Nat383: Did you hear about Liquid Carbon?


    SvTehWhls: Not recently. Weren’t they the ones using hydro-forests to improve carbon sequestration? Something about wetland forests and peat formation?


    Nat383: That’s what they were trying to do, yes.


    SvTehWhls: Your response has an ominous scent of the past tense.


    Nat383: With good reason: it got eaten up by Antithesis. Several hives appeared surrounding their test swamp, and the researchers barely made it out of there alive.


    SvTehWhls: Where were the fuckin’ Samurai?


    Nat383: Keeping the same hives out of Vicksburg, only so many of them to go around, and they had to prioritize people over projects.


    SvTehWhls: *grumbles*


    --WorldRescue chat forum, 2043


    ***


    As the elevator descended, I donned my data glasses and helmet and then called for another rideshare. While waiting for it, I stood in the lobby and tried to ignore the strange looks from Amanda. A slow, drippy rain, so common to Cascadia, had come in, and I stared at the raindrops streaking through the streetlights. And as in morbid thought I stood, I pondered what my father said.


    <Is it true?>


    --Yes. The incursions that Earth’s seen so far are small, but they will continue to grow bigger.


    <How much bigger?>


    --Enough that comparisons become ludicrous. The rifts are still small enough that they don’t disrupt the planet’s gravity and electromagnetic fields. Eventually, they will get so large that they will have to be centered outside the atmosphere or even the moon’s orbit, or else risk irreparable damage to the planetary body. Their intent is to take over the Earth, not demolish it.


    <That’s… quite a lot, considering they already cover a large city. How long do you think that will take?>


    I thought about the hundreds of aliens I’d killed today, and that was only a small hive breakout. A full-on incursion, where new aliens arrived from who knows where, spanned dozens of kilometers and could take days to contain and required the efforts of several upper-level Samurai.


    --It depends on a lot of factors, some of which cannot be computed. But there could be equal or greater problems before reaching that level. For instance, if a hive remained unnoticed for a long time, it could reach a level that it would be using Model Twelves in place of Model Threes and scaling up from there. Or worse.


    <Which means growing stronger fast, like my father suggested, is a necessity, not simply good advice.>


    --Yes and no. There comes a point where you grow too fast and don’t learn to properly control your power. It’s a balancing act that can be hard to maintain.


    <Thus, we have the point system?>


    --And the tokens, but they are there for other reasons too.


    <I don’t think we’ve talked about tokens yet?>


    At this time my rideshare had shown up, and I climbed into the vehicle. My shirt clung to my body in a wet, soggy mass, prompting me to add a new line to the Upgrade Requirements list: Raincoat.


    --You earn tokens by completing various accomplishments, like rescuing your first 100 people. They are used to unlock higher-level catalogs, which give more powerful options.


    <The cyclone generator that Forró uses? That’s from second-level catalogs?>


    --More likely a Class III catalog, maybe even higher. They form a tech pyramid where you have to unlock several related Class II catalogs to open the next level. And the Class III takes more tokens, and so on upwards.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    <So I’ll need to, what? Protect more people to get the next token?>


    --There’s a wide variety of milestones, most of them related to demonstrating your ability, responsibility, stability, and dedication. From what I’ve seen, you’ll get plenty with what you would do naturally.


    <Okay, so for now, we need to talk about my upgrades. I’ll start with my general upgrade thoughts and preferences. First, as I’ve already said, I don’t like throwing away gear, and any permanent upgrades should allow it to improve with me rather than replacing and throwing away the old gear. Consumables, like the sealant, are a necessary evil. But if I might need a dozen of the same thing, I’d rather pay for a longer-term solution.>


    I paused, watching the city lights paint stars on the wet windows.


    <Maneuverability is important. That’s both in terms of moving about the battlefield and defense. The best defense is to not get hit. Faster movement, flexibility, and situational awareness are high priorities.>


    <I also have a strong preference for precision, training, and skill over brute force. Samurai have a well-deserved reputation for collateral damage. Granted, sometimes you can’t avoid that when dealing with large hordes, but from what I’ve seen and heard, most of the time they’re compensating for not developing the skill to use what they have by using excessive force.>


    <Finally, and in keeping with the last, I want to be tactically flexible and able to change up what I’m using based on the situation, rather than just hitting the proverbial wall harder.>


    --That’s very helpful. You speak confidently of your preferences, but I have to ask: if you’ve never seen combat before today, how can you be so sure you’re right? How much of that is from experience and how much from philosophy or ideals?


    <A lot of it is ideals from thinking about what I’ve seen of Samurai in the news, and talks with my family. But I do have some experience tactically in shooting ranges, and via video games. I play in some of the tougher leagues on the more realistic games, so some of that experience carries over. And the VR rooms at work, which I use all the time, are often rented by full military groups for training which they swear by.>


    --We’ll have to see how it plays out. But I’ll admit from today’s performance, you don’t seem like the More Dakka, Bigger Boom type of Vanguard.


    The rideshare pulled into the garage, and I spent a few minutes negotiating security and retrieving my other weapons. Finally, I made it to my apartment. With a smile, I accessed the door lock via my hind-brain for the first time and was immediately embarrassed by the number of ads and pop-ups that flooded my glasses.


    --That won’t do. Some of those have security holes big enough to put the moon through. I’ll shut them down for now. You are thinking of upgrading the locks on your place, aren’t you? Or supplementing them?


    <The company that owns the building, Portera, requires access, so I can’t change out the locks. It never seemed this bad on my tablet. Can you show me how to clean up what’s there at least?>


    --Absolutely. Cleaning your locks would be good practice. That’s why I only shut them down, rather than remove the malware entirely.


    <I guess so. I can’t believe that none of my family mentioned it.>


    Corie sent a wordless blurb of data that amounted to an unknowing shrug.


    The door shut behind me, a bastion against the day’s events, and the stress drained away while I leaned back against it. Across the room, my second-hand couch tempted me with its soft seating. But the weight of the weapons in my arms reminded me that I couldn’t stop yet.


    I squeezed past the computer desk into the small kitchen and dinette. After dumping the weapons onto the table, I took the five steps needed to reach the bedroom closet and change into dry clothes. Squeezed between the bedroom door and the couch stood my gun safe, from which I retrieved my gun cleaning kit.


    The kit landing on the table caused the pile of firearms to settle, and the pistol slid over the surface, nearly falling off before I could catch it. I stood there weighing the weapon in my hand, not really seeing it. One of the cultist’s weapons. And while the owner of this weapon had survived, most had not, many by my hand.


    My stomach dropped as it hit me: I’d killed people today. Not just ravenous aliens, but breathing, thinking people.


    My hands acted out of reflex born of habit, while my mind struggled through my emotions. They pulled the magazine and cleared the round, then tilted the gun for a peek down the barrel. I looked, not really seeing, more aware of the pink flesh than the cold steel. Why pink? Why aren’t they red with blood?


    I slumped into a chair and continued to handle the weapon, rubbing the steel and plastic until it warmed in my hand. At times sharp corners pressed my palm, waves of intensity in counterpoint to the soothing caress.


    The cultists that we’d attacked, that I’d killed, were the first, the only people I’d ever killed, and it bothered me that I didn’t feel bad over it. The image of the cult leader (what was his name again?) falling off the balcony ran through my mind, over and over again. Then, in the background of his falling, in my memory, I spotted the tracks that had dangled corpses above the antithesis like dog treats.


    At work, I encountered a lot of people, some that I forgot easily and others that stood out years later. One of the standouts, a regular, was a police sniper with over a hundred kills. One day someone asked how he could do it, and I still remembered his response.


    “Each time, before the shot, or afterwards, because sometimes you only have seconds, I ask myself these questions: Are innocents in danger? Am I or my team in danger? Are we out of options? Are they beyond any hope of change? If none of the answers are “yes,” then I don’t take the shot. Those are the lines I draw. So far, I’ve been lucky; the only ones I lose sleep over are the few where I wasn’t certain on the third question.”


    I applied that rule to the situation I had been in and found it passed the test. Trying to make myself feel guilty in this case would only make me feel bad. I nodded my head and started to disassemble the pistol for cleaning.