you up. I think that’s what I gave you for your MS, right? Crap, I can’t remember. Anyway, I guess some rich dudes just want to live longer or whatever.”

“Nano Regenerative Suites can alleviate a lot of the ills caused by aging. Issues with joints, with eyesight, minor stress issues in musculature and in the cardio-vascular system. Even an outwardly healthy human has hundreds of very minor issues that can be repaired,” Myalis said.  

“As for the other stuff they bought...” I looked over the list again. “Just blueprints. A lot of clothing stuff from my decoy catalogue, some cyberwarfare stuff. Uh, mostly looks like protection stuff.”

“I limited the offensive options,” Myalis said. “Giving offensive electronic warfare packages to just anyone seemed like a bad idea.”

“No shit,” I muttered.

Lucy shrugged, “Alright then. So we’re buying that big machine that makes stuff?”

“Yup,” I said. “Blueprints and nano stuff first though. Can you not swarm my augs with messages though? That little chiming noise is a bit annoying.”

“Very well.”

New Purchases: Blueprints x 8 - Various. Nano-Regenerative Suit x 35

Points Reduced to... 3420!

I winced at seeing my points total dropping so low.

“The blueprints have been sent. You also retain a copy for yourself, of course.”

“Ohh, so we can make stuff!” Lucy said. “Can I see the list?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

Lucy grinned. “Okay so.. Boring, boring, creepy, ohh, is a Clothing Creation Fabricator a thing that makes clothes?”

“Based on a template, yes. I suspect that the corporations purchasing it will be stymied, at least temporarily, by the complexity of the models required to get the machine to function.”

“But we have a you ,” Lucy said. “Could I show you pics of cute things then have you make them with this thing?”

“Certainly,” Myalis said.

I rubbed at my temples. “So, let’s change up the design of our room a little,” I said. “We’re going to need, like, a walk-in closet.”

“Does it make shoes?” Lucy asked.

“The Clothing Creation Fabricator can, yes.”

“A big walk-in closet,” I muttered.

We moved over towards the back of the room and where I imagined the armoury would be. I never fancied myself much of a gun-nut or anything like that. But the idea of having a room in my house entirely dedicated to weapons was kinda hot.

“Right, Myalis, can you place the creation engine right here.” I gestured, raising and lowering both arms as if dropping a big box on the ground.

“Certainly. Let me just verify that the structure can support its weight.”

“How big is this thing?” I asked.

“It’s approximately two met e r s long, two high, and three wide.”

“Damn, that’s big,” I said. “We need like, a couple of feet of clearance all around, right? Where’s the bit where you dump stuff in?”

“The front, as is the area where materials and items can be picked up.”

“Ah, alright,” I said. “We can squeeze it in a bit more.”

“I have modified the blueprints to your armoury and room in accordance with the room required to fit everything in. Is this suitable?” Myalis asked as a wire-frame hologram appeared over the Dumbass she was using. Our bedroom was a bit smaller, with a long, narrow room added to the side that was no doubt the walk-in closet. It wouldn’t be as big as the penthouse bedroom, but still, it was bigger than any room back at the orphanage.

“That looks great!” Lucy cheered.

I nodded. “That’ll do. Okay. Big machine time!”

New Purchase: Mark Two Creation Engine

Points Reduced to... 335!

The machine took a moment to appear, longer than when I’d summoned... anything else. When it did appear, the pause made sense. It was a big, lumbering thing. It reminded me a bit of the front-end of one of those moving vans, the ones with a flat front. A large screen took up a decent portion of the front, currently running through some idle animations. To the side was a heavy-looking door and below that a sort of hopper thing with little coasters. It looked a bit like the place where toys would fall out from one of those old coin-operated gacha machines.

“Shiny,” Lucy said.

It was pretty shiny, all chrome and rivets and brass-coloured knobs.

“To utilize the machine, tap the screen. It will verify your identity, then bring you to the main controls. From there, you can pick the thing you wish to build. The Creation Engine’s matter content is currently at optimal levels. In the future, you will either need to add items to be reclaimed, or purchase more raw matter through point expenditure.”

Lucy stepped up and poked the screen. A digital kitten ran after a rolling ball of digital yarn.

“Did you customize the loading screen?” I asked.

“I may have,” Myalis admitted. “I also added a loading screen. It’s quite unnecessary.”

I rolled my eyes and refocused on the screen. There was a list of options for Lucy to pick from. All of the blueprints I’d just bought to buy the museum, and one labelled ‘generic materials.’

Lucy picked the ‘Prosthetic Ears’ option and scrolled through that for a bit. There were some two dozen options, and the ability to customize those further. From adding colour to tweaking how the prosthetic worked. “Do you think I’d look cool with cat ears?” she asked. “Yours are really cute.”

“They’re embarrassing,” I said. I couldn’t help but flick them back.

“They wiggle a bunch when you’re about to get off,” Lucy said without even glancing back.

My more human ears felt warm. “They what? ”

“It’s cute!”

“Dammit Lucy,” I groaned. “You should have told me.”

She shook her head, then pointed to the screen. “Pink?” The ears on display were an ear-searingly bright pink, like someone had gone nuts with a radioactive high-lighter.

“That’s a bit much,” I said.

“Yeah, I should go for something that matches my hair,” she said before tapping a colour-wheel option.

I shook my head. “Are you really getting cat-ears?”

“Do you not want me to?” Lucy asked.

I huffed. Me telling Lucy not to do something had never prevented Lucy from doing something she already wanted to do. I couldn’t see how that would change now. “It’s up to you, I guess. Don’t see why you’d want that, your ears work fine.”

“So do yours,” Lucy said. “I just wanna be on-theme.”

“On theme?”

“Well, yeah, there’s you, Stray Cat, with the tail and the ears and the cat-themed jacket. And then there are the kittens, then there’s me. I’m the only part of the equation that’s not cat-themed.”

I stepped up and hugged Lucy from behind. “You’re such a moron,” I said.

“I am not,” she protested. Not that she tried to move out of the hug.

I was enjoying the moment when Myalis twitched. “Catherine, you have a visitor.”

“One of the contractors?” I asked. Already?

“No. It’s Deus Ex.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said.

“The little laser girl?” Lucy asked as she pulled out of the hug. “Did you have business with her?”

“No, but she’s the sort to dump some trouble on me. Come on, let’s go see what the pipsqueak wants.”

***

Chapter Fifty-Three - Palace

“Samurai are incredible. But they are not infallible.”

-Two-Slices, June 2023

***

Deus Ex somehow chose not to act like the little laser gremlin that she was, and waited outside for Lucy and I to come and greet her. Maybe it was a courtesy thing. Or maybe samurai didn’t step into each other’s bases without permission because of... common sense or something.

That might make sense, actually.

I opened the front door and held it open behind me for Lucy and the Dumbass that Myalis was currently controlling. Across from me, on the wide surface of the landing area that took up a chunk of our floor, was Deus Ex, the girl sitting on one of her twin laser ... hover... things.

“Yo!” I said.

Deus blinked. “Oh, hey,” she said. “New place?”

“Yup, bought it yesterday,” I said.

She nodded. “Nice. I have work for you.”

I crossed my arms. “You know, most people work up to their requests. Maybe a bit of small-talk? Some questions about the family? Polite shit.”

“Do either of us care about that?” she asked.

“Well, no, but it’d be nice to pretend.”

Lucy waved. “Hi Deus Ex!”

“Hello,” Deus Ex said. “Fine, I guess we can do the small talk stuff. I need a bit of a breather. And I guess the work’s not until tonight anyway.”

“What work?” I asked.

Lucy poked me. “You literally just agreed to do small talk first. Come on Deus! We have vending machines left over. We can grab you something to drink. What do you like?”

“Ah, um, anything, I guess?” Deus Ex said.

I eyed the girl for a moment. She wasn’t being as rambunctious as usual. Then again, last time I saw her she didn’t have bags under her eyes either. “Have you been sleeping?” I asked.

“Not since the New Montreal incursion started, no,” she admitted. “I’m running on stims. Or I was, they’re wearing off. I took a cleansing solution to wash them out. I should be fine by tomorrow.”

“You need sleep,” I said.

“I do,” she agreed. “But until the work is all done, I really can’t afford it.”

Shaking my head, I moved over to the door and held it open again for everyone to file back into the museum. Deus Ex paused past the lobby and looked around with obvious confusion. “Is that a scale-model of an Antithesis?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said. “We, uh, don’t know if anyone will be picking that up, actually. I think all the valuable displays are long gone though.”

“So you bought an entire museum. That’s actually a rather unique home for a Vanguard,” Deus Ex said. “I’m sure you could make a lot just charging for tours.”

“Ah, actually, we’re converting it to a normal home. Well, normal-ish. An orphanage,” I said. “You’ve seen some weird homes?”

The girl nodded. “A couple of samurai live in bunkers dug into mountains. One that I met on the west - coast lives in the Pacific. Really deep under water. The Antithesis incursions have landed in the ocean before. Those tend to be nastier than urban fights. Lots of biological stuff for the aliens to eat, and you need to fight in three dimensions a lot more.”

“Nasty,” I said. “I’d rather avoid that, thanks.” I didn’t exactly have a fear of drowning, but I did hold my breath any time a character was underwater in a movie or game. I couldn’t imagine fighting underwater, even if Myalis had... okay, she definitely had something to allow me to breathe water.

“It’s not bad.” She looked around again. “You own the whole building?”

“Just this floor,” I said. “And that bit outside, and some passages that are kinda on this floor, and kinda on the floor below. It’s a little strange, on account of that museum part being lower than the rest.”

“That’s not bad. I’d suggest buying out the lower floors sooner or later. Probably not a priority yet. A whole building must be fairly expensive.”

“You don’t own the place where you live?” I asked.

She blinked. “Oh, no, I do.”

“Which city is it in?” Lucy asked.

“It’s in space,” Deus Ex said with the casual ease of someone saying ‘ it's  in the next town over.’ “Technically it’s in low-orbit. It brushes Earth’s atmosphere, so re-entry isn’t that bad.”

“Wait, you live in fucking space?” I said. No one told me that space was an option.

She nodded. “It’s fairly safe. Some a ntithesis can get to it, but most humans can’t. No one can really spy on my house, and I’d see anyone trying to mess with me coming long before they could do anything. Well, I suppose there are faster-than-light weapons that could hurt my house, but those are usually my speciality.”

I was feeling a bit... I don’t know what the term was exactly. What guys feel when they discover that some chad has a bigger car, a cute girlfriend, and a nicer house than they do. I wanted a space palace... Well, maybe later.

We moved over to the little cafeteria area, Deus Ex sitting down while Lucy grabbed the Dumbass and brought it before the vending machines to threaten some drinks out of it. I sat across from the littlest samurai. “So, you mentioned a job?”

“Not a job. Work. Being a Vanguard is a job. What we do is work,” she said.

“Oh-kay,” I said. “So what’s the work?”

Lucy returned with the front of her shirt turned up to form a pouch which she’d filled with ice-cold drinks. She set them on the table, then flopped down next to me. “Ah, that was annoying. Now my belly’s all cold too.”

I grinned and tugged her unto one leg so that I could better rub her stomach. To treasure its warmth, of course.

Deus Ex rolled her eyes as she picked out the drink with the most caffeine and sugar from the bunch and popped the tab. “During the last incursion, the one that hit New Montreal, we had some difficulty tracking the landing area for most of the a ntithesis pods,” she began.

“Don’t samurai have great equipment for that?” Lucy asked.

“We do, but it’s a bit scattered. It really depends on the city. New Montreal was last hit, uh, I don't know, a decade ago? The system currently in place was built right after that. It’s not as good as it could be.”

“Alright,” I said. “So you don’t know where every bit of alien goop landed.”

“Not all of them, no. Those that fell from high-orbit are easy to track. We have overlapping scans of them coming down and can extrapolate from there. Then those in lower orbits were mostly visible from hover car dash-cams and street sonar. So we know where they went too. But it took a while for someone to decide to look into all the footage to make sure we weren’t missing anything.”

“And you missed something?” I asked.

She nodded. “There are samurai that don’t like high-risk work. They tend to come in after an incursion to help with the clean-up stuff. It means killing a few aliens and clearing the sewers and the area around a hive, usually with drones and stuff. They’re useful Vanguards, but they grow really slowly.”

“But it’s safe,” I guessed.

“Yeah,” Deus Ex said. “I don’t like that kind of work. It’s not rewarding enough. Maybe half the Vanguard out there become that sort. Anyway, one of them tracked a bit of a ntithesis debris to--actually, can I use your drone?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

Myalis hopped onto the table with cat-like grace. “What do you wish to display?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s your AI. Nice. Ah, these maps, and this file, as well as this,” Deus Ex said. “Thank you.”

“She’s more polite to Myalis than to you,” Lucy mock-whispered.

“The AI deserves it,” Deus Ex said. It stung all the more since she delivered it as a plain fact.

Myalis projected a holographic image of the Earth, then moved in on North America and finally the area we were in. Little black dots hovered in the air, and I recognized a ntithesis pods. They were falling slowly towards the city below.

“That’s a reconstruction made from hundreds of recordings,” Deus Ex said. “Look at this piece.”

One pod burst apart when a line of AA fire moved past it. Not through it though. From the wreckage came something that looked fleshy and that sprouted wings, and that then turned blurry.

“Bad angle?” I asked.

“No. Organic ECM. A stealth a ntithesis. Maybe a new model. Lower active combat threat rating, but in this scenario more of a long-term threat. It glided all the way over to... here.”

The map shifted, showing a red dotted trajectory that went north, shifting here and there so that it was never quite a straight line until, finally, it hit near a small town.

“That’s Black Bear. It’s a mining town with a population of about three thousand in what used to be the Mastigouche nature reserve. And about three hours ago, all contact with the town was lost. We think there’s a small stealth hive growing near there, and we need someone to go blow it up.”

***

Chapter Fifty-Four - Phoenix

“It’s a polite and accepted fiction that an incursion is defeated when the samurai swoop in and kill the last alien trying to ruin humanity.

The truth is a lot more complex, mostly owing to the mechanism by which our alien invaders function. They adapt. They are not a singular living organism, but a collection of different types of creatures that can evolve and change to best accommodate any given circumstance. These changes are, generally, fairly slow; but they are fast enough to be troublesome.

The truth was discovered in 2022, when the Ohio incursion returned from the ashes, and humanity discovered that the Antithesis could burrow and hide and scheme while we expected them to remain dead.”

--William Hart, Excerpt from Essay on the Recursion-Factor of Antithesis Incursions, 2028

***

I leaned back in my seat and stared at the map. The ex-nature reserve, according to the Wikipedia article Myalis brought up for me, was sold to an organization that was all about protecting nature and such. That organization was a shell owned by a mining consortium that immediately set up shop to mine... “What the fuck is vanadium?”

Lucy shrugged and Deus Ex blinked a few times. “It’s a metal used to make alloys of other metals. Why are you asking that?”

“Says here that Black Bear is set up near two mines. One’s a vanadium mine, the other titanium. I know what titanium is.”

“Does it matter?” Deus Ex asked.

“Well, maybe it was like, a uranium mine or something? Radioactive a ntithesis doesn’t sound like something I’m keen on dealing with.”

She nodded. “Right. Those are annoying. I really shouldn’t argue against doing more research. Anyway, Black Bear is the priority. There’s one Vanguard already on the scene, but he’s not the greatest when it comes to defensive actions. That’s why I wanted to send you.”

“Um, I love Cat, but I don’t know if she can take on all the aliens on her own,” Lucy said.

“It’s a stealth incursion,” Deus Ex said. “They’ll follow different rules. Most big incursions are swarming ones. The Antithesis produce as many creatures as they can and spread out quickly while fighting off whatever resistance they’re up against. A stealth incursion is significantly slower. There’s going to be a hive, but it will look very similar to the nature around it.”

“So why don’t we just use some fancy tech to find the hive and carpet bomb it?” I asked.

“That’s... exactly what we want to do.” Deus Ex stared at the dumbass still standing on the table, and soon it displayed an image of the globe. Just the hemisphere that we were on. “The incursion is here.” A red dot appeared. “So we’re going to strike... like this.”

Blue dots appeared around the red one, forming a circle that went most of the way around it. Then another set of dots appeared closer. Then another. Each one overlapped with the previous a little, and each new circle was closer to the middle until finally a single dot hit the red dot dead-centre.

“Are those bombs?”

“Orbital strikes,” Deus Ex explained. “We don’t use those in cities. The earthquakes they cause tend to be bad for infrastructure.”

“I imagine,” Lucy said. “So why do you need Cat if you’re going to bomb the place from orbit?”

“It’s a strike, not a bombing, technically. And we need Vanguard to protect Black Bear. If the city went off the grid, that means it’s being attacked already. They might not even know it yet. The one Vanguard we have on-scene is... not very useful for that kind of thing. Basically, make sure the civilians are safe while we bomb the hive, then help with the clean-up after.”

“That sounds doable.”

“It’s the kind of thing that’s good for newbies to do. It’s not too dangerous, will get you some points, and it doesn't require that you be too strong.”

“Wow, thanks,” I deadpanned.

Deus Ex nodded. “You’re welcome. You can take Gomorrah with you, if you want. It would be nice to have even more boots on the ground. The military should be rolling in tomorrow afternoon to do a full visual inspection of the area.”

“Is this common?” Lucy asked. “The whole stealth incursion thing?”

“It can take years to completely clear an area,” Deus Ex said. “Even with a lot of Vanguard looking for them, the Antithesis tend to be able to sneak by and form new hives. They’re usually spotted as soon as they start, which means we can destroy them quickly, but there’s almost always another ready to form somewhere else.”

“That’s disturbing.”

“They’re an infestation,” she said. “Like cockroaches, but worse. Sometimes they’ll hide as parasites in animals for years, sometimes they’ll burrow into the ground and wait, other times they’ll spit pollen-mist in the air that’ll be carried a long way with the wind. If you don’t dispose of the bodies correctly, then they’ll regrow, and if you don’t pay attention, they can burst out of an area with a bigger, stronger force than even an initial incursion.”

“Damn,” I muttered.

“About a quarter of the incursions you hear about are just remnants of an old one that resettled in an area with lots of biomass and that formed a new hive.” Deus Ex shook her head. “We’re getting better at tracking them. More satellites, more arrays dedicated to spotting them, and more Vanguard overall to do clean-up work.”

I hugged Lucy a bit closer and tucked my face in the crook of her neck. She smelled like those fancy shampoos in the penthouse bathroom.

Refocusing a bit, I considered the job. The overall details weren’t my problem. Deus Ex just wanted me to pop over to that little town and keep the folk there safe, maybe kill off any aliens that were annoying them. It was... not a terrible idea?

It would mean more points, at the very least, and I was running kinda low on those. “Do I get paid for this?” I asked.

Deus Ex blinked a few times, then shrugged and took a swig from her drink before answering. “I guess. You probably won’t make many points, so it’s fair. Uh, I don’t know how much your time is worth.”

“A million an hour,”  I said.

“Okay.”

I stared. That had been a joke. Well, part-joke, part wild stab in the dark. “Uh, okay then,” I said.

Deus Ex flicked her hand to the side and her empty can sailed through the air and landed dead-centre in a garbage can across the room. “I need to get home and sleep,” she said. “I might just auto-pilot my way there at this rate.” She yawned, and for a moment it was easy to forget that she was a hardened alien killer.

Then she scrunched her nose cutely, sneezed, and a helmet unfolded out of her collar and covered her head. “You alright?” Lucy asked.

“...I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow or something. Get to Black Bear within the next couple of hours, they really need the help.”

Lucy and I got up and escorted Deus outside where her big laser hover things were waiting. She stepped onto a little platform between the two, waved at us, then took off. Soon, her little platform was pointing straight up and with a burst of light she jetted off into the sky until I couldn’t make her out as anything more than a distant twinkle.

“She’s kinda nice, deep inside,” Lucy said.

I snorted. “She’s a bit nuts.”

Lucy leaned in closer. “Are you going to go?”

“It’s good credits, and I could use the points,” I said.

Her grip around my arm tightened. “It’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, but everything is,” I said.

“Don’t be like that, you know what I meant.”

I sighed and turned to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Promise. Plus, Gomorrah will be there. I think the most dangerous part of the whole thing will be holding back from corrupting her.”

Lucy snorted as she pulled me into a hug. “Fine then,” she said before her hands started to wander. “Just come back, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I said.

We returned back into the museum, and I split from Lucy for a moment to make a call. She had plenty to keep her busy, especially since Myalis was there to help her contact all the contractors we’d be needing to get the place fixed up. At least we had more cash secure for that, or would soon enough.

I searched through my contacts until I found Gomorrah’s number. It rang once before she answered. “Cat?”

“Heya Gomorrah,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Not very much, is something wrong?”

“Yup,” I said. “There’s an incursion up north. An hour’s flight from New Montreal near some little town. Place called Black Bear. There’s a samurai there already, and they’re about to go all orbital strike on the hive, but the folk there need some people to keep them safe.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Yeah. Dead serious. Wanna come over to my new place? We can chat in person, then head out if you want to. There’s more points to be made, and you know, civilians to protect and all that.”

Gomorrah took a moment to reply, and when she did, it was with a big sigh. “I’m on my way.”

“You’re the second best,” I said as I hung up. It made Lucy smile. I made sure to send her the museum’s address too.

Now I just had to wait... and maybe get all of my gear together. I had the impression that things would be a bit more hectic than what Deus Ex implied.

***

Chapter Fifty-Five - Making an Entrance

“Post-2020 saw a massive surge of people moving into the cities and new megacities appearing all over the world. A surge that hadn’t been seen since the height of the industrial revolution.

Despite that, the small-town didn’t just disappear. Entire businesses formed that catered specifically to people living in rural towns across the world. They became popular places for the rich to spend their retirement years away from the pressure of the city, and for the lucky few that retired to live out the rest of their lives in relative quiet.

That does not mean that small towns are perfect hamlets of civility. All the issues of poverty, hunger, and the gulf between rich and poor are just as prevalent in these towns, especially in the many, many ‘corpo-burgs’--corporate-owned towns--that started to appear near larger cities.”

--Commentary on the Shift in Small Town Thoughts, Tim Butcher, 2038

***

I gave Lucy a kiss before going. Then, because Gomorrah hadn’t arrived yet, I gave her another, then another.

Unfortunately, we were both still dressed when Myalis pinged me to inform me that Gomorrah had landed out front.

“Be careful,” Lucy ordered.

I gave her a last hug for the road, pressing her close to me. She fit the way only Lucy did. “I will be,” I promised before letting go.

I ducked my ears down flat on my head as I stepped out into the rain, then belatedly tucked my helmet on. Gomorrah had parked God’s Righteous Fury  right in the middle of our landing zone, the car all wet and sleek as if it was posing for one of those hyper-real commercials. I could almost hear the snobbish narrator telling the audience that they would never be able to afford a car this awesome.

I ran to the passenger side just as the door opened with a pneumatic hiss, then I flung my Whisper in the back and placed my new grenade launcher on my lap as I fell onto the seat. “Yo.”

“Are your feet in?” she asked as she pressed the gas. We were off the edge before the door had even sealed.

I leaned into the cushions as Gomorrah aimed us into the greyed sky. “So, uh, what’s up?”

“You’re really not good at pleasantries, you know?”

“Oh yeah, I know, but it’s polite to pretend to be nice to your friends,” I said.

“Hmph,” she said. “Do you have any idea what the sisters at the monastery would say if they saw you calling me a friend?”

“They’d ask who the smoking hot girl you’re with is?” I tried.

She shook her head. “If they didn’t think I was some sort of saint they’d pull out the ruler and go on about bad influences for an hour.”

“The ruler, huh?” I asked. “You should tell Lucy about that, she was always really keen on spanking disobedient girls... do you think Lucy could cut it as a nun?”

“No,” Gomorrah said. “How is it that we’ve been together for less than a minute and you’re already being a pervert?”

I shrugged. “I’ve got a very simple mind. Half of it is filled with snark, the other half is loaded up with images of Lucy being lewd. Speaking of which, do you think I could borrow a nun costume?”

Gomorrah made a disgusted little noise. I figured she was actually amused by it all though. “I’d need to burn it, like how they disposed of unclean things in the past. And it’s called a habit, not a costume.”

“I’ll try not to make a habit of calling it a costume then,” I said.

She glanced my way, and while I knew she couldn’t see my smug grin through my helmet, I liked to think that she could sense it.

“Where are we heading to again?”

“Black Bear, I think. Some little mining town about an hour north from here.”

A map appeared, superimposed over the rainy city on the other side of the windshield. Our location was a glowing dot, and our destination another. Gomorrah manipulated the yoke and we shifted just a little bit. “An hour north, huh,” she muttered.

I only-just had time to grab onto my launcher before we accelerated forwards and everything became a whole lot heavier for a moment. A glance at the speedometer before Gomorrah showed it shooting past the two-hundreds, then the threes, before slowing down in the four-hundreds.

“I guess it won’t take an hour then,” I said.

“I’d hope not,” she shot back. “So, details?”

“Right. Deus Ex was about as enlightening as usual, which is to say, not very. Basically, some stealth aliens settled down near the town. We need to keep it safe until the big guns hit the hive. Probably going to send the aliens running.”

“So, we’ll be playing a defensive game, then,” Gomorrah said. “I can work with that.”

“Plenty of forests and stuff around too, I think. Means a lot of biomass, but also a lot of stuff that burns.”

Gomorrah nodded and then angled us down. I felt my insides trying to become my outsides, and that fancy supper from the night before was considering leaving when she leveled us off about twenty met er s over the tops of the tallest trees.

I relaxed. Gomorrah was a good driver. Or was it pilot? It didn’t matter, she seemed to enjoy this kind of thing, and she was damned good at it from what I could tell. Her AI probably wouldn’t let her crash into a mountain either.

We started to slow down, and I felt the seat molding around me to hold me in place against the pull of deceleration until Gomorrah and I were flying slow enough that the scenery outside was more than just a blur.

Homes zipped past. Little bungalows in neat rows with bigger apartments next to them. A few stores too. Mostly gas-stations and convenience stores, but at least one grocery right on the edge of the town.

I tried to recall how many people lived here. It was a tiny enough place that had we still been moving  at Gomorrah’s preferred speed, we would have likely missed it with a blink.

Flashes of gunfire drew my eye, and I pointed towards the centre of town. “You see that?”

“No, what? Ah, I see it.”

There seemed to only be two schools in Black Bear, two older looking buildings built across the street from each other, with decently large fields out back and parking lots filled to the brim with cars haphazardly tucked away.

Weaving through those cars were familiar forms.

Model Threes, running on all fours like a pack of hounds, some leaping onto cars, others slipping around them.

And facing them from behind a row of squad cars were some five or six police officers. They were right before the school’s main entrance.

“Damn,” I said. “Myalis, can you figure out what’s going on?”

I believe so. The protocol in case of an incursion near Black Bear is to resume work until company representatives can verify the veracity of any claims, calculate potential losses, then allocate their employees to shelters. I will note that there are no shelters in the town that meet any major criteria.

“Shit,” I said.

In defiance of this, it seems as if the locals have unanimously declared that none of their machinery was functional today, and have sought shelter in the local high-school. Company police have acted against this. From their recordings, it seems they were at the school to clear it out when the first Antithesis arrived.

“Damnation,” Gomorrah said. She flicked something on her yoke and a dozen cross-hairs appeared on the windshield, then zipped around to aim more-or-less right at the nearest aliens. “Firing.”

“Firing what? ” I asked.

Then the Fury  spat out a volley of screaming missiles that spun in the air, realigned with the ground, and blasted the town below, sending fire and concrete and bits of hovercars all over.

“Now they know we’re here,” she said.

“Shit,” I said. “Okay, we need to defend this town... the entire town. How many people have made it to the school?”

Unknown. Certainly less than the entire population.

“Right... shit, Gomorrah , can you drop me off by the front. There’s supposed to be some other samurai here. We need to get into contact. I’ll talk to the locals in the mean-time. Can you waste a few more of those rockets on any big pack?”

“And then?” she asked.

“I think we need to draw all the civvies to one place and barricade it in. It’ll be easier to protect them that way. We can install turrets and mines and shit. Worry about clearing the town later.”

“So I’ll play air-support?” she asked.

“Land Fury  somewhere safe if you want,” I said. “I’m not your boss. Just not keen on seeing folk die.”

The nun nodded and spun us around while lowering the car. The passenger door opened when we were still a met er  off the ground.

“Call me if you need me, I’ll be farming points the easy way.”

“See ya,” I said as I stood, grabbed my crossbow from the back, then dropped to the ground to land with a crouch.

The Fury  pulled up with a wash of warm air, leaving me alone in front of some half-dozen guys in blue uniforms. “Sup?” I asked. “Hear you guys had an alien problem?”

***

Chapter Fifty-Six - Small and in Charge

“There are all sorts of reactions to someone seeing a S amurai show up, and generally, these reactions will depend on circumstance.

Fear and terror are common among those doing things that are morally dubious. Seeing a samurai show up at an underground human auction is never going to please the organizers.

Awe and worship for those who encounter a samurai on the streets. It’s a privileged encounter

with a celebrity for most.

And finally, relief, most often felt by those fearing for their lives when a samurai appears and decides that whatever is currently a threat needs to be removed.”

--Except from a sociological study on the predictable responses to a samurai’s appearance, 2028

***

I took a deep breath and tried to look confident. Then I recalled that the folk I was dealing with were little better than corporate goons. Worse, they were corporate cops. That was like dealing with a toddler that had taken one or two concussions too many and who’s only skill was to figure out exactly how much of a minority someone was or how poor they were before shooting them. I didn’t need confidence to deal with these dipshits, I needed a bigger gun.

Walking over to the barricade they’d made with their cars, I stepped onto a bumper, then the hood before jumping over to the other side. There were eight of them, a couple more than I’d counted at first. Mostly men, with navy blue uniforms and bulletproof vests and tacticool  handguns and a shotgun or three.

“Which one of you’s the asshole in charge?” I asked.

“I am,” One of them said. He had a little logo on his shoulder that the others didn’t. The police station’s symbol, then the logo of the local mining company, then some badge.

“Wrong, I am the asshole in charge now,” I said. “How many cops do we have, minion?”

Alright, so it was rude and stupid, but the look on the guy’s face was worth it, and I needed to cut past the bullshittery as soon as I could.

“Um,” the captain--I assumed that was his rank--said. “We have twenty-four officers in this town, ma’am. Seventeen of them are here. We have a squad-car down the road with two more on their way in, and four others are at the clinic.”

I nodded. “Myalis, I need a map of this place, please.”

“I like the location label,” I deadpanned. The huge yellow ‘You Are Here’ was a bit much. Still, that gave me an idea of what the town looked like. It had a decent footprint, but most of the buildings were on the smaller side.

“Ma’am?” the captain asked.

“Right. The highschool’s the new rally point. Is there enough room here for every civilian in town?”

“The building capacity is just under two-thousand,” he said.

“Fuck capacity, I mean how many folk can we cram in here so that they’re not in our way while we’re trying to save them all?”

One of the officers, a younger woman, cleared her throat. “I think we could maybe move three-quarters of the town in here, but it’ll be really tight. Some of the classrooms have locked themselves, that would give us more room.”

“Alright. You.” I pointed to one of the cops. “Find the principal, or whoever's in charge of the school. Tell them to unlock everything. I’ll be moving all the cars outside around and forming a wall with them.” I had the idea from their little barrier. “I’ll be giving you guys some turrets too. Find roof access and place them up there, they should auto-target the nearest Antithesis. Do not try to steal my shit, or we’ll be having words.”

The man nodded and shot off, the others seemed to untense a little. Good for them, I supposed. Having someone show up and start cracking the metaphorical whip must have been some sort of comfort.

The captain’s mic crackled and he pressed a hand to his ear for a moment. I’d need to tap into that later, but I had other things to do first.

“Myalis, I need good turrets. Won’t be able to reload them.” I eyed the map, then looked up at the school. Two floors, made of reddish brick and with some smaller windows on the second floor. The roof looked to be flat above. “Maybe three of them? We can cover this side of the building ourselves.”

That sounds reasonable. I suppose you need turrets that are somewhat mobile and easy to set up?

“Yeah, can’t have anything too hard to move.”

“Ma’am?” the captain said. “Uh, corporate just gave us orders.”

“Orders?” I asked. “And they are?”

“We’re to move some VIPs from here to headquarters, then deploy along the walls to protect the building.”

I blinked, then eyed the map again. “Is headquarters the one with the walls?” I asked.

“They’re anti-rioting walls,” the female cop said. “With sonic and water-based weapons. There’s a safehouse in it.”

“A shelter?” I asked. “Myalis, you said there weren’t any shelters in this town?”

The safehouse she’s alluding to is an underground location meant to house approximately twenty people in relative comfort. I do not consider that an appropriate shelter.

“How many people could fit in the headquarters?” I asked.

I glanced across the parking lot and the little sports field on the other side of that. There were some homes in the way, but I could still make out the corporate headquarters. The building was maybe five stories tall, with a wall all around it.

“What do you think, Myalis, is that place safer than this school?”

It is, though not by a huge margin. The defences around the headquarters are mostly to prevent and subdue riots. While that would theoretically work on a smaller Antithesis model, it wouldn’t be effective. The walls might slow an adversary down though, and funnel them to the main entrance. There is a bit more room across all the floors for more people as well. Fewer supplies though.

I nodded. “Okay! That’s the new plan. Captain minion, tell your company big-wigs that a S amurai or three are heading over to the headquarters to protect them.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah. You, and you, and you. Run inside, get us some volunteers. We’re taking all the food we can get from this place. There’s a cafeteria, right? A nurses’ station? Yeah, we’re taking everything with us. We’ll walk over.”

“Just us?” the female cop asked.

“Huh? Nah, everyone. Those who can’t walk we’ll carry. It’s like.. What, about a kilomet er ?”

It’s less than half of that.

“Half that,” I corrected. “Pretty sure even a fatass could run that if you scare them enough. I need... six cops to help me....” I counted those that were left. There were three. Had one of them that I didn’t point to run off? Well, whatever. “Okay, we’ll need volunteers.”

“Only certified personnel can ride in our vehicles,” Captain minion said.

“What? Says who?” I asked.

“Company policy.”

I stared at him. “Minion, did you miss the part where I’m the asshole in charge now?” I pointed to the female cop. “You seem less stupid, I’m promoting you. You’re now Minion  Captain.”

“Uh, yes ma’am?!” the officer said before snapping a quick salute.

My decision had nothing to do with me liking the look of a girl in uniform.

I nodded and stepped aside, then flicked through my augs until I found Gomorrah’s contact info. It didn’t even ring once before she answered. “Got everything under control?” she asked.

“Probably,” I said. “I’m moving all these people from the school to the corporate headquarters. They have walls and defences in place already. I’m sticking some turrets onto these cop cars too to keep people safe while we move. How’re things on your end?”

“Fine. Haven’t made that many more points. One moment.”

I heard a distant explosion.

“Still making enough to justify the cost of these rockets. You said there was another samurai in town?”

“Yeah, any sight of them?”

“Not yet. I’ll fly over your group once you get them moving. Try not to get people killed.”

“Hey now, only people I want to kill tend to die when I try to... I’m not actually sure where I was going with that one. Anyway, see you in a bit, just keep the skies clear for us.”

I hung up and finally walked into the school, my new minion captain on my heels. The inside looked... like a school in one of those shows. A big open hall with a trophy cabinet on one side, and what was obviously student-made art on the walls. There were pictures of graduates and a few banners hanging from the ceiling.

I could almost imagine all the cookie-cutter characters gossiping and doing rural high school shit. Instead, there were dozens of people, some of them looking terrified, others trying to smile and laugh despite it all, and more of them fiddling with their phones or augs to keep distracted. A group of small kids were playing together to one side, making plenty of noise.

“Crap,” I said as I took in the number of people I’d actually be responsible for.

Nothing was ever simple.

***

Chapter Fifty-Seven - Greedy Bits

“Sometimes, the greediest thing you can do, is to give unto others.”

--Riches to Rags, a guide on Corporate Living

***

“Minion Captain,” I began. “Why is this taking so long?”

Initially, things had moved pretty quickly. People had started to rush about, the cops barking orders that were repeated by others. There seemed to be a local fire-brigade out and about, some twenty volunteers who were helping to organize things, and some others were assisting them too.

I supposed that moments like these were make-or-break for a lot of people.

I had stepped out, and with Myalis’ help, bought three cat mecha.

They were useful, mobile, and able to attack and defend fairly well as far as I could tell. That, and we could use them to corral people. They could even ‘speak’ in that they  had speakers built in that I could shout at people with.

I had considered turrets, but turrets could have been made by just about any corp out there. They didn’t serve to remind people that there was a samurai on the scene, it just said ‘hey, the cops have even more guns than usual,’ and that was the opposite of reassuring. They also weren’t mobile, and while they had more firepower-per-point, I figured being able to move was more important.

New Purchase: P.U.S.S. Model Y - Security Mechs - Combat Models - Three

Points reduced to... 35

We’d just need to stay mum about the name.

So, things had started off well. The cat-bots were suitably impressive, there weren’t any aliens coming around to chow on the civvies, and things were moving.

“Well?” I asked my newly appointed minion.

The police woman hesitated. “We’re nearly done. We were going to just move everyone as one big group, but, ah, we ran into issues?”

“Issues?” I repeated.

She shrugged. “People want to arrive at the headquarters in order of seniority. Others want to make sure the children are safest. There’s some fighting upstairs.”

I wanted to pinch my brow. “Everyone knows that if we don’t get moving soon, everyone here will become alien chow, right?”

She took a moment before nodding.

“Right,” I muttered. I stepped past her and into the lobby. “Myalis, can you connect me to the intercom?”

Certainly.

I cleared my throat, and the sound of it carried across the entire lobby. I could even hear it on the floors above. “Okay everyone. Form a line right here in the lobby, three people thick. Keep your children close, and try to help those you can, we’re leaving. Not in ten minutes, not in five. Right now. If I have to come back to pick your sorry ass up later, I will  be making you regret it.”

It took a second or two for people to snap to it, but soon enough we had a line forming up with minimal shoving and pushing.

“Alright! Let’s move,” I said.

I took the lead, and noticed the cops running ahead a bit and forming something of a cordon. One of them had already moved some of the cars that would be in our way.

The cat-bots paced along the sides, glowing mechanical eyes glaring out at the town and back-mounted guns shifting around.

“Minion Captain, take the lead,” I called out to the police woman before stepping to the side when we reached the field behind the school.

The line stretched back a ways. It wasn’t exactly inconspicuous to have that many people walking along, and there was plenty of coughing and a murmur of nervous conversation, but no one was screaming or shouting.

I wasn’t going to jinx myself by saying that it was going well, but so far, I could see the plan working.

A hum from above had me looking up to see Gomorrah’s Fury  hover near the school’s roof. I waved her way, but doubted she’d noticed.

If anything came up, she could tell me about it. Or just bomb it from the air. Either-or would be helpful.

I felt something like a fist in my chest, twisting just under my ribs. Stress, maybe? I’d heard all about that before. The corps hated it when some rando employee got too stressed and showed up at work with a 3D printed assault rifle, so there w as  tons of shitty ads about dealing with that kind of thing.

I eyed the people moving in, then started following after the head of the group. So far, no aliens. I could live with that.

“Captain minion,” I said as I caught up with the police girl. “When everyone is in the headquarters, we’ll need to keep them all calm, think your force will be able to handle that?”

“NeoPinkerton subjugation officers all have to take pre-emptive de escalation classes,” she said. “We should be able to handle a few rowdy people.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied. “Just settle people down, reassure them that there are samurai around who are eager to kill some xenos, then share whatever food and water you have. Maybe Myalis can set up a livestream from Gomorrah’s Fury . Seeing the aliens get turned to giblets might calm people down.”

“I... don’t know if everyone would be calmed down by that kind of thing,” she said.

I shrugged. “It would work on me.”

Being at the front of the crowd meant that we were the first to arrive at the headquarters.

The building was one of those places designed to look good on a pamphlet. The front had this big cement pillar, curved in at an angle and with a skeletal framework wrapped around it. All of that covered in mirrored glass. I could only-just make out the fountain in the middle of the space beneath, some modern-art  statue that looked like nothing and that probably had a descriptive plaque welded to it with text written by some wordy English Major.

It was an entirely meaningless shape, surrounded by architecture that was just as useless.

The rest of the building was good old brutalist. Square and plain. I much preferred that kind of look. You could always trust a square.

The fence around the building was decorated to look a bit less like a fence, with curvy bits of metal on the outside and spiked bars above instead of barbed wire. The gate though, was just a massive slab of steel, one that was slowly opening as we approached.

There were weapon emplacements all along the fenceline. Mostly sonic-weapons. There were more conventional kinetic weapons within.

A glance inside revealed quaint little statuettes at even intervals along the inside. They had benches next to them, and little water fountains for drinking. I’d bet a couple of credits that those were to hide the guns they’d use on anyone dumb enough to riot.

A man ran out of the compound in full gear. Armoured chestpiece  and hard-plastic plates over his arms and thighs. He even had a half-visored helmet on. “Hello,” he said as he came closer. “Are you the samurai?”

“I’m one of them,” I said. “There should be three of us here. Gomorrah’s in the muscle car. No clue where the third one is.”

“And you want to bring all of these employees into the headquarters?” he asked. His jaw set.

I sighed. There was the trouble I was expecting. “Yeah. Looks a whole hell of a lot safer in here.”

The corpo cop paused. “Very well. We have authority from the higher-ups to allow any citizen of Black Bear into the headquarters. As long as they stay out of certain areas and remain calm, there shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Stay out of what areas?” I asked.

“Research and Development , on floor three, the server rooms in the basement, and the NeoPinkerton armoury on the first floor. We’re collapsing cubicles on most of the office floors to make more room already.”

“Oh,” I said. That sounded... reasonable. “Well, okay then. I’ll be leaving three of my mecha cats with you guys. They should help if any aliens break past the walls, which they might.”

The man nodded. “Thank you. We could use more AA support. The best we have are a few anti-drone countermeasures on the roof, but that’s the best we’ve got against flying targets.”

“Uh, I’ll talk to Gomorrah, then.”

You seem confused.

I nodded to the cops, then tapped the side of my head in the universal ‘I’m on a call’ sign before backing away. The civvies were already filing in, escorted by a few more guards in armour who ran out to funnel them into the headquarters.

“I was expecting... corpo fuckery,” I said.

Humans can be vindictive, needlessly cruel and can lack empathy at the worst times. But they are generally quite good when it comes to doing what they think is in their best interest. Sometimes that math works out to meaning that the best thing to do in any given moment, is to help those they can as best they can. In this case, some of the administrators of this company judged that assisting their workers would mean that those same workers would be able to return to work sooner, and with less ill-will against the corporation as a whole.

“Thanks,” I said. “It really helps when you point out where the greedy bits are in all of this.”

You’re welcome!

***

Chapter Fifty-Eight - Gimmick

“Not all samurai have a gimmick, but nearly all of them do. These sometimes form from necessity or preference. A samurai adopting a certain kind of weaponry might specialize in that. Others prefer taking a certain role, and will purchase equipment according to that.

Still others will find a theme, and over time, will push and develop that to its sometimes illogical extreme.”

--Fa-Fa-Fashionista, On The Evolution of Trends, 2057

***

“Cat?”

I jumped a little at the sound of my name. It didn’t take much more than a second to place the voice though. Gomorrah, talking to me through my augs. “Yeah?” I asked.

I was stationed just outside of the headquarters in the middle of town, watching the last of the civilians running over. A few other families, and the rare single person, had been joining the file of people filtering into the big building behind me.

That meant that there were probably still hundreds of people in the town. I’d need to figure out a way to gather them all up and bring them over to the headquarters. Easier said than done, I figured.

“Cat, I found the third S amurai. He’s livestreaming things from the east-end of town.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah. That’s where the a ntithesis are mostly coming from. It’s probably for the best, actually, the headquarters aren’t too far from the eastern edge of the town, so anyone who wants to find cover will have him between them and most of the aliens.”

I nodded along. “We still need to let people know.”

“I’ve been working on it,” she said.

“Really?”

“Do you think I’ve been sitting up here enjoying the Fury’s  AC and twiddling my thumbs? Atyacus and I broke into all the televisions and phones and augs we could reach in Black Bear and have been directing people over to the company headquarters. I might have to swing around to escort some of the groups closer to the edges, they’re too far to be able to run over here.”

“Right,” I said. It was easy to forget that I wasn’t the only samurai around. “So now what? We sit pretty and snipe at any aliens coming our way?”

“I was thinking you could head over to our new samurai friend. We both know how great you are at making nice with people,” Gomorrah said without a hint of sarcasm. She was pretty good at the whole deadpan thing, though.

I nodded along. “Fair enough. It’ll mean being closer to the action too. I’ll leave my cats here to guard the headquarters. Worst case scenario, none of us should be too far away. Do you think Atyacus and Myalis can work together to keep an eye on the civvies?”

“They should be able to manage. Especially if your drones are around to see any a ntithesis before they cause any trouble.”

“Right then.” I shifted my shoulders and looked about. Most of the civilians on the street were running over. The last of the line had filed in and only the stragglers remained. The cops had mostly gathered out by the front of the headquarters, some of them were passing out riot armour and shotguns and such. They were gearing up for a protracted siege. I bet there were a few folk in the headquarters who would be willing to volunteer to man the walls as it were, but so far there hadn’t been all that many aliens to deal with.

“I had some time to look things up. In situations like these, with a stealth hive, there tend to be some patrols of lower-level a ntithesis on the fringes. Then a lot more stronger ones closer to the middle of the hive. We might have trouble later.”

“Would they even come this way?” I asked. “Sure, there’s people for them to eat, but that’s it. Aren’t trees and grass and shit like that on the menu too?”

Myalis was the one that replied.

The a ntithesis tend to prioritize things. First taking out any threats, then subsuming any local biomass that isn’t dangerous. It’s why they tend to attack people in an area first before focusing on retrieving bodies and other sources of biomass. A stealth incursion tends to function under similar rules, though with a much greater degree of restraint and subtlety.

“Can’t say I’d call the a ntithesis subtle about anything,” I said.

They might surprise you, then. And that surprise may well be deadly. I would encourage you to be more careful than usual, but your usual level of care is nearly nonexistent.

I snorted. “Fine. Gomorrah, I guess I should head out and meet our new friend first. Maybe we can create a barricade or something to stop the aliens from coming this way.”

“Our goal is to kill them, not just keep them out of the town,” Gomorrah said.

“We can go around murdering them after the town’s properly secured,” I said.

“That’s fair, I suppose. I’ll be moving around and watching over the last civilians moving around. Keep in touch if you see anything strange, or, god willing, a miracle happens and you have a good idea.”

“Thanks,” I muttered in reply. “If you’re done being snippy, I’ll let you go.”

“Are you admonishing me  for being snarky? It’s half your personality.”

I huffed. “Yeah, it’s my gimmick. Yours is being a sexually repressed pyro-nun. You don’t see me rubbing myself on people and then lighting them on fire while reciting verse, do you?”

“That... is a lot to unpack,” Gomorrah said. “But I think a blanket ‘fuck you’ would work as a reply.”

I laughed as I cut the connection. I’d have to think of some more insults as I walked. I stretched my back one way, then the other before finally setting off and around the headquarters’  fence.

“Myalis, can you connect me to... uh, do the corpo cops have a number I can text?”

They do. Here, most of them are connected to this chat system.

My augs shifted and a chat box appeared, hovering before me. Plenty of chatter between different people, all of them with names like A-Green and M-Armstrong. I was tempted to snoop, see what they were saying, but all I could see were status reports and a few questions and answers being fired back and forth. Real professional stuff, without even a meme to liven it up.

S-Cat: Will be heading east to meet other samurai and aliens. Keep me informed. Cats staying near headquarters.

I waited until I got a few affirmatives, then minimized the chat box so that it was out of the way.

It was time, at long last, to be stealthy.

I shifted my Icarus grenade launcher so that it was tucked under my long coat, then I brought my Whisper around so that the crossbow was cradled against my chest. And then I activated all of my stealth things.

My coat warped then went invisible. I was now little more than feet and hands and a big crossbow. Presumably a head and helmet as well.

I tugged my coat on tighter and kept on walking. From the glimpses I caught in the windows of the homes and little businesses I passed, I wasn’t impossible to notice, but I certainly wasn’t as visible as I would have been otherwise.

“Not as stealthy as I’d want,” I said.

You could be better, yes. You’re mostly hidden, visually, but the parts of you that aren’t will give away your position. You can also be identified using other senses. Many a ntithesis can sense changes in air pressure, others can sense heat, and of course acute hearing is quite common across many models. And that only covers some of the more basic senses.

“Hmm,” I muttered. “Yeah, I guess that’ll be the next step. I’m sure there’s shit for that?”

Of course. The solutions that cover every possibility do tend to be a little more expensive. Unless this incursion is far more profitable than I predict, I don’t think that kind of expense would be in your best interest.

“Bit by bit then,” I said. “We’ll patch whatever holes we find as they come up.”

I shifted Whisper so that it was tucked against my shoulder and approached the next corner a little more cautiously. The streets here were vacant, some ads behind glass storefronts still playing, and the single red light strung over the intersection blinked, but otherwise there wasn’t much of note.

Black Bear felt weird. Maybe that was just me being a city girl though. The place was more open than I was used to, with no hovercar traffic and buildings that I could look up to without craning my neck back.

I kind of expected to see cows or whatever there was in the countryside, but I figured this wasn’t quite that kind of place. “Myalis, can you slip into the town’s cameras and such?”

There isn’t much as far as security infrastructure goes.

“That’s alright. I just want to have more eyes around us. Do you know where that other samurai is?”

The Vanguard is just ahead.

My ears twitched as I started to hear something. It was... music.

Heavy metal music, interspersed by the grumble of a chainsaw.

I started to feel somewhat concerned.

***

Chapter Fifty-Nine - Cause Player

“Lord VPN! We guarantee that your data and search history are secured! A percentage of all proceeds obtained from selling your data will be returned to you at the end of every month!

Join now with code ‘Glorius CCP’ and obtain three months completely free!”

--An ad for Lord VPN, 2051

***

I snuck up to the next corner, back bent and body low until I was right up to the intersection. The buildings here were mostly homes. The sort of pre-built bungalow with a little picket-fence yard that a lot of people probably dreamed of retiring in.

It was just too bad that they were right on the edge of town. Well, maybe the owners had insurance. I didn’t know much about home ownership.

My ears did an alright job of painting a picture of what was going on around the corner, but that picture was... confusing.

Someone was fighting with a trio of aliens. Model Threes, the little dog-like ones with the spiney backs and mouths that were too big for comfort. The Model Threes were rushing at a man who sounded large and who moved with sharp, sudden bursts of speed to bring a heavy bar around.

The roar of a chainsaw didn’t leave much to the imagination as to what, exactly, he was using as a weapon.

I figured anyone murdering aliens in hand-to-hand was an ally.

I came around the corner and raised Whisper to take a shot, but before I could really get to aiming my new chainsaw buddy spun around, threw the corpse of one alien at another, then stabbed his saw into the third’s head.

Bits of a ntithesis splattered onto the ground, turned into so much chunky puree by the roaring blade.

The samurai was a tall dude, covered in plates of army-green armour that looked scuffed, and that left his biceps exposed.

He worked out.

Or maybe he cheated with the tech, but either way, the results were the same. His arms were as thick around as my head and looked like they were straining against his armour. The way his armour segmented over his chest gave the impression that he had abs too.

If I wasn’t gay, I’d think he looked pretty hot.

“Yo!” I called out.

The dude glanced my way, then completely ignored me as he walked over to the two alien bodies squirming a few met er s away. One of them was still alive.

He dropped his chainsaw, and the weapon faded into motes before hitting the ground. A projection? Or maybe some sort of nano bullshittery? It was definitely some alien gear.

Reaching over his back, he closed his hand over empty air then pulled a shotgun from nowhere.

I wasn’t well-versed in guns, but even I recognized a double-barrel. His  was cartoonishly large. He pumped it--why hadn’t he materialized it already loaded?--lowered the barrel to point it at the head of the last living Model Three, then fired.

I flinched back at the noise. I was used to gunshots. His shotgun was an order of magnitude louder than anything I’d ever fired.

It did the job though. I stepped to the side as a bit of Model Three rolled by.

The big guy shifted his shoulders, then turned to face me. “Sorry about that,” he rumbled.

I shrugged--realized he couldn’t see my shoulders--then spoke up. “It’s all good,” I said. “Came over to see how things were going.”

“So, you’re the backup?”

“I guess so? More like I’m the cavalry.”

He huffed, a sort of macho one-note laugh. “Right. Give me a moment.”

Turning, the big guy looked up just as a small drone zipped closer. It was a tiny golden thing, no bigger than a marble with a pair of little wings fluttering on the sides.

“We will be taking a small break everyone. Take the time to visit my merch store, or listen to these ads by today’s sponsors...  Lord  VPN... Once we return, the carnage shall  resume. Rip and tear friends.”

The dude paused, then his shoulders slumped and he turned to me. “Okay, that’s done,” he said.

“You’re livestreaming?” I asked before I glanced around. We were standing pretty much in the centre of an intersection. The road past the samurai led off and out of town and into the woods surrounding Black Bear.

“Yeah, got to make a living, you know? I’m Cause Player.”

I stared at him. “Your name’s what?”

He shifted, shotgun dropping and evaporating before it even hit the ground. “I’m Cause Player. It’s... a name. I do cosplay.”

“Okay,” I replied, because what the hell else was I supposed to say? Lucy mentioned cosplay a few times. She followed some girls that dressed up... well, really, they weren’t usually wearing much, but what they did have on belonged to some game or another. “Are you cosplaying something right now?”

“You don’t recognize me?”

I placed a hand on my hip. “Oh yeah, totally. I know all the macho armour-wearing shooty dude characters.”

I had the impression he wasn’t too amused. “This is Doom Guy.”

“Wow, that name’s worse than yours.”

“What are you here for? My ads are about to finish and I need to get back to work.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Alright, sorry. Uh, mostly here to figure out what’s going on. I haven’t been running into any aliens at all. You seem luckier than me.”

“I have a tool that attracts them,” he said. “It doesn’t work on most models, but these little ones will charge right over. I’ve been killing any of those that come into town. It’s been pretty quiet so far. Little groups every few minutes.”

“Huh,” I said. “Well, we evacuated most of the civvies to the company headquarters and armed it up. Cat mechs and all.”

“ Stray Cat, right?” he asked.

“Oh right, yeah, that’s me. Just call me Cat. You looked me up?”

“I saw the memes.”

I paused, working over the implications of that. Memes? Plural? No, I didn’t want to know. “Okay then. So you’re going to stay here?”

“Around here? I’m patrolling to keep the area safe. Give people time to leave. I marked a few places where there were more people, and I sighted a Model Nine but it left before I could catch up to it. They’re fast little things.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen a Model Nine ,” I said.

“That’s probably normal, they’re stealth models,” Cause Player said. “They look like long insects.”

“They going to be a problem?” I asked.

“Probably,” he said. “But I’m more worried about the other models. Not too many of them coming around, but there are enough that  I’d rather stay on top of them.”

“Right,” I said. I eyed the street, then the woods beyond. They looked rather ominous, what with their trees and... plants and stuff. I was definitely not a country girl. “Crap, I’m not sure what to do from here.”

Cause Player shrugged. “There are some civilians around. You could help them. I’m more of a solo-player. And having someone else on my livestream might wreck the viewer’s immersion. So... yeah. If you want to help, maybe find the Model Nine’s mini-hives?”

“Mini-hives?” I asked. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

“They are,” he said. “Ask your AI. I need to get back to the show.”

I rubbed at the back of my neck. “Right, fine.” If he wanted to play actor  for his crowd, that was on him. As long as he was still killing aliens I figured it wasn’t any problem of mine. Dude needed to make a living too. “Myalis, Model Nines, they going to be a problem?”

All a ntithesis models are problems on some level. Model Nines are, interestingly, the model that tends to irritate more veteran Vanguard the most. They are particularly adept at avoiding detection, and often require a ‘boots on the ground’ approach to be discovered and eliminated.

“Hmm,” I said before turning back towards Cause Player. “I’m going to head back to the headquarters then, maybe try to herd some civilians back that way too. If you need anything, you call me or Gomorrah, alright? She’s got a cool ride, and can probably be here in a matter of seconds.”

“Thank you,” he said. He actually sounded sincere there. “I should be able to hold my own for a while. This isn’t the best point farm, but it’s not all bad.”

“Yeah, cool,” I said. I saluted him, then stepped back. I really needed a better invisibility system so that I could just disappear entirely. It would make for a cool exit. “Think you could point me towards the biggest group of locals that aren’t safe?”

I can do that. I’ll try to verify if I can see any Model Nines moving into town. They tend to be difficult to find via artificial means.

“How come?” I asked.

Their skin and fur can change colours and textures, similar to the Earth-native chameleon, though they are significantly better at it. They can also change shapes thanks to the way their prehensile fur is made. They are cold blooded, so infra-red has difficulty seeing them, and they can release small spores from their down-fur that float in the air and will frequently give sensors false-positives.

Sounded like fun. “Let’s see if we can’t catch us a couple of them, then!”

***

Chapter Sixty - M9

“The traditional family unit may have been displaced as time progressed, but it never truly disappeared.

A system by which a child had multiple guardians and siblings is still, in nearly every scenario, optimal.

A child needs constant attention, and constant love to grow into a strong and capable adult.

Sometimes, that requires more time than their parents can give them.

This isn’t because of a lack of love. That missing time is spent working hard to put a roof over your child’s head and keeping them safe and fed.

Perhaps all you need is some thing  to help with the more mundane tasks of raising a child?”

--Nannyco Robotics ad, 2047

***

I glanced at my map of Black Bear really quick  as I jogged along. Myalis had marked a few spots to check around town, mostly places where she’d seen civilians gathering. I wanted to get them moving to safety, but I was also on the look-out for nearly-invisible ambush aliens.

Which I figured wasn’t going to end with me finding any of them.

“Where to next?” I asked as I shot past an intersection. There wasn’t any traffic, so I only gave a quick glance each way before crossing the road. It was a good thing too, it let me see some movement down the street a little ways. “Scratch that.”

There was a small family milling around a van. An ugly old thing from the late 2030s. All curved and filled with unnecessary plastic body parts, and very much unable to hover. In a small town like this though, that was probably fine.

There was a ramp extending out of the side of the vehicle, and what looked like an entire family was gathered around it. It looked like some picture-perfect bunch. The mom, dad, and a boy and girl who were in their younger teens.

It would have been picture perfect if the dad-looking guy wasn’t in a wheelchair, his kids fussing with him, while the mother ran around in a panic.

“Yo,” I said as I approached.

No one noticed me.

That didn’t bode well. What if I was an alien?

Then again, I was supposed to be stealthy, so I chalked it up to me just being that good before I scream. “Yo!”

The kids and the dad jumped and spun around, looking for me. Then they started yammering as I walked closer. I flicked off my coat’s invisibility just as the dad finagled a rifle from inside the van.

He paused in the act of fiddling with the safety and looked my way. “You’re not an alien.”

“I’m one-hundred percent mostly human,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

“Oh, shit, she’s a samurai,” the girl said. She couldn’t be older than thirteen or so, about the age of my kittens.

“Sweetie, don’t swear,” the mother said.

I don’t know what she was talking about, the woman looked like she desperately needed a chill pill and maybe a margarita. “It’s alright?” I asked. “You folks okay?”

“Who are you?” The dad asked.

I didn’t actually know if they were a family, but if they weren’t the resemblance was uncanny, and absent any actual names, that’s what I was going to label them as. “I’m Stray Cat. Your kid’s right, I’m a samurai. Just looking for stragglers. You folk should head over to the company headquarters, we have a samurai guarding the place already.”

“Oh, wow,” the son said. His sister looked like I’d just announced that Christmas was coming early. She whipped an old-school phone out, then frowned at its blank screen before stuffing it away.

“Yeah yeah, hero worship later. Your van’s fucked?”

“Langu--” mom started. She paused, then swallowed thickly. “The van won’t start. It turns on, but I can’t get it to move. And our phones stopped. Reginald can’t walk anymore, not since he got hurt last year.”

I nodded along. “Alright,” I said. “Myalis, is this something we can fix in a hurry, or are we going to escort this lot around?”

It seems like the ground vehicles in this town all require a registry code to function. A DRM sent from somewhere in town. Something is likely interfering, or the company has shut it down, thereby preventing the vehicle from working at all.

“Can you fix it?” I asked.

Certainly.

The van rumbled to life and the family jumped. “Mom, it’s working!” the girl said.

“There you go,” I said. “It was just some software fuc--fudgery. Uh, you should be good to go? Head right towards the headquarters. It’s not too far.”

“Will we be safe there?” the mom asked.

“You should be. I doubt Gomorrah will be pleased if they don’t let someone in.” I moved over and helped the kids push their dad back up into the back of the van. “You good to drive?”

“I am, thank you,” the mom said.

The  lot of them tossed their stuff back into their car in a hurry, then they were off. She actually stopped at the intersection and used her flashers to signal her turn. I shook my head. “That was nice; next group?”

Two blocks over. I’ll mark it on your map.

I stared, then groaned as I realized the van had gone that way already. I could have hitched a ride.

I flicked my coat back on and took off once more. It got boring within ten steps. I could only get so much joy from seeing the shadow of my head bobbing on the pavement before that grew old. “Where are all the damned aliens?” I asked. “I don’t think I’ve killed a single one yet.”

There should be no lack of them in the region, but the Antithesis have little need to fight and kill the locals for biomass when there is so much still available naturally. Until the main hive is destroyed, it’s likely that the local swarm will keep a low profile.

“Which means we might be here a while. We’re going to need to evacuate the entire town to someplace else.”

And scour the entire region.

“No chance that someone will decide to just nuke us?” I asked.

That would be exceptionally irresponsible. And while temporarily effective, it would likely spread some Antithesis elements far and wide. Radioactive ones.

“That sounds awful,” I said.

Also, as a matter of common sense, we strongly discourage the use of weapons of mass destruction on a planet upon which your entire race resides.

“Common sense never stopped humanity before,” I said.

Your race isn’t unique in its idiocy, I’m afraid. Most others that have gone as far as humanity usually die out along the way.

“So you’re saying we’re tough?” I asked.

I was saying you’re idiots, but if you wish to read it that way, I will not stop you.

I laughed as I picked up the pace.

My laugh froze in my throat as I came around a corner and saw the same van that had just moved away from me stopped at the end of the street. It was parked in the middle of a lawn, a fire-hydrant spraying water up in a fountain.

Had the mom been distracted?

I didn’t even hear the crash. Or maybe I had and had simply ignored it. I was used to a city’s worth of noise. A distant bang barely registered. I had to pay more attention. I might not have fought any aliens yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t around.

Jogging over to the van, I expected to see the family moving about, maybe a bit disorientated. I had plenty of points to get some medical stuff if it came to that.

Instead, halfway down the street, I noticed the blood splashed across the inside of the windows.

Wait.

I stopped, then started to look around. If Myalis told me to wait, there was a damned good reason for it, she wasn’t the sort to stop me from racing over to help someone.

My gaze travelled across the street, looking for something, the black of an a ntithesis, maybe some monster lurking in the shadows.

I found plain homes, some with manicured lawns with little bushes, others looking a bit rougher around the edges. There wasn’t much space between the homes, but they each had a little lot. Cars sat useless in driveways and some of the homes had lights on.

Stealth units.

My back-mounted guns unfolded, both of them coming to rest just over my shoulders. They scanned across the street.

“I want to check in on them,” I said.

Go ahead. I am trying to see the Model Nine.

Myalis not being able to see the monster wasn’t filling me with confidence.

I walked over to the van, eyes shifting around, searching for anything.

The wind shifted, blowing across the leaves of one of the few trees around, and the grass, and the bushes which twisted around.

My heart skipped a beat.

Spinning around, I raised Whisper.

It was far too slow.

The bush launched itself at me, entirely silent.

My plasma caster spat a torrent of burning pellets at the creature, but it couldn’t track fast enough.

A claw crashed into my crossbow, then two more smacked into a pair of hexagonal disks that flashed into existence before me. Those would have eviscerated me.

I stumbled back, dropping my crossbow and finally taking in the Model Nine as it regained its footing.

It looked... like a bush. Leaves and branches. But not really. The leaves were fur, too puffy and made of thin  woven strands. The branches were more like additional limbs sticking out of a thin, muscular body.

I couldn’t see its eyes, but I could make out the black claws at the ends of its many limbs. None more than a couple of centimet er s long, some of them bloody.

I whipped out my Trench Maker just as the Model Nine jumped again.

Three barks sounded out as I fired into the Model Nine from point blank range.

The alien crashed to the ground.

“What... what the hell,” I swore.

***

Chapter Sixty-One - Mimics

“You shouldn’t believe just anyone’s claims that they’re a samurai. It is surprisingly easy to fake it.

One notable story is that of Snapdragon, the alias of a young man who obtained some basic body armour and some cosplaying supplies, then created a samurai persona for himself. This isn’t entirely uncommon, and there are events and groups that ‘play’ at being samurai. Snapdragon took it one step further by patrolling the streets and even participating in the periphery of some incursions.

He was discovered to be faking it when a group of Antithesis overran the position he was guarding and he was unable to procure more weapons or ammunition as samurai so often do.

Seventy-eight civilians died.

Be wary of false claimants, and don’t be afraid to ask for proof. Most samurai will provide some evidence of authenticity if asked.”

--Extract from ‘A Concerned Citizen’ series of pamphlets distributed in 2035

***

Targets Eliminated!

Reward... 25 Points

I panted for a bit, heart beating away in my chest as if I’d just spent twenty quality minutes with Lucy instead of just lightly jogging around. A ten-second fight with an alien did that, I supposed.

“Shit,” I said for a lack of any better response.

I walked to the side a bit, then moved back towards the dead alien. The Model Nine looked like someone had dropped a potted plant on the street.

“Shit,” I repeated.

You’re distressed. More so that I’d expect from you after an ambush.

I shook my head. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just... it spooked me is all .”

I glanced at the real reason I wasn’t feeling all  that great. The minivan was just a few dozen met er s away. The water pouring from the busted hydrant was slowing down, and over that I could just make out the car’s engine still rumbling away.

“Shit.” Third time now.

I bent over and scooped Whisper up as I started towards the van. A quick look over the crossbow didn’t reveal anything obviously wrong with it. Maybe a nick in the paint? Nothing terrible.

I set the crossbow against my shoulder and started moving closer to the minivan, looking around for more trouble. Any bushes that gave me a weird look were going to get shot.

The van’s doors were all closed, but the passenger side window was broken.

I held my breath then looked in.

Four bodies.

I didn’t stare for all that long, but it was enough to know that none of them were alive. The Model Nine had hit me like a demented blender, all claws and striking limbs. I couldn’t imagine fighting it stuck inside an enclosed space without any fancy gear. I didn’t need to imagine the results of fighting in close quarters.

Felt a little sick, honestly. “Myalis, let’s move on,” I said. “Where’s the next group of civilians?”

One block north, to the left at the next intersection. A group is moving on foot.

I nodded and started jogging over. There was no way people on foot could do anything against another Model Nine, not if one of them could wreck a car. Well, not wreck a car but... whatever.

I’ve found three Model Nine ’ s in your vicinity.

My boots scrapped the ground as I stopped and started looking around, Whisper already tucked into my shoulder. “Where?’

Pardon me, English is an imprecise language. By vicinity I mean within two to three hundred met er s of your current location. I have been observing the area and noting any visual artefacts caught on camera. Comparing the before-and-after images occasionally reveals new objects that are likely Model Nines.

“Anything I can shoot?” I asked. I was getting into  a shooty mood.

Nothing in your line of sight. The civilians are approaching one of them. It is currently disguised as a standing mailbox.

I didn’t even take time to swear, I just took off running.

Grabbing Whisper’s strap, I flung it over my shoulder, then tugged my Icarus from under my coat. The crossbow was a weapon designed to take out targets from afar, sure, but it was a precision weapon. The grenade launcher had a whole other sort of precision to it.

“High explosive,” I said as I tucked the launcher against my shoulder.

I could see the civilians, maybe a dozen of them in all. Some had rifles with them, but I doubted those would help.

A few turned around. Maybe they saw my  head? My footfalls weren’t making much noise.

“Hey!” One called out.

I ignored him to scan the road ahead. Trees, some bushes, a few cars waiting in driveways. There, near the middle of the road. A bright red box, nearly perfectly square and standing on four legs, but the logos on the side were only vague splotches and the legs were at a bit of an odd angle. The more I looked at it, the more it stood out as wrong. Not so wrong that I would have given it a second glance if I was driving by or anything though.

I raised my Icarus until the line projected over my vision landed right at the base of it. I tugged the trigger back.

Firing while running meant missing. At least with my aim it did. Which is why explosives were the best.

The fake mailbox, the sidewalk next to it, and a chunk of the grass next to that burst apart. Clods of dirt and Antithesis bits rained down across the road.

The civilians screamed.

Targets Eliminated!

Reward... 25 Points

“Any others?” I asked as I looked around for anything weird. Strange bushes, weird mailboxes, talking animals, anything that stood out, but the place just looked like a mundane street, albeit one with a new crater in it.

“Who are you?” one of the civilians asked. He was pointing a gun at the ground between us.

Nothing in the immediate area.

I nodded and lowered Icarus. Didn’t need to spook anyone into shooting me. “Hey. You guys heading to the headquarters?”

The civilians looked to each other. “Who are you?” the one in the lead asked again.

“Friendly... friendly-ish neighbourhood samurai,” I said. “Sorry about the explosion, that mailbox was an alien.”

They didn’t believe it.

I’d lied poorly before. It was one of those things you had to get good at as a poor crippled orphan kid, and to get better at lying, you had to know when someone didn’t buy it. Which was kind of insulting. I was partially invisible and had a big gun. Did they need me to hack into their augs to announce myself too?

Obviously it was the mailbox thing that stretched their believability.

I flicked off the invisibility on my coat again and tucked my launcher away. Didn’t need to give anyone a reason to twitch. “I’m Stray Cat. Based out of New Montreal. I’m here with a few others, we’re securing the civilians around here.”

Guns lowered some more. “Was there really a xeno behind the mailbox?” the guy I assumed as in charge asked.

“Yeah,” I said. Close enough. “Where are you guys headed?”

“The old arena. A bunch of us are heading that way. It’s our meeting place for when things go wrong.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his nose. “Can you tell us how things are going?”

“In Black Bear? Alright? Some casualties, but not that many.” I held myself together fairly well, I figured. “The incursion near here’s really small. We’ll have some heavy hitters around soon, but we don’t want normal folk out and about when that happens.”

“We can’t go to the headquarters. Most of us are sub-contractors.”

“I... don’t see why that should matter?” I said.

“The company doesn’t like us interfering with their things,” he explained. “We live here, but half the town’s basically off-limits to us.”

Some of the folk behind him nodded, and I started to notice that they weren’t all dressed to the nines. It was the middle of the day, sure, and I didn’t expect people dressed to impress, but these people were all in jeans and... well, normal clothes that had been worn before. Not poor, but not far from it, maybe?

“Look, the company doesn’t like you interfering, but they’d really hate it if I did. There’s another samurai by the headquarters guarding it, Gomorrah. She’s the nun with the flamethrower. She’s very good at turning the unrighteous into charcoal, and she wouldn’t leave a bunch of people waiting outside for the aliens to nab them. If the company gives you trouble later, you just reach out to me, alright?”

That seemed to work.

I figured I’d press my momentum while I had it and I took off ahead of them, heading towards the headquarters. It was only a couple of blocks away. “Myalis, can you get one of my cats to come over? It can escort them the rest of the way once it gets here. Also, where’s the old arena?”

Your P.U.S.S. Model Y is on route. As for the old arena, it’s not on any of the official maps, but I suspect it’s this building here.

A building flashed on my map.

Some older social media feeds call it the town arena. It predates the corporate acquisition of the town, and doesn’t seem to have been in use since.

“Well then, I guess we know more or less where we’re heading to next,” I said.

***

Chapter Sixty-Two - Arena

“The best thing you can do when there are aliens about is keep low, and keep your head on straight. It’s the best way to stay alive.”

--Deus Ex, 2054

***

As soon as one of my cat mechs joined the civilians, I ditched.

Felt a little bad just leaving them behind, but they had a walking weapons platform watching over them now, and they were only a block away from the headquarters.

A glance at the map to make sure I was heading in the right direction, and I continued on towards the arena. From what Myalis was able to pull up in a hurry, the old arena looked fairly secure. It was a pre-incursion building, but like, way before the incursions started. It had a cold-war era fallout shelter in the basement. Nothing up to modern code, I bet, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing.

No cameras on or around the building, which was annoying, but Myalis said that she could triangulate a lot of phone signals in the area that hadn't  been there a few hours before. People really were gathering there.

I’d be using that phone tracking trick again. There were still a few pockets of people around Black Bear. If we did our job right, they’d be safe if they had somewhere to lay low for a while, I figured. Still didn’t want to risk it too much. Having everyone in one place made it easier to defend them all. Plus, more guns manning the figurative walls.

It would suck if one of them had a cold and spread it around, but I’d take that over aliens eating everyone any day of the week.

I was just past the back of the headquarters when my augs told me I had an incoming call. Gomorrah.

“Yo,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied. “I reached out to Deus Ex, to get some news about that orbital strike. I think she was sleeping, but her AI wasn’t. It directed me to speak with someone from the Family.”

“Alright,” I said. Made sense so far. Pipsqueak needed her naptime.

“Long and short of it is that they’ll be bombing the area in about five minutes.”

“Five minutes!” I shouted. That was real fucking soon. I glanced at the sky but all I saw was a thick layer of grey, but that didn’t mean they had to bomb the place now.

“The Vanguard I spoke to said the area of effect would only barely touch Black Bear. Though... Cat, I didn’t have all that much confidence in the man from my one conversation with him. He sounded a bit stupid.”

I paused. Was it wise to head out to the arena now? The headquarters looked a lot  tougher and was closer to the centre of the city to boot. More buildings around it to serve as cover. But that would mean abandoning however many people were at the arena. “Fuck. Look, I’m going to join up with some folk, then try to get them all into cover. What are you doing?”

I started to run ahead. Still looking around for Model Nines, but prioritizing getting my ass out of the blast radius more.

“I’m landing Fury now. I want it safe from the blast. I’ll be in the headquarters. I’ll see what needs doing after that.”

“Right, did he tell you anything about what kind of bombardment we’ll be dealing with here? Deus Ex said orbital, but that just means the bombs are coming from on high.”

“He said rods of god and some thermobaric explosives.”

“Fuel-air?” I asked.

“You’re familiar?’ Gomorrah asked.

I could still vividly recall nearly cooking my eyebrows off a couple of days ago. “Yeah. Bombs are my thing. Shit, are they sure it won’t hit the town?”

“He mentioned skirting the edge of the town. Starting here, then working over to the actual hive to make any Antithesis move away from Black Bear. Or something like that, I’m not sure I understood entirely.”

“Skirting? Skirting is close,” I said.

“Get to cover. We’ll have to trust that our fellow samurai know what they’re doing.”

“I don’t like trusting people I don’t know,” I said. “Myalis, you got anything on this?”

I’m afraid not.

I grumbled. “Fine, I’ll get to cover with the civilians. Stay safe too, alright?”

“If you die I’ll burn the one responsible, then scatter the ashes.”

That... was morbid as hell, but also somehow really nice. “Thanks,” I said, genuinely meaning it.

I found the arena off to one side of the town. A squat building, much longer than it was wide, with a tin roof painted some ugly green, and cement sides that rose up three met er s off the ground. It looked a bit on the rustier side, and its age showed. Definitely something from the seventies.

Plenty of cars parked around the lot, a few of them pressed up against the front to serve as barriers around the entrance. An entrance that was slightly ajar with no one guarding it.

I looked around again, searching for a Model Nine, or maybe... anything that stood out as wrong. There wasn’t anything. The cars were all older, maybe second hand, lots of repairs, the air didn’t smell like gunpowder or anything like that. There was nothing wrong, yet I felt a shiver running down my spine.

I flicked on my shoulder-mounted guns, tucked Icarus away, and pulled out my trusty Trench Maker. It was down a few rounds; had to keep that in mind.

Moving forward, I paused by the door and strained my ears. Voices? No, screams, but distant, more than one person crying, one sounded like a baby. Something mechanical being racked, air conditioning units rumbling, people shouting confused orders back and forth.

“Shit,” I muttered as I stepped in. I swept my gun around, looking through the lobby as quickly as I could.

Two bodies on the floor, looking like they’d been torn into. Bite marks, mostly. Not a Model Nine then? I swallowed past the lump in my throat and moved on. Most of the noise was coming from deeper in.

I had to wonder why. The forest nearby had to have plenty of critters in it. Rabbits and birds and squirrels and... were there wolves here? Deer. Definitely deer, I was pretty sure those weren’t extinct.

Point was, there had to be plenty of things to eat. And they were supposed to be able to eat plants and trees and the like.

Why go after the people here?

I got that they’d spread around and eventually butt up against humanity, and I was fine with murdering them to the last. I just didn’t get why they acted the way they did. Coming after a town like this when there was plenty to be had around it with less risk.

Maybe I was overthinking it. Aliens had alien ways of thinking, big surprise.

I licked my lips as I pushed into the next room over. It was a small space, a corridor with windows lining one side, looking into a hockey rink. No ice. Too warm for that, and the stands looked a bit dusty. No aliens that I could see.

The corridor moved off a ways, and there were a few steps leading down at the end.

I followed the noises, moving slowly, keeping quiet.

Someone shot at something. First one shot, then two or three more.

“Shit,” I muttered before sprinting ahead.

I bounced off the wall around the corner and found myself in another passageway. Locker rooms to one side, storage on the other, and a shit barricade at the end.

Three Model Threes, running down the centre of the corridor. Another jumped out of one of the room’s to the side.

I cursed and ran forward.

The plasma rifle on my shoulder opened fire, filling the air between us with flashing darts that pelted into the alien’s backs and sides, burning pinky-wide holes into the aliens. I didn’t bother firing at them with my Trench Maker. I’d just miss.

The aliens went down, and I slid to a stop before the door they’d been coming out of.

I came face to face with a Model Three climbing in through a broken window.

It stared at me for just a moment before baring its teeth.

My railgun painted a line in the air, dust kicked aside in a tunnel that passed through the alien’s skull.

“Sound bomb,” I said.

Myalis provided a resonator dropping before me so that I could catch it out of the air. I turned it on with a flick of my thumb and stepped into the room. An office. Dust to one side, old drawers to the other, ancient cathode-ray screen rotting in the corner.

I underhanded the grenade outside and ran back into the corridor.

At least I was finally getting some action, I reasoned as I ran to the end.

Now I just had to try and keep folks alive too.

***

Chapter Sixty-Three - Rod of God

“There’s no kill like overkill!”

- - Motto of the Family’s unofficial Orbital Strike Squadron

***

I spun around the corridor and took in everything. It only took a split second to figure out what was going on.

There was a room at the far end of the corridor. Unadorned walls, thick, made of cement. The shelter. Before that were some doors, heavy metal things. Not vault doors, but the sort I’d expect to see in a well-secured warehouse or at the front of someone paranoid’s place.

They’d built a barricade in the middle of the corridor, but the people manning it weren’t there.

For good reason too.

Three Model Threes, a single Model Four.

The latter looked injured, some of its tentacles shorn off, and it looked to be bleeding.

I raised my Trench Maker up, pointing it at the back of the nearest alien, the big Model Four. My railgun shifted, and my plasma caster turned to aim farther forward.

My finger twitched over the trigger just as my railgun bucked. A spray of superheated plasma shot out ahead with a snake-like hiss.

The four aliens went down in an instant. The one hit by the rail thumping to the ground, a coin-sized hole smoking in its flank and the front of its chest bust apart, the Model Four slumped to the ground, the holes I’d poked into it with my Trench Maker the size of both my fists together, and the other two were partially aflame around the places where my plasma gun had peppered them with fire.

Targets Eliminated!

Reward... 85 Points

I stuffed my Trench Maker into its holster and let that get to work reloading it while I stepped around the bodies slumped across the corridor.

The guys running away kept running, but they were looking back, and soon their run turned from a desperate scramble to a confused jog. They stopped. “Are you a samurai?” One of them asked.

“Yup,” I said. “You guys okay?”

There were some shared looks . “We thought,” one began.

“We’re okay,” another said, louder. He moved towards me, a gun in hand, but not pointed anywhere near me, and by the looks of it, the magazine was missing from it. It was only a hunting rifle though, all wood with a scope. These guys were armed, but not with anything fancy.

I glanced around, taking in six or so more dead Antithesis. They’d been holding them off, then.

“Did you see Bill?” the one walking over asked. “And Gaétan and John?”

“Who’s Bill?” I asked.

“He-- they were guarding the front door. Please, he’s my son.”

The guy looked old enough to be a dad. Maybe in his late fifties or so. “I... fuck, there were two people by the doors, dead, sorry.”

He reeled back, confusion and anger, then hope. “Just two?”

“Fuck,” I said. “Okay, everyone, get in the bunker, keep the doors closed until I come back. I’ll knock. We need to get into cover soon, there’s going to be a blast nearby. We can worry about other shit later, alright?”

I didn’t give them much time to protest, spinning on my heel to run back down the corridor.

It was only a chance, but there might be some guy alive up there, and if he was, he’d be caught in the blast.

WARNING

Yeet-Stick Incoming!

You’ve got a minute to get under cover. The Rods of God are dropping.

-ZZ-Zeus

“What?” I asked at the prompt that appeared before me.

That was sent out to all communication devices within twenty kilomet er s of the hive’s predicted location.

I started running faster, the corridors blurring past until I was back in the lobby. Two bodies still, no other aliens. I was relying on my shoulder-mounted guns, mostly. I looked around, didn’t see anyone else, then ducked outside.

A blood trail gave it away. One I’d missed earlier, heading off to the side and into the back of one of the cars pushed up against the side of the building.

There was a dead Model Three there, slumped in the shadows next to the car.

I walked over to the vehicle and peeked inside. There was someone on the backseat. Breathing hard, a hand wrapped around their leg where an inexpert tourniquet had been tied.

He had a revolver in his other hand.

I knocked on the window, then ducked to the side when he brought the gun up.

“Hey! Hey, chill,” I said. “I’m human. You need help.” It wasn’t a question, the guy was bleeding out all over the seat. It didn’t look too bad. He might even survive all on his own with his makeshift bandage, but not if some alien showed up. I had the points to spare for some healing shit anyway.

He dropped his gun and I reached over to open the door when I noticed the shadows around me receding. The world took on a reddish tint.

I spun.

A beam of light, no, multiple beams of light were piercing through the air, connecting the sky to the ground like massive pillars. They had to be dozens of met er s wide to be seen from as far away as I was.

They cut through the clouds, leaving the overcast sky glowing red. It only took a moment for me to realize that they were moving, all the beams converging together to form bigger pillars, maybe some two dozen in all.

“Oh, shit,” I said as they finally came together.

The beams flashed, then disappeared.

I tried to turn, but the ground was no longer underfoot.

My ears went mute a moment before a sound  rocked past me. It felt like someone had dropped a fifty-five gallon drum filled with cowbells onto the back of my head.

I was still stumbling, trying to catch my balance when the wind hit.

My jacket was whipped forwards, and my vision, already confused by everything waving around, went black.

Not blindness, I realised; dust. A cloud of dust and dirt and ash so thick that it turned day to night .

I felt tiny particles pelt against my back, against my helmet and legs. None hard enough to hurt, or at least not hard enough to break through my armour.

What the hell had that been?

I rolled into a ball, the wind whipping past pushing me forwards. I think I ended up under the car with the guy in it. That didn’t provide much cover, but it was somewhere to hide.

Then the earth shook again.

Another strike? Had they launched them sequentially?

That minute was not nearly enough warning!

I was going to find that Zeus asshole and tear him a new one.

Are you well?

“Fuck!” I screamed.

I will take that as a no. Your undersuit’s integrity is still at 100%. Your vitals are fine considering the situation. You will survive, just hold tight and wait. It’s just a little orbital strike.

Myalis was being comforting and sarcastic, which actually helped a little. I didn’t believe in those breathing exercises they taught at the orphanage much, but it didn’t hurt to try one now. The rumbling continued, and my ears unmuted themselves, allowing me to take in the torrential roar of wind around me. There were other sounds mixed in. Things crumbling, a dozen car alarms going off.

I was on the edge of Black Bear nearest the blast. That meant we were just about the hardest hit. Still, I could only imagine the town being a crater after this.

The wind settled. It shifted back, rushing in the opposite direction, though with only a fraction of the force.

It’s over.

I rolled over, then started to crawl out from under the car. I wasn’t even sure how I’d fit in so easily, it was a tough squeeze to get out.

Standing up, I looked around, but couldn’t see anything, that was, until I wiped at my helmet and cleared it of the dust and dirt caked on.

The wind was settling down, and with it the crap in the air.

The clouds, I noticed, were nearly all gone. They had to be, to make way for the multiple mushrooms dominating the sky right next to me.

They were bigger than any skyscraper I’d ever seen, massive bulbous things, dark grey and growing.

“Shit,” I said.

I paused and looked around. I expected cars to be flipped and all, but it wasn’t quite that bad.

A clod of dirt the size of my fist thumped to the ground a dozen met er s away. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t far from it.

I... didn’t quite know what to do.

That man still needs assistance.

“Right,” I said. That first. Then I could check on the civilians in the shelter. After that I’d figure out my next move. I had to contact Gomorrah and maybe Cause Player.

I had the impression that whatever that had been created more work for me, not less.

***

Chapter Sixty-Four - Aftermath, but we’re Really Bad at Math

“When the first incursions occurred, humanity as a whole didn’t know how to respond to them. They were a threat unlike any other.

And so, naturally, no holds were barred when it came to unleashing humanity’s collective arsenal on the aliens.

Often, that meant that the worst of the disaster wasn’t created by the aliens, but by humanity itself.”

--Excerpt from A History of Disaster, 2047

***

“Okay, press here,” I said, gesturing at a point on the dude’s leg.

He hissed as he put pressure on his wound, but it helped, keeping one of my hands free so that I could tug his leg up and wrap the bandage around it again.

I had plenty of first aid stuff, but they were a bit pricey . Good bandages though? With some sort of magic bullshit fast-healing stuff in them? Yeah, one point for a roll that had an adhesive strip on the ends and that would contract and breathe as needed.

“There,” I said as I pressed the strip into the bandage. The edges flashed green and the entire bit of cloth tightened a little. “I’d kiss it better, but you’re not my type.”

“Thanks,” he said.

I shifted back out of the car, ignoring all the glass crunching below me as I backed out, then I gave him a hand to get out himself. He still hung onto his gun, which was great. It might come in handy.

“Let’s get you inside,” I said as I looked around. None of the cars around us had windows, and they were all turned an ugly grey-ish brown by the blast of dirt and ash.

Speaking of ash, there was a faint rain coming down from above. Too grey to be snow.

“What happened?” he asked.

"Some fuckwit didn’t learn their lesson about blast radiuses, I think ,” I said. “Just hope this shit’s not radioactive.”

It is not. The HVW that struck nearby was an iridium rod. It is non-radioactive.

“Oh, so it’s not fallout?” I asked.

It’s fallout from the explosion, but it is not radioactive fallout. No more than any amount of soil kicked up would have, at least.

“That’s good, right?” the guy asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s get you inside, you can have a sit with your family.”

The arena was fucked. The lobby was fine. A bit dusty, and some of the posters had been ripped off the walls, but nothing a janitor couldn’t fix. The rest of it though? The tin roof had been peeled back like a sardine can, exposing the hockey rink and letting in plenty of dust and crap.

Dust had made it all the way into the corridors leading to the shelter. The doors were shut when we arrived. Couldn’t blame them, I’d have closed them on sensing the blast too.

I had to knock hard to get people to respond. Then I was practically shoved aside as the man that had asked me about his son grabbed the guy next to me and hugged him.

A nice, tearful reunion. Still, two others wouldn’t be getting theirs.

I hesitated for a bit.

Should we move these people back to the headquarters, or leave them here? A quick look in the shelter revealed a low-ceilinged room, with hefty cement pillars here and there, and little rooms on all sides with cots. Maybe some thirty or forty people inside, most of them adults, but a few kids.

“Hey,” I said to one of them standing by the door . He had an old hunting rifle by his side and looked ready to use it. “I’m stepping out. Just outside. Close up, alright? I want to see what’s going on.”

I waved them off and headed back upstairs. I wasn’t as concerned about aliens as I had been. That blast should have done a number to anything outside, aliens included.

“Myalis, can you connect me to Gomorrah, please?”

Certainly.

I closed my eyes for a moment and just breathed. The line beeped and I heard Gomorrah talking to someone. “...Do what you can. Empty the infirmary. There should be more help coming soon. Give me a moment, I’ve got a call. Cat?”

“Hey,” I said. “Did you feel that?”

“If by ‘that’ you mean the dozen orbital strikes less than ten kilometres away, then yes, we all felt it.” She was a bit terse. Maybe I could cut back on the snark? A little bit?

“Everyone alright?” I asked. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Everyone else... well , there aren’t any dead. Biggest injury is a broken leg. One of the police officers climbed up the wall to see the light show. He was thrown off. We have a lot of smaller injuries. The entire side of this building facing the blast had windows. There’s just... blood all over. We’re trying to set things up. Get glass out of cuts and bandage them up.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. I hadn’t considered that. “I heard you saying something about help. That’s not me, right?”

“No. Army is coming in from New Montreal. They should be half an hour out. The army-army, not some PMC,” Gomorrah said. She sighed. “I can’t wait, this entire thing has turned into a mess.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to stay here for a bit. There’s a shelter with a bunch of civilians in it. Once you get in touch with the army, can you have them send a few soldiers this way? We can escort them to the headquarters.”

“You don’t want to do that yourself?”

I shook my head. “Not in this mess.”

The streets were covered in debris and a few trees had fallen. The power lines had snapped in a few spots too.

“Do you still have power?” I asked.

“Generator,” Gomorrah said. “They have a smaller one here, enough for the lights. We’re using the steps instead of the elevators too. Apparently there are bigger generators over by the mines.”

“We’ll see if we can’t get the army to move them over,” I said.

“That’s an idea.” Gomorrah paused. “I’m getting a request for a call with someone, I’m patching you in.”

I didn’t have time to protest that my augs shifted and suddenly I was looking at the face of a smiling man in a business suit. “Hello Gomorrah... and Stray Cat? Pleased to meet you. How are things on the ground?”

“Gomorrah, who’s this fucko?” I asked, politely.

Gomorrah snorted and the guy’s face went through a few emotions. “This is the one in charge of the orbital weapons. No, he’s not a Vanguard.”

“I’m Lorenz,” Lorenz said.

“That’s nice. Why the fuck did you hit so close to the town?”

“Uh, that’s where the hive is?” he said. “I actually stopped firing early. We were supposed to hit twelve times, then six more times in the centre, right over the main body of the hive, but there’s some tectonic instability in the region from the first hits. We’ll need to wait for that to clear out first.”

“Another wave of hits?” I asked. “The place is barely keeping together as it is.”

Lorenz seemed to disagree. “We need to eradicate as much of the hive as we can now, before we send you in to weed out the rest.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

“The Black Bear Mining Corporation has been using new technology to find mineral deposits,” he said. “Instead of strip mining, they’ve been using tunnels to reach those deposits directly.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Lorenz, what the fuck are you on about?”

“I’ll admit, I’m curious too. This seems like an unnecessary tangent. We’re trying to save lives here, we don’t care about mining.”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that we think the local Antithesis hive has relocated into the mining shafts around Black Bear. Some of the scans of the mines we have don’t match up to the official records the company keeps. For that matter, they’ve been extracting more ore than they should have.”

“So the aliens are underground,” I said. “That is, if you didn’t collapse them in.”

“The shafts should still be there. The next wave of HVWs should be stronger, with bunker-buster munitions. It will be a bit harder than the last blast.”

“HVW?”

Gomorrah was the one to reply. “High Velocity Weapon. The kinetic strike rods they just used.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you want us to go skipping around in some mineshaft, to kill some aliens, while folk around here are screwed over by your inability to aim?”

Lorenz looked a bit pale. “Yes? ... Ma’am?”

“Lorenz, where are you right now?” I asked.

“I’m not supposed to disclose that?”

His IP traces back to a Family-owned complex in Wyoming.

“Wyoming, huh? Lorenz, I’ve decided that I don’t like you. So if you want me to do anything that isn’t driving over to... wherever the fuck Wyoming is, then you’d better become real convincing real fast. I’m not in a good mood.”

***

Chapter Sixty-Five - Politics According to Cat

“In 2022 a bill was brought up for consideration by members of the then-Republican and Democratic parties, in a bipartisan gesture. The bill would, in essence, restrict the ability of a samurai to participate in the open market. They would not be allowed to purchase or own stocks or shares in a company, they would not be allowed to own or operate their own business, and in theory, would need to be affiliated with a company in good-standing in order to file their taxes.

In 2023 a samurai named Blitzo accidentally detonated a chemical laser weapon above Washington, D.C. The beams projected by this device, all of them with temperatures of several thousands of degrees, and no wider than a hair, were fired across the city at entirely random angles.

Of the seventy-two casualties from this accident, seventy-two were politicians or lobbyists.

By sheer, scientifically-proven coincidence, these were all lobbyists and politicians in favour of the bill.

The bill did not pass.

Blitzo was charged, tried and acquitted of all charges. His defence, that the bomb was set off accidentally by a faulty fuse, and that the lasers could have gone in literally any direction, was impossible to disprove, regardless of how unlikely the results happened to be.

Judge Van Maners, who presided over Blitzo’s trial, was quoted as saying, ‘Fuck all of that.’”

--Excerpt from Samurai and Politics, a Simple Guide, 2039

***

“Ah,” Lorenz began with all the grace of a new manager meeting his first Karen. “We... you see... um.”

“Um?” I repeated.

“Cat,” Gomorrah said. There was a bit of a warning tone to it. “I think what Lorenz was trying to say there was that he’s very, very sorry that he almost blew you up, and that he will make sure that the Family takes full responsibility for the damages caused here.”

“I don’t know if I can... I mean, yes. Yes, that’s what I meant,” Lorenz said in a hurry.

I snorted, but... yeah, I was basically bullying the idiot at this point. An idiot with an orbital gun, but an idiot still. “How many people are working with you, Lorenz?”

“We’re a team of forty,” he said. “For the NA-near-orbit zone.”

So, he wasn’t some guy in a basement pressing on big red buttons for fun. The background in his image kind of hinted at him being somewhere important. Lots of books and little photos on a shelf behind him, as well as awards and some knick-knacks. Office shit, basically.

“And who’s... Zeus?”

“That’s the samurai that set up the orbital drop system,” Lorenz said. “He’s a member of the Family.”

“Right,” I said. So Zeus wasn’t the one pulling the trigger? “Tell him that he needs to give his toys to more responsible people.”

“I... will pass that along?”

I wanted to rub at my forehead. Instead, I settled for starting to walk in circles around the arena parking lot. “How long until the army comes in?”

“They’re waiting for the debris to clear. They should be there in under half an hour. Though, I’m not the one in charge of that side of things.”

“Then who is?” Gomorrah asked.

Lorenz swallowed. “That would be the NA Coordination group?”

“How big is the Family?” I asked.

Lorenz blinked. “It’s the biggest samurai-affiliated and run organization in North America?”

So a corp, but one run by samurai? “Damnit,” I muttered.

“They’re not that bad,” Gomorrah said, likely reading my mind. “Lorenz, you’ve done an awful job of... a lot of things. Maybe you can redeem yourself by telling us about the mines?”

“Yes, yes, I can do that. I’m sending you the geological readings. The map might not be entirely accurate, but it should be close. It’s based on the tremors caused by our orbital impacts. Each impact is offset by a few seconds, and based on the vibrations across the region, we can extrapolate... ah, nevermind. We have maps.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And the Antithesis are in those caves?”

“Mineshafts,” Lorenz corrected. “And it’s very likely. The hive was difficult to see from orbit. Stealth hives tend to create a lot of ‘chaff’ that spreads quickly and makes scans difficult to run. It’s also very easy to overlook the sort of static they create.”

“Not here for a lesson,” I said.

“Right, right. Um, yes. The hive was originally concentrated over a random part of the forest, but it then started spreading. That spread’s speed slowed down considerably just as the hive reached a position above one shaft that happened to be relatively close to the surface.”

I stopped pacing. “They slowed down because... well, they weren’t slowing down, they were just growing down instead of out?”

“That’s what we suspect, yes.”

I chewed on my lips.

“It’s a very small hive. The Family will be sending some of its best samurai to eradicate it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked.

“In the early morning,” Lorenz confirmed.

“The incursion here was only two days old and it was already threatening Black Bear. Give it a dozen hours and it might be able to start producing more models that will be a threat,” Gomorrah said. “I don’t doubt the family can get on top of it, but why not act sooner?”

“That’s what the second set of impacts are for. To weaken the Antithesis’ position.”

“And wreck the town even more,” I said.

So, we had a choice. Let the Family basically nuke the place, then come in tomorrow to mop up. That option would mess the town up even more. Probably not too bad, actually. Anyone that was hurt was probably in cover already, and we have more time to warn people. The army would be here too.

That reminded me, I had to call Cause Player, see if he was still alive.

The second option was doing shit ourselves. Risky. And dumb.

But the points...

“What are you thinking?” Gomorrah asked.

“I wonder if I’m claustrophobic or not,” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve been in a few tight, warm places before,” I said. “Lucy and I both found that very enjoyable. But this is different.”

Gomorrah made a disgusted noise. “Do you really have to turn everything into a sex joke?”

“Yes?”

“Right, well I’m in favour of clearing it out ourselves,” Gomorrah said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Tight quarters, small sight-lines, flammable enemies. This is literally the perfect situation for my loadout,” Gomorrah said. “Might not get another like this for a while. I could use the points.”

I felt my good eyebrow raise. “Going to get a second car?”

“I’m a one-car kind of woman,” Gomorrah said. “As God intended. No, I want some more defences around the church. I had some people snooping around already. I’m not fond of that.”

“You could buy one of the floors below my new place. Turn it into a... church thing, or whatever. Hell, you can slap a steeple on the roof. Lucy would hate it at first, but I think its phallic nature would win her over eventually. Plus she’d get to see nuns. And tease them.”

“You have such a one-track mind,” Gomorrah complained.

“Sorry, when I get fidgety,” I explained. “Anyway, where you go I go, I guess.”

Lorenz sighed. “That’s great to hear.”

I’d honestly forgotten he was even there.

“We’re waiting until the army shows up,” I said. “Not going to leave all these people out here without anyone to defend them.”

“There’s a whole battalion coming in,” Gomorrah said. “Sounds like they’re taking this seriously.”

No PMCs, weird. My interactions with the government so far had been... sparse and traumatic. I hoped that the government’s army wouldn’t be similar. “Good, I guess. Once they get here, I’ll head over to you. We can figure things out from there.”

“Thank you, both of you. The Family will certainly appreciate your assistance in this matter,” Lorenz said.

“Kissing my ass won’t un-blow-up  me,” I said.

Gomorrah actually giggled for a half-second before cutting off with a cough. “Yes, well, see you soon.”

“See you soon,” I said. “And Lorenz, do call a girl before exploding her or things in her vicinity. It’s just polite.”

“R-right,” Lorenz mumbled.

The line went dead and I let out a long breath before stretching my back.

An interesting conversation, and a great opportunity.

“To die in a hole, you mean.”

I would encourage you to save some points to use in case of that sort of emergency. Or, alternatively, spend them on something that would save you in case of a cave in.

“Like what, a teleportation machine?” I asked.

Yes. There are many ways of moving things from one point to another without crossing the space between the two points.

I blinked. “You can teleport stuff?”

The silence was very, very long.

Catherine... how do you explain the items you purchase arriving before you?

“Oh, right. Obviously.”

I spent the long minutes waiting for the army to arrive feeling particularly stupid.

***

Chapter Sixty-Six - Tanks and Soldiers and Guns, Oh My!

“Most modern militaries in the early 2000s were designed to counter other modern militaries and minor uprisings.

The Antithesis changed that. Now most forces split their attention between crowd suppression, their traditional anti-military role, and incursion suppression.”

--Introduction to the ‘ Three Way Problem ’ by Professor Ivence, 2054

***

I don’t know why, but when I imagined the army showing up, I was expecting a couple of troop transports. Maybe a few armoured cars.

I wasn’t expecting tanks.

My knowledge about tanks wasn’t exactly great. I’d seen them in movies and games, and maybe in a history documentary or two. I knew they were big armoured things. For some reason, it never registered that they’d be fucking enourmous.

The tank that rolled onto the road with the arena was nearly wide enough to take up the entire street. It had smaller gun emplacements all around it, turrets with armoured screens under them, and a main gun sitting on the back with a barrel I could have stuck my head in.

Wheels instead of tracks, though. Big ones, with hexagonal-patterned tires, four to a side.

The tank turned my way, casually rolled over the hood of some poor civilian’s little sedan, then made a tight turn a couple of metres ahead of me and stopped with a hiss.

I stared up as a hatch hummed open. The inch-thick doorway was shoved up by a little hydraulic arm, just enough that a guy was able to poke his head out. “Are you Stray Cat, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yup,” I said. “Nice ride.”

The soldier grinned. “Thank you, ma’am! We’re the only super-heavy here. Thought it would be best to have us break the tide, as it were.”

“Super heavy?” I asked.

He reached an arm out and gave the vehicle an affectionate thump. “One hundred and fifty tonnes of alien killing beauty.”

“Nice,” I said. I think I saw the appeal. I wasn’t a gun nut, but that cannon on the top. Well, bitches did love cannons. “You guys going to stick around here?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

I heard something off to the side, and leaned back to see a few more vehicles coming over. Tanks, but these were no bigger than an SUV. Fewer wheels, and the asymmetrically-set gun wasn’t as panty-wettingly big.

“Cool. You’re really freeing me up here,” I said. “There are some civilians holed up in the arena. Saw some Model Threes and Fours around earlier. And watch out for Model Nines. They’re nasty fuckers.”

The tanker saluted. “Will do, ma’am. Do you need a ride anywhere? We have infantry being dropped off here.”

I shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

I wouldn’t mind riding on a tank.

As it turned out, what he meant was that when a troop transport came around--just a sort of enclosed truck, lightly armoured and unarmed--to drop off a couple of squads of infantry, it waited around for me to hop on.

I didn’t complain. It saved me some walking, but I did kind of want to ride in one of the tanks. Lucy would trip.

I stayed standing in the cramped rear of the transport, eyes on the road passing by behind us. The town had taken a serious blow already, but a lot of it seemed somewhat superficial. Some clean-up, a bit of cash spent repainting homes, fixing yards and replacing all the glass, and Black Bear would be right as rain. More or less.

The transport rolled to a stop before the headquarters, and I leapt out of the back.

There were a lot more soldiers around than I’d expected. They seemed to be using the front of the headquarters as a staging ground, tents going up and blocky mobile homes with com-arrays on their roofs parking in neat rows.

I saw some of the local police around, mostly hanging out close to the main building itself. Either they didn’t want the army going in, or they were just focusing on keeping the civilians safe while the soldiers took the brunt of any potential attack.

The army certainly had the better equipment. More of those light tanks were parked here and there, sandbags already going up around them, and others were setting up AA-guns on mounts on the lawns of the buildings across the street.

I found Gomorrah sitting on Fury’s hood, one leg kicking back and forth while she stared off into the sky.

“You look chill,” I said as I moved over.

The nun looked down, her impassive mask staring back at me. “I was. Just relaxing a little before we get back to work.”

“We’re taking the Fury?”

“We’re not walking.”

Fair enough. “Right. Before we go. Did you find a place to land us?”

“I figured I’d find the biggest hole and slip into that,” she said. We were both quiet for a while, then she sighed. “Don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I lied.

“Did you have a better idea?”

“If I say anything related to lube, you’ll be pissed, right?”

She nodded.

“Right, right. So, I was  actually thinking. The mine has to have an exit. Or at least, an entrance. The orbital strikes might have poked a few holes in the surface, but the company had to get in somehow.”

“You’re thinking of hitting the hive from that direction?” Gomorrah asked.

“It’s an idea,” I said. “If we drop into the middle of the hive, between... whatever dead end is in that, and the exit, half of them will be able to run away.”

She shifted. “Unless we come in by the main entrance and then half of them leave from that new hole. Did you want to split up?”

“No. Let’s stick together. And that hole is monitored. Any aliens coming out of there will be tracked. At least, I hope.”

“And not those from the main entrance?” Gomorrah asked.

I shrugged, then made a crumbly gesture with both hands. “We could collapse it?”

“That... makes some sense. A few rockets by the entrance might do it.”

“I’ve got a lot of options when it comes to bombs. Like, an unhealthy amount. I’m sure there’s something I can buy for a few points that’ll do the trick.

I stretched, then gestured to the Fury. “Let’s go?” I tossed my crap in the back. “Oh, and we need to call Cause Player.”

“ You  need to call him. I’ve been talking to everyone today. And don’t forget your cats.”

I had forgotten about those. With what looked like a few hundred soldiers around, they were probably not as useful to have around. “Myalis, can you recall those? Would they fit in the trunk?”

“The trunk’s not too big,” Gomorrah said. “But you can try.”

My mecha cats trotted over, some of them surprising the soldiers as they sauntered by. As it turned out, you could fit them in the trunk, but it was a near-thing. They had to fold themselves up all neat and tight, and I had to shove them in a bit.

I slumped onto the passenger-side seat and started looking through my contacts while Gomorrah gently took off and started to hover over Black Bear.

My augs rang, and soon enough, Cause Player picked up. “Hello?” he asked.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re alive?”

“Yeah. That blast nearly knocked me off my feet. Nearly destroyed my camera too, but I still got a good angle on everything. It’ll make for a great VOD.”

“Uh, yeah. That sounds cool. No injuries?”

“I have good armour,” he said. “Are you okay?”

I allowed myself to grimace. No one could see it. “I’m fine. The hive’s not entirely gone. It’s currently settled into this mineshaft. Gomorrah and I are heading over there now.”

“Can I come? Tight quarters like that make for a great show.”

I considered it for a bit. “Sure. We’ll take the side leading deeper into the hive, you take the other side.”

“That’s fewer aliens for me,” he said.

“There are two of us,” I said. “ If the tunnels split again, we’ll be able to handle it better. Plus we have mechas with us. I’m a stealth and bomb specialist, Gomorrah has all the flame-throwers.”

“I guess. At least I’ll be around if you two need help, or vice versa. Let me put my stream on pause.”

“You don’t want them seeing us?” I asked.

“Do you want to be seen?” he asked.

“One sec,” I said. “Gomorrah, two things. Cause Player wants to come with. We’ll be splitting up at each entrance. I think we could drop him off at the main entrance and take the other ourselves. And do you mind being on-camera? This dude’s got like, a Twinge livestream going on.”

“I don’t mind people seeing me, or Fury, for that matter.”

“Neat,” I said. I opened a text box and started to send a text to Lucy. She’d want to follow Cause Player’s stream, knowing her. “Cause Player? We’re good. We’ll swing around to pick you up in a couple of seconds, er-- as soon as we know where you are.”

“Cool. Do you have a map of the hive?”

“Ah... yeah, but it’s shit. Let me get one from the mining corp, they must have a map of their own damned mine.”

We really weren’t going into this as prepared as we should have been.

But I figured we’d be fine. Overwhelming firepower corrected a lot of wrongs.

***

Chapter Sixty-Seven - Exploring New Holes with Your Favorite Nun

“Okay, so you know how slave labour is all sorts of illegal, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Right, so get this. Someone volunteering... isn’t. An employee giving you time willingly, without asking for pay? Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Who’s going to work for free?”

“No, no, see, that’s the best part. You take note of who did volunteer work, make it public, and when promotions roll around, you tell those who volunteered a lot and who happen to get promoted that it’s partially because they volunteered.”

“So to get promoted you need to volunteer?”

“What? No, that’ll just get idiots with too much time up the ladder. Nah, but when someone who did volunteer gets promoted, you make a big show of it. I’m telling you, about one fifth of our employee work hours last year were entirely volunteer work. You can even use it as a tax write-off!”

--Overheard conversation at the AE New Montreal Head Office

***

Cause Player didn’t complain about how cramped the rear seats of the Fury  were. That was great.

He did complain about just about everything else though. “Slow down!“

“I’m hardly going fast,” Gomorrah said.

“It’s relative!” he said as trees whipped by on either side.

“We’re barely going one hundred,” Gomorrah complained.

“That’s really fast when you’re only feet off the ground!”

I snorted. “Who uses feet? For measuring shit, I mean.”

“I’d use liters for that,” Gomorrah whispered.

It took me a second, but when I caught on I cackled.

“The road! The road!” Cause Player shouted.

Gomorrah looked ahead, twitched us out of the path of a tree, then turned to stare at Cause Player. “I didn’t learn to drive yesterday, you know?”

“Wait, I vaguely recall you telling me you didn’t know how to drive?”

“That was three days ago.”

I looked out ahead, at all the trees whipping by. “Um, now I’m a little concerned too,” I admitted.

Cause Player said something that was probably rude, but Gomorrah chose that moment to yank us up, spin Fury  around, then come to a very quick hover on a flat patch of ground.

The forest was cleared for a ways, leaving plenty of room for the huge machines that were parked around the mine entrance, which was wider than most of the houses in Black Bear and twice as tall.

The Fury  slid to a stop and hovered a metre off the ground, front facing the mine entrance. The entrance, and about a dozen Antithesis.

“Huh,” Gomorrah said.

She flicked something, and a large gun unfolded from the car’s hood.

The Fury ’s soundproofing proved its worth. I didn’t even hear the machine gun going off. Soon, the few Model Threes and Fours lingering around were turned into so much pulp that they were hard to tell apart from a pile of roadside slush.

“This is your stop,” Gomorrah said. “We even cleared the landing zone.”

“Thank you,” Cause Player said. “I think... I’ll figure out how to get back on my own.”

“Suit yourself.”

I leaned to the side to see him open the backdoor. He looked stange, all tucked in with his heavy armour, knees almost at his chest. It was good that his guns were the teleport-y sort. “Stay warm,” I said. “And if shit goes crooked, give us a call.”

“I will,” he said. “You do the same.” With that, he squeezed out of the car and crashed into the ground, boot-first. Heavy metal started to fill the air as he strode forwards, and a large gun materialized into his arms.

“Really want one of those,” I said.

“The music?” Gomottah asked as the door closed.

“The magic gun thing,” I said.

She nodded. “It’s neat.”

Gomorrah drove forwards, then angled us up and over the rocky hillside into which the mines dove.

I have the survey information from the headquarters. It seems as if they sent information that doesn’t entirely match the seismographic information obtained from the orbital strike. Either the company is lying, their information is out of date, or they are incompetent. I suspect it’s a little bit of all three.

“Did you check around for any signs that they’re lying on purpose?” I asked.

None that I could see, but there are some employees who have a history of bending the truth to better pad out the bottom line.

Well, that wasn’t unexpected. “Whatever. We’ll figure it out once we’re down there. If the place is active, we’ll want to deploy quickly.”

“Rockets in the entrance?”

“Might make the place cave in on us,” I said.

“That’s fair. Do you have anything to prevent a cave-in from killing you?” Gomorrah asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “Well, bombs.”

The nun sighed. “Bombs don’t... well, I suppose technically.”

I kinda wished she could see my grin. “Explosives fix most problems, when you’re creative enough with their use,” I said.

“Right, I’ve got a thing. I’ll buy you one once we’ve landed.”

“Really?”

“A hundred points to keep you alive is hardly much of a sacrifice.”

I... felt a bit touched. “Thanks,” I said, meaning it.

Gomorrah didn’t comment, instead she wheeled us around a patch of what had been a forest. I hadn’t been paying too much attention, but now that we were over the area closer to where the Rods of God had impacted, it became pretty obvious something big had hit.

Nearly every tree around was knocked flat on its side, like tens of thousands of narrow dominos.

The hole we were looking for wasn’t that hard to spot. A crack running across the edge of a hill, maybe fifty metres long and way, way deeper.

“Not finding much space to land on,” Gomorrah said. “Maybe there?” She pointed to a spot some dozen metres from the crack, with a few rocks that looked kind of stable.

“Hover over?” I asked.

“Yeah, but we need to unload some stuff. I think that grapple  system of yours is still in the back. I’m... very much not surprised that you leave stuff around in other people’s cars.”

“Oops,” I deadpanned.

Gomorrah brought us down and set the Fury  to hover. Stepping out was a bit tricky, with the ground being so uneven, but we managed.

I stared into the crevice, the whole thing feeling a lot larger, and a lot darker now that we stood right on the edge of it. “Alright, let’s unload the mecha cats. Should we leave one with the Fury? ”

“To guard it? No, I’ll remote it up a few hundred metres. It’ll target any flying Antithesis around, and it can serve as a beacon for us. There’s not much normal reception around here.”

I glanced to the skies. Dark. Dark and brownish. There were some fires here and there too, little white plumes reaching out to the clouds.

“Cat?”

I snapped out of it and rushed to the back of the Fury to help unload the mecha cats stored within. “Going to be tricky to get these three to the bottom,” I said.

“They’re not so heavy,” Gomorrah said. “Who’s going down first? Oh, and let me get you that thing.”

“Ah yes, the thing,” I said.

As it turned out, the thing was a small pack with clamps. It was mildly complicated to put on, and had a bunch of boxes around it. Gomorrah explained that they would deploy a sort of airbag around me if shit went horribly wrong. It was more than just an airbag, but I got the gist of it.

“Myalis, can I spare enough points for, like, a stealth poncho? With a hood?” I asked.

A stealth poncho?

“Like, a thing that’ll cover me more than just my jacket. I have my legs and head still visible.”

I think I understand what you’re looking for. Perhaps a cloak?

“A cloak of invisibility? That sounds kind of awesome. Always wanted one of those.”

“For peeping  in bathrooms?” Gomorrah asked as she helped me grab the last mecha cat.

“Showers, actually,” I said.

You only want something simple?

“It’s all I can afford,” I said.

“You know it’s still weird to only hear one side of that conversation,” Gomorrah said.

I shrugged.

New Purchase: Cloak of Inpurrceptability

Points Reduced to... 35

I picked up the box the cloak came in and opened it to find a long cape-like thing, with a deep hood that of course had cat ears sewn on. Kinda cute though. I slid it on over everything else I had. Fortunately it was pretty light, because I was covered in a whole load of gear already.

“Do you think we should get like, exoskeleton suits, or power armour?” I asked.

“Isn’t that the end-goal?” Gomorrah asked. “Honestly, I think it depends on what you’re going for.”

Gomorrah and I set up my old grapple system, the drill-heads digging into some of the larger stones as if they were so much butter. And then it was time to head down into the pit. “I’ll go first,” I said.

“Not even a debate?”

I grinned, then walked off the edge. “Nope!”

***

Chapter Sixty-Eight - Darkness

“Samurai Hunters Twelve!

Build your own samurai team and hunt Antithesis in the best MOBA of the decade!

Now with 178 new DLC characters!”

--Nimbletainment ad, 2039

***

The darkness was... strange.

No, alright, it was normal darkness . Just a lack of light from above. The thing is, I could still ‘see’ perfectly well. My cybernetic cat eye was pretty good about low-light, and it was messing with my head that my meat eye wasn’t.

Strangely enough, the ears helped me see more.

I hadn’t noticed how accustomed I’d gotten to my new ears, I guess. They were supposed to have some sort of sonar to them, and I had noticed that I could see a sort of mental image of things that were around a corner, but it was all very subtle. A sort of impression that faded into the background when I wasn’t paying attention. Something about the system had to be there to prevent it all from disorientating me.

Now, in the deepening darkness of the mines, that system came into play again. Or it would be more accurate to say that I noticed it more. I couldn’t see into the deeper darkness, but I could sense what was there anyway.

Freaky.

Kinda cool though.

My grapple system lowered me down metre by metre until finally my foot touched the ground. I’d left Whisper in the Fury ,  figuring that a long-ranged, low-rate-of-fire weapon like that wouldn’t be of much use in a mine. Looking around, I had the impression it was the right choice.

The moment I touched down, I deposited the two Mecha cats I was holding. The suckers were pretty heavy, but at least they had little handles on them. The mecha deployed while I looked around.

There were big chunks of rock and stone all over, fallen pieces from whatever had caused the hole above, I figured, but the walls themselves were smooth, as if someone had polished them.

I unclipped myself from the grapple’s harness, then used an aug-command to send the whole thing wheeling back up.

Reaching into my coat, I pulled out my Trench Maker, then tugged up the hood on my cloak. The cat-ears on my helmet actually served to keep the cloak in place, which was handy.

Then with a flick of a switch, I turned on the cloak and faded away. My coat’s invisibility came on too, and with the two combined, I figured I was nearly entirely covered. My head from any direction but straight ahead, my legs from the same. Only the bottom of my boots and maybe my hands and guns when I stuck them out would be visible. That was pretty decent, I figured.

“Myalis,” I muttered. “Remind me to get a stealthy gun.”

Gladly.

My Trench Maker was fun, but it was the loud kind of fun. “I’ll need some silent grenades too.”

I see  three options  there. Either chemical grenades, that spread toxins or solutions to break apart Antithesis, or Flesh Melters. The nanites are silent. Both options are fairly slow-acting.

“And the third option?” I asked.

Black hole bombs, by dint of being what they are, do not let any sound escape.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s something.” I didn’t have the points for any gear like that just then, which was really starting to get annoying. I liked being able to buy my way out of trouble. “Let’s wait for Gomorrah to arrive, then we can look into farming for points.”

Wonderful!

Gomorrah’s timing was on-point. I heard the faint whine of the grapple system from above, and my favourite nun came sliding down like a spider on the end of a thread. She touched down and swung her flame-thrower around in an arc, the gun tucked under her armpit. Her other hand held onto the handle on the back of one of my mecha cats. “Cat?”

“Hey,” I said while bringing a hand out from under my cloak to wave.

“Didn’t see you there,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t see much. Are we safe?”

“Safe-ish?” I tried. I couldn’t see any Antithesis, but I hadn’t been looking all that hard. The ground was a dusty mess, and thanks to that, it wasn’t hard to see the trails left behind. Paw-prints, or the nearest thing to paws that the aliens had, other spots where things had dragged across the ground.

Gomorrah removed her mask, then pulled something out from within it. The insides? A box materialized by her feet, and she knelt down, opened it, and replaced the insides of her mask with a new insert.

“What’s that?” I asked

“Night vision,” she said. “Or dark vision? I’m not entirely sure of the mechanics. It lets me see in low-light. And I won’t be blinded by sudden changes in brightness.”

“Neat,” I said. “Why not just get a whole new mask?”

“I have modular gear,” she said. “Most of it’s covered by my habit.”

Interesting. It only made sense that she’d have her own way of doing things. Probably less wasteful than my own, actually.

“That way, I think,” she said, pointing off to one side.

“I’ll go ahead,” I said. “We need some way for you to know where I am.”

“My friendly fire does tend to be a bit literal,” she said.

With your permission, I can send microsecond updates on your relative location to Gomorrah, and with the assistance of Atyacus she will know where you are at all times.

“Sounds fair,” I muttered. “Gomorrah, Myalis is sending Atyacus my location information. No need to try and get me hot and bothered.”

“Adorable,” she said. “I’ll send you the same, I guess.”

It took a bit of fiddling, but soon Gomorrah had an outline around her whenever I looked her way, one that moved whenever she did. It was kind of neat. “Ready?” I asked. The same aura appeared around my three cats too. They weren’t stealth models, but they were pretty quiet already.

“Lead away.”

I stepped out ahead, Trench Maker low to my side and attention out ahead. The mines got a bit cleaner as I moved past the spot with the opening above. Somehow, I didn’t expect to feel the weight of all that rock above me pressing down. Not literally, just a sort of... awareness that there was a lot of shit above me, and it might not stay there.

Kneeling down a little ways into the tunnel, I brushed my meat fingers over the floor. “How is it so smooth?” I asked. It wasn’t smooth-smooth, but it wasn’t as rocky and pebbly as I would have thought a mine would be.

From the company records, it seems as though they adopted some Vanguard-level technology to mine. Mostly to discover mineral deposits, but they also use a plasma-jet system to burn into the earth.

“Hmm,” I said. Some sort of melting effect would explain the smoothness. It reminded me a  bit of melted plastic, like leaving a bottle on a heating vent for too long.

The company is supposed to back-fill some mines once they are done extracting from them, but in most cases they mark the shafts as filled without doing so, or fill them with what seems to be industrial waste.

“How surprising,” I said, my tone about as flat as the floor.

The mine bent a little, and it was as I moved forward around that bend that I noticed the first Antithesis to greet me.

A Model Four, one that seemed to be injured.

I raised my Trench Maker, then hesitated. Loud. It would attract all the rest, which was both good and not.

Then more aliens joined my new pal, some Model Threes that seemed a bit smaller than I was used to, and with a strange shuffling, a large worm appeared. A Model Eight. I hadn’t seen one of those in a while.

The Model Threes surrounded the Model Four, then on some unseen signal, they tore into it, chopping the Model Four apart and tearing limbs off before tossing them to the worm.

You missed out on some points there.

“What the hell?”

Antithesis have no sense of individuality. No more than a leaf on a tree can think for itself. This is the hive pruning itself for more resources. A good sign.

I tucked my Trench Maker away, then pulled up my Icarus. I had some options for the kind of explosive I wanted to thump ahead from the launcher, but really, there was an HE option and I was a high explosives  kind of person.

Lining up the shot took a second, then I pulled the trigger and felt the launcher kick back with a satisfying ‘fwump’.

The HE round landed right in the middle of the pack and I flinched back as an explosion rocked past me.

I hadn’t considered what being in a tunnel would do with an explosion like that.

At least it was significantly worse for the aliens.

Targets Eliminated!

Reward: 60 points

New Total: 95 points

I grinned. The worm alien was missing its front half, and the Model Threes were scattered across a few dozen metres, the bits of them that were still recognizable.

I was going to pat myself on the back for a job well done when I heard some motion coming from deeper in the mine. A lot of motion.

“How many aliens are we dealing with?” I asked.

Likely several hundred to the low thousands, depending on how entrenched the hive is. As long as it has biomass, that number is likely to redouble every twenty-four hours.

“Ah... shit.”

***

Chapter Sixty-Nine - Nice

“You don’t want to see us letting loose, uwu.

We stop the buck!”

“You don’t want that to happen to you, desu!

We’ll fuck you up!”

--Hyper Cutie Zoom Ranger Sparkle Girl Bubble-chan! And Neon Girl Happy-Chan! In a 2040 joint interview.

***

“This was a mistake!” I shouted as I ran.

Behind me, aliens were pouring out of a crack in the wall. Smaller ones, because that’s all that could fit, but enough of them to give me pause. Little Model Ones, all sleek and bat-like and hard to spot in the cavern, even with my ears, and Model Threes that looked slimmer than usual. Plenty of others too, but I wasn’t going to sit down and observe them all when the entire hive looked like it was out for blood.

Charging down the bend in the corridor, I slid to a stop the moment I saw Gomorrah’s outline ahead of me, then I turned around and raised my Icarus.

The grenade launcher had an eighteen round magazine. I’d fired  one already.

The nex t five th umped out and arced over to the bend just as the horde started coming around.

With a quick flick of my eye, I switched over from HE to fragmentation, then launched the next two rounds  before I continued to run towards Gomorrah. “Turn off notifications for a bit,” I said. “And I’ll need ammo soon!” My counter was down to ten rounds already.

“What?” Gomorrah asked.

“Pissed off aliens,” I said.

My mecha cats, all three of them currently surrounding Gomorrah, tensed, guns unfolding from their back and eyes glowing red as they focused on the end of the tunnel.

“Does your helmet filter the air?” Gomorrah asked.

“What? Uh, I think?”

It does.

“Good.”

Aliens started pouring out from the end of the mineshaft, and despite that, Gomorrah didn’t slow down her slow, steady walk.

I jogged up and kept pace beside her, my shoulder-mounted guns deploying even as more aliens started running our way.

I fired up and over the front lines of the aliens, each blast going off behind them taking out three or four of them.

Then the mecha cats opened fire. They seemed to mostly focus on the Model Ones above, their backs arching like a pissed off cat’s as the air filled with zipping tracers that skewered fliers across the breadth of the tunnel.

I clicked on empty with my Icarus and fell to one knee. “Reloading,” I said. My railgun fired, punching a thin hole all the way through the horde, then my plasma caster started to spit fire into the approaching aliens. They were getting closer than I’d like.

“I got this,” Gomorrah replied.

I pressed the tab on my launcher’s side to eject the magazine within, then caught a fresh one out of the air as it materialized next to me and slid it in under my gun. There was a bit of fumbling there, even with the correct buttons glowing a bit to help, but I figured I’d get used to it.

Then Gomorrah started speaking in Latin and she levelled her flamethrower ahead of her.

I hissed as a white beam shot out of the end of her oversized gun. The heat was palpable, like standing right up against the door to an oven. The white beam broke up a few metres away, splitting apart and spreading liquid fire onto anything it touched.

The aliens melted.

It was weird to see. Almost disturbing. So much flesh bubbling and going liquid a moment before sloughing off of bones. Eyes popped and lungs emptied with little squeaks. Not all of them died right away. Some fell to the side, still on fire, wriggling and fighting to move even as their fur and skin burned.

Gomorrah waved the flamethrower left and right, spreading the fire around in a curtain ahead of us.

For some reason, the worst part was the lack of screams. The aliens had to be in pain, but they were silent, dying without much of a fight.

Gomorrah paused in her chanting. “They’re going around.”

Around? I eyed the burning conflagration ahead of me for a moment before I saw what she meant. The aliens ahead were dead, but in dying they created a sort of barrier that Gomorrah’s flamethrower had to burn through. The horde was splitting apart, rushing at us from both sides.

“Two cats, focus left, one focus the air,” I ordered. The mecha cats immediately shifted, the two on Gomorrah’s left aiming down and ripping into any Antithesis that tried to sneak around, and the one behind us a little continued to fire into the air, striking at the Model Ones zipping by.

I turned, flicked on HE and burst mode, then fired two three-round busts into the pile of burning aliens ahead of us before I switched back to fragmentation and let loose on the right flank.

The HE rounds tore the wall of bodies apart, scattering flaming plant-meat around and opening up some room for Gomorrah to spray the aliens further back.

I felt my cheeks straining as I launched round after round of fragmentation grenades into the aliens pouncing around our flaming barrier. Sometimes, the little shields built into my jacket would flicker on, stopping some of the frag from hitting me and Gomorrah behind me.

My rails twitched up and took out a pair of fliers with one burst, and my plasma caster kept switching targets, leaving burning lines in the dark that ended in the middle of the chest of dozens of fliers.

“Bigger ones!” Gomorrah shouted.

I emptied the last of my magazine, dropped it, and caught a fresh one from Myalis without having to ask. It gave me a little moment to look ahead.

Gomorrah was right, bigger aliens were coming. Model Fours and Fives. The latter would be a problem, they were tankier.

“Let’s move right,” I said. “We need a wall on one side.”

“Got it,” Gomorrah said.

She started sidestepping even as her habit shifted and a pair of back-mounted guns poked out over her head. The two new flamethrowers glowed a violent red for a moment before adding their own fire to the conflagration ahead of us.

I was sweating, armour sticking to me, and yet I couldn’t help but want to laugh as I slapped a new magazine in and continued firing ahead.

I left it on HE. There was no going wrong with HE.

“Can’t take out the big ones,” Gomorrah said.

I squinted ahead. One of the Model Fives had fallen, burning and dead. So that wasn’t entirely true.

The problem was likely the quantity of fire Gomorrah had to use to take it out; she’d focused on it, which thinned out our flaming barricade a little, even with her two back-mounted guns adding to the blaze.

“Down to thirty percent,” Gomorrah said. “I’ll need to reload.”

“Got it,” I said. I pulled my trigger faster, forgoing aim  to put more dents in the number of aliens coming. “Mylis, next magazine, I want those monofilament bombs.”

Understood.

It wouldn’t do that much to hurt the really big guys, but it would create pockets that the smaller ones couldn’t pass through. I glanced at my ammo counts. Only halfway with my plasma caster, and my railgun still had over ninety percent. The mecha cats were nearing the halfway mark with their main guns and had switched from full-auto to picking off targets more carefully.

I clicked empty, dropped my magazine, and picked a new one that Myalis dropped right into my open hand. It was a bit heavier, but that wasn’t an issue.

“Going to set up some traps,” I shouted. “Then I’m switching to something with more boom, reload on ‘Go.’”

“Got it,” Gomorrah said.

I fiddled with the controls on my launcher, then aimed way, way up, a parabolic arc showing up in my augs that would be dropping the next explosives past the front rows of aliens.

Our little bit of cover was growing smaller as Antithesis jumped over their burning comrades and launched themselves at us.

I fired, starting from the left, and firing again every few centimetres as I turned. It left a racking arc of smoke lines in the air that crashed somewhere out of sight.

Then the blending started as the monofilament grenades went off and started whipping super-thin strands of some protector-tech wire around. I saw a few aliens being torn apart from the ankle-up and grinned.

“Black holes,” I said.

Are you certain?

“Set them to only go off with us outside their range.”

Understood.

“Go!” I shouted.

Gomorrah stepped back, her flamethrower smoking, its barrel and entire front half red as a stove-top. I saw her drop to one knee behind me and tear open a panel on the side of her gun.

I stopped paying attention as I tore the used mag out of my Icarus and picked up a fresh one from Myalis.

Only six rounds.

“Got it,” I said. As I clicked the magazine in place.

Without Gomorrah’s constant fire, the Antithesis were getting a lot closer.

I aimed for somewhere in the middle and fired, spacing out the shots in another arc.

The wall of corpses ahead of us exploded and a running Model Five charged across the no-alien’s-land between.

Then the black hole grenades behind it went off.

I dropped Icarus, letting it dangle by my side from its strap as I whipped out my Trench Maker and sighted it at the Model Five.

It wasn’t necessary.

The wind picked up, whipping past me and tugging me forwards. The fire roared and shifted, flames dancing up towards the six black points hovering in the air just over the wall of fire.

Aliens started to be picked up and crushed into each other, and the Model Five before me slowed, then stopped, huge claws gripping at the ground even as it started to be pulled back.

I fell to one knee, lessening the pull of the wind.

The Model Five dug in, lowering its head even as the muscles in its legs flexed and it dragged itself forward.

So I shot it in the leg a few times.

It flopped backwards soundlessly and crashed into the other aliens being sucked into the burning singularity.

The monofilament grenades behind them came loose and flew into the mess, still spinning and turning everything into a meaty blender.

Then it stopped and for a moment everything was quiet and dark as hundreds of kilos of compressed alien meat flopped to the ground.

Gomorrah slapped the side of her still-glowing gun closed. “Reloaded,” she said.

“Neat,” I said as I tucked my handgun away. “Let’s keep at it, then.”

***

Chapter Seventy - A Perfect Time for a Picnic

“Nutrition and dieting is hard!

Try Nutrimin-os! Now with a percentage of your daily vitamin and mineral needs!”

--Nutrimin-os ad, before the 2048 lawsuit that resulted in the company’s bankruptcy.

***

I turned left and right, looking for any aliens.

Well, living aliens. There were literal piles of dead ones all around, some still crackling and burning merrily away and lighting up the mineshaft.

I imagined that the mining company would have to patch the mine up a little. We’d left a few holes on the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling.

Mostly that was me, but I’d share the blame around with Gomorrah too.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” Gomorrah replied. She looked around as well, then casually hosed one pile of dead Antithesis. One of them flopped around, not entirely dead yet. “There will be more, I’ll bet, but I think we took out whatever the hive has acting as a mobile guard.”

“So the next batch will be... what, the immobile guard?”

“No, probably the Antithesis that guard the hive itself. Bigger, meaner bastards. But I don’t think they tend to move as much. Kind of like a last line of defence.”

“To protect the queen or whatever?”

Gomorrah looked my way. “You need to pick up a damned textbook. Antithesis don’t have queens. They’re plants. They have root networks and flowers and seeds.”

“Right, right,” I said. Standing a bit taller, I stretched my back out until it popped. “Can I have five to reload things?”

Gomorrah nodded. “That’s probably for the best. I think we could both use a small break. I skipped breakfast.”

I’d eaten breakfast with Lucy and the kittens that morning, a messy affair with cereal and burnt pancakes and some actual eggs, but that had been... I glanced at my aug’s time readout. It was nearing four in the afternoon. Not as long as it felt, but still a while ago. “Yeah, I could use a bite,” I admitted.

Gomorrah stared at the ceiling for a bit, then tugged off a glove and held her hand up for a bit. “That way.”

“Uh, why?” I asked as I looked down the way we’d come from.

“The air’s flowing from that direction and pushing deeper into the mines. We’ll be upwind of all the smoke.”

“Upwind, right... which one’s that?”

Gomorrah shrugged. “Up is where the smell’s coming from, down is where it’s going. More or less.”

“Guess snacking with smoke in the air’s going to make it taste bad.”

“Oh, the smell isn't the problem,” Gomorrah said. “I like the smell of burning Antithesis. It’s earthy. It’s the chemicals I use in Archangel’s Kiss. They’re all sorts of cancerous, and toxic, and generally liable to leave you dead from inhaling them.”

“You named your flamethrower Archangel’s Kiss?” I asked. “Is that... like, some of your repressed nature trying to come out?”

Gomorrah started walking off. “I was thinking of a more biblical angel.”

“A hot dude with wings? Kinda disappointed, I thought you batted for the winning team.”

She sniffed. “I bat for the winning team—God’s team.” She was quiet for a moment, and I didn’t say anything. “That was far cornier than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, it was pretty bad.”

“Also, biblical angels are more... wings and wheels and eyes. Here, I’ll send you a document about it.”

“I’m sure it’s a fascinating read.”

“It has pictures.”

I snorted.

We reached a point some hundred metres away from the carnage, and I saw Gomorrah raise a hand just before she caught something out of the air. A blanket? She unfolded it and set it on the ground, then sat down atop it.

I didn’t even bother questioning it and just sat down next to her. It was nice to get some weight off my feet, even if my boots were stupid-comfortable. “Have you tried Protector food?”

“Uh, just the juice boxes,” I said.

“You’re going to love this then. Anything you won’t eat?”

“I’m a malnourished orphan, my list of foods I’m picky about is real small. Though I’m not fond of mushrooms , they’re just rich people mold.”

“Right,” she said as two boxes appeared between us. Both were roughly rectangular, and made of a familiar plastic-ish material, though the hinges on the back were a bit different than the cases I was used to.

Gomorrah slid her mask off and took a deep breath. “That’s better. The mask is comfortable, but it’s a bit stuffy.”

I reached up and undid the clasps holding my helmet in place, then pulled it off. My hair was a sweaty mess, and my head felt lighter without the weight of the helmet on it. It did feel nice. The air stank a bit of dust and smoke and gunpowder. Or maybe that was just my cloak.

Gomorrah handed me one of the boxes and I fiddled around with it for a bit before the case popped open and released a puff of steam.

I stared.

There was a small spork clipped to the top. The rest of the MRE had what looked like a square of shepherd's pie and a small sandwich, with some veggies here and there with some sauce drizzled on them. Probably a healthier, more balanced meal than I’d had... ever.

The problem was that the sandwich was cut to look like a cat’s face, with little carrot-stick whiskers and a little cheese nose.

“Myalis, is this a joke?”

I didn’t do anything.

I whipped around to stare at Gomorrah, a Gomorrah who was very pointedly not looking my way, and who had a suspicious quirk to her lips.

I picked up a whisker and bit into it angrily.

That was enough to break Gomorrah, and she started to titter.

“I didn’t take you for a bully,” I said.

“A bully?” she asked. “Really?”

“You’re just kicking a girl while she’s down,” I said.

The nun rolled her eyes, still holding back laughter. “Get over it.”

“You know this means war,” I said.

“You are terrifying,” she said. “Can I rub your belly until you feel better?”

I wanted to throw one of the little carrots at her, but they were absurdly good, and I wasn’t going to waste food. “This is really good,” I said as I took a bite from  the sandwich. The bread was good, and the meat and sauce and cheese inside were also... good.

I lacked words to appropriately describe how it tasted, but it was definitely a whole order of magnitude better than some of the crap I'd tasted before. “Mmm, have you tried the little juice boxes?”

“Yeah, they’re great. Which ones did you try?”

“There are more flavours?” I asked.

“The strawberry one tastes really nice. There’s a milkshake one too.”

“Oh, damn,” I said. “Milkshakes give me the runs though.”

Gomorrah lowered her spork. “Could you not be quite that candid? Besides, I think there’s a world of difference in quality from whatever you drank before.”

“Pretty sure the ones I tried didn’t have any milk in them. Though the ‘shakes’ part was entirely accurate.”

“You’re disgusting,” she said.

I grinned over at her. “Alright, I’ll stop. But it’s really fun to rile you up.”

She shook her head. “Some friend .”

I only smiled harder. “Yeah, actually.”

The nun actually looked as though she was starting to blush before she wiped it all away with a scowl. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the hive?”

“We’ll be fighting bigger, uglier bastards, right? I figure running in there guns blazing might be fun, but not all that safe. Maybe I can sneak ahead? Except this time I just plant a whole load of bombs all over and set them off all at once.”

“And then we sweep in and pick off the rest,” Gomorrah said. She took a bite from some veggie that crunched wetly, then nodded. “Simple, but it might work.”

“Does your chuuni fire cannon need air to work?”

“My what?” she asked.

I pointed to the flamethrower.

“It’s called the Archangel’s Kiss. And no, it doesn’t require air to burn. But having an oxygen-rich environment wouldn’t hurt. Why?”

“ Because I have these neat thermobaric bombs , and I think they’re pretty intense when they go off in tight spaces.”

Gomorrah bit her lower lip in a way that I would have enjoyed had I been trying to be flirty or something. “That is a nice idea,” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. I noticed that my MRE was done. I couldn’t remember shovelling the last of it down, but I suppose I had. “Anyway, I need to reload on ammo for my handgun, and refill the cats. I guess I’ll leave them with you while I range ahead?”

“That sounds fair.” Gomorrah stood, then gave me a hand up too. “Now, let’s burn this hive down, shall we?”

***

Chapter Seventy-One - Chlorine Trifluoride

“Don’t use explosives in enclosed spaces.

Especially when you’re in those spaces.”

--Someone with common sense.

***

I wiggled my head around to make sure my helmet was on snug. It slipped down a little more, and then held on tight. Good enough. “Alright, so, just give me like, half an hour? We can still chat in the meantime, I think we don’t need to worry about signal s and such.”

“Very well,” Gomorrah said. “Do avoid setting any bombs off until we’re ready. You’ll probably just kill yourself if you do.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said. “I really want to use fuel-air bombs, but we might settle for some nanite bombs, or bombs that melt aliens.”

“I don’t see why we couldn’t mix it up.”

I nodded. “DDT on steroids or something,” I said. I paused, looked at my mecha cats, then down the darkened tunnel I would be travelling down all on my own. I wasn’t actually concerned for myself, but I did kind of feel bad about leaving Gomorrah behind. “The cats will keep you company, alright?”

“Of course.”

“And if I bite the bullet, you take care of my kittens for me, okay?”

The nun placed her hands on her hips, her flamethrower left to dangle by her side. “You have no business being so fatalistic,” she said.

I grinned as I stepped up and wrapped her in a quick hug.

I wasn’t a hugger, no matter what Lucy accused me of, but... well, it felt nice. “See you in a bit, nun-girl.”

Firing off a sloppy salute, I took off into the darkness. My coat’s invisibility wrapped around me, then my cloak came  on and I flipped my hood up onto my head.

I kept up a light jog, just fast enough to get my heart beating, but not so much that I’d exhaust myself. “Okay, let’s talk bombs,” I said.

I have two suggestions. First, seeing as how both yourself and Gomorrah are fond of large explosions and copious amounts of fire, an aerosolized agent might be a decent solution to clear out a majority of the mines.

“So like, a gas that burns and hovers in the air?” I asked.

Essentially, yes. There are many variations available, but I would suggest a rather stable one, one unlikely to be immediately detected by the Antithesis and one that will only ignite under very specific conditions.

“So I don’t accidentally blow myself up, that’s always great.”

I would suggest aerosolized chlorine trifluoride. Bonded with a chemical agent that stabilizes it until either introduced to extreme heat, or minute amounts of hydrogen fluoride, which is a by-product of the chlorine trifluoride reaction.

I frowned. “So it won’t go off until introduced to some chemical that it produces when it’s already going off?”

Hence creating a chain reaction, yes.

“Does it burn good?”

Yes. Chlorine trifluoride burns... good .

“Cool. So what was the other option?” I asked. I wasn’t super smart, but I knew that setting off a big flaming explosion in the tight quarters of a tunnel I was in was a bad idea. There were ways to make it safe... safe-ish, and I intended to use those if I could.

The other options are slower-acting. Either an aerosolized acidic compound, pushed deeper into the mines to try and burn out the hive, or a more precise use of nanites designed to break apart Antithesis matter.

“That sounds handy. But slow.”

It would be considerably slower than merely burning everything, yes.

I passed the piles of burned bodies that Gomorrah and I had created, then reached into my jacket and hesitated. Handgun or grenade launcher? I was trying to be stealthy... and I also had room in my underslung sheath.

“Need a handgun, something subtle.”

I’ve been eagerly awaiting for an opportunity to present this particular weapon to you. It’s a weapon that is entirely silent. It’s from both your stealth catalogue and Sunwatcher catalogues, as opposed to any of your weapon catalogues.

I slowed my jog down to a quick walk, then slowed down some more when I reached the curve where I’d first met some aliens. I didn’t want to come around and meet another group head-on, not if I could avoid it. Couldn’t hear any of them though.

The weapons system is called the Claw. It’s not technically a gun, but rather a range-finder and teleportation system.

“How does it kill things?” I asked.

Within the weapon is a magazine filled with spring-loaded rods, each with ten blades held in place by a trigger. On deploying, these blades open up, and the entire rod rotates around its own axis until all of the kinetic energy within is spent.

“Alright,” I said. Myalis decided to send me a neat image, of a silver cylinder that went from looking like a nice pen to turning into a spinning ball of knives for a couple of seconds. “Very stealthy,” I said.

The Claw system teleports one of these rods into the target you are aiming at.

“Oh,” I said. I watched as the video changed to what looked like an MRI of one of those rods going off inside a cow. It didn’t seem to do more than chip away at bone. For anything else, it acted like an industrial blender set on smoothie mode. “Yeah,” I said. “And it’s noiseless?”

The vacuum created by teleporting the rod is funnelled out of the Claw after each shot, it’s the loudest noise created by the weapon, and it’s no louder than your breathing.

“Does it look like a cat?” I asked.

It can be made to not look like a cat, if you insist.

“I think I do. How much is it?”

Two hundred and fifty points.

I winced at the price, but then... “What am I at?”

Current Point Total:

2741

“Oh,” I said. That changed things a little. “Sure then.”

New Purchase: Claw, Range-Finding and Teleportation System

Points Reduced from... 2741 to... 2491

The gun came in a little box. It was significantly smaller than my Trench Maker, and not much of a gun at all. It had a handle, ergonomic and rubber-y, with a trigger, but that’s about where it ended. The entire thing just looked like a box with a pair of lenses on the end and a recessed tube on the bottom. There was a knob next to where my thumb naturally fit.

It was surprisingly heavy though.

My augs connected to it, and I noticed a new reticule appearing on the ground where the not-gun was aimed. It had a ‘depth’ meter next to it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that turning the knob up and down changed the depth.

“Neat,” I said. “Let’s find something to blend real fast.”

I found a crack in the wall around the next bend, a hole that looked like it had been melted out of the stone, with large, obvious claw-marks scrabbling at the stone.

“Think they’re down there?” I asked.

The hole is rather small.

I eyed it up. It was a bit of a squeeze. If I went in there, I’d have a bitch of a time moving around. And if some alien came down the other way...

That, and it was smaller than some of the models Gomorrah and I had cooked. They couldn’t have come from here.

“Bomb,” I said.

Chlorine trifluoride?

“Yeah.”

The canister was roughly energy-drink sized, made of some silvery metal and with little legs at its base. I set it down, then pressed the one button atop  it.

The bomb synched up with my augmentations a moment later, labelled as ‘bomb one.’ So, I could activate it at range? Made sense.

I continued down the main tunnel, trying to shake off distracting thoughts and focus on the path ahead. Couldn’t help but imagine that Gomorrah was bored back where I’d left her, but she was a big girl, she’d figure it out.

Something shuffled ahead, and I stopped mid-step.

There were lumps, here and there on the ground, unmoving. I couldn’t see them, not well. I figured they were rocks or something, but then one shuffled forwards, pulling itself along on one leg.

An Antithesis? One that was obviously very much injured.

The streaks across the ground, barely visible as more darkness against the dark, had to have been from dragged aliens.

I didn’t know they could retreat.

Raising my Claw up, I shifted it around until the reticule sat atop the alien, then I adjusted the depth. Five centimetres seemed to be the max.

I fired.

The not-gun shifted a bit, losing some weight a moment before it sort of just... inhaled.

The Antithesis slumped.

“Well,” I muttered. “I guess it is a stealth weapon.”

***

Chapter Seventy-Two - Model Thirteen

“The amount of footage we have of an active hive is, even after all these years, very limited. Ten years, and nearly forty incursions, and this is all the video captured of the breeding ground of the enemy.”

--What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting Aliens, 2031

***

“Myalis, what the fuck is that?” I hissed after ducking down.

I didn’t want... whatever the fuck that was spotting me.

That  was a giant squid thing. It wasn’t that big, but it took up a lot of space. I couldn’t count the number of tentacles on it. There were at least nine big ones, but dozens of smaller, whip-ier ones, like... Lucy liked pictures of flowers, so I’d seen my share, and the smaller tentacles looked like the little stems on lilies. Narrow and green, with a lump at the end. Only these were twice as long as I was tall.

The problem was that this squid-thing had three bodies, each of them about as big as I was, and connected together by some of those bigger tentacles. I was pretty sure each body had wings too, like a cockroach's.

It looked like something a drunk god created mid-hangover.

That is a Model Thirteen. It’s a hive-defence model. You must be close to the hive.  

“The number’s nice,” I said. “But I need more than just that.”

Model Thirteens are mid-sized close-quarters combat units. They are, essentially, flowers connected to the hive itself. Once deployed, they will die naturally after twelve to fourteen hours, or faster if they exert themselves. They have no mouth with which to feed.

I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

They are generally the last line of defence for a hive. Not tough, but difficult to kill. They can’t quite fly, but they can leap very high and glide a little. It’s worth noting that all three brains must be destroyed to fully kill a Model Thirteen. Their primary appendages, the thicker ones, end in hardened blades. These are essentially just chitin plates with sharpened edges. The smaller appendages have blocks of waste material at the ends, usually quite heavy. They can whip these at speeds approaching the supersonic.

I took a moment to process that. Tough to kill, super mobile, and they had big chunks of fuck-you at the end of their big tentacles. Also, the little ones could whip out probably faster than I could react.

“Waste material?”

Materials an Antithesis hive can’t find a use for. Some heavy metals, radioactive elements, certain gases like ozone. Calcium nitrate. Anything the hive can’t find an immediate use for, but that it doesn’t wish to part with too easily. Storing it with a Model Thirteen keeps it close to the main hive and if a segment of the hive needs a small amount of a rare element, the Model Thirteen can detach and cross a great distance at high speeds to deliver it.  

I was maybe some three hundred metres deeper into the mine, two forks away from where Gomorrah was likely waiting for me. I didn’t think the hive was right around the corner, but I was certainly getting closer.

Leaning forwards, I snuck my head around again. Maybe I could catch a glimpse of the Model Thirteen again and plug a few holes into it with my shiny new gun?

It wasn’t there.

That had to be half a tonne of tentacles and freaky squid bodies that was missing.

I swallowed, then looked up.

There it was, hanging onto the ceiling like some sort of spider. Its three heads were all turning this way and that, the many eyes on them scanning across the darkened tunnels.

I held still, the deer caught in the headlights. Could I take it? Probably. A couple of grenades with short fuses. My Icarus if I could get it out in time. For all that it had a bunch of tentacles, I was sure a few rounds of HE would do a number on it. Myalis didn’t say it was tough, just that it had a lot of... redundant biology.

The Model Thirteen moved, shooting down the tunnel behind me with a tick-tick-tick from its tentacles tapping the stone. It was ridiculously fast. “Tell Gomorrah that she’s going to have company,” I whispered.

Message sent.

At least I knew I was in the right direction. I asked Myalis for another chlorine trifluoride dispenser, which I carefully sat in a nook where a few rocks had fallen out of the otherwise smooth wall.

Myalis said the dispersal range for the aerosolized gas was going to be about a hundred metres, or fifty in both directions from the can. Being in a tunnel helped a lot. Still, the last dozen metres of that would only be lightly sprayed in the few seconds after the canister opened up, so I was setting a new bomb every twenty or thirty metres or so .

So I wasn’t being very accurate with my no-doubt-war-crime-level bomb placement, sue me.

I continued down the tunnel, now paying a whole lot more attention to the ceiling above in case another Model Thirteen decided to show up. The big bastards freaked me out. They were... wrong. Not just the tentacle-ness of them. That was not too unexpected. Model Fours had a lot of those and they weren’t too weird.

Ugly, but not too weird.

It took a moment to twig onto what was wrong with the Model Thirteens. They had three faces. Or at least three sets of eyes with noses and all that. Three heads on one creature was just... entirely wrong.

I paused a ways down, set another bomb out behind a little stone, then continued on my way.

There was another rock ahead, it looked like a good spot for another bomb. I slowed, eyes narrowing in the dark. I couldn’t see well, just from my cybernetic eye, and with absolutely no light to work with, even that wasn’t great.

Still, I was pretty sure that rock had just twitched, my sonar told me that much. Rocks weren’t supposed to move.

I pulled up my Claw, aimed right at the rock, and fired a shot. If I was wrong, then maybe I’d make a bit of noise. If I wasn’t...

The rock twitched, stood up, and took two steps before flopping down.

Target Eliminated!

Reward: 25 points

New Total: 2416  points

I lowered my Claw. “God damned Model Nines,” I muttered as I continued down the mine. I left a bomb on the end of the tunnel opposite the Model Nine corpse.

A little later I paused again. There was something very much alien out ahead. Big leafy things, each one about as big as I was, pressed against the walls and set so close together they nearly touched.

“What the hell are those?” I whispered even as I moved to be opposite them.

Those are fin leaves. They serve as both heat dispersal, and energy generation. A very interesting form of kinetic energy generation. It’s common with hives that are not able to collect sunlight or that are situated underground. The leaves are entirely harmless... unless you eat them. Do not eat them.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I muttered.

Approaching the leaves, I could actually feel the heat in the air. They were hot. Not oven hot or anything, but definitely a few degrees warmer than the ambient temperature.

I placed a bomb next to them. Maybe that would warm them up even more. .

“We’re close,” I said.

Very. Be cautious.

“Keep me informed about... you know, alien shit. I don’t like not knowing.”

I moved away from the leaves, still keeping a wary eye on them. I’d have blown them up, but the noise would have been a problem.

The passage bent again ahead of us, and strangely enough, it seemed to open up too. A larger section?

It sorta made sense. The mine was designed to go after specific spots in the ground, where whatever they were mining for was most common. That meant when they reached a deposit they’d mine it all out. A bit sloppy, maybe, but I was hardly complaining.

The bigger room was filled.

Roots, or something like roots, clung to the walls, with big, bulbous sacks hanging from them like grapes in a fancy wine commercial. The ground was covered in foliage, and in that mess were hundreds of aliens. Model Threes moving in packs, Model Fours in small units, a few Model Fives. There were others too, some of those giant worms moving in and out of narrow holes in the walls, and tree-like stalks across the room with big gourds on them had flowers that I recognized as Model Thirteens.

There had to be a few hundred aliens. Maybe a thousand. And that wasn’t including the tons of plantlife. The centre of the room looked like a jungle in miniature.

I was going to need a whole lot of bombs.

***

Chapter Seventy-Three - A Walkabout

“It was actually something of a blessing. Botany as a science was taken seriously, but it was always treated as... dare I say, inferior. The less intelligent cousin of biology. Who cares about people concerned over stuff like plants?

And then aliens invaded. Plant aliens.

I never saw so much grant money being flung around in my life. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know more about how plants worked, and we realized that for all that we knew, it was only really enough to know how little we had dug into it.

Let me tell you, having the president ask you where a tree has its brain is a trip.”

--Excerpt from Leafy Me - A Memoir, 2028

***

I hesitated for a while as I considered what to do. There was a lot of hive , and there were a lot of aliens moving around. Though, I guess pointing out a difference between the two was kind of useless.

The big egg sacs... seeds? The big things, in which the aliens I was familiar with spawned, grew fast. I could tell that some of them had grown in the ten or so minutes since I arrived. How long did it take the hive to grow a Model Three?

It didn’t matter, I guess. In the end, they’d all need to be burned down one way or another. I eyed some models that were jumping around from branch to branch, often stopping by a sac that looked ready to be harvested and helping it down.

A couple of them gathered around each fresh alien murder machine and lowered it down, then they tore off the wrapping, as it were, and quickly brushed down the fur or whatever of the Antithesis they uncovered.

“What are those?” I asked. My helmet kept my voice from escaping any.

Model Tens. Though they should by all rights be called Model Ones. They are one of the original Antithesis models, with very little by means of changes even across centuries of evolution. They are mostly harmless, and will only attack if something threatens the hive directly, and even then, it will usually be an attempt to distract and win time for other combat-models to be born. The back of their palms has a small bill that is sharp; it is their only natural weapon other than their grip.

They looked like weird monkeys. Headless, six-limbed monkeys. Their face was where anything else’s neck and clavicle would be, and their limbs all ended in strange hands. Three fingers, and two thumbs on either end. They moved by springing and bouncing forward and swinging along on the many vines and branches sticking out of the hive.

“Neat,” I said. It was, in a sort of academic way, I guess. “Where’s the hive’s brain?”

An Antithesis hive has no brain.

“How does it think?” I asked.

The same way any other plant does. It grows, expands, and evolves to suit its environment. It is not intelligent in any traditional sense, but it is infinitely persistent. You will never see an Antithesis surrendering, or tiring in the face of adversity.

That somehow made it worse.

“So I burn  the whole thing down, got it.”

I wasn’t going to just fling canisters onto the Hive and hope none of the models crawling on it noticed me. Looking past the main, forest-like body of it revealed some other mine shafts, three of them. The hive had grown that way too, at least from what little I could see with the bioluminescent light coming off some of the stalks.

If I wanted to burn the whole thing out in one go, I’d need to cut off all the paths around it, not just this one big lump.

Which meant actually going there.

I started walking near the edge of the room, moving slowly, and keeping an eye on all the models moving around in little packs. They seemed to be gathering in little groups, mostly by size.

A few flowers had blossomed here and there, with some sort of liquid sitting in them. The Antithesis models came to those flowers and would drink up some of that juice before moving on. I guessed that was how they fed?

I stopped when a big worm slithered out of a wall and started moving across the room. It halted some half-dozen metres ahead, then started to contract and expand while making a deep, disgusting retching noise.

I almost gagged when the worm vomited on a bed of large, lily-pad like leaves. Blood and gore, some sort of mulch and the recognizable remains of something meaty. Not a human, some sort of... deer, maybe? It had hoofed feet, at least. I noticed a dog in there, or maybe it was some poor fox.

Some Model Tens rushed over and started grabbing chunks out of the mess, and then leapt away; others formed up and lifted the heavier bits, three to a side.

“What are they doing with that?”

The parts will be brought to a digestion chamber where they will be broken down for nutrients, with some of the smaller pieces being broken down further and absorbed into the Antithesis’ genetic banks. Given enough resources, it may try to recreate whatever creature that was, or modify a current model.

“Like cloning?”

No. It’s far, far less efficient. It will essentially create hundreds of models with random mutations made from splicing recreated genes into the original model seed. Most of these will be entirely non-functional. On occasion, with one chance in several hundred thousand, a model will be born with a useful new trait or adaptation, and that model will be consumed so that future models can mimic this new change. You have encountered new Model Threes already, the larger, more tiger-like ones.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “One in a hundred thousand sounds like bad odds. Even if they’re eating the failures and starting over.”

The Antithesis thrive in magnitude above all else. This hive is about as small as a hive can be while still being fully functional. It can likely produce some hundred Model Threes an hour. One thousand hours at its current size to produce one useful mutation. Most hives can produce thousands to tens of thousands of Model Threes an hour.  That is assuming there are beneficial mutation in the local wildlife.

I nodded and moved on. I didn’t plan on letting this place stand for a thousand more hours.

Walking a bit faster, I moved past the giant worm as it headed back out, only slowing down enough to get another bomb and tuck it next to the hole it had come out of. I’d need a dozen bombs all around the room if I wanted to burn it all, I figured, and with the current diameter of it, just having some on the edges might not be enough.

I had no idea how flammable the hive itself was.

Stop!

I froze, one foot raised. Then I looked down and noticed the little vines across the ground. Was that it? I’d been stepping on roots and stuff already.

That’s a vine from a Model Thirteen. It would alert it.

It didn’t take much to notice the huge, flower-like body nearby, still clinging onto the side of a tree-like pillar.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

This place wasn’t safe. For some reason, it was hard to keep that in mind. Maybe it was because I wasn’t actively fighting anything.

If the hive goes on alert, you will have a much harder time moving across it.

I nodded and kept low, only pausing to kneel down over a spot where two roots met and order another bomb to tuck away. I noticed some leafy plant wavering in the air at my passing. Was the hive sensing something?

I chose not to find out.

The first passage wasn’t very profound. It ended some hundred metres in, a huge machine wedged into the tunnel, with some lights on around it and plenty of signs that the hive had been poking at the device.

“They can’t use tech, right?” I asked.

No. Though they can, on rare occasions, observe and replicate the effects of technology, especially the more mechanical parts .

“Great, that’s all we need. Aliens pedaling bikes around.”

They don’t do wheels very well.

I left a bomb next to the mining machine. It was huge, and probably cost more money than someone like me-- someone like I used to be would see in ten lifetimes.

Sucked for the company that I’d be burning it down.

The next passage was a lot more interesting. More of those fin leaves, hundreds of them, all lined up against the walls. The tunnel here seemed to be moving upwards a little bit too. It was hot, hot and humid.

“Think there might be an exit down this way,” I said. It was just a gut feeling, but when Gomorrah and I came back down to investigate, this was the path we’d take.

I knelt down and placed a canister next to some of the leaves, then another some thirty or so metres deeper into the mine.

I got up, patted my pants down, then turned right into the waiting  tentacles of a monster.

***

Chapter Seventy-Four

“Being on coms means providing the information that will keep people alive

[...]

You can generally tell when something has gone wrong when the people at the other end start swearing incoherently.”

--Excerpt from a Guide to Wartime Communications, 2045

***

I think the only reason I didn’t get myself dead was because the monster was expecting me as much as I was expecting it.

The Model Thirteen was hovering close to the ground, a few of its tentacles holding it up while its much smaller tentacles were reaching out ahead of it. At a guess, it felt as if it was searching for something, like looking for something by touch when the lights are off.

Had it noticed me before? Or maybe it was just suspicious.

It didn’t matter. The alien was definitely staring at me with all three of its faces.

I pulled my Claw up and fired, barely even making sure that the reticule was lined up with one of its bodies.

A whip-crack sounded out and I felt as if someone had just punched me right in the chest.

I’d gotten into trouble once. A bunch of middle-class looking assholes had been visiting  the ground-level, and they started to annoy Lucy and a couple of the other kids. They probably wouldn’t do anything, just some older teens being assholes.

Of course, I was filled with more nerves than  sense back then, and I wanted to impress Lucy, so I started a fight with them.

The sensation of all the air in my lungs being rammed out of them was hard to forget.

I saw a glimmer in the air as my coat’s shield thing stopped a few more tendrils whipping out at me, but it was only a glimpse before I crashed down a few metres back and rolled.

“Guns,” I gasped.

My shoulder-mounted weapons deployed and immediately fired.

A railgun shot tore a hole through one of the Model Thirteen’s bodies, but that barely made it hitch before it drove itself forwards.

“Shit!”

I rolled back.

With my cloaks still on, it would--I hoped--have a better chance dodging the whips, and rolling would get me further back.

Problem was, while rolling I wasn’t firing back. My plasma caster took some potshots, but it kept folding back in not to stop my roll.

The Model Thirteen loomed large above me, the hardened ends of its larger tentacles crashing into the ground.

I gasped as one of them rammed me in the side. It didn’t pierce through my coat, and my undersuit hardened, stopping it from crushing me.

Still hurt like a bitch, and it had effectively pinned me in place.

I placed my Claw against the limb and fired, then I fired again and again. I imagined that having a tentacle filled with a few spinning blenders wasn’t great for the Model Thirteen.

I tugged my coat out from under it with one arm, while aiming up with my Claw.

My railgun fired into one of its bodies, so I aimed at the one next to it and fired my Claw until a warning filled my vision.

OUT OF AMMO

“Fuck!”

My plasma caster painted a line of burning fire into the Model Thirteen’s other body, even as the Antithesis leapt away from me and clung to the ceiling. It began to scurry around, avoiding bullets with a speed and agility that was really starting to piss me off.

I dropped my Claw, tore my Trench Maker from my coat, and started to stand.

Its tentacles bunched up under it and the alien launched itself at me, smaller whips already cracking as they shot at me.

I had time to plant two shots into one of its bodies before it crashed into me and we both crashed  back .

Fighting it off, I wiggled and struggled and cursed until I realised that it wasn’t fighting back.

Target Eliminated!

Reward: 100 points

New Total: 24 46 point

I panted for a bit, then squeezed out from under the Model Thirteen’s corpse.

You might want to hurry. The hive is now aware of you.

“Yeah,” I said.

I stumbled to my feet. A bit sore, but not dead, and not injured as far as I could tell.

That might not stay the case. The hive was... changing. The trees were shifting, the egg sacs were nearly all falling down, regardless of how ready the models within were, and all of those other models looked agitated as hell, with a whole load of them heading my way.

I tucked my Trench Maker away, ran over to pick up my Claw, then tugged my Icarus out. “Fragmentation.” I said.

I fired, again and again, with a high arc that had my shots landing right in the meat of the hive and near some packs of Model Threes. Then I let my big gun slip back down so that it hung by its strap and I started running.

Not away from the aliens, but towards them.

I was still stealthed, and my augs said that my cloak and coat and suit were all still at 100%. I trusted them.

The moment I was back in the main room of the hive I turned a sharp right and continued running. A few Model Threes, those nearest the tunnel mouth, shot into the mineshaft I’d just left. Good.

The Model Thirteens detaching themselves from their trees with loud squelches didn’t inspire confidence. If one could find me...

I ran past the last side-tunnel I hadn’t explored. “Bomb,” I hissed before underhanding the canister into the passage. That would have to do for whatever was down there.

I dropped another beside me, then I flung one at the centre of the hive, and winced as about four different sorts of aliens jumped on it and started scrambling at the canister.

I was breathing hard as I shot past aliens, moving just a few metres past them and hoping they wouldn’t notice.

If they did, then I had to hope that there was enough chaos around to keep them busy.

“Myalis,” I hissed. “Cats. Three of them. Not in a box!”

Certainly!

The thumps sounded out, one after each step I took. A glance back revealed three mecha cats unfolding to their full height. Then it was two as a Model Thirteen’s whip smashed one of them apart.

The other two jumped back, plasma claws burning and back-mounted guns unfolding to spray bullets all over the place. They didn’t even need to aim to hit an alien, there were so many scrambling after me.

The hive’s attention turned on them, and I pressed myself to move faster.

Maybe cardio really was a good idea.

I flicked another canister to the side. The more fire, the better, I figured.

A Model Thirteen dropped from the ceiling ahead of me and I cursed as I whipped out my Trench Maker.

I emptied the magazine into its centremost body, and my Railgun unfolded to punch a hole into the leftmost. My plasma gun spat fire at the third, blinding it for long enough that I was able to duck under one of its tentacles and could continue running.

I wasn’t the only one running. All the little models were rushing about, and the sacs on the side were being torn open from the inside.

Model Tens were zipping around all over, and I swore as one of them jumped at me, all six limbs trying to grab me at the same time.

I punched it, but it caught my hand.

So I finally got to use the plasma claws in my cybernetic hand, the inch-long burning nails melting into the model before I flung its corpse aside.

One of them jumped onto my back, and I swiped it off with my tail, the plasma thagomizer on the end of my tail batting it aside.

I was losing the advantage I had from my stealth.

“I need grenades. Garrotes! Just keep giving me more!”

I caught the first to appear and flung it over my shoulder after thumbing the trigger on it. It started to blend the models behind me.

Three more tossed back the same way helped, and I started to underhand some ahead of me, trying to place them around the entrance of the tunnel I’d come into the Hive from. My railgun was spinning and firing, my plasma gun hissing as a rejoinder.

The garrote grenades, with their wildly spinning mess of whippy wires, created a narrow passage, one that I squeezed through before turning around and tugging my Trench Maker out again.

I planted a few rounds into the first aliens through the crack, at least until I clicked empty.

I cursed, spun on a heel, and bolted down the centre of the tunnel.

The garrotes wouldn’t last forever, and the passage between was big enough for plenty of models to pass through.

I had to get out of the AOE of my gas bombs so I could burn this entire place to the ground.

Totally starting to sympathize with Gomorrah’s love of burning shit.

***

Chapter Seventy-Five

“People go on and on about what can turn a lady on. Nice men, nicer women, fat stacks of cash. Power.

They’re right about the last one. We do love power, especially when it’s nice and packaged and easily weaponized.

Some folk think that the purest form of that is the cannon, and it’s true; bitches love cannons.

But a lady?

A lady likes explosives.”

--Salamander Storm, 2041

***

I wasn’t an endurance runner. Or any other sort of runner.

I was more of a ‘sit with Lucy on my lap’ kind of girl.

My breaths came hot and fast, my heart beat all crooked, as my thighs and calves burned. Still, I didn’t have the option to stop and catch a breather.

“My-Myalis, ammo,” I huffed, my Icarus raised in one hand. A magazine appeared before me and I caught it out of the air and slapped it into place.

I barely aimed as I ran sideways for a bit and held the trigger down. Most of the aliens behind me were Model Threes, but there were others, Model Tens riding along, and farther back--but catching up--were Model Thirteens.

I’d be swarmed soon.

I needed a moment to think and act. “Garrote!” I caught the grenade, jammed my thumb over its trigger, then flicked it behind me underhand.

That wouldn’t do jack to stop them, but it might mulch a couple before they caught up to me.

I needed something bigger, that didn’t explode. “Gas!” I said. “Acid.”

Another grenade, this one a canister. I flipped the top off and dropped it by my feet a second before it started to hiss and spit. A glance behind me showed that the gas was expanding and climbing to the ceiling. It would mess with the Model Thirteen then.

I was pretty sure it wouldn’t kill it, but maybe injuring it would be enough. The others might live too, but every bit of damage was good in my book.

I spun around a corner, the same one where Gomorrah and I had encountered the first aliens in this mine. And right there, like some sort of angel, was the woman in question.

“Go left,” she said, her head nodding to her left.

I ran past her, then sighed as I felt a powerful wash of warmth at my back.

My run slowed down, and I veered off towards the wall. Slumping against it while I sucked in air. My railgun and plasma caster were both out of ammo. My Claw and Trench Maker too, though those hadn’t been terribly useful. All I did was take potshots at the aliens. My Icarus had... six HE rounds left.

I wondered if I had time to reload. At least, until I looked over and saw the wall of fire ahead of Gomorrah. It was bright and thick enough that the only things making it through were the half-melted remains of some of the faster models, their momentum enough to carry them past the fire.

My mecha cats were stationed around Gomorrah, one on each side while the third came over and stood near me. “Thanks,” I said as soon as I turned on our comms.

“No problem,” Gomorrah replied. “That Model Thirteen that came this way was something.”

“Nasty, huh?” I asked.

“It kept avoiding my fire. Your cats ended up doing a lot of the damage. I need to invest in faster-firing weapons.”

“Yeah, cool,” I said. “Can you cover me for two minutes, I need to reload everything.”

Gomorrah nodded. I trusted her to keep me alive for a couple of minutes. “Myalis, I need a reload on everything.”

I raised my Icarus, switched to HE, and fired the last shots remaining down the tunnel the aliens had followed me from. Figured I might hit one of them if I was lucky.

Reloading my shoulder-mounted guns was a bit of a pain. The rest wasn’t too bad. Myalis was giving everything to me one at a time, so I was moving at my own pace, more or less.

“I think we’re clear,” Gomorrah said. She lowered her flamethrower and let the wall of fire die down a little. If I squinted, I could make out the darkened forms of burning aliens slumped over here and there.

There weren’t as many as I imagined, but maybe I hadn’t had a good look at them.

“Good work,” I said as I slid the last magazine into my Claw, then tucked it away. “That was stressful.”

I’d need a good shower after this. My coat might have been cool, but it was still warm, and all the fire and running for my life didn’t help.

“Did you find the hive?” she asked.

“Yeah. Nasty place. A hundred or so more models over there. I don’t know if they’ll stay put or not.”

Gomorrah nodded. “I’d like to see the footage later.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. My cybernetic eye had probably recorded all of that. I bet Myalis had, at the very least. “There’s a tunnel past the hive that I didn’t get to inspect, otherwise, I think I covered it all.”

“Did you plant any bombs?”

“Yup. Canisters full of chlorine trifluoride.” I was pretty proud that I didn’t stumble on that one.

Gomorrah turned her head my way. “Canisters of what? ”

Did I mispronounce it?

“How many did you place?” she asked.

“About... I don’t know, twenty?”

Twenty-two canisters.

“Twenty-two, according to Myalis,” I said. “They’re pretty big. Thermos-sized, you know.”

“How much of the stuff is in each?”

Ten litres, liquid and hyper-compressed.

“Ten litres,” I repeated with entirely unearned confidence.

Gomorrah hesitated. “We... should probably not be so close to them, in that case.”

I’d lost a few of my nine lives to bombs already, so a bit of caution wouldn’t be amiss. “Sure. I’ll call up Cause Player at the same time. Want to back out of that entrance hole?”

“Sure,” Gomorrah said.

I stretched my back out as I dialed up Cause Player. It felt like I’d had a weight lifted off my back, just from being so close to Gomorrah and out of the tentacle-range of so many aliens.

“Stray Cat,” Cause Player said. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. We’re both fine. But you might not be. Gomorrah and I are about to set off the mother of all firebombs, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t in the burn radius.”

“Uh, thanks. I’ll send you my coordinates. I’ve been mostly exploring the off-shoot tunnels near the entrance. Not much more than some lower-level models here.”

“Good. The hive’s not that big, I don’t think. It’s also covered in explosives. We’re clearing out of the blast radius ourselves.”

“Right, can you send me the projected area of effect?”

Sending now!

“Got it.... Looks like I’m way out of it, should be fine. But thanks for calling.”

Myalis had been kind enough to let me see that same map, with Cause Player’s location blinking away on it, and Gomorrah and I represented by two blinking lights. The centre of the blast zone was blue, turning to purple, then red, then orange all the way to green.

We were still in the yellow, but it looked like that was about to end soon.

“Here,” Gomorrah said a hundred or so metres later. Right on the edge of the yellow zone, according to Myalis’ map. Seemed safe enough.

“Okay,” I said. I had twenty-one canisters marked as functional, with one of the lot marks as damaged but operational. The UI to slave them all together was as simple as checking off the ‘select-all’ box. “Do you want to do the honours?” I asked.

“You set them up,” Gomorrah said. “Blow away.”

“... Was that innuen--”

“Just set them off,” she said.

I grinned and pressed the metaphorical red button.

A whole lot of nothing happened.

“Uh,” I said. The ‘Trigger’ button was greyed out. I couldn’t even jab it a few times.

The canisters are spraying their load out into the air. The aerosolized chemical needs time to disperse and travel. It will trigger the actual burn when ideal saturation is reached. That is, when there’s a good amount of chlorine trifluoride in the air without it being either too thick or thin. Which should be happening... now.

I turned, my ears picking up a sharp ‘tack’ sound from down the tunnel.

It meant that I could see the wave of dust rushing towards me. Not that I could react.

My coat flapped and I took a step back as a blast of air shot past. “Whoa!” I said.

“ Was that it ?” Gomorrah asked a moment later.

Then the air turned and was sucked back down the mineshaft, and in the end, like some sort of vision of hell itself, came a wall of fire.

“Maybe... we should run?” I asked.

***

Chapter Seventy-Six

“One way to take care of uncontrolled fire is to use more fire.

At least, I think that’s how it works.

I don’t know. I kill things, I’m not a smart person!”

--US Army, Flamethrower tank operator, 2037

***

I took a deep breath, then another when that one didn’t feel so good. There was air in the... air, but it was thin, like breathing around some of the vents near street-level factories.

“Think it’s safe?” I asked Gomorrah.

The tunnel was pretty much cleared, the charred remains of Antithesis slumped here and there, and the walls ever so slightly blackened by the wash of fire that had burst past. I could feel a stirring in the air, wind coming in from the opening into the mines and pushing in towards the hive.

Had the bombs going off created a sort of vacuum? I didn’t know enough to say, really, but that sounded likely.

“I don’t think anything about this is safe,” Gomorrah said. “But I figure it was a lot less safe for the aliens.”

I nodded, then shuffled a bit before tucking my launcher to my shoulder. “Let’s move in, then?”

Gomorrah hefted up her flamethrower, the tip of the nozzle burping with a lick of flame. “Take the lead?”

“Yeah, because being in front of the pyro nun is where everyone wants to be,” I said. She gave me a look before I chuckled and jogged ahead a bit. My mecha cats moved up around us, forming up in a wedge with me at its point and Gomorrah in its centre.

We started walking down the mineshaft, at first with easy confidence, but when I started noticing the smoke pooling by the ceiling I slowed down a little.

“Let’s take it easy, yeah?” I asked.

“Certainly,” Gomorrah said.

I flicked my augs around and found Cause Player’s contact. I sent him a quick text.

S.Cat: You ok?

It didn’t take long for him to reply.

CP: Yes.

CP: Thanks for the explosion. It made for a cool scene!

If he was happy about that, then he was fine. At least, that’s what I figured.

We came around a bend, and I slowed down as I noticed light ahead. A lot of light. Oranges and reds and yellows, splashing against the grey stone walls. “That’s concerning,” I said.

“It’s a fire, way out ahead,” Gomorrah said. “Do you have oxygen?”

“Just a filter,” I said.

“Do you have a catalogue with that kind of thing?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of. Nothing specialised for it.”

“Give me a second then,” Gmorrah said. “I have a catalogue for modular headgear.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” I said. “My helmet’s cheap, anyway; it’s due for an upgrade. Besides, you’d get me something uncool.”

“Uncool?” Gomorrah repeated. She sounded a little insulted.

“Probably all nun-like and appropriate,” I said. “Myalis, are there any really cool helmets in my Sunwatcher catalogue? Something that’ll let me breathe?”

Gomorah scoffed. “You’ll probably go for something ridiculous and over the top. With cat ears again.”

“Lucy thinks the ears are cute,” I defended.

I have something you might like. It’s a little over three hundred points. It has a full communications suite, thermal and night vision, is armoured and lined with impact-resistant gel, has a filtration system that refills a tank, which in turn feeds you an appropriate amount of air. It’s of course fully sealed. Also, the eyes glow.

“That sounds good,” I said.

New Purchase: Leopard Mark IV Survival System

Points Reduced from... 7854 to... 7554

“Holy shit, I have how many points?” I asked, ignoring the box that appeared by my side.

Was that rhetorical?

I shook my head to clear it. There were  a lot of aliens around, and a lot of them got crisped. It made sense. Had I fought and killed more last time? I couldn’t quite compare the two incursions.

Kneeling down, I opened the box to reveal a face made of some sleek black metal, recessed lenses over the eyes which glowed a faint pink, and a cat-like mouth with two long protrusions below acting as fangs.

It’s in two parts. Press the front to your face, then press the rear section to the back of your head.

Gomorrah stepped closer and looked into the box too. “Damn, that does look kind of cool,” she muttered.

I tugged my helmet off, and regretted not holding my breath when I tried to inhale. The air was thinner than I had thought, and it immediately started to scratch at my throat and lungs. Probably not great for my health.

I tried not to cough as I pulled my new helmet out, flipped it over, and pressed it over my face. The other section fit on the back, and everything closed up with a hiss; some sort of padding grabbed me around the neck, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it clasped onto my suit too.

The inside was snug, but soft. Also, really dark, at least until the screens just before my eyes came on and gave me a clear image of the mines around me. I could finally see.

“Nice,” I said. I tossed my old helmet to one of the cats, who caught it from the air in its jaws. “Keep that around. We’ll give it to Lucy.”

“Better?” Gomorrah asked.

I took a deep breath, then coughed a bit. The air from the mask tasted fresh, like the air inside one of those enclosed gardens, only better. “Much,” I said. “Say, I just killed a lot of aliens, but you helped, how does the split work? Is there one?”

“There is,”  Myalis said, not in my head, but out loud. Or at least, through my coms. I had the impression it was to share with Gomorrah as well. “Points gained by Vanguard working together are split amongst all Vanguard based on the amount they accomplish.”

“I assume that the split is fair?” Gomorrah asked.

“Of course. Most splits are even, 55-55, but in some situations the split will favour one Vanguard over another, if they did more to contribute.”

“I’m not good at math,” I said. “But I’m about a hundred and ten percent sure that that doesn’t add up,” I said.

“In order to avoid penalizing Vanguards who wish to work together, the amount of points gained when there are more than one Vanguard is increased. It means that even if a Vanguard working on their own would gain more points, the amount isn’t as significant.”

“Huh,” I said. “That’s pretty neat.”

“Gomorrah gained some points from your bombing just now, on account of having helped you, and by providing cover fire when you returned. Not as many points as you made, but still a significant number.”

Gomorrah nodded. “I’m satisfied with it. Should we keep moving? The fire looks like it’s calming down.”

“Right,” I said. I took the lead again, enjoying the ability to breath easily despite the warmth in the air. Still had a bit of an itch in my throat though. Figured I’d have to ask Myalis for super lozenges later.

As we moved down and deeper into the mines, I felt the temperature rising. There was a good reason for that.

“Well, shit,” I said.

We stood next to the edge of a fire. Not a big roaring thing, but still a steadily burning fire that stretched out across the floor and onto the walls, the stone lit up in a way that stone usually didn’t.

The fire went on for a while, deeper into the mine than I could see. The air was thick, warm enough that it almost felt physical.

“Nice,” Gomorrah said.

I looked at her, then back at the fire. “Is this what you get off on?”

“Oh, shut up, you know my love for fire isn’t sexual or anything. I just like fire. The way someone might like a good meal.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. I wasn’t going to poke at that... not right then. Definitely later, though. It was good teasing material. “So how do we get past all that?”

“I can manage,” Gomorrah said. “At least we know that the Antithesis are going to have a hard time with it. Though I’m sure they could adapt to it eventually.”

“Let’s get to killing them before that happens, yeah?”

She nodded, then raised her flamethrower and fired a wave of white flames ahead of us that clung to the ground and somehow pushed away the other fire before burning off with whitish smoke. Where the flames cleared, the floor was left smoking, but fireless.

“Ladies first,” she said.

I eyed the ground, then poked it with the tip of my boot. “This all seems like it’s really, needlessly, dangerous.”

“So it should be right up your alley. Now come on.” She stepped by me and fired her flamethrower at more of the ground. “Let’s finish this.”

***

Chapter Seventy-Seven

“The Cleaners are a group of samurai that show up after the main thrust of an incursion is done, and after the hive is declared dead. Some of them are somewhat popular, but never as much as the more famous ‘main-line’ samurai.

Their work is out of the limelight, cleaning up after the bigger, louder samurai, and ensuring that an incursion is well and truly dead.”

--Excerpt from, The Cleaners, a documentary, 2037

***

Gomorrah continued to clear the way, even though the fires were finally starting to die down. I think the lack of air and stuff to burn other than rock was finally calming things down.

It was still swelteringly hot though, and I could feel myself sweating like mad in my suit. I kinda hoped that it was going to cool off soon, but the patches of ground that were still glowing-hot after the fire finally went out hinted that it wouldn’t cool down that quickly.

“I think we’re nearly there,” Gomorrah said.

I looked around and vaguely recognized the area. It wasn’t like there were road signs to follow, but I did have a minimap of sorts and the passages seemed familiar. We were at an intersection away from the hive. “How do you figure?” I asked.

“I was looking at your progress on the map earlier; this is about where you stopped. In the next section, I mean,” she said.

Made sense. “Aww, ⁵ were you watching out for me?”

“More points if you leave to join the Lord.”

I laughed. “Nice. Yeah, the next spot is where the hive was.”

“Was? You sure it’s entirely gone?”

“I hope it is,” I said.

The room had been pretty large, and I wasn’t sure if I’d put enough canister bombs to fully cover it. On our trek down, I could spot the places where the bombs’ range didn’t overlap—there wasn’t usually much damage in those spots. A few Antithesis had tried to hide in there, but it looked like they’d been cooked anyway.

We reached the hive, and I cursed and brought my Icarus up.

Some of the trees remained, burning merrily and tossing up brackish smoke to the ceiling. Roots still covered the ground, oozing puss and whatever passed for blood in an Antithesis hive. The outer layer of the roots had been burned off, but the fire hadn’t turned the whole place to ash.

The wrecked remains of one of my cat mecha was laying nearby, crushed and broken into so much scrap.

“Nothing moving,” Gomorrah said as she swept her gaze around. “This place is big though.”

“Not as cooked as I’d like,” I said.

“I can fix that,” she said. “Give me ten minutes or so.”

“Yeah, actually, that’s not a terrible idea.” I pointed across the room. “That tunnel’s the one I didn’t explore. Some Model Thirteen spotted me when I was going down it. I tossed a bomb in, but I don’t think it’ll have burned too deep into it.”

“Maybe we can head over that way, then burn the hive behind us,” Gomorrah said.

I started to nod, then swore and jumped onto Gomorrah.

She gasped as I collided into her and sent both of us sprawling.

Then a Model Thirteen, or a third of one, crashed into the ground where we’d been standing. Its tentacles, mostly cut short and burned to nubs, whipped around and crashed into my back. Shields appeared and burst apart under the impact, and I was shoved down harder onto Gomorrah.

Then my cats opened fire, all three of them shooting at the Model Thirteen from three directions and gouging out the Antithesis’ flesh.

I rolled off Gomorrah and scrambled for my gun, but it was already done, the alien slumped down, properly dead.

“Christ,” Gomorrah said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I climbed to my feet, then stepped over to the Model Thirteen. It was riddled with holes, some of them bleeding quite a bit. It looked a little charred on the edges, but I guess it had slipped to somewhere safe... ish.

I kicked it with the tip of my boot, just to make sure.

“Where did that come from?” Gomorrah asked.

I looked up. “They can cling to ceilings, and there’s smoke,” I said. “Spooky fuckers.”

Gomorrah grunted as she got to her feet. Her back-mounted flamethrowers deployed and started scanning the ceiling. “Good way of knowing that the hive isn’t entirely dead. I don’t envy the samurai that do clean-up work.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I asked.

“Not quite. There are some that come in only once the hive is confirmed to be dead, just to root out pockets of Antithesis, and burn any remains so they don’t start growing again. It’s not a job that pays very well, point-wise, but it’s lower-risk and someone needs to do it.”

“Let’s make their jobs easier then,” I said. “Myalis, resonators, I need... eh, about six of them?”

The sound-based bombs acted pretty slowly, but they lasted a while. I tossed the first one across the room, then saw Gomorrah shaking her head.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Those things are noisy.”

I paused, five more grenades tucked into the crook of my arm. “Want me to put these aside?

She shook her head. “Go ahead. I’m burning this place down either way.”

I shrugged and tossed the last grenades around. They made the roots shiver, and I like  seeing all the trees start melting on the edges, turning into so much slush. Hopefully it would slush any still-living Antithesis, though it didn’t seem to work as well on the trees and thicker roots.

“Let’s keep moving,” Gomorrah said.

I pointed to one of my cats, then ahead of us, letting it leap forward to take the lead.

“You bought cats here?” Gomorrah asked as she looked  at the wreck of a cat mech.

“Distraction,” I said. “I made it out alive, so I guess it worked.”

“I guess so. I’m starting to realize that we are woefully undertrained for this .”

“Did you get any training at all?”

“No.”

I nodded. “So we’re not under trained, are we?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Gomorrah and I crossed the hive, being careful as we stepped over roots and the charred husks of dead Antithesis. I had one scare when a Model Ten flopped out of a tree, looking halfway melted, but mostly unburned.

When we reached the entrance to that one tunnel I hadn’t explored, Gomorrah turned and brought her flamethrower up. She fiddled with the controls, doing something with them for a moment before aiming up and at the far end of the room.

A stream of burning liquid came pouring out of the flamethrower, the spray widening and splashing the floor and bits of hive with whatever fire-juice Gomorrah was using.

The nun started moving her gun left and right, coating the far end of the room before she started to lower her aim to spread the joy around a little more. Like buttering a piece of toast, but not.

“Nice work,” I said.

She nodded. “That’ll do.”

The room was a burning inferno, flames taller than I was hissing and spitting even as the remaining trees crumbled apart and the roots and plants clinging to the ceiling crashed down, sending waves of embers into the air.

Gomorrah’s flamethrower used some weird shit to burn stuff. I wasn’t going to poke at it, it was her area of expertise, and it certainly seemed to be working just fine.

I patted her on the shoulder and nodded deeper into the tunnel. “Let’s go?”

“Certainly. Let’s just hope this isn’t a dead-end.”

“Uh,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“You’re a bit of an idiot, you know?”

“I’ve been told as much, yeah,” I said.

The nun sighed. “The maps say that this tunnel links back up  to another, we should be able to loop back around closer to the entrance. That’s if the mine didn’t collapse anywhere.”

We started down the shaft. After a dozen metres or so, the signs of there being a massive fire died down, the floor only streaked by fire here and there. A few bodies were left slumped on the ground—Antithesis that had tried to run?

I almost felt bad for them. It was a hell of a way to go.

The first sign that the hive might not be entirely dead were some small roots, with the start of those sacs that the models grew out of sprouting all along their length. I traced the root down into the depths of the shaft and around a corner. “Fresh, or was that there before the hive went up?” I asked.

“Either way, it’s trouble.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re around.”

“Because we can do our job?”

I grinned. “Nah, because I figure we’re good at making trouble, especially to things that are already troublesome.”

Gomorrah chuckled. “I don’t think that’s how any of that works, but sure. Let’s finish all of this; I want a bath.”

***

Chapter Seventy-Eight

“Now that we’ve seen everything these aliens can throw at us, I’m certain our brave soldiers can handle them!”

--General Legstronger, USMC, 2026.

***

“Wait, there’s another bunch of them here,” Gomorrah said.

I sighted down the length of my Icarus, then nodded. “Burn away.”

We were some hundred metres down that last tunnel, and I was beginning to suspect that the hive was bigger than I’d thought. Sure, there were plenty of dead plants in that last big room, but the tunnel had dozens of roots crossing the floor, some of them splitting off and rejoining others seemingly at random.

We kept finding dead bodies at first, burnt Antithesis, but that stopped after a while.

The marks across the floor, as if bodies had been dragged off, weren’t reassuring at all.

Gomorrah stepped up to a crack in the wall, one the roots were using to hang on and where a bunch of small seed-pods were starting to grow. The aliens within weren’t any bigger than a fetus and they wouldn’t get any bigger as Gomorrah sprayed them with a shower of liquid fire. “That’s that,” she said.

I nodded. “Let’s keep moving,” I said.

A couple of my mecha cats leapt ahead, scouting out the mine before we reached it, in case some Model Nine was pretending to be a rock or some piece of root or something.

“The roots are getting thicker,” Gomorrah said.

I looked at them, then nodded. They’d started off no thicker than my wrist. Now they were around thigh-sized. “Yeah. I think maybe that hive I burned wasn’t the main thing after all.”

“If it wasn’t, then the Antithesis learned how to excavate. The maps show that most of the rest of the mine is all tight passages. Though... there is an intersection coming up—should be a bit wider.”

“Great,” I said.

“It looks like Cause Player is down one of the other tunnels; a good distance away, but still coming closer. If he’s killing everything there, then we’ll only have a very short mineshaft left to explore, and it ends after about fifty metres.”

So, that was it. If we cleared out this last bit of tunnel, assuming we didn’t miss anything, then everything in the  mine would be cleared.

One of the mecha cats rumbled, a low growl that had my hackles rising and my breath catching. I squinted ahead, and my sight zoomed in on... something.

The last intersection was wide enough to let one of the mining trucks turn without too much trouble, and they were big trucks.

Something was filling the intersection almost entirely, and it wasn’t until we were a little closer that I realized that it was another hive, but one that was different.

Instead of a sort of sparse jungle with dozens of wide trees rising up and holding onto seed pods, this one was more like a massive lump on the ground. One covered in flowers, with a few thicker roots poking out of it that seemed to be gestating new models even as we approached, but still, just a big lump.

“Funky,” I said.

“Should we burn it?” Gomorrah asked.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked.

“Well, not burning it might make it easier to check out the last tunnel.”

That was a fair point. We hadn’t stopped walking, and were within a dozen metres of the edge of the room when our conversation was interrupted.

“Careful.”

I stopped dead, hands tightening over my Icarus and eyes scanning everything, ceiling included. “What is it?” I asked. Myalis rarely warned me about stuff. She was more of a ‘let her figure it out when it hurts her’ kind of person.

“That’s the egg incubator for a Model Twenty-One.”

It felt as if my mouth went dry all of a sudden. “The bigger the number, the more fucky the alien, right?”

“As a general rule, yes. Model Twenty-Ones are a stealth model.”

“How big are we talking about here?” I asked. I was scanning the rocks and ground, looking for anything that stood out, anything that could be a Model Nine but worse.

Approximately two metres long, one tall. Six legged, with each limb having a gripping hand. They have segmented plates over their body that are made of a heavy iron-rich compound. Six hearts, two brains . Relatively heavy, but also very fast. Favours close-quarters combat.”

“Cat,” Gomorrah said. Something in her tone had me looking out the same way she was.

I couldn’t see it at first. It was just a small haze in the air, barely visibly against the rest. Maybe in full daylight, when I wasn’t looking through the colour-shifted night vision of my mask.

As it was, I only saw the thing when it started charging at us. “Shit!” I screamed as I raised my Icarus. I fired at it, then cursed again when the first shots went wide and exploded in the plants and muck behind what had to be the Model Twenty-One.

Gomorrah set her legs and sprayed a jet of fire ahead of us, only to have to juke it to the side as the alien jumped to the wall, then it faded from there and we both stopped firing.

“Where is it?” I asked.

I had seen it hit the wall; there were some marks left from the impact, and then, nothing. “Teleport?”

“Model Twenty-Ones cannot teleport.”

“That’s some worrying fucking phrasing there, Myalis,” I hissed.

“Neither of you are ready to face off against any Antithesis model above twenty. I would suggest a retreat, but the Model Twenty-One is aware of you. It seems small, recently-birthed. It will be relatively weak.”

“Can they bur--”

I felt something shift behind me, and I spun just in time to see Gomorrah being flung back, bending almost double in mid-air as she flew. Her flamethrower hovered in the air for a moment, partially distorted before something crushed it as if it was little more than a soda can.

I spun while firing and backed up.

I only just saw the blur of a large limb swiping out at me and batting my gun aside. A claw scraped across my cybernetic arm.

Stumbling back, I tried to make room to bring my launcher up. Being in the AOE be damned, I wanted the fucker dead. He’d hurt Gomorrah!

Another swipe, and this time my Icarus was launched across the tunnel.

I saw dark eyes. Bored, placid eyes, like a cow in one of those anti-vegan commercials, not the eyes of a predator trying to kill me—not that it mattered at all.

It launched itself at me, mouth wide and filled with serrated teeth.

Then one of my mecha cats chomped down over its neck and dragged it aside, enough that I was only tossed  aside when it struck out with one of its rear limbs.

I landed in a roll and got back to my feet. All three mecha cats were on it, two of them chomping and clawing at the monster even as they fired into it from point blank. The third was further back, guns rattling and poking little holes into the Model Twenty-One’s sides that didn’t seem to be nearly as deep as I wanted.

Climbing to one knee, I let my back-mounted guns deploy even as I turned my invisibility back on. Leaving it off to make Gomorrah comfortable had been something of a mistake.

My railgun fired.

I stared, flummoxed, at the slice cut into the air above me. It struck the alien on one of its broad shoulder plates, then went up and hit the ceiling where stone was crumbling down.

The fucker was tough enough to make railgun rounds glance off?

The Model Twenty-One grabbed one of my mecha from off of its shoulder and threw it to the ground, then it pinned the mech down with a clawed hand, grabbed it by the middle with its jaw, and pulled.

I winced as the mecha was torn in half. Its guns never stopped firing into the monster, not until it stomped them down.

Two sputtering hoses of fire hissed through the air and covered the Model Twenty-One from top to bottom. “That... that hurt,” Gomorrah said.

I laughed, relieved, but I had to focus.

The Model turned towards Gomorrah, evidently pissed, and its muscles bunched to jump.

I yanked my Claw out, aimed at its rear leg, and fired.

The Model Twenty-One launched itself at Gomorrah, but it was a weak, abortive jump, and the nun rolled aside.

It was starting to look worse for wear, and I was more than pleased to help it along, firing every last round from my Claw into its flank.

Its skin peeled off, and it shook itself, moulting in the space of a few seconds and revealing skin so dark it was hard to tell where the monster ended and the tunnel behind started.

I swore.

I didn’t know what kind of bullshit this monster in particular was up to, but in my book, anything that had been shot that much should have lain down and died already.

“Myalis, I need a bomb.”

***

Chapter Seventy-Nine

“Do not underestimate the Antithesis. Just because a model’s number is twice as high, doesn’t mean it will only be twice as likely to kill you.”

--

***

The trick was picking the right sort of bomb. Nothing that would kill Gomorrah and I, that was a given, and something that would still put the Model Twenty-One down.

It was injured. The Mecha cats had peppered it with little holes, none that seemed too deep, but in spots where their fire had been concentrated, the alien’s skin looked like it had been assaulted by a cheese-grater. Gomorrah’s fire blackened some of its skin, and I was sure emptying every round from my Claw into its flank had done nasty things to its musculature.

I’m afraid there’s nothing I can give you that will kill the Model Twenty-One instantly without risking yourself or Vanguard Gomorrah.

“Shit,” I swore. “Noise grenades.”

A grenade appeared in the air next to me and I snapped it out of the air. I didn’t have to look to pull the tab on it and fling it over to rest under the Model Twenty-One. Almost as soon as the grenade landed it started to make its damned keening howl.

The Model Twenty-One shook its overlarge head, its focus moving away from Gomorrah, who was busy backing up, and to the ground.

A leg stomped down on the grenade, crushing it and killing its noise with a squawk.

I didn’t know if the resonator had actually done anything in those few seconds, but if it crushed it, then it didn’t like it.

“Another,” I muttered as I started to run. I wanted to keep behind the monster. Hopefully it wouldn’t notice me tossing the grenades by its feet.

The Model Twenty-One was even faster to destroy the next one.

“Another,” I said. “And then give me something that’ll blow up in its face.”

I tossed the next resonator behind it, and the alien spun and crushed it faster than I could blink. The next grenade clattered by its feet, much quieter.

It stomped on it all the same.

I flung an arm over my face as an explosive blast roared past me.

The Model Twenty-One stumbled to the side, its front looking even worse, with its skin blackened and an entire leg missing from the joint down. Blackish blood was slopping down onto the ground in a rapid pitter-patter beat.

It raised its head, one eye partially shut, and looked right at me.

“Ah, shit,” I said.

I tucked my Claw away and grabbed my Trench Maker even as I started running again. My back-mounted guns swivelled around and started to fire at it. The plasma caster didn’t seem to do much at all, only leaving glowing welts in its thick hide, but my railgun’s next round didn’t bounce. It burrowed into the monster’s chest, leaving a finger-sized hole of glowing flesh where it had passed.

It still wasn’t dead though.

A wash of fire shoved the Model Twenty-One to the side, its claws scraping against the ground for purchase.

“Thanks!” I shouted as I tried to run faster. I’d seen it wreck one of my mechs, and I was pretty sure they were tougher than I was.

“It’s refusing to burn,” Gomorrah said. She sounded very insulted about it.

I looked over my shoulder and choked on a curse. The Model Twenty-One was very much on fire now. Gomorrah kept adding to it so that its entire body was covered in flames. It only made it scarier though. What kind of monster could ignore being set on fire so easily?

My remaining mecha cat kept its distance, still firing in bursts at where I suspected the alien was weaker.

It skidded past me and bumped into one of the walls.

I turned and aimed my Trench Maker at it, then fired over and over again until I clicked empty.

The bastard barely seemed to notice.

Another railgun round, and another hole punched into it, but there was no explosion in the wall behind it. The round had stayed lodged somewhere in all of its plant meat. Real tough plant meat.

“Cat, get down!”

I glanced over to Gomorrah, then stared for all of a moment before jumping as far the fuck away as I could.

Gomorrah had bought herself a new gun.

It was a cumbersome looking thing, all angular and flat-sided, with cross-shaped cut-outs and golden trim over flat black plates. She held it on her shoulder, the barrel--wider than my fist--currently pointing at the Model Twenty-One.

“May god have mercy on you, because I’m fresh out.”

I didn’t have time to tell her that she sounded cheesy as fuck before she fired, and a grey blur shot out of the launcher and struck the Model Twenty-One.

I was expecting heat.

I wasn’t disappointed.

For a moment, all I could focus on was putting more room between myself and whatever the fuck Gomorrah had just fired at that alien.

It wasn’t heat, it was something beyond that. My augs started to flicker, warning about my armour being strained, my coat being unable to function at the current temperatures, and that my mask was switching to tanked oxygen because it couldn’t filter anything from the air.

I stumbled ahead, then when I had my feet under me I ran until the heat only felt like a bonfire at my back.

Slowing down, I turned and winced until my mask’s visor occluded the part of the tunnel the Model Twenty-One was in.

Gomorrah was walking over to me, her launcher lowered even as the mineshaft behind her glowed like an inferno.

The Model Twenty-One was still moving.

Oh, it wasn’t going to move for long, but the thing was crawling its way towards us, even as its sides melted and its limbs came apart one by one.

“What was that?” I asked as Gomorrah came closer.

“That was a very expensive thermate warhead ,” Gomorrah said. “Three thousand degrees celsius on the edges, a whole lot hotter in the middle.”

She sounded very, very smug.

“Well, it worked,” I said.

The Model Twenty-One was still struggling, but it was weak, its remaining limbs barely able to pull it forwards.

“Damn, that thing is tough,” I said.

Gomorrah lowered her launcher. “Yeah. I knew the higher numbered models were going to be a challenge, but this is more than I thought.”

“That Model Twenty-One was approximately twenty percent smaller than average, and its reaction times were slower than usual. It’s very likely that it was born before the end of its incubation period because of the strain on the hive.”

So the real thing would be tougher. “And it’s a stealth model,” I said.

“It’s a unit that usually fights as a pack.”

I tilted my head left and right, to crack my neck. “Well then. That’s just plain terrifying.”

“Agreed,” Gomorrah said.

The heat had faded some, and the glowing ball of fire was starting to break up, sending showers of sparks hissing through the air around it with fire-cracker pops. Then it gradually sank into the stone around it.

“Damn,” I repeated.

“We should move on, burn the rest of the hive out and get out of here,” Gomorrah said.

“I could use a break. Maybe a nice nap. Something to drink...” I considered what else to add to my list. “A hug from Lucy?”

“I think we could both use that,” Gomorrah agreed absently.

I shot her a look.

“Shall we get going?” she asked before heading out.

“Hey wait! Lucy’s hugs are mine! Mine, you hear!”

“What are you on about Cat? Can’t you take anything seriously for a minute or two?”

We went the long way around the Model Twenty-One. It wasn’t moving anymore , but that didn’t stop me from reloading my Claw and then emptying it in the bigger chunks of its body, just in case. If there was ever anything that deserved to be double-tapped, it was that heap of trouble.

“I didn’t think the models past twenty would be that, uh, insane,” I said. “Is it dead?”

“We got the points for it,” Gomorrah confirmed.

“Models above Twenty make up nearly half of all Antithesis forces. If you were to graph the distribution of models out, it would appear as a near-exponential decrease, with the median of models being between the model twenties and thirties.”

“And they get worse as they get bigger numbers?” I asked.

Generally speaking, yes. Though there are of course utility models across the scale. Most models past Thirty aren’t necessarily terrestrial.

“Okay,” I said. I could have an existential crisis about that later.

I found my Icarus, the gun scuffed and battered, but still functional-looking, and I saw that Gomorrah paused to mourn over her Archangel's  Kiss. Figured we’d made enough points to buy another, but I didn’t begrudge her taking some time for that.

I had one mecha cat left, the one that held onto my old helmet still. “Tough one, aren’t you,” I said. “Let’s hope we won’t be putting that toughness to the test anymore.”

***

Chapter Eighty

***

Icarus Mark II. It’s a one-hundred point grenade-launching rifle. Rather slim, with a titanium chassis. The magazine holds eighteen rounds, which can be fired in single  shot, or in three-round bursts.

35 +25 +85

“The first tier catalogue--matter reconfiguration machines, will cost a mere seventy-five points. The second tier costs one of your tokens, as well as an additional four hundred points. The device itself will cost two-thousand six-hundred points.”

75

400

2600

6910

3500

Tlk of future and stuff

Blueprint

Anti-Adware Suite

Basic Cyberwarfare Catalogue - Protects simple devices from non-whitelisted ad intrusion

Blueprint

Anti-Spyware Suite

Basic Cyberwarfare Catalogue - Protects simple devices from non-whitelisted spyware intrusion

Blueprint

Micro Acoustic Listening Device

Stealth Catalogue - Miniature listening and recording device

Blueprint

Clothing Creation Fabricator

Decoy Catalogue - System to create clothes from modelled template

Blueprint

Hard Light Projector

Decoy Catalogue - Miniaturized hard light projector for small cosmetic items

Blueprint

Decoy Super Aug

Decoy Catalogue - A false version of the Vanguard customizable eye gear

Blueprint

Feline Cat Reflex Augmentation

Sunwatcher Technologies - Reflex enhancing brain implant

Blueprint

Prosthetic Ears

Sunwatcher Technologies - Ear Augmentation

Secure your home

Secure yourself

Obtain greater equipment

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Secure the assets you care about

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HERE

Atyacus

Katallina McCarthy,

Start with details of minivan

Sports with mods

Moon colony

MCat heads out to find some girl. Cat finds clues to where she might be, and also a Dead Boy near the place she searches. Cat follows these and discovers a web of corporations and dirty money that she follows around. Maybe finding some morally repugnant shit going on. Cat maybe adopts a few more kittens. Cat finds the girl at last, but she's out of Cat's reach. Cat reminds a small corporation why you shouldn't fuck with people able to buy nukes on a whim. Turns out the girl's not a Samurai at all. It was Dead Boy all along.

Neuro-Regenerative

Nose, Spark. Tim. Bargain. Nemo. the Twins, Junior, Daniel, Lucy

“Cat?”

“Yeah?”

“If we ever get married, I want Mr Tentacles to be the best man.”

“Is it even a man?”

“Cat. It has like, sixteen penises.”