ã€ŠSlaying Aliens and Infringing Copyrights (SCS Fanfiction)ã€‹


 Chapter One

    Robert was having a very bad day.

    It started in the morning, when he learned his coworker had been fired for showing early signs of overwork related stress. This led to Robert being called into work for a double shift, three minutes after falling asleep.

    The bad luck streak continued when he found out which route he was being asked to drive. He would be driving a Greyhound hoverbus between cities, which meant a long, somewhat dangerous route through an area that had occasional Antithesis sightings.

    Then a passenger''s baby threw up on his shirt while they loaded onto the bus. Per corporate policy, he could not leave his seat while the hoverbus was running, nor could he shut it off during work hours. So Robert had no choice but to drive his route while wet and stinking of vomit.

    At this point Robert was quite miserable, but fate was not done with him yet. Midway through his route, something broke inside the hoverbus''s engine, and he found himself slowly losing altitude. He landed the hoverbus safely in an open field, but now he was forced to exit the vehicle and troubleshoot the engine, relying on nothing but online manuals accessed via his augmentations.

    On the bright side, he was finally able to change his shirt.

    Just as Robert was nearly finished with the engine, though, he heard screams from within the hoverbus. His eyes shot towards the woodline one hundred meters away, and his blood ran cold when he spotted a trio of Model Three Antithesis emerging from the forest. He cursed under his breath as his fingers sped up, trying desperately to complete the repairs before the aliens could reach him.

    The xenos shot across the field as one, running shoulder to shoulder as they approached the bus- and Robert. Eighty meters. Sixty. Forty.

    Robert didn''t even hear it coming. One moment the Model Threes were nearing the twenty meter mark, the next a cobalt blur shot across his peripheral vision and the aliens vanished from sight. He turned to see what had happened and traced a scar across the grass, filled with broken bits of machinery. Sound seemed to catch up in that moment as he spotted a hovercar skipping across the field.

    It bounced once, twice, three times, then fell heavily on its rear bumper, nose pointed towards the sky. It hung there for what felt like an eternity before slowly, inevitably, tilting forwards, falling heavily onto its belly.

    Everything was silent for several moments as everyone processed what had just happened. Before Robert could fully register that he was still alive, the pulped remains of the the Model Threes began to rain from the sky, soaking his pristine, white shirt in green plant matter.

    Goddammit.

    <hr>

    ¡°¡­and so, per Director Fields¡¯ orders, we will be doing a full rewrite of the story for Excelsior 14-II. The writing team will be expected to submit the first draft for this two weeks from today. His feedback was, and I quote, ¡®I would like to see something edgier, with a less depressing ending.¡¯¡±

    No one groaned, but I could tell they wanted to. Rewriting the story for an AAAA game in two weeks was absolutely brutal, and meant insane amounts of overtime. It was debatable whether they¡¯d be able to sleep. But so goes the grind of working for a game dev in 2056. And what the hell was that feedback?

    ¡°As for the programming team, due to the recent controversy regarding the Samurai+ Engine, the Director would like you to do a full conversion over to Unity 3XD. Keep in mind that you may also be required to make changes to accommodate any events in the story that the engine currently cannot support once the revisions are completed.¡±

    This time the manager didn¡¯t list a deadline, which everyone understood to mean they had until the writing team finished their own assignment. I had to wonder whether Junichiro really expected these projects to be completed on time, or if he was simply relaying the words of Director Fields. Probably the latter. The man was clueless about game development and I doubted he even read the original draft.

    ¡°Erica, your team is going to need to redo the art to match the new draft, as well as provide new models for all objects, characters, and backgrounds in order to match the new style.¡±

    I waved my hand in acknowledgement. ¡®Team.¡¯ What a joke. I babysat a dozen purpose-built art generating AI, each of which was dedicated to a specific type of art and model. Characters, ships, weapons, etc. He and I both knew I was only here so the company could claim to have a human art team and technically be telling the truth. Most game developers had fully migrated to AI already.

    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    What a waste of a degree.

    That said, it meant I was in for way less work than everyone else with this latest round of redoes. The game had been stuck in development hell for years now; I wasn¡¯t even the original art director. There was a betting pool on whether the dev team was a money laundering scheme for the director or if he was simply that incompetent. No one expected to collect on it, though.

    After the meeting wrapped up, I hurried back to my office to input the new design parameters and then clocked out. Everyone else would be putting in overtime; I, on the other hand, just had to see what kind of garbage the AIs spat out over the weekend. It would be predictably derivative and reminiscent of a dozen-dozen IPs created over the course of the last century, and absolutely no one would care.

    Okay, the players would care. As far as the company was concerned, that meant no one.

    It took me the better part of ten minutes to get to the parking deck where my hovercar was waiting. It was a dated model, but it did the job. If I ignored that a recall was put out for it five years ago. In this day and age, that didn¡¯t equal a free fix- it simply meant the company wanted to ¡®fix¡¯ an issue they intentionally included at the customer¡¯s expense so they could make a few more bucks off of an older model vehicle.

    As I couldn¡¯t afford the fee, I would simply have to take the risk.

    It was another hour before I made it home, crowded as the traffic is in Charlotte these days. Once just another city in North Carolina, after the fall of the United States, it had overtaken Raleigh as the capital and grown into a megacity choked and crowded with most of the former state¡¯s population. Like any megacity, it was composed of countless sky scrapers layers on top of an undercity where all the maintenance was done, and the poorer you were, the closer you lived to the ground.

    The poorest just lived under the ground.

    I lived about halfway up a residential building, which meant I was solidly lower-middle class. I received pay befitting an art team manager, even if I didn¡¯t have a real team.

    But that was too depressing to think about, so I shifted focus to my plans for the weekend. There was a convention in old Virginia this weekend, and I was planning to drive up there tomorrow morning. I had my costume all picked out and ready: the Mjolnir Mk V from Halo: Combat Evolved, based on the model from the original Halo: Reach, not the most recent remake. The newer versions had begun revamping old armor designs to include things we had learned about real power armor over the last half-century from samurai that used armor for exceeding what we could build today, and while they were more realistic, they lacked the artistic vision of the earlier designs.

    I popped a frozen dinner into the microwave and went over my costume one more time, determined to make sure not a detail was out of place. The suit was largely plastic, but it was solid plastic, not hollow, and much sturdier than the coated Styrofoam some cosplayers liked to use. That method was easier to form, but my armor was a lot sturdier. It had LEDs inserted into all the right places, and a helmet treated to be orange only on the outside, without tinting my vision.

    Deciding everything was in order, I inhaled my tasteless meal and proceeded to pull on the suit, just to be sure the fit was correct. It was right about then that I got a call over my augs. There was only one person that would be calling me at this time of day: my mom. This was a weekly event, but I had kind of lost track of time.

    ¡°Hey mom, what¡¯s up?¡± I said as I shimmied into the suit. The greatest thing about modern augmentations was the ability to operate them hands-free.

    ¡°Erica Lynn Taylor, is that a costume you¡¯re wearing?¡± she interrogated with mock-anger. I forgot I had my augs set to simulate my current appearance for video calls, and mom always made video calls. ¡°Are you going to a con without me?¡±

    Yes, I normally attended conventions with my mother. She was a huge cosplayer too, and had been on the scene way back when a lot of my favorite retro games were first released, back before I was born. She¡¯d introduced me to both the games and the hobby of cosplaying, and I wasn¡¯t embarrassed to admit it. It was good bonding time.

    ¡°Sorry mom, didn¡¯t mention it because I knew you had a shift this weekend. I was planning to just keep it quiet so you wouldn¡¯t be disappointed, but I forgot to change my aug settings back¡­¡±

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry about my feelings young lady, I¡¯m more than old enough to manage my disappointment,¡± she riposted with a smile. Her augs were set to show the entire background of the room she was in- she was sitting in her workshop, and a series of cosplay suits were hanging in the background. She was probably working on a new one before she called.

    ¡°I know, I just feel bad about going alone¡­but one of my contacts needed a replacement for their booth, and I owed him a favor.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, I understand. But! I wanted to let you know, I decided what I¡¯m doing for the next con!¡±

    ¡°I swear to fuck if you say Bayo-¡°

    ¡°Bayonetta! Too late, already made the costume!¡±

    ¡°Mom, no.¡±

    ¡°Mom, yes!¡±

    ¡°You are fifty seven.¡±

    ¡°And I don¡¯t look a day over thirty five.¡±

    ¡°No one wants to see your granny bits. I don¡¯t want to see your granny bits.¡±

    ¡°My daughter is too gay to make me a granny.¡±

    ¡°¡­technically, I could still adopt.¡± She gave me one of the most unimpressed looks I have ever seen. I didn¡¯t take it personally- she¡¯d never been grandbaby crazy and I knew the comment was entirely a riposte of my own.

    ¡°Erica, the day you decide to adopt a child is the day I eat a costume of your choice.¡±

    ¡­I had no argument for that, so it was time for another option.

    ¡°If you wear that costume I will go in your Feferi cosplay from 2014 and post all your Homestuck cosplay photos online.¡±

    ¡°How do you even have¡­? Actually, I¡¯ll take that deal. We¡¯ll go as Bayonetta and Feferi. Talk to you next week!¡± she said, hanging up the phone before I could respond.

    Goddammit, I forgot the woman was utterly shameless.

    ¡°Eh. Beats the time she went in a metal bikini. Still gonna post her dark past online, though.¡±

    Putting it out of mind, I continued to prepare for my trip tomorrow.

 Chapter Two

    "Look, I know having one of our buses get saved by a random civilian is bad publicity, but maybe we can turn this around. What if we market ourselves as the company whose policies created a samurai?"

    "If you need me to tell you why that''s a stupid idea, the only thing I can say is that the window is right over there. May as well skip a few steps and jump right to how it ends."

    -Conversation between two executives of FlexBus, the splinter company that retained ownership of the Greyhound brand in North America

    <hr>

    It took me the better part of a minute to remember what had happened when I awoke. I was behind the wheel of my shitty, decade old hovercar, the only thing keeping me upright the harness secured around my torso. Blood dripped from my forehead where it had ricocheted off the steering wheel, and my left eye was sealed shut from its passage.

    I had been driving between cities. A bad route, but one I had traveled before. I was on my way to a convention when I saw a landed hoverbus in the field below. Slowing down to see what was happening, I noticed the Antithesis emerge from the woods.

    What I did next hadn''t really involved thought. One moment I had sighted the aliens, the next I was accelerating into their path. Did I hit them? A quick look into my rearview mirror showed I probably had. A quick look into my augs showed I wasn''t leaving here under my own power. The crash had peeled the bottom of my hovercar off entirely. There was nothing there to lift it.

    Knowing modern corpos, it wasn''t going to matter that I just saved their driver, their passengers, or more importantly (to them), their bus. I would still have to pay a premium to escape on it. They always charged extra for rescues.

    I sighed and slapped the center point of the harness keeping me upright. It came undone in an instant. Reaching over to the passenger seat, I retrieved the helmet of my cosplay, noting the cracked visor as I secured it over my head. Maybe I could just claim I was cosplaying Noble Six during the Fall of Reach instead of the Chief on Alpha Halo.

    It took several kicks to open the door, and when it finally came loose, the entire thing fell to the ground instead of swinging open. I climbed out of the wreckage, one hand darting out to grab onto the roof as my head swam. I took a moment to look around, finding the bus driver closing the hood of the vehicle just as I emerged from the car- and on the far side of the hoverbus, another Model Three emerging from the forest.

    He noticed it to, and he hesitated for a moment, looking in my direction.

    "Shit," I managed, knowing what I was about to do would be the last choice I ever made.

    "Go! There''s no time!"

    The driver nodded once in my direction, but the look on his face was conflicted. He climbed back into the hoverbus anyway. We both knew there was no way I could get to it before the Model Three, and slowing to let me on would only give it time to catch up. I watched in silence as the hoverbus jolted off the ground, rising slowly but steadily as it left me behind to die.

    There was a certain clarity that came with knowing my death was near, I found. Did I make a difference here? Probably not. It was a tossup whether that bus even made it to the next city if it was so damaged it had crashed in the first place.

    But how could I have simply ignored their fate, dressed like this? I couldn''t. Call me a nerd, but it would have shamed the Mark V armor I wore, replica or no.

    Okay, so I was being a bit melodramatic. I hadn''t thought about it that much, I had just reacted in the moment.

    The Model Three changed its focus from the bus to me. As it approached, a bit of trivia popped into my head. The hovercar I was driving- an old Dodge model built in good ol'' Texas, land of no regulations- had been on the news a few years back. Apparently, it was found that under the right- or wrong, depending on your perspective- conditions, the engine became a bit...explodey. The microfusion plant it ran on was unstable and lacked safeties. Normally it was fine, but damage it a little, and there were no safeties to prevent it from going out of control.

    Maybe I wasn''t done just yet. Or rather, maybe I could take one more alien down with me. I wasn''t in the best shape- my whole body ached, and I doubted I could run. Besides, if I wanted this meltdown to do anything, I would have to stay close to the hovercard. I hobbled around the hood of the car while I fiddled with my augs, telling the hovercar to begin accelerating. With no hover apparatus to speak of, the microfusion plant in the car began to spin up, and up, and up, head building up ever higher within.

    I was a good three meters in front of the hover car when two things happened. First, the Model Three leapt over the car lengthwise. Second, just as its front legs cleared the hood, the car explosed.

    I barely got my arms up and over my face before a wave of heat and compressed air washed over me. I saw through the gap between my arms as the Model Three was consumed by fire, and for the briefest moment, I spotted something coming straight for my face.

    The world went black for the second time that day.

    ------

    System Initialized!

    Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Juny. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!

    Rise, Erica Taylor, and become a protector of the weak!

    I started awake as the voice in my head began to speak. It was about halfway through its speech by the time I could comprehend the words, and as soon as I did, I also comprehended the fact that my entire body was one huge ouch.

    "Hglbrk," was my response. The taste of blood filled my mouth.

    "Good news! Although your injuries are likely quite painful, they are not immediately fatal. Bad news! You have a broken leg, four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a bevy of hovercar parts embedded in your skin and muscles, the largest of which has penetrated to a depth approximately halfway between your skull and brain."

    My head was swimming. I tried to lift my head and check my injuries, only for a splitting pain in my forehead to rob my neck of its strength. I think the voice was still talking to me, but I couldn''t seem to make out more than a few words at a time.

    "Right. Also a concussion. That''s tricky. You have no idea what I''m saying, do you? Let''s see about fixing you up. First, you''ll need the Class I Medical Utilities catalog. Then, you will have to purchase a Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite to seal your many, many wounds and knit your bones back together. A Hemo-Restore capsule will help with the blood loss. More importantly, I would recommend a "Handy Helper" Medical Drone for ten points in order to administer these treatments and remove the shrapnel in your head. Blink twice if you agree."

    That was...a lot of words. I coughed up some more blood in response. I vaguely remembered something about blinking, but only my right eye did what I told it to. I wonder why?

    "Close enough!"

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Class I Medical Utilities unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 90

    New Purchase: Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite

    Points reduced to...70

    New Purchase: Hemo Restore

    Points reduced to...65

    New Purchase: "Handy Helper" Medical Drone

    Points reduced to...55

    Almost immediately after a bunch of text I couldn''t focus well enough to read appeared before my eyes, something pressed down on the mangled remains of my cheap, plastic replica helmet. Another something jostled the pain-stick in my head, before suddenly yanking it away. I felt like my head was actually going to pop open for a moment before the pain receded, replaced by a dull ache.

    Next, it grabbed at my helmet and slid it off my head. Light poured into my eyes- eye- and I squinted in pain. I had no time to adjust before my mouth was opened by something cold and hard and a tube shoved past my lips, stopping just as it impacted my teeth. The next thing I knew, I was breathing pins and needles, my mouth, throat, and lungs feeling for all the world like a limb that had fallen asleep.

    Clarity returned slowly.

    I spent the next few minutes growing more and more aware as sharp pains traveled down my body followed by zaps of static. The drone removing shrapnel and the nanobots repairing the now-empty gaps in my flesh, I assumed. Finally, my lung began to feel lighter and the constant urge to cough up liquid dissipated.

    "T-thanks," I said testingly, almost expecting another wad of blood to pass my lips. When nothing happened, I continued on. "I didn''t really catch what you said, but I guess you saved me?"

    "Of course, Erica. I am Juny, your artificial assistant. I must apologize for operating on you with dubious consent at best, but you were clearly not in your right mind, and I cannot be sure more Antithesis will not come."

    "Not gonna complain about staying alive." I sat up, wincing as a particularly large pipe fragment was removed from my calf. "Okay, I might complain a little."

    "Please be careful. While the Nano-Regenerative Suite has closed most of your wounds and stitched your bones together, the repairs are not yet finished. Intense movement could reopen your injuries."

    "Can''t just lay here forever. What if more of them show up?" I hobbled over to the remains of me deathtrap of a car and hid in its shadow, close to the rear and well away from the still-hot wreckage of an engine.

    "If an Antithesis hive were nearby, it would already have responded in force. As it has already been thirty minutes since you killed the last Model Three and no more have appeared, the chances of another attack are low."

    "Don''t suppose you have a cheap hover car I could ride back to civilization?"

    "Your current budget will not suffice for a hovercar. However, you could unlock Class I Communications Devices for 50 points and purchase a transmitter for another 5 that would be sufficient to contact the nearest settlement."

    "And then what? I don''t have enough credits to pay for a rescue. I''d call my mom, but she doesn''t even have a hovercar." I shook my head, more to myself than to Juny. "No, if there''s not a lot of Antithesis around then I can just walk. I''m gonna need a weapon first, though."

    "Of course. You will have to be more specific however. At your current balance, you have access to a variety of guns, lasers, plasma caster, and even melee weapons."

    "No way in hell am I fist fighting a monster. How abo-" a sudden noise behind me made me freeze. I slowly turned my head and saw yet another Model Three emerging from the woods, just barely visible over the shattered rear door of my car.

    "I thought you said the chances were low!" I exclaimed in the quietest voice I could manage.

    "Low does not mean nonexistent."

    "Gun. Now." I whispered.

    "I can provide a weapon from Class I K-"

    The Model Three was getting closer. I grabbed at my waist and snatched my replica M6D from my belt.

    "This, but real! Quickly!" I hissed. The Model Three perked up. A box appeared in front of me as a message flashed at the corner of my vision. I didn''t have time to check, but as I fished my new handgun out of the box, I glanced over and realized I had only lost one point. That seemed too low.

    Later. I checked that the weapon was loaded. It was. No safety. I spun, rising above the car, and pointed it at the Antithesis, which now began to run. Okay. Cool. I''ve shot a gun before, nothing to it. Both hands on the grip, feet squared, sight down the barrel, and squeeze the trigger...

    I had expected a bit of kick, but this was like getting kicked by a horse. My elbows, unprepared for that level of recoil, buckled under the sudden force and the gun flew back and into my face. I barely managed to twist my face enough to take the blow on the cheek instead of my nose. What the fuck did I just fire?

    Adding insult to injury, I missed. Fuck. I quickly resumed my stance, prepared this time, and pulled the trigger again. Miss. That was a hell of a lot of recoil, and I was having trouble adjusting. It wasn''t until the sixth shot that I hit the Model Three, catching it in the leg and sending it the ground. As it began to rise, I got it in the other front leg and it folded. It continued to push itself towards me with its hind legs, but it was now moving at a crawl.

    One bullet left. Have to make it count.

    I approached slowly, wary of more of them appearing and half expecting the thing to be faking. Now that it was practically sitting still, I finally got a good look at it. I could see why people found these things offputting. Why did it even need so many hinges on its jaw? And what possible purpose did vertically aligned eyes serve?

    Not important. I took my time aiming this time. It snapped its jaws at me, but it was a good meter and a half away, so all it was getting was air. I breathed in, then out. I pulled the trigger.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 10 Points

    At least I knew it was dead.

    "Excellent work! You appear to have had some difficulty hitting the target, though. May I recommend you buy something help improve you aim, if you insist on using that gun?"

    Juny said "Excellent work!" in the same tone some people said "bless your heart." Clearly she was not impressed.

    "Uh, first, why was this thing so cheap? Isn''t it supposed to be, like, a futuristic handgun?"

    "That is not a handgun. It is cannon with a grip. The caliber of ammunition it is chambered for is much too large for you to compensate for without a stock, and the barrel is too short for it to be accurate. The hump on the end of the barrel unbalances it. Above all, this is a weapon that could be made with human technology. Twenty years ago. As such, it qualifies only as Tier 0 technology, which does not require a catalog. Hardly a fitting weapon for a Vanguard."

    Oof. Took that one right in the childhood.

    "Okay, right, video game designs are bad for real life. In that case..." I pulled up my graphic design software. "Let''s go for something that fires faster until my aim improves. An SMG should do...lets move this, though, and make this part rounder..." In just a few moments I had a modified M7 SMG floating in front of me, projected be my augs. I had moved the magazine to the top to make it more like an FN P90 and altered the foregrip to be easier to hold. I removed the sights - they were redundant with augs anyway- and adjusted the stock to better fit my shoulder while dressed up.

    "How''s that?"

    "The 5mm ammunition is insufficient for killing anything larger than a Model One or Seven. The stock will not function outside of your current garments. There are several more minor inefficiencies and poor design choices not worth mentioning. Overall, this is a poorly designed weapon that will not ensure your survival. Proposing changes."

    The weapon before me morphed, with various modifications in bullet points listed at the side. Juny increased the caliber to 9mm from the standard 5¡Á23mm with a note that the current rounds as designed would not have been effective against Covenant armor, let alone Antithesis. She also changed the composition of the standard rounds, but I had no idea what the acronyms she used meant, which I could only assume was intentional. This reduced the capacity of the magazine, but Juny was apparently aware of it, as she elongated it and replaced the stock with some kind of smart material that shaped itself to the user''s shoulder, then did the same for the grips.

    "In addition to the visible changes, I have also included an inertial compensator that will significantly reduce recoil. Additional upgrades are possible, but not feasible with your current budget. To acquire this weapon, you will need to first purchase Tier I Kinetic Submachine Guns for 50 points. The weapon itself will cost 10. As soon as you can afford to do so, I would recommend purchasing of smart ammunition to compensate for poor aim, a learning module to improve your skill with a firearm, or cybernetics to steady your arms."

    I confirmed the purchase and picked up my new weapon, stuffing my apparently obsolete magnum into the holster I used for its fake counterpart. Waste not, and all that. Juny wasn''t wrong about the grips and stock; they fit like a dream.

    Class I Kinetic Submachineguns unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 14

    New Purchase: Custom Tier I Submachine Gun

    Points reduced to...4

    "Hey, I''ve only fired a gun once in my life before today. Give a girl some time to improve?"

    "Acceptable! Now, I would advise you to begin moving. You have been standing in the open for quite some time."

    Glancing at the clock through my augs, I realized she was right. It had been over fifteen minutes since I began designing this gun. Not terribly surprising; I had always tended to get lost while designing.

    "Right. Which direction will get me to the closest town?"

    Wordlessly, Juny projected an arrow onto my augs with a note indicating the distance and time to target. It was a hundred miles away, and would take at least three days to reach. Worse, the arrow led straight into the trees.

    "Yep. That tracks. Wish I had the points for some armor..."

 Chapter Three

    "Killing the Antithesis is only the first step. If the planet is dead by the time we''re done, we''re still doomed. Which is why you should invest in our patented Sanctuary Creation and Adaptation Modules, which contain everything you need to build your own paradise on Earth after an ecological apocalypse and tailor it to the current state of the air, water, and soil..."

    -Excerpt from an early 2040s advertisement for SCAMs, kits which contained a basic chemistry set and several unmarked bags of seeds.

    <hr>

    Once upon a time, Earth¡¯s forests had been full of life. Animals went about their business, eating, hunting, reproducing, all amidst a cornucopia of plant life. There would have been insects buzzing, birds chirping, and small animals running through the underbrush. In those days, I would have had to worry about a lot more than just Antithesis. There may have been wolves, or bears, or hell, even rabid raccoons. All of that would have made it terribly difficult to spot danger, as I would never know if I was about to spot a harmless deer or a ravenous plant alien.

    But that is not the Earth I was born into. The forests of today are a graveyard with no markers. Any trace of animal life has been scoured by the Antithesis in every region that they have touched- which, at this point, is practically all of them. The woodland I was trekking through was silent but for the wind. Animals simply did not exist here, because an apex predator more rapacious than humans had moved into their homes. It wasn¡¯t simply a matter of driving the Antithesis out and letting the animals repopulate, because Antithesis do not hunt. They devoured everything before them with no thought to sustainability, no care as to what would happen with the natural ecosystem torn out at the roots.

    It wasn¡¯t something I had thought of much before, but I had to wonder how long the forests would survive without animals to tend to them. Flowers needed to be pollinated. Trees relied on birds to carry their seeds to fresh soil. Some plants could live quite a long time, but would the forest simply wither over time without the ability to spread?

    I was no expert in ecology, but I think even I was able to see the signs of degradation setting in. From what little I knew, a forest should have underbrush. Vines. Bushes. Grass. All sorts of small, shorter lived plants interspersed among the roots of larger trees. Saplings, too; new growth to replace the old. Here, everything was dead. I walked upon a carpet of rotting branches and disintegrating leaves, and the only greenery was above my head in the branches of long-established trees I did not know the names of.

    The terrain wasn''t terribly rough, as a result, but my progress was slowed by the constant tension of not knowing if more Antithesis could be right behind the next tree. I had to move slowly and quietly if I wanted to notice them before they noticed me. The timer had increased to four days, apparently taking into account my slow pace.

    It only took an hour before the silence finally broke me.

    "Hey, Juny? What can that drone do, anyway?" I whispered, more for the conversation than anything. I eyed the little robot she had purchased for me earlier, floating just behind my shoulder. It was about a foot tall, with telescoping, flexible arms and two claws on each. Where a human would have legs, it had a half sphere that projected an otherworldly glow.

    "The "Handy Helper" medical assistant is designed to assist surgeons in situations where personnel are limited by handing them the tools they need in place of a nurse."

    "...wait, that''s it? I have a robot that just hands me stuff? Also, why does it need to look like a nurse?" Indeed, the little bot was wearing a nurse''s cap and smock, and seemed to have a slight feminine curve to its torso.

    "Your records indicate a preference for nurses."

    "I dated a nurse one time! Nevermind. Not even going to ask why you know that." Honestly, I had kind of just assumed samurai AIs were omniscient, but that conversation could wait for later. I came to a stop as I sighted movement in the distance. I crouched and zoomed in with my augs for a better look- yet another Model Three. Distance...not nearly far enough for my liking, but it hadn''t noticed me yet.

    I crouched down and opened fire.

    Even knowing ahead of time how fast a submachine gun can fire, the rate caught me by surprise. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that a weapon can throw hundreds of rounds down range per second; it was another to experience your weapon bucking as your ammo count dropped by 25% per second. I think I fired at least a dozen rounds after the thing was already dead.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 10 Points

    New total: 14 Points

    "The inertial compensator worked as expected. Your accuracy has improved by 47%." I was genuinely surprised that the increase was so high, but then I remembered I had hit my previous target three times, and one of those was at point blank range. That came out to...slightly better than 40%, according to my augs. So I fired 28 rounds at only 11 hit the target. More importantly...

    "I don''t know a ton about Antithesis, but I do know when they attack there''s usually a lot of them. Any idea why we keep encountering them one at a time?"

    "Unknown. Typically the scent left by dead Antithesis would attract more, and scouts travel in groups. Having three lone Model Three encounters, especially in a remote area like this, is highly unusual. Based on data from previous incursions, however, I would propose the theory that these models originated from a hive that was destroyed, and that the survivors are fleeing to establish new hives."

    I blinked at that information. I always thought the Antithesis attacked relentlessly, until they were all dead. Did that mean they could also feel fear? I repeated the question to Juny, who answered in her unfailingly pleasant tone.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    "The Antithesis do not flee due to fear, and will continue to attack anything they perceive as a threat while doing so. Each Antithesis contains a seed that can sprout into a new nest given time. This is simply the hive spreading its seeds."

    "They''re all coming from the same direction. Hope that means I''ll be getting a rescue sooner rather than later. In the meantime, though, I¡¯m curious. How much would a suit of Mjolnir cost¡­hypothetically?" It was not a hypothetical question but even I had the grace to be mildly embarrassed I was even asking. God, this was a nerd¡¯s wet dream.

    ¡°The cost would be in the order of thousands of points. You would require the Class II Power Armor catalog at minimum, which itself would require the Class I Power Armor catalog. Some of the systems do not have hard numbers backing them up, and could be interpreted in ways that might even make them as high as Class III!¡±

    ¡°I have no idea what those terms mean.¡±

    ¡°Class I would be the pinnacle of human science. Current infrastructure could produce it, assuming sufficient research is done or a Vanguard provides blueprints. Class II is currently impossible for humans to create. This is where the most crucial of the Mjolnir¡¯s systems fall. Humans are not currently capable of producing the Reactive Crystal Layer, Energy Shields, Superconductor Layer, and Motion Tracker.¡±

    ¡°I think I can guess at the first three. But why not the motion tracker?¡±

    ¡°The Mjolnir contains a sensor suite that defies humans¡¯ understanding of physics! It is capable of sensing any and all motion above a certain threshold within a predefined radius. That means the sensors are capable of penetrating any known material and most energy fields.¡±

    ¡°I guess I have a long term goal then. Class II, huh¡­¡±

    ¡°The suit would also kill you!¡± I barely managed to transform a giggle into a snort at that. Juny sounded like she was giving me the best news of my life. The contrast¡­

    ¡°Right. I think I remember that from the novels. Something about the power assist being too strong?¡±

    ¡°Precisely! You would require significant genetic or cybernetic alterations in order to properly utilize the suit. I have several catalogs I can suggest. Do you prefer genetic modifications or cybernetic?¡±

    ¡°Genetic. I kind of like the idea of being human, but better, if that makes sense? Like, faster, tougher, stronger, that sort of thing.¡±

    ¡°You answered very quickly. Most Vanguards require easing into the idea of changing their bodies. I had a number of follow up arguments prepared, but I see they are unnecessary!¡± Was I beginning to understand the nuances of her voice a bit? I could swear she sounded genuinely pleased by that.

    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be the first time I modified my body. And if I can do it on the genetic level, well¡­I have a few more cosmetic ideas, too, once I have the points.¡±

    ¡°Of course! That is indeed in your record, but I did not expect it to extend to other areas. In that case, I will make a note to remind you of this topic once you can afford it. Are there any other purchases you would like to discuss ahead of time? I can also allow you to peruse the catalogs via your augmentations at your leisure!¡±

    ¡°I think I¡¯d like to get more of a sense of where Class I ends and Class II starts. Or, hell, where Class I starts. What makes a Class 0 bullet worse than a Class I bullet?¡±

    ¡°Even if the two bullets are in the same caliber, the propellant and alloys used make a significant difference. The propellants currently used by humans produce a significantly lower velocity and the alloys do not retain their shape as well, making them less effective at penetrating the armor of higher level Antithesis. The bullets in your submachine gun are, as a result, more effective than the bullets in the magnum.¡±

    ¡°They both kill a Model Three pretty dead.¡±

    ¡°The magnum would not have penetrated the armor of a Model Four, but the submachine gun will. Further improvements are possible even within the Class I catalog, in fact! You could add rails that accelerate the bullets even more, a barrel that can be resized for any caliber of bullet, and even self-repairing metals!¡± I whistled quietly. That sounded like a hell of a gun. That last upgrade was especially important combined with the first, from what I knew about railguns and their longevity.

    ¡°And how much would all of that cost, plus what I¡¯ve got already¡­?¡±

    ¡°500 points!¡± If I were drinking something I would have spat it out. Holy hell that was expensive. ¡°I am detecting distress. To elaborate, the more features added to an item, the more expensive each subsequent addition becomes. A submachine gun with any one of those abilities would cost less than fifty points. The efficacy of each may affect pricing as well. Attempting to add too many features could even increase the Class of the item.¡±

    That last part sounded promising¡­

    ¡°So¡­if I remove features, could I reduce the Class needed?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Okay¡­then, how about this. Remove the features you mentioned earlier and add a more conventional form of power assistance. Could I get something like that? And how well would it hold up against Antithesis?¡±

    ¡°The armor might be bulkier depending on how strong you want the suit to be. But yes, that would be possible with Class I Power Armor.¡±

    ¡°In that case¡­¡± I spent much of the rest of the day designing my new suit and doing the samurai equivalent of window shopping in the catalog. I did not get a rescue sooner than later. I continued to trudge through the empty, silent forest as darkness began to fall, racking up another ten points every hour or so but expending some for more ammunition as well. By nightfall, I had managed to amass just 72 points, an amount Juny told me was insufficient to buy anything that would allow me to sleep in peace. I would need at least a hundred points for any sort of recon catalogue, whether that entail sensors or drones.

    Although I did have that silly little "Handy Helper," it was rather myopic and did not include nightvision.

    "So, what are my options here? Sleep on the ground and hope I don''t get ate? Sleep in a tree and hope I don''t fall out? Maybe I could make it a bit further with a flashlight."

    "A flashlight would merely serve as a beacon to any Antithesis within visual range. I would recommend the second option. At the very least, I would be able to detect any vibrations from an Antithesis trying to climb the tree. Although, I would not be able to do much if a model with ranged attacks or flying capabilities were to appear."

    I squinted into the darkness. Yeah, no. Not walking through the spooky woods at night. I sighed.

    "Tree life it is," I muttered, tucking my SMG into my belt as I started climbing the nearest tree. It wasn''t terribly difficult; the tree was old, and had clearly never been trimmed by human hands this deep into the woods. As I settled into a spot with two sturdy branches to support me, one serving as a seat and the other a backrest, my stomach began to growl. I realized I hadn''t eaten anything since breakfast. "Can I at least afford some food?"

    "I suppose you do have to eat, and a Class I catalogue just for provisions would be a waste of money," Juny replied as my points ticked down by one. A lunchbox appeared in my lap. Why did she always sound so annoyed about Class 0 items? Too hungry to care right now. I ripped open the lid and found a sandwich and a juice box. They disappeared so fast I barely had time to taste them.

    "Good night, Erica," was the last thing I heard before I passed out.

 Chapter Four

    "Bigfoot is real! And he''s in the Appalachian Mountains!"

    "If Bigfoot were real the Antithesis would''ve made a meal out of him by now, dumbass."

    "Well who else could be killing all those hives up there!?"

    - Conversation between a guest caller and the host of the podcast Cryptids in a Post-Antithesis World

    <hr>

    Day two wasn''t a whole lot more exciting than day one...for the first couple of hours.

    With two more Model Threes under my belt, I finally encountered something different. The trees were ending just up ahead. I approached the edge slowly and quietly, but I needn''t have bothered.

    A sea of felled trees lay before me, stretching off towards the horizon. It was as if a tornado had touched down in a perfect circle and obliterated this entire stretch of woodland. And the only thing I could smell was cut grass.

    "It would appear we have found our destroyed hive. This must have been the work of a higher tier Vanguard, judging by the size of the area. The hive was quite large."

    It took me a moment to muster up a response to that. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of awe, and not the good kind. This is what a samurai could do? What I could do, one day? This wasn''t a battlefield. It was a natural disaster. An act of god. Acres of woodland, flattened, in what, an afternoon?

    "Where are all the bodies?" I asked, noticing the discrepancy after finally absorbing the scene in full. All I could see was trees.

    "Either the Vanguard in question left as much of his targets behind as your hovercar did, or they employed some method of destroying the bodies to prevent a new hive from forming." It was then I noticed something important, something I failed to question yesterday.

    "Wait, haven''t I just been leaving the bodies behind?"

    "The rounds for your SMG include a nanite package that eats away at Antithesis flesh. It will destroy the bodies over the course of several hours. This was not necessary for the first four you killed, as there was little left of them anyway."

    I remembered the obscure acronym Juny had used for my ammunition; that must have included the nanites. I suppose I had technically signed off on it.

    "But...I killed the first one with the magnum."

    Juny was silent.

    "Juny, am I going to have to walk all the way back there to clean up that body? Please say no."

    "...no."

    "Are you saying that just because I asked?"

    "You will not have to walk, as we have several days before a hive can form, and as a Vanguard, you may simply commandeer transportation in town."

    "I can what? Are you telling me I didn''t even have to walk to town?"

    "You will earn more points this way. As the density of Antithesis is low, it is a good way to increase your points before the next incursion."

    I tried to respond to that, but all I managed was an inarticulate gurgle. She wasn''t technically wrong. I was earning points and gaining experience with my SMG. Trudging through the woods was terrifying, but I was kind of becoming numb to that, too.

    And besides, I kind of wanted to see if I could get a samurai-tech suit of Mjolnir. Screw copyright. Nerds gonna nerd.

    "Fine. I can accept that, just...give me all the options next time? I might have agreed to this if you had pointed that out anyway," I said with a sigh, starting to cross the see of dead trees.

    "Preferences adjusted. I will be sure to inform you of any options you miss in the future."

    The cleared area was vast, but relatively easy to traverse. The felled wood crumbled under my feet, and the clear lines of sight made it easy to tell I was in no danger.

    "Why is this wood so...brittle? It''s like it''s been rotting for years, but it looks fresh."

    "The Vanguard that destroyed this area may have also taken efforts to reforest. As the Antithesis often cause wide spread ecological collapse, there are many catalogues that contain a myriad of terraforming technologies to reverse the damage. Without sensors I do not have enough information to be certain, but I suspect something was deployed here to quickly break down the dead trees and replace them with new growth."

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Huh. Good to know, I guess? Not terribly important, though, in the moment.

    After passing through the destroyed hive, my journey became much easier and much more dull at the same time. There were no Antithesis at all for the next day. My legs and feet became progressively more sore as time went on, but I only stopped to eat, sleep, and relieve myself, as I just wanted out of this damn forest. It was even more annoying thinking that the entire purpose of coming through here was gaining points, and I wasn''t even doing that anymore- other than the daily allowance of ten, anyway.

    In the afternoon of the third day, though, Juny interrupted my silent trek.

    "I have gained access to the public network of the town of Boone. A stealth hive has gone active in the unoccupied section of the town."

    I blinked. That escalated quickly.

    "Do you have any more detail than that? I''m not even familiar with the town."

    "Thirty years ago, before the Antithesis, Boone was a college town in the Appalachian Mountains, which we are currently in. When the Antithesis arrived, the population briefly swelled to about forty thousand and a significant amount of new construction was started with the goal of preserving the university and fortifying the mountain passes, as it was deemed an acceptably defensible position by the residents of many nearby towns.

    "Unfortunately, before the fortifications were completed, an Antithesis Incursion struck the town directly. The population was withdrawn into the portion of town higher up on the mountain and the defenses were completed around only that section of the town, about one third of the total area. The incursion was a small one and rapidly eliminated, but the death toll and subsequent emigration reduced the population of the town to pre-Antithesis levels, and the unfortified section was abandoned as a result.

    "Since then, various PMCs have been hired by the town to prevent the Antithesis from moving back in. It seems a coup d¡¯¨¦tat has resulted in a junior officer of the Stalking Tigers PMC taking command of the group."

    What I learned from that is mostly that Juny only has two settings: uselessly little information and Exposition with a capital E.

    "Which side of the town are we on?" Juny projected a map, highlighting two spots: the area inhabited by humans, and my current position, a few dozen meters from the road leading into the south side of town. Naturally, they were on opposite sides. "Yeah, that figures. Could you give me a safe route to the fortified area?"

    "I can provide a number of routes. However, I cannot guarantee their safety, as I do not have access to local security networks. I would need a cyberwarfare suite for that, which will cost more points than you currently have."

    "Okay. Well, fuck it. Guess I''ll just have to run and gun. Maybe pray a bit..." I could probably afford a moderately better weapon, but nothing game changing. Basic armor was also a possibility...but I wasn''t about to change in the middle of the forest, potentially surrounded by Antithesis. I would just have to earn some more points and make my purchases as I went- currently I was down to 61 after keeping myself fed, watered, and on my feet for several days in the wilderness.

    I started forward and in moments I was on an embankment over an empty road. I hopped down, finding scattered collapsing houses to my right that abruptly transitioned to dense city to my left. It looked like the locals had started by building dense, vertical housing when they began construction all those years ago, and this was approximately where a wall would have been.

    The street was wide, but a far cry from what I would see in a megacity. Designed for actual ground traffic rather than hovercars, I think. Not that I could tell- it was completely free of any vehicles, given that these buildings were never occupied in the first place. I started into the cityscape, concerned by the twisting road that cut off my vision just a few blocks down, as well as the alleys dividing the buildings.

    As I crept forward, I glanced side to side, keeping in the center of the road and monitoring the lobbies of the nearby buildings. I wanted as much time to react as I could get, and I figured the lack of cover was countered by the reduced chance of something jumping through a window directly behind me while I looked the other way.

    After a few tense minutes of nothing, I encountered the first Antithesis- yet another Model Three, the only variant I had encountered so far. It rushed out of an alley, but my SMG was already raised and ready. I feathered the trigger, sending a dozen rounds at it in just a fraction of a second, and it dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 10 Points

    New total: 91 Points

    "You may want to hurry. The smell will attract more of them." I think I recalled Juny telling me that once before, but the urgency was different then. At the time we didn''t know how many were nearby; now we knew there could be a hive anywhere in this concrete jungle.

    "How fast?" I asked as I dipped into an alley, cursing as I realized it was a dead end. The wall facing me was low, though, and I could probably climb it using the dumpster nearby...

    "Slowly at first, with rising speed as more scouts die. The response is proportional to the perceived threat." I crouched in the shadows, realizing I had an opportunity here. If I killed the first wave, at the least, it would draw more of them here, and away from any other road I took. The points wouldn''t hurt either.

    It wasn''t long before I saw the first group. From my vantage point in the shadow of a building, I saw two more Model Threes approach the body, accompanied by a handful of birdlike Antithesis. Model Ones, according to Juny. Before they had a chance to spot me I opened fire, quickly gunning down the Model Threes. The Ones whipped around in midair and divebombed me.

    I struggled to react in time, winging one of them before another rammed into my forehead, its small mass only managing to rock my head back, but the distraction allowing another two to slam into my stomach, below my fake armor- they must not have been able to tell the difference. I hopped up to my feet and backed further into the alley, managing to shoot down the remaining three when they no longer had space to maneuver.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 24 Points

    New total: 115 Points

    I grinned at my rising funds.

    "Hey, if the smell of dead Antithesis draws more of them, is there anything I can do to amplify that? And maybe leave the reinforcements a present?"

 Chapter Five

    "Boone was supposed to be the corporate jewel of the Appalachians. They were going to build a concrete jungle, vacuum up all the populations of small towns in the mountains, and cram them all into a valley where the walls would be just as much to keep them in as to keep the Antithesis out. Everyone knew we were never going to clear the Appalachians of Antithesis any time soon, and the constant state of siege would have been a perfect excuse to provide minimal amenities for maximum work.

    They made just one mistake: they didn''t build the walls first."

    -A History of Boone, 2051

    <hr>

    "There are many options for both, but the most efficient use of points would be to buy Class I Esoteric Explosives for fifty points, then buy a smoke grenade for five points and a mine of some sort using the rest. For an additional point I can modify the smoke grenade to produce the scent of dead Antithesis in order to draw in more."

    "That leaves 41 points. What can I buy with that to really ruin their day? Something they can''t break before it goes off."

    "I would propose the Mk I Rift Bomb. It can disguise itself to match the surrounding ground, and after a preset count down, it will launch a shaped charge directly up to clear the air, then bounce a meter off the ground and release an infinitesimally thin rift that will separate anything it intersects with in a ten meter radius circle."

    "Anything? That sounds way too powerful for Class I. Is there a catch?"

    "The weapon itself costs 40 points. Additionally, the charge will not be effective against double digit Antithesis, so the weapon will not detonate at the correct height and cause minimal damage. The rift is also unstable, leading to unpredictable results if the bomb is damaged. Finally, the bomb must activate on a timer no shorter than ten minutes, as it begins to charge when activated using an internal generator and cannot store that power once the charging is completed. No other triggers are usable. Many of these flaws are corrected in later versions available in Class II or higher."

    I shrugged. That seemed fair enough. First I replaced my spent magazine, then I purchased the bombs.

    New Purchase: 9mm SMG magazine

    Points reduced to...96

    Class I Esoteric Explosives unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 45

    New Purchase: Mk I Rift Bomb

    Points reduced to...5

    New Purchase: Smoke Grenade - Antithesis Scented

    Points reduced to...0

    That was painful, but hopefully the bomb would do enough damage to make up for it. It resembled something from World War II that I remember reading about...a mine called a "Bouncing Betty" used in a sci fi series from the early 00''s. Apparently some mechanisms were just universal.

    "How long will it take the smoke to disperse?" I asked as I set down the mine and prepared to set the timer.

    "About thirty minutes based on current weather conditions, but it will gradually lose potency after about twenty!"

    I set the timer for eighteen, just in case, then jogged back into the alley. I climbed on the dumpster near the wall and lobbed the grenade back towards the street, where it began to emit a thick green smoke. As soon as I saw that it was active, I turned and vaulted over the wall. I realized my mistakes the instant I crested the wall, but it was too late to stop.

    First, I didn''t account for the possibility the drop from the wall would be higher on this side if there was no dumpster...which there wasn''t.

    Second was the Model Three already running down the alley, probably chasing the smell of dead Antithesis.

    I hit the ground hard, my knees absorbing the impact but screaming in protest, and the Model Three hit me a second later. I was able to bring an arm up to stop its hideous maw from closing around my head, and the world went red as it clamped down on my forearm with its bizarrely hinged jaw and shook like a dog that caught the rabbit.

    My not-armor crumpled under the force and its teeth rent my flesh as if they were sharpened steel, but I managed to keep my grip on the SMG in my other hand. Gritting my teeth in an attempt to stop myself from crying out, I struggled against the alien''s pull and brought the weapon to bear, pulling down on the trigger at the same time. In my pained fugue, trigger discipline failed me, and the first few rounds struck nothing but pavement, but then the muzzle rose and a line of bullets stitched its way up the creatures side from its leg to its head, narrowly missing my own hand in the process. With the gun half empty, the Model Three lost its grip and collapsed dead.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 10 Points

    New total: 10 Points

    Thanks Juny, I can in fact manage 10+0 on my own. I cursed as I broke into a jog, knowing I didn''t have enough points to treat my injuries and reloading would delay my treatment further. I needed more kills, and I needed them now. I broke out of the alley and darted across the street, glancing both ways quickly, and pressed myself across the empty store front on the other side. With my trap in place, I wanted to be in the last place Antithesis would look if they rushed towards it.

    I heard footsteps coming from the next intersection and dropped to the ground, bracing my SMG with my ruined left arm as I waited. When the Antithesis emerged from around the corner I opened fire, killing a trio of Model Threes before they could react.

    That''s when the Model Four appeared.

    I saw its tentacles before I saw the rest of its grotesque body, biting back a comment that would have absolutely been tempting fate. I realized I had enough points to heal myself now, but couldn''t use them until this thing was dead, and couldn''t reload until I was healed. I rolled over and kicked my legs, hopping to my feet just as a tentacle lashed out, striking the ground where I had just been. The second one didn''t miss. It struck me in the shoulder and sent me tumbling, but I was able to use the momentum to escape its range. I dropped my gun to free my hand.

    "Grenade please!"

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Do you have any preferences?"

    "Anything that can kill that fucker fast!"

    New Purchase: Spacial Inverter

    Points reduced to...36

    A...stick appeared in my hand, with a button on the top. Not the safest grenade I had ever laid eyes on, but it''s not like I was planning to store it. I smashed the button with my thumb and tossed the stick over my shoulder with a brief glance to aim, and then the world went weird. For a moment I felt like I could see light as waves passing me in a technicolor kaleidoscope, and the ground vibrated like an unstable washing machine. The only thing I could hear was an odd whub-whub-whub-.

    Target Eliminated!

    Reward... 15 Points

    New total: 51 Points

    I turned to find the Model Four dead, looking as if something had turned it inside out. Along with the ground around it, and the wall of the building it had been hugging, both of which were less damaged, but had clearly been pulled towards the epicenter. Disgusting alien goop sloughed off of it slowly, pooling around what I could only assume were its organs, which were probably also inside out.

    Trying not to throw up, I picked up my SMG, which had been just a few feet outside of the blast radius, then stumbled through the new hole in the nearby building. I was starting to feel woozy from blood loss as I hid behind a counter that was built into the floor.

    "Healing stuff. Please." My pointed dropped from 51 to 26 with little fanfare as an inhaler and an injector appeared. I applied both and staggered to my feet, not wanting to waste time here knowing my distraction would only last for so long. I''d had two encounters since planting it, but they were both heading in the direction of the smoke- which meant the Antithesis in every other direction were not heading towards me.

    On my way out of the building, I spent one more point one reloading, thankful to have two working arms again. I stopped to look both ways before stepping outside, then, content the way was clear, jogged across the street, moving ever closer to civilization. I was happy to find that the next alleyway stretched all the way to the end of the next block of buildings and slipped inside, preferring to fight the Antithesis'' numbers at a chokepoint if at all possible.

    As I approached the other end, though, I slowed to a halt. A droning sound was coming from around the corner, and I peeked out, seeing a large pack of Model Threes, and a couple Fours, surrounding a mountain of natural plating with a box for a head. I backed into the alley, only speaking once I had the safety of distance.

    "Hey, Juny, why are they just standing there?"

    "The one in the center is a Model Six, a commander-type Antithesis that can control the less intelligent models. It may have figured out the trap and decided to cut you off, or it may simply be standing guard for something more important, like a hive."

    That thing was going to be a problem, for sure. It had at least a dozen faster Models surrounding it, and if it was as smart as Juny suggested, it may be able to direct them to flank me, even in an alley. It was definitely too bright out to sneak by, and going another way would cost valuable time without guaranteeing I wouldn''t simply run into another checkpoint.

    I glanced at the Handy Helper that had been following behind me. It had mostly fallen out of my mind after I learned how little utility it really had, but it could grasp things...

    "Can that thing hold and activate a grenade?"

    "Yes! Are you planning to make it sacrifice itself for the cause?" I sideyed the drone as if I were looking at Juny. That phrasing, combined with her usual tone, made the query sound almost judgmental.

    "No, but I do have an idea. Are there any grenades that can stick to a target, so they go off at point blank range? I feel like I''ll need that to get through so much armor."

    "Your catalog includes several such options, but I would suggest the Instant Star anti-tank grenade for five points."

    I accepted that suggestion and the grenade fell into my hand. It was blue and red, and blatantly familiar.

    "Are you mocking me? I feel attacked."

    "I am only trying to accommodate your established aesthetic!" said the inscrutable AI as I gazed at what was clearly a Covenant plasma grenade. I wondered how much control Juny had over the appearance of the items she gave me, and whether the catalog items actually existed or if she made them up as she went along.

    But this was hardly the time for such thoughts.

    I handed it to the drone and Juny helpfully provided a link to its view as it climbed up to five stories before turning the corner and drifting over the gathered Antithesis. The medical robot was apparently extremely nearsighted, as the image was blurry as hell, but I was able to tell exactly when it activated and dropped the grenade. I watched with baited breath as it fell, ready to spin out from cover the instant it landed.

    The Model Six let out an alarmed-sounding warble when the grenade struck it, landing on its upper right back. The Antithesis around it all spun to look as one, and a particularly unlucky Model Three leapt up to pry the grenade off, only to find its mouth trapped in place instead.

    My SMG roared just before the grenade exploded, ripping into the nearest Model Four from the side and punching a cluster of holes in its stubby head. Then the grenade flashed and I was forced to shield my eyes for a moment as it lived up to its name. Even with my eyes recovering, I found I could still vaguely tell where the survivors were through the drone footage still being sent over my augs, though, and I sprayed some wildly in their general direction, managing a few lucky hits.

    I reloaded as quickly as possible, but as soon as I could see again, I realized the Antithesis were already dead. All but one, that is.

    The massive hulk of the Model Six was lumbering towards me, a melted crater burned into its back. The grenade had forced it to its knees, which exposed the others long enough for me to gun them down, but it had stood back up while I was reloading. It was faster than anything that size had any right to me, like a six legged iceberg charging with all the speed of a raging bull.

    I scrambled out the way as it came charging in, ramming into the wall behind me with thunderclap of shattering stone. It spun instantly, entirely unharmed by the experience, and I fired a burst into its face, only for the rounds to ping off to no effect.

    Still, it had a pretty obvious weak point. I feinted to the right, then darted left trying to bring its injured flank into my line of sight, but it was too fast at turning and matched my movements with ease that made its grievous injuries seem like a lie. One option left.

    I booked it.

    I darted into the next alleyway I had been aiming for, hoping to lose it in the narrow space, but it accelerated like a sports car and came after me. I ran for an entire block and glanced over my shoulder, only to find that I was just barely gaining distance. I was never going to escape before I exhausted myself.

    I turned at the next intersection made for the road, stopping myself as quickly as possible and flattening myself against the wall to the right of the alleyway. If I was right, I had had just enough distance that I should have made it out of the alley before it could turn¡­

    The Model Six came charging down the alley, its footsteps echoing off the narrow walls. I readied myself, hoping it didn¡¯t know which way I had gone. It skidded to a halt at the sidewalk and glanced back and forth looking for me, but by the time it spotted me, I was already moving.

    Before it could spin around I charged, grabbing onto the peak of its armored back with one hand while my feet braced against the bottom of the gaping hole in its body. With my free hand, I raised my SMG.

    This close, with no armor remaining, there was nothing to stop me as I unloaded the weapon into its innards. Some of the bullets ricocheted off the inner side of its own armor, causing even further devastation. My magazine clicked empty and the Model Six stood for a moment before falling to the ground at last, finally dead.

    Targets Eliminated!

    Reward... 400 Points

    New total: 424 Points

    "An excellent job! I do recommend eye protection if you intend on staring at explosions in the future, though!" Sarcasm, or genuine encouragement? It was a mystery.

    "Oh, can it.¡± Wait. What? It took me a moment to realize why the reward was so high- my trap must have activated. That was one nasty combination¡­too bad it was also too dangerous to use most of the time. I wouldn¡¯t have used it if I had even suspected any people could be nearby, given the lack of conditional activations.

    Also, now I no longer had a distraction. I could set another one, but only at the cost of initially drawing them all towards myself, and I was no longer on the outskirts of town where they would take longer to arrive. From here on, I was not going to have the advantage of a diversion at my back.

 Chapter Six

    "We''re seeing an alarming number of people quitting due to lack of affordable transportation. We may need to increase wages before lack of personnel begins to impact our income."

    "The shareholders will never go for that. If the employees can''t come to us, let''s move their housing to us. If they live right next door they don''t have an excuse for not showing up."

    -A conversation between two executives shortly before skybridges caught on in the old American territories

    <hr>

    After killing the Model Six, I quickly realized the way I had been traveling so far wasn¡¯t going to cut it. The density of Antithesis was continuing to rise, and it had only taken a couple of minutes to confirm it was not the only one blocking my way. By the time I had dodged two patrols too large for me to engage, I decided it was time to try something else.

    Boone was built in the early days of hovercars, when they were just becoming popular and standards had not yet been established. The creation of designated skyways for hovercar travel had had certain knock-on effects, like restrictions on the altitudes at which skybridges could be built, as well as significant alterations to the infrastructure at ground level. With ground cars going out of style, so too did walking at ground level- in most megacities, traveling along the actual ground was for the poorest of the population. The desperate.

    While Boone had been built before most of these things had solidified, it had not escaped the budding popularity of skybridges linking the upper levels of skyscrapers. They were not at a uniform altitude, which would have made hovercar travel arduous, and would make my own path much more circuitous, which is why I had preferred the direct route in the first place. But the Antithesis population was simply too dense down here for me to get any closer, and that meant going up.

    Or buying a hovercar with my limited points. Which I could probably do. But that seemed like a waste of points for mere convenience, and I could kill Antithesis just as easily here as from the city.

    My decision made, I glanced up to check the positioning of the nearest skybridge, then realized Juny could give me a route much more easily.

    ¡°Juny, the streets are too crowded. Can you give me a path through the skyscrapers to the occupied section?¡±

    ¡°Only part way. There is a hundred meter buffer between the abandoned section and the wall, and no bridges connecting them.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take it. At least at the home stretch I should have covering fire.¡±

    ¡°Perfect! Drawing up a map for you now.¡± Despite the wording implying it would take a moment, the map appeared in the corner of my vision instantly. It was three dimensional and utterly convoluted, but I could read it well enough to follow the designated path in small doses.

    I entered the first building quickly, making my way for the elevators. I tapped the button. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still dead.

    ¡°Juny?¡±

    ¡°This building has been abandoned for over a decade, the power lines leading to it were likely severed during the first incursion!¡±

    Oh. Duh.

    Cursing, I turned towards the stairs, knowing this was not going to be fun. I had to climb ten stories to reach the first bridge. With no light on the inside of the building, I first bought a single-point flashlight. The first flight of stairs I took with ease, having gotten rapidly into somewhat better shape over the last few days with leftover nanomachines to accelerate my healing. The second was just as easy. By the third, I was beginning to flag.

    Five stories up, I collapsed on the stairs, breathing hard.

    ¡°Do you have something for stairs?¡± I gasped between breaths. ¡°Like¡­like, I dunno, a grappling hook. A longshot? Fuck, a jetpack.¡±

    ¡°I could provide any of those options! You can even afford them! However, I suspect with your current levels of coordination, you would likely injure yourself on the way up unless you also purchase a learning package! As a reminder, you do not currently have a method of surviving being splattered!¡±

    Okay, yeah, not happening. Messing with my body? Sure, go for it. Messing with my head? That seemed a step too far.

    ¡°What about¡­those genetic modifications. Can I get something for stamina?¡±

    ¡°Of course! Class I Genetic Sequencing and Class I Genetic Modifications in tandem would provide numerous modifications and ways of implementing them. It would only take three weeks for the modifications to take effect!¡±

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

    ¡°I¡¯m not going to camp on the stairs for three weeks to have an easier time going up the last five flights¡­¡± I sighed, climbing back up to my feet. Exhausted as I was already, I had to stop once more before reaching the top. At long last, I opened the door, and what I saw one the other side made me regret my life choices.

    ¡°Holy fucking Christ.¡±

    Birds. The entire floor was covered in black-green birds, amidst a backdrop of vines intertwined with leftover office furniture. For a fraction of a second I stared in awe and horror at the sheer number of the damn things, wrestling over whether it was a good idea to just open fire or not. Finally, as they began to take flight in my direction, I slammed the door shut, deciding on taking the better part of valor.

    It was too late for some of the Model Ones to stop. The door shook as several of them slammed into it, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as my points ticked up by six.

    ¡°Seriously?¡±

    ¡°Model Ones are not worth very much individually.¡±

    ¡°Not that. All I did was close the door.¡±

    ¡°Which directly contributed to the deaths of six Model Ones!¡±

    ¡°Sure, whatever. Why were there so damn many of them? Inside the building?¡±

    ¡°I believe you¡¯ve found a subhive for producing Model Ones! Antithesis attack in waves, and you must have encountered this group just before they left.¡±

    ¡°No, I found hell. Bird hell. That is a plane of hell in there, and it is made of birds.¡±

    ¡°Technically they¡¯re actua-¡°

    ¡°Not important. I need a way to kill them, because I don¡¯t have enough ammo for all of them and they¡¯re going to bury me the moment I run dry.¡±

    ¡°I have just the thing! I recommend the Atlas Mk III Grav-Mine from your Esoteric Explosives catalog!¡±

    ¡°Can I maybe get a description before I go buying it, please?¡±

    ¡°Of course! The Atlas Mk III Grav-Mine produces a miniature black hole inside of it that will drag flying Antithesis to the ground by doubling their effective weight.¡± I twisted my lip in contemplation. It would certainly stop them from flying, but¡­

    ¡°So I still have to shoot them?¡±

    ¡°Then it explodes!¡±

    ¡°Perfect. I¡¯ll take one.¡± I held out my hand and an odd disc appeared above it. It looked like three discs stacked on top of each other, actually- the bottom one was flat and widest, the next one up was slightly bowl shaped, and inside of it was a rounded dome. The whole thing was a somehow-disturbing shade of purple. The moment it appeared in my hand, a box appeared on my augs with three buttons- arm, detonate, disarm. There was also a radius setting, which I set to the maximum- three meters, more than enough to cover the door.

    ¡°Juny, the moment this thing hit the ground, turn it on.¡± I opened the door and tossed it in one single motion, and it landed smoothly on a pile of splattered Antithesis bodies. I backed away, feeling a brief moment of heaviness before I stepped out of range, and then the show began.

    Antithesis, apparently, are not very smart. With no other way of reaching me, the Model Ones simply dove right into the doorway, where they were promptly dragged to the ground. More and more angry avocados joined the pile, which swiftly reached up to half the height of the door before tapering off. The Model Ones closest to me continued to drag themselves along the ground, but they were too slow to reach me before their time ran out.

    When the stream of Antithesis finally ceased, I ducked further down the stairs and hit the virtual button. I couldn¡¯t see the explosion, but I sure heard it and saw the effects. Dozens of Model Ones were instantly reduced to goo and spread across the walls of the stairwell and office - along with the floor, the ceiling and the door frame. Dead Antithesis goop rained line confetti and I just barely seemed to avoid it from my position just beneath the lip of the stairs.

    Targets Eliminated!

    Reward... 152 Points

    New total: 536 Points

    My funds continued to rise! Again, I was tempted to purchase the armor I so direly needed, but I was still a bit short of what I had drafted up, and I was on the edge of a bonafide hive. That would just be borrowing trouble.

    ¡°What do we do about the hive itself?¡± I asked as I stepped into the office, SMG raised as I checked every corner of it for an ambush. It was a wide open floor plan, and I could see every corner of the floor from my current position- along with several shattered windows that told me how the Model Ones were getting out. Nothing but guts, vines, and egg pods. The smell of grass was overpowering.

    ¡°I would recommend destroying it! Would you like some firebombs? Or perhaps nanites?¡±

    ¡°Fire, then. Can you give me markers so I know the best places to put them?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    New Purchase: Remote Detonated Inferno Grenades x10

    Points reduced to...486

    At the same time, a box of grenades appeared at my feet and so did ten waypoints on my augs. They appeared to form a ring around the floor, with three bombs evenly placed around the center to ensure full coverage. Wasting no time, I snapped up the box, dropping a grenade at each position even as additional Model Ones grew within their pods at a visible rate.

    The last bomb planted, I booked it for the bridge.

    ¡°Juny, blow them as soon as I¡¯m on the other side!¡± I instructed as I stepped onto the bridge. I only had a few minutes before another swarm of birds was ready to mob me. A wave of heat rushed over my back as I reached the next building, sucking the oxygen out of the air momentarily before cooler air rushed in from my side of the bridge. Behind me, the other building had become a sea of flames.

    There was a chance the raging inferno would take the entire building down with it, but, well. It was abandoned, so who cares? Although, if every building I go through is like that one, someone probably is going to care eventually.

    A problem for future Erica.

    Now I knew that the Antithesis could be literally anywhere in this city, even somewhere I least expected them. Still, it was safer than the streets. That much was obvious just from looking out the window. From my vantage point, I could see a tidal wave of black-green flesh flowing in the direction of people, backing up Juny¡¯s earlier point. It seemed I had escaped the streets just in time.

    Occupied or no, the towers were safer than the ground.

 Chapter Seven

    "Y''know, I was just asking on a lark- but my AI actually answered! Gave me a whole heap of research the Protectors did to find out if a god really existed. I haven''t had time to look at it, but- what, you wanna see it? Sure, I don''t see why not."

    -Knuckle Duster, now believed to be the biggest cause of Mormons defecting to Samurai-worshipping sects

    <hr>

    The next few buildings passed uneventfully¡­at least, by the standards of today. I ran into few enough Antithesis at a time to barely be worth mentioning, but I still netted a couple hundred points in the process. It sounded like a lot to me, still, but twenty Model Threes and Fours over the course of several encounters still only added up to one to three of them at a time, and my submachine gun held more than enough ammunition to deal with each encounter handily.

    Each building, though, showed progressively more signs of battle. The first few I passed through had only little things- old bullet casings, holes in the walls, and the occasional broken window. As I got closer to the true town, however, I was seeing signs that were clearly more recent. Still-hot embers. Fresh bullet casings, with no signs of dust. Even a few corpses the Antithesis had yet to reclaim.

    Things weren¡¯t all good, though. The buildings weren¡¯t just battle damaged- they were falling apart in some cases. Eventually I came across a building where the stairs had partially collapsed, leaving everything below the fifteenth floor inaccessible. Fortunately I entered on the sixteenth and needed to go higher still, but I had to worry that the next building may be in an even worse state.

    My first indication that something was wrong was innocuous enough- encouraging, even, as it was the roar of a gunship passing by overhead just as I was approaching one of the last few skybridges I needed to traverse before reaching safety. It was a good sign that the defenders were fighting back still- attacking, for that matter. Air support was a good sign.

    When I was just steps away from the next bridge, though, I found out what the gunship had been doing above me when a black-green blur smashed into the bridge like a meteorite, glass shards and bits of concrete erupting from the point of impact. I barely raised my arm in time to protect my face, and when I lowered it, the bridge was simply gone. Nothing but bent rebar and shattered concrete remained of it, and even as I watched, another section slowly broke off and plummeted to the earth below. I stared at the open space for a moment, processing the fact that my path forward was obliterated- and that I had been mere meters away from sharing its fate.

    ¡°Juny, I am increasingly convinced that God is real, and that it hates me.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry! The Protectors have scientifically proven that God does not exist!¡± I couldn¡¯t fathom how that was even possible, but I didn¡¯t bother to ask. I really doubted I was going to understand the answer anyway, given that I was no scientist and the Protectors were clearly so much more advanced than us that they may as well be gods themselves.

    ¡°Comforting. What¡¯s my new route?¡± The map in my peripheral vision changed, with a truly disturbing number of skybridges highlighted. It seemed that losing this one bridge would cost me quite a detour. ¡°Why is it so long? There¡¯s not a single shorter route?¡±

    ¡°Public satellite data shows that most of the bridges close to the inner town have been destroyed, either today or during the previous incursion event.¡±

    ¡°Oh, good, and here I was starting to think god¡¯s nonexistence meant my luck would improve. Hm¡­this town is something like a precursor to modern megacity designs, right? Any chance it has something similar to the sub-foundation layer?¡±

    ¡°Basements levels are not included in public records, but for just 170 points, you can unlock Class I Basic Cyberwarfare Utilities, a Mark II Cyberwarfare Augmentation, and the Mark I Decryption Protocol so that I can find out! This set is the second most popular purchase among all Vanguards!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re starting to sound like an infomercial. And wait, aren¡¯t you like, a hyper advanced AI? Why do you even need that last one? Also, what¡¯s the most popular?¡± Sure, I got that she was operating through my equipment, so the augmentation probably provided a level of functionality my civilian model lacked, but our technology was supposedly Stone Age by comparison. Hacking it should be a breeze, right?

    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    ¡°Technically, I don¡¯t. But the Protectors have guidelines for how much a Vanguard AI is allowed to assist, and buying certain technologies is like unlocking access to restricted functionality. Over time you can gain full access to the power of a Class XII AI!¡± She paused for a moment. ¡°And to answer your last question, the most popular is Class I Medical Utilities.¡± Yeah, that tracks.

    ¡°So even samurai are victim to microtransactions¡­¡± Sighing, I made the only choice I could. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll take it. I need to know what¡¯s down there, because the alternative is probably staying the night in an Antithesis infested ghost town.¡±

    Class I Basic Cyberwarfare Utilities unlocked!

    Points reduced to...586

    New Purchase: Mark II Cyberwarfare Augmentation

    Points reduced to... 536

    New Purchase: Mark I Decryption Protocol

    Points reduced to... 516

    A tiny box appeared on the ground in front of me, making me question why she didn¡¯t just place it in my hand as I bent down to pick it up. I found a pair of discs inside, each marked with a visual aid showing where to place them.

    ¡°So I just¡­stick them on, and boom, new augmentations?¡±

    ¡°Exactly! Your current augmentations are fairly good, so these will simply replace the necessary parts to add cyberwarefare functions to them. Mostly new access points and additional processing power, along with dedicated firewall and encryption/decryption suites.¡±

    Amazing what advanced technology could do without surgery. I applied the patches, hissing as they apparently activated and gave me the worst brain freeze of my life for several seconds. It¡­wasn¡¯t as bad as having several inches of metal extracted from my skull, but I think that particular sensation was going to skew my pain scale for quite a while. I screwed my eyes shut until the feeling faded, then opened my eyes to find everything looked the same.

    ¡°And, done! These buildings do indeed have a maintenance sublevel. The tunnels leading out of the abandoned sections have been blocked off according to Stalking Tiger PMC¡¯s records, but we should be able to get to the edge of the no-man¡¯s zone by going through the sub basements,¡± Juny explained before I could complain. I peeled off the discs and discarded them, my mind already moving on to the new information.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not getting down there through the stairs in this building, so what¡¯s the fastest way to the basement?¡±

    ¡°The fastest way would be to-¡° Juny¡¯s explanation cut off as a cracking sound came from outside. I moved to the window on that side of the building to find the bridge I came in through collapsing now as well, although I couldn¡¯t see any visible reason for it. Then again, it was a miracle anything in this building was still intact. ¡°¡­head over to the elevator and descend to the basement through the shaft!¡± Juny continued as if nothing had happened, despite clearly having paused to think up a new solution.

    Well, if there was one thing this building had in spades, it was rubble. I grabbed a piece of rebar from the bridge on my current floor that was only barely hanging on and headed over to the elevator. It took more time than I¡¯d like to admit, but I was able to pry the door open. I shined my flashlight into the shaft, but I quickly realized there was nothing there- no ladder, or even cables holding up the elevator.

    ¡°¡­well ain¡¯t that a kick in the head,¡± I muttered dryly. Oh, I wonder if there was anything useful I could crib from Fallout¡­no, not the time. And most of that stuff was outdated by contemporary human standards anyway. ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ve got any other bright ideas?¡±

    ¡°A Featherfall Anti-Grav Parachute from Class I Auxiliary Armor Utilities would allow you to survive the fall. The catalog is fifty points, and the parachute is one hundred and fifty. And it¡¯s reusable!¡± Because I totally wanted to be jumping off the 16<sup>th</sup> floor of buildings on a regular basis. Whatever. Better than climbing down by rope or something.

    Class I Auxiliary Armor Utilities unlocked!

    Points reduced to...466

    New Purchase: Featherfall Anti-Grav Parachute

    Points reduced to... 316

    If only my new parachute could save my points from free fall¡­

    The ¡°parachute¡± was actually a belt, with four glowy bits equally spaced around it that I suspected were just for show. I had to admit, though, that they did do the job of making it look like a highly advanced piece of alien technology and not a normal belt that would leave me a stain on the floor below.

    I snapped it on awkwardly over the costume belt I was already wearing and stepped up to the elevator, trying not to think about what I was about to do and failing. A spike of cold, raw terror was climbing up my back at the mere proximity to this deadly drop.

    ¡°Did I ever mention I¡¯m scared of heights?¡± I asked Juny.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to worry, I would never recommend a piece of equipment that has a chance of failing!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean. It¡¯s just¡­I¡¯ve always had a visceral reaction to being high up. Well, I suppose it¡¯s more a fear of falling. Of having long moments where I can¡¯t control what happens to me as I plummet to my death. It¡¯s different when I¡¯m in a hovercar, or behind a wall; I have a level of control there. But I¡¯ve always hated being on the edge like this,¡± I said as I gathered my resolve. ¡°But now? I¡¯ve been scared out of my mind for the last several days, even if I¡¯ve been trying to hide it. I¡¯ve been so close to death. I had shrapnel in my head, I got my arm mauled by a Model Three- I dodged a spiked tentacle from a Model Four by inches. I¡¯m still scared of heights. It doesn¡¯t feel any less scary. But now¡­I think I can do this anyway.¡±

    I stepped into the void.

 Chapter Eight

    "Biggest newbie killer for Samurai? I''m sure everyone has their own answer, but I''d say Model Nines. No one survives their first Nine due to skill. You have to be lucky enough for the first strike not to be fatal, or to catch a glimpse of it the moment it start to move. Fortunately, Samurai tend to be luckier than most."

    -An interview with Trigger Happy, 2037

    <hr>

    When I jumped into the elevator shaft, I was expecting something more terrifying. Wind whipping against my face. The rapid approach of the ground below as I rocketed towards the elevator car pancaked onto the bottom of the shaft.

    What I got was almost anticlimactic. I fell, but the speed I was moving at was so slow I was starting to feel bored by the time I landed. It felt like I was actually riding an invisible elevator, if anything, rather than freely falling from sixteen stories above ground.

    Eventually, though, the trip came to an end, and I landed softly on my feet. Just one last trial before reaching my goal. It took me a moment to pry open the basement door of the elevator, but then I was out and into the basement, surrounded by darkness.

    There were, of course, no lights down here. I could only see what my flashlight could illuminate, which wasn¡¯t much. In the distance I heard water dripping. The lack of sound was unnerving rather than comforting; Antithesis are quiet at the best of times, and without a Model Six around to emit its droning call, sight was easily the best method of locating them. Silence was not an indicator of safety.

    I could smell something, though. And feel something in the air. The basement smelled of smoke and ash; the air was warm and dry. Someone had been here recently, and they had purged the area with fire. That, too, brought me no comfort. I had encountered stragglers in the buildings above even on floors bearing the same signs.

    Even so, I walked into the empty darkness, my ears straining and my flashlight darting around to check every single corner. I had been ambushed enough times by now that I wasn¡¯t going to make the mistake of not clearing each room and each hallway before advancing. The tunnels were, so far, empty of anything living, but not entirely barren. As I lit up every inch of the space around me, the light caused shadows to play across the walls, the beam of light broken up by ruined corpses that had yet to be reclaimed by the hive.

    I was unbearably tense, and my muscles tightened further with every step, every false positive, every imagined sound. It was enough to make me feel I would have been better off trying to fight my way to safety instead, even if I knew intellectually that would have been a fool¡¯s errand.

    An illusion of movement caused me to flinch, unloading a burst into a dead Model Three before I could stop myself. The sound of gunfire reverberated throughout the underground, seeming like cannonfire in the enclosed space. I had to stop and breathe deeply to calm my pounding heart in the aftermath. Announcing my presence will have done me no favors.

    I slipped through a narrow maintenance corridor and into the basement of another building, and my flashlight lit up another figure. The recent memory of my mistake caused me to hesitate for a moment before I realized that this time, the silhouette before me was among the living. I backed up as I opened fire, narrowing my field of fire to the meter and a half width of the corridor as a half-burned Model Three rushed me with no regard to its life.

    The bullets I fired cut into it as if penetrating paper, and it dropped to the ground, finally dead. My ears were screaming in pain, and I felt a wetness flowing from both sides of my head, but mercifully, ruptured eardrums meant I could no longer hear the report of my submachine gun battering against them.

    It wasn¡¯t as if my sense of hearing had been doing me much good down here, anyway.

    ¡°The nanites remaining in your blood stream should be enough to repair the damage to your ears, but an additional package of them would make the process faster.¡±

    ¡°Not really the top of my priority list right now, Juny!¡± Did I merely speak, or did I scream? I could no longer tell. Numerous tentacles invaded my field of view, and I wasted the rest of my magazine just cutting them down. I reloaded as quickly as possible and finished off the wounded Model Four with the next magazine, further blockading the entrance to the next room as a result. Instinct told me to turn around now, and I did so to find another pack of Model Threes squeezing into the corridor from the room I had just left- I didn¡¯t have to wonder how, as the hall I was in was not the only entrance to it.

    A single sustained burst shredded them. In the darkness it was hard to tell how many had just fallen, but now the passage was fully blocked off, leaving my back safe for now. I turned back and climbed over the first Three I had felled, almost glad for the action- now I at least had something to focus on rather than the ghosts haunting my periphery since I descended.

    Something whipped past my head as I crested the body of the Model Four, now, and I flinched so hard I tumbled backwards. I peeked out through the tentacles of the Model Four, or at least what was left of them, shining my flashlight from another angle to get a better view.

    What I saw in the room ahead looked like the world¡¯s worst porcupine. A dire porcupine. It was the size of a fucking truck, and covered in quills the size of spears¡­one of which it was, at this very moment, plucking out with its tongue and hurling in my direction. I ducked back into cover, shining my light in the direction of the Antithesis until I saw the next spike go whizzing by, then I popped up and opened fire before it could toss another one.

    It was big, but a hail of bullets killed it just as dead as any other Model. I could only thank Nonexisto that it didn¡¯t have armor like a Model Six. With that, everything went still, but looks could be deceiving. I wasn¡¯t going to let my guard down just yet.

    ¡°How did that thing even get in here?¡±

    ¡°Building plans show the next room to be an underground parking garage.¡±

    Fucking hell. That meant the room was going to be big. I carefully made my way over the Model Four at the edge of the room. As I reached the end of the hallway I carefully checked my corners, not wanting another ambush to catch me by surprise- to one side, nothing but corpses, a door broken off its hinges, and ash. To the other, a live Model Four hanging from the fucking ceiling.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    With a curse, I pulled back before it could impale me with a tentacle, and not in the fun way, then leaned back out to fell it in the next instant. It collapsed to the floor, and I reloaded my weapon as I finally stepped into the room, shining my light in every direction to check for any more surprises.

    The thing about surprises, though, is that you never see them coming.

    What passed through my leg was so sharp I barely felt it. The tendon in my left leg came apart so suddenly that I dropped to one knee mid stride, feeling more pain from my knee striking concrete than from the bloody wound on my calf. Realizing the creature that did this was still behind me, I transitioned my fall into a roll, spinning around as I came up to aim in the direction I had come from.

    Corpses. Nothing but corpses. I examined each of them carefully, trying to figure out which was only playing possum. A long moment passed as I ran my eyes over each body, struggling in the limited lighting to identify clear wounds that told of death. It took me the better part of a minute to realize there was something here that should not have been, its presence so natural my eyes had slid over it entirely.

    The entryway I¡¯d come through had no hinges.

    Realizing it was caught, the ¡°door¡± unfolded into an incomprehensible mass of limbs, and I opened fire so fast I couldn¡¯t tell if it had been combat reflexes or fear reflexes. It came apart in midair, its many thin limbs shredded by bullets, and it moved no more.

    ¡°What,¡± I panted,¡± the fuck,¡± more breaths, ¡°was that?¡±

    ¡°That was a Model Nine! Stealth-specialized Antithesis. Commonly produced by stealth hives, but I had not anticipated its presence, as we had not encountered any so far, and the area the Antithesis have been active in has little human presence for them to ambush. Would you like a WoundStop for your leg? Only five points!¡±

    Leave it to Juny to segue right into another topic. Granted, this one was kind of important.

    I had gained one-fifteen points from that group, but the healing supplies and ammo spent brought me back down a few. Altogether, though, I was up to 404 points not found. At least, that was until I bought a set of sonic suppressors from my armor utilities catalog and ruined my dated joke.

    ¡°Hey, is there anything I can do about the, you know,¡± I gestured towards my ears as I felt my ear drums knitting themselves back together. God that was weird.

    ¡°There are a number of possible solutions for hearing protection! You could modify your ears to be more resistant to sonic damage. Many helmets also include sonic suppression. Or, from a catalog you already have, you could purchase the Combat Sonic Suppressors Mark I for ten points.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take that last one, I guess. I want to save up point for decent armor.¡±

    New Purchase: Combat Sonic Suppressors Mark I

    Points Reduced to¡­394

    I slotted the suppressors into my ears without much thought.

    My enforced break while allowing my tendon to knit itself back together was anything but restful. It spent the entire time glaring into the darkness, painfully aware that anything could be lurking out there, just beyond the reach of my flashlight. Nothing came, but that only made it worse. My heart hadn¡¯t stopped pounding since the last fight, and I think I was starting to develop a fear of the dark.

    Eventually the two halves of my Achilles tendon reunited, and I was able to stand up once more. Soon I was leaving the garage and entering the last maintenance tunnel, heading towards the final building. There, I would be able to emerge from the underground and make contact with people.

    I left a five point surprise at the entrance to the tunnel and jogged for a moment to get clear of it. That turned out to have been a good idea, as it took only a moment for something to attempt to follow me, only for a rapid-hardening foam grenade to burst and crush them against the ceiling. With that, the road behind me was sealed, and I had gained a handy 25 more points.

    The last basement level soon arrived, and I slowed as I approached. I couldn¡¯t see anything here, even bodies or abandoned equipment. But the Antithesis were craftier than I ever would have given them credit for, and I wasn¡¯t about to let them fool me this time. I led the way with an Inverter grenade, with Juny¡¯s assurance that it would have little effect on the stability of the ceiling, and was promptly rewarded with twenty-five points as a mutilated Model Nine dropped from above along with a few fragments of concrete.

    Even then, nothing came for me. I checked both sides again, and both were miraculously clear. Just past my last victim, however, I spotted an unidentifiable pile of --something- at the edge of my flashlight¡¯s range.

    Yeah, fuck that. I opened fire.

    The Model Nine tried to leap for me the moment I pulled the trigger, but it was too far away and wasn¡¯t faster than a bullet. It died. That¡¯s when the floodgates burst open. From the darkness, an entire pack of Model Threes charged me, and quills flew forth from the shadows behind them as if to provide covering fire. I rolled backwards, coming back up in a crouch several meters back down the hall, and gunned down the Threes as they ran headlong into a chokepoint.

    Even as they died, I could hear a rhythmic thump, thump, thump as quills impacted the Model Threes providing me with cover, the Model Fives either unable to see what they were hitting at this distance or not caring that they were hitting their cousins¡¯ corpses. I detached the flashlight from my SMG and placed it on one side of the pile, then leaned out the other side to return fire.

    I peered into the darkness, but saw nothing. The Model Fives were throwing quills from outside the range of my light. They began to impact concrete instead of bodies as they adjusted their aim towards the flashlight.

    ¡°Juny, do you have anything that will light up the room without blinding me?¡± I whispered, rolling back into cover. I grabbed the light for good measure, not wanting to buy a new one.

    ¡°A Thenosian Flare Grenade should suffice. It is similar to a flashbang, but designed for a species with significantly greater light sensitivity than humans!¡± I wasted no time in buying the simple five point ¡®weapon¡¯ and plucked it from the box it came in. No sense in waiting- I flung it over the mound of bodies and into the darkness, and it was only a moment before the space lit up. I rolled back into a firing position.

    That was when I realized the truth of my situation: the Model Fives had not cared if they hit me or not because it was suppressive fire. Even as I started shooting the two of them, I registered the hulking mass behind them. It was a like an upside-down flower, with tentacles reminiscent of a Model Four and tattered wings trailing behind it. It was also horrifically damaged; it was riddles with bullet holes and half-burned.

    ¡°Oh my! We¡¯ve found a Model Thirteen! I would normally be concerned, but this one seems to be barely alive. Normally it would have three connected bodies, and it would be much faster. Some of its limbs are intact- do not let it get close, as its tentacles are essentially hammers that strike like whips!¡±

    The second Model Five dropped before it could shift its aim, following the first into the grave as the Thirteen dragged itself past them. I shifted my aim to the next target, but my bullets predictably bounced right off. It was still pretty far away, but it was gradually closing the distance, and bullets weren¡¯t cutting it.

    ¡°Juny, give me an Instant Star please.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I took the plasma grenade in hand and softballed it towards the Model Thirteen. One of its tentacles intercepted the glowing sphere, but the grenade stuck fast to its limb instead of being deflected. It flailed wildly, trying to dislodge it, but only succeeded in bringing it closer to the core of its body even as the grenade detonated.

    This time I covered my eyes in time as the room lit up in a blinding white. When I looked back, the Model Thirteen was collapsing to the ground. Its tough hide hardly appeared more damaged at all, but the perforations dotting its body must have been enough to allow the deadly plasma in.

    ¡°Well done! Those are typically very difficult to kill. Unfortunately, the damage it had already received will reduce its point value from one hundred to fifteen. You now have 592 points.¡±

    ¡°One hundred?! I don¡¯t even want to think about how hard that thing would have been to put down if it¡¯s four times the value of anything I¡¯ve killed on my own¡­ ¡±

    At any rate, my trek through the Underworld was over at last. I headed towards the stairs.

 Chapter Nine

    "Legally speaking, Samurai have a right to commandeer PMC resources to use against Antithesis and a nominal rank in the hierarchy. Practically speaking, nominal rank doesn''t matter. A Samurai with a big enough gun outranks the CEO."

    -Excerpt from an after-action report explaining why a Samurai was allowed to make off with the unit''s multi-billion dollar command vehicle

    <hr>

    I had been down there for longer than I¡¯d thought. When I emerged from the stairwell, it was to a dimly lit lobby covered in broken glass, the streets outside tinged orange by the setting sun. To my left, I could see a wide open field thick with dead Antithesis, their viscera painting the gravel below them green.

    I watched from behind a corner as a massive Antithesis ¨C ¡°That¡¯s a Model Fifteen, an artillery type,¡± Juny helpfully provided- trundled out into the massive kill zone between the walls and the abandoned part of town. It scarcely made it two steps before an enormous boom shook the buildings around me, rupturing the side of the Model Fifteen and causing it to explode, sending sharp spikes in every direction.

    Then, silence. I approached the glass wall facing the inner town. Well, what was left of a glass wall. Most of it was scattered all over the floor of the lobby.

    ¡°Juny, can you get me in touch with someone on that wall? Would really like a guarantee I¡¯m not getting shot the moment I step out of cover.¡±

    ¡°Of course! I have broken into their encryption and given you access to their private channel.¡±

    ¡°Uh, hey, y¡¯all up there on the wall? Anyone hear me?¡±

    ¡°This is a secure line, please identify yourself immediately.¡±

    ¡°Oh, this is Erica Taylor speaking, I¡¯m a new samurai and I¡¯m like, just at the edge of town. Would love it if I could get in without getting shot at, please?¡±

    ¡°Please hold.¡± I waited obediently, feeling like I was some idiot calling a customer support line and expecting a person to actually answer.

    ¡°You have been granted access; temporarily assigning designation Sigma-2. Approach the wall, someone will be down to receive you when you arrive. Be advised that the Antithesis are still active. You will need to fight your way through.¡±

    ¡°Thanks, Er- uh, Sigma-2 out.¡± I waited a moment before speaking again, until Juny gave me a confirmation she had cut the connection. ¡°Well, that was easy. Will be nice to have the comforts of civilization again. Maybe take a bath¡­¡±

    I wasn¡¯t quite there yet, though. The Antithesis attack seemed to be petering out, but it wasn¡¯t finished yet. Dozens of Model Threes were rushing over the bodies of their predecessors in a mad dash for the wall, and I could see other models mixed in wherever I looked. Occasionally a larger, presumably double digit model would emerge from the concrete jungle at my back, only to be speared by tank shells.

    Closer to my own position, I could see a cluster of Fives and Sixes moving closer to the wall, with the Sixes acting like combination shields and snowplows as they deflected fire from the Fives behind them and shoved aside intact corpses in their way. The Fives were tossing quills at an oblique angle over their makeshift shield wall, safe from return fire.

    Those were going to have to die if I wanted to get past. If I tried to go around, the Fives would surely spot me.

    ¡°Okay, Juny, I have a plan, but I¡¯m going to need a few things. One, a strap for my SMG so I can drop it and not lose it. Two, a couple Instant Star grenades- not now, but later, when I call for them. Three¡­I think we talked about a shotgun in the woods a couple days back, but that was before I¡¯d seen a Six. Could I get that when I call for it, but with some kind of ammo that can punch through a Six¡¯s armor?¡±

    ¡°Of course! For a few extra points, you can get a magazine of armor-piercing high explosive slugs. They will greatly expand the area in which you can strike a Model Six and expect lethal damage.¡±

    ¡°Perfect. Okay, when I ask for a shotgun, just drop it right into my hands with those loaded. I think it was the Impaler Model S?¡±

    ¡°Correct. I will have it prepped and ready!¡±

    ¡°Well, once more unto the breach, I suppose.¡± As I muttered, I hurried past the blown-out corpse of that double digit Antithesis and emerged onto the enormous killing field. It looked like at some point every building within a hundred meters of the wall had been demolished, providing the defenders with a clear line of sight. The lack of rubble suggested it wasn¡¯t recent.

    The battlefield was still chaotic, but the Antithesis were emerging from specific channels- the spots where streets broke up the buildings. That meant I could run in without much attention falling on me, for at least the few moments I needed to cross the fifty meters between myself and the cluster of Fives and Sixes.

    Most of their Model Three escorts were dead by now, but a handful had been to their rear- as I approached, I opened fire with my SMG, scything down the unsuspecting canid plant monsters like wheat. My trigger control had improved leaps and bounds over days of live combat, and where in my first usage of the weapon I had wasted half the magazine on a single target, here I downed half a dozen with sixty rounds.

    That left nothing between myself and the Fives. They had noticed the deaths of their guards, and some were already shifting their focus to me, but I dropped my SMG and called ¡°Grenades!¡± before they were in position. I activated the two plasma grenades and threw them, one after the other, into the gaps in the formation of Model Fives.

    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Not waiting for the grenades to detonate, I immediately dropped to a knee and called for the shotgun. With that, a shotgun materialized in my hands and I closed my eyes as the world went white for a brief moment.

    Class I Kinetic Shotguns Unlocked!

    Points reduced to¡­692

    New Purchase: Impaler Model S

    Points Reduced to¡­592

    When I opened my eyes again, two Model Fives had been reduced to super-heated goo, caught between my grenades, and the remaining four were very clearly dead, having been scorched by plasma so badly that they had lost at least a quarter of their mass each.

    They had just discovered why, in the age of machine guns and explosives, humanity had abandoned the shield wall as a tactic.

    That left three Model Sixes. The one in the center bellowed as it spun towards me with a speed nothing that size should possess. The two on the flanks were forced to spend precious time going around the bodies of multiple Model Fives, while the one in the center only had to charge straight through a pile of steaming goo, the heat insufficient to dissuade it.

    I¡¯ll admit: I hadn¡¯t actually planned to block them with the Fives. That was a happy coincidence. But now I had the opportunity to defeat them in detail, and I was going to take it. I was already aiming my shotgun in its direction as it pushed itself in my direction.

    The Impaler Model S was a hundred point weapon for a reason. It could adjust to fire either slugs or shot, and it was, like my custom SMGs, equipped with an inertial compensator to offset muzzle climb caused by recoil, making it much easier for a beginner to use. It also had a simple sensor in the nose which connected to my augmentations, providing me with a handy reticle with which to aim. To the side, I could see its ammunition status on my augs as well- twenty rounds of 10 gauge, armor piercing, high explosives slugs, exactly as Juny promised.

    It also may or may not have been altered to resemble an M90 with a drum magazine, because I am a nerd with limited self-control.

    My first shot went high. It didn¡¯t matter. The slug blew a gaping hole in my target¡¯s natural armor plating, high up on its mountain-esque back, and the explosion that followed probably obliterated whatever passes for an Antithesis¡¯s organs from the shockwave alone. It dropped to the ground with a thud nearly as loud as the report from my shotgun.

    With one down, I hopped to the left, bringing the next Six into view and buying me just a moment more to kill it before the last one arrived. I lined up the reticle and pulled the trigger; this time, my aim was a bit too low and to the left, and the slug went through the Six¡¯s front leg, which seemed to expand for a fraction of a second before going limp. Fortunately for me, this wasn¡¯t a pump action, but an automatic. I adjusts my aim and fired once more, this time hitting it right in the face. It dropped.

    I spun, finding the final Model Six in mid charge. No point in being careful now- I just held down the trigger and braced my shoulder as slug after slug erupted from the barrel, the stock kicking against my arm with every blast. I couldn¡¯t tell which of the four shots I fired killed it, but the Six skidded to a stop just inches away from me.

    ¡°Okay, I feel badass now.¡±

    Now there was nothing in my way, and this wave seemed to be just about wiped out. Atop the wall I could vaguely make out the silhouettes of people rushing to and fro, doing whatever it is they had to do between attacks. It was hard to tell, as the walls were at least two dozen feet tall, and, judging by the barrels of tanks peeking out over the battlements, they were quite thick as well.

    The space between the ghost town and the wall was died green with Antithesis viscera leaking from the piles of bodies everywhere in sight. The setting sun gave the field an eerie glow, darkening the shadows and bathing the bodies in its bath orange. I glanced behind me, seeing the skyscrapers in my wake were shattered beyond recognition from this side. The windows were shattered, the concrete pock-marked with bullet holes just like the pavement below my feet.

    It hadn¡¯t even been a day since the attacks began.

    I heard the familiar hum of a hovercar as I approached the wall, and an armored vehicle slipped out from behind their safety and lowered to the ground in front of me. I jogged the remaining distance as the back door opened on its own, slipping into the back seat with a relieved sigh. As the door closed behind me, a man in black and orange armor turned in his seat to examine me.

    ¡°Huh, so you¡¯re the new samurai? The boss lady wanted me to take you straight to her, so buckle in and let¡¯s get going,¡± he said even as the vehicle lifted off. The ride was short, and I think the only reason they bothered with it was that there was no other way past the wall. There had been no gates for ground traffic, at least not where I could see.

    He set the car down only a couple minutes later, gesturing towards a nearby building as he stepped out. I followed him into what seemed to be the PMC¡¯s local headquarters; a squat, ugly building with obvious defenses studding the walls. I didn¡¯t have to be an expert to spot numerous turrets and defensive positions. He led me into an elevator, and after a few awkward moments of silence, we exited into a floor labelled simply as ¡°Command.¡±

    We stepped into a room filled with computers and ringed by doors to numerous offices, although most of both appeared to be unoccupied at the moment. My guide traced a path through the room and to a meeting room on the other side, where a short woman in PMC gear stood at the head of a table, speaking to what I assumed were a number of officers. They seemed to be finishing up, as several stood and filed out of the room before we got there, while others gathered in clusters around the table and began speaking in hushed tones. A few looked up at me as we approached, with looks ranging from horrified to impressed to hopeful.

    I approached the apparent boss lady, feeling unsure of myself. The driver had seemed happy to see me, but I wasn¡¯t exactly Deus Ex or the Maestro. I couldn¡¯t turn the situation around all on my own. The woman turned towards me as I approached, looking me up and down. She seemed impressed for a split second before she narrowed her eyes and gave my armor a second look. Had she noticed it was fake?

    I looked her over in turn. She was somewhere between 5¡¯ and 5¡¯6¡±, which seemed strangely short for some officer in a PMC. Her gear seemed identical to that of the others I had seen. Brown hair framed a face that was rugged, in an annoyingly hot sort of way.

    ¡°Do you¡­need a see a medic, before we begin?¡± she asked with a raised eyebrow. There was a note of concern and confusion there, and I wasn¡¯t quite sure what she was getting at for a moment. I looked down, realizing again what sort of condition I was in. Just about every inch of my body was coated in dried blood, a mix of red and green that told me it wasn¡¯t all mine. Punctures and cuts dotted the undersuit of my costume, showing the clothes underneath in some places and blood-caked skin in others. The ¡®armor¡¯ portions were mostly too mangled to recognize, resembling nothing so much as a plastic bottle chewed on by a dog.

    I noticed some particularly pointed looks at my hair, and, pulling a strand out before my eyes, I found that it was stiff and unbending, so dirty I could no longer see a hint of blonde. I was starting to look like the Queen of Blades.

    ¡°Uh¡­no, I¡¯m fine. The blood is mostly mine, but I got better?¡±

 Chapter Ten

    Embezzlement: A deprecated form of crime that involved misappropriation of funds by a company employee. Has since been folded into the general term ''felony theft'' when applied to common employees. For executive level employees, see ''Discretionary Funding.''

    -Definition of embezzlement from The Corporate Dictionary, 2042

    <hr>

    ¡°Samurai things, I suppose,¡± the woman said with a wry tilt to her lips. ¡°Alana McIntire, formerly a Lieutenant in the Stalking Tigers, now an unnamed samurai. You must be Erica,¡± she said, holding her hand out to shake. I took her hand, and she proceeded to crush mine in return. ¡°Gotta ask, what¡¯s with the plastic?¡±

    ¡°Uh¡­well, I kind of became a samurai in the middle of nowhere on my way to a¡­convention.¡± I said the last part quietly, feeling my cheeks heating up. It seemed embarrassing to admit in front of the first other samurai I¡¯ve met. Wait, what? Oh, that explained why I was Sigma 2. ¡°Haven¡¯t felt safe enough since then to change into armor, even when I had the points for it.¡±

    Alana hummed an acknowledgement and gestured towards a seat at the table. I sat down, breathing a sigh of relief at sitting in a real chair again, some of the tension finally draining from my body. She sat opposite me and offered a glass of water, which I gladly gulped down in an instant.

    ¡°Sounds like you¡¯ve been through a lot. I can¡¯t say you¡¯re safe here, but you can at least relax a bit. Why don¡¯t you fill me in on your side of things, and I¡¯ll tell you what¡¯s been happening here in return?¡±

    Taking a deep breath, the story began to spill out. Crashing my car and nearly dying in an explosion of my own making. Becoming a samurai. Wandering through the woods, and then through the town. The longer the story dragged on, the more taken aback Alana seemed. It didn¡¯t look like she was impressed, or awed¡­mostly, she just looked bewildered.

    ¡°¡­and, well, after the last Model Six went down, I made it to the wall.¡±

    ¡°After all that, I¡¯m amazed you made it here. I half expected you to fall into an unknown cave system five steps from the car, with how your luck has been. No wonder you look like shit.¡± I released a manic giggle at that, less because I found it funny and more because I think I was just at the limit.

    ¡°Can you tell me what happened here? All I know right now is that it started this morning.¡±

    Alana ran a hand through her hair and leaned back in her seat, looking as if all the exhaustion of the day had hit her all at once when she heard the question.

    ¡°Dylta, can you just send her what you found? And a summary.¡± She looked up and to the left as she spoke- did I look like that when I talked to Juny? I should probably think of a better way of doing that¡­

    ¡°Vanguard AI Dylta is requesting permission to send a data packet!¡±

    ¡°Granted, Juny.¡± Less than a second later, a series of documents popped up on my augs. Bank records, internal documents from the local detachment of the Stalking Tigers PMC, communiques, and more. I promptly skipped over all of that and went right to the summary.

    It was stupider than I could have possibly imagined. Apparently the previous commander, Colonel Tavish, had been embezzling company funds for years. The tanks on the walls were essentially turrets, because he had funneled most of the maintenance funds into private accounts, telling his subordinates that they were barely funded well enough to keep the weapons working. The drive systems were entirely shot.

    And that wasn¡¯t even the worst part. He had been stealing ninety percent of the money meant for patrolling the outer town- basically, he was taking money that should have gone towards hazard pay. That meant only ten percent of the town was searched for Antithesis over any given period, which in turn meant the Antithesis went unnoticed in several locations that went particularly long times without a check.

    ¡°You¡¯re pranking me, right? No one could possibly be this stupid.¡±

    ¡°I fucking wish,¡± Alana responded while rubbing her eyes. She took a sip from a canteen before continuing. I had my suspicions about the contents. ¡°I wasn¡¯t even looking for it. Dylta brought it to my attention when I asked it to find out how the Antithesis got past the wall this morning- so I could plug the hole.¡±

    ¡°And then you confronted him. Juny told me there was a coup, but I had no idea a samurai was involved.¡±

    ¡°Sorry! We¡¯re not allowed to give out information on other Vanguards without their permission!¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t blaming you, don¡¯t worry.¡± Alanna must have realized I was speaking to Juny, as she didn¡¯t comment. I suppose she understood the oddness just as well as I did.

    ¡°Couldn¡¯t trust him to lead the defense after that. Even if I ignore the crimes, it was just plain incompetence that led to the breach. Honestly, I wasn¡¯t really intending to kill him though. It just¡­happened.¡±

    ¡°Did anyone try to stop you?¡±

    ¡°Not once Dylta sent out a notice that I was a samurai. Even his supporters didn¡¯t want to fuck with that.¡±

    ¡°Huh. And you¡¯ve just been fighting ever since?¡±

    ¡°I gave out some samurai grade ammo, too, but yes. I organized our rapid response squads and started burning out hives. There¡¯s too many for us to make much headway, but Dylta thinks we¡¯ve been slowing them down.¡±

    ¡°I think I saw some of your handiwork,¡± I replied, thinking back to all the ashes and embers I had encountered at the tail end of my journey. ¡°So, what now? I don¡¯t know much about incursions, but I know they snowball.¡±

    ¡°First, I¡¯d like to be sure. Are you willing to help us? You just spent days walking through the woods only to stumble onto another battlefield, and you¡¯ve never fought a day in your life prior to all this, from what I can gather. I would understand if you¡¯d prefer to go home.¡±

    Huh. Come to think of it, I never did even consider that option, did I? I sort of just assumed that, well, I was a samurai, so this was just my life now. But I suppose I wouldn¡¯t be a samurai if I was the type of person to just walk away.

    ¡°Thanks, but I¡¯m not going anywhere. If nothing else, it¡¯d leave a bad taste in my mouth if I left now and people died because of it.¡± Alana smiled momentarily at my response before her serious demeanor returned.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡°The first thing I did once I took command was contact The Family. Most of the higher level samurai are busy with one thing or another, but apparently they had a way to contact Mountaineer, the local samurai, and he¡¯s on his way.¡±

    ¡°Never heard of him. And if he¡¯s local, where is he now?¡±

    ¡°Local, as in to the Appalachian Mountains. He¡¯s like a cryptid- the man just hikes up and down the entire mountain range wiping out hives. From what I¡¯ve heard, he never stops in any towns or cities.¡± Thinking about it, I suppose it made sense that someone was doing that. After all, the mountains were even more sparsely populated now than they were half a century ago, and they were never the most populous region. That made them the perfect place for a hive to grow in secret.

    ¡°Well, that explains the devastated patch of forest I passed through. Looked like a tornado decided to touch down in the mountains just to fuck that place in particular.¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s exactly what we need right now. Problem is, he¡¯s busy with another hive cluster, and won¡¯t be here for at least two more days, so it¡¯s up to us to slow the Antithesis down for that long.¡± With that, Alanna stood, signaling the end of the conversation. She waved over one of the mercs that were still in the room.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to burn down one more hive before I call it a night. I would ask you to join us, but you clearly need some down time. This here is Sergeant Haverson, he¡¯ll get you squared away.¡± The sergeant himself nodded in my direction.

    ¡°Ma¡¯am. I¡¯ll get you set up with food and a guest suite. Won¡¯t be the Ritz, but the food will be warm, and if you¡¯ll pardon my saying so, you look like you could use the bath.¡± He had a strong Southern drawl. The drawl itself wasn¡¯t rare in these parts, but his was unusually thick. I had other concerns, though. I furrowed my brow. I¡¯d just arrived, and I was already being sidelined? I guess I was starting to feel pretty awful, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but I couldn¡¯t just sit on the sidelines while other people fought.

    ¡°Thanks, but I¡¯m fine, I can-¡° Alana cut me off with a raised hand, her entire demeanor changing. One moment she was presenting a casual front, and the next she was a soldier again.

    ¡°No. I can¡¯t give you orders, but I¡¯ve seen that look before on recruits.¡± She relaxed again, and her voice took on a gentle tone. It was impressive how quickly she could shift modes. ¡°You¡¯re still riding an adrenaline high, and you¡¯re going to crash if you try to keep going. One thing I¡¯ve learned as a soldier is that you¡¯ve got to rest whenever you can, otherwise you¡¯ll just get yourself killed because you¡¯re too tired at a critical moment.¡±

    I winced; it was hard to argue with her when I¡¯d just noted the imminent crash myself.

    ¡°Alright, you win. Any other advice?¡±

    She shook her head.

    ¡°That¡¯s it for now. Could you give your AI permission to speak to mine? Dylta tells me they need consent for that kind of thing.¡± I nodded, and Juny let me know she was now in contact with Alana¡¯s companion.

    ¡°Thanks. Alright, I¡¯m heading out.¡± She nodded to Haverson, who gave a quick salute. ¡°She¡¯s all yours, Sergeant.¡±

    With that, Alana turned and headed out of the room. So ended my first conversation with another samurai- hopefully, we would have more time later. I turned towards Haverson and gave him a closer look, finding him to be a tall, bookish man. He didn¡¯t seem like the type to join a PMC¡­but I guess that was why he was the quartermaster and not a fighter.

    ¡°Welcome to Boone, ma¡¯am! What¡¯ll you have first, gear, food, or a bed?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d love some food, I think, but what do you mean by gear?¡±

    ¡°Oh, well, by international law, samurai have free access to any equipment they need during incursions. This isn¡¯t a true incursion, but it still counts,¡± he explained. Juny took that moment to cut in.

    ¡°While you can help yourself to their armory, it is unlikely they have anything that will actually be useful to you. Even Class I equipment is vastly superior to the weapons and armor a private army has!¡±

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll just buy some stuff later then,¡± I said to her in reply. Haverson gave me an odd look. ¡°Sorry, talking to the voice in my head. You mentioned food?¡±

    ¡°Right this way! There¡¯s a cafeteria just a few floors down.¡±

    I followed him to the elevator, and we sat in silence for a few moments before the doors spat us out onto what seemed to be a barracks floor. Numbered rooms sat on either side of the hallway at precise intervals, and I could see several bunk beds through the door as someone entered one. We walked past these room and around a corner, ending up at a large set of double doors.

    Haverson opened the doors and waved me in before following himself. The cafeteria looked to take up at least half of this floor, which I assumed meant it serviced the others as well. There was only one thing on the menu at this time of night: burgers. Sadly, no fries. I plopped a burger on a paper plate and took a seat at one of the empty tables, of which there were many. The room wasn¡¯t empty, but there were only a couple squads worth of men and women filling it out.

    His own plate in hand, Haverson sat down across the table.

    ¡°Can I ask you a few questions? Alana didn¡¯t really have much time to talk before she took off, so I only got the important bits,¡± I asked between bites. The meat was a bit overcooked.

    ¡°Fire away.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s with all the tanks? I mean, this is a small town, right? Doesn¡¯t seem like the type of place to warrant so many of them.¡±

    ¡°Alright, well, let me ask you a question in turn. How many M1 Abrams tanks do you think the USA made before it folded?¡± The conspiratorial grin told me he didn¡¯t expect a correct answer, so I figured I¡¯d aim high.

    ¡°A few thousand?¡±

    ¡°Close. Try twenty. Twenty thousand tanks. They had thousands of them just sitting in the desert, in case they ever needed them. A ton of ¡®em were sold to other countries, but when the good ol¡¯ US of A went under, all the little nations that replaced it suddenly had a whole lot of armor and no one to use it. Not to mention a ton of debt. So, they went out to the highest bidder.¡± My jaw dropped at that. They auctioned off tanks to anyone that could afford them? I would expect that sort of thing from the corpos these days, but back then?

    ¡°That still doesn¡¯t explain why you¡¯ve got so many here, though.¡±

    ¡°Well, see, tanks are a little bit outdated these days. Samurai-tech is one thing, but a 120mm shell is just going to bounce right off a double digit¡¯s hide. To top it all off, they¡¯re useless during an incursion in a megacity. Not much fighting on the ground level.¡±

    ¡°So they bought dozens of tanks and found out they were useless.¡±

    ¡°¡¯zactly. Stalking Tigers PMC set their tanks up in a bunch of smaller towns like this, where tanks are still effective, so they could put less boots on the ground. The ones here don¡¯t move anymore, but they pack a punch against the single digits.¡±

    I frowned. I had thought it was a tank that bored a hole in that Model Fifteen earlier, but was I mistaken?

    ¡°Then how are you dealing with the double digits? Has Alana been killing them all?¡± Haverson teetered his hand back and forth.

    ¡°Eh, sort of. See, she bought us some pallets of samurai-tech ammo. Suddenly those paperweights are actually useful, as long as she keeps giving us more shells.¡±

    That was probably a huge point drain, but I didn¡¯t see the point in asking. I doubted Haverson knew much about that side of things. Instead¡­

    ¡°How¡¯d she become a samurai, anyway? If any soldier could be one, we¡¯d have whole PMCs full of them.¡±

    Haverson took a moment to finish his meal, then sat back.

    ¡°Well, I wasn¡¯t there, but word is, the LT shoved a grenade down a Six¡¯s throat. With her bare hands. Still had an arm in the thing¡¯s gullet when the frag popped.¡±

    ¡°She still has two arms.¡±

    ¡°Samurai are bullshit.¡±

    I didn¡¯t have an argument for that, because samurai are in fact bullshit.

    ¡°So, what about you? New samurai¡¯ve always got a great story.¡±

    ¡°I¡­stopped an attack on a bus with my car. And then blew it up. The car, I mean. Killed the last one.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s actually pretty tame for a samurai. Unless¡­?¡±

    ¡°¡­I was in the blast radius. The Three was gonna kill me anyway, so I figured hell, why not?¡±

    ¡°Damn! That¡¯ll do it. Never heard of a samurai that didn¡¯t almost die getting the title.¡±

    After that, the conversation petered out. I¡¯m sure there were more important questions I could have asked, but Alana was right. I was exhausted. My batteries were almost out and I couldn¡¯t think of the right things to ask. I decided to go straight to my room while I still had a bit of energy left in me- I still needed to sort my gear out before tomorrow.

 Chapter Eleven

    "Actually, I tried asking my AI why I kept finding equipment in the catalogue named after human mythology. I have to admit, ''Taming Sari'' was a much better name than the original five seconds of simulated alien smells."

    -From an overheard conversation between two Samurai

    <hr>

    As I entered my temporary quarters, it felt like all the energy left me at once. I went straight for the shower, peeling my ruined outfit off as I went. There was absolutely no way that thing was salvageable, and even the clothes I¡¯d been wearing beneath it were in tatters. I¡¯d need to ask someone for a change of clothes or buy something with points.

    It took an unreasonable amount of time to scrub myself clean. The dirt and grime of several days, combined with so much blood I could fill another person, came off my body in a brown-red stream. The very water changed colors as it ran off me. My hair was even worse- practically a series of hardened spines at this point rather than loose strands, and closer to black now than blonde. I had to soak it for several minutes, gently rubbing shampoo in, until it finally softened and came apart. Even more time went into working the shampoo in and extracting the filth clinging to my scalp.

    After the longest shower of my life, I finally was able to dry myself off and drop into bed, but I still wasn¡¯t quite done. I needed to sort my gear before something came up- I was tired of being on the edge of death every time an Antithesis got within spitting distance. The shower had left me feeling incredibly refreshed, so I thought I could stay awake just a little longer.

    First, I ruffled through the drawers in the room and threw on a set of PMC issue fatigues that were close enough to my size. I considered for a moment whether it was normal for the guest rooms to be stocked with clothes or whether Alana had arranged for it somehow after seeing my clothes, but decided in the end that it didn¡¯t matter. I took a seat on the edge of the bed, happy to be dressed in more than rags.

    I pulled up the armor I had designed with Juny on day one. I had gone back and forth on the appearance before settling on Mark IV Mjolnir. It was either that or ODST Battle Armor, because using the appearance of a later version of Mjolnir wouldn¡¯t have felt right for one big reason: my first suit, at the least, would not have energy shields.

    Technically I had only adapted the appearance of the Mark IV Mjolnir to fit the frame of a Class I suit of power armor called the Dainsleif-6. Apparently that wasn¡¯t the real name, but something Juny substituted due to the original being unpronounceable to humans, but that was beside the point.

    The Dainsleif-6 was a mishmash of upgrades and downgrades when compared to the original Mjolnir series, as some components of the armor turned out to be easily replicated with Class 0 technology, while others required Class II or higher. The plating itself was a Class I composite that was superior to titanium and lighter, which would make it possible for me to move in it with far less in the way of mechanical support. It would also stop most attacks from anything in the single digits, although the coverage wasn¡¯t perfect, and the undersuit, though made of similar Class I materials, was not nearly as impervious.

    In other words, I was tougher, but not invincible. I could still be crushed by the mass and strength of a Model Six, and the undersuit wouldn¡¯t hold up to a direct hit from a Model Five¡¯s quills or a Nine¡¯s blades. Even Threes and Fours could pose a threat if I was caught prone and they held me down long enough to break through the undersuit, though in almost any other situation they would be a non-threat.

    The undersuit consisted of three layers: an outer, flexible armored weave, an interstitial layer containing a power frame that would allow the suit to effectively carry itself and reduce some of the strain on my muscles during extended fighting, and an inner layer that whisked away sweat and controlled the inner temperature. It could also constrict to combat bleeding. This setup was a lot more bulky than the Mjolnir¡¯s solution to both defense and enhancement, but the liquid metal crystal layer would require higher class technology, and the gel layer wouldn¡¯t have been terribly helpful right now.

    A point of similarity was that this suit also had magnetic weapon holders; the difference was that they were not always activated and would be manually toggled by Juny when needed. That was because the magnets were significantly more powerful- I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about losing a weapon at an inopportune moment. The strips were also mounted atop ammunition cases within the armor, and deployable arms could reload my weapons for me when they weren¡¯t in use, enabling me to switch weapons repeatedly as each one ran dry and was reloaded.

    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    The Dainsleif-6 also came with several additional features unique to itself. Everything save the plating could be repaired by an internal reservoir of nanites, so long as they had the raw materials, and there were limited sensors built into the helmet that could feed directly to my augs, giving me thermal and low-light vision in addition to audio, vibration, and motion sensors- notably, the last set was less robust than what the Mjolnir packed, being strictly line-of-sight only. This entire package was powered by a micro-fusion reactor not unlike that of the original, but a lot safer than the one in my car.

    In all honesty, there were better options. Models with built in weapons, stealth, better power assistance, limited flight, reactive armor, healing suites, and more. But I only had 682 points right now, and this armor and its catalogue would leave me with only 82. Points were there to be spent, but those 82 points weren¡¯t getting me much in the way of improvements. Although¡­

    ¡°Juny, I know we hashed most of this out already, but I didn¡¯t have the parachute at the time. Can it be linked to the suit?¡±

    ¡°Of course! If you upgrade to the Dainsleif-6b for five points, you will have an additional equipment slot that can be used to interface with external equipment! More expensive versions can integrate more add-ons, but the experimental version is cheapest in exchange for only having one port.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take it. Go ahead and buy the suit, please, I¡¯d like to try it on before tomorrow.¡± I had to admit, this was rather exciting. My heart was pounding a bit and my palms were a bit sweaty with anticipation. I was going to get to wear Mjolnir in real life! Or¡­at least, a close approximation.

    Class I Power Armor Unlocked!

    Points reduced to¡­582

    New Purchase: Dainsleif-6b

    Points Reduced to¡­77

    I barely noticed the notifications as the armor appeared with no fanfare. It was electric blue, with silver highlights and a silver faceplate, and it was several inches taller than me and quite a bit more bulky. I¡¯d replaced the Spartan helmet insignia on the shoulder with a samurai¡¯s helmet for, well, obvious reasons. It wasn¡¯t quite the slim, form-fitting suit its appearance was based off of, but it was impressive nonetheless. A button appeared on my augs as Juny linked them with the suit, and I mentally slapped it, causing the suit to come apart at the seams and the plating to shift out of the way until I could step inside- a necessary consideration, as real Mjolnir required heavy equipment to don, and one I had specifically looked for in a suit.

    All I had to do was step inside, and once I was in place, the suit closed up and powered on. New icons appeared on my augs, indicating the status of various features, and the taste of the air changed as the air filters came online. I suddenly had a new sense- the motion sensors were linked directly to my mind, and I just somehow knew there was nothing moving in the room. It was hard to tell if the audio and vibration sensors were the same¡­I suspected those were simply linked to my existing hearing and touch. That would take some getting used to.

    I brought a hand up, feeling the servos in the undersuit assist with the movement. It was smooth, but there was some drift- the Dainsleif-6b lacked a neural link, so there was a slight lag in the activation and deactivation of the assistance. A fraction of a second. It took me a few minutes to adjust to it, but the delay was so slight as to be unnoticeable once I got used to ending each movement with a slight motion in the opposite direction to cancel out the drift. It wasn¡¯t terribly different from the feeling of landing with your legs bent to absorb the shock.

    After I had put the suit through a its paces, insomuch as I could do so in what amounted to a hotel room, I went ahead and popped back out of it. There were a few things I still felt needed work, but Juny¡¯s explanations were getting harder and harder to focus on due to my fatigue, and I decided to call it a night. It did feel a bit silly taking the clothes I¡¯d donned not long ago right back off, but I couldn¡¯t stand the feeling of sleeping with a full shirt on, and I had a tank top under the fatigue shirt.

    Still, once the lights were off and I was under the covers, sleep was just slightly out of reach.

    ¡°I feel like I should¡­be feeling something now. Like having a breakdown now that I¡¯m safe. Or feeling fear about tomorrow. Or something. But I¡¯m not. I just feel slightly too awake to sleep. Isn¡¯t it normal to freak out after your first time in a fight? That¡¯s what I¡¯ve always heard.¡±

    ¡°Not everyone reacts the same way! Most humans do tend to crash after a trying experience, and even Vanguards require occasional downtime, but your current state is actually the average for Vanguards. Otherwise, you would not be able to do the job!¡±

    ¡°Is that, like, just how I am? That¡¯s not¡­a side effect of becoming one, right?¡±

    ¡°The Protectors¡¯ criteria for choosing Vanguards are difficult for other species to understand, but one commonality is a tendency to deal well with pressure. A minority of Vanguards cannot withstand combat and retire early, but they would fall a standard deviation from the average. Most that are chosen are like you, and handle it well. A select few fall the other way, and thrive under stress and constant combat.¡±

    ¡°In other words, I¡¯m weird for a human, but normal for a samurai. I¡¯ll take it, I guess. Thanks, Juny.¡±

    ¡°Of course! I do believe you could use some sleep, however. Would you like something to assist with sleeping?¡±

    ¡°No, I think I¡­¡±

    ¡°Ah. Good night, then, Erica.¡±

 Chapter Twelve

    "Officially, copyright law still prevents all third parties from using or profiting from intellectual properties. Unofficially, that stopped applying to Samurai after the Donald Duck incident of 2029."

    -From a professor''s lecture on copyright law

    <hr>

    -I woke up to the sound of distant gunfire.

    Groaning, I glanced at the time. 8am. That¡­actually wasn¡¯t too bad. The sun sets somewhat early in the mountains, so even with everything I¡¯d done after that point, I¡¯d still gotten to bed around 11pm. But the Antithesis wait for no one, and it seemed the battle had begun again.

    ¡°Vanguard Alana has sent a request for a meeting. She would like you to attend the morning briefing with the other officers.¡±

    ¡°Do I have time for breakfast?¡±

    ¡°You do if you are fine with being late!¡±

    ¡°Ugh. Okay, give me a bar of something to inhale while I get dressed.¡± I watched sadly as my points dropped to 86 just for an energy bar, but at least the daily allowance still meant I had a net gain. Although I would probably lose a bit more while stocking the Dainsleif-6b with ammunition.

    Deciding I was probably going to be going straight from the meeting to the front lines, I climbed into the suit after I was dressed. Like last night, it closed up around me, leaving me comfortably ensconced in my admittedly nerdy armor. I was too cozy to care.

    With my SMG on one thigh and my shotgun on my back, I followed the waypoints Juny provided to the elevator and back up to the command center from last night. This time, Alana was in the main room, at the head of a table with a holographic projector showing a map of the city and the positions of various units. It was apparently real time, as some icons were appearing at the edge of the outer town and winking out on the way to the wall as I approached.

    Alana looked up as I strode in, several inches taller than I was last night. I towered over the smaller woman now, but she seemed no less intimidating for it. She had a presence to her that I couldn¡¯t match; a confidence I had to assume was from years of fighting Antithesis and living to tell the tale. Maybe even other humans.

    ¡°Impressive. Is that power armor? You¡¯re looking much more like a samurai now,¡± she commented with a smile. I looked into her eyes and saw a total lack of recognition. She had no idea what the suit I was wearing resembled. I wasn¡¯t certain if I should be relieved or disappointed, but I settled on the former as I noticed what was happening behind her.

    Several men and woman were a few meters from Alana¡¯s back, but I was focused on two in particular. One was an especially dark skinned man, thin but wiry, who was staring at my armor with awe written across his face. He knew exactly what this suit was, and couldn¡¯t hide that he thought it was the coolest thing he¡¯d ever seen.

    I would have felt proud or perhaps gratified¡­if not for the woman next to him. She was deeply tanned with dark hair, and had an alarming number of explosives strapped to her body. She was also currently doubled over, cackling silently as she took in what I was wearing, and my newly enhanced hearing just barely caught her wheezing the words ¡°cosplay commando¡± as she elbowed the man beside her repeatedly.

    Simultaneously the best and worst possible reactions to my new look. I was suddenly glad I had a helmet on, as it was doing a wonderful job of hiding my face as it heated up.

    ¡°Uh, yeah. Power armor. I was tired of getting torn up, but didn¡¯t think I was strong enough to just wear armor, so¡­¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll need it today. Things are only going to get busier.¡± As she said that, I could feel a few more people trickle into the room, joining the others already at the table. It was weird, not needing to turn my head to know that. ¡°And on that note, everyone is here. Let¡¯s begin. We had very little time yesterday to discuss the situation, so this will be the first time we have everyone here at once.

    ¡°Some of you have already been informed, but I was able to get in touch with a Family liaison and I have been told that a high tier samurai will be arriving on Friday. Evidently other incursions are keeping the bulk of Family-affiliated samurai busy right now, so the best they could do was contact a more local samurai for assistance.

    ¡°That means we need to hold the line for today and tomorrow without any reinforcements. Fortunately,¡± Alana gestured in my direction,¡± another new samurai has emerged. This is Erica. She¡¯s all the help we¡¯re going to be getting until the Mountaineer arrives.¡±

    One of the officers, a Major Thompson, cut in.

    ¡°Good. Lieutenant McIntire, I believe with two samurai here we should be more than capable of holding the wall. I think it best if you both remain in the inner city and help with the defense. It was one thing when you were the only one, but now that we have two, I see no reason for us not to divide the front line between you and hunker down.¡± Alana stared at him for a moment, taking a sip of coffee as she did. She held the stare in silence just long enough for it to become uncomfortable before responding.

    ¡°I do believe I¡¯ve tendered my resignation already, Thomas.¡± Thomas Thompson? Good god, this man¡¯s parents did not love him. ¡°That aside, you know as well as I do that the number of Antithesis attacking us is going to rise exponentially. Dylta¡¯s analysis agrees: wiping out the hives is the only way to slow that increase down. A hive can produce many Model Threes in a matter of hours, but the Antithesis can¡¯t replace a hive and have it grow more combat units at the same time.¡±

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°And that is precisely why we have multiple rapid response teams,¡± the major snapped back. ¡°We should have the three remaining squads conduct offensive operations while the two of you protect the city.¡±

    ¡°The fate of Lieutenant Richter¡¯s squad should show precisely why that is a bad idea. The rapid response teams were intended to counter emerging hives that and just taken root. Without samurai-tech weapons, we cannot expect them to survive an encounter with an established hive. There¡¯s a reason only my squad has been tackling the main hives, while the other two are hitting only sub-hives. I realize we never had time to hash this out yesterday, but I feel that some of these facts are self-evident.¡±

    ¡°And it seems self-evident to me that you could simply provide said weapons, but it seems as if you think being a samurai gives you years of command experience.¡± Seeing that he was losing this argument, the Major turned to me instead. ¡°And what of you? Are we meant to take commands from a newly-minted samurai with no formal training as well? Or do you intend to take orders from a jumped-up lieutenant rather than experienced command staff?¡±

    I shrugged at that. I didn¡¯t see what he thought he would gain by pitting me against Alana. What she was saying made sense, even if he wasn¡¯t entirely wrong about shifting to a defensive stance. Destroying hives slowed their respawn rate, but concentrating Alana and I on defense would certainly reduce casualties, at least in the short term, and with less risk of one of us biting it in enemy territory.

    Although I was really just repeating what they¡¯d each said. Not like I was an expert.

    ¡°I¡¯m just a graphic designer. I¡¯ll defer to her judgment.¡±

    Thompson worked his jaw for a moment before turning and striding out of the command level, having apparently given up on influencing strategy. Most of the officers in the room simply watched him leave in silence, but some of the men and women behind Alana rolled their eyes or shook their heads.

    ¡°¡­moving on. Are there any other points of concern that must be addressed?¡± Another officer perked up and stepped forward.

    ¡°Antithesis attacks have been trending towards our flanks over time. I believe we¡¯re going to need to reinforce those sections before their attacks grow worse,¡± he said, gesturing at several points on the map. The wall around the city was three sided, with one long section bordering the outer town and two shorter sections running up the side of the mountain. They had a similar no-man¡¯s land setup in front of them, but on the other side of it was trees, not buildings.

    ¡°Why would the Antithesis be shifting their attacks? I get that they¡¯re cunning, but a gradual approach doesn¡¯t seem too clever,¡± I asked Juny after muting my external audio. Alana seemed to be reviewing the troop deployments as I spoke.

    ¡°The Antithesis are plants rather than animals, and think like plants as well! A plant does not simply go around an obstacle- it searched for weak points and tries to grow through the obstruction, then, failing that, grows around it until it finds another way.¡±

    So it was like grass growing through pavement. The Antithesis were like roots, feeling for cracks in the defenses and only shifting focus as they failed to find purchase in the walls. I refocused on Alana as she came to a decision.

    ¡°Our defenses are spread thin as it is, but as Erica has agreed to defer to me,¡± she began, nodding in my direction, ¡°I think we can afford to move four squads from the frontline and dedicate two for each flank. One squad of Stalking Tigers and one squad of militia for each. Erica, can I count on you to shore up the frontline? I¡¯d like you to act as our mobile support and back up any section that¡¯s getting overwhelmed.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mind, but how am I getting between them? It¡¯s a small town, but not that small.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have an armored car detailed for your personal use. Your AI should be able to control it remotely. Our intel officer will keep you apprised of any hotspots where you¡¯re needed.¡±

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll play cavalry then.¡±

    After that, several more minutes passed while Alana responded to concerns and gave out instructions. The tanks were running low on ammunition and she would need to restock them, there was some minor friction with the militia to resolve, and priority targets had to be assigned to the other rapid response teams. None of it really concerned me, but I at least tried to keep track of it all.

    Finally, the meeting came to a close, and most of those present shuffled out, leaving Alana and a few non-combat officers that manned the command room.

    ¡°If I didn¡¯t know any better, I¡¯d think you were a general, not a lieutenant,¡± I commented as Alana dropped into a chair and took a long series of gulps from her coffee mug. She let out a hollow laugh.

    ¡°Is that how it looked to you? I¡¯m flying by the seat of my pants here. I would have loved to let someone else run things, but with Tavish out of the picture, there was no one else that could make the militia and PMC work together. Man was corrupt, but he was also charismatic.¡±

    ¡°Other than that major, I didn¡¯t see much friction.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because most of them don¡¯t want to be the next Tavish. Thomas is just particularly miffed because he and Tavish were close. It helps that Captain Lafayette hasn¡¯t been attending in person¡­she heads the local militia, but she¡¯s been sending her aide because she can¡¯t stand most of the PMC officers.¡± To my eyes things had looked united, but it seemed there was more below the surface. I suppose if it was a choice between working together and surviving or infighting and committing suicide-by-samurai, the people here were smart enough to choose the former.

    ¡°Should we be worried about him?¡± I frowned, thinking back to his departure from the meeting. He¡¯d had murder on his face as he left the room.

    ¡°I have Dylta keeping an eye on him as much as possible, but he was a staff officer, not one of the unit commanders. He doesn¡¯t have a group loyal to him to fall back on even if he disagrees with me. Anyway¡­¡± Alana stood up and beckoned a man over from the edge of the room. He was holding a VR helmet- a full dive version, if I wasn¡¯t mistaken- in one hand. ¡°This is Warrant Officer Nguyen. He¡¯s handling intel, and he¡¯ll be feeding you updates.¡±

    ¡°Pleasure to meet you, Sai- ma¡¯am,¡± he said, barely stopping himself from saying something else. I could guess what, and I wasn¡¯t expecting to find one of them among the PMC, but I suppose religion was everywhere.

    ¡°Ah, yeah, pleasure¡¯s all mine. Juny, go ahead and connect with him. Patch him through if he has a target for us.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°As it happens, I have one right now. I¡¯ll send you the coordinates, ma¡¯am.¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯ve got a raid to get to, so let¡¯s all get a move on. It¡¯s going to be a long day.¡±

    I watched as Alana moved for the elevator, placing a helmet atop her head midstride, and followed her on the way to war.

 Chapter Thirteen

    "I really thought there was a market for it, but it turns out there were two problems. The first was that new Samurai tend to be created in the thick of the action, and they either die or walk out with plenty of gear and points. The second was that Samurai are just terrible at working with a group."

    -CEO of "Samurai Training Solutions", a PMC created with the mission of aiding new Samurai in farming points, founded in 2045 and bankrupted in the same year.

    <hr>

    I hopped out of my designated hovercar directly onto the top of the wall, and I could already see why I had been called here. From the ground, it had looked like there was a flurry of activity atop the walls, but from this new vantage point it was obvious how undermanned the defenses were, with each man or woman responsible for several meters of wall. Even as I arrived, gunfire was echoing from all sides nonstop, but in front of this position in particular, the Antithesis were making headway.

    Much of the killing field had been cleared of corpses in the night, though it was hard to tell whether that was due to the defenders burning the bodies or the Antithesis taking them for recycling. I didn¡¯t know whether defenses had merely been buried beneath a mountain of the dead yesterday or if the defenders were caught entirely flat-footed at the time, but at some point in the night, someone had taken the time to spread razor wire, anti-tank barriers, and mines throughout the field.

    The attacking hoard was being slowed greatly by this combination of static defenses, but the Antithesis were not human, and had no qualms about using their own bodies to make a path over any obstruction they encountered. Here, near the corner of the wall, a particularly large number of Model Threes had set about doing just that, and I had no need to wonder why after the earlier briefing.

    That said, it didn¡¯t seem to be more than the squads already stationed here could handle. It was a particularly large amount, but only relatively when compared to the rest of the battlefield, which seemed to be receiving just enough attention to keep the troops in place.

    ¡°Hey, Juny, can you point me towards whoever¡¯s in charge?¡±

    ¡°Certainly!¡± A marker popped up on my augs, directing me towards a militiawoman in the center of this section of the wall- about midway between me and the closest tank, which fired off an ear-shattering blast even as I turned. I jogged over to the woman and tapped her on the shoulder, unsure how else to get her attention.

    ¡°Who the f- oh, are you the new samurai?¡± She spat out as she turned to face me, irritation plain on her face. She glanced back towards the Antithesis for a moment before seemingly coming to a decision and stepping down from her post. ¡°I¡¯ve got a moment, but don¡¯t take too long. No idea how long we have before things heat up.¡±

    No introductions, then? Well, I probably wasn¡¯t going to remember her name for long anyway.

    ¡°Nguyen sent me, but I¡¯m not sure why after taking a look at what you¡¯re up against. It kind of seems like you¡¯ve got this covered?¡± I responded, not shouting as she had thanks to my close-faced helmet. My voice was just going straight to her comms. She gave me a once over.

    ¡°Listen, kid, I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re new to this shit going by the shiny kit. Don¡¯t mean no disrespect, but everyone here knows the Antithesis don¡¯t waste bodies for no reason. Fact they¡¯re focusing more of ¡®em here than anywhere else means something is up.¡±

    ¡°You think it¡¯s a prelude, and not just them probing the defenses?¡± I asked, catching her meaning after a few moments of thought.

    ¡°They¡¯re not advancing. They¡¯re throwing themselves on the razor wire and mines. Almost like they¡¯re making a path for something else.¡±

    I took another look at the field, trying to gauge the validity of her claim. It probably wasn¡¯t my place to question a more experienced fighter, but I have to imagine they don¡¯t pick samurai just to have them follow orders. Now that I knew what to look for, I realized she was right; Model Threes were literally jumping on top of mines to detonate them and laying down on razor wire, allowing themselves to be shot the moment they were in place.

    ¡°This doesn¡¯t make any sense. Anything big enough to clear a path for, doesn¡¯t need them to clear a path. Why not bulldoze it with a Model Six or something?¡±

    ¡°Fucked if I know. I don¡¯t have a cabbage for a brain.¡±

    ¡°They may be creating a road for a subsequent, massed charge!¡±

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound good.¡±

    ¡°What doesn¡¯t sound good?¡± It took a moment of being stared at for me to realize she didn¡¯t hear Juny.

    ¡°Ah, sorry, my AI said they may be planning to group up and charge over the bodies.¡±

    ¡°Shit. Okay, we can¡¯t let them get any further. Help us slow them down.¡±

    I stepped up to the wall and lifted my submachine gun, beginning to add my own gun to the symphony of violence taking place. Burst after burst was released downrange, and although from this distance it was hard to tell how accurate I was, a steady trickle of points told me I was hitting something.

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    One Model Three collapsed, riddled with bullets, only to fall forward onto a land mine anyway, detonating the explosive and preventing it from causing any real damage. I cursed as another tripped on razor wire, fouling my shot and causing me to miss. Someone else finished it off before I could adjust, so I switched targets.

    ¡°Fifteen!¡± someone shouted, and everyone around me ducked immediately. I was slower to respond, and caught sight of the monstrosity in the distance before I took cover. It wasn¡¯t the first I¡¯d seen, but that one had been obliterated as soon as I¡¯d caught sight of it. This one was over a hundred meters away, but even from here I could identify it thanks to its size.

    As soon as I understood what I was looking at, I regretted having looked at all. It was like a car-sized cricket or grasshopper, straight out of a certain apocalyptic sci-fi series, but the coloration of your typical Antithesis made it so much worse because its mouth, a vertical as it was, resembled nothing so much as a vulva with gangrene.

    Not that I¡¯d ever seen such a thing, although the sight certainly made me feel like I now had.

    I crouched down behind the lip of the wall even as it launched something from its disgusting mouth, and moments later I could hear something pinging off the wall like rain, accompanied by a single pained scream. Several objects stuck fast in the surface of the walkway behind me- thin spines that had to have been inconceivably sharp to have penetrated concrete at all.

    Our tank sang its song and the men and women around me followed it up with a volley of gunfire, mowing down the front runners of the Antithesis horde, which had moved several meters closer while we were pinned down. Someone screamed for a medic and I tore my eyes from the fight.

    A man was clutching his neck, with another man standing over him, screaming for help, and I headed for them without a thought.

    ¡°Juny, what are the odds he survives without samurai tech?¡±

    ¡°Extremely low without immediate attention and an emergency room.¡±

    ¡°And what do I need to save him?¡± I could see a startling amount of blood pouring out even from here, several meters away. A spine fired by the Model Fifteen had gone entirely through his neck left of center, avoiding his spine and throat but clearly hitting an important artery instead.

    ¡°I would recommend a full course treatment administered immediately: a WoundStop to halt the bleeding, a Nano-Regenerative Suite to repair the damage, and a Hemo-Restore to replace lost blood!¡±

    ¡°Give ¡®em to me as I need them and tell me what to do, please. I¡¯m an artist, not a doctor.¡±

    Blood stained my legs as I dropped down next to the two men. The injured man and his friend were both clutching at the wound futilely, their hands coated in red and their clothing soaking up blood as I watched. Juny dropped the first item, a WoundStop patch, into my hand, but I couldn¡¯t reach the injury with them both trying to stem the bleeding.

    ¡°Listen, I can save him, but you¡¯ll have to trust me.¡± I stopped for a moment, waiting for Juny, then began relaying her instructions. ¡°First, break the spine and pull it through. You have to go fast, or he¡¯s going to bleed out.¡±

    ¡°Shitshitshit how am I supposed to- if I move him he¡¯s gonna die!¡±

    ¡°Just do it!¡± I growled, not having the training nor the bedside manner to walk him through it calmly. Part of me felt like an asshole for being so harsh, but we really didn¡¯t have time for me to calm him down.

    ¡°Oh man, oh fuck¡­¡± he panted for several moments, wide eyed and panicked as he tried to process my orders while distracted by the blood soaking into his gear. After several rapid, deep breaths, he let out a wordless shout and shifted his hands, gripping the spine close to the other man¡¯s neck with one and the end with the other. In one abrupt motion he snapped it in two and discarded the broken part, then shoved his friend onto his side and grasped the other end.

    ¡°As soon as the spine is removed, slap the WoundStop over the puncture wound. You¡¯ll need one for each side.¡±

    I lifted the WoundStop patch over my hand, already waiting on a hair-trigger for the spine to be removed. My ersatz-nurse yanked it out, eliciting a scream from the patient, and less than a second later I slapped the first patch on, thankful for my practice with the suit last night- without it, I may have snapped his neck.

    The patch began to shift, doing whatever it does to seal the wound, but I ignored that and put out my hand for the next one. Juny dropped it right into my hand, and then it was in place, halting the bleeding- for now.

    ¡°Now, place the end of the Nano-Regenerative Suite inhaler to his mouth and pinch his nose closed. Depress the trigger when he begins to inhale!¡±

    God, it was weird taking life-saving instructions from someone with the voice of a kid¡¯s show host.

    Still, I did as she said. The inhaler in hand, I rolled the man onto his back again and reached out with my other hand to seal his nose shut. He began to gasp rapidly, unsure why he could no longer breath through his nose, and I took the opportunity to feed him a lung-full of nanites. I shuddered, the sensation of plastic hitting his teeth reverberating back into my hand, but I pulled the trigger nonetheless, sending life-saving robots right into his body.

    ¡°The nanobots will repair the artery and halt any internal bleeding, but he is still likely to die due to blood loss. Next, you will need to inject the Hemo-Restore into his neck.¡± This time I received a tube with a stopper and no apparent needle.

    ¡°How do I use this? There¡¯s nothing to stick him with.¡±

    ¡°Place the end against his neck and the device will do the work from there.¡±

    Easy enough. I couldn¡¯t identify any change in it, but Juny assured me it had activated, so I had to assume it did.

    ¡°Is he okay? Is he gonna be okay?¡± his friend asked, trying to wipe the blood off of his hands. The rag he held was saturated, and most of the blood was already wiped off, but he continued to scrub as if removing a residue only he could see. I put a hand on his shoulder, hoping it would come across as reassuring.

    ¡°He¡¯ll be just fine. Get him behind some cover and then get back in position- we still need every gun we can get.¡± He nodded and reached for his comrade, grabbing him under both arms and dragging him into position. I felt awful as having ordered him to immediately go back to the fight, as if he hadn¡¯t nearly lost someone, but we already had one man out of action. I didn¡¯t think we could afford for it to be two.

    When I reached my previous position and resumed firing, I could see that the Antithesis had advanced another few meters in the time I was gone. I hoped my actions were worth it- that saving that man¡¯s life hadn¡¯t doomed others as a result.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± I heard from beside me, barely audible over the gunfire. I glanced over at the squad leader I had spoken to earlier, but she was already focused on the fight again. I nodded to no one in particular as I gunned down another Model Three.

 Chapter Fourteen

    "Today I''ll be showing you how to play Doom on a Model Three''s eyeball! First, make sure it''s dead..."

    -Biohacker, Samurai and Streamer

    <hr>

    I fell into a rhythm for some time. Aim, pull trigger, repeat, until my magazine would run dry, I would reload, and I would start again. For a while that was all that was needed- the Antithesis here had been making headway against the defenders when I arrived, but only just. Still, as the minutes ticked on, sacrificial waves of Model Threes piled up ever higher and cords of razor wire disappeared beneath their mass.

    ¡°This isn¡¯t working. I¡¯m just another gun right now. There¡¯s gotta be a better way to slow them down these ambulatory vegetables,¡± I muttered under my breath, more to myself than anyone else. Eject, reload, fire.

    ¡°Technically, they¡¯re a form of fruit!¡±

    ¡°¡­right. Hey, there was something in the catalogue I wanted to try out. The¡­Electromagnetic Implosion Grenade? How much was one of those?¡±

    ¡°40 points! You could also get it in the form of a rocket-propelled grenade, or a canister that your Impaler can fire.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take the grenade form for now,¡± I said, placing my gun to my hip and letting go. The magnet there activated and my weapon clung fast to the armor. A box appeared in front of me, and I quickly opened it and picked up the grenade. It was an oddly shaped thing, almost like an over-sized baseball rather than the egg or cylinder shape of most grenades, and with a surface made of hundreds of tiny metal balls.

    I chucked it as hard as I possibly could, and despite my armor¡¯s power assistance being mostly relegated to carrying itself, that was quite hard. I felt like one of those ball thrower guys on a football team that yeets a ball three quarters of the way across the field so the catchey-guy can score a point.

    I don¡¯t watch football.

    As the grenade approached the ground, it burst apart, scattering hundreds of pea-sized balls across the field. They pelted the Antithesis below like hail, doing absolutely no damage but plinking around until they settled to the ground- and then the real fun began as the grenade actually activated.

    The mechanism of the grenade was like a reverse shrapnel explosion. It scattered ball bearings first, then an absurdly powerful electromagnet activated and brought them all back. Through whatever was now in the way. Every Model Three, living or dead, within ten meters of that magnet erupted into a fine green mist as their plant flesh was utterly obliterated by not just a storm of metal balls but also strings of razor wire, whipped into the form of a blender as they were torn from the ground.

    The destruction was so complete and so abrupt that everyone stopped shooting for several moments, watching as the pureed remains of their targets fell back to earth. Someone to my right muttered ¡°holy shit¡±, and I couldn¡¯t help but agree. I checked my points and found that, between that grenade and all the shooting I had done, I was already back up to a ridiculous 842 points, although considering how many Model Threes that added up to, I think it would have been at least five times that if I had killed all of these myself.

    That kind of put things into perspective- I had been firing into the oncoming aliens for nearly half an hour, and even with that added onto the grenade I just threw, I my own contribution was only one quarter of the squads I had come to back up. Perhaps sensing that this approach was no longer giving them much chance of victory, though, the Antithesis began to fall back, shifting their attention to another part of the front lines.

    ¡°Thanks for the assist. We would¡¯ve been overrun by now without help.¡± I turned to find a woman in militia garb speaking to me, but I was distinctly uncomfortable to receive that praise. I might have been new, but it seemed to me that a samurai should be worth more than a mere two squads. I needed to look into improving my weaponry next, now that my armor situation was sorted.

    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t do much. Even one more squad here and I think you would have held them off.¡± Her face turned bitter at those words, and she turned to look back at the other troops.

    ¡°Yeah, well, we had another squad, til those PMC bastards went and pulled them somewhere else.¡±

    ¡°I was asked to replace the squads that were moved.¡± I shrugged. It wasn¡¯t like the militia didn¡¯t have a representative at the meeting, and he hadn¡¯t objected. Still, she turned back to me with a scowl.

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    ¡°And what happens if two places get hit at once? There¡¯s only one of you, and it¡¯s a damn big wall.¡± I had to admit that I really hadn¡¯t considered that, but I wasn¡¯t exactly a military genius. And it did seem like the alternative was our flanks being overrun.

    ¡°Alana was concerned about the Antithesis beginning to assault the flanks. A few squads were pulled from both the PMC and militia to prevent them from getting through. It wasn¡¯t the Stalking Tigers that made the decision.¡±

    ¡°Psh. She¡¯s one of ¡®em. Just because she¡¯s a samurai now doesn¡¯t mean everyone forgets she was a merc.¡± More Antithesis were beginning to trickle into this group¡¯s area of responsibility. The woman I was speaking to waved me away as she moved back to her position. ¡°I¡¯d best get back to it. Good luck out there, and thanks again.¡±

    Shaking my head, I climbed back into the hovercar, deciding they didn¡¯t need help anymore. Nguyen hadn¡¯t messaged me again yet, so I probably had time to sort out my gear.

    Juny lifted the card into the air and parked it on top of high rise midway along the wall, where I could more easily respond to distress calls.

    ¡°Juny, I remember you mentioned other upgrades I could get for my SMG. Something about rails, and an adjusting barrel?¡±

    ¡°Indeed! What features are you interested in? I should note that your current weapon cannot be upgraded, so a new purchase would be required.¡±

    ¡°Well, this one runs through ammo like a hose, and it¡¯s not much more effective than a normal gun. I was thinking I might get two so that I can swap them out while the other reloads, and I was wondering how effective the rails would be. Would the bullets just hit harder, or could they, I dunno, go through multiple targets?¡±

    ¡°Magnetic rails would increase the velocity of each bullet to the point where they can over penetrate soft targets, yes! This would only be possible against the most lightly armored Antithesis models, such as the Model Three, which I assume is what you are concerned about. It would also prevent the Model Fours from shielding themselves with their limbs, as the bullets will have sufficient velocity to reach their body after penetrating the limbs.¡±

    I grinned at that. That was exactly what I was looking for. Right now I was doing just about as much damage as the average grunt, outside of my explosives catalog. This would give me a bit more oomph.

    ¡°Great. So, how much would it cost me to get two SMGs with the same features as this one, plus the rails and the adjusting barrel?¡±

    ¡°The T12 Beaver would satisfy all of those requirements!¡±

    ¡°The¡­beaver?¡±

    ¡°It chews right through wood!¡±

    Ah. Should have seen that coming. I guess aliens like puns too. Or at the very least, Juny did. I was increasingly convinced she was just naming these things on the fly, barring the existence of alien beavers.

    ¡°Can you make it look like the current design?¡±

    ¡°That will cost one more point per weapon.¡±

    New Purchase: T12 Beaver x2

    Points reduced to¡­440

    ¡°I¡¯ll take it.¡± Two boxes appeared on the seat next to me. I thought for a moment before discarding my current weapon into the back seat. It had served me well, but I really didn¡¯t need an extra, less effective SMG. I unpackaged one of the new weapons to find it looked largely the same, but with glowing blue rings around the barrel at even intervals. There was also a bright blue bar on the side.

    ¡°What¡¯s with the lights?¡±

    ¡°Vanguards often believe that glowing equipment looks more powerful! It is also a quick way to indicate to allies that you are equipped with Protector issued weaponry. The rings are part of the coil assembly, and the bar indicates the charge. If the charge runs out, the gun will revert to firing standard chemically propelled rounds, but your suit will recharge the battery during reloading, so this should not be an issue.¡±

    ¡°¡­right. So, any messages from Nguyen yet?¡±

    ¡°Nothing y- oh! You¡¯ve got mail!¡±

    ¡°Put him through.¡±

    ¡°Saint? We¡¯re getting some strange readings on the seismic sensors. I think something is- shit! We¡¯ve got holes popping up all along the line! At least a dozen already! They¡¯re¡­Model Eighteens! With Fourteens behind them!¡± He sounded panicked, so I could only assume that was a very bad thing, but the model numbers were new to me. Hadn¡¯t really had time to study the Antithesis bestiary yet.

    ¡°Juny?¡±

    ¡°The Model Eighteen is a biomass collector. They are incapable of offensive action, but the Antithesis are likely using them to make tunnels for the Fourteens, which are transports. Each Model Fourteen is likely carrying numerous smaller models!¡± Juny projected images onto my augs showing two models that looked like enormous bugs. One of them was far longer than the other, and she had it marked as the Model Fourteen, with a Model Three for comparison.

    ¡°She¡¯s right, there¡¯s Threes and Fours pouring out of those Fourteens. The Eighteens are dead already, but the Antithesis assault is picking up steam, so we can¡¯t divert anyone from the walls. Actually, we had to call up the off-duty units to reinforce the walls. Captain Lafayette is deploying her militia to defend the areas with the largest civilian presence. Ma¡¯m, could you please hunt down the Antithesis that bypassed the wall?¡±

    ¡°Should probably fill the holes first¡­Juny, get me markers for all the holes on our side of the wall and try to keep track of the Antithesis that made it in. Nguyen, does anyone need a rescue, or can I plug the holes before I start hunting?¡±

    ¡°I sent out an alert telling the civvies to barricade themselves in. That should buy you a few minutes, but I don¡¯t know how long they can hold out.¡±

    ¡°Fuck. Okay, Juny, get me to the first hole. I¡¯m going to need some of those foam grenades.¡±

 Chapter Fifteen

    "A study of survivors of Antithesis attacks determined that nine out of ten never even see one up close. They either hide where they are, happened to be closed to military or paramilitary forces, or make it to shelter before Antithesis can reach them. That remaining ten percent can be divided up into people that were were saved by a Samurai, became a Samurai, or successfully managed to flee unassisted by foot or vehicle.

    "Of those categories, the last are by far the smallest number. Running away just gives them something to chase."

    -Survivor''s Guide to Antithesis Attacks, 2051

    <hr>

    My back slammed into the seat behind me as Juny accelerated faster than I thought the hovercar was capable of. For a moment I couldn¡¯t move, and then we were slowing down, dropping right next to a gaping hole in the pavement behind the wall, an enormous, dead centipede¡¯s ass end mere meters from the opening. A smaller worm-shaped Antithesis lay dead beneath it, trampled by the larger model, and I couldn¡¯t tell which died first.

    This side of the wall was starting to resemble the outer side. Many of the Antithesis carried by the dead Fourteen had been gunned down within meters of their transport, likely before the troops on the wall had been forced to renew their focus on onrushing tide approaching from the other side. With the Antithesis on this side moving further into the city, they were forced to choose between protecting the civilians from a smaller number of Antithesis that had bypassed their line entirely or keeping an even larger number from overrunning their position, dooming the city entirely.

    I didn¡¯t envy them that choice. Even I could see, though, that they couldn¡¯t protect anyone if the Antithesis took the wall, and they were likely aware there was still a samurai in town. That meant they were counting on me to do what they currently could not. I had to live up to their trust.

    As Juny landed the hovercar, I leapt out of the seat and flung a mine like a Frisbee into the darkness, preset to activate by motion. It was an Insta-Crete Expanding Foam land mine, just like the grenade I¡¯d used in the undercity yesterday, and would prevent at least the first attempt at using the tunnel again. Behind it, I dropped a grenade in as well, just for good measure.

    Foam erupted upwards from the hole like an exploding geyser, then settled down and hardened into a material with the durability of concrete. If the mine went off, the concrete obstruction would expand even further into the tunnel, both preventing it from collapsing and making it that much harder to reopen the passage.

    It took me less than a minute to deal with each tunnel, but there were six of them, and every second I spent on this was one more second the Antithesis ran unhindered among the population. Reports were already coming in of engagements between off-duty troops and the alien invaders. Some had been unlucky enough to stray near their gathering points- others had been slain by volunteers that had decided to sacrifice their time to keep the invaders out and deal with the lack of rest later.

    There were a lot of them though, and the area of the city was much larger than the circumference of the wall. The same number of troops that were needed to hold the wall would be much less effective at searching the town block-by-block.

    My fears proved justified, though, when Juny brought us in towards the final hole and I saw more Antithesis already crawling through it. I exited the hovercar with one SMG already in hand, but when I pulled the trigger, I got a lot more than I bargained for.

    The rail-enhanced bullets shot out with cracks of thunder, sounding more like one continuous lightning strike than a series of gunshots. The entry wounds were the same size as ever, but when those rounds exited a Model Three, it was at the head of a geyser of pulverized Antithesis viscera, throwing a green mist in the direction the bullet traveled. Every rounds tore through several Model Threes without losing effectiveness, and a pack of two dozen canid-like creatures simply dropped to the ground in a matter of seconds.

    It was one thing to be told these guns could over penetrate- it was another to see the sheer destruction unfold first hand. A group that would have taken me a few magazines to kill before dropped with the expenditure of just one- and I probably could have gotten away with less, had I understood exactly what I was about to unleash.

    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    But I didn¡¯t have time to bask in the satisfaction of my victory. I ran towards the final hole and, although I couldn¡¯t see through the darkness, I could feel movement in the tunnel already as a second wave approached. This time, when I flung a mine in, it exploded almost immediately, netting me a few kills in the process.

    ¡°Damn, that was close. Glad I did this first.¡± I tossed a grenade in to finish sealing the hole. I hopped right back into my ride and Juny took us towards the next target. ¡°Juny, get me Nguyen, please.¡±

    ¡°Done!¡±

    ¡°Nguyen, I¡¯m finished blocking their entry points. How are things on your side?¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your work blocking the holes, madam saint. Antithesis have stopped attacking over land- they¡¯re just pouring out of those holes near the base of the walls now. We¡¯re taking casualties, but holding them off. The bigger problem is the reports of civilian casualties. The militia has managed to stop a lot of the ones that slipped in, but the survivors are congregating on a single location, and there are too many of them for the militia to handle.¡±

    ¡°A single place? Where is it?¡±

    ¡°Sending the coordinates now. It¡¯s a shopping mall we were using as a distribution node. The Antithesis broke through the militia¡¯s first line of defense outside and are now inside.¡±

    I called up Juny¡¯s map and saw that at least half of the markers denoting hostiles inside Boone¡¯s inner town had vanished; mostly around the regions defended by off-duty militia. They had sealed off the residential areas for the most part, but some of the outlying high rises and shopping areas were left vulnerable in return. The militia seemed to be hunting down the stragglers in several buildings, but the Antithesis outside were now grouping up, as Nguyen had said.

    ¡°Got it. We¡¯re on our way. Erica, out.¡±

    <hr>

    The shopping mall wasn¡¯t the type you would see on the upper level of a megacity or a pre-Antithesis town. It was taller rather than wide; over a dozen floors of nothing but stores with all kinds of products on offer. A town this size wouldn¡¯t be able to support nearly that much commerce, so a lot of those store fronts were probably left empty after two thirds of Boone¡¯s population scattered.

    Still, when the town is under siege and rations are under military control, you¡¯re still going to get a significant number of people showing up; likely more than the mall saw on a regular day. And now the Antithesis had many of them cornered, or were chasing the ones that were fleeing towards the skybridges above. The militia seemed to have opted for a fighting retreat, judging by the gunfire from the upper floors.

    We landed near the front entrance on the ground level, where barricades had been set up and the militia had fought its first stand. A good dozen Antithesis had died here, alongside half a dozen militiamen whose bodies had been left behind during the retreat. I was glad for my filtered air right about now; it was hard enough to bite back the bile climbing my throat at the site of dead humans, the first I had ever seen.

    It was also hard not to think about the lives lost- the people they left behind, and the futures cut short.

    I stepped past the small battlefield and trod over broken glass to enter the building, the only sound besides gunfire being the crunching beneath my feet. The inside of the building was hollow- a central, open area ran up the core of the tower, crisscrossed by numerous escalators that ran back and forth between each floor. The courtyard on the ground level was full of tables packed with supplies; the rations that were to have been handed out when the attack occurred. Some of them seemed to have been broken into, either by panicked civilians or by Antithesis intent on gathering food for their hives.

    The up escalator on the ground floor was jammed. Looking up, I saw a dead Model Three jammed into the mechanism at the top, jerking back and forth as the motor tried to continue its movement.

    ¡°I am detecting a number of civilians in the back of the clothing store to your left on thermal sensors!¡±

    I turned to find a shitty fast-fashion chain, easily identifiable by the memes printed on the shirts I could see from here. A lot of them featured samurai in embarrassing moments, and my sympathy went out to them as I considered my future place on those same shirts.

    Inside, the lights had been turned off or broken, but under low light vision I could see a maze of clothing racks, a combination of the type with clothes hung by hangars and the type with clothes simply stacked on a horizontal surface. The rows were staggered, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction, and the heat signatures were on the far side, near the changing rooms in the back.

    I approached cautiously. I saw no Antithesis on thermals, but I suspected that was due to their nature as flora rather than fauna, because every few moments I felt a ping on my motion tracker, there and then gone, indicating a brief moment where something was visible amidst the sea of cloth. I briefly considered just shooting and hoping for the best, and I would have done so just yesterday, but I couldn¡¯t risk hitting the people in the back.

    Explosives were out for the same reason, as well as the risk of structural damage to the building.

    That left just two approaches. I could use the walkways between sections, or I could go straight through the clothes. Honestly, I didn¡¯t see much of a difference between them. The walkways were a good couple of meters wide, but would provide me little to no warning of an ambush all the same.

    ¡°Worst safari ever,¡± was all I could think to say as I marched into an inevitable ambuscade.

 Chapter Sixteen

    "All transactions are final. By signing this document, signee gives up the right to take legal action in the case of death, dismemberment, and general bodily harm. Signee designates Samurai Initialization Services LLC as next of kin for purposes of inheritance and power of attorney. Signee also agrees to NDA as stipulated in fine print section..."

    -Excerpt from the fine print of an agreement produced by a company that purports to assist civilians in becoming Samurai

    <hr>

    Ultimately, I decided to trust in my armor and go right through. I knocked over rack after rack as I went, clearing space for my motion trackers to at least watch my back as I searched for the Antithesis I knew to be among them. My sensors continued to ping intermittently, never for long enough to give me more than a brief awareness that something was in that direction. But the racks always ensured that the Antithesis could move several meters between sightings, making it impossible to predict their movements.

    So far, though, the only thing I was finding were the grizzly remains of people that had had the same taste in hiding places as the aliens. Patches of carpet were sticky with blood, and I could only sometimes spot the unfortunate soul it had come from. The bodies were still warm, but rapidly cooling. It was too late for them.

    A longer ping than the others caused me to spin in place, checking for the Antithesis that must have just crossed in my wake. It was gone as soon as it appeared, but I saw a trail of bloody footprints left across the clothes on the floor. Obviously, they weren¡¯t human. I followed the tracks with my eyes, but the room was once again still.

    Each time I tipped over a rack and it clattered to the ground, I could see the heat signatures in the back shake and shudder, and I could only imagine what they thought the cause was. I dared not call out to them, as it would only help the Antithesis find them faster.

    I reached out to push over another rack, this time one of the ones with a metal circle that clothes hung from- the type children like to hide in- but this time, something shot out from within the ring of trashy t-shirts to cling to my arm. A Model Three closed its jaws around my forearm, weighing it down. It was like a dog with a chew toy- shaking its head back and forth and yanking on it to take me off balance.

    I almost pulled the trigger on my SMG before remembering which hand was holding it. Groaning, I reached for the spare on my left thigh, only for a second Model Three to clamp down on my left hand as well. I barely had time to process that before tentacles shot out from amongst the forest of t-shirts, most of them pinging harmlessly off my armor, but one coiling around my throat like a boa and squeezing.

    ¡°I recommend removing the tentacles from your throat, as you have less than a minute before you begin to pass out!¡±

    Thanks Juny! No fucking shit!

    With a heavy grunt of exertion, I wrestled with the Three holding down my right arm, and by extension, keeping my gun pinned down. Seconds felt like minutes as both my muscles and the Dainsleif fought to reposition the one weapon at my disposal. Millimeter by millimeter, accompanied by the whine of overtaxed servos, the barrel of my gun shifted. Blackness began to encroach on my vision as I struggled to breathe.

    Then, with one last exertion, I heaved my left arm forward, dragging the Model Three on that side with it. Suddenly, the alien was in the path of my gun, and I squeezed the trigger. It practically exploded as high velocity rounds drilled dozens of holes in it, an entire magazine spent killing one Model Three because I lacked the concentration to stop shooting. Green goop blew outwards and ruined hundreds of dollars¡¯ worth of clothing in an instant.

    My right-hand SMG was empty, but my left hand was now free. As I inched towards unconsciousness, I managed to seize my backup gun, and I pressed it against the forward of the first Model Three that had attacked me, blowing the cabbage that passed for its brain across the store an instant later. That left the Model Four that was choking me out.

    For a brief second I froze, having no idea where its actual body was. The tentacles grasping at my body and stabbing at my armor came from seemingly everywhere, their origin obscured by the merchandise surrounding me. My brain was slowing down, and it took me far longer than it should have to realize I needed only to destroy the tentacle that was slowly killing me.

    I raised my left hand and fired into the tentacle, and the coil around my neck slackened as its link to the Model Four¡¯s body was severed. Live giving air rushed into my lungs as I sucked in all the air that would fit, spots dancing around my eyes as an oxygen deficit became an oxygen surplus.

    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    My legs gave out, and I fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. The tentacles withdrew, but I didn¡¯t have the brain space to think about why.

    ¡°I think-¡° cough ¡°-that I¡¯m-¡± cough ¡°definitely not into-¡± cough cough cough ¡°erotic asphyxiation.¡±

    ¡°Oh! I appear to have left myself a note. It would seem I looked up ¡®erotic asphyxiation¡¯ and then deleted all memory of it a femtosecond later. I have informed myself I should not look it up again. But now I¡¯m curious. Oh! I appear to have-¡°

    I tuned Juny out, not having the capacity to consider the fact I apparently just locked a Class XII AI into a recursive porn-search loop while also scanning my surroundings for the missing Model Four. A flash on my motion tracker appeared behind me, but before I could react, something slammed into my back and clung fast, gnawing on my shoulder but failing to penetrate.

    It was more a matter of luck and reflex that allowed me to react to the next attack than of skill. A Model Three leapt from cover and my hand batted it out of the air like a fly, slamming it into the ground in a daze. It didn¡¯t have time to recover before I slew it with a burst from my left hand. I returned my right hand SMG to my thigh to be reloaded and then fell backwards, crashing down on top of whatever sat there with the full weight of both myself and my armor. I could feel it as its flesh gave way, breaking open like a rotten fruit beneath a boot.

    Another threat eliminated, I scrambled to my feet and backed up, searching for the only remaining opponent I knew of. With both hands free, I was much faster to respond this time when a flurry of tentacles came for me, and since I was no longer surrounded with clothes from three sides, I knew its body was to my right. One last cacophony of gunfire ended it, and the room went still.

    There might have been more Antithesis in hiding, but I doubted it. The entire encounter had taken under two minutes, and the third and fourth Model Threes that had jumped me were most likely further away when it began, explaining their late arrival. Nothing else jumped out to assail me as I made my way to the back of the store.

    ¡°They¡¯re all dead, you can come out now!¡± I shouted, my voice coming out hoarse due to the damage to my throat. Kind of wanted to buy a regen suite, but having a thousand angry bees in my lungs just for a slightly sore throat seemed like a bad trade.

    Multiple thuds and sounds of furniture being dragged came from the changing rooms before the doors opened and several people emerged. None were injured, but they looked haggard all the same. One woman came straight up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and I had to fight my initial reflex to push her away.

    ¡°My husband¡­have you seen my husband? He¡­I saw one of them cut between us, and he never made it back here. I don¡¯t think it saw him,¡± she told me rapidly, her eyes darting about as if trying to see into the darkness. I took a deep breath, then shook my head. There had certainly been people hiding in the clothing racks, but none had succeeded.

    A piercing wail filled my ears as she processed my response, and she collapsed on the spot. Another of the survivors hurried to console her, which was appreciated since I had no damn idea what to say. I escorted the lot of them out and pointed them towards the entrance, then had Juny get me in touch with Nguyen.

    ¡°I just rescued a few civilians and sent them out. Can you get someone to escort them?¡±

    ¡°Ah, as expected of a samurai saint! You just arrived and have already saved some people! Of course, I will contact the militia immediately. They have some people nearby.¡±

    I cringed as he busted out that word again. I didn¡¯t want to raise a stink about it over comms, but I didn¡¯t feel the adulation was warranted either. It was a tossup whether I would learn to tune it out first or if I would get so uncomfortable I snapped. Given that he only barely cut himself off the first time we spoke, I suspected Alana had already had the same conversation with him.

    ¡°Right. You do that. How are things looking outside?¡±

    ¡°The Antithesis in town have been cleaned up; the only ones remaining are in the mall with you. Captain Lafayette has been forwarding a multitude of distress calls from the upper floors. Should I send them to you?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s alright, I¡¯ll find them on the way up either way. What about the walls?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve managed to collapse the tunnels using the tanks, and the attack lost a lot of steam, so we were able to recall the reserves. The hospitals are¡­crowded, though, between combat causalities and civilian wounded.¡±

    I read that as an indirect plea for medical supplies, and I¡¯m sure I could afford to give some once I was done here. Frankly, though, I was surprised there were civilian wounded. When it came to Antithesis, you usually either died or became a samurai- and mostly the former.

    ¡°Juny, send Nguyen a list of the stuff in the Class I Medical catalog and running tally of how much I can afford. Keep a buffer of¡­I dunno, like, two hundred points set aside for emergencies.¡±

    ¡°Of course! The list has been sent, and I will keep them updated!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, saint, the help is most appreciated. I will make sure the hospitals receive the list.¡±

    I cut the call as I reached the escalators, deciding to fulfill my childhood dream of going up the down escalator since the up escalator was jammed anyway. I cannot confirm or deny a giggle on the way up.

    As I crested the top of the escalator, I found the militia¡¯s second line of defense- although it wasn¡¯t much of one. Only half a dozen dead men and woman and about the same number of Antithesis, so they must not have held for very long. The floor was clear of survivors, though, which either meant they held just long enough to matter or that the Antithesis had already found any stragglers.

    A few Model Threes were still here, doing Antithesis things like searching for tasty humans or whatever it is Antithesis do. Out here in the open, they weren¡¯t much of a threat, and they went down before getting anywhere near me. I went ahead and moved up to the next floor, prioritizing survivors over killing all Antithesis, and there I found my first pocket of resistance.

 Chapter Seventeen

    "Not enough money to feed your family? Hate all the candidates? Then why not sell your vote? We''ll buy your vote today, cash upfront, giving you the money you need and the peace of mind that comes from knowing you''ve done your civic duty!"

    -Ad for a vote buying scheme in former United States territories.

    <hr>

    The third floor of the mall had a large open space occupying the entire north side dedicated to a food court. A floor to ceiling window stretched across the far wall- or it had, before the Antithesis arrived. Cracks ran through the glass panels in places, while other panes were entire shattered, the glass scattered across the floor of the food court and the street outside.

    At the foot of the window, a barricade had been set up using most of the tables in the food court. A cluster of militia sat inside it, occasionally popping out to take potshots at Model Fives hiding in the restaurant fronts to either side. A few Model Threes had died in the space between, but I didn¡¯t see any more of them around.

    I crouched near the top of the escalator as I examined the situation, trying to get a better idea of what I was dealing with before running in. My suit would deflect most quills thrown by Model Fives, but a lucky hit could be debilitating all the same.

    ¡°I thought only Threes and Fours were spotted exiting those Fourteens. What gives?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s correct! A review of the camera footage and reports shows no record of any Model Fives until they began to emerge from the holes outside the wall under their own power.¡±

    ¡°Then what are those?¡± I asked flatly, gesturing towards the food court.

    ¡°Maybe there was another hole?¡±

    ¡°And if there¡¯s no sighting of them, it¡¯s probably under this building, isn¡¯t it.¡± It was a statement, not a question. ¡°Let Nguyen know, and tell him I¡¯ll deal with it as soon as I clear the upper floors.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    The Model Fives were entirely oblivious to my presence at the moment, and I saw no reason to change that. Instead of heading directly to the food court, I looked for a staff door and slipped into the employee-only halls that connected the back ends of each restaurant, emerging into one in the middle where I would have line of sight of all the restaurants on the opposite wall.

    The kitchen was abandoned, but some of the equipment was still on. I flicked the off switch on a deep fryer full of unidentified black lumps, charred beyond recognition, in fear of it catching fire, then headed for the front.

    A single Model Five was occupying the space at the front, squeezed into a space barely large enough to fit it behind the cash registers. Its tongue never stopped moving, plucking quills from its back and flinging them towards the barricaded soldiers. It didn¡¯t even notice me before I opened fire, tearing it apart in half a second.

    As it collapsed, I took cover behind the counter that had been protecting it and peered out, identifying the Fives occupying other restaurants across the court. I set my arms on the counter to steady my aim and began to pick them off one at a time. Each kill took far more ammunition than I would have liked, but the range was longer than my weapons meant for, even if the bullets are effective that far out in theory, and my aim at that distance is still a work in progress.

    With half a dozen more Model Fives in the grave, the militia rallied and began to open fire on the aliens along my side of the court, quickly clearing them out now that the suppressive fire had been more than halved. One of them gave a jaunty wave in my direction as I stood and exited the fast food joint.

    I hadn¡¯t moved more than six steps before something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. In the back of the restaurant neighboring the one I just exited was a Model Six, tucked away out of sight of the militia members. After a moment of shock, I returned my SMG to my thigh holder and reached for the shotgun.

    It opened its mouth and warbled.

    A second later, my shotgun dropped into position and I pulled the trigger, blasting a hole into the massive command unit, but the damage was already done. My motion tracker went crazy as Antithesis boiled out of every store on this floor, along with the employee-only sections and maybe even the floors above. It was impossible to tell if this was a planned ambush or merely a rallying call for reinforcements, not that it made much of a difference.

    My shotgun returned to its position and I grabbed both SMGs- not because I could properly dual wield them, but because I wanted to be able to switch immediately when one ran dry. I barely had them ready when the first Model Threes began to reach me. The closest one made the mistake of approaching in the open and died first for its mistake. Another vaulted over a counter and I shifted to face it, revoking its existence before it could land.

    The militia began to add their fire to the mix as well, killing many of the Model Threes and buying me space. I also felt a few rounds pinging off my armor¡­but I chose to believe someone had very poor aim rather than that someone I¡¯d never met wanted me dead. They were militia, not trained soldiers. I backed up towards them as I continued to shoot, but with so many targets, it was getting hard to make sense of my motion tracker.

    One of them managed to approach from behind a toppled table and launched itself at me, only to find out that I now weighed significantly more than an unarmored human as it bounced right off my Dainsleif armor instead of tackling me to the ground. My first SMG ran dry killing it, and I returned it to my thigh, allowing it to be reloaded while I placed both hands on the remaining gun.

    The first wave, largely consisting of Model Threes, continued to fall without causing any real damage to myself or the militia, but their charge was serving as cover for the slower models behind them. I slew several more by the time the first Model Five reached firing range, and then quills were added to the chaos- with myself as the main target.

    ¡°I recommend taking cover!¡±

    ¡°Kind of planned on it, thanks.¡± I emptied the rest of my magazine into the foremost Five and then turned and dove over the barricade. I dropped into cover just before quills began to land, thudding against surprisingly sturdy tables and failing to penetrate. I glanced at the man next to me.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°So how¡¯s your day been?¡±

    ¡°I was going to thank you, but you somehow made it worse!¡± he accused with a note of incredulity. As he spoke, he plucked a grenade off his vest, pulled the pin, and lobbed it blindly behind him and over the barricade.

    ¡°Yeah, kind of starting to think I have a natural superpower and that it¡¯s a bad luck aura.¡± I popped up as soon as the grenade exploded, having swapped weapons while speaking, and used the explosion as cover to kill a couple more of the Model Fives- in addition to the one it had killed. I could see a second wave of Model Threes arriving, but something odd brushed my senses at that moment. As I dropped back, I looked up, spotting several Model Fours crawling on the ceiling. ¡°Eyes up!¡±

    The Fives momentarily forgotten, everyone but me- my weapons would have probably gone right through the ceiling, too- pointed their weapons up and opened fire at nearly the same time, tearing into the sneaky Fours that had been moments away from dropping onto us. Their carcasses fell just feet away from the barricade with wet splats, closer than any Antithesis had approached so far.

    While the militia were busy with that, I cut down the second wave of Model Threes, a task made easier by the fact that I now had a much better firing arc to take advantage of. It was a tense few moments, as while I could kill the Threes easily enough, I had to do so while quills were hurtling towards me, unable to take cover while the militia were occupied elsewhere. If I stopped killing the Threes to duck, they might reach our position before the Fours were dealt with, and then everything would definitely go to shit.

    A dozen Threes died trying to take advantage of our distraction. In the same time, multiple javelin-like quills struck my armor, crumpling or snapping against the plating and rocking me ever so slightly with the force of impact. Each hit was harmless, but a reminded that I could be hit at any moment, and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them hit somewhere less protected.

    Finally, the men and women around me returned their attention to the ground, and I ducked down to reload. Just as I sank, the man I had spoken to previously rose up, and in a moment of sheer bad luck, his head intersected with the trajectory of a thrown quill. A chill ran down my spine as a wet crunching sound came from beside me, and his body collapsed, his head run through just below his left eye, joining the handful of dead that were already behind the barricade.

    A series of emotions went through me all at once. Disgust, horror, fear, and most of all, guilt. Guilt that I hadn¡¯t killed these Antithesis faster, that I hadn¡¯t made myself a target to draw fire from the brave men and women lacking my advanced armor, and that I had come here to save them only to let him die.

    Fuck that.

    I knew it was stupid, but in a fit of pique, I found myself vaulting the barricade. There were still over a dozen Model Fives launching quills at us, and I was now their primary target, exposed and out of position. Better me than the frail group at my back. I pushed my armor to the limit as I barreled forward, shielding my vitals with my arms while quills bounced off me. In seconds I was among the Fives, using the closest of them as cover against the rest.

    I¡¯d love to say that I engaged in physics-defying gun-fu and dodged all their attacks while putting bullets in them, but I¡¯ve been a samurai for a week. So I settled for pulling my shotgun and blasting them.

    The closest Five grabbed a spine from its back and tried to stab me with it instead of launching it. I turned and tanked the hit while raising my shotgun and firing, punching a slug through its stubby little head. The creature behind me came in for a ramming attack, and although I knew it was coming, I didn¡¯t have time to do anything about it. It smacked into my back and, being the size of a car, shoved me forward into the one I¡¯d just killed, emptying my lungs as I was squished between them.

    Unfortunately for it, a single digit Antithesis just didn¡¯t have the strength or mass to kill me instantly, and the Five in front of me was too dead to push back. I felt something snap in my torso, but as the Five¡¯s momentum died, I found I had just enough space to grab an SMG from my thigh and twist, pressing the barrel to the monster¡¯s temple.

    With its brains evacuated from its skull- actually, do Antithesis have a brain? Headshots kill them, so let¡¯s go with yes- it collapsed onto its side, clearing my line of sight on the next in line and freeing me. This one lobbed a quill at me from short range, and either by luck or learning, it struck my shotgun-toting arm, puncturing the undersuit and piercing all the way through my biceps.

    A flash of pain ran through me, and I dropped the shotgun. The benefit of an SMG, though, is that I don¡¯t need both hands to fire it, especially not with my suit assisting. I realigned my SMG and unleashed another burst, scrubbing one more alien bastard from the census. On the other side of the room, the militia rallied, their lower-power weapons chewing through the hides of our alien foes bit by bit, but failing to kill them as quickly as my own could.

    I sidestepped the bodies I was sandwiched between and brought the next xeno into my line of sight, killing this one before it could even respond. I spun, knowing this action would have brought me into view of another one as well, and finished off a mostly-crippled Five struggling to bring a quill to bear due its injuries, courtesy of the militia squad.

    Torn between targeting me, being capable of killing them instantly one at a time, and the militia, who were wearing them down with gradual damage, the remaining Fives split their attention and made their deaths that much faster. I went down the line and put each of them down, their numbers dwindling until finally, there were none left.

    With all the Antithesis dead, I finally dropped to the ground, panting through gritted teeth as I struggled to remove my helmet with one hand. My other arm was radiating so much pain that I couldn¡¯t even feel my broken rib. Finally, I yanked the helmet off and dropped it to the ground, then asked Juny for a regen suite. In the background, I could hear the militia slowly leaving cover, unsure if the battle was over.

    ¡°Huh, I thought that was a robot¡­¡±

    ¡°You thought a robot was more likely than a samurai?¡±

    Peanut gallery aside, I huffed nanobots and then waved them over.

    ¡°Can one of you do me a favor and pull this thing out of my arm?¡± I asked, gesturing to the quill. I knew from experience now that they would first need to break it off, then pull it through, and I couldn¡¯t do that myself.

    ¡°Would you like some painkillers?¡±

    ¡°Would they mess with my head?¡±

    ¡°Anything strong enough to dull the pain of removing a foreign object from your arm will likely have an effect on cognitive processes.¡±

    ¡°Is that a yes or a no?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    I shook my head as the survivors approached, knowing from the gunfire echoing down from the upper levels that I would need enough awareness to keep fighting a while longer. This was gonna hurt like a bitch, and there was no getting around it.

    ¡°So do I just, uh¡­¡± a woman began, miming pulling on the quill. I explained what she was going to need to go and bit down on a piece of cloth she handed me. Everything went white the second she laid her hands on the quill, and I let out a wordless scream the moment she began to apply pressure. My world was pain for an eternity, and when it ceased, I realized my helper had only broken the quill- she hadn¡¯t even drawn it out yet.

    There was no amount of bracing that could prepare me to feel that again, but with great reluctance, I nodded for her to continue. The sensation of that biological weapon being drawn out through the wound was like nothing I¡¯ve ever felt and was also nothing I ever wanted to feel again. It slid through and between my muscles, grinding against bone, accompanied by pain so severe it drowned out all semblance of rational thought.

    When it was out, I didn¡¯t even have the presence of mind to check if the wound was closing, though I could feel a squeeze that indicated my suit was preventing further bleeding and probably sealing the hole in itself. I fell over, breathing heavily, sweat falling down my forehead.

    ¡°I¡¯m just¡­gonna lie here for a minute¡­someone else can tell you what to do next¡­¡±

 Chapter Eighteen

    "Didn''t you hear the alarm!? We need to get out of here! Antithesis are landing all over the city!"

    "We''ve got at least ten minutes before they make it here. Don''t you see these deals? They''re literally to die for~!"

    "Then die for them! I''m out of here."

    -Conversation between two shoppers during an incursion in Charlotte NC, 2042

    <hr>

    One excruciating experience and subsequent recovery later, I continued my hunt for survivors. The militia squad left me on the third floor and headed to the entrance, having been ordered to secure it from the outside and prevent any Antithesis from leaving. Reinforcements were en route to back them up, but it was still up to me to clear the interior.

    The next two floors, I found, were clear of Antithesis- probably because they had charged down to the third floor to kill me already. That made it easy to locate and usher out the handful of civilians hiding on those floors, and hopefully made up for the time I¡¯d loss writhing in pain.

    Floor six was my ultimate destination, as it was where the forces defending the mall had made their final line of defense. A cursory look at the building schematics made it clear why: the first and lowest skybridge in the mall was on the sixth floor, meaning if they broke here, the Antithesis would disappear into the connected residential building complex and be nearly impossible to track. On the streets it was possible to track them via cameras and determine where they had gone and in what numbers. If they got into the other buildings via the mall, though, it would take a full search and quarantine to stop them.

    It was, in a way, a refutation of the right to privacy so many people, myself included, would normally advocate for. In mega cities and even many smaller towns, surveillance was everywhere, and even residential buildings were closely monitored. But here, in a town largely constructed before full corporate control was attained, that camera network was never installed, and that meant that while the residents enjoyed greater privacy on a day-to-day basis, during an incursion, they could die off camera and no one would even know Antithesis had been there until the body was found.

    Which meant it was all the more important that this last line held.

    As I started towards the escalator to the next floor, though, Juny pinged me with an alert staying that Nguyen was calling. I accepted the call and stopped at the foot of the escalator.

    ¡°Is this important? I¡¯m kind of busy,¡± I said, glancing up towards the sixth floor. I was anxious to get to it quickly after¡­after what I just experienced.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry for the interruption, saint, but we looked into your report on the possible tunnel into the mall and Major Thompson had us do a scan of all the other tunnels on a hunch. We found that they all originate in the same location.¡±

    Huh. Guess the Major got his rank for a reason.

    ¡°That¡¯s neat and all, but is there any point in telling me this now? I¡¯m not done clearing the mall yet. I can seal that last tunnel after I help the militia here.¡±

    ¡°Major Thompson would like to, um, request that you don¡¯t seal it. He wants you to go in and destroy the nest on the other side.¡± I took a breath, hearing that. Hundreds of Antithesis had come out of those tunnels. Maybe thousands. Could I really handle that alone? I doubted it.

    ¡°That¡¯s a big ask. He couldn¡¯t even ask me to go on a suicide mission himself?¡± I replied sharply, my opinion of the Major dropping just as fast as it had risen. Even if Nguyen was my designated contact, that struck me as insulting.

    ¡°He¡­his exact words were, ah, ¡®I have enough trouble with one jumped up child playing hero, I¡¯m not dealing with two. Have the samurai sycophant do it.¡¯¡± Wow. Incandescent rage lit me up for a moment before I tamped it back down, making a mental note to deal with the problem later. Alana was definitely hearing about that one. ¡°The tactical analysis does agree with his position that this is urgent, though. The holes are mostly sealed, but there¡¯s nothing stopping them from sending more Eighteens.¡±

    I sucked in air through my teeth, considering that. Yeah, if they pulled that trick again, there was no telling what would happen. They might emerge further into town where the holes won¡¯t be spotted immediately, or even unload an entire wave behind our lines.

    ¡°Juny, what do you think?¡±

    ¡°Although the Antithesis had limited success on the first attempt, it was not enough to make them avoid a second. At least one more underground assault is highly likely! Destroying the nest the attack came from, though, would likely cause them to try something else instead!¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Damn. The Juny seal of approval.

    ¡°I don¡¯t like it, but fine. I¡¯ll do it. Do me a favor and throw Thompson in after me if I die.¡± I think I was owed at least that much satisfaction. I cut the call and turned back towards the down escalator, hesitating briefly as I heard another burst of gunfire. I was just going to have to hope I had already killed enough Antithesis on the way up to give them a fighting chance. ¡°Juny, what are my points at now?¡±

    ¡°Exactly 1300!¡±

    At least I would be walking into hell with the riches of a pharaoh in his pyramid.

    My descent to the basement level was uneventful, but I gained another hundred odd points killing a few stragglers on the way there. That, or advanced scouts for the next wave, which was not a pleasant thought.

    Like an uncomfortable number of places I¡¯d been in in the last 24 hours, the basement was dark, the lighting reduced to piles of broken glass and filament on the floor. The Antithesis vendetta against lightbulbs continued. Low-light vision showed me the layout of the room all the same, thanks to what little light filtered in from the stairs. Normally it was probably a storeroom, but right now, it amounted to little more than a hole in the ground, its normal contents smashed and left in the corners.

    When I looked down into the hole, I couldn¡¯t see the bottom. There wasn¡¯t enough light. I did have a headlamp I could use, but that wasn¡¯t the most stealthy option in the world, and I had something of a surplus of points at the moment. In fact, I could probably kill a few Model Ones with one stone right now.

    ¡°Now that is some advanced darkness right there. Juny, I think I¡¯m going to need something to let me see in the dark, but not just a piece of equipment. Is there like, some kind of recon drone I could get that would be able to feed data right to my augs, keep itself safe, and give you a mic to speak through when other people are around? We can treat it sort of like an avatar for you.¡±

    ¡°I have just the thing! I recommend an ¡®Electronic Yager-Explorer Broadcasting Observed Telemetry.¡¯ It¡¯s essentially a stealth drone used for recon, and includes a sensor package much more powerful than what your suit contains, in addition to stealth paint and a quiet ion drive that will make it difficult for Antithesis to detect in darkness.¡±

    ¡°Wordy name, but sure. How much is it?¡±

    ¡°One hundred points for the Class I Utility Drones catalog and another three hundred for the drone itself.¡±

    ¡°Make it so.¡±

    Class I Utility Drones unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 1305

    New Purchase: Electronic Yager-Explorer Broadcasting Observed Telemetry

    Points reduced to...1004

    A box appeared next to me, then folded open all on its own, revealing a metal sphere the size of a basketball. After a moment of stillness, it began to vibrate for a few seconds before lifting itself up into the air. Antennae began to poke out of the sphere in multiple locations, and then it spun to face me, revealing a grilled faceplate. In the low light, it was difficult to make out, but it seemed to be silver with gold edging.

    And then the lengthy name clicked in my head. It was a fucking Eyebot.

    ¡°I feel like I¡¯m being mocked. Just¡­why?¡±

    ¡°I like the design!¡±

    ¡°Y¡¯know what, I can¡¯t actually argue with that. Isn¡¯t it a bit too shiny though?¡± Even as I finished the sentence, the Eyebot seemed to fade from sight. I flipped my headlamp on for a moment, revealing a matte-black orb where the Eyebot had been. ¡°Ah. I see. Not invisible, but it may as well be in the dark. Can you activate the sensors, please?¡±

    This time, when I looked into the hole, a wireframe appeared in my vision outlining its dimensions. I could see deep into the tunnel- in fact, I could see the outline of it far beyond what should have been possible from my current vantage point. It seemed the Eyebot- maybe I should just call it ¡®Juny¡¯ going forward- was mapping out the tunnel somehow.

    ¡°That¡¯s much better. Bit disorienting but I¡¯ll get over it. Is it safe for me to jump?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    It was somehow easier jumping off a ledge I couldn¡¯t see, into impenetrable darkness rather than a very real elevator shaft. I could feel myself going faster this time, thanks to the Dainsleif armor and extra weapons, but it was nothing the suit¡¯s exoskeleton couldn¡¯t absorb. The sound of my landing echoed just a bit.

    Before going any further, I checked to make sure my suit¡¯s external speakers were off and turned off the lights on my SMGs. Both tasks checked off, I started forward as quickly as I dared. I wasn¡¯t interested in fighting the entire hive head-on, so I wanted to get as close as I could without being caught, then find some way to¡­I dunno, blow the thing up to fuck.

    My suit wasn¡¯t built for stealth, of course, but it did have rubber soled boots rather than bare metal. Conventional rubber, mainly for traction, but it made walking softly just that much easier. And I¡¯ve always been light on my feet. Even then, I could hear the servos working with each step and the soft crunch of dirt and pebbles beneath my boots. If I was lucky, which I¡¯m not, then the only reason I could hear those sounds was the audio sensors in my suit.

    At least I could see that for a good while in front of me, the tunnel seemed to be clear. Juny floated along behind me, ion drive quieter than my own movements, mapping out the tunnel ahead as we went. Whatever she was using had begun to fill in detail quite far out, and was even giving feedback from some other tunnels where they intersected.

    It was hard not to think about what would happen if I was caught. I¡¯d struggled to kill a Model Thirteen practically on its deathbed already. My Impaler would be capable of killing one in theory, but how many shots would it take? Where did I need them to land? How fast were they when uninjured? How many hits could my armor survive?

    Yeah, I had a lot of concerns about this. And that was assuming Thirteens were the only thing I might run into. But still, I had to acknowledge how important this mission was. It was hard to quantify the intelligence of plants, but what if the first attack was something like ranging for artillery? That might mean the exit points were scattershot this time because they weren¡¯t sure about the distances, but next time they might be more precise.

    And that would mean the end of Boone.

    Which meant I essentially had three options: plug the hole and pray they don¡¯t attack, clear the hive, or flee the town. The first option sounded like tempting fate and the third would make me feel responsible for everyone that died after I left, so that left one option. I would have to see it through or die trying.

 Chapter Nineteen

    "Come on down to Auntiethesis''s Plant Safari, where you can see Antithesis in their (theoretically) natural environment! We keep our Antithesis safely locked behind meters of plexiglass and steel to protect both our plants and our guests. See Model Threes stalk through a simulated forest, and get an up close look at the mighty Model Six basking under the sunlights in the rock garden!"

    -An ad for an Antithesis zoo. Shut down after three zookeepers and five guests were eaten on the opening day.

    <hr>

    ¡°Do you have a plan?¡±

    ¡°Toooooootally. Yep. Got a great plan. It¡¯s¡­well, it¡¯s a plan.¡±

    ¡°Oh, okay!¡±

    ¡°You weren¡¯t supposed to believe that! Do you have any ideas?¡±

    ¡°I recommend lots of explosives!¡±

    ¡°Very helpful.¡±

    I was currently standing in a tunnel just close enough to the Antithesis hive that Juny¡¯s sensors were able to map out the entrance, and I didn¡¯t like what I was seeing. I had decided to wait here and mine some of the other tunnels while she went ahead to scan the entire cavern, but that had only taken me a few minutes.

    Yes, I said cavern. The Antithesis under the city had been hard at work turning the maintenance tunnels into a space more conducive to mass producing Antithesis, or at least the advanced models. It was impossible to tell what this area had contained before, but it appeared they had carefully dug around the foundations of the buildings above, leaving them intact while turning the space around them into a growing chamber.

    There were over a dozen pods gestating Model Fourteens already, and the feed Juny was sending me also showed several Model Thirteens hanging from the ceiling like wilted flowers and numerous utility models going about their business. There a few new ones I hadn¡¯t seen yet- the worm-like Model Eights bringing in biomass, and apelike Tens with entirely too many hands tending to growing pods. Some Eighteens were working on expanding the chamber even now.

    And those were the least of my worries. This hive was also growing combat models by the bushel, presumably to pack into the Fourteens when they were ready. Dozens of Threes had already matured and were resting in clumps or patrolling the periphery. None of them had noticed Juny floating by the ceiling, cloaked in darkness, but I was sure they would spot me the instant I got close.

    My odds may actually have been lower than I previously thought.

    ¡°Forget the Thirteens, even that many Threes are a huge threat. I¡¯m not sure I could kill them all before both of my guns ran dry, and then I¡¯d be stuck reloading¡­¡±

    ¡°Maybe a new weapon is in order!¡±

    ¡°Gimme something with an infinite ammo cheat, then.¡±

    ¡°That would require a catalog with a much higher Class than you can currently access, and a significant number of points.¡±

    ¡°It exists!?¡±

    ¡°Of course! But for now, I believe you should consider a Class I Heavy Kinetic Weapons catalog. Machineguns are designed for use against large numbers of targets and can sustain fire for a long time if properly used.¡±

    ¡°Sure, but they also go through ammo like a hose, won¡¯t I run out of ammo in like, less than a minute without a loader?¡±

    ¡°I believe an M8 Swarmslayer would be sufficient to address your concerns. It has a rapid-release barrel for easier replacement and an ammo feed that can automatically load new cases of ammunition when the current one runs low. It is also composed of Class I composites that can withstand high barrel temperatures, and even comes with a tripod!¡±

    That could work¡­as long as they don¡¯t dig around me. If I set up in the tunnel with a machinegun and hose down anything that comes at me, they¡¯ll run out of Model Threes before I run out of bullets, and then I¡¯ll have a few minutes unobstructed to plant charges around the hive chamber. Probably.

    ¡°Will it be able to kill those Thirteens?¡±

    ¡°.50 caliber armor piercing rounds should be sufficient to penetrate the skin of a Model Thirteen!¡±

    Then I only had one more question.

    ¡°So¡­how much?¡±

    ¡°Two hundred points for the catalog and four hundred for the weapon. Barrel replacements will be ten points each, and cases of ammunition will be 10 points for standard, 20 points for armor piercing.¡±

    ¡°Big oof, but I¡¯ll take it.¡±

    Class I Heavy Kinetic Weapons unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 804

    New Purchase: M8 Swarmslayer

    Points reduced to...404The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    I was not surprised when an M247H Heavy Machine Gun came out of the box. It was almost expected at this point. My feelings on the matter were mixed- I was absolutely the type of nerd to ask for stuff like this, but having it provided for me without my input felt mildly embarrassing.

    Oh well.

    It took me a few minutes to familiarize myself with the weapon. I got it setup on a tripod and determined that it had two slots for box magazines- when one ran out, it would be ejected, and the weapon could switch to the other while an automated reloader sought out the next box and slotted it into place. The barrel release was bizarre. There was a lever that launched the barrel directly out the front like a javelin when pulled, answering my question of how it was meant to be quickly replaced with the heat cover and cooling systems in the way.

    In one direction, a long tunnel leading towards the mall. In the other, a corridor into the heart of an Antithesis nest. Unless Boone is overrun in the next few minutes there was little chance of me being flanked. Well, they could dig, but there was no use worrying about something I couldn¡¯t do much about. Time to get their attention.

    ¡°Juny, turn on the external speakers.¡±

    ¡°Aye!¡±

    I took a deep breath.

    ¡°Your father was a Zergling and your mother was a shrubbery!¡±

    As the words echoed through the underground, Antithesis all over the cavern ahead reacted to the sound. No way they knew what the words meant, but it¡¯s the thought that counts. In seconds, nearly every Antithesis in the hive was heading my way, and even the Model Thirteens had descended, although they hadn¡¯t disconnected from their stems yet.

    I could see the Antithesis moving on Juny¡¯s wireframe projection, but I didn¡¯t need it. The second I felt movement on my motion tracker, I slammed down on the trigger, holding tight on the machinegun to keep it in place as dozens of rounds left the barrel every second. Dozens if not hundreds of Model Threes poured into the tunnel, with reinforcements boiling out of connections to other hives as quickly as they died.

    My weapon was spitting out twenty rounds per second, and the muzzle flash alone lit up the tunnel like day time to my enhanced vision. .50 cal was far in excess of what I needed to kill a Model Three, and a hail of them left Model Threes looking like what came out the ass end of a lawnmower.

    Twenty seconds. That¡¯s how long it took for this machinegun, this Mower of Lawns, to run through a box of ammo. Juny was spawning in another box the second the previous one was loaded, the weapon moving like clockwork to replace spent magazines with a rapidity not possible for a mere human. Spent boxes flew over my shoulders constantly, and a pile of brass shells was forming around my feet.

    If I hadn¡¯t gotten a helmet with hearing protection, the deafening sounds would have blown out my eardrums by now. Still, the Antithesis charged forward, desperate to protect their nest. Larger, more dangerous models began to arrive, and were shredded as surely as their smaller cousins. I could see Eights dragging away bodies before they could clog the passage, reaching in just far enough to snag them and pull them away.

    Probably could have killed them too if I shifted my aim a bit, but I wanted them to do their thing and keep this wide tunnel nice and clear for me, so I let them do it.

    The horde made it first bit of progress a few minutes in, when the Swarmslayer¡¯s barrel finally overheated. I pulled the level and ejected it, launching a red-hot tube onto the tunnel floor, where its glow provided enough light for my helmet to give me limited sight even while my machinegun was silent. In the instant between the barrel being jettisoned and the new one appearing, the Antithesis made over a dozen meters of progress.

    ¡°The Antithesis aboveground appear to be losing steam- or, rather, I believe they have determined your efforts enough of a threat to redirect their forces to this position.¡±

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t make any sense, Alana has been attacking them constantly.¡±

    ¡°What we were seeing before may have been the extent of their forces while they were occupied defending against her team. Now they are contending with you both, and dedicating more bodies to your deaths!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that like it¡¯s good news, Farnsworth!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not Farnsworth, I¡¯m Juny!¡±

    In the corner of my eye, the counter for my points was a constantly changing number, spinning ever upwards and then dropping every few seconds as another box of ammo was replaced. I was definitely killing things other than Threes right now, but only Jeebus knew what they were amidst that mess.

    But they were taking me seriously now. I could tell, because the Model Thirteens were moving.

    ¡°Juny, start buying armor piercing magazines.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    When the first Thirteen arrived, I was still using up my last box of standard ammunition. While .50 cal wasn¡¯t entirely ineffective on its own, the rounds were mostly glancing off their hardened skin or getting stuck in without penetrating. The shift was noticeable when armor piercing rounds finally entered the chamber and I began punching holes in its front-most body.

    The Model Thirteens, more clever than their kin, were entering the tunnel in single file, using their own bodies like extra lives. Even as I chewed through the first body, one Model Thirteen advanced several meters down the hallway, and when its body collapsed, the next one continued on as if nothing had changed.

    Even armor piercing rounds couldn¡¯t penetrate the thick clubs that tipped their pseudopods. To kill the second body, I first had to shred its arms above the clubs, causing them to drop out of position and leaving its vitals exposed. This one progressed even further down the tunnel, making it almost halfway to me before it fell.

    One body remained, but another Model Thirteen trailed behind it still as well. I was beginning to sweat as they came ever closer. The smaller models had stopped advancing or taken cover behind the Thirteens, so I was free to concentrate my fire, but even then, it was taking too much time to slay them.

    Finally, the first Model Thirteen died, and I noticed my point count update to include a single token- something to ask Juny about later. The second Thirteen was more than halfway to me, and I had little time for thought. I found that if I shifted my aim to the base of the pseudopods they would lose strength faster, but it still wasn¡¯t enough.

    The enormous flower-shaped Antithesis continued on even as its first body fell to the ground, trampling over its own flesh with nary a care. The Swarmslayer¡¯s barrel was hot to the point of overheating, but I couldn¡¯t afford to change it out now. It was me or the gun, and I chose me. I held down the trigger so hard my hand began to shake.

    Body number two was looking increasingly Swiss, and it finally fell to the ground, but I was out of time. A metal-tipped pseudopod whipped towards me, faster than I could follow, and a screech of ruined metal sang out as it demolished the machinegun in front of me and tossed me back several meters. I snatched my shotgun from my back and raised it, aiming for the vital point I had sussed out through trial and error, and pulled the trigger even as the next limb shot out towards me.

    My first shot went wide as I struggled to dodge. So did the next, as I took a glancing blow to the shoulder, denting the metal. But then the Thirteen was overextended, and I had the advantage for a moment. I snapped off a third shot, hitting it in its core, and the big Antithesis wilted on the spot.

    Which is right about when the walls exploded around me.

 Chapter Twenty

    "You really think the Antithesis are aliens? Of course not! They''re a secret government project meant to get rid of all the evidence that they turned the frogs gay!"

    -Flori Daman, Misinformation Wars, 2024

    <hr>

    Had I not been knocked back moments ago, I would be dead now. A chill ran down my spine as I realized that the Antithesis horde had been stalling me while Model Eighteens dug a path around me, just as I¡¯d feared- although I still didn¡¯t see any way I could have prevented it, even now. But because I had been thrown out of position, the Eighteens emerged from newly dug tunnels directly on my flanks, rather than behind me.

    As stone and dirt cascaded off my armor, I backed up, exchanging my shotgun for SMGs. Now the flanking tunnels were between me and the hive, and they had lost their advantage before it could even really be gained. I snapped off a couple bursts at the Eighteens, killing them with negligible point gains in return, and then refocused on the combat models now coming through the tunnels they had made instead of down the one I¡¯d been defending.

    With the Antithesis now emerging only meters in front of me, I backed up as I fired. Reduced to killing my foes with SMGs rather than a machinegun, my efficiency dropped greatly, not helped by the fact that I had left the magnetic rails offline to avoid causing a cave-in.

    It was hard on my nerves. My reflexes had to be as perfect as humanly possible, aiming and firing in the same thought and swapping rapidly which hand I was favoring. Some of my targets died mere inches away, giving their allies time to close in just as much.

    The worst part was the Model Nines.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t this thing appear on my tracker!?¡± I yelled out as a blade ripped into my shoulder, cutting around the armor and between the exoskeleton. With one hand I reached over and tore the Nine off me, dashing it against the wall while my other hand continued to lay down suppressive fire, hitting a whole lot of nothing, because doing shit with both hands is hard.

    ¡°Model Nines are capable of baffling most sensors with the scales they shed!¡±

    ¡°Just what I need when I¡¯m fighting them in the dark.¡±

    I had several more moments of time to fire at approaching Antithesis before another Nine leapt from the shadows, its blades sparking as they scraped against my chest armor and helmet. I barely managed to drop my chin in time to avoid decapitation, and the Nine wrapped its limbs around my head in response, holding it in place.

    The approaching wave was getting closer- I had no choice but to focus the bulk of my attention on choosing targets, my fire becoming sloppier as a result, while the moving burr strapped to my chest continued to seek out gaps in my defense. With one tiny corner of my mind, I drew my other weapon and raised it, ignoring the pain of a growing number of minor wounds. I pressed the barrel of an SMG to the Nine and opened fire, and its limbs went limp as it died, losing its grip and falling to the ground.

    ¡°Would you like some assistance? I believe I can recommend several useful combat drones!¡±

    ¡°Yes please! Skip the cost and deploy them!¡± I made a note to look into whatever the hell catalog she just bought later as two new drones popped into existence to my flanks and added their own firepower to the mix. The tunnel I was in was wider than any hallway to accommodate the Model Fourteens it was built for, but Antithesis were big enough that it was still hard for them to apply their numbers effectively.

    The drones made it even harder. I could tell at a glance that they were shaped like Eyebots- apparently Juny really liked the design- but they were armed with something a lot more powerful than a laser pistol. Only my suit¡¯s sensors allowed me to detect them firing, tracing coherent beams of invisible energy as they lanced out into the darkness and bored holes in approaching monsters.

    Rather than bolts of energy, these were sustained beams, and the Eyebots were accurately holding them in position while they bored right through the thick, green flesh of the oncoming aliens. The tougher models took several seconds, but every one they killed gave me more leeway to target the faster ones, and when there were no Fives or Sixes nearby, they were able to slay Model Threes nearly instantly.

    Suddenly, I registered a rapid motion deep within the oncoming hoard and ducked. A vertically-oriented disc went right over my head and detonated somewhere behind me, and my back was suddenly whipped by countless thin, sharp hairs. Most of them were repelled by my armor, but I could tell a few had gotten through as stabbing pains registered across my body.

    Nothing lethal. I was still in the fight.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    More importantly, a shower of sparks erupted from behind me as one of the Eyebots took the brunt of the attack for me. The other shot forward an instant later, hovering above and in front of me as I dragged myself back to my feet.

    ¡°More Eyebots, please!¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    Another seven Eyebots filled the space before me, draining a considerable chunk of the points I had just made to buy me precious seconds I needed. As they opened fire in unison, I reached back and plucked the first spine from my body. The bleeding wasn¡¯t too bad with the Dainsleif squeezing the wounds, but every movement I made came with the sensation of my muscles tightening around a foreign object, obstructing their movement.

    I pulled a second spine out, and one of the Eyebots went down with a quill through its face. As I removed the third, another projectile from a Model Fifteen exploded, shot down somewhere above the Antithesis and raining down friendly fire. Number four came out as a wave of Model Sixes advanced, tanking laser beams long enough for the Model Threes behind them to approach to melee range and destroy two more of my defenders.

    By the time I had finished struggling through the pain to yank out every spine in my arms and legs, I was down to just two Eyebots. I slipped my helmet up just enough to bring a Nano Regenerative Suite to my lips and inhaled, the fire in my lungs barely even noticeable over my many other wounds. Apparently spotting an opportunity, one of the remaining Eyebots lifted itself up to the ceiling and fire deep behind enemy lines, and I saw a notification indicating it had slain the Model Fifteen just as a Model Nine burst into motion and sliced the flying orb to pieces.

    I killed that Nine myself as a fresh wave of nanobots began to tend to my wounds, then redirected my fire a moment too late as a Model Four¡¯s tentacles reached out and seized my final robot companion, dragging it closer and piercing it with a spine-tipped limb before I could react. I couldn¡¯t afford a moment of silence for their sacrifice, but I could afford a burst of 9mm to avenge its loss.

    A Model Three vaulted off the corpse of the Four and I ducked, leaving it to sail right over my head. Not good. It came around and leapt onto my back. I felt it gnawing on my helmet, but I was a bit tied up killing other Antithesis and couldn¡¯t do much about it right now.

    ¡°Do I have any explosives I can survive, but they won¡¯t?¡±

    ¡°That sounds dangerous! Standard handling procedures for explosives preclude detonating them from within the blast radius!¡±

    ¡°One of them is literally on my back right now.¡± As I spoke, I pistol whipped the nearest Model Three and crushed its skull with my foot, then put a few rounds into the leg of a Four, halting its advance.

    ¡°True! Your armor can withstand a standard fragmentation grenade, but you lack the required catalog. Would you like to purchase it?¡±

    ¡°I would also like whatever I buy to not collapse the tunnel on my head.¡± A quill from a Model Five impacted dead center on my chest plate before I retaliated with lethal force.

    ¡°That significantly reduces your options. Perhaps a cryogenic fluid grenade? Your life support systems should be capable of compensating for the low temperatures, but only just barely.¡±

    ¡°Good enough!¡± I returned one gun to my hip and saw my points drop for both the grenade and a few new magazines. It seemed I had burned through my armor¡¯s stores of ammunition already. I took the grenade in hand as it appeared and primed it, but instead of throwing it, I smacked it right into the head of the monster on my back.

    Instantly, the grenade popped like a water balloon, scattering cold liquid across myself, my hanger-on, and everything in a good five meter radius. The Dainsleif¡¯s heating systems kicked into overdrive to counter a piercing cold that penetrated the undersuit for a brief second and momentarily locked up my joints, while the cucumber on my back froze solid and shattered when I moved.

    The handful of Antithesis closest to me were frozen as well, but were quickly knocked aside and destroyed by the ones at their back. I had just enough time to swap SMGs before they closed the distance, but I chose not to. I had a better idea.

    ¡°Give me an incendiary this time!¡±

    ¡°Your suit is not capable of-¡°

    ¡°I¡¯m going to throw this one, I promise!¡±

    ¡°Aye!¡± I barely even looked at the new grenade before I lobbed it forward, then turned and sprint the way I¡¯d come from. My surroundings lit up, white and red, as the explosive coated the walls and Antithesis in a layer of burning alien napalm, coating the few in caught in the blast so thoroughly I could tell they were dead from their lack of movement.

    It didn¡¯t stop even more from suicidally rushing through the flames and catching fire, of course, but the injuries slowed them down, and that bought me time. When I spun around, I had a good few dozen meters of clearance between me and the next wave.

    ¡°Another machinegun, already on the tripod, please! Keep the ammo coming.¡±

    I grinned as I gripped my fresh lawnmower and squeezed the trigger, once more throwing a hailstorm of metal down range towards some woefully under armored aliens. It wasn¡¯t the most creative option, I¡¯ll admit, but it was damned effective, and I could tell from Juny¡¯s telemetry that they were running out of bodies to throw at the problem. I think whatever primitive intelligence was behind them had intended to finish me with their flanking maneuver, and when that failed, they were screwed.

    No more advanced models appeared to stop me, and even the higher numbered single digits dwindled rapidly. I only had to reload a handful of times before even the Model Threes stopped appearing, and then I had to contend with both the weirdest and easiest attack of all.

    The entire breadth of the tunnel seemed to be moving towards me, and it wasn¡¯t until a cascade of notifications appeared that I understood what was going on. In the absence of anything substantial, the Antithesis had thrown a murder of Model Ones at me. Model Ones. Against .50 caliber rounds. They exploded in droves, like pigeons facing anti-air batteries, and in seconds all motion ceased.

    Again, the tunnel fell dark, no longer lit by the flash of a muzzle. I took a deep breath and fell to my knees, panting heavily from sheer adrenaline.

    ¡°I would recommend destroying the hive as soon as possible! More Antithesis will begin to ripen in about twenty minutes.¡±

    ¡°At least let me catch my breath first¡­¡±

 Chapter Twenty One

    "Antithesis: alien menace, or the next big superfood? Find out tonight on Vegan Ventures!"

    -Ad for a vegan cooking show

    <hr>

    Walking into an Antithesis hive was like walking into an underground orchard. Being plants- fruits, technically- they didn¡¯t hatch from eggs, or get birthed by a queen, but instead they were born from sacs hanging from vines that grew over every available surface. The size of those sacs varied widely, from ones that could pass for actual fruit that carried Model Ones to enormous pods the size of a minivan.

    If I was being honest, it wasn¡¯t until I stepped into the cavernous space that I actually knew how I wanted to deal with it. I had been mulling over how to destroy a hive thoroughly enough to prevent them from simply reoccupying the space and reusing the tunnels, and burning it out wasn¡¯t going to be sufficient. The only way to deny them this space was to completely destroy it, filling it with so much concrete and, more importantly, steel rebar that they would never be able to simply tunnel through.

    As a bonus, the rubble would probably fill up the surrounding tunnels in the process, gumming up their underground transportation network even further.

    ¡°Alright, here¡¯s the plan: we blow it up.¡±

    ¡°Demolishing the entire building would cause a cloud of dust to form that will have negative effects on the health of everyone in the area.¡±

    ¡°I will personally buy the Samurai-grade medical equipment to heal them if we all survive this.¡±

    ¡°As you wish!¡±

    It was difficult to even tell that I was in the basement of a building, or what was left of it, anyway. Juny helpfully highlighted the pillars that held it up for me; they were engulfed by plant structures that seemed to be helping support the building above. That certainly explained how it hadn¡¯t fallen down when they expanded the space to make room for more pods.

    I picked my way over roots and around sacs full of unripened aliens carefully, one

    SMG in hand so my other would be free to catch myself if I tripped. It felt almost like I was trekking through a Flood nest in real life, but less squishy. Juny seemed to have been correct when she predicted there would be little to no Antithesis remaining to defend the hive, having depleted their own numbers trying to stop me from entering in the first place.

    ¡°Am I going to need to destroy all the pillars to bring down the building?¡±

    ¡°You will not! There is a certain amount of redundancy in the design, but eliminating a few key pillars should make the load impossible for the remainder to bear.¡±

    ¡°Perfect, give me a few fire bombs to clear out the roots, then we¡¯ll plant the charges.¡±

    ¡°I have a fast-burning grenade optimal for burning roots out for 20 points each!¡±

    ¡°Give me as many as there are pillars to destroy, please.¡± Juny materialized three grenades in a single case as my points dropped by sixty, bringing them down to- by the Forerunners that was a lot of points. I¡¯d lost track while I was effectively shooting fish in a barrel, but at the start of this I¡¯d had just over a thousand, and even with all the ammo, Eyebots, and machineguns I¡¯d purchased, I was now sitting at several times that. And a couple tokens, which I still didn¡¯t know the purpose of or have time to ask about.

    Predicting what I would ask for next, Juny helpfully highlighted the three specific pillars that would have the most effect if destroyed. I primed the first grenade and lobbed it underhand towards the furthest pillar, and my visor went nearly black as the roots went up in a blinding white flame, sending a rush of hot air outwards that I felt the push of even in my armor. In seconds, the roots coated in whatever substance those grenades contained collapsed into a pile of ash.

    Now I was a bit more confident in what the safe distance would be, so I moved far away from the remaining pillars and lit them up as well. When the third bomb was done burning, the hive chamber returned to darkness, lit only by my flashlight and a few remaining embers still burning.

    I could see the foundations of the building clearly now. Scorched concreate stood proud, protecting a core of steel bars. These were the structures capable of holding up countless tons of materials in direct defiance of gravity. They were¡­honestly, barely an obstacle to my plan with Samurai technology available.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    ¡°Okay¡­now I just need some kind of remote-detonated charge that will destroy the pillars. Guaranteed. I am not fighting my way in here again.¡±

    ¡°You could use a matter disintegrator keyed to atomize specifically concrete and steel. It is available in your esoteric explosive catalogues for 100 points each.¡±

    ¡°And I can detonate it through any radio interference caused by the charges being underground?¡±

    ¡°The detonator I have selected utilizes quantum entanglement to bypass interference.¡±

    ¡°Great, let¡¯s get this over with then.¡±

    The charges were big enough that I might have had difficulties lifting them, but Juny was able to summon them directly in contact with the pillars themselves as long as I was close enough. All I had to do was touch the detonator to each charge to pair them, then push the big red button once I was at a safe distance. As soon as the third one was down I turned towards the tunnel I came in from and booked it, knowing intellectually that I was safe unless I flipped off the cover and pushed the button, but still not wanting to be under millions of tons of skyscraper primed to fall.

    I didn¡¯t stop running until I reached my surviving machine gun, which I stopped to grab, folding up the tripod and ejecting the empty case to make it lighter before magnetizing it to my back above my shotgun. Climbing up the hole the Antithesis had entered from was a lot more difficult than entering had been, and took several minutes, during which I ignored any attempts to contact my on account of not having the breath to talk.

    Finally, I reached the top and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath. It took me another few minutes to get my breathing back to normal before I was ready to talk. I peeled myself off the floor and went for the stairs as I accepted a communication from Nguyen.

    ¡°Thank the Protectors, you finally picked up. I was worried when you went offline. Is everything alright?¡± the Samurai-worshipping lieutenant asked frantically as soon as the channel was open. I hit the stairs as he finished and started heading up; I wanted to see the building go down when I pulled the trigger.

    ¡°It was pretty close at a few points, but I made it out. There¡¯s a pretty big hive beneath one of the skyscrapers in the outer city, but it¡¯ll stop being a problem in a few minutes.¡± Reaching the ground floor, I headed towards the door, recalling that there should be a hovercar waiting for me outside.

    ¡°¡­in a few minutes? Didn¡¯t you already destroy it while you were down there?¡±

    ¡°Just keep an eye on the city, you¡¯ll know it when you see it,¡± I said, power walking right out of the building and to the car. I took a moment to set down the heavy machinegun in the passenger seat before settling in and switching the vehicle on, climbing sharply to a height just high enough to give me a view of the city.

    With my eyes on the vista ahead, I thumbed the shield out of the way and pushed the button.

    For a few moments, nothing at all happened. Just as I was getting worried, one of the skyscrapers a couple blocks past the frontline began to sag, and then it started. I could just see one side of the building from my current angle, but I witnessed it as the first floor¡¯s walls crumbled outwards while the core of the building descended, dropping the entire first floor into the basement and crushing the hive below. I instantly received 500 points and a token, but the show wasn¡¯t over yet.

    After the first floor fell, the supports holding up the remaining several dozen floors failed, and the second floor pancaked the first. Then the third came down, and the fourth, each level of the colossal building collapsing faster than the last as the mound of rubble where the building stood expanded. Concrete, glass, and steel erupted into the street, accompanied by an apocalyptic amount of dust.

    Where it had taken several seconds for the initial floors to collapse, now they were crumpling in less a second each. Even the Antithesis in the streets fell victim to the destruction. Hell, I was pretty sure some Antithesis in the neighboring buildings died too, struck by debris launched from the falling structure. By the time the demolition was at last complete, a full city block was buried beneath the rubble, the surrounding buildings¡¯ lowest floors entirely inaccessible from some sides, so high had the piles risen.

    I was pretty sure I could enter some of those buildings from the fourth floor. It seemed the surrounding buildings had contained the destruction somewhat, forming a larger pile that might have formed in a more open area.

    Even the gunfire below had halted in the aftermath. The Antithesis appeared to have stopped attacking for the moment, and I could only assume they were reeling from having a building dropped on so many of their numbers. I¡¯d gained around 2000 points from collateral damage alone.

    My comm pinged, and I accepted the call. Instead of Nguyen, it was Major Thompson. The first words out of his mouth were ¡°are you fucking insane!?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± I answered brightly, knowing full well the only proper way to respond to an accusation like that was to just own it. Thompson didn¡¯t even bother to address my honesty.

    ¡°My company was hired to keep this city intact. We can¡¯t just have you going around destroying shit because it¡¯s the fastest solution! Am I clear?¡±

    Was this guy serious?

    ¡°If you¡¯d rather have Antithesis showing up in the basement of your command center, sure. Should I dig them a tunnel?¡±

    ¡°That is not the point, and you know it, you smarmy fuck. If you¡¯re going to wreck the city we may as well just pull out now; we¡¯ll be out of a job either way!¡±

    His lack of regard for the deaths that would incur made me wish he¡¯d suffer from apoplexy right about now and put us all out of his misery. I could imagine the veins on his head protruding and practically felt the spittle flying into his mic.

    So I just cut the call in the hopes it would send him over the edge.

    ¡°Juny, block all calls from the major, please, and maybe keep an eye on comms traffic and cut him off if tries to, I dunno, create a friendly fire incident.¡±

    ¡°Gladly!¡±

 Chapter Twenty Two

    "One unexpected consequence of the Antithesis invasion was a brief resurgence of people living a desert nomad lifestyle. Sadly, it turned out that the Antithesis weren''t afraid of the desert, they were just uninterested until there was food there. Namely, the nomads."

    -An Early History of the Antithesis Era, 2055

    <hr>

    With the Antithesis having ceased their attacks for the moment, there was little for me to do, so I returned to the PMC headquarters for lunch. I barely got to eat anything for breakfast, so I was positively ravenous at this point. The cafeteria was crowded with men and women that had just rotated off the front lines during the lull in combat, but I had an excess of points right now, so I just sat down and ordered something through Juny.

    I had barely managed to remove my helmet before a pair of trays hit the table across from me, followed by two familiar soldiers taking a seat. I recognized them from the morning briefing as the laughing girl and the fanboy that were with Alana, and they wasted no time introducing yourself.

    ¡°Hey there Spartan! I¡¯m Specialist Haley Brown, and this dork is SPC Jamal Silverton. Mind if we join you?¡± the woman asked, though she had already shoved a spoonful of grits into her own mouth before I could answer. Jamal gave a long-suffering sigh.

    ¡°Sure¡­?¡± I replied unnecessarily, the both of them having already begun to eat. I popped some kind of alien tater tot into my mouth, not entirely sure what else to say to them.

    ¡°Sorry about her¡­uh, ma¡¯am?¡±

    ¡°Erica is fine.¡±

    ¡°I saw that building go down! That was so cool. How¡¯d you do it? I don¡¯t think even I carry enough C4 to bring down a skyscraper like that, and my vest is full of it. Or maybe I do. I¡¯ve never tried. I think I¡¯d have to see the foundations to be sure. Do you like my vest? The LT bought it for me, I named it the Velcro Vest of Doom,¡± Haley rattled off, opening several Velcro pouches on her vest to reveal entire bricks of C4. It was a bit alarming that she was carrying that much explosives just to eat lunch.

    ¡°¡­they let her handle explosives?¡± I asked Jamal with a raised eyebrow as Haley went off into her own little world, detailing the extensive list of explosives her vest contained. The woman was carrying enough material that I wouldn¡¯t feel safe within two city blocks of her.

    ¡°She¡¯s a savant. The other day I watched her rip a chunk of C4 off, slap it onto the bottom of a car, and launch it into a pack of Model Threes.¡± Jamal took a moment to chew a beef stick, a dead look in his eyes. ¡°She predicted the number of times the car would flip before it hit them. It was four.¡±

    I eyed the talkative woman, no less wary but maybe a bit more respectful of her abilities now. Hell, she was probably a better shot than me too, not that that was saying much. I supposed she did have some degree of training, or she wouldn¡¯t be here at all, much less working for Alana directly.

    ¡°To answer the question, I didn¡¯t use explosives. I bought some alien tech that disintegrated the support pillars.¡±

    ¡°Hey, do you have a Samurai name yet?¡± Haley asked, her interest shifting the moment she knew explosives weren¡¯t involved..

    ¡°Uh, no, I¡¯ve only been one for like. A week. I think another Samurai has to give it to me.¡±

    ¡°Awww, that¡¯s too bad, I could¡¯ve given you a great name. Like Blaster Chief, or Azure Sentry, or The Wrecking Ball!¡±

    ¡°Those names are absolutely awful,¡± Jamal cut in. Haley gave him the stink eye for a moment before shifting back to me.

    ¡°Hey, do you dual wield like the ones in the games? I saw you¡¯ve got two SMGs, I bet you¡¯d look awesome shooting them at the same time.¡±

    ¡°Sort of. I can hold them both at once but I can¡¯t aim two guns at the same time, so it¡¯s mostly to maintain a constant stream of fire and reload one while I use the other.¡± This conversation was jumping from point to point faster than a Super Smash Bros fight, but I decided to just go with the flow.

    ¡°I wonder if there¡¯s some Samurai tech that would let you do that. Like an independent arm brain like in octopi.¡±

    ¡°There is!¡± Juny interjected, speaking for the first time through her Eyebot¡¯s speakers. Haley launched herself out of her seat as the Eyebot¡¯s camouflage deactivated abruptly and it bounced into the air from somewhere behind me. Honestly, I¡¯d almost forgotten it was there myself, but I was used to Juny cutting in by now, so I just kept eating. ¡°All you need is a Bonus Brain series implant. I recommend the Mk IV, which you can buy with a Class I Combat Augmentations catalogue. It will allow you to operate your arms independently with about 90% efficiency with no side effects like Alien Hand Syndrome.¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    ¡°That sounds so cool! You should totally buy it like, right now. Oh, can you install it right now? The LT only installs new stuff with a medic present,¡± Haley plopped back into her seat, her shock forgotten in favor of the shiny new topic.

    ¡°Y¡¯know what? Sure, why not. How much will it cost me, Juny?¡±

    ¡°The catalogue is 100 points, and the implant is 400.¡±

    ¡°It costs more than the entire Eyebot? Whatever, I¡¯ve got the points. Do it.¡±

    Class I Combat Augmentations unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 6593

    New Purchase: Bonus Brain Mk IV

    Points reduced to...6193

    A small box appeared on the table next to my food. Directions were drawn directly onto the box, and just showed a chibi version of myself jabbing the injector into my neck. For a moment I questioned why it was an injector instead of a patch this time, but then I concluded it was probably for dramatic effect.

    I was a bit giddy at the idea of adding functional dual wielding to my capabilities, but a part of me wanted to maintain my (presumed) image, so I tried to look as casual as possible as I retrieved the injector and pressed it to my neck. I couldn¡¯t suppress a wince as it jabbed me, which was followed by the same brain freeze as the last time I added a suite to my augs. When it passed, I felt¡­exactly the same as I did before, but I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to tell the difference until I tried to use it.

    ¡°That was kind of underwhelming,¡± Haley commented as she munched on a bread stick.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be rude,¡± Jamal shot back.

    ¡°Eh, at least she won¡¯t be asking about it anymore,¡± I told him, looking at the silver lining. ¡°Want the box as a souvenir?¡± I asked with a bit of amusement. Haley made an excited noise and snatched it almost faster than I could follow, squirreling it away in one of her many pockets as if afraid I would change my mind. Despite his general veneer of annoyance, I thought I saw a hint of amusement in Jamal as well, and I supposed that if he really did find her antics aggravating he wouldn¡¯t be hanging around her.

    ¡°Do you have any other body mods?¡± Jamal asked.

    ¡°Not yet. I haven¡¯t really had the points until less than an hour ago. I¡¯m probably going to want the full Spartan set eventually- reaction time, tougher bones, strength. Not sure what else there is, since I haven¡¯t considered it all that much.¡± I carefully picked up another tater tot. It was harder than it looked while wearing the suit; since I didn¡¯t directly control the fingers, I had to be very precise not to crush them.

    ¡°Maybe you should get something for healing¡­assuming that¡¯s your blood, that is.¡±

    I glanced down, remembering the number of injuries I sustained in the tunnels. The Dainsleif¡¯s functions had already repaired the punctures, and had probably reduced the bleeding a lot, but there was still quite a bit of dried blood mixed with dust and dirt clinging to the body suit and armor itself. After arriving covered in blood yesterday, I was probably picking up some nicknames with the word ¡®Bloody¡¯ in them by now.

    ¡°¡­Juny, please remind me to clean my armor before I eat next time.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re concerned about? Doesn¡¯t it hurt?¡±

    ¡°You get used to it,¡± I told Jamal, deadened to the fear of pain by the point. There was probably a trauma there I should address in VI therapy. Eventually. ¡°Anyway, the nano inhalers usually do the job just fine. It¡¯s not like I get injured that much.¡±

    ¡°You actually average at least one serious injury per battle!¡± Juny chipped in unhelpfully.

    ¡°Whose side are you on!?¡±

    ¡°The side of fewer injuries! I recommend an internal nanite reservoir to address the issue. This would save time on healing.¡±

    ¡°Oh, you should get impenetrable skin, like Luke Cage!¡± Haley contributed.

    ¡°Hey, yeah, how much would that cost?¡± I asked Juny.

    ¡°Nothing is impenetrable, but a Class II skin replacement may be enough to minimize damage from Tier I and II Antithesis projectiles! All you would need to do is avoid injuries for two days!¡±

    ¡°Oh, so it¡¯s not happening, then¡­at least, not until we lift the siege,¡± I said, acknowledging the obvious. No way was I avoided injury while actively fighting.

    ¡°I suggest not getting hit!¡±

    I almost gave a retort to that, but it occurred to me that Juny had kept her Eyebot undamaged even when a Model Fifteen turned me into a pincushion, so I kept my mouth shut. Also, it was probably a genuine suggestion, not sarcasm, knowing her.

    ¡°Should I assume any other upgrade I make would have the same caveat?¡± I asked instead.

    ¡°Technically, no! If you also purchase a surgical suite, you can have the entire upgrade done all at once, rather than gradually.¡±

    ¡°Should we really be here for this conversation¡­?¡± Jamal cut in. I shrugged. It¡¯s not like I was going to make any final decisions on any of this right now. We were in a lull, but the battle was ongoing. I didn¡¯t have time to put myself under the knife right at this very moment.

    ¡°It¡¯s all hypothetical anyway. I don¡¯t want to be in surgery the next time there¡¯s an attack. It¡¯d be faster to just upgrade my gear, but I also don¡¯t have time to design the next suit, and it¡¯d be a shame to just replace this one the day I bought it.¡±

    ¡°It does look pretty beat up, though.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t wrong. The plating had held up so far, but numerous scratches and divots decorated it already. One of the pauldrons was heavily dented, and there was a deep rent in the chest plate I assumed a Model Nine had left at some point.

    ¡°What will you do with it when you get a new one?¡± Hayley asked. With anyone else I¡¯d assume they were fishing, but she just seemed genuinely curious.

    ¡°Not sure. Maybe keep it as a spare, maybe let Alana decide who gets it. I don¡¯t really have anyone I trust that needs a suit of power armor, but she¡¯s a samurai, so I can probably trust her to use it wisely?¡±

    Abruptly, a new voice cut in, sharp as a knife.

    ¡°Madam Samurai?¡± a man said from behind me. The mercenaries I was speaking to both went pale. I glanced behind me to expecting an angry superior officer like Thompson, and I wasn¡¯t wrong, but I also wasn¡¯t quite right.

    Standing behind me was a tall man whose good looks were ruined by a nasty scowl. Rather than fatigues or a dress uniform, he was adorned in uniform trousers and a scrub top.

    ¡°I¡¯m Lieutenant Colonel Radcliffe, chief medical officer for this unit. We need to talk.¡±

 Chapter Twenty Three

    "When the Antithesis showed up I thought we might have finally found the exception to Rule 34.

    Boy, was I wrong."

    -Anonymous internet commenter

    <hr>

    I excused myself from the table and grabbed my helmet, following the angry middle aged doctor somewhere we could speak in private. Though he didn¡¯t bother waiting until we were actually there to begin speaking.

    ¡°I have no idea what you were thinking when you collapsed that building and I don¡¯t care. What I do care about is the damage it has done and will do to my patients, a group which has now expanded to include the entire population of Boone. The local air quality has dropped to the point that simply breathing outside is hazardous to one¡¯s health, which is going to cause a hell of a lot of cancer and lung damage,¡± he began as he stomped his way through the halls of the building.

    ¡°Yeah, I was warned that would happen, but it had to be done. I was planning on distributing medicine after the battle to counteract the effects,¡± I replied calmly, laying out my defense without being too defensive. He was not, after all, entirely wrong, although I still felt some degree of defensiveness towards his accusatory tone.

    ¡°We don¡¯t have until after the battle. What you failed to consider is that the air quality will affect the front line, not just long term health. You think the corpos put the best, most human-friendly materials in those buildings? Hell no. They¡¯re full of hazardous shit that would have been illegal if we still had a functioning government.¡±

    The doctor led me into an office near the medical section of the PMC headquarters, which I saw down the hall way before entering after him. He sat behind the desk, but I opted to remain standing; the seats in here weren¡¯t sturdy metal like the benches in the mess.

    ¡°I¡¯ll cut to the chase. You caused this problem, so I want you to fix it. I need medicine for all the troops already effected, gas masks for all the troops period, and N95 masks or similar for the civilian population.¡± He stared me in the eye as he spoke, daring me to argue. A large part of me felt indignant receiving the dressing down, but I was an adult and I had to own up to my own mistakes sometimes. Refusing his demands out of sheer spite would hamper the defense of the town, which I was a part of.

    ¡°Juny, how much would that cost?¡±

    ¡°20,000 N95 masks would be 1,000 points at one point per twenty mask pack. Those are Class 0 and the price is accordingly cheap! Assuming Class 0 gas masks, it would be 1 points per mask, for approximately 500 more points. You will, however, need Class I ¡®Breath of Fresh Air¡¯ Lung Cleansers for 5 points each to handle existing lung damage, totaling around 1,250 points. That means the final total will be just 2,612 points!¡±

    Inside, a certain words that starts with F rang out, with the middle particularly drawn out. Outwardly, on the other hand-

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll throw in a medical drone as a bonus; just have someone retrieve it from the room I was in last night. Where do you want the equipment?¡±

    ¡°Leave it in the hall, please,¡± LC Radcliffe replied, mollified by the ease to which I agreed. I think he was expecting an argument or negotiation at the very least, if not outright refusal, owing to the fact he didn¡¯t actually possess any authority over me. I turned to leave, but he wasn¡¯t quite finished. ¡°Hey. Good luck out there.¡±

    ¡°Thanks.¡±

    I stepped into the hall and spent a couple minutes walking in the direction of the medical wing, letting Juny place boxes of supplies as I moved. By the time I was done thousands of boxes of masks and medicine were stacked high, and I was down to 3,581 points. Just as I was thinking about what to next, I received a communication.

    It wasn¡¯t Thompson, and it wasn¡¯t Nguyen, and it wasn¡¯t even my mom. It was, unexpectedly, Junychiro Watanabe, or in other words, my boss.

    ¡°Hello, Er-¡°

    ¡°Erica, do you know what day it is today?¡± I glanced at my HUD, where it clearly said ¡®Wednesday.¡¯

    ¡°Nope.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Wednesday, and according to records, you haven¡¯t clocked in since Friday, nor did you apply for leave.¡±

    ¡°Just curious: did it take you until today to notice?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s beside the point,¡± he said. So, yes. ¡°I¡¯m docking your pay for the next week, and you had better be in the office in the next hour. The only reason you¡¯re not fired is that you are, technically, the Art Director, and that means you¡¯re salary.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    ¡°Juny, do you have some way of sending him my new credentials?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Who- wait, what?¡± I had no idea what she¡¯d sent him, but I assumed it got the point across.

    ¡°Yeah, I have better things to do now. And let¡¯s not pretend my job isn¡¯t so asinine that you can do it yourself. I might come give you a visit when I¡¯m done with the Antithesis here, though. Maybe you should think very carefully about how well you treat your employees until then.¡±

    I hung up before he could reply. Having done that to two different assholes now, I realized I kind of enjoyed doing it.

    ¡°How nice of you to offer to visit your former boss!¡±

    ¡°Juny, I was threatening him.¡±

    ¡°Oh my! What for?¡±

    ¡°Eh, I just wanted him to think about how he treats people, I¡¯m not actually gonna do it.¡± I stood there for a moment considering what to do next. I¡¯d eaten enough of my lunch that I wasn¡¯t feeling the need to rush back to the mess hall, and it wouldn¡¯t be good to get caught up in anything I couldn¡¯t drop at a moment¡¯s notice.

    I could work on designing some more armor and weapons, but after a bit of thought, I realized there was something more important I could do.

    ¡°Juny, can you direct me to Alana¡¯s current location, assuming she¡¯s not busy?¡±

    ¡°I will ask Dylta.¡± After less than a second¡¯s pause, she continued. ¡°Dylta has authorized the sharing of Alana¡¯s location. She has just finished a briefing and will wait for you in the meeting room.¡±

    Juny gave me a waypoint, and I followed it back to the meeting room I¡¯d visited this morning. Alana was at a table, still geared up, snacking on a ration bar when I arrived.

    ¡°Ah, Erica. Good thinking with that hive. Hadn¡¯t even occurred to me to cause that much collateral damage. Even though I got promoted to samurai, I was still thinking like a merc, but I suppose I don¡¯t need to care about the corpos¡¯ bottom line anymore,¡± she said with a self-deprecating head shake and wry smile.

    ¡°Glad you and Haley appreciated it. Thompson wasn¡¯t so pleased,¡± I replied with a note of humor.

    ¡°You met Specialist Brown? Yeah, she would love that. As far as Thompson goes, that¡¯s just his normal state of being. Anyway, you wanted to talk about something?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I was hoping to discuss scheduling some time tonight for upgrades. I don¡¯t know if you plan to modify your own body, but I¡¯d like to buy some upgrades for myself, and they¡¯ll put me out of commission while they¡¯re installing. Should we each take a sort of ¡®on call¡¯ shift overnight just in case?¡±

    Alana nodded, taking a moment to think it over.

    ¡°That would probably be wise. I wasn¡¯t planning on it, but some additional cybernetics wouldn¡¯t hurt. Are you going the organic or cybernetic route? I think the latter is faster.¡±

    ¡°Organic. I¡¯d rather be more of a super soldier rather than the Million Dollar Woman, personally. You already have some cybernetics, though?¡±

    Rather than answering, she wiggled the fingers of one hand in the air, obliquely confirming the rumor I¡¯d heard about how she earned her metaphorical katanas.

    ¡°As Specialist Brown keeps reminding me, you¡¯re supposed to throw the grenade. Cybernetics only take as long as you need to remove the original and attach the replacement, so how long will you need?¡±

    ¡°About four hours should be enough!¡± Juny chimed in from the side, startling Alana, who raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Was that your AI?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, figured I¡¯d look less crazy if she spoke out loud.¡±

    ¡°Huh. Not that I have much experience on the matter, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever heard a samurai¡¯s AI speak in the open like that before. Anyway, four hours should be fine. Just have your AI ping Dylta when you¡¯re about to start.¡±

    ¡°Will do.¡± A moment of silence passed. Alana took the opportunity to polish off her ration bar, which might well be the only food she planned to eat for lunch. ¡°Out of curiosity, what¡¯s up with the squad thing? I¡¯ve never heard of a samurai outfitting an entire squad before, seems like it would be expensive with not a lot of pay back.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re my people, so I¡¯m not going to abandon them just because I¡¯m a samurai now. And I may only get something like ten percent of the value of each kill, but every one of them is a specialist in their own field- Specialist Brown alone is worth her weight in C4; I¡¯ve been getting way more points back than I spend on her relatively cheap conventional explosives.¡±

    I noted that she seemed rather proud when speaking about them. She seemed like she was a born commanding officer.

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t they need to kill at least ten Model Threes for every magazine they get to break even on bullets alone?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a bit of a loophole there. You still get points if you buy the weapon but source the ammunition elsewhere. That way there¡¯s an upfront cost, but no ongoing charges. So I bought a small, portable ammo press, and I convert standard rounds from the armory into the specialized rounds their weapon use.¡± She was definitely proud of that exploit. ¡°Once the gun is paid for, it¡¯s all profit from there.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m surprised the Protectors left such an obviously abusable backdoor in the scoring system,¡± I commented, impressed and considering how I could make use of that idea myself. I went through magazines pretty fast in the field, but if I had some way to transport the spares¡­

    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s intentional!¡± Juny chipped in. ¡°Part of the role of a Vanguard is to gradually uplift their species with the technology they purchase, and this encourages sharing!¡±

    ¡°Dylta only said it was allowed, but he tends to only answer the exact question I ask,¡± Alana said with a shrug. I chuckled at that.

    ¡°I have the opposite problem. Juny loves a chance to dump exposition on me, though she has a tendency not to give me all my options if I don¡¯t at least ask about a subject.¡± I gave Juny some side eye at that, and she changed the color of her Eyebot to imply blushing. Dork.

    Alana was about to say something, but I got an alert of a call coming in and held up my hand.

    ¡°Erica, this is Nguyen. I just received notice of an apartment building attacked by Antithesis that went unnoticed earlier. Lieutenant Colonel Radcliffe let us know about the masks, and we¡¯re in the middle of arranging to have off-duty staff equipped with them and distributing them to on-duty troops, so we don¡¯t have a free unit. Can you fill in?¡±

    So much for my break.

    ¡°Where do I need to go?¡±

 Chapter Twenty Four

    "Take a bite out of the alien menace today with Antithesis Crunch, the only breakfast cereal shaped like real Antithesis!"

    -Cereal advertisement

    <hr>

    We arrived to find an apartment building with the front doors shattered, but no signs of Antithesis or humans beyond that. I entered cautiously, noting that the overhead lights had been broken by the intruders, and flipped my vision over to low-light. There were no windows in the halls, as the first floor seemed to be a ring of apartments along the outer edge of the building surrounding a core of even more apartments on the inside, with the hallway sandwiched between them.

    I had intended to do this slowly and cautiously, knowing the danger of fighting the Antithesis in close quarters and darkness by now, but a scream from my left put paid to that idea. I shot down the left hand hallway and turned the corner, barely making out the broken body of a man next to an open doorway before a Model Three collided with me at speed.

    In my armor I was heavy, but I was already off balance from turning the corner and the Model Three had momentum going for it. I stumbled back, colliding with the wall and smashing through a layer of drywall to embed myself in it. The Model Three clung to me the whole way, and as I came to a stop, its jaws clamped shut over my helmet.

    There was a brief moment of panic before I remembered that my armor was rated for spinach monster teeth. As I¡¯m not an idiot, I had entered the building with one of my SMGs already in hand; I raised it towards the alien and opened fire, and the rail accelerated rounds killed it instantly¡­and continued on, blowing through the wall of what I assumed was the dead man¡¯s apartment.

    ¡°Shit, I didn¡¯t think about that. Juny, can I turn off the rails?¡± I asked as I shoved the Three off of myself.

    ¡°Of course! This model comes with a toggle switch right here,¡± she replied, highlighting what I had assumed was a safety. I flicked it, and the lights on the gun went out.

    I didn¡¯t feel anything else moving, so I began to move forward, intent on searching for the other Antithesis, only to find my vision obscured a moment later. I reached for whatever had draped itself over my face with my off hand, but before I could pull it off, I felt numerous impacts across my body, with most of them pinging harmlessly off the plating.

    One didn¡¯t. Pain shot through my left arm as something sliced right through the under layer, at which point I realized I was probably dealing with a Model Nine. My arm dropped uselessly, and I felt the suit contract around the wound to stop the bleeding even as I raised my right arm, gun in hand, and pressed it against the Nine.

    I was taking a risk here. The Nine¡¯s thin body was too close to my own to expect I could fire without hitting myself in the process, but I was pretty sure the Class I composites it was composed of could handle a few 9mm rounds. I pulled the trigger and shredded the Model Nine in an instant, bullets pinging off my armor as harmlessly as I had hoped.

    ¡°Juny, you said those things are invisible to sensors, right? Meaning cameras can detect them?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡±

    ¡°Keep an eye out for them and highlight them for me. We aren¡¯t in total darkness this time; I¡¯m assuming you can see them on low-light vision.¡±

    ¡°Adding Model Nine filter now!¡±

    My vision blinked for a fraction of a second, and then the hallway moved.

    ¡°Oh, fuck my life.¡±

    I didn¡¯t have time to heal my injury, and I was really wishing I¡¯d had time earlier for that nanite implant, but hopes and wishes would get me nowhere. Letting my suit reload my SMG, I stood otherwise still, masking the fact that I knew the Model Nine swarm was there.

    ¡°Give me a grenade, armed, that won¡¯t detonate if I kick it. Three second timer. Floor directly in front of my left foot, no box.¡±

    New Purchase: Are Grenades a Sportsball?

    Points reduced to... 3,561

    Renaming items for comedic effect had to be a hobby for Samurai AIs, I swear.

    The instant the explosive materialized I shifted my foot, punting the grenade forward with no wind up. It rolled and bounced down the hall, and served as a trigger for the resumption of hostilities. I opened fire on the closest Model Nine before the grenade even detonated, and then a second later, the hallway lit up like midday as lightning arced towards the remaining Antithesis.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    Jagged bolts of white zapped the wall-clinging vine creatures, burning them with the power of Zeus. The closest of them dropped to the ground after convulsing wildly, curling up as smoke wafted from their charred corpses. Those further away were struck with less potent arcs, the closest ones having attracted the bulk of the energy, but were noticeably slowed from the damage to whatever passed for their nerves.

    I aimed first at the ones nearest to me that still moved, clearing them up with a few sprays of bullets before the faster, uninjured ones from the very end of the hall could reach me. They moved more rapidly than I expected, though, and when I found myself moving to reload, they were already upon me.

    The vanguard Model Nine launched itself from wall to wall, an impossible target while in transit, but its last jump was predictable: directly towards me. My good arm lashed out, and the Model Nine took the bait. Its bladed limbs tore into the ¡®soft¡¯ spaces around my hand first, not realizing that my actual hand was somewhere inside the forearm of my armor. Instead of removing my hand at the wrist, the Model Nine found itself cursed by its own momentum, impaling itself on my arm as its weapons failed to find purchase.

    I shook the body loose and retrieved my now-loaded gun, catching the next Model Nine as it landed from a jump. Behind it were three more, however, and I couldn¡¯t kill them all before they reached me. Thinking fast, I ducked around the corner, backing up towards the entrance as I brought my weapon to bear.

    My change in position forced the Model Nines to either make an additional jump or climb around the corner. The first made the jump and I flicked the barrel of my SMG in its direction, pulling the trigger and spraying it with bullets. Before it hit the floor the second whipped around the corner, clinging to the walls, but the turn slowed it down enough that it had hardly come into view before I shot it.

    The third was conspicuously missing.

    I had to make a choice that depended entirely on how smart I thought Antithesis were. It could be waiting for me to turn the corner in search for it. It might also be psyching me out, trying to trick me into thinking it was looping around to hit me from behind. And finally, it could actually be looping around to hit me from behind.

    Okay, it was definitely that last one. Antithesis were cunning, sure, but probably not ¡®reverse psychology¡¯ cunning, not at this tier.

    With that thought in mind I spun around, catching the third Model Nine dead to rights as it silently bounded out from the other end of the hallway. One final burst put it down, and I checked my final tally.

    Points Gained: 410

    New Total: 3,971

    Good progress towards making back what I spent on medical supplies, although I had to immediately subtract twenty to repair my arm.

    ¡°Kind of wishing I had that nanite reservoir right about now.¡±

    ¡°It could be installed immediately by placing it directly inside you for a few extra points! You would need to remain still while it integrates, though.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll buy it before bed. Wait, didn¡¯t I need a surgical suite for that?¡±

    ¡°That was for the more extensive enhancements, such as the skin replacement!¡±

    ¡°Oh, that makes sense.¡± I sucked in a canister of nanites, hardly feeling the pain it caused over the throbbing of my crippled arm. ¡°Hey, can your sensors detect any other people in here?¡±

    ¡°Scanning. No humans detected! Only a single body, as well! Records show this building was evacuated this morning!¡±

    ¡°Huh, weird. Wonder what that guy was doing here, then. Did he come back for something? Maybe he was a looter. Though, heck, I guess he might be the one that called in the Antithesis sighting.¡±

    ¡°You could ask him!¡±

    ¡°Juny, I¡¯m not a medium. I can¡¯t talk to ghosts.¡±

    ¡°A medium what?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re doing that on purpose.¡±

    ¡°Doing what on purpose?¡±

    I sighed. As usual her tone was cheery to a fault and betrayed no sign of sarcasm. It remained up in the air whether she was messing with me or lightening the mood, but my arm was feeling better by the time we finished. I flexed my hand experimentally.

    ¡°Well, we already know your sensors can¡¯t pick up the Nines unless you point a camera at them, and if they heard any of that, they¡¯re probably disguising themselves by now. Guess we¡¯re just going to have to check the building room by room. Juny, go dark and scout ahead. Give me a feed so I can see what you do.¡±

    Only my low-light vision filter allowed me to see Juny¡¯s Eyebot float up the stairs, retracting its antennae to minimize its profile. I followed behind, far enough back that I wouldn¡¯t be turning any corners until I had a visual first. Sure enough, a Model Three was waiting to pounce just around the landing, halfway up the stairs, and I filled it with a quick burst from an SMG the moment I turned the corner.

    I ducked back around, half expecting more to follow, but nothing happened. As Juny reached the top and turned from side to side, catching both sides of the hallway with her camera, I picked my way over the dead Model Three. There didn¡¯t seem to be anything else around, but I was far too paranoid by now to make any assumptions.

    ¡°Go ahead and loop around. I¡¯ll stay here and watch the other direction.¡±

    The Eyebot bobbed up and down as if nodding and scooted off to the right. I kept an eye on the feed while watching the other direction. Unlike the first floor, the doors here were all closed, but I was unsure whether that really meant anything. The Antithesis might have rushed to the first floor when they detected that man, not have reached this floor at all, or¡­hell, the doors could be Model Nines for all I knew.

    Juny seemed to be aware of the possibility at least, as she scrutinized each door carefully, giving me time to do the same over the feed. They all seemed normal so far, but I sure wasn¡¯t about to assume I was off-base after only checking a few. Did that mean I would check every damn door in the building? Probably. Model Nines are the absolute worst.

    My suspicions were proven correct after Juny had completed nearly the entire circuit, stopping just two doors away in the direction I was facing, and I noticed something off about the door she was now looking at. I decided after a few moments that something was wrong about the door¡¯s wood grain, and, deciding to err on the side of caution, riddled it with holes.

    As with all Antithesis, the Model Nine didn¡¯t scream or make any noise at all as it entered its death throes. The ¡®door¡¯ just came apart in a flurry of writhing limbs, collapsing to the floor while leaking fruit juice.

    ¡°I hate these things so much. This is going to take an eternity.¡±

 Chapter Twenty Five (Alana Interlude)

    "Look, I see a doggo, I pet it."

    "That is a live Model Three."

    "What''s your point?"

    -Samurai Monster Rancher and The Maestro during the 2035 Raleigh Incursion

    <hr>

    While Erica cleared an apartment building in the safe zone, Alana was assembling her squad for their next sortie. She watched carefully as they collected their gear from the room she had claimed as their personal armory, checking their weapons, pocketing ammunition, and tightening straps.

    The weapons were all Samurai tech, but as she¡¯d told Erica, the ammunition was converted from standard rounds. Carrying the portable ammunition press was Specialist Huifang Lin¡¯s duty. She was the machine gunner for the squad¡¯s alpha team, an unnaturally huge woman of 6¡¯ 2¡± and with prodigious strength to match, allowing her to hump not only her squad automatic weapon, but also the press and numerous spare magazines.

    Specialists Silverton and Brown were her teammates. Alpha team was composed of Alana herself and the three most outstanding, uniquely talented individuals she had managed to claim, from Lin¡¯s abnormal strength to Silverton¡¯s preternatural aim as designated marksman and Brown¡¯s savant-level talents with explosives. They were Alana¡¯s primary source of firepower, with Silverton picking off higher tier models, Lin mowing down the small-fry, and Brown controlling the battlefield with precisely placed explosives.

    Typically the squad leader for a group this size would be a sergeant, but this was a specialist assault squad, specifically trained for assaulting Antithesis-held positions, rather than defending. While her first team looked like a typical rifle team, the second had a more unique composition.

    Bravo team¡¯s leader was Sergeant Terry Jackson, an experienced non-com equipped with an unassuming rifle several times more powerful than standard issue. His team included Specialists Rick Torres, Becca Cabot, and Cameron Fields, and if alpha team slew Antithesis, bravo team slew hives.

    Torres was outfitted with an enormously powerful shotgun specifically intended for taking down Model Thirteens in three shots; each slug was a penetrator that could bore a hole right through the metal clubs carried by a Thirteen and ruptured when making contact with the soft flesh of the main body, ensuring the destruction of each body¡¯s organs. Since the hives they targeted were always large enough to have one, if not more, Model Thirteen, this was essential for smooth progress.

    Cabot was tasked with lugging a miniaturized anti-armor rocket launcher, essentially the equivalent of taking a shoulder mounted anti-tank weapon and condensing it until it resembled an unassuming grenade launcher. Despite that appearance, it was capable of firing mini rockets that were a credible threat to even Antithesis Models in the 20 range. Unlike Torres¡¯ weapon, which was designed to only detonate under specific conditions, Cabot¡¯s rockets would simply explode on contact, directing a shaped charge into the target at point blank range for maximum penetration- making it unsuitable for killing Thirteen¡¯s, with their clubs-cum-shields, but ideal for more conventionally armored targets.

    The final member, Fields, was responsible for a hive-burning flamethrower, loaded with a high-temperature blend that was several times more potent than the normal fuel it was made from. Once all the Antithesis were dead, Fields moved in, spraying the hive with a sticky gel that burned white hot, leaving no bio-mass for the Antithesis to reabsorb. The weapon was just as effective against large groups, though some of the higher numbered Models were hardy enough to withstand it at the cost of crippling wounds.

    All three carried a light SMG as a sidearm for dealing with other targets, as their primary weapons were clearly overkill in that majority of circumstances. As with the rest of their armaments, the SMGs were from a Samurai catalogue and loaded with converted ammo that broke down Antithesis flesh to prevent new hives from forming.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    The squad¡¯s armaments placed them head and shoulders above the company¡¯s other assault squads, as evidenced by the total loss of Richter¡¯s team on day one. Equipped only for newborn hives, Richter and his people had had no answer for Model Thirteens, let alone other, more mobile Antithesis. Alana regretted the loss deeply, but Richter and been deployed the moment the crisis began, by their late commanding officer, at approximately the same time Alana was making room for a new hand.

    Richter had had the unfortunate luck of leading the on-call squad at the time, and had paid for Tavish¡¯s incompetence and corruption. Even now Alana wasn¡¯t sure what the man had thought a single rapid response team was going to do against so many interconnected hives infesting the abandoned outer town; if she had been in charge, Richter would have been deployed to clear out the groups that had breached the wall.

    But then, if she were in charge, there never would have been a hole in the wall covered up with tape and painted over in the first place.

    After checking each other¡¯s armor to make sure it was secured, McIntire Squad lined up in front of her, with bravo team¡¯s leader out front of his own fire team. Alana called them to attention out of habit, despite not technically being a member of Stalking Tigers PMC, let alone their squad leader any more, and the squad responded without question.

    ¡°At ease, soldiers. Hope you enjoyed your break because it¡¯s the last one you¡¯re getting until nightfall. Don¡¯t forget your ration bars- they¡¯re your dinner tonight.¡±

    ¡°Yes, mom!¡± shouted Torres, eliciting chuckles from the group. Normally Jackson might have scolded him, but since Alana¡¯s elevation to samurai, the squad had become a bit more casual towards the chain of command, which she had allowed as it seemed to improve morale. The fact they still took her orders so eagerly at all proved their loyalty.

    ¡°This time our target is a multi-story hive complex identified by Dylta as the source of a significant number of the enemy¡¯s Model Threes. If we burn it out, we reduce the pressure on the frontlines. Dylta?¡±

    Dylta projected a schematic of the structure in question on the screen behind her. The floors containing the hive were highlighted in red, and beside the schematic was a high-res image taken by a drone, showing the interior. The bottom five floors in their entirety were covered in Antithesis flesh, with a hole opened in the middle stretching from the ground to the top. Vines, leaves, and pods covered every visible inch, and some of the latter could be seen disgorging Model Threes even in the picture.

    ¡°We¡¯ll be inserting from the roof and making our way to the sixth floor, where first set up a fortified position, and then we¡¯ll open up a hole and Specialist Brown will drop a payload into the middle of the nest to soften them up. That should cause them to send everything our way, so we¡¯ll let them run right into our defenses while Fields starts bathing the hive in fire from above. Brown?¡±

    The dark-skinned Specialist dropped her hand, having been given the floor. ¡°Permission to blow the building up, ma¡¯am?¡± Alana wasn¡¯t surprised by the question; the explosives expert hadn¡¯t stopped talking about Erica¡¯s stunt since she witnessed it from the air.

    ¡°Denied. There¡¯s no telling how many Model Threes could deploy in the time it takes us to set up, exfil, and detonate. We want to draw them towards us and clean them up while we burn down their hive, not just crush the hive under a mountain of rubble.¡±

    That said, Alana couldn¡¯t deny the appeal of the idea. It was likely a lot more efficient in terms of points, considering how few she¡¯d need to expend compared to the earnings. Sadly, points weren¡¯t the only goal here, and she would still be making a killing even while getting reduced points. Not that she was greedy for them, but she did need points to continue buying tank shells, which were too large for the press, medical supplies, and upgraded gear.

    Brown didn¡¯t push the point, but Alana could tell she was still itching to demolish a skyscraper by her subtle fidgeting. Maybe if they found a more dangerous hive with numerous larger models present that would be difficult to kill all at once, she¡¯d consider it. She kept that to herself, though. Best not get the woman¡¯s hopes up.

    ¡°Do we have intel on any other models this hive is producing?¡± asked Jackson.

    ¡°Limited, but yes. Model Ones have been sighted, as well as Models Four through Six. Nines are a crapshoot, but this isn¡¯t the typical environment for them. We¡¯ll just have to keep an eye out for those. Nothing in the teens except Thirteens, but we may see another Eleven on the way in. Best to assume there are going to be surprises though; Dylta wasn¡¯t able to insert a drone into the deepest section of the hive.¡±

    Jackson nodded, satisfied with the answer. He likely expected as much, but wanted it clarified for the rest of the squad. When no further questions came, Alana decided to wrap up the briefing and make for the gunship. She and the squad had made numerous insertions over the past couple of days, so they hardly needed to ask about their individual roles by now.

    ¡°Alright, if that¡¯s all, then let¡¯s get to the gunship. Move out.¡±

 Chapter Twenty Six

    "I hereby take authority over the Antithesis scourge, which have no right to our planet or anywhere, and we hit that swarm into the SUN!"

    -Perr Pat, televangelist, shortly before her death in 2025

    <hr>

    When I finally emerged on the roof of the apartment building, I released a sigh of relief. I mean, I knew exactly how many floors were left the entire time, but there nothing quite like reaching the finish line to make you like an ordeal was over with. Clearing the building had been like exactly the type of game I don¡¯t like: jump scares, occasional bodies, and monsters in unusual and creative places.

    It was hard to say why so goddamn many Model Nines had hidden themselves in this one fucking building- Juny had checked, and no other building had been reported as having so many- but the most simple explanation was just that they were the most malicious little fucks to ever hide and seek, and this one happened to have had its power lines cut off at some point. There¡¯d been a smattering of other models, too, but only in ones and twos.

    The real problem, of course, was the sheer number of apartments I¡¯d needed to check. After the second floor I realized I should have checked the actual apartments as well, and I had to go back down and start over from scratch. I left an Eyebot on the first floor by the door, just in case, but it hadn¡¯t caught anything trying to escape. With sensors unreliable, I searched every goddamn room in that building over the course of hours, and despite the raw number of Antithesis feeling sizable at a few dozen, they¡¯d been so spread out that I encountered one only a couple times per floor.

    Some floors were entirely empty, or at least I sure hoped they were.

    It was boring. It was tedious. It was, nonetheless, dangerous. It still had to be done, though, so I¡¯d sucked it up and kept going. It was unfortunate I couldn¡¯t burn the accursed rectangular offshoot of hell to the ground out of sheer unrelenting spite, but I was pretty sure it was bad form to cause billions of dollars in property damage to get revenge on an inanimate object.

    ¡°Juny, call the car up here, please,¡± I said, the words coming out with an unsurprising lack of energy. Juny, changing her color scheme back to normal, perked up.

    ¡°Oh? Did you figure out where they¡¯re most likely sending you next?¡± she asked, making me wonder if she knew already.

    ¡°No, but walking up all those stairs sucked, and I¡¯ll be damned if I walk back down them.¡±

    ¡°You could always jump!¡±

    ¡°Is your goal to drive me stark raving mad by the end of the week?¡±

    The hovercar arrived, but Juny didn¡¯t answer the question. I asked again as I climbed in.

    ¡°¡­Juny?¡±

    Still no answer. She just floated there. Menacingly. I decided some questions are better left unanswered, anyway.

    ¡°Whatever, just me a line to Nguyen, please.¡±

    A dial tone I recognized from old television shows played as I awaited an answer. He took a surprisingly long time to pick up, all things considered, but a couple of minutes later he took the call. While I waited, I glanced out at the wall, finding that the attacks had resumed in my absence, although they were coming only in drips and drabs. Probably just keeping people busy.

    ¡°Sai- ah, Erica, was there something you needed?¡± he asked, again barely stopping himself from saying one word too many.

    ¡°I¡¯m finally finished with that building. Got anything else for me?¡±

    ¡°Oh, thank the Protectors. A large group of Model Threes was just called in on the right flank, and we¡¯ve already redeployed as many as we can spare. Can you handle them?¡±

    ¡°Sure, is that your right or mine?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know which direction you¡¯re facing.¡±

    ¡°¡­right. Sorry, it¡¯s been a long day. I¡¯m sure Juny¡¯s figured it out already, so consider it handled.¡±

    ¡°Thanks, and good luck.¡±

    ¡°Juny, take us outside the wall, I want to hit them from the side.¡±

    I probably didn¡¯t need luck to handle Model Threes, but he sounded pretty desperate, so maybe there were just that many of them. Juny turned the car towards the flank and gunned it a bit harder than I liked, and it wasn¡¯t long before we were outside the wall, setting down far within the tree line. Branches snapped and fractured as several tons of car fell through them.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    As I stepped out, my motion tracker immediately started throwing a wall of positives at me, though I really didn¡¯t needs its help to spot the mob. We had set down northwest of the northwestern most corner of the wall and outside of Boone entirely, in order to be on the opposite side of the Antithesis. We were actually far enough towards their territory to avoid friendly fire, as I would be shooting in the direction of the killing zone abutting the longest section of the wall, while they were shooting north from a position somewhere to my east.

    I¡¯d made the decision on the fly, but there was a logic to it. On the wall I was just one gun among many, and that just didn¡¯t feel like my style. Anyone could do that. I was, as a samurai, in a position to outmaneuver the Antithesis and had the capacity to survive behind their lines, taking pressure off the defenders, so that¡¯s exactly what I¡¯d done.

    Stepping past some trees and into sight of the Antithesis, I felt myself projecting an image of stampeding wildebeests onto the Model Threes. It felt like the entire volume of Threes attacking the wall this morning had been funneled into this one attack, even if I knew that simply wasn¡¯t possible, given that they were dedicating the resources to maintain pressure on the other fronts as well.

    I had a very target rich environment for myself, all the same.

    Having numbers didn¡¯t do much to prevent them being caught flat-footed when I opened fire. Eager to test out my new implant, I started off with one SMG, and when it was down to 75% capacity, I added the other, staggering my fire to keep from being caught while reloading.

    Using both hands to fire via the Bonus Brain implant was an experience that was hard to put into words. It felt simultaneously like I was seeing double and not; my vision remained exactly the same, yet my perception seemed to split in two. I wasn¡¯t ambidextrous, but I was pretty sure this was not what that would feel like. Even with two reticles on my HUD, I could track both and accurately determine when each had settled over a target.

    While it wasn¡¯t perfect, SMGs weren¡¯t precision weapons anyway. Every trigger pull put a handful of bullets through some sorry Model Three, its closest buddy, and then the three spinach-fuckers behind them for good measure. I was tempted to simply hold down the trigger and watch them transform into a sickly green mist, but that would waste too much ammunition to be worth it, even if I¡¯d clear a large swath of the horde in the process.

    The Antithesis weren¡¯t a hive mind, from what I¡¯d been told, and it showed in the confused reaction my sudden attack received. They were unable to respond as a single unit, with individual Model Threes being forced to make a snap decision on whether to continue towards their target, perhaps knowing instinctually that to do otherwise would destroy their chances of overwhelming the defenders, or to turn towards me, the more immediate threat.

    Rather than turning the river of alien flesh towards me and inundating me with its volume, some continued on, others turned, and a small number froze, their literal pea-brains unable to cope. That was fortunate. I could probably break out the HMG if I needed to, but I would still be hard pressed to keep up with that many of them. With a hovercar not far behind me I wasn¡¯t worried about being overrun, but I could certainly be chased off if enough of them came at me.

    Instead, the Antithesis were divided between myself and the defenders, unable to overcome either. I allowed some to escape in order to focus on the ones coming at me and the significant number that were still clustered, having yet to come into my firing arc. As one gun ran out of ammo, I would return it to my thigh to reload, bringing it to bear again before the other ran dry. I found that my new implant helped even with that, making it easier to coordinate the hand-off and get my weapons into the right place for reloading.

    Dozens upon dozens of Model Threes went up in paste as the minutes passed, until finally the vast cooperative organism that was the Antithesis concluded this attack had failed and the attack petered out. Or maybe they just ran out of bodies to throw at the problem. I don¡¯t know how rutabagas think. To be honest, it didn¡¯t feel like much of an accomplishment at this point. They were ¡®just¡¯ Model Threes, the fodder of Antithesis-kind.

    ¡°Is it just me, or is it weird how many Model Threes they keep sending out? They have got to know this isn¡¯t working by now, but I haven¡¯t seen many of those double digits Alana bought tank shells for.¡±

    ¡°I do have footage of them being killed by tanks! All sightings have been along the front wall, you may just be lucky!¡±

    I snorted at that, dismissing the possibility immediately. Lady Luck had stopped answering my calls a while ago.

    ¡°Chalking it up to luck doesn¡¯t sit right with me. How much of their forces are usually Model Threes this far into an attack?¡± I asked, trying to sus out what their ineffable strategy was. They did seem to be trying new things frequently, but always while employing light units.

    ¡°Unfortunately, it is difficult to make an assessment by comparing to past incursions, as stealth hives often act in unique ways. Alana has been striking their larger hives, so it is entirely possible the bulk of them have been lost defending them, though! Would you like me to ask her AI how many they have encountered?¡±

    ¡°No, that¡¯s alright. I just can¡¯t shake the feeling we¡¯re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Think I should go help them clean up the stragglers?¡±

    ¡°You could! You will be happy to know, though, that the defenders appear to have the situation under control!¡±

    After acknowledging Juny¡¯s statement, I spent the next few minutes thinking while I waited for my next call. Eventually the gunshots to my left petered out. Moments later I got a call, which was pretty much what I was expecting by now.

    ¡°Good work, Erica! Looks like they¡¯re shifting their focus back to the center now; are you able to help out?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll get right on it. Not going to join your guys on the walls, though¡­I think I have a better idea on how to handle them.¡±

    It was perhaps down to his apparent Samurai worship that Nguyen didn¡¯t question what I was going to do instead. I looked towards the city, thinking back to the moments their attacks had died down the most, as well as the occasional references to Alana¡¯s work behind their lines I¡¯d heard.

    The Antithesis always reacted to counterattacks to the detriment of their assaults. They were reactive, not proactive. Even their assaults felt almost like they were going down a list of tactics rather than deliberately probing for weaknesses. Like water seeking the path of least resistance, correcting its flow by following a path laid out for it, not by creating its own.

    I could use that.

    ¡°Hey Juny, I need a jump pack.¡±

 Chapter Twenty Seven

    "Zeus Energy is reporting a 30% reduction in maintenance costs after implementing their unshielded power cable solution, which leaves power lines exposed in order to deliver a shock to anything that attempts to damage them. In other news, Hester''s Recycling Solutions is reporting a net reduction in copper production..."

    -East Coast News Network, 2045

    <hr>

    New Purchase: Double Jump 5000

    Points Reduced to¡­5,446

    I looked down at the jump pack I¡¯d purchased from my Class I Auxiliary Armor Utilities catalogue with one question on my mind.

    ¡°What¡¯s the 5000 for, anyway?¡±

    ¡°Marketing!¡±

    I sighed heavily at the reminder that capitalism was universal and took a knee, removing the pack from its box. Calling it a jetpack would be something of an exaggeration, hence the term ¡®jump pack¡¯. If I jumped, the pack would fire off a burst less than a second long, launching me higher than I could get with muscle power. Since my current model of Dainsleif could only handle one add-on, though, Juny was going to be controlling the timing. If I was going to be choosing between jumping higher and not going splat, I was sticking with the grav-chute.

    Mounting it in place was going to require shuffling my gear a bit, though. First I had to take my shotgun off my back and magnetize it to my waist, where it sat a bit awkwardly. Then I realized putting it right below the jump pack¡¯s nozzles was a stupid idea and relocated to the highest point on my back I could manage. Which was about when I realized I didn¡¯t have the flexibility to put the pack on in the suit to begin with and had to ask for help.

    ¡°Juny¡­any chance you can help me put the pack on so I don¡¯t need to get out of my armor?¡± I asked, feeling defeated. With her usual declaration of ¡®Of course!¡¯ the AI manipulated her Eyebot closer to the pack, extending a manipulator arm from some hidden port on the underside. I had to wonder how many tertiary functions she¡¯d snuck into it just so she could play around.

    When it was finally in place, I considered my next course of action. I had three options if I wanted to follow the plan I had in mind. The first was to get back in the hovercar and get dropped off on the top of the nearest building in the dead zone, but then I¡¯d have to descend the stairs. Seemed a bit extra given I was maybe a hundred meters away at most.

    The second was to approach on foot and emerge from the trees as close to the building as possible. They wouldn¡¯t see me coming, but I wouldn¡¯t be able to see ahead either. I could send Juny ahead to scout, but her camouflage wasn¡¯t built for such a complex environment, so she¡¯d probably either get spotted from above for not matching the tree canopies or spotted from below for not matching the sky.

    My third and final option was to approach from the edge of the forest, giving me a line of sight on the building from further away, but letting them spot me ahead of time. Unlike the Eyebot, my armor had no camouflage at all, and the Antithesis had devoured the majority of the underbrush this close to the city, so there was no masking the approach this way.

    Ultimately deciding the second option was safest, given Juny¡¯s sensors, I set off through the woods, keeping as many trees between myself and the city as possible. I was moving through a mix of deciduous and pine trees, and the latter provided great cover even at ground level. Then when I was in the right spot, I turned back towards the city and moved closer, doing my best to keep a close eye on anything that could hide Antithesis without jumping at every shadow.

    When I was almost there, I picked a tree with a thick trunk, flanked by pines, and advanced with it between myself and the building that was my goal- the second skyscraper from the kill zone, where I could engage the Antithesis from above without being at risk of friendly fire. Creeping up to the tree, I put a shoulder to it and peered out from cover carefully, giving me a nice view of the Antithesis¡¯s unguarded flank.

    Which was in fact guarded by at least two Model Sixes, numerous Threes, and a dozen Fives at a minimum. I immediately pulled back behind the tree and hissed a query at Juny.

    ¡°How did you not detect those?¡± But Juny just tilted her bot as a human would their head, indicating confusion.

    ¡°Detect what?¡±

    I barely had time to think the words ¡®Model Nines¡¯ before something snapped above me, and I crouched out of reflex, moving to cover my head against what my monkey brain assumed was a falling branch. It wasn¡¯t. I felt several impacts on my head and shoulders and heard the screech of organic blades on metal, and then my suit constricted at both shoulders as a response to bleeding, informing me of wounds I hadn¡¯t even felt from blades sharp as obsidian.

    As I stood up, catching a glimpse of a Model Nine disappearing back into the canopy where it had been disguised as a branch, another round of hits struck me in the side, plastering me against the tree momentarily. I bounced off, and so did the Model Four that had slammed me with every tentacle it had, using its entire body weight to move my heavy suit so much. I was still reeling from the ambush when another Model Four¡¯s tentacles shot out of a nearby pine tree, but I was able to backpedal out of range in time to avoid the attack.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    This wasn¡¯t a situation with a right option, though, as I found out when Model Fives began pelting my position with spines just as I emerged from cover. Their aim wasn¡¯t stellar at the current distance, but I saw Model Threes surging forward two dozen meters past me, and could only assume another group was doing the same to flank me on the other side.

    First things first, I shot the closest Model Four as I planted a foot behind me hard and pushed off it, returning to cover with only a couple of dinged spots on my armor. Now that I knew the pine tree to on the other side of my cover was occupied, I raked it from top to bottom, filling the air with wood chips and pine needles to keep the other Model Four company on its way to the ground.

    I didn¡¯t have time to do the same for the Model Nine I knew was still above me, looking for a chance to strike- not with Model Threes moving to surround me and restrain my while I was pinned down by Fives. Instead I recalled something I read once that said the best way to fight back against an ambush was a counterattack and yelled for a smoke grenade, one SMG already being slapped into place on my thigh.

    The grenade materialized into my hand as I lost five points, and I immediately hit the helpful red button and hurled it past the tree, following it up with my body the instant it filled the air with an impenetrable shroud. A thump behind me told me I was just in time to avoid a follow up attack from the Model Nine.

    ¡°Wire frame!¡± I shouted, figuring Juny would be able to tell what I meant. Sure enough, a wire frame representation of the ground and building ahead popped into existence, superimposed on the smoke filling my view. None of the Antithesis were visible, but that wasn¡¯t a surprise, as they were definitely being masked by the scales Juny had told me Model Nines shed a few hours ago.

    Model Five spines speared the ground all around me as I ran, but the weak points in my armor were hard to aim at while I was in motion, much less when I was moving through an obscuring cloud of smoke. I snapped a few that had fallen into my path just by colliding with them, my mass and the toughness of my armor coming out on top over the natural weapons.

    When I was close to the building I jumped and triggered my grav-chute, reducing my effective mass and buying me a few more feet of height before the Double Jump 5000 kicked on. I heard an explosive clap of sound behind me and felt a kick against my shoulder, and then I was soaring through the air, wisps of smoke trailing behind me as I emerged from the cloud. I had no control over my trajectory at this point, but I had timed it mostly right, placing myself on course for a second story window.

    The place where a floor to ceiling window used to be, that is. The Antithesis had prepared the location by shattering the windows on this side, giving half a dozen Model Fives a height advantage by placing them there with their view unobstructed by glass. They were already turning when I hit the ground hard, stumbling because the arc of my jump had ended up a bit higher than I would have liked.

    My motion tracker caught something pass over me in that instant, although I couldn¡¯t discern whether it would have struck armor or bodysuit without the stumble. I knew stopping here would just leave me vulnerable and caught myself with one foot, the Dainsleif¡¯s weight proving enough to crack tile, then followed that stomp up by running forward into the room beyond.

    This floor seemed to be an employee cafeteria or something, and the kitchen would have made great cover if it weren¡¯t on the other side of the floor entirely. I arced to my left instead, the change in direction causing several thrown spines to go wide, and rushed down the Model Five furthest to that side. Running and gunning was still more than I could manage all at once, but I pulled the trigger anyway, filling the floor, ceiling, and the empty space once occupied with glass with bullets. At least a couple of them struck home by the time my magazine was dry, dropping one Model Five to the floor as green goop leaked from its corpse.

    The dead alien made for good cover from the rest. I skidded to a stop, accompanied by the screech of thin rubber soles on tile, and ducked behind the body, trading my empty weapon for the filled one. Leaning out of cover, I shot at the next Model Five in line as the others moved to clear their lines of fire. A stray shot blew one of its legs out from under it as another provided a thorough lobotomy, and it toppled over, blocking the next one in line for a moment longer as a result.

    Clearing the remaining four out was a simple matter of killing them as they came around the bodies of their fellows. They just couldn¡¯t whip their spines at me faster than a bullet could reach them, and coordinating their movements didn¡¯t help them much this time.

    Finally having a brief moment of respite, I backed away from the windows the Fives on the ground were already starting to launch spines through. That was hands down the most coordinated attack by Antithesis I¡¯d experienced. Their timing was worlds better than the botched flanking attempt I¡¯d survived in the tunnels, and it made me wonder if the Model Three horde I¡¯d dismissed as confused was actually an attempt to make me lower my guard and keep me distracted while they prepared this.

    I couldn¡¯t be sure though, as there were too many rogue variables in the mix. They couldn¡¯t know where I would be headed, or be sure I wouldn¡¯t get back in the hover car. Had the Antithesis spread out across this area, preparing multiple ambushes just in case? Did they track me with Model Ones and Nines and rush into position at quickly as possible? It was even possible the group I was fighting now had been held back from the earlier assault specifically to be used against me instead, rather than engaging me at a disadvantage.

    In the end, what it all boiled down to was that I¡¯d just gotten outsmarted by a head of broccoli, which I wasn¡¯t going to be living down any time soon. But I didn¡¯t have time to dwell, as they weren¡¯t going to give up now, and there were surely a lot more where these few I¡¯d killed had come from. They were going to follow me into the building, but after I killed them, maybe I could figure out how they were coordinating and kill that too.

 Chapter Twenty Eight

    "The Treant Program was the first and last attempt at creating super soldiers using Antithesis DNA. The project was shuttered when the laboratory was transformed into a hive following the degeneration of the test subjects as a result of Antithesis gene insertions."

    -Wiki page on the Treant Program

    <hr>

    ¡°Alright Juny, keep an eye on the windows in case anything tries to climb up the walls, and sell me some mines that¡¯ll kill plants and plug the stairwell,¡± I instructed as I made for the stairs. I had both guns loaded and ready, and I was expecting the Model Threes I knew were out there to be arriving at any moment.

    ¡°How about the Pufferfish Bomb-Pumped Spike Trap?¡±

    ¡°Describe it.¡± As I hit the landing I caught sight of the first Model Three entering from the first floor. It took me a moment more to get into a good position to fire at it, and it managed to get halfway up the stairs before I filled it with bullets.

    ¡°It is a hemisphere-shaped mine full of telescoping spikes. When the charge detonates, the blast pressure forces the spikes to extend, skewering anything in range!¡±

    ¡°And the spikes make it hard to get past. Great. Give me three, already primed. Bottom of the stairs, middle of the landing, and top of the stairs.¡± I continued to butcher Model Threes as I spoke, and it wasn¡¯t long before they stopped appearing. It seemed¡­pitiful, for the level of coordination displayed so far. Buying time? ¡°Set them to go off from the top down, and only when at least two models is in range of each one.¡±

    New Purchase: Pufferfish Bomb-Pumped Spike Trap x3

    Points Reduced to¡­5,626

    With the mines placed, I hurried back up the stairs. I knew Juny wasn¡¯t going to set allow them to detonate with me in range, but I still didn¡¯t want to be anywhere near them. I crested the stairs to find the Model Fives I¡¯d ignored on my way in had leveraged their ursine frames to climb the trees and were almost high enough to start firing into the building.

    ¡°¡­did you not think those were relevant?¡± I asked Juny, who was literally facing the side of the building the Fives were on.

    ¡°They only came into sight moments before you returned. I would only have had time for half a sentence before you saw them yourself!¡± she explained with a smile in her tone.

    ¡°Eh, fair enough.¡± That said, they were a bit far away for me to hit with any accuracy, and I would be stupid to get closer and place myself in a position to be ambushed from the windows. Juny would have seen anything coming over the edge, but something could easily cling to the walls just below that. I considered whether I should purchase a weapon with a bit more accuracy at range, but it would have been a waste of points. I didn¡¯t have the experience or training to hit anything from this far away, and I was running out of places to attach weapons to anyway.

    ¡°Juny, call the hovercar,¡± I said as I jogged towards the kitchen counter and ducked behind it, providing some cover against the Model Five spines that were starting to embed themselves in the floor.

    ¡°It may suffer damage on the way in,¡± she said in reply, though she¡¯d probably already begun moving it and was just giving the warning to be safe.

    ¡°Don¡¯t care, need the HMG.¡±

    Amidst the thumps the signaled falling spines, I heard a peculiar sound- sort of a whumpf accompanied by shattering concrete and plaster. My points went up by 55 points, but I had to stifle my curiosity since the stairs were on the same wall as the counter I was hiding behind, so I couldn¡¯t see from here what the first Pufferfish had caught.

    I didn¡¯t have to wait much longer for the droning of a hovercar to appear over the sounds of the incoming spikes. It flew right in through the window, taking several hits in the process, and its hover mechanism died out, sending it screeching across the floor. When it finally came to a stop it nearly flipped over, only for one side to smack into the ceiling, causing it to fall back down on its belly.

    A part of me suspected that Juny did that for dramatic effect.

    I scurried out of cover and kept the hovercar between myself and the Fives outside. It was surprisingly intact despite the rough landing, and I remembered for the first time in a while that it was an armored hovercar. At the very least I was expecting to see one side with spikes protruding from it, but it seemed they had actually been deflected.

    Pulling the HMG from the passenger seat, I sidestepped around the front of the car and planted the heavy weapon on its tripod. Moments later it was loaded, courtesy of Juny, and I aimed at the first Model Five.

    In all honesty this was a colossal amount of overkill, but twenty rounds per second was about right for making sure I actually hit anything at over one hundred meters away.

    I raked my fire over their uneven line of javelin throwers three times before I finally managed to kill them all. Along with the tops of the trees they were in. And a few trees behind those. I was almost glad the forest was empty of animals, or else a lot of birds and squirrels probably would have lost their homes.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    Even as I¡¯d been annihilating their firing line the second and third Pufferfish mines had gone off, a fact of which I¡¯d only been aware of because of the point gain. I sure couldn¡¯t hear anything over the roar of the HMG. So far nothing had come from the stairs, so the definitely seem to have worked. Letting out a breath, I put the HMG back where I¡¯d gotten it and headed for the stairs.

    At the top of the staircase leading down to the first floor was a Model Six that barely even fit on the stairs, and probably wouldn¡¯t have had these been the emergency stairs. The Pufferfish it stepped on had gone off right up against its unarmored belly, and even coming from the inside, the spikes had actually failed to penetrate its thick plating on the top and sides. A number of them were still visible where they¡¯d been too low to strike its body or slipped between its legs, and these lower spikes went on to form a wall jutting out over the stairs, where a Model Three and Model Four had been caught and skewered as well. Others were embedded in the walls, which would have held the whole forest of spears in place if they weren¡¯t already quite secure under the Six¡¯s bulk.

    Peering over the Six¡¯s shoulder, I could see a few more of the lower numbered models hanging from the second trap¡¯s spikes. Here I got a look at the sheer number of them, with no living tank to absorb the majority. The staircase was well and truly plugged up. It might not stop another Model Six, but the fact that none was making its presence known suggested I¡¯d gotten the second one with the mine on the first floor.

    Now I only needed to worry about what was above me¡­and maybe anything that could climb the outer walls, but I was pretty sure I¡¯d killed my entire welcoming party by now. The question still remained whether this last-ditch effort had been a real attempt to kill me or a simple distraction while the mastermind prepared another line of defense. Though¡­if it was in the basement and not the upper floors, I was going to feel really silly.

    I turned to ascend the stairs. I hadn¡¯t let my guard down even now; far from it. So many Model Nines and Fours had ambushed me by now that I was always scanning for them.

    That still didn¡¯t save me from the curved blade that came whipping in towards my face out of my peripheral vision.

    Even having seen it coming, I couldn¡¯t react in time. For all that I was a samurai decked out in cutting-edge gear, I was still a baseline human underneath it all, and human reaction times just weren¡¯t good enough. Pain blossomed across the bridge of my nose, and I had only just begun to register what had happened when my hand finally rose high enough to kill the beast assaulting me.

    My reflexive barrage tore the Model Nine¡¯s arm off at one of its many joints before eviscerating its body. I fell to the ground a moment later, panting heavily, my eyes struggling to focus on the blade literally millimeters away. It had gone right through my visor. If it had been straight it would have plugged my nose from the inside instead of making a shallow cut just deep enough to be painful. Blood trailed down the bridge of my nose, pooling at the bottom of my helmet. It didn¡¯t feel like a lot, thankfully.

    On the other hand, if it had been curved the other way, or had I merely been a few inches to the left, it would have split my skull open right beneath my eyes instead of catching on the armored edges of my helmet.

    It was the closest I¡¯d come to death for a while now- relatively speaking, anyway. I had to force myself to take deep, slow breaths to slow my racing heart. After a I calmed down, I finally reached up with one hand and gripped the blade-arm by the wrist, wincing as I yanked it out. Blood dripped from the blade and my nose stung from the rough extraction.

    There was a thin line left in my visor bordered with a spider web of cracks, a symbol of my near-death experience. I could still see well enough, and my HUD was projected on my augs rather than the visor, but it would remain a gruesome reminder until I was able to replace the helmet itself.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Juny asked, and I realized suddenly that she had been asking me that question for a while now. I nodded my head in response and stood, tossing the Model Nine¡¯s deadly weapon aside. Never had I considered that a Model Nine might disguise itself as part of the carapace of another Antithesis Model, much less use it to slip through a deadly trap unscathed.

    That didn¡¯t make it less frustrating that I¡¯d missed it. Especially given that I¡¯d known it was still around somewhere, and I¡¯d been looking for it.

    ¡°Would you like to buy a new helmet? I can propose several options that would resist the same damage!¡±

    ¡°No¡­¡± I said after considering for a moment. ¡°No, it¡¯s too dangerous to swap armor in the field. Even with the damage it¡¯s still a smaller target than my entire head would be while I switch them out.¡± Taking it off for even a fraction of a second could provide enough of an opening, and I¡¯d just been provided a very clear example of how quickly death could come for me.

    I gathered myself and returned to the task at hand: killing the local Antithesis model commanding their forces. I made my way up the stairs, weapons at the ready and scanning every shadow for targets. Soon I was on the third floor, and the stairs ended, with no flight of them leading to the next floor. Instead I had to carefully move out onto the third floor proper, where I saw the next stair case on the opposite side of a bank of elevators. A very odd design, considering the placement meant the elevators started only on this floor.

    It didn¡¯t matter; I couldn¡¯t use them anyway.

    ¡°We have left the interference cast by the Model Nines!¡± Juny announced. I blink a few times in confusion. Since when had she been able to tell the difference? Sensing my question, she continued. ¡°With each encounter I am better able to identify the particular qualities of this strain. There are no Antithesis on this floor.¡±

    ¡°So, what, you can just detect them now?¡±

    ¡°Of course¡­not. I can only tell if they are present, based on the interference signature. I would not be able to see inside the affected region!¡±

    ¡°Are you sure? You¡¯ve kind of dropped the ball a few times already.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I considered that for a moment before deciding to take her at her word. I didn¡¯t have the time to be searching this building inch by inch anyway. I proceeded up the next set of stairs all the way to the sixth floor before Juny chimed in again, and I stopped before entering.

    ¡°I¡¯m detecting tendrils utilized by Model Seventeens to communicate with other Antithesis,¡± she said, the words just as sudden as her previous announcement.

    ¡°That¡¯s a new one.¡±

    ¡°They are typically used to produce Model Sevens, but can also serve as command and control for other models,¡± she explained. That at least told me what my target was, and we could follow the tendrils to find it.

    ¡°Up?¡± Juny nodded in the affirmative. I stepped onto the sixth floor and looked around for the next staircase, finding it directly above the one connecting the first three floors, and walked towards it, remaining alert just in case Juny missed anything.

    ¡°Can¡¯t wait to find out what other surprises it has in store,¡± I said right as the floor gave out under my feet.

 Chapter Twenty Nine

    "Everyone in Test Group Nitro, you got the Antithesis-repelling sweat modification. If you notice Antithesis approaching you anyway, call us as quickly as possible, because it''s attracting them instead. And we''re going to need to recover your body before they eat it."

    -Grotto Dickson, CEO of Gateway Experiments

    <hr>

    My heart leapt into my throat as I began to fall, but I had regained my composure by the time I was halfway to the next floor down. I had my weapons ready when I landed and began checking for whatever we had missed on this floor, but all I found were offices.

    I knew they were empty, too, because they all had glass walls. Some kind of middle management office space? It was office after office, no cubicles in the center, and at the other end of the building was one massive glass room that spanned that entire wall. With no furniture it was impossible to tell if it was a meeting room or the intended space for some jumped-up, upper-middle management type, but it probably would have looked ostentatious as all hell if the original tenants had ever moved in.

    It was odd, though. Why undermine the floor above, knowing I had to pass through that spot to go to the next floor up, and not fill this floor to the brim with Antithesis? I looked carefully, half expecting yet more Model Nines to appear, but there was nowhere for them to hide themselves. The floor was simply unoccupied.

    But as I turned to my right, scanning for anything I¡¯d missed, Juny turned to my left, and she barely had the time to utter the words ¡®oh my¡¯ before my motion tracker lit up like the inside of a rave and my ears were tortured by the catastrophic sound of thousands of dollars¡¯ worth of glass shattering all at once. I jerked my head to the left and found an enormous pterodactyl-shaped Antithesis barreling its way into the middling amidst a cascade of broken glass, Model Fours detaching from where they¡¯d been clinging to its flanks.

    Its mouth could have swallowed up a car, and it was gaping wide in an attempt to do the same to me. When I came to my senses I hurried to back away, dropping my SMGs in favor of my shotgun with barely a moment¡¯s thought. I knew they would have trouble penetrating anything about the first tier of Antithesis, and I¡¯d seen pretty much everything below the Ten by now. This thing sure as fuck wasn¡¯t going to be a Two, so I had to assume it was armored like a tank.

    Before I could bring my weapon into place, though, a Model Four whipped one of its tentacles towards me, slapping the barrel of my shotgun away from its target the instant before it was in place. I squeezed the trigger out of reflex and the Impaler threw a slug downrange, going wide of my quarry and blowing apart another Four instead. My moment of opportunity having been squandered, I threw myself backwards to avoid becoming a snack, landing on my ass with my feet inches from the dino-plant¡¯s maw.

    It jaws slammed shut, giving me a clear look at four alien eyes gazing at me with hatred. Its four wings slapped against the floor as it tried to crawl towards me. I scooted backwards as quickly as it advanced, armor scraping against tile with a godawful screech, and hurriedly raised my shotgun again as the Model Four that had fouled my shot previously rounded the larger Antithesis model and came after me. I held down the trigger and sent several shots in its direction, and although I didn¡¯t know how many I fired before I actually hit it, the Model Four was blown to pieces all the same.

    This time, when the bigger Antithesis opened its mouth, there was nothing in its way. That was when I realized it wasn¡¯t just trying to eat me though- it was carrying more Antithesis in its stomach, and one was crawling its way out of its throat at this very second. A Model Three¡¯s split-hinged face poked its way into view, bringing to mind revolting images of a certain alien that reproduced using facehuggers, and I adjusted my aim at the last second to but a slug through both of their throats.

    The Model Three died. The bigger bastard didn¡¯t.

    While its throat was now blocked by a gooey corpse, it didn¡¯t let that stop it. Its survival caught me by surprise, and I barely managed to grab its upper jaw in one hand before it fell back towards me. I crammed a foot into its lower jaw for good measure, but almost immediately I felt its enormous strength bearing down on me, threatening to slam shut with me inside.

    ¡°Juny, can you lock my joints?¡±

    ¡°Of course, but it may dama-¡±

    ¡°Do it!¡±

    A split second later the strain disappeared, but it was replaced by the groaning of metal. With no power assist besides that which carried the suit itself, I was essentially holding the Antithesis¡¯ mouth open with the Dainsleif¡¯s frame itself. I raised my other hand, which was gripping my shotgun, and pressed the barrel against the plant fibers that were even no working to close the jaws shut around me. With literally zero distance between the barrel and its jaw muscles, the slug I released blew apart the side of its mouth with no risk of missing, and Juny wisely released the locked joints the instant the pressure on them dropped by more than half.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    On the other hand, rather unsurprisingly, I couldn¡¯t actually a fire a shotgun one handed without consequences. If I¡¯d been holding it with my actual hand I would surely have shattered my arm, but instead I merely lost my hold on it as the shotgun wrenched itself free of my grip, tumbling somewhere off to the side.

    I didn¡¯t have time to scramble after it, because even as the Antithesis reeled back from the damage, I realized its abdomen was straining as if about to explode from within. The huge creature didn¡¯t even flinch as its stomach tore open and disgorged nearly a dozen Model Threes.

    Instinctively, I punched the first one that got close to me, but with nothing enhancing my strength, the blow did fuck-all. I kicked it in the jaw next, and that had a bit more of an effect, leaving its face drooping bonelessly due to three broken jaws. By then, though, I realized the others had surrounded me, and the grievously wounded pterodactyl was still bearing down on me for good measure.

    Although individually, none of them were a real threat by now- though, for the big one, that only applied due to its horrific injuries- but I was definitely getting torn apart if they all got their teeth on me. The Model Threes came at me as one, closing the circle faster than I could possibly arm myself and kill them. I turned and jumped instead of fighting, and the Double Jump triggered as well, sending me high enough that my helmet tore plaster from the ceiling.

    ¡°I need a grenade like that blackhole mine we used against the Model Ones!¡± I shouted in midair, and Juny obliged by materializing a perfectly round metal object into my hand.

    New Purchase: Atlas Mk IV Anti-Grav Grenade

    Points Reduced to¡­5,996

    When I hit the ground, I spun, then primed and lobbed the grenade underhanded, sending it rolling through the middle of the Model Threes, which were still sorting themselves out after having missed me. It went right on past them, but they weren¡¯t my target.

    The sphere came to a stop when it bounced off the big fucker¡¯s chest, rolling the other way for just a moment and then going still. A moment later it activated. There was no sound, no external sign other than the pterodactyl¡¯s lower jaw hitting the ground, followed soon after by its upper twin. I took off in a run back towards it and leapt over the Threes again, this time barely avoiding their snapping jaws as I sailed past them.

    With my running start, I was able to clear a bit more distance. I came down not on the floor but on the large Antithesis¡¯ back, using it as a springboard for one more jump that took me back up to the sixth floor through the hole in the floor. The grenade pulled me down when I passed over it, but that just meant that I landed on the beast¡¯s back a bit harder before I pulled out of the field and jumped again.

    When I landed one floor up, I came face-to-face with Juny¡¯s Eyebot, which had apparently fled back up through the hole long before I did. A small explosion went off below, but my points didn¡¯t increase, so I had to assume the big one was still alive.

    ¡°Okay, before they get up the stairs, give a grenade that has a good chance of killing them all without destroying my guns in the process.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    New Purchase: Disco Ball Laser Refraction Grenade

    Points Reduced to¡­5,946

    I didn¡¯t even bother to comment on whatever the fuck was going on with that. I just primed it and tossed the disco ball into the hole. After a moment the floor below lit up with multicolored lasers, some of which came right back up the hole, burning holes in the ceiling above me. I had to assume they were more for show than actually functional, because I knew damn well there was no reason for laser weapons to use the visible spectrum of light.

    As the flashing continued, my points ticket up by ten at a time. Ten, twenty, thirty¡­they stopped at 6,056. Enough for eleven Model Threes, but that still left the bird king alive.

    ¡°What the hell is that thing, anyway?¡± I asked, finally having the time to do so. I peered down through the hole and saw it shuffling backwards, though I didn¡¯t know whether it wanted to escape the building or stick its head through the hole in the floor.

    ¡°A Model Eleven! They are heavy air units and transports! It is actually the second you¡¯ve encountered.¡±

    It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about, but I got it after thinking back to yesterday. At that time it had been little more than a blur- the thing that had been shot out of the sky by a Stalking Tigers gunship, destroying the bridge I was about to cross.

    ¡°Huh, I guess I never did ask what that was. Anyway, turn off the grav-chute for a moment,¡± I said, gathering my courage. If weapons weren¡¯t going to kill this thing, maybe a fundamental force would. I waited patiently as it backed up, oblivious to what I was planning. Finally its head came into sight, and just as it spotted me, I hopped forward.

    With me I brought several hundred pounds of battle-armor, dropping feet first onto its skull.

    Finally, after all the punishment it had taken, that was enough. Its head didn¡¯t even put up a show of resistance before giving out, going to pieces as my legs took a magical journey through its mind. I received another hundred points and a token for my victory.

    ¡°They¡¯re still only sending the second tier models in ones and twos, but they¡¯re definitely getting smarter. I don¡¯t like it,¡± I commented to distract myself from the task of extricating myself from the pile of yuck I was in. The only bit of good fortune I found was that my weapons survived the battle. The SMGs had been protected from the disco ball of death by virtue of being stuck under the Model Eleven, and the shotgun made it through with only a few scorch marks.

    ¡°Here is your friendly reminder to wash yourself off before you eat!¡±

    ¡°Tell me that when I¡¯m back at base!¡±

 Chapter Thirty

    "Who could have possibly guessed that dumping radioactive waste into Antithesis hives would just make them radioactive instead of killing them? I really thought it was the next big wave in nuclear waste disposal! I was doing you all a favor!

    "...please don''t kill me."

    -Last words of Sergei Cameron, mastermind behind the plan which resulted in the creation of the Second Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

    <hr>

    I hardly had time to catch my breath from the previous battle before the building began to shake.

    ¡°Please stand right here!¡± Juny called out, directing me towards the closest staircase- the one leading down. ¡°Keep your arms and legs inside the stairwell at all times!¡±

    I hustled for the stairs, figuring this was a ¡®move first, ask questions later situation.¡¯ It didn¡¯t take much imagination to catch onto what was happening, though I wondered what was going to make the stairs any more safe than, say, just getting the fuck out of the building.

    Fortunately I didn¡¯t have to wait long to find out. I was barely within the staircase before the shaking was joined by crashing sounds from above, and then the floor outside the stairwell vanished in an avalanche of building materials. Wood, pipes, plaster, and all kinds of other things fell through my line of sight, and I was pretty sure I saw some Antithesis bodies in the mix, too.

    When the collapse finally finished, a thick dust hung over the space outside, with plumes of it wafting into the stairwell around me. I waved a hand in front of my face to keep it away from my damaged visor and waited for it to clear, revealing a gutted building that was now essentially nothing but pillars and crossbeams. Bits of floor and cladding clung to those remaining bits of structure, but all of the weaker components between them had vanished into the cloud below.

    The only other things left were Antithesis. Coordinated by a Model Seventeen as they were, Model Fives had clustered around the edges of the building, clinging to the crossbeams as everything else fell down around them. I didn¡¯t doubt there were other models as well, particularly hidden Nines, and maybe Ones that could swoop in as a swarm to disturb my balance. It was like I¡¯d gone from a shooter genre to a platformer.

    Before the Fives could start throwing things at me, I ducked back into the stairwell where I had cover to consider my options. First was the hovercar. Too obvious. I didn¡¯t doubt the Seventeen would have Elevens waiting to dogpile onto me if I tried that.

    Second was using the jump pack to leap my way up, but at a glance, it looked like the supports were fairly far apart, and it wasn¡¯t a small building. With no running start I didn¡¯t think I could make it, and besides, in the business, they called flying soldiers ¡®skeet.¡¯ It was best not to make jumps in the open and unobscured, particularly not repeatedly in a way the enemy could plan for.

    Option three was navigating my way across the crossbeams and using the support pillars as cover, slowly taking out the Model Fives as I made my way up. Both two and three had the problem of my fear of heights, and three meant shooting at distant targets floors above me. The HMG wasn¡¯t going to help this time, even assuming that it wasn¡¯t buried below.

    Fourth was simply destroying the entire building. Again. I suspected that would be more difficult this time, because I would be out in the open where Antithesis could swarm me, and I would likely need to remove more pillars thanks to the structure¡¯s sudden weight loss regimen.

    Three seemed like the best chance of success, but there was a problem with that: I¡¯m afraid of heights. I¡¯ve had to do many things that fly in the face of that over the last couple of days, but nothing so extended and dependent on not making a mistake. This time I would be walking a tightrope where if I lost my balance I fell off the building, and I had to maintain that for floor upon floor.

    ¡°Juny, is there anything that would help with my fear of heights?¡±

    ¡°Of course! Fear-Be-Gone will entirely block your ability to feel fear for two hours!¡± she chirped. That definitely sounded too good to be true.

    ¡°And the catch?¡±

    ¡°As it¡¯s only temporary, you will be flooded by all the fear-related chemicals blocked by the compound when it wears off, almost certainly resulting in a severe panic attack!¡±

    ¡°Almost sounds like a great time when you say it in that cheery voice,¡± I complained, wincing. Still, that was a problem for Future Erica, and Present Erica kind of needed a solution now. ¡°Stick a pin in that for now, we¡¯ll be coming back to it. Now, if I remember correctly, you mentioned self-guided ammo a few days ago?¡±

    ¡°Yes! With self-guided ammunition, even a near-sighted toddler can hit their target!¡±

    ¡°Am I the near-sighted toddler in this analogy¡­? Whatever. I want an assault rifle that can load self-guided ammo. Use the MA5D model I made with the shroud removed. Make sure it has a burst-fire option and an under barrel camera,¡± I told her, figuring she could narrow it down and find something that could be placed inside a MA5D casing. She¡¯d found ways to make all my other weapons match a different appearance so far.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    ¡°Would you like it to have magnetic rails like your submachineguns?¡±

    ¡°Sure, may as well.¡± The reasons I¡¯d declined to purchase a weapon like this earlier were still in effect, but I was now backed into a corner enough that I was willing to compromise a bit. Using the self-guided rounds felt to me like cheating, but in the end, that wasn¡¯t a principle I was attempting to follow, just something I preferred to avoid. Now I had too many targets at too great a range to get away from that. Figuring out how to carry it was going to be a problem, too, but¡­oh, well.

    Class I Kinetic Rifles unlocked!

    Points reduced to... 5981

    New Purchase: Fragarach 3A

    Points reduced to...5691

    I took up the modded MA5D, flipped the fire selector to burst, and activated the camera as a test. Connecting to my augs, the rifle projected a window where I could see as if I was looking from just under the barrel, with a reticle for where the weapon was actually pointing, given it was a bit above center. Unlike my normal reticles, this one had brackets around it, which I assumed indicated lock-on status.

    There were too many Model Fives out there for me to expose myself to fire while killing them. As a trial, I poked the Fragarach out the stairwell door and scanned the floor above me for a Model Five. After holding it on target, albeit shakily, for a few moments, the brackets met in the middle to form a box and turned green. When I pulled the trigger, despite the extended range, three bullets zipped through the intervening space to rip through my target, sending it falling to the earth many stories below.

    Moments later, countless spines turned the area around me into a pincushion.

    They definitely knew where I was, and were waiting for me to leave cover. Before I could even begin moving, I was going to have to thin out their numbers, and fortunately for me, I would have no trouble killing them without leaving cover. Pushing my rifle out into the open again, I scanned through the many I-beams crisscrossing the now empty center of the building, pinpointing and eliminating every Model Five I could get a line of sight on from this position.

    I could only really aim at those within a couple floors of me before there were too many girders in the way, but those happened to be the ones that were the biggest threat to me at the moment, so I could complain. Once I¡¯d killed the ones I was able to hit from here, I withdraw my rifle and braced myself.

    ¡°Alright, just two more things and then we can get a move on. Hit me with the Fear-Be-Gone and give me two drones with shields to catch their spikes,¡±

    New Purchase: Fear-Be-Gone

    Points reduced to...5616

    New Purchase: Shield Drones x2

    Points reduced to¡­5316

    I reached down for the smaller box and gingerly retrieved a syringe. The other, larger boxes opened on their own, and out came two more Eyebots, this time with large shields attached over their faceplates and no antennae. Either shield would be sufficient to cover my body entirely from one direction, and since they were attached to drones, I could have them move as I aimed to give me clear lines of fire.

    ¡°Okay. Give me a two hour timer the moment I inject this,¡± I told Juny as I lined the syringe up with a port on my armor. I took a deep breath and jabbed it in, then depressed the plunger. Nothing seemed to change, but when I glanced out, I didn¡¯t feel the usual sense of vertigo.

    The problem was that I wasn¡¯t going to feel any other fear either, and fear was an important survival tool. I would have to be careful not to forget to take cover, among other things, just because my body wasn¡¯t screaming at me to do so anymore.

    With those details taken care of, I used five points to reload the Fragarach. For the first time in a while I had to do it by hand, as all the reloading arms on the Dainsleif were either dedicated to other weapons or covered by my jump pack. Another thing to track.

    Finally, I stepped out onto the closest I-beam, shield drones trailing behind me and immediately covering my vulnerable sides- one to the left, as we were on the right side of the building and I¡¯d been able to eliminate the Model Fives there fairly thoroughly, and another to the rear, guarding my back. I strode forward with chemically-induced fearlessness, trying not to lose track of my footing while staying aware of the motion tracker and looking for targets.

    I heard spines begin to ping off the shield behind me, but that wasn¡¯t a surprise. With the position I¡¯d been in, that was the side with the most Model Fives still in position. I hurried to the closest support pillar, pressing my back against it and crouching both for stability and to present a smaller target, then started picking off more Fives one burst at a time.

    Every twelve shots necessitated a reload. It helped me keep track of my kill count and get a rough estimate of the Fives per floor, which was about eight, spaced evenly around the perimeter. No blind spots. Five on the floor above were already dead. Four and three on the ones above that, respectively. From the new position I cleared out the floor above entirely, then spun and firmly gripped the support beam with one hand.

    Normally what I did next would be unthinkable, but right now, it made me feel nothing whatsoever. I leaned out over the open air and stepped around the beam, hugging it as I reached for the other side with my other arm. It was a task made more difficult by the weapon in my hand, but the beam wasn¡¯t so thick as to prevent me holding onto it with the crook of my elbow, so I wrapped my trigger arm around it and held on tight while I transferred one foot.

    I was keenly aware of the shield drones taking hits as I made the transfer, but their titular shields were doing the job. Moments later I was across, and I took the opportunity to shoot down another pair of Fives, lightening the incoming fire just a bit more.

    I had to repeat my maneuver thrice more just to get around to the other stair case leading up. The two support beams- three, presumably, with one being behind the stairs- on my side of the building weren¡¯t connected to the other side in the middle on this floor, only to the frame along the outside of the building, so I first had to transfer to that, then to the crossbeam on the other side.

    Each time I reached a pillar, another few Fives fell to the ground, dead. But really, my progress was minimal. If I were to peer upwards I couldn¡¯t even see the top from my current position.

    All the same, it felt like progress when I reached the other staircase, and with the way this building was set up, I only needed to swap sides every third floor. But the timer in the corner of my vision told me I¡¯d wasted fifteen minutes already, and a sense of urgency told me I was going to have to pick up the pace.

 Chapter Thirty One

    "With all the animals going extinct due to the Antithesis, couldn''t they have done us a fucking favor and gotten rid of the goddamn mosquitoes!?"

    -Flitter post by a health worker during the West Nile Disease outbreak of the early 2030s

    <hr>

    ¡°Juny, is this at least pulling forces from the frontline?¡± I leaned out of cover and lined my reticle up with a Model Five, and with a pull of the trigger, smart munitions sent it plummeting.

    ¡°Of course! Model Fives have entirely stopped appearing, allowing the forces manning the wall to spend less time in cover!¡± she reported from somewhere behind me. That was good news, at least. I had originally intended to cut across their lines from above and drop bombs on them at each intersection, using the jump pack to get from building to building, but harassing one of their command units seemed to be working out better than I could have hoped.

    The Model Seventeen I was facing off against was smart enough to strategize and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances- even to create them- but its intelligence had led it to wildly overestimate the importance of killing me right at this moment. One woman can¡¯t be everywhere at once. If the Antithesis were to focus on several places far enough apart, there would only be so much I could do.

    But instead, it had drawn needed forces back just to kill me now, although I could only guess at whether it knew how quickly Samurai can snowball in power or was simply focused on the damage I¡¯d already caused.

    Back to the present, I glanced at my timer again; I¡¯d managed to cut down on the time it took to clear out the Fives above me this time, but to really shave things down, I would have to take the crossbeams more quickly.

    I was beginning to consider things I knew I would never have tried if my sense of fear was functioning properly. I was really starting to see how important a healthy sense of fear was, although I didn¡¯t think I would properly grasp it in full until mine was back.

    This time I didn¡¯t take the crossbeams carefully. I shot out of cover at a run. The hardest part of doing something like this, I thought, was probably the nerves. Nervousness is the enemy of coordination. But now, even if I glanced down, there was no sense of vertigo. I could watch where I stepped with a calm detachment and place my feet without panicking about what would happen if I got it wrong.

    When I approached a support pillar, I didn¡¯t step around it carefully this time. I flung myself into the open air just to the side of the pillar, one hand shooting out to catch the pillar and alter my trajectory. My momentum went from propelling me straight forward to taking me in a curve around the pillar, and the servos supporting my arm creaked ominously but held. A combination of the resilient Protector-issued materials and my grav-chute, I¡¯d assume.

    As soon as I dropped down on the other side I stopped and turned, using the support beam as cover to kill the Fives on the other side of the room. The two corner crossings were easy and took no time, and I swapped arms for the following jump, just to be safe. That left me on a straight shot to the twelfth floor, but I didn¡¯t think the trick I¡¯d used on the pillars was going to work again since the first time had damaged both arms.

    I kept the shield drones in place around me as I scaled the stairs, wary of more ambushes, and sure enough, one of them took a slash from a Model Nine for me on the way up. With its attack foiled and its position revealed, I fired a burst into it and moved on.

    It was just a sign of what was to come, though. When I emerged onto the twelfth floor crossbeams, I almost immediately had to skid to a halt when bladed limbs swung into view from below, hacking uselessly at my greaves. With this Model Nine below the crossbeam, I didn¡¯t have a shot on it, though, and I knew any combat drones I purchases right now were going to get shot down by Fives unless I bought even more shield drones just to guard them.

    ¡°Give me a grenade that can be detonated remotely, please!¡± I requested as I backed up, watching the Nine out of the corner of my eye as I gunned down another pair of Fives. I held my hand out as soon as they were dead.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    New Purchase: Remote Detonated Fla Grenade

    Points reduced to¡­5,626

    I primed the grenade, and a button appeared on my augs to detonate it. As soon as the Nine¡¯s limbs came scything up at me again, I let the grenade fall and blinked over the button, setting it off instantly. The beam I was on shook and reverberated with the detonation, and I had to brace myself and ride out the shockwave before I could continue, but the Nine was now too dead to stop me. When the shaking stopped, though, I noticed I had more points than expected and glanced down to see a handful of Model Ones scattering.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°¡­did you know those were there?¡± I asked Juny as I turned around to pick off the Fives above the stairwell entrance.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°How did you detect them?¡±

    ¡°At our current elevation, the wind is likely dispersing any Model Nine scales too quickly for them to have any effect!¡±

    ¡°Good news for once. Okay, pulse the jump pack to send me back towards the beam when I jump,¡± I instructed Juny before doing exactly that. I soared out into the open air and then felt a jolt that sent me back towards the thin path I¡¯d been on. My momentum almost sent me right back over the edge, but fortunately, between my jump, the grav-chute, and the jump pack, I¡¯d ended up so close to the support beam at the edge of the building that I could use it to steady myself.

    The moment I was stable I raised my gun and fired into the Model Nine that had been waiting behind the pillar I¡¯d jumped past. I didn¡¯t actually know it was there; avoiding it was a happy coincidence. I took a couple more shots to clear out a few more Fives and rounded the two corners, followed by a repeat of my previous jump.

    Leaving myself in the open air like that was a bit unnerving, but I found that the speed I was moving at made it hard for the Fives to hit me, an advantage I wouldn¡¯t have had going straight up.

    Model Threes charged out of the stairwell suicidally as I approached, having hidden behind the corners until I got close. The attempt to knock me off the crossbeam failed when each shield drone intercepted one, and the two unlucky aliens bounced off and fell twelve stories to their deaths, flailing the whole way down. That left one, but it hit me head on, doing little other than forcing me to brace myself with one foot back.

    I clubbed it over the head with my assault rifle, then one of the shield drones rammed it in the side, toppling it off the beam. Rather than watching it fall, I dove inside the stairwell and ran up the stairs, stopping only to check my corners before turning. But the stairwell was empty now, and I found myself on the fifteenth floor soon enough- not quite halfway to the next intact floor, I could now see, but it was progress.

    Unfortunately, when I looked around to spot the Model Fives I knew would be present, I caught sight of something else that was just arriving: three Model Elevens. The Ones had failed, so now they were bringing in their bigger, meaner siblings. From my current spot I was safe, and I probably had access to something that could kill them by now, along with the time to buy it, but would anything that powerful be safe to fire from inside the high rise?

    Luckily, I didn¡¯t have to find out.

    ¡°Alana has just completed an assault mission and has returned to her gunship! Would you like to request fire support?¡± Juny asked as I was searching for a solution.

    ¡°Gladly.¡±

    ¡°Opening a channel!¡±

    ¡°McIntire here. Your AI said you needed support?¡±

    ¡°I have three Model Elevens circling me, and anything that could kill them probably isn¡¯t safe to fire from inside the what-used-to-be-a-building I¡¯m in,¡± I confirmed, starting to pick off Fives in the meantime.

    ¡°Copy that, air support inbound.¡±

    After that brief exchange the channel cut out, but with the size of Boone, it wasn¡¯t long before I heard the gunship incoming. It flashed forward to my left, flying between buildings, and banked towards the Elevens as they circled around from the right. All three Elevens immediately scattered as two munitions shot from the gunship- guided rocket or missile, I didn¡¯t know the difference- and locked onto two of them.

    One immediately flew back the way it came and another tried to go over the building, turning in midair in a manner no manmade craft could emulate. The rockets had to be Samurai tech, though, because they turned at hard angles when a normal rocket would have lost target, and moments later I heard twin explosions from beyond my line of sight. I didn¡¯t doubt that they had been direct hits.

    The gunship itself followed after the third, letting loose a stream of bullets from its main gun so constant it sounded more like a buzz saw than a firearm. Maneuverable as the Model Eleven was, it managed an impossible-looking dodge once, then twice, before running out of luck and intersecting with the gunship¡¯s line of fire. So many bullets tore through it that the Eleven was bisected from shoulder to hip, the halves falling away in opposite directions.

    ¡°Scratch three. Got it from here?¡±

    ¡°I should be good, thanks for the assist,¡± I replied, silently wishing I could just fly a gunship to the top of the building, but knowing there was no way they could pick me up from here anyway.

    ¡°Roger that, returning to base. Good hunting, McIntire out.¡±

    Now I was unimpeded though. Juny had helped me wipe out a flock of Model Ones and now their Elevens were gone too. I couldn¡¯t know for sure, but the Seventeen must have used up a lot of the Nines it had available in the process of wrecking the building, because what else did they have that could do that kind of damage? I was effectively cheating against the Fives at this point, there was no space for a Six up here, and sending Threes against me one by one on the crossbeams would just be a waste.

    My Model Seventeen foe had thrown everything and the kitchen sink at me, but it had to be running out of options now. It had gotten damned close a couple times, I couldn¡¯t deny that, but I¡¯d had just enough luck to stay alive until this point. And I knew better than to start thinking of the ways in which I could fail now; that would just summon it. While I didn¡¯t necessarily believe in jinxes, I certainly did believe knowing how I could fuck up might trip me up in the moment.

    I launched myself from cover, determined to make it to the top before I ran out of time.

 Chapter Thirty Two

    "The Responsible Lighting Initiative was an attempt by the city of Charlotte to offload maintenance over street lights to the taxpayer by installing cameras on street lamps and charging people passing under lights during active hours. The program was abandoned when so many people adopted anti-identification measures that the maintenance cost of the cameras exceeded income three times over."

    -Dumbest Government Programs of 2042, 2042

    <hr>

    The first bit of good fortunate I¡¯d encountered in a while was that that Model Seventeen seemed to have run out of gambits after throwing everything it had at me. The Elevens were almost certainly its final assets. Or at least, the last ones in a position to attack me. Collapsing the building around me had certainly slowed me down, but it hadn¡¯t been enough to kill me, and it almost certainly was preventing any reinforcements from coming up the building.

    I fell into a rhythm climbing the rest of the building due to the lack of new surprises. Shoot the Model Fives, run to the first bit of cover, shoot the ones that were out of sight before, and then run to the next set of stairs. I was expecting more ambushes the entire time, and I continued checking for them around every corner, but nothing manifested in the end and I found myself on solid floor again.

    Stepping onto the¡­honestly, I¡¯d lost track of what floor it was, but it was immediately clear why this floor was spared in the destruction of those below it. I had stumbled upon another hive, albeit a small one. It seemed to be one of the Antithesis¡¯ aeries, dominated by Model One sacs, many of which had almost finished maturing. The previous generation were probably killed by my flak grenade earlier.

    Unlike the last Model One-centric hive I¡¯d found, however, this one contained some places for larger models as well. Three skybridges connected to this floor- or at least, they had, before they were torn down to provide an area to place the enormous Model Eleven buds that now lay empty, their occupants hatched and subsequently killed not long ago. Given their size, it would take a long time to grow another set. There were some new buds atop the old ones, but they were still so small that they couldn¡¯t be differentiated from Model Ones.

    ¡°Well, this has all gotta go. Have anything that can destroy this hive without causing any more damage to the building?¡± I asked Juny, glancing at her personal Eyebot just so I had somewhere to look.

    ¡°A Nanobot Dispersal Canister would provide a slow but effective way of breaking down the hive!¡±

    ¡°How slow?¡±

    ¡°Due to the size of the nanites, the hive would be broken down over the course of several hours. However, the new growth would be destroyed much earlier, preventing further Antithesis from hatching!¡±

    ¡°Perfect, give me one.¡±

    New Purchase: Nanobot Dispersal Canister

    Points reduced to¡­6,806

    I just lobbed the grenade into the center of the floor, the walls of which had been torn out by the Antithesis at some point, allowing the nanites to be dispersed across it in an instant. The canister burst and spread a gray mist throughout the floor, and though I couldn¡¯t see the effects with the naked eye, I thought it was safe to assume it was working.

    ¡°Alert! I am detecting a tier three Antithesis on the upper floors!¡± Juny announced, bobbing up and down in midair in alarm.

    ¡°What¡¯s a tier three?¡± I asked, hearing the term for the first time. It didn¡¯t sound good, either way.

    ¡°An Antithesis with a Model number between Twenty-One and Thirty. This particular individual appears to be a Model Twenty-One. Sensors indicate it is in close proximity to the Model Seventeen we are searching for. Model Twenty-Ones are heavy stealth units with six limbs, hands, invisibility, and armor!¡±

    ¡°So it¡¯s some kind of elite guard? Are tier three Antithesis smarter than lower models?¡±

    ¡°On a case-by-case basis, but yes! A Model Twenty-One may be more intelligent than a Model Seventeen, and could merely be making use of the Model Seventeen¡¯s communication abilities!¡±

    Obviously that meant things were worse than I¡¯d thought. An isolated case, or were these distributed across the frontlines as I¡¯d been assuming Model Seventeens were? Did that mean they were going to be deploying models in the twenties more regularly now? And most importantly¡­did I even have a way of killing it?

    ¡°Will anything I have hurt it?¡± I asked, figuring that was the best place to start. The answer surprised me with its bluntness.

    ¡°No.¡± That was it. No elaboration, no encouragement, just ¡®no.¡¯ What I took from that was ¡®you¡¯re screwed.¡¯

    ¡°Can I buy anything that can kill it?¡± I asked next, knowing the answer in my heart. Juny would have said so if I could.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    ¡°No.¡± Yeah, that figured. Hard to say if that meant it would take Class III gear or just more points, or whether it was just a matter of being too close to use a sufficiently powerful explosion, but knowing the answer to those questions right now wasn¡¯t helpful anyway.

    ¡°Lovely. So-¡±

    ¡°I believe it has noticed you!¡±

    Pure instinct caused me to back up the moment the words were spoken, and it saved my life. The ceiling above where I¡¯d been standing blew apart in an instant and my shield drones moved to protect me, but something I couldn¡¯t see made contact and smashed them apart in a single blow. My armor wasn¡¯t going to survive something that could demolish those sturdy shields on a whim, so I did the bravest thing I could do at that moment:

    I turned the fuck around and charged in the opposite direction.

    My motion tracker failed to react, but I knew there was little to no chance it wasn¡¯t following me. Discretion being the better part of valor, I aimed for a broken skybridge and pushed my legs as hard as I could. Given the speed I was moving at I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised if Juny told me she was overclocking my Dainsleif armor, but it was also possible adrenaline was pushing me faster than I¡¯d ever run before, survival instincts activating even in the absence of fear.

    The moment after I hurled myself off the skybridge, I heard an impact behind me, which I hoped was the Model Twenty-One landing and not it taking off, because the latter would mean it might catch me in midair. Thankfully, I sailed across the gap unmolested, the Double Jump 5000 activating to give me enough lift to clear the street below and land on the skybridge opposite me.

    A dumber person would have stopped there and checked if they were being followed. I just kept running. Any hesitation would mean by pursuer would catch up. I plowed through empty cubicles like a runaway freight-train, and without asking, Juny highlighted the walls ahead for me, indicating where the support pillars were and where the drywall was.

    Powdered plaster filled the air as I emulated the Kool-Ade Man, some of it leaking inside my helmet and making my eyes tear up. The Model Twenty-One, too smart to coat itself in powder, lost time going around it, but I knew it was following me because I heard something breaking off to the side, presumably as it blew through a less risky obstacle.

    Leaving a trail of destruction in my wake, I quickly reached the opposite side of the building, which was closer to its neighbor than the other side had been, probably bordering an alleyway instead of a street. The sturdy glass in my way didn¡¯t even hold up for a fraction of a second before it blew apart under the weight of my armor. With how close the buildings were, when the jump pack activated, I ended up gaining enough elevation to crash through the windows of the next floor up, which I hoped would confuse or delay the Model Twenty-One for even a second.

    Model Ones rushed into my path from somewhere, but I didn¡¯t even bother trying to figure out where they were coming from, as the impacts against my armor weren¡¯t so much as slowing me down.

    The Antithesis juice that seeped in through my visor was gross, but I was used to that after yesterday.

    While the Model Ones were of little concern, some Model Threes emerged from before and behind me, coming around corners at the last second and attempting to latch on. Their weight was enough that it would have been a problem, so I whipped the first one to get close across the face with my assault rifle as I passed, not sticking around long enough to see how much damage I did.

    ¡°Grenade!¡± I shouted, and Juny helpfully materialized an Instant Star in my hand, which I promptly triggered and dropped. Whether the explosion killed anything or not wasn¡¯t really important right now; it would momentarily block anything from following directly in my wake, and that¡¯s what I was shooting for.

    I blasted through another wall and jumped through the window ahead, soaring out over a street full of Antithesis dozens of floors below me. I was in the air for only moments before I broke another window with my face, hitting the ground running.

    ¡°Is it still following me?¡± I managed between panting.

    ¡°I¡¯m unable to detect the Model Twenty-One directly, but circumstantial evidence suggests it is on the floor below you!¡± Juny replied directly into my head for the first time in a while. I didn¡¯t sense her drone nearby, so it must have either been destroyed or staying out of the way.

    A stream of f-bombs flowed through my head as I realized I was in a building like the mall I¡¯d entered earlier, with a central column cut out through the center. This one, unfinished, didn¡¯t even have guard rails. I nearly ran right over the edge without spotting it in the fading light of day, only managing to put enough strength into my legs for a jump at the last second.

    Based on what Juny said about the Model Twenty-One¡¯s position, it probably couldn¡¯t jump quite as well as I could, so at the very least, the gap would slow it down, forcing it to go around. I thought so, anyway, right up until a patch of concrete behind me exploded, and I realized the tier three model had used the corner of the cut-out section to place us on the same floor again.

    That didn¡¯t last long, because I was already reaching the other side of the building by now, darting through the door of an unfinished store and heading right for the windows as usual. Jumping with all my might, I defenestrated myself once more, refenestrating myself a moment later one floor up again.

    Refenestrating probably wasn¡¯t a word but it described the situation well enough.

    This time I encountered my third sub-hive, the second of the day. My armored boots crushed roots and egg-sacs alike as I stormed through, scattering a swarm of freshly hatched Model Ones like confused pigeons as I caught them by surprise. They rallied quickly, though, shooting after me in a murderous frenzy as usual.

    With roots underfoot and Model Ones filling my field of view, I struggled to place my feet on my way through the sub-hive. My toes ripped apart thin roots and vines that I had failed to spot several times, and on one occasion, I stumbled a bit as I kicked a thicker root by mistake. The delay nearly proved fatal when the Model Twenty-One erupted from the vegetation to my left, bowling me over and sending me rolling.

    My saving grace this time was that it failed to keep its grip on me, and I managed to regain my feet before it could turn around and pounce. My course was altered though, and now, instead of running parallel to the front line, I found myself running away from it, deeper into the abandoned section of the city.

    Delving right into Antithesis territory wasn¡¯t a winning proposition, that much was obvious, but right now there was no choice. I needed to come up with a plan, though, and soon, before the unseen predator tracking me tore me limb from limb.

 Chapter Thirty Three

    "Afraid of the Antithesis? Worried about what might happen to your pets in an incursion? Kill two birds with one stone by purchasing one of our patented Guardians, the only gene-modded Anti-Antithesis pets on the market!"

    -2030s advertisement for pet polar bears

    <hr>

    The Model Twenty-One was leading me somewhere.

    I couldn¡¯t divine where, but it likely wasn¡¯t anywhere specific. It could kill me at any time if it had just enough time to grab hold. So it didn¡¯t need me in a particular location to gain enough of an advantage to win; it just wanted me further from friendly territory. Was it wary of fighting two Samurai at once? Did it just want me more exhausted when it cornered me on the off chance I could hurt it, simply out of an overabundance of caution?

    The only thing that was clear was that I couldn¡¯t go along with its whims. I would need to reverse course and head back towards the occupied section of the city. But that wasn¡¯t a solution in and of itself. I couldn¡¯t hurt the Model Twenty-One directly, and I couldn¡¯t outrun it, so my only remaining choice was to outsmart it somehow. It was all well and good to say that, of course, but it was another to pull it off, especially when I didn¡¯t have much of an idea how smart it was in the first place.

    Right now I needed to do two things: first, slow it down, and second, change directions, which would be too dangerous with it right behind me. I was pretty sure the last grenade I¡¯d dropped had forced it to stop or make a detour, so that was my best bet. I would be taking a risk here; the Model Twenty-One needed to be smart enough to identify a threat and avoid it, but not smart enough to realize anything I threw at it was probably harmless and charge right through.

    So anything I did use needed to make a big and flashy show, but have a limited range, because if I did accidently catch it in the splash zone it might catch on.

    Positioning would be key. Even in the event I got it to slow down for a moment, it would buy me seconds at best, so I needed to be able to use those seconds to the fullest. This time when I jumped to the next building I didn¡¯t go straight ahead but instead at an angle, bringing me closer to the side of the building. I couldn¡¯t cut across very sharply with it behind me, but over the course of a few buildings¡¯ lengths I would wind up at the corner.

    I just needed to survive that long.

    Like most of the buildings around here, and particularly on the higher floors from what I¡¯d seen, this building was unfinished. There were no obstacles to slow either of us down except support pillars. I cut it especially close to one of them and the Model Twenty-One, with its larger frame, would be forced to make a more drastic dodge. That got me to the other side and I quickly transferred myself to the next skyscraper in line.

    This time I found myself dodging a Model Six the moment I landed, barely managing to alter course before I would have run right into its flank. I don¡¯t think it was intentional on its part, otherwise it would have been facing me, so I could only hope the Model Twenty-One would suffer a mishap.

    Model Fives were firing at me as I crossed the floor, but I didn¡¯t have time to deal with them and had to just trust my armor to stop any direct hits. I think I was somewhere around the center of the abandoned city by now, or at least the edges of what might be considered the center, so it was possible there was a hive somewhere in this building. It wasn¡¯t on this floor, though, so I didn¡¯t have to deal with avoiding egg sacs and vines, fortunately.

    When I was nearing the corner I decided to go ahead and enact my plan.

    ¡°Instant Star!¡± I yelled to Juny, grasping the grenade with one hand as soon as it appeared. I primed it, and the moment I bent my knees to jump, I dropped it. Even as I was sailing through the air amidst a cascade of broken glass I was already shouting for the next one. ¡°Another!¡±

    I landed and halted my momentum instead of running this time, making a ninety degree turn to my left. Again I primed the grenade in hand, and the instant I was about to jump I dropped it, praying the Model Twenty-One had been delayed enough to give me the time I needed. Sure enough, I made it to the next building unmolested, a third grenade in hand as I made one more turn, bringing me to a full one-eighty.

    The series of explosions in my wake barely even registered as I jumped one more time, leaving the third and final grenade behind as a present. I crashed through the window of a corner office, this time one with proper walls, and I had a premonition that this floor wasn¡¯t going to be so easy to navigate.

    When I emerged into the hallway outside I saw that I didn¡¯t have a clear path through the building this time, and would instead have to navigate the hallways. Though I had entered via a corner office, the hall directly in front of me didn¡¯t look like it was long enough to get me all the way to the other side.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    A right turn wouldn¡¯t exactly be helpful, though, so I started forward, not wanting to let the Twenty-One catch up to me. I was halfway down the hall when I realized it was a moot point- the invisible Antithesis had apparently seen through my plan and sought to cut me off. The wall to my left exploded shortly ahead of me, and I skidded to a stop, bringing my assault rifle to bear reflexively.

    Bullets ricocheted off its body harmlessly, doing little more than making its body shimmer from the impacts. It was good enough to serve as suppressive fire. The Model Twenty-One flinched for a moment and moved to dodge, and the instant it did, I spun and booked it back down the hallway, cutting around the corner to take the hallway I¡¯d passed over earlier.

    Behind me the Model Twenty-One slammed into the corner wall feet first and launched itself right into a run on my heels. Jumping into a run wasn¡¯t quite enough to make up for the delay inherent in halting its own momentum during the turn, though, a fact I took advantage of on the next corner by dropping yet another grenade behind me to make it stop a little bit longer.

    I¡¯d misjudged the distance, though, and when the Model-Twenty One turned the corner it was caught in the ensuing plasma explosion. Given that my motion tracker still wasn¡¯t picking it up, I¡¯d received no points, and a glance over my shoulder showed nothing but a scorched and empty hallway, though, the damage was non-existent- and that strategy wasn¡¯t going to work anymore.

    I hung a left, then a right, a right, and one more left, pursued every step of the way by the world¡¯s most mobile Venus fly trap. That got me to the other side of the building, though, and I splintered apart a wooden door as I entered another corner office and went right for the window. The Model Twenty-One, too broad to fit through the door, ripped apart the frame as it passed through behind me, its speed dropping for just long enough for me to make the jump.

    Landing in a small but empty room- it looked like it would have been a doctor¡¯s office, eventually- I scrambled through the door to the hallway before the Twenty-One could follow behind me. I made a split-second guess as to where the waiting room would be, skirting around a counter and out into a long, empty room, and then immediately into the hallway beyond.

    Behind me the Model Twenty-One slowed as it was forced to shoulder its way through several doorways in a row, and I decided I had one last trick I could pull to make it hesitate. I swapped my assault rifle out for my shotgun and spun, holding down the trigger as I attempted to hit what I couldn¡¯t see.

    Several high-explosive rounds hit home, and the force of the explosions combined with its already lowered speed resulted in the Twenty-One being reduced to a stop. I could just barely make out its head shaking off the impact through the smoke the shells had left behind before the cloud dispersed too much for me to see anything.

    I didn¡¯t waste any time resuming my running again as the large Antithesis broke apart the door frame in its way the hard way, unable to apply its mass and momentum to the job this time. I would have a bit of a head start now while it regained its speed. At this point it occurred to me that my next two jumps land me in buildings, but the one after that¡­

    There might be a way I could kill the Model Twenty-One after all. In fact, it was an application of the way I¡¯d killed a large and sturdy model just hours ago. Assuming a fall over a mere few dozen stories would be enough, that is.

    ¡°Need a smoke grenade when I land, next two buildings¡± I told Juny now as I navigated my way to the next window.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I flew through the air across a street, bathed in twilight as the sun fell below the mountain peaks. Right as I landed on the top floor, I gripped a grenade provided by Juny and took off running, dropping it halfway through the floor. It wasn¡¯t going to actually make the Model Twenty-One lose track of me since it could hear my footsteps, but that was exactly what I was counting on.

    With a cloud of smoke at my back I jumped to the final building, which sat directly across from the wall. Gunfire could be heard loud and clear here, and the windows of this building were already riddled with bullet holes- where they still existed at all.

    Once again I dropped a smoke grenade. My invisible predator surged towards me recklessly, knowing the smoke was harmless and having grown used to my methods by now. It burst through the smoke and jumped, ready to chase me into the next building-

    Except there wasn¡¯t one.

    I sailed out over No Man¡¯s Land in an arc that would be impossible flat without my grav-chute, and my jump pack increased the distance I flew even further. The Model Twenty-One, on plant-muscle power alone, didn¡¯t have the jump strength to catch me. It flailed its limbs and raked one across my thigh just as my jump pack fired, and I hissed in pain as its claws ripped apart my armor like aluminum foil and ravaged the muscle and skin beneath, but then it was falling and I was rising.

    Silently, the Model Twenty-One dropped to the ground below. It was a long way down- dozens of stories, over a hundred meters. Its arms struggled to find something to grab onto, something to jump off of, its lonely fight for survival just barely visible thanks to the smoke rising from below.

    While I slowly descended, it slammed into the ground, too far away to hear over all the sound of battle- but I could imagine a sickening crack. Amazingly, it still wasn¡¯t dead. However, its limbs had clearly been shattered in the fall, as it could do little more than crawl towards the nearest humans, determined to kill even now.

    One at a time, tanks began to alter their aim. Their turrets turned slowly, the barrels depressing until they pointed right at the high-tier Antithesis helpless before them. The closest one fired, and the Model Twenty-One disappeared for as it was struck by a shell designed to penetrate armored vehicles, and yet, when it reappeared, it was somehow still alive. Battered, thrown backwards by the impact, but living.

    A second tank fired. Then a third, a fourth. Only when five tanks had chipped in did I finally receive a notification that I had received points- nearly one-thousand of them, even with five tanks doing most of the damage.

    I didn¡¯t have time to celebrate or question that number, though, because I had about ten minutes to find a nice, quiet place to have a complete and utter meltdown.

 Chapter Thirty Four

    "And lo, God in his wrath did send upon us a plague, that which is known by the heathens as the Antithesis, to punish those who didst defile his creation."

    -The Rainier Bible, 2050

    <hr>

    Getting to the room I¡¯d used last night was a race against time.

    The combat stim I¡¯d used wasn¡¯t so polite as to stop working instantly as if a switch was flipped the moment the timer hit zero; even as I walked through the doors of the base I could feel the effects wearing off, leaving my system exposed to all the fear-related hormones that had been building up in the last two hours. It wasn¡¯t even as simple as just getting to my room; I had to take care of a few other things on the way.

    ¡°Juny, please give Alana a full report on the battle in that first skyscraper. Y¡¯know, the tactics the Antithesis used and such. Let her know there might be more Model Twenty Ones in command,¡± I told Juny as I struggled to walk, a new batch of nanites already hard at work knitting my thigh back together. There was no time to wait for the process to finish.

    ¡°Of course!¡± came her answer, from the Eyebot that had caught up with me at some point. I should have caught it with my motion tracker, which just told me how badly distracted I was already.

    ¡°And let her and¡­Nguyen, I guess, know I¡¯m going to be unavailable for a bit. Just tell them it¡¯s a bad reaction to a stim and not to let anyone into my room¡­no matter what they hear.¡± I could already feel a panic attack oncoming, and it was taking all my self-control to hold it back. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be as legendary as Juny had promised.

    With every step my leg healed a bit more, and my speed increased as I pushed my way through the halls. Night had fallen and the Antithesis attacks were lightening up, so there were quite of number of men and women coming off duty to wade through. Fortunately my armor made me look much bigger, and people tended to get out of the way when someone huge comes through.

    No one even joined me when I got onto the elevator. That might have been the fresh coat of blood I was wearing, though. I silently apologized to the janitors that would have to clean up the bloody footsteps left in my wake.

    By the time I reached the room I was looking for, I found it hard to even breathe. My eyes were clouded by tears and my throat was swollen. Terror was climbing its way up my spine. It was a good thing I didn¡¯t need my hands to remove my armor, because they were shaking so hard that I¡¯d have trouble just removing a shirt.

    I slammed the door shut more out of a lack of fine motor control than anything else and triggered the opening function on the Dainsleif the moment there was enough space to climb out. But when I tried to step backwards, my wounded thigh didn¡¯t move and I fell backwards, hitting the floor roughly. That last blow the Model Twenty One slipped in had damaged the armor so badly the left lag had jammed shut.

    My throat tightened further. Having my leg restrained was exacerbating my already escalating condition. Grabbing the armor¡¯s frame, I pulled myself to my feet and took a closer look at the armor. I was thinking through a fog by now, but if anything, the panic was sharpening my determination to free myself. I had to step up onto the frame, using it as a support as I pulled my leg up and out of the mangled armor, but even then, I was unable to sigh a breath of relief because my mind was already shutting down.

    At long last I collapsed onto the bed, unable to care about how dirty I still was. All I could think about was grabbing a pillow and burying my face in it before the screaming started. I wish I could say I blacked out at that point from the stress, but somehow I remained aware throughout the entire ordeal.

    The bottom fell out of my stomach. My spine felt like it was sinking into the abyss. Vertigo struck me more powerfully than anything I¡¯d felt before. Even with my eyes close the room seemed to spin like the inside of a dryer. Seconds passed like hours as I screamed into a pillow, simultaneously experiencing every moment of acrophobia I should have felt while fighting along with the fear of each and every brush with death I¡¯d experienced.

    There was no thinking during that period. Just riding out the wave.

    My throat grew hoarse and my muscles became sore from tensing up. When I finally began to calm, I wasn¡¯t sure I even wanted to know how long I¡¯d been melting down. More minutes passed before I could move again, as I first had to wait for my rock-hard muscles to loosen again and my constricted tendons to let up. It was unbearably painful with nothing else to distract me; I¡¯d had muscles lock up before, but never all of them at once.

    And of course when I did finally manage to move I proceeded to overcompensate and fling myself right off the bed.

    ¡°Ugh,¡± I groaned, lying there bonelessly. Juny was silent. After a few moments I got to my feet and dragged myself into the shower despite feeling more exhausted than I ever had before, tearing off my tattered clothes and turning on the water. Cold water blasted me, reminding me a bit too late that I had to wait for it to heat up, but I signed in resignation and just started scrubbing.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    I found the bed filthy when I returned and wrinkled my nose. I was in no mood to clean the sheets myself so I went a different route. Considering that my clothes were destroyed again too, I probably needed to consider getting some kind of Samurai-grade self-repairing shit too, but that could wait.

    ¡°Juny, are there some sheets and blankets I can buy with points? Class 0 if possible, I don¡¯t want to spend much on this.¡± As I spoke I tore the ruined sheets off the bed and piled them in the corner, then set about finding a change of clothes.

    ¡°If you must,¡± Juny replied, reminding me of the last time I¡¯d bought something in Class 0. It was the only other time I¡¯d ever heard her break character, but I was too fatigued to think about it much. I had other things to spend my limited brain power on before bed.

    One point later I had clean sheets and fell into bed, my wet hair soaking the pillow that had survived unsullied, but I didn¡¯t care much at this point.

    ¡°Okay. Before I go to sleep I have got to deal with my armor and those organ replacements. How many points do I have now?¡±

    ¡°7,764!¡±

    Well, at least I was flush with points to spend. I wasn¡¯t sure how much I should spend on what though. Split it evenly between weapons, armor, and organs? Just the latter two? Or should I put the bulk into my armor and use what was left for the organs? To start with I thought it would be a good idea to unlock the next tier of power armors.

    ¡°How much would it cost to get Class II Power Armors?¡±

    ¡°400 points and 1 token!¡±

    ¡°How many tokens do I have?¡±

    ¡°You currently have five!¡±

    ¡°¡­what did I do to get those, anyway? Actually, what even are they?¡±

    ¡°Tokens are awarded for certain milestones and are required for upper class catalogues. You have currently earned tokens for killing your first Antithesis above Model Ten, surviving the trip through the infested section and killing a large number of Antithesis in the process, destroying a small hive, killing a Model Eleven unaided, and contributing heavily to the death of a Model Twenty One,¡± Juny explained excitedly. That was more than I could unpack right now, but if I understood correctly, earning more would take escalating achievements?

    ¡°Alright, first, let¡¯s get that catalogue. Give me a list of Dainsleif models from that catalogue, too.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    Class II Power Armors Unlocked!

    Points Reduced to¡­7,364

    At the same time as the notification appeared, I received a list of armor models. Several versions were skipped, probably because they were Class I. I poked through the ones that were available- with Class II armors available I was hoping to pick out one with energy shielding and an overall boost across the board, along with a slimmer profile.

    I had to strike a balance here, because the more advanced the armor, the higher the level of enhancements I would need to safely use it. Armor wasn¡¯t developed in a vacuum and eventually the society designing it was going to achieve advancements in cybernetics or gene modification, allowing armor to in turn be designed with higher specifications in mind.

    Once I had enough time to adjust to them, I¡¯d be getting those modifications too, but right now I was limited to what I could buy in a single night. Fortunately, the society behind the Dainsleif series had clearly developed it themselves, not using stolen technology. Each iteration was a slight improvement on the one before, only sufficiently different that it could no longer be considered a modification of the model before.

    Changes in the base appearances in some generations made me suspect Juny had condensed several different product lines into a single chain, but I wasn¡¯t going to bother quibbling over that.

    Usually that meant an introduction of a new technology. The Dainsleif-11 was the first with a synthetic muscle layer in place of an exoskeleton, for instance, and the Dainsleif-12 had built in jump-jets equivalent to my current jump pack. Next was an improved power pack, and then finally, at Dainsleif-13, was the first version with proper energy shields, albeit a single panel, directional shield literally attached to an arm.

    On the other hand, the Dainsleif-18 received a new integrated sensor system that provided more information than my brain could even process at once. In the end I settled on the Dainsleif-15, a number I was planning to reference as little as I possibly could. Actually, on second thought¡­

    ¡°Juny, are you compiling several different armor lines into one name?¡± I asked, deciding 15 was already past the point it was just getting silly.

    ¡°Yes! I believed that would fit best with your preferences!¡±

    ¡°No, after a while the number is so high that it sounds strange¡­even the F-35 didn¡¯t actually have 34 previous models,¡± I told her.

    ¡°I see. Making adjustments now!¡±

    After a moment the names changed and the Dainsleif-15 became the Mistilteinn-4. Better. At any rate, the new suit would be a huge improvement. Tougher armor, a more resilient body suit, form-fitting energy shields, and a motion tracker that would detect movement around corners were the main improvements, but it would also double my admittedly lacking strength. The visor would even shrug off even the sort of attack that broke my first one.

    I would have preferred some improvements in resistance to extreme temperatures, but it wasn¡¯t a priority. The real problem actually lay in the lack of exoskeleton. The Dainsleif-6 was able to fold open thanks to the exoskeleton itself. This suit lacked that, and as a result was significantly less bulky, but it was also harder to put it on and take it off. The armor plating had to be removed manually before I could slip off the undersuit, requiring technicians with specialized tools or an automated maintenance station.

    Though on the bright side, that did make the suit more modular. I could replace any part of it to upgrade it incrementally. Altogether it would cost me 2,500 points, which was a lot less than I¡¯d feared, but still pretty hefty. If I were willing to spend more I could go for automated shoulder-mounted weapons, but¡­anything beyond would be pushing the limits of what a suit this size could fit, and I didn¡¯t want something the size of the Dainsleif-6 even if it would have higher performance.

    I was going to have to buy it in the morning though. It would be easiest to have it placed directly onto me and buy the maintenance station later. For now¡­

    ¡°I¡¯ll go with the Mistilteinn-4, but I¡¯ll buy it tomorrow morning. We¡¯ll use the Mjolnir Mk V design I made on day one. Now¡­I don¡¯t know where to start on the bio upgrades, so what would you recommend?¡±

 Chapter Thirty Five

    "Early reports from Atlantic City are indicating unprecedentedly low amounts of damage, currently credited to the heavy investments made by construction company CEO Rick Tenement into a city-wide anti-air array."

    -East Coast News Network, 2037

    <hr>

    ¡°Before I begin, would you prefer organs selected purely for survival or would you also like options with long term benefits?¡± Juny asked, but my answer was clear.

    ¡°Survival.¡±

    ¡°Of course! First, I would suggest the Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder.¡± I was starting to see a pattern with Juny¡¯s theme preferences. ¡°This would provide you with an additional organ that manufactures organic nanomachines, largely supplanting the need for external nanite doses.¡±

    Realizing I hadn¡¯t eaten in hours, I took a moment to order a meal and drink set before we continued. Since I was eating in bed, I went for something that wouldn¡¯t leave a mess, at least if I was careful: popcorn chicken and fries, plus a drink in a bottle with an autosealing lid.

    ¡°Why organic nanites instead of the usual kind?¡±

    ¡°Organic nanomachines can be built using ordinary food, while inorganic nanomachines require supplements of rare metals. You will, however, need to eat more to replenish your supply!¡± For once, Juny¡¯s tendency to make negatives sound positive actually lined up with my perception. I wasn¡¯t going to complain about getting to eat more without worrying about gaining weight.

    ¡°How much healing would it be good for?¡± was the next natural question, asked between bites of dinner.

    ¡°Anything a Class I Nano-Regenerative Suite can do! Nanites will deploy from the Breeder in response to injuries and knit you back together, but they will not regrow missing tissue.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take it. Just give me the prices at the end and try to balance the budget.¡± I took a sip of my drink; I had to hold down a button to do it, and the moment I let go it closed itself.

    ¡°Next, I suggest the Whalung Lung replacement.¡± I didn¡¯t comment, but I was pretty sure she failed to come up with a good play on the word ¡®lung¡¯ and just smashed it together with the word ¡®whale¡¯ because the result sounds like ¡®whaling.¡¯ ¡°Human lungs are inefficient and cannot cope with liquid intrusion. The Whalung processes oxygen more efficiently, improving function during aerobic activity, as well as in low-oxygen environments. It is also more resistant to liquid damage and better at absorbing liquid, making it harder to drown. As a side effect, losing an entire lung would only leave you at your current capacity.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like a good deal. What else have you got?¡±

    Yeah, I was too sleepy at this point to ask a whole lot of questions. I just wanted to do my due diligence and at least get the details before rubber stamping everything.

    ¡°My third recommendation is the Whole Hog digestive system replacement. It would take the place of your stomach, intestines, pancreas, and gallbladder. Digestion would be greatly improved, and your stomach acid will no longer pose a danger to your other organs,¡± Juny presented next, although it didn¡¯t sound like it was primarily a survival enhancer this time.

    ¡°How does that help keep me alive?¡±

    I opted to ignore the fact that my new stomach was going to be installed empty, making my entire meal pointless and a waste of two points. At least I was enjoying it? It was only chicken and potatoes in the end, but Protector stuff always tasted better.

    ¡°It takes up less space than your current organs, which creates space for the next implant,¡± she explained calmly. ¡°The Chronolord Binary Heart system replaces your heart with a pair of hearts which pump blood more efficiently. Both hearts can self-seal small wounds to prevent blood from escaping, and either can operate in the absence of the other, as your nanites can seal off one heart in the event of catastrophic damage!¡±

    Add another series to the list.

    ¡°Love it. Gonna have to get used to the extra heartbeat though, it¡¯ll probably feel like constant palpitations for a while¡­¡±

    ¡°Finally, there is the Panacea liver replacement. It will substantially improve your resistance to toxins, including making you effectively immune to those produced by Model Fours. You will not be immune to fatal poisons, but a larger dose will be needed to harm you.¡±

    ¡°Is there nothing for the brain?¡± I asked, wary of brain damage after my near death experience earlier. Having wolfed down my dinner, I tossed the packaging into the trash can.

    I missed.

    ¡°Enhancements exists, but none that would improve survival chances without at minimum a Class III catalogue. Would you like a list of beneficial enhancements?¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°I¡¯ll pass. Just give me the price tag so I can go to sleep.¡±

    ¡°In order, you will first need the Class I Biosculpting catalogue for fifty points, which allows you to purchase the Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder for five hundred points, the Whalung for two hundred-fifty points, the Whole Hog for two hundred points, and the Chronolord Binary Heart for four hundred points. As you are purchasing organic replacements rather than cybernetic, however, you will also need the Class II Medical Utilities catalogue for three hundred points and one token in order to obtain a Healing Hands Life Support and Surgical Suite for twelve hundred points.

    ¡°Altogether, your total will be twenty-nine hundred points!¡±

    She made it sound like I was ordering fast food, but whatever.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take¡­all of that, I guess. Do I need to do anything to get ready?¡± It was major surgery after all. There was usually a good bit of preparation for that sort of thing in my experience.

    ¡°Not at all. I will put you to sleep, and you will wake up after the operation is complete.¡±

    The last thing I saw before everything went black was the usual purchase text:

    Class II Medical Utilities Unlocked!

    Class I Biosculpting Unlocked!

    New Purchases: Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder, Whalung, Whole Hog, Chronolord Binary Heart, and Healing Hands Life Support and Surgical Suite

    Points Reduced to¡­4,462

    I woke as if a switch had been flipped. At the corner of my vision I was that six hours had passed; it was now two AM on the dot. That probably meant it was my turn on call while Alana got her own upgrades.

    ¡°Good morning! How are you feeling?¡± Juny asked, startling me a bit. She hadn¡¯t turned the lights back on after presumably turning them off at some point, so her voice had come from the darkness.

    ¡°Fine, I guess? Can you turn the lights- ah!¡± Before I even got to the word ¡®on¡¯ I was blinded by the room lights flaring up, bathing the room in bright light. I saw now that there was a long box on the bed next to me, longer than I was tall, that I could only assume was the suite I had purchased. It must have folded up when it was finished working.

    Somehow there was no blood, despite the fact that I¡¯d received the operation lying right on the bed. It wasn¡¯t really worth wondering how Protector technology accomplished that. It was basically magic. Next I checked myself. In spite of having my whole abdomen sliced open and half my internal organs scooped out and replaced, there were no scars left behind.

    I didn¡¯t feel all that different compared to before, but it was normal not to feel one¡¯s organs most of the time. If anything that just told me everything was working. There was one difference, of course, but it was only apparent if I placed a hand over my sternum: I now had two heartbeats, one in the usual spot and another where my stomach should have been. My new hearts were slower than my old one, so rather than feeling as if I had one heart racing, it felt like one heart beating slightly faster than normal, just with the thumps alternating in location.

    On the other hand, I was pretty hungry. My new stomach had literally never had food in it before. I ordered another meal, this time a sandwich, and inhaled it, but it wasn¡¯t enough to satisfy me now. That¡¯s when I remembered I needed to eat enough for my nanite breeder as well, which probably had an empty tank.

    ¡°I suppose if I need to eat a lot I may as well have some fun with it. I have to eat more than I normally will because of the new Phoenix organ, right?¡± I asked Juny, wanting to know if this was just going to be my appetite from now on. If it was, I¡¯d need to cut back on using points for food, because it was going to get expensive.

    ¡°Correct! The Phoenix Nanocyte Breeder will only require this much in resources if fully depleted,¡± she explained helpfully. Satisfied, I started ordering. First I swallowed an entire steak, then the biggest lobster tail I¡¯d ever heard of, and then, since it all cost the same anyway, high quality Bluefin tuna sushi. One of those things was incredibly expensive, and the other two had practically ceased to exist thanks to the Antithesis, and yet they were in the catalogue.

    I wasn¡¯t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    ¡°What¡¯s the situation?¡± I asked, sighing in contentment from my binge eating.

    ¡°Alana¡¯s watch proceeded without incident. The Antithesis have continued sporadic attacks throughout the night, but have not escalated compared to previous nights, and the attacks are small. Most likely they are simply probing for changes in the defenses!¡±

    That was good, at least. I couldn¡¯t help but think it was a ruse, though. If the Antithesis were getting smarter, surely they would eventually figure out how to make use of the already-established pattern¡­

    ¡°Alert!¡± There it was. ¡°A group of Model Twelves have landed on the roof and disgorged ground models.¡±

    ¡°Past tense? As in they already did it before anyone noticed?¡± I asked, used to this sort of issue thanks to my good friends the Model Nines. They must have been hidden from sensors somehow. I went ahead and hopped off the bed.

    ¡°Correct! Model Twelves are able to produce electromagnetic interference to defeat sensors. A review of camera footage suggests they were able to slip between searchlights during their approach, as well!¡±

    So they were already in the building, and we only found once someone made contact using the good old Mark I Eyeball. Well, my old suit was beyond my ability to repair, so my only choice was to spend even more time in the new one than expected.

    ¡°Go ahead and buy the Mistiltienn. Put it right now me,¡± I told Juny.

    ¡°You will need to be in midair when it materializes so that there is space for the boots!¡±

    ¡°Got it. Three, two, one-¡± I jumped, and right at the moment when gravity started to take hold again, I found myself ensconced in armor. When I landed it was with a heavy thud that strained the floorboards below me, my new power armor just as heavy as the old suit due to the dense materials used in its construction.

    I still needed to spend several moments retrieving equipment from the wrecked Dainsleif before I was totally ready. Just like that suit, the Mistletienn had magnetic strips for securing my weapons, and with the jump pack replaced by jets across its exterior, I now had plenty of space to affix both the assault rifle and shotgun to my back. The SMGs took their place on my thighs, and I wrapped my grav-chute along my waist.

    With the previous suit that had been the only additional equipment I could add to the suit itself, but this more advanced model could accommodate a few more if I had them. But that wasn¡¯t important right now.

    ¡°Alright Juny, tell me where to go. Let¡¯s put this suit through its paces.¡±

 Chapter Thirty Six

    "For our daily samurai news, today we have a story about Trigger Happy, a Dallas local! Reportedly, Trigger Happy walked into the Jack Caribou central offices and shot the arms manufacturer''s CEO five times. We reached out to Trigger Happy for a statement and were told, quote, "The right to repair one''s own weapons is inviolable." Last week Jack Caribou CEO Boris Quarterly announced their new Physical Rights Management measures for all their weapons going forward..."

    -Report from Dallas Local News, 2034

    <hr>

    I put a call through to whoever was coordinating as soon as I left my room.

    ¡°HQ this is Sigma 2, how¡¯s the situation?¡±

    ¡°Sigma 2, we have Antithesis landing on the roof,¡± an unfamiliar woman said a few moments later. ¡°They have nominal control over the top eight floors but we have established a barricade in the floor forty-two lobby and are holding them there. Emergency stairwell is closed off but the main stairs connecting every two floors are still open. Several units are trapped on the upper floors and could use a rescue.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the long term plan?¡± I asked next, already going for the elevator.

    ¡°With your help we should be able to push through to the roof and put boots in place to shoot down incoming Twelves. Rooftop AA is offline, so replacements would be appreciated if you don¡¯t mind, ma¡¯am.

    ¡°On it. Would you prefer if I fight my way up and clear them out, or go straight to the top floor and cut off their reinforcements?¡± I punched the call button for the elevator even as I asked the question, but the LED panel told me both of them were somewhere around floor forty right now, far above.

    ¡°Your call, ma¡¯am, but be aware that the Antithesis have been known to cut elevator cables. Cameras are out on the upper floors and doors are still showing as operable, but that could change at any time.¡±

    I went ahead and punched the button for the fiftieth floor when the elevator arrived, but given what I was told, I wouldn¡¯t be going in without a backup plan.

    ¡°Juny, stop the elevator on the closest floor the moment one of those doors is damaged,¡± I instructed as the elevator closed and began to rise.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I tapped my foot impatiently while waiting for the floors to go by. One by one the number ticket up, but all I could do was watch the counter right now. Right as we watched the fortieth floor, though, it suddenly sped up, gravity seeming to increase from the acceleration. At floor forty two the acceleration cut out, but the elevator continued up for a moment before falling back down, the cable groaning precariously.

    The second the door opened Juny put a waypoint on my augs, and I took the hint and stepped off. Assuming she¡¯d noticed the elevators coming under attack I didn¡¯t bother asking questions and just looked ahead, seeing at least two squads of soldiers manning a barricade in front of a long, wide hallway. Second later I heard something snap and the elevator car sank into oblivion, crashing to the ground dozens of floors below shortly afterwards.

    I had kind of expected that on account of Murphy¡¯s Law, so I didn¡¯t dwell on it. I just headed for the barricade. Men and women huddled behind desks and tables that had been turned on their sides, peering over to fire on Model Threes that were swarming towards them, filling the hallway. Bodies were already strewn about all the way up to the makeshift wall, and a few of the mercenaries were down with spines in them courtesy of a line of Model Fives slinging projectiles over the Threes.

    ¡°Cryo grenade,¡± I requested, figuring that would cause the damage to the building. ¡°Make a hole!¡± I called out as soon as I had the grenade, striding forward with it in one hand and my assault rifle in the other. A man glanced over his shoulder and shoved the person next to him aside in alarm when he saw me, giving me the space I needed.

    Priming the grenade, I hopped the barricade, then lobbed the explosive underhand. Chilling fluid sprayed across the Model Threes in the lead, freezing them solid and locking them in place to quickly for the ones behind to react, resulting in them running head long into the ice statues in front. I had enough time as they reoriented to bring my rifle to bear.

    At this range I didn¡¯t even need aim assistance. I just fired burst after burst, putting down a Model Three with every pull of the trigger. As soon as they¡¯d registered my presence and lack of cover the Model Fives in the rear began aiming solely for me, but I didn¡¯t need the cover anymore. Their deadly projectiles bounced harmlessly off my shields, and while its integrity was dropping steadily, it was in no danger of failing.

    Emboldened by the newfound lack of suppressive fire coming their way, supporting fire came from the troops behind me, thinning out the horde further. By the time any of them reached me there were no more behind them. A few stragglers were picked off trying to slip past me, and one lunged right at me, ducking under my barrel before I could shift my aim.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Instead of a bullet, it got the stock of my assault rifle straight to the face, and with my newly enhanced strength behind the blow something cracked. The Model Three struck the ground and slid. Before it could recover I planted a boot on it to keep it still and fired a burst into its skull at point blank range.

    That left the Model Fives. I reloaded manually and shifted to fully automatic, raking fire across their line. What I didn¡¯t kill, the mercenaries did, and the floor fell silent. I scanned the battlefield for movement or anything that could be a Model Nine in disguise, but nothing stood out.

    ¡°Would you like backup, ma¡¯am?¡± a man behind me asked. I hesitated for a moment, wavering between acting confident to not impact morale and my utter lack of leadership skills. I realized, though, that there wasn¡¯t any reason I could confidently make it someone else¡¯s problem.

    ¡°Contact your commander, I¡¯ve got things on my end,¡± I told him, picking my way through the corpses before I got an answer back. The floor was slick with plant guts, but my helmet blocked out the scent of old grass that must have been thick in the air. When I reached the other end unmolested I was almost surprised.

    ¡°This way!¡± Juny contributed, pointing me towards the stairs going up. Nodding, I swapped my assault rifle for the SMGs, assuming they would be easier to use in close quarters. As I approached, though, I detected movement above, past the landing and up the second set of steps. Another wave of Model Threes surged around the bend, some of them leaping from the landing and others diving down the stairs on foot.

    I ducked and let a few of the dog-adjacent abominations sail over my head while I sprayed the ground-bound group with both barrels. Indoors I couldn¡¯t use the rails in my weapons for greater damage, but Model Threes were still cannon fodder either way, so between both guns I had mowed my targets down before the jumpers could even spin around.

    One of them dove for my leg while I reloaded, but I already knew it was coming. I delivered a kick to its face, sending its nose through its brain. Another came for my right arm, and I elbowed it in the face, stunning it long enough for me to twist at the waist and bring one SMG to around to shoot it. I completed the spin and wiped out the rest, but I knew I wasn¡¯t quite done yet.

    With the first group dead I raced up the stairs and intercepted a cluster of Fours and Fives at the top. The Fives didn¡¯t even have time to pluck their spines before I gunned them down, and my shields shrugged off repeated strikes from the Fours long enough for me to remove them from the gene pool, too.

    Nothing else was pinging my tracker, so I stepped through, checking for ambushes but somewhat confident there was nothing there. The forty-third floor had a different layout than the floor prior, apparently having four hallways in a tic-tac-toe board layout, with the staircases in opposite corners.

    ¡°The first pinned group is this way!¡± Juny announced, pointing me to the right. I turned and looked down the hallway, spotting a pile of furniture blocking the end of the hall. Now that I was looking that way I noticed tentacles whipping around the corners and striking at the barrier from cover; I could only barely sense them through the motion detector at this range and only because I knew to look for them.

    Whoever was taking cover there was taking pot shots here and there, but they were probably lucky that Model Fours seemed more interested in keeping them pinned than actually killing them here and now. Had the two waves I¡¯d dealt with already focused on this group they would have been dead by now, but they were likely more concerned with keeping the pressure going downstairs.

    Switching back to the assault rifle, I set off down the hall in a jog. The Model Fours heard me before I arrived and ceased their attacks. I wasn¡¯t terribly concerned about that. There wasn¡¯t much they could do to stop me, now. All the same, I decided it was wiser not to take chances and called in another cryo grenade, which I rolled out into the intersection ahead of me.

    When I stepped out of cover, I found nothing left of them but a pair of sculptures.

    ¡°Ya¡¯ll can come out near, it¡¯s all clear. There¡¯s a clear path to the next floor down,¡± I yelled past the cracked and splintered wall. I heard movement on the other side. The moment someone tried to shift a part of the barrier aside the entire structure destabilized and clattered to the ground amid shouts of alarm from the other side, burying someone in furniture.

    ¡°¡­you good?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m good,¡± a defeated-sounding man replied, pushing junk aside to extricate himself while another man in fatigues helped. I probably could have helped, but I decided it was better to keep an eye out for more Antithesis. Also, I didn¡¯t really want to.

    When the buried man was freed he and his buddy climbed over the fallen furniture pile followed by a handful of others. Only the first two were armed, and only with side arms at that. Still, even if they¡¯d been caught off guard and failed to reach any weapons, I had to give them credit for hunkering down before the Antithesis had gotten to them.

    ¡°Anyone injured?¡± The group looked each other over for a moment before one of them stepped up to answer.

    ¡°We¡¯re all good. Thanks for the rescue, ma¡¯am.¡±

    ¡°All in the job description. I¡¯ll walk you to the stairs, let¡¯s move before the next wave comes.¡± I gestured down the hall with my head before setting off, trying to tune out the pings I was getting from the group of mercs and focus on anything that might actually be dangerous. When I approached the other intersection I caught something around the corner- at least halfway down. I held up a hand to tell them to stop and grabbed my shotgun, then pressed my back against the corner and peeked around the corner.

    Like I expected, it was big. A Model Six. Holding back to command the others? Maybe it decided to move up when they were wiped out. At any rate, it was too far away to be dangerous right now, so I spun out of cover and took aim. The first shot staggered it, but didn¡¯t kill it, so I fired again, catching it just above the head and putting it down for good. I waited for a moment for anything else to appear, but the coast seemed clear.

    ¡°Go ahead and head down. I¡¯ll let them know you¡¯re coming,¡± I said, calling the operator I¡¯d spoken to earlier as the rescuees shuffled by behind me, murmuring thanks. ¡°First group is safe. Sending them down now, let¡¯em know friendlies are coming their way.¡±

    ¡°Thanks for the heads up, ma¡¯am, I¡¯ll let them know.¡±

    ¡°Perfect. I¡¯m moving onto the forty-fourth.¡±

 Chapter Thirty Seven

    "We were all surprised when that hive turned up. The Stalking Tigers were here for decades to keep one from forming, y''know? When we found out how it happened...well, let''s just say no one was sad to trade them out for a Samurai or two."

    -Anonymous survivor of the Boone Stealth Incursion

    <hr>

    I stopped when I crested the stairs and detected movement around the corner. I peered out and saw a mixed group of Antithesis trampling the remains of a long counter as they filed down a hallway heading deeper into the floor. That was odd, since the staircases were both connected to the lobby on this floor, on opposite sides of the elevator. Gunfire erupted shortly afterwards, though, answering the question for me.

    ¡°I am detecting a single human on the other side of this floor,¡± Juny announced from behind me. I caught the odd phrasing immediately.

    ¡°Detecting? So they didn¡¯t tell you someone was stuck here? And that sounded like a lot more than one person shooting.¡±

    ¡°This floor contains the commanding officer¡¯s staff offices and personal office. Automated defenses are set up around the door to the main office,¡± Juny explained. Strange that it wasn¡¯t on the top floor. I couldn¡¯t help but ask, even if it wasn¡¯t an appropriate time.

    ¡°Why isn¡¯t it a penthouse office?¡±

    ¡°The upper floors are dedicated mostly to support facilities for the anti-air defenses, sensors, and aircrafts. This was the highest floor available.¡±

    Huh. Well, not important, at any rate. I stepped onto the floor and made for the hallway, figuring I may as well save that one person while I was here. It seemed odd that no one knew they were here though, which made me think they were up to no good. And when it came to people I¡¯d suspect of causing trouble, well, there was only one name on the list. Maybe I was biased though; it wasn¡¯t like I knew a whole lot of people here.

    ¡°Why is this floor the only one with automated defenses?¡±

    ¡°Budget cuts!¡±

    ¡°Bet the old CO would have ¡®found¡¯ the money real fast if he¡¯d survived this long¡­¡±

    At any rate, the time for talking was done. Even before I reached the hallway I could detect movement from surviving Antithesis, and I heard the whistling of a Model Six to boot. I raised my shotgun as I got closer, but when I was getting close, I caught another ping on my sensor- from the other direction.

    I realized the first Model Six had been communicating with reinforcements when a second one slammed into the ground from the direction of the upper floor stairs, transitioning into a charge the instant its feet made contact with the floor. Amidst shattered floor tiles the colossal Antithesis rushed me across the relatively narrow lobby, and I barely had time to dive out of the way before it hit me, landing hard on my belly- I wasn¡¯t quite athletic enough to turn my fall into a roll. Not yet, anyway.

    The Model Six rammed into the corner where the hallway began and the wall lost, a shower of plaster and insulation coating its front. I hurried to my feet and spun while the Model Six did the same, but I could turn faster on two legs than it could on six. I fired an explosive shell into its flank, staggering it, and then fired another for the kill a moment later.

    Just one problem: it wasn¡¯t the only Model Six coming down the stairs.

    This time I was closer to the staircase; more or less directly in front of it, in fact. The second Model Six landed and then launched itself into me before I could bring my shotgun to bear. I took the body slam right to the chest and my shields popped like a bubble as I felt something crack inside me. I was lifted off my feet and flung straight through the wall behind me by the Antithesis¡¯s mass and momentum.

    For a moment there was a blinding pain in my chest and a constricting tightness, but it disappeared before I could think about it too much and I pushed it aside for later. I found that I was lying on my back in an office longer than it was narrow, atop what was left of the desk I landed on. A low beeping sound alerted me to my collapsed shields. The Model Six that put me there was shoving its head through a me-sized hole in the wall, only barely restrained for the moment by the wooden planks spaced out every few feet inside it.

    Behind me I both heard and felt the entry of several Model Threes into the room, and I grabbed an SMG off my thigh and turned to spray the lot of them down. That left the Six; I didn¡¯t have to think too much about lifting my shotgun and blasting it in the face from my prone position. It slumped over dead, plugging the hole in the wall almost entirely with its mass. For the second time in minutes I shakily stood back up, wary of the damage I¡¯d taken from that ramming attack. Fortunately my shield was already recovering.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°What the hell was that¡­?¡± I asked Juny, hoping she knew what that pain I¡¯d felt had been.

    ¡°Your primary heart was compressed by the impact and stopped beating for a moment, but it was undamaged, so the secondary heart was able to restart it!¡± the AI announced in my head. Her drone must have still been in the lobby. I turned away from the dead Model Six to find the door but stopped a few steps later when Juny spoke again. ¡°By the way, I¡¯m detecting Model Nine interference!¡±

    I barely had the time to even think the words ¡®oh shit¡¯ before the ceiling tile above me burst apart in a flurry of tentacles. They wrapped around me faster than I could move. One settled around my neck like yesterday morning, but when the tentacles constricted to hold me still, they merely slid across my shields harmlessly.

    ¡°Nice try. Juny, cryo grenade, please.¡± Once I had a grenade in my hand I primed it and chucked it up through the hole above me. It burst and spread cryogenic fluid over every surface of the Model Four¡¯s body, freezing its tentacles solid while sloughing off my shields harmlessly. All I had to do was step forward and the tentacles shattered. ¡°They¡¯re getting way too good at putting me right where they want me¡­¡±

    That wasn¡¯t the end of it though. I¡¯d hardly freed myself before spindly figures, eerily silent, rushed into the room. Some came through the tiny gaps left by the Model Six¡¯s corpse, while others came through the open door and even more piled in through the ceiling. I had been expecting an ambush by Nines since Juny spoke up- though not expecting the sheer number- so I was sidestepping away from the hole in the ceiling and drawing my SMGs a fraction of a second later.

    They were fast, but none of them had a straight path towards me when they flung themselves into the room, having to reorient themselves and change directions. I opened up on the group coming through the door before they could spread out, the my shields flared an instant later as several flew past me from behind, raking their claws across me as they passed.

    With them now in front of me I was easily able to kill them before they were able to round on me again, but I realized I¡¯d made a mistake when the next hit popped my shields, allowing a Model Nine to wrap itself around me from behind. Unfortunately for it, I wasn¡¯t wearing my old suit. I was a lot more flexible in this one, and stronger to boot. I dropped one of my weapons and reached over my shoulder to grab the bugger while it was still trying to cut through my suit, peeling it off in one hard pull.

    I cast the Model Nine in my hand to the ground and stomped on it, crushing its head beneath my boot. My downed shield alarm continued to blare as I put distance between myself and the hole a few Model Nines were still struggling to squeeze through. When I looked back they were almost through, but almost wasn¡¯t good enough. They died helpless and I didn¡¯t even feel bad about it.

    ¡°¡­was that the first time I survived a fight with Nines without a grievous injury?¡± I asked rhetorically. Juny was happy to answer anyway, of course.

    ¡°Technically, no, since you have several broken ribs!¡± she corrected me cheerily.

    ¡°Sure, but the Nines didn¡¯t break them,¡± I said while I retrieved my shotgun, which I must have dropped while grabbing for my SMGs. Once I had it in hand I walked back to the door and looked out to find the first Model Six I¡¯d heard still there, whistling as Model Threes rushed past it into automated machinegun fire. I casually put few shells into it, putting it down for good, before stepping out, not detecting any more motion.

    I examined the scene in the hallway to find an impressive number of dead low-number models scattered around a large room with a secretary¡¯s desk at the far end¡­with two automated machineguns sticking out of open panels in the front. Another one was mounted in the ceiling, but it was hanging limply, disabled- there were several Model Five spines in it that I traced to a dead Five a few meters behind the Six.

    The area seemed clear, so I headed for the office in the back. The door was locked, but despite the heavy security outside, it was just wood. It didn¡¯t hold up to a solid kick that splintered it around the latch, flinging the door open.

    ¡°You couldn¡¯t just knock!?¡± screamed a familiar voice when I walked into the room. I groaned internally at being proven right. Tommy Thompson was rising from behind the large desk on the other side of the office, handgun wisely pointed well away from me. By training or choice I wasn¡¯t sure.

    ¡°Hey, uh¡­y¡¯know, I was going to call you by your rank, but I actually forgot what it was, Tommy. Anyway, funny story¡­I got intel on where everyone trapped behind enemy lines were, but you weren¡¯t in the list. Don¡¯t suppose there¡¯s a reason for that?¡±

    ¡°¡­I forgot my radio. And that¡¯s Major Thompson to you,¡± he snarled in indignation. I wasn¡¯t really all that intimidated considering I was wearing several hundred pounds of power armor, though.

    ¡°So, you come here often?¡± I asked next, moving my head from side to side deliberately to indicate the room we were in. The room which very much did not belong to the major.

    ¡°That¡¯s none of your business, civilian,¡± he replied, emphasizing the last word. ¡°You don¡¯t have the rank.¡± I considered pressing the matter, given that while I didn¡¯t have the rank, I did have the beyond-bleeding-edge armor and a shotgun that could render him into ludicrous gibs, but I didn¡¯t actually have time to deal with the guy right now. There were people that actually mattered still in need of a rescue.

    ¡°Fine, fine. Way¡¯s clear, so you can head on downstairs. Or don¡¯t. Up to you.¡± I stepped aside to allow him through the door. Thompson regarded me warily for a moment as if suspicious that I¡¯d given up on the matter so quickly, but then he nodded and walked around the desk and out the door.

    Didn¡¯t actually thank me for the rescue, unsurprisingly.

    ¡°Leave a message for Alana telling her he was up here,¡± I told Juny once he was out of earshot. I had no way of knowing what he was up to but maybe once there was time she¡¯d be able to find out. Hopefully it just tied back into his evident corruption and nothing like sabotage¡­but from my few interactions with him, it seemed like he was growing more incensed with every instance of collateral damage in the city, so it was probably just a matter of time.

    ¡°Done! Would you like me to ask for him to be detained?¡±

    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think we¡¯ve got the authority for that. Best to let him think he got away with whatever he¡¯s up to until Alana get nail him. Let¡¯s just keep moving.¡±

 Chapter Thirty Eight

    "You''d think most of the property damage from incursions would come from the Antithesis, but honestly? There''s a reason most insurance companies charge extra for ''Acts of Samurai.''"

    -A construction contractor interviewed in the wake of the 2056 Boone stealth hive incident

    <hr>

    My first thought was to go up the stairs like a normal, sane person, but then I realized I had a perfectly good hole in the ceiling already made for me. I back tracked to the office I¡¯d been fighting in previously, uncomfortably cognizant of the gross, squishy noises of the Antithesis guts beneath my feet, and looked up at the hole. My cryo grenade had frozen the Model Four that attacked through it and the subsequent rush of Nines hadn¡¯t left much of it intact, so I had a clear shot up.

    I still threw one more grenade up just for good measure, though.

    Once I¡¯d made certain the coast was clear I jumped up, my suit¡¯s built in jump jets kicking in to carry me to the next floor. I landed in what looked to be a gym, with exercise equipment strewn about haphazardly. More poignantly, there were numerous holes dug into the floor, all of them stopping just above the ceiling tiles, providing convenient entry points. Were those all made when I showed up, so they could be sure I would end up under one of them, or were they trying to find a way past the auto turrets? Well, it didn¡¯t really matter either way, now. Except to whoever had to repair the damage.

    The Antithesis had seemingly thrown everything available at me, as none were left on this floor. That probably meant there were no humans hiding here either, else they would have kept trying to kill them, but I asked to be sure.

    ¡°Juny, where are the remaining groups in need of rescue?¡± I asked as the Eyebot floated up the hole behind me.

    ¡°One squad is in the armory on the floor above us, and another is defending the gunships in the hangar on the top floor! The second appears to be Alana¡¯s squad!¡±

    ¡°Minus Alana, I¡¯m guessing,¡± I posited, knowing Alana should be in surgery right now getting turned into the Million Dollar Woman. Juny bobbed up and down as if nodding. ¡°Aren¡¯t they armed with Samurai grade weapons?¡±

    ¡°They are! However, much of their equipment is too dangerous to use indoors.¡±

    Considering Haley was a member of that squad, I wasn¡¯t terribly surprised. Hopefully they had enough ammunition to last them until I got there, considering they were likely getting hit by a good number of the Antithesis in each wave. I didn¡¯t doubt that they¡¯d given the Antithesis so much trouble that they changed strategy and decided it was easier to clear out the rest of the building first.

    ¡°Alright, well, it wouldn¡¯t make sense to skip the next floor and go right to them, so I¡¯m going to have to rely on them being tough enough to survive a few extra minutes. Give me a map of the next floor so I know what I¡¯m in for this time.¡±

    As I walked towards the stairs the map popped up on my augs. It looked like the next floor was mostly residential, but it was the space dedicated to the rapid response teams, so their equipment was stored in an armory on the same floor. The halls formed a square with mostly dorm-like rooms on the outer ring and common rooms in the center, including the armory, although there were a few exceptions to the former.

    I would be going straight when I exited the stairwell and then taking a left on the other side of the building. While it would have been nice to know what the Antithesis forces looked like up there, we had already entered a cloud of Model Nine scales, so sensors were jammed. That only left finding out with my own two eyes.

    With that in mind, I headed up the stairs, stopping at the top to lean out and get a sense of what I was dealing with. Far down the hall, at the corner, I saw a cluster of Model Fives. These hallways were only designed for people, and Model Fives were the size of cars, but there had to be at least one far enough forward to throw spines, to say nothing of what was around the corner. I wasn¡¯t sure what their plan was if the front most Five got killed, but maybe they were pushing the bodies along ahead of them as a barricade?

    Sadly, that would probably work in my direction too. The one closest to me would block my fire towards the next one in line, and it would be hard to accurately throw a grenade over it at this distance. I could kill that one, but I¡¯d have to get closer to get at the rest. Given that the squad in the armory hadn¡¯t escaped, it was likely that there were more on the other side, so going around would result in the same conundrum.

    On the bright side, at least I upgraded my armor before having this encounter. I could try using a grenade launcher, but I was trying to avoid blowing up the building, and besides, I didn¡¯t really have any good way of carrying it right now. It was going to be necessary for me to find some way of carting around all my extra weapons at some point, but I wasn¡¯t sure yet how to go about it. I only knew that I couldn¡¯t keep strapping them to myself.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    Maybe I could get a bag of holding. Or just something simple like a pack mule drone.

    At any rate, I grabbed my assault rifle and exited cover, putting a burst into the first Model Five so its corpse would keep the rest where they were. With how crammed in they were right now I wasn¡¯t worried about return fire, but there was still a number of rooms between myself and them, and any of them could be occupied, so I took things slowly, hurrying between rooms but checking them before passing.

    It was a good thing I did, as when I approached the halfway mark, I sensed motion from the two doors ahead. It was faint, probably only detectable because the Model Nine scales had begun to settle, but it was enough to make me skid to a stop in time. That reduced the effectiveness of the ambush, but it didn¡¯t ruin it entirely.

    Model Threes burst from the doors on both sides; a kitchen and a lounge if I remembered correctly. Nines accompanied them by crawling on the ceiling. I was taken aback by the appearance of the Threes- rather than large dogs, some of them looked more feline in nature, but I couldn¡¯t afford to ask questions about it right now.

    I had been on guard enough that my rifle was up and firing less than a second after the ambush began, tearing through the first few Threes and Nines, but they were appearing faster than I could kill them. They might have been using the same tactic as earlier- busting through the floor of the level above so they could throw more numbers at me than would have fit in the actual rooms.

    As I fired I backed up, keeping myself from being overrun for just that much longer with each step, but I still only had a sixty round magazine in my rifle, which translated to twenty bursts. I had used one on the Model Five already, so that left nineteen, and the number trickled down with every trigger pull until it finally hit zero. That allowed a Three to get close, but I bought myself another moment by smacking bashing it with the butt of my rifle, then swapped my SMGs in while it was disoriented and in the way of those behind it.

    By the time it recovered I had one gun raised and ready to fire, reducing it to shredded lettuce. My other weapon turned towards the ceiling and I opened up on the Nines just as they gained ground, tearing through several of their more fragile bodies and raining body parts onto the Threes below. The Threes continued to advance faster than I could kill them though, and soon they were right on top of me.

    If nothing else, I was thankful that I was better equipped for close combat than yesterday. I smacked a Three across the face with one hand and shot it with the other, shrugging off a tackle from another a moment later and kneeing it in the face as my shields flared. I shoved it aside for the moment, its jaws too broken to pose any danger, and then put the barrel of a gun right down the throat of the next one and fired down its gullet, giving it the most explosive bowel movement of all time.

    A pair of Threes darted past me as a Nine descended from the ceiling, but I managed to duck under the Nine in time and spun, gunning down all three before they could surround me. Another Three jumped onto my back, but its claws and teeth slid off my shields, draining them further but failing to deplete them. Its weight wasn¡¯t enough to keep me from standing, and it fell away as I shot to my feet and spun, cracking its skull with a blow to the side of the head while my other hand shot into the crowd behind it.

    That combat implant was really paying off.

    I ran both SMGs dry firing into the oncoming horde, but their numbers were dwindling at this point. I holstered both and reached for my newly reloaded assault rifle, switching it to full auto for the final burst. Raising it to my shoulder, I hosed down the few remaining Antithesis in my way, leaving half the length of the hallway riddled in bullet holes and choked with corpses and alien goo.

    Nothing more got in my way as I strolled up to the dead Model Five from before and hurled a grenade over its remains. When it detonated, the remaining Fives were showered with cryogenic fluid and frozen solid¡­which still left the hallway blocked, but it was a start. After a moment of consideration, I decided this floor was already fucked enough that a bit more property damage would hardly be noticed, so I went into the closest room and broke through the wall, continuing until I found myself in the same hallway as the armory.

    As I expected, there were more Model Fives on the other end. They had been pushing bodies of their predecessors down the hall as they advanced, laying down suppressive fire to keep the armory squad from sticking their heads out too far. Nines were already positioned close to the door, waiting for them to stick their heads too far out. None of which put them in any position to stop me from mowing them down, then repeating my maneuver with the grenade on the other side.

    The armory doors turned out to be sealed, but I saw some blood spattered around the entrance that told me it hadn¡¯t been their first resort. I decided to knock.

    ¡°Ya¡¯ll alright in there? The Antithesis are all dead, so you¡¯re free to come out,¡± I yelled, not sure if they could hear me. Fortunately they could, and a moment later the doors slid open, revealing a room full of weapons and armor and eight bedraggled mercenaries who¡¯d gotten too few hours of sleep.

    ¡°Thanks, ma¡¯am. Lieutenant Alvarez, at your service,¡± the one closest to the door said as he gave me an exhausted salute. I nodded in acknowledgement.

    ¡°Anyone need healing?¡± I asked, tapping a foot on the ground where blood had fallen, but he shook his head and pointed out a man with a bandaged arm.

    ¡°Already took care of it, he¡¯ll be out of commission for a while, but he¡¯ll live,¡± Alvarez told me, pointing out a man with a bandaged arm and a broken Model Five spine nearby. I shrugged and asked Juny for a Nano-Regenerative Suite, handing it to the lieutenant immediately.

    ¡°Give him this and he¡¯ll be good as new in a few minutes. Instructions are on the package. The hallways are a bit clogged right now so just sit tight for now; I need to go back up Alana¡¯s squad.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, ma¡¯am, but most of us are good to go. I¡¯ll give Jacobs this, but the rest of us would prefer to come with you and help McIntire Squad,¡± he responded, a determined look in his eyes. I gave it some real thought this time. Alvarez¡¯s team wasn¡¯t part of the defensive deployments and were fully geared up. They hadn¡¯t participated in the fighting yet because they were pinned down, so they were fresh. I wasn¡¯t sure what we¡¯d be dealing with up to, and I might need someone to hold the line while I broke through to Alana¡¯s squad or assist in clearing the roof.

    ¡°Y¡¯know what, sure. Just stick behind me, I¡¯m a great shield.¡±

 Chapter Thirty Nine

    With floor forty seven being equipment and parts storage, I planned to take my temporary squad past it and straight to the forty eighth and ninth floor- a gunship repair and maintenance facility that took up two entire floors of the building. Its layout was essentially one huge room with three elevators up to the roof, where the landing pads were, and a fourth, smaller freight elevator going down to the forty seventh floor. There were cranes and racks for storing gunships along the ceiling, giving the hangar space for far more gunships than it was actually equipped with, and multiple bays for mechanics to service gunships in.

    There were only two gunships in the hangar as of now, with one of them having been lost on day one along with an entire rapid response team. Alana¡¯s squad had used cranes to position both gunships in adjacent maintenance bays from which they could defend them both at once. I was looking out from the top of the stairs onto the hangar bay floor as they huddled behind spare parts and heavy vehicles like forklifts, using them as makeshift cover.

    It seemed to be an effective form of defense, judging by the number of Antithesis bodies. Just about every combat model under ten had joined the pile, with a surprising number of fallen Sixes now serving as cover for Fives, which were lobbing spiny quills in arcs over the corpses. Threes and, I was sure, Nines, crept through the bodies to get closer to McIntire Squad, jumping out only once they ran out of cover, but accurate covering fire from someone not far above the gunships, lying prone on top of a crate suspended via crane, killed them before they got far.

    The rest of the squad beneath that marksmen were putting out disciplined return fire in short, controlled bursts, popping out of cover only long enough to take aim and shoot. They didn¡¯t seem to be in a whole lot of danger, in all honesty. The Model Fives pelting them had little accuracy since they were attacking indirectly, and the Threes were coming at them piecemeal, throwing themselves into the open bit by bit so that the pinned squad couldn¡¯t advance.

    I could hear whistling from somewhere among the dead Sixes, so at least one of them was probably alive and giving orders. There were no advanced models I could see, so the mysterious Model Twelves I¡¯d heard had dropped these Antithesis off probably couldn¡¯t carry the combat models in that range. I decided there wasn¡¯t much point over thinking things and went to comm the others at the bottom of the stairs, but when I tried to access the channel, there was no response.

    ¡°Comms are being jammed. Another flight of Model Twelves has likely grown close!¡± Juny announced. I cursed; that definitely meant he situation was about to go downhill. Instead of talking on the comms I hurried down the stairs to meet Alvarez and his team face to face.

    ¡°McIntire Squad has things handled right now but enemy reinforcements are close. Think we¡¯ve got a choice to make here,¡± I told the lieutenant as I skipped the last few steps.

    ¡°Well, we¡¯re not holding this position.¡± Even I could understand that much; the warehouse floor we were on had lots of crates sitting around, but most were too heavy to move on short notice. ¡°We¡¯re going to have to either reinforce them now or fall back to a more defensible location. I¡¯d suggest the latter; we don¡¯t need them getting deeper into the building again.¡±

    ¡°¡­if you think that¡¯s the best course of action, I won¡¯t stop you, but I¡¯m going in. If we can break the Antithesis here we should be able to dig in on the roof before they can come back. I think they¡¯ve been targeting Alana and I, so if they see me in the hangar they¡¯ll probably try to overrun me instead of sneaking past,¡± I told Alvarez, shaking my head. I turned back to the stairs, but a hand reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder. It wasn¡¯t enough resistance to stop me in this suit, but it was enough to get my intention.

    ¡°Wait. If you¡¯re going in, we¡¯ll back you up. I¡¯ve got a better idea, though.¡±

    <hr>

    The freight elevator was big and could handle a lot of weight, but it wasn¡¯t fast by any measure. It was also positioned dead in the center of the hangar, equally distant from each of the gunship elevators. That meant whoever went up it was going to immediately be the center of attention, and would have several moments of vulnerability while the elevator was high enough to expose them but not all the way raised yet.

    With my jump jets I could circumvent that last problem, but I didn¡¯t, because I wanted to be the center of attention. And while all the Antithesis turned towards me, a big, exposed target with no cover to protect me, Alvarez Squad could rush in from the other direction and hit them in the flank- all while I was in the middle of them, keeping them from shifting their attention.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    The doors above me opened up as the freight elevator shuddered into motion, lifting me steadily up. Bodies of Antithesis fell around me while the doors receded, a ring of bodies around the elevator preventing them from being shifted onto solid floor. I saw a couple human bodies in the mix, likely mechanics and the like that hadn¡¯t had the time to evacuate.

    I chose to go with the assault rifle for this for its mix of stopping power and capacity. I leaned forward a bit in anticipation, ready to start moving the instant my shields were down. Model Fives weren¡¯t a huge threat to me, anymore, but they could still penetrate my undersuit, just not as easily.

    My visor peaked above floor level and I saw the field of corpses from the inside this time. I was surrounded by a blanket of Model Threes, with peaks jutting out above them in the form of Fives and Sixes. By the time I was at chest height, a handful of Model Threes had caught sight of me and jumped in my direction, but the sharpshooter above and behind me dispatched them for me. When my waist cleared the floor quills started sailing towards me, impacting all around the elevator from places unseen.

    Some hit through sheer volume of fire, taking a few percentage points off my shields at a time. Still, I didn¡¯t move. I had no line of fire on the Fives launching at me, and I wanted to give them all time to notice me. When my knees were above ground the whistling sounds shifted and everything exploded into motion immediately.

    Bullets flew from behind me. Quills fell all around me from multiple directions. Model Threes and Nines burst from cover and were gunned down. I looked around, taking stock of where the Fives were hiding, and then gunfire from a different direction provided my cue to move.

    I shifted from a lean to a run in an instant, trailing spines as the Fives around me tried to adjust their aim, somehow aware I was on the move. I sprinted half the length of the building and turned around a dead Model Six to find two Fives crouching in its shadow, already turning to face me. One burst each killed those two, and then I ran past them towards the next Five¡¯s location, trusting my back to Alvarez and his men.

    While I was still under fire, it was already decreasing in intensity from the rear, and I wasn¡¯t catching any movement in the other direction on my tracker, so I knew I wasn¡¯t the only one having success. Threes from all across the battlefield and even the stairs to the roof, dozens at the least, converged on my position, but I ignored them in favor of focusing on the Fives.

    A shout from the direction of McIntire squad preceded concentrated fire behind me when I ran in front of a Model Six instead of behind it. My pursuers were shredded as they ran headlong into a crossfire while I jumped atop a dead Six and fire down into the Five hiding behind it, then spun and shot another one near the Six that I had passed. I jumped down, crushing a crippled Three with my landing, and then headed for the next target.

    Behind me both squads of mercenaries maneuvered around the killing field to bring new targets into sight while the Antithesis focused their attention on me. Most of the melee models were dead by now, and the Fives couldn¡¯t see their targets directly, so by the time they knew they were outflanked, they didn¡¯t have time to react. Every moment reduced the volume of fire I was dealing with, and before long I was seeing spines flying towards me just a few at a time instead of the coordinated and continuous volleys from the beginning.

    I finally found the surviving Six partially hidden behind one of its siblings when it surged into motion the moment I got close. Its head had been far enough out of cover to give it a wide view of the room, unsurprisingly. When I approached it from behind it suddenly kicked off the ground with all six legs, throwing its massive rear end right at me, too fast for me to respond with gunfire. I jumped instead and my jump jets kicked in to speed up my ascent, throwing me up and over its mass so narrowly that my feet brushed against its back.

    It almost seemed surprised when I landed in front of it and turned to press the barrel of my rifle into its face. It was certainly as surprised as I was when I pulled the trigger and heard a click instead of a burst of bullets, causing me to realize at the worst possible moment that I had lost track of my ammo count during the fast-paced battle. The Model Six reacted with stunning alacrity, reaching out with its maw in an attempt to bite me, but I reacted just as quickly and snapped an SMG from my thigh, thrusting it forward into its mouth and holding down the trigger with a death grip.

    A dozen bullets travelled right down its throat in a mere moment as its teeth met, causing enough damage to keep its jaws from shutting with full force. It crunched down on the barrel of my gun but I was able to retract my hand in the instant before it could overcome the metal, and while its teeth reduced the gun to scrap, I found enough time to brandish my shotgun in its face.

    With the barrel pressed directly to its forehead, there was no one on Earth that could have missed the shot. The Impaler sent a shell right into its forehead, and then its head exploded from within. We didn¡¯t have time to celebrate, though, because there was no way of knowing how long we had until the next wave flooded the room.

    ¡°More incoming! Take cover!¡± I shouted as I matched my words with action, sprinting for the position McIntire Squad had already fortified. Those that had shifted their position for better lines of sight returned quickly, and Alvarez Squad booked it across the hangar floor, cramming themselves in wherever there was space with practiced coordination. ¡°Juny, give me another SMG and some more of those shield drones to reinforce the barricade.¡±

    Antithesis began to flood down from the roof access stairs even as I spoke.

 Chapter Forty

    Some time to discuss tactics and set things up would have been nice, but reality was rarely so kind. It began with a wave of Model Ones that rapidly expanded to fill the room, obscuring our view of the stairs. There were surely other models coming down behind them, but we couldn¡¯t see them through the Ones, which began dive bombing us the instant we couldn¡¯t see the stairs.

    ¡°Alvarez Squad, you are clear to fire!¡±

    ¡°Alpha Team, open fire! Beta Team, sidearms only!¡±

    Instantly three quarters of the mercenaries around me opened fire with rifles, with the rest brandishing SMGs or handguns. It was a withering fusillade, scything down droves of Model Ones in an instant. With practiced discipline, the troops then began trading off, alternating their fire so that someone was always shooting even when the others were reloading. I added my own SMGs to the mix, shooting down dozens of Ones every second.

    Each time my magazine ran dry I ejected it and Juny placed a new one directly into my hand, allowing me to reload with minimal movements. Despite the volume of fire going their way, though, it felt like we were making no progress. More Ones rushed to fill the space left behind when their predecessors exploded, unrestricted by the need to run down the stairs to get into the room.

    A Model Three burst from the cloud of Ones and I smacked it aside instinctively, with one of the mercs firing a pistol into its head when it fell. That Model Three heralded the end of the Model One distraction, but it wasn¡¯t a positive for us. The Ones dispersed suddenly, revealing that their numbers had fallen to the point they were more of a thin wall than a swarm, and at the same time quills filled the air like a medieval rain of arrows.

    ¡°Shield drones!¡± I called out, and Juny moved the drones up to interpose them between us and the quills. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of them plinked off the drones. In the gaps between them quills sailed through, bouncing off or sticking fast in the barricade, floor, and equipment around us, but the drones were well-positioned to stop anything that would have actually hit anyone.

    Ahead of us, Model Threes had already advanced to within meters of our barricade though, so we had no time to focus on the Fives somewhere in the rear.

    ¡°Samurai Taylor, if we set a ring of fire to hold them back, can you keep it from burning down the building if it starts to spread?¡± a voice said over radio. I didn¡¯t know how they were speaking above the sounds of gunfire, but I wasn¡¯t going to question it now. Partway through I realized Juny was displaying names off to the side on my augs, and a Sergeant Terry Jackson was highlighted as the one speaking.

    ¡°Juny?¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    ¡°Go for it.¡±

    ¡°Fields, you¡¯re clear to use the flamethrower! We need a wall, now!¡± Jackson ordered. I was apparently looped into their squad comms now, hearing any orders that went out.

    ¡°Yes sergeant!¡± answered Specialist Fields, who dropped his sidearm and stood, unslinging a tube attached to a tank on his back via hose. He flipped a switch and there was a spark in front of the nozzle as the pilot light flickered to life, and then he pulled the firing handle back. A stream of flaming gel sprayed out as Fields swept his flamethrower from one side to the other, spreading an arc of white hot fire in front of our position.

    Any Model Threes that failed to stop in time and hurled themselves into the flames caught fire and burned to ashes in seconds. Even some that did stop in time caught fire, their plant bodies flash dried in an instant by proximity to the intense heat. I was probably the only one that could even see that, with my visor compensating for the bright light cast by the burning wall.

    ¡°Brown, munition count?¡± the sergeant asked next.

    ¡°Dry, sergeant,¡± said a familiar voice. ¡°C4 but no grenades.¡±

    ¡°Juny, can you give her a resupply?¡± I asked as I swapped to my assault rifle, letting the SMGs be reloaded by my suit.

    ¡°Of course! What type of explosive would you prefer?¡± the AI asked.

    ¡°Literally anything that doesn¡¯t kill us or destroy the building!¡± I shouted, ignoring the excited shout from my radio that followed a moment later.

    ¡°Scratch that sergeant, I¡¯m loaded up!¡± Haley called out as she hefted her newly loaded grenade launcher.

    ¡°Thin out those Fives! Silverton, those Sixes on the stairs are your priority!¡±

    ¡°On it!¡±

    ¡°Roger that!¡±

    Juny had apparently had some fun with the grenades, because a moment later there was a dry thump and the room lit up like a disco ball with colorful lasers flying every which way but ours, blocked as they were by the body of the Six the grenade had landed behind. The next encased a dead Six and everything around it in rapidly hardening foam, soon followed by another that sent electricity arcing through nearby Antithesis.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    ¡°Sarge, I¡¯m running low, the ammo press can¡¯t keep up,¡± rumbled a woman that would have made me feel small even in my previous suit- Huifang Lin.

    ¡°Keep them topped up, Juny,¡± I instructed the AI in my head. There were several more call-outs from McIntire squad members, but none of them were relevant to me, so I focused on shooting. Alvarez Squad seemed to be doing fine on ammo, probably because they¡¯d come straight from the armory.

    Just when it was starting to seem like we had things under control, though, the hangar shook with a skull-rattling impact of something striking metal, and when I looked up, I saw a newly created dent in the thick metal shutters above one of the landing pads. The shooting came to a stop as everyone¡¯s attention was drawn to whatever the fuck that was, but the squad leaders were quick to admonish their troops.

    ¡°Do you think this is a show!? Quick gawking and get shooting!¡± roared Sergeant Jackson.

    ¡°You heard the man Alvarez Squad,¡± added Alvarez himself, and with that both squads resumed their firing- even as another impact, loud as the first, rang out, followed rapidly by more and more. It was as if a giant was playing the world¡¯s largest cymbal. Blow after blow fell upon it, each creating another dent or enlarging and existing one, heralding an escalation I wasn¡¯t certain we were prepared for.

    I was in the middle of reloading when the shutter finally lost its lonely battle, metal breaking apart and giving way to a torrent of Antithesis viscera and shell bits, followed a moment later by an entire Model Six rocketing through the hole like a comet, dashing itself upon the landing pad below. More impacts widened the hole bit by bit until there was a gaping rent so wide the shutter may as well have been opened.

    ¡°What the shit¡­?¡± I muttered as I processed what I¡¯d just witnessed. The Antithesis had realized they weren¡¯t making enough headway and decided to use Model Sixes as kinetic weapons to make another way in. Then, utilizing a tactic I was starting to get sick of, more Sixes jumped through the hole from atop the roof. I couldn¡¯t tell if they survived the fall, but their bodies were intact, and that¡¯s what mattered.

    A disfigured bee the size of a city bus descended next, perching upon the pad for only a moment before kicking off and vanishing into the sky. Before I could even ask what the hell it was, I found out what it had done, which was to drop off Model Fifteens inside the building and abscond before we could react. A disc shot into the air from behind the wall of Antithesis bodies, and I heard a yelp from above followed shortly by an impact as the person atop the crate jumped off.

    He wasn¡¯t a moment too soon, as the disc was intercepted by a shield drone and burst, sending deadly spines tearing through everything they touched, including my shield drones. The crate above us became a pincushion, and the only thing that saved the lot of us was that the drones absorbed enough of the punishment that the spines they intercepted never reached us.

    Haley immediately adjusted her aim and sent a grenade sailing towards the Fifteen¡¯s hiding spot, but the Model Ones I¡¯d almost forgotten were even here came from cover just to form a living shield in midair and absorb the deadly explosive. Frozen birds fell and shattered, their duty done.

    ¡°More drones! Keep them coming!¡± I shouted at Juny, who obliged in an instant, materializing a wall of robots just in time to stop the next volley of Model Five quills from slaughtering the people around me. That wasn¡¯t going to stop the Fifteen, though. When it launched another disc at us I already had my SMGs facing in that direction and used them as an improvised anti-air defense, emptying both magazines into the path of the projectile and detonating it well short of our lines. ¡°I can keep it from hitting us but I won¡¯t be doing much else in the meantime,¡± I told the mercenaries as I reloaded.

    ¡°That shot you intercepted took out a lot of its buddies, I¡¯d say you¡¯re doing a hell of a lot more than that,¡± quipped Huifang as she stepped forward and took my place on the firing line, no longer constrained by the need to preserve ammo. Her machinegun was the bane of Antithesis, mowing them down with admirable efficiency, even punching through the occasional Six, though still not quite enough to kill anything on the other side of them.

    ¡°Grenade out,¡± announced Haley as she launched the next explosive, which clipped a Model One and fell into the field of corpses below, killing only whatever models were nearby. ¡°Shit. They keep blocking my shots.¡±

    ¡°Hey, Juny, remember that thing one of the drones did back in the tunnels? When it shot a Fifteen right before it could launch?¡± I asked as I shot down another deadly bundle of spines.

    ¡°I do, but the Model Fives are likely to shoot down any attack drones we send out!¡±

    ¡°What if you use a copy of your personal Eyebot to sneak around the side of the room and cram it down the Fifteen¡¯s throat?¡± I proposed.

    ¡°There is no harm in trying!¡± she told me cheerfully, preceding the appearance of a second Eyebot right next to the first behind me. It zipped off a moment later, colors shifting as it pressed itself against the hangar walls.

    An Eleven tried to descend through the hole in the ceiling, but after a quick order from Jackson, a rocket flew up and met it on the way down, turning it and all the troops it carried into a green mist. Haley continued to thin out the Fives, and Jamal found a new position to fire from, jamming the stairs up with Model Six corpses that the other models were struggling to get past. Fields laid out a fresh layer of whatever napalm equivalent he used, while the rest of the squads pumped ever increasing amounts of lead into the riff-raff filling out the Antithesis¡¯ numbers.

    I shot down several more discs before a sudden goopy explosion from the Fifteen¡¯s hiding place told me the plan had worked. Once again, though, the Antithesis refused to let the fight shift into our favor. It was pure luck that someone from Alvarez Squad caught sight of it in time.

    ¡°Anyone else see floating Antithesis blood over there?¡± a woman asked into the radio, and my eyes snapped towards the direction she indicated just as the invisible figure accelerated. I took three quick steps over and shoved the woman to the ground just before she would have been torn to shreds. My shield failed the instant it made contact with the invisible assailant¡¯s claws, but the resistance it provided was enough to stop them going through my armor.

    Its strike having failed, the assassin bounded away, disappearing into the chaos of the battlefield once more.

    ¡°Sergeant Jackson, I really hope Alana¡¯s gone above and beyond with equipping your squad, because that was a Model Twenty One, and I don¡¯t have a single weapon that can hurt it.¡±

 Chapter Forty One

    ¡°Specialist Cabot¡¯s got a rocket launcher that¡¯ll do it in, but she can¡¯t hit what she can¡¯t see, ma¡¯am,¡± Sergeant Jackson told me in response to my question. That was a start; if I knew we could hurt the Model Twenty One, I just needed to arrange a situation where we could hit it.

    ¡°Juny, do we have any way of making it visible or holding it still?¡± I asked, scanning the battlefield for any sign of the target.

    ¡°Of course! I would suggest Xinchi Riot Bullets! They are made of a quick hardening resin that will stick to anything they hit and harden when exposed to high heat! A Model Twenty One is capable of breaking free quickly, but it will be both visible and immobile for a brief moment if the coating is sufficient!¡± Juny reported. I wanted to ask how those didn¡¯t just kill rioters when the heat was applied, but I put it aside for now. I ejected my magazines from both SMGs instead.

    ¡°Load up both SMGs with a full magazine and keep those resin bullets coming.¡± The other problem was how I was going to stop the Twenty One from just killing everyone while I hunted for it. Step one was obvious: I would need to make myself a target again by leaving cover. But I wanted something to deter it too so that it wouldn¡¯t just attack the mercenaries in a moment of opportunity. ¡°Is there anything that would keep it away from the barricade other than fire?¡±

    ¡°Antithesis are vulnerable to certain audio frequencies!¡±

    ¡°Give me a few drones that can project it and scatter them around the mercs, then. Sergeant Jackson, I¡¯m going out there. I¡¯ll give Cabot a chance, so make it count.¡± Eyebots with speakers for a face appeared around the group as I turned to address the sergeant, one foot already on a crate and ready to carry me over.

    ¡°We¡¯ll be ready, ma¡¯am,¡± the sergeant confirmed.

    I hopped the barrier and stepped through the wall of flames separating us from the Antithesis, my shield flaring briefly but holding up. This was going to be the tricky part. I knew it had blood on it, but so did everything else. Until I could tag it with resin, my only advantage was that I knew Twenty Ones liked to attack any way except head on.

    For a moment I thought I saw it from the corner of my eye, but I realized it was nothing but a spray of blood. I stood still with my back to the flames, limiting the directions it could approach from, while the mercenaries behind me gunned down anything approaching. As Antithesis were shot to pieces around me, I caught something odd on my motion tracker- a ping from above.

    Just in time, I sidestepped away, taking a glancing blow to the shoulder instead of having its full mass come down on my head. I spun, so close to the Twenty One that I couldn¡¯t even aim at it with both weapons, and sprayed it in the flank, dotting its side with patches of resin. It wasn¡¯t much yet, but it was a start.

    The creature bounded away immediately, and I just briefly got a good enough look to realize its feet were coated in blood, which was probably how I¡¯d detected it. But the Twenty One probably wasn¡¯t going to try that again, and its feet would be much harder to detect among all the bodies. I waited at the ready for its next attempt, but it soon became clear it wasn¡¯t going to attack me here again. Instead it threw a body at me, and I ducked, letting the Model Three sail into the flames.

    ¡°Can I get Haley to make me a hole?¡± I asked, deciding I needed to take the fight to them.

    ¡°Do it, Brown,¡± the sergeant ordered, and Haley gleefully obliged by emptying an entire drum of grenades at once, blowing holes in the Antithesis front lines. I charged into a gap in their formation, effectively daring the Twenty One to come after me.

    With all the explosions, any Model Nine scales in the area had been swept away, so I was able to detect attacks coming my way from most models. We¡¯d collectively thinned the herd quite a bit to boot, so I had no trouble slipping through as long as I was careful. If they started to close in on me, all I had to do was jump over their heads.

    Still, I didn¡¯t catch the next attack from the Twenty One. It came seemingly out of nowhere and bowled me over in a tackle but failed to find purchase on my shields, so we both went rolling. Last time I was in this situation my suit was too bulky, but this time I was able to roll with it and bring my weapons up before the Twenty One could disappear again, tagging it in the rear with resin bullets.

    I couldn¡¯t linger long, though, because smaller models were already trying to mob me. I shouldered a Three aside to escape encirclement and dodged around a Six, both of which were riddled with bullets by the mercs in my wake. Coming face to face with a wall of Antithesis I was forced to jump, landing on a Six and immediately hopping off, but the next thing I knew I was flying in another direction, my shields gone and my suit beeping at me furiously.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    My jump jets righted my flight, though, and on a hunch I checked my landing spot and opened fire, raking the back of the Twenty One already waiting for me there with resin. It was gone by the time I landed, but that had been the most hits I¡¯d landed so far, so I was more than satisfied.

    The Twenty One, though, seemed to realize it was becoming more vulnerable, because the next time I ran into it was when a bloody claw whipped out from behind a heap of bodies to smack me in the chest, popping my shields just after they¡¯d recovered from the last hit. My chest armor was the thickest though, and it absorbed the hit with little more than a scratch. I was sent skidding backwards, but managed to stay on my feet. My opponent didn¡¯t press the advantage, committing even more to ambush tactics than before.

    It didn¡¯t know about my motion tracker, though. While I couldn¡¯t always detect the Twenty One itself, I could detect other Antithesis- so when another pile of bodies erupted, the high tier model bursting forth from beneath the bodies, I wasn¡¯t as surprised as it surely hoped. I dodged its jump and unloaded two entire magazines before it could get away this time, practically coating one entire flank in resin.

    Changing tactics, it darted behind a dead Six only to reemerge from the other side, returning faster than I expected. I tried to dodge, but I wasn¡¯t its target this time. It snatched one of my SMGs out of my hand as it passed. Not that that was going to slow me down.

    ¡°Juny, give me another SMG, same ammo load,¡± I said, holding my left hand out. A moment later there was a pristine gun in my hand as if it had been there all along. The tide was beginning to turn here, though, and I think we both knew it. The Twenty One was losing its ability to hide, and though it didn¡¯t know precisely what my weapons were doing to it, it was probably wary for that very reason. It didn¡¯t want to expose itself for too long, because that would just give me more time to coat it in resin.

    But the Twenty One was also an Antithesis, and its purpose was to kill. It had no sense of self-preservation. It would never retreat in order to stay alive- only look for another avenue of attack.

    So I wasn¡¯t surprised when the Twenty One came at me again, probably thinking I¡¯d been disarmed, and with all the resin already coating its body, my motion detector caught it before it reached me. I managed to tag it in the face before it swerved out of the way, but it could only hide for so long. The lower models were dwindling rapidly, their strongest assets either dead or tied up fighting me, so the places the Twenty One could hide and the distractions it could take advantage of were running out.

    Still, it was stronger than me, and it was only a matter of time before it decided stealth was impossible and attacked liked a cornered animal. After I managed to nail it a couple more times it finally gave up with the stealthy approach and came for me directly. The Model Twenty One darted out of cover one last time and rushed me, claws out and slashing for my stomach. I caught the first strike with one forearm, its immense strength enough to stagger me and snap something in my arm, but I was too high on adrenaline by now to feel it.

    I still had one good arm, and I used it to coat the Twenty One¡¯s leg with resin from ankle to shoulder. It swiped at me again, but a quick hop backwards triggered my jump jets and I got away with only a light graze. Next it tried to pounce, four clawed feet outstretched and reaching for me, but Juny saved my ass with a shield drone that came rocketing in from behind me, catching the Twenty One in the chest and shoving it back several feet.

    ¡°Give me a grenade with this stuff to finish it off,¡± I said to Juny, holstering one gun and holding my hand out while the Twenty One eviscerated the drone with a single motion.

    ¡°It has an impact trigger!¡± Juny helpfully supplied. I hit the only button on the device and lobbed it right at the Twenty One just as it leapt forward to tackle me, this time using its shoulder. The grenade caught it mere feet away from me and burst, filling in the gaps in the resin coating it- the coverage was so great that I almost regretted not just opening with it, but I knew it would have been nearly impossible to pull off while the Twenty One was still evading.

    First it needed to be convinced the resin was harmless, and it wasn¡¯t like I hadn¡¯t coated parts of its body the grenade didn¡¯t reach.

    My whole abdomen compressed as the huge caniform Antithesis slammed into me, sending me skidding backwards on my back. It didn¡¯t stop moving, continuing through into a final leap that would pin me to the ground, ending the fight.

    I kicked my legs up and caught the Model Twenty One in the belly, allowing its own momentum to carry it over me instead- and into the wall of fire the mercenaries had been maintaining this entire time. In an instant the resin coating its body hardened and it hit the ground stiff and unmoving but still alive, just toasty- that is, until a mini-rocket struck it head on, blasting a hole in its armored hide that even it couldn¡¯t survive.

    Even then, I would have assumed it was alive if I hadn¡¯t received a point notification for the kill. That drew a sigh of relief from me, and I hauled myself to my feet, giving the team a thumbs up. Now that I had the freedom to look around, I realized the room had gone quiet, all of the Antithesis wiped out entirely. No doubt the ammo Juny provided the mercenaries had contributed; with zero constraints, Huifang and Haley would have been absolute terrors considering the weapons they were using.

    Just one last job before we could call this mess dealt with. I would need to clear the roof and reactivate the anti-air defenses or place some of my own. I wasn¡¯t about to jinx myself by making any assumptions about how hard that would be.

 Chapter Forty Two

    Once I got the ever-burning fire gel extinguished, which required a Class I grenade full of retardant to pull off, I decided to head to the roof. That¡¯s when we realized that our tactics had backfired: Jamal had clogged the staircase with dead Model Sixes, which kept Antithesis from coming down, but also kept us from going up. I had to leave the others behind and make my way to the roof via jump jet just to get around all the bodies.

    I stepped out onto the roof to find that, as we had cleared the most recent wave, we seemed to have a bit of a reprieve while the Antithesis fliers picked up the next one. I would need to be quick if I wanted to keep them from landing again.

    ¡°Juny, I need air defenses. Something that can kill those Elevens and Twelves before they get close enough to drop troops.¡± I walked towards the edge of the building, carefully standing plenty far away so that I couldn¡¯t actually see down.

    ¡°To prevent the Antithesis from air-dropping units from high above, a self-propelled munition will be needed. However, it will have to be manned, as Model Twelves possess ECM that will disrupt any attempted at locking on, so a laser designator will be necessary to guide the missiles!¡± Juny advised.

    ¡°We can¡¯t buy sensors that would cut through it? Something like the turret from Starcraft, just not¡­managed, I guess?¡± I asked.

    ¡°It would significantly increase the price!¡±

    ¡°Juny, we don¡¯t have anyone else up here to operate it, and we don¡¯t know how long it¡¯ll be until the Antithesis return. Give me something we can leave up here that will do the job on its own,¡± I replied.

    ¡°In the case, you can purchase the Class I Automated Defenses catalogue for 150 points and a Xiangliu Anti-Air Rocket Turret for a further 1,800 points! It is compatible with standard guided rockets, so the mercenaries can reload it themselves as well!¡±

    I confirmed the purchase and was utterly unsurprised when a Terran Missile Turret popped into existence in the middle of the roof, between all the landing pads, with its operator seat replaced with a box- probably sensors or a targeting AI. Almost immediately it beeped and began to rotate, the pods on its sides adjusting their positions. In rapid succession four rockets launched into the sky, exploding when they made contact with targets it was too dark to see. I got a lot of points for that. Not as much as if I killed those Antithesis myself, but each of those hits was killing a transport and everything onboard.

    As the turret worked, I looked out in the direction it was firing in, resting my assault rifle on my shoulder in a none-too-subtle effort to emulate a certain pose my armor¡¯s original wearer once made. It was nerdy, and a bit cringe, but no one was here to see me do it and it made me feel cool. There was a series of clunking sounds and then the turret fired again. Nothing seemed to be getting close anymore, so it seemed to be doing its job.

    Once the roof was secured, things quieted down. Cleanup was going to require some extensive work, but that, blessedly, was not my job. The rest of the hours in my shift on watch passed without incident, and I eventually found myself in another meeting with Alana and a cluster of officers I never learned the names of. Major Thompson was present, largely because we didn¡¯t have the resources to investigate whatever he was up to at the moment. The only thing we could confirm was that he wasn¡¯t using any electronic systems if he was up to no good.

    Unfortunately, there was no good news to be had on other fronts either.

    ¡°I¡¯ve received word from the Family that the Mountaineer should be arriving later today. I have also been told by Dylta that according to current predictions, the Antithesis will overrun us about six hours before he arrives,¡± Alana announced. In the wake of that bombshell the room fell totally silent.

    ¡°We have two Samurai here. Surely there¡¯s something you can do. Distribute weapons, buy some big Samurai-tech tank, reinforce the defenses with drones- right?¡± asked someone in the crowd, disbelief thick in their voice.

    ¡°Antithesis hives develop on an exponential scale, and low-numbered models like Threes only appear during the initial stages. We¡¯ve been lucky that we¡¯re dealing with a stealth hive that was taking a different approach than a full-on incursion would have, but we were always going to reach a point where weaker Models are phased out in favor of stronger models. Until now, they were scouting,¡± Alana replied.

    ¡°Let¡¯s not jump straight to panic,¡± cautioned another officer. ¡°What, specifically, are we going to be dealing with?¡±

    ¡°According to the data I¡¯ve been getting back from scout drones, the Antithesis have begun mass production of Fourteens, Fifteens, and Twenty-Ones. I also have footage of a single Twenty-Three, which probably means there¡¯s more. We have about six hours until they entirely replace their frontline of Threes, Fours, Fives, and Sixes,¡± Alana continued grimly.

    ¡°We have to switch to a fully defensive strategy,¡± Major Thompson insisted. ¡°Like I¡¯ve been saying all along, if we have two Samurai-¡°

    ¡°That¡¯s not going to work,¡± I interrupted. The major glared at me, but I just stared him down, my helmet acting as a shield against his anger. ¡°I have the points to buy a weapon or two that can kill a Model in the twenties now, but I can¡¯t protect half of the frontline by myself.¡±

    ¡°According to Dylta, even a Class II vehicle would likely suffer damage fighting a Model Twenty-Three, but I don¡¯t have the points for one anyway,¡± Alana added. ¡°What about you, Erica? It would at least let us hold out a bit longer.¡±

    I just looked at Juny.

    ¡°We do not have the points to purchase a sufficiently strong vehicle!¡± she announced.

    ¡°That AI sounds way too happy about telling us we¡¯re screwed,¡± someone whispered, but I ignored it. Now they knew how it felt to be me.

    ¡°I probably could place some rocket turrets. Maybe some vehicles with heavy weapons. The more I have to buy, though, the lower the quality is going to be,¡± I offered, already considering what I could buy. Class I vehicle weapons were probably capable of damaging Models in the Twenty and up range- the problem was killing enough of them to matter. Picking off one at a time was doable. Fighting a horde of them was not.

    ¡°Can you send Dylta your point count?¡± Alana asked.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, Juny,¡± I told my AI. A moment later Alana looked back at me.

    ¡°I think with that amount we can buy ourselves a bit more time. An hour, maybe two, if we split it between a few heavy machine gun emplacements and some heavy weapons like railguns,¡± she told me.

    ¡°I would recommend splitting the cost!¡± Juny announced, and Alana gave the Eyebot a look.

    ¡°That¡¯s only fair, but you sound like you have a reason for it.¡±

    ¡°You will individually earn fewer points, but the total will be higher!¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t Dylta tell you that?¡± I asked curiously.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t tell me much unless I ask directly,¡± the other Samurai explained.

    ¡°That¡¯s a good start, but we need to do more than just buy a couple of hours,¡± Thompson asserted, dragging us back on topic.

    ¡°What if we collapse the buildings they¡¯re making them in?¡± I asked, directing the question at Alana and ignoring Thompson. She didn¡¯t speak for a moment and I assumed she was speaking to her AI.

    ¡°Dylta says it would delay the worst-case scenario slightly but we can¡¯t locate and demolish all the buildings hiding hives before upper tier models start appearing. They¡¯re too spread out and there¡¯s too many, based on an extrapolation of our current data,¡± she responded at last.

    ¡°What if we just destroy all of them?¡± someone said at the edge of the room that I instantly recognized as Haley.

    ¡°Get that specialist out of here! What are enlisted even doing in here?¡± Thompson growled at his aide.

    Before the man could move, though, Alana looked at him and said a single word: ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± The aide froze, stuck between his commanding officer and the Samurai that killed his boss¡¯s boss. I didn¡¯t envy his position.

    ¡°How would you even propose we do that?¡± another officer asked, entertaining the wild proposal.

    ¡°The town is surrounded by mountains. What if we cause a landslide?¡± I asked, figuring it was the best idea we had.

    ¡°They¡¯re not steep or tall enough. The conditions aren¡¯t right for it,¡± answered Alana. But I wasn¡¯t letting go of the idea just yet.

    ¡°Water flows downhill no matter how steep it is. What¡¯s the thing called- that thing earthquakes cause soil to do?¡± I snapped my fingers, trying to bring the word to mind.

    ¡°Liquefaction?¡±

    ¡°Yes! That. If we can cause that to happen, wouldn¡¯t the soil flow downhill like it¡¯s water?¡±

    ¡°Liquefaction can only occur in loose soil that has been saturated with water!¡± Juny clarified for me. For a moment I thought the idea had just been shot down- but she wasn¡¯t done. ¡°However, using terraforming technology, it may be possible to induce those conditions. You would need to plant hydration capsules and sonic piles at key points and trigger them in stages to destabilize the soil and cause a landslide in only the desired parts of town!¡±

    ¡°¡­that could work, but if we do that, it¡¯s going to piss a lot of people off,¡± a woman pointed out. I noticed her nametag said Lafayette, which was the name of the local militia captain if I remembered correctly. ¡°The outer city is abandoned, but it¡¯s still owned by some large corpos.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s something to consider, but it¡¯ll only matter if we survive this to begin with,¡± Alana replied.

    ¡°No. We would lose our entire contract! You can¡¯t just destroy the city because it¡¯s more convenient!¡± Thompson shouted. ¡°And what if you fuck it up and bury this part of Boone?¡±

    ¡°As long as we follow our AIs¡¯ instruction we¡¯ll be fine. We just need to plant them in the right spots, right?¡± I asked Juny.

    ¡°Of course! And if we plant extra sonic piles, there may even be margin for error,¡± Juny confirmed.

    ¡°You can¡¯t seriously be considering this,¡± Thompson said incredulously, his face now showing more worry than anger. ¡°There are things we can try first. Maybe we can flood the tunnels. Or distract the Antithesis with hit and run attacks until help arrives. You already found one way to buy some time- we just need a few more options!¡±

    ¡°That one strategy buys us one to two hours by consuming nearly all of our points,¡± Alana told him, shaking her head. ¡°If we do that we won¡¯t have the budget for much else. Neither of those plans will work, anyway. Antithesis can survive underwater and hit and run attacks won¡¯t meaningfully change anything once the big numbers start showing up.¡±

    ¡°Traps wouldn¡¯t last six hours¡­air support might help, but they¡¯d just make more fliers to fight back¡­a single weapon big enough to make a difference would be dangerous to us as well, not to mention a single point of failure¡­¡± I listed off, racking my brain for other options but coming up dry.

    ¡°Someone in here must have some ideas!¡± Thompson shouted, wheeling on the other officers. ¡°Use your damn brains! Why is no one suggesting anything?¡±

    The room was silent for a moment as everyone stared, wondering why he was so desperate to avoid this one solution.

    ¡°It may be of interest to you that the contract signed by the Stalking Tigers contains a termination clause in the case of a certain degree of damage to the outer city, but not for the inner city!¡± Juny piped up abruptly. Everyone looked at her for a moment before turning on Thompson.

    ¡°You weren¡¯t even trying to protect us, were you?¡± Lafayette spat with disdain, realization dawning on her face. ¡°You only used our walls because they were useful. Would you have just abandoned us if the outer town was lost?¡±

    ¡°I-I can¡¯t speak on that, contracts are decided above my level,¡± Thompson stammered, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He did not, I noticed, look surprised? however. ¡°It doesn¡¯t change anything anyway. What about the environmental damage? Destroying one building kicked up a cloud of dust, so what do you expect this to do?¡±

    ¡°The troops already have gas masks and the civilians can stay inside until we¡¯ve got it cleaned up. I¡¯m not going anywhere until it¡¯s sorted,¡± I responded.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been hesitant to support the other one since she¡¯s one of them, but you¡¯re an outsider. That¡¯s at least enough for a bit of trust from me. We¡¯ll support you. The corpos have had too much of a say around here for way too long, and if they ever cleared out those buildings they¡¯d just turn this into a captive company town anyway,¡± Lafayette told me. I nodded in response, but before I could speak, Thompson spoke up again.

    ¡°No. I¡¯ve had enough of this farce. By law Samurai are only owed the equivalent to the rank of captain, and as a major I am the ranking officer here. I can¡¯t allow you to do this,¡± he ranted, sweat dripping down his face. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of him. Something was off here. It was like he was more afraid of something else than the Antithesis- or us.

    Alana must have noticed it too. She¡¯d killed a man before. I could only think the reason this one was still breathing is that she wanted to know what had him so scared, but didn¡¯t have time to interrogate him.

    ¡°¡­you didn¡¯t actually think that would work, did you?¡± I asked him dryly. When no one agreed with him, he drew in a shuddering breath before deflating, his last card played.

    ¡°You have no idea what he consequences of this are going to be,¡± was all he said.

    ¡°No, Thompson, we just a bit more concerned with surviving this siege. Get him out of here. Put him under guard so he doesn¡¯t do anything unpredictable,¡± Alana ordered Sergeant Jackson, who squeezed through the crowd of officers and put a hand on Thompson¡¯s shoulder. The man allowed himself to be guided out of the room quietly. ¡°Does anyone have another proposal for us to consider before we proceed?¡±

    ¡°Nothing that isn¡¯t just as destructive,¡± someone spoke up after a few people shook their heads. The reality was that we just did not possess the means to fight back against an army of Models above twenty and everyone knew it. Maybe it would have been possible if we could cram the entire city into a single shelter and only had to defend a single entrance, but even then, we couldn¡¯t guarantee the Antithesis wouldn¡¯t find a way to dig their way in. So¡­any solution we came to was going to involve mass destruction, because the Antithesis were still subject to the laws of physics. Even a Twenty Three wasn¡¯t going to survive thousands of tons of earth, trees, concrete, and rebar falling on its head.

    ¡°Then here¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen. Erica and I will each take a gunship and head out to plant the devices. Lieutenant Alvarez, I¡¯m going to outfit your team with the same weapons mine is using. You¡¯ll be commanding both squads and filling in any gaps in the defenses. Captain Lafayette, I¡¯d like you to coordinate the defenses. Nguyen-¡±

    With a plan in mind, Alana quickly began handing out orders to the officers assembled in the meeting room and working out the finer details of the defense. In the meantime, I started hatching ideas- I planned to spend as much as I could augmenting the defenders before we left.

 Chapter Forty Three

    Making my ideas work with the points I had required getting somewhat creative. First I bought a Class I Combat Walkers for three hundred points, then I started min-maxing for affordability. Maneuverability? Toss it. Armor? Frontal is good enough. Sensors? They aren¡¯t going to be detecting any Model Twenty-Ones anyway, so forget about them. Air conditioning? Boone is heading into fall anyway; the pilots can deal with it.

    Everything I cut reduced the price and increased the number of vehicles I could buy before cutting into the funds I had to save for terraforming equipment. What I had settled on was eight small walkers equipped for killing low-numbered models in droves, which could be spread out over the length of the wall, and four larger ones with massive railguns capable of killing Fourteens in a single shot and, according to Juny, Twenty-Threes if they massed fire.

    Alana¡¯s tanks could do the same thing, so why bother with the walkers? Well, Alana¡¯s tanks needed Class I shells, and we were expecting an increase in the number of models needing the attention of our heavy units. The large walkers just needed a ferrous-metal slug. Nothing fancy; the Samurai tech stuff was all in the gun itself. They would also be able to fire more quickly, and since they had legs, they could crouch to take cover behind the walls.

    The smaller walkers were modeled after GDI Wolverines, but they diverged quite a bit because of a few tactical considerations. If I¡¯d made them to spec they would have been twice as tall as an infantryman and unable to make much use of cover, so I¡¯d made their legs a heck of a lot stubbier, barely long enough to even walk, so that their tops would only peak above the battlements slightly. The arms were shorter as well, which placed the guns mounted on them closer to the top, peaking out over the walls.

    And while the originals had mounted gatling guns, these were equipped with rapid-firing plasma cannons, which would be deadly against single-digit models and chew through even double-digits with concentrated fire. Most important was that they didn¡¯t need ammunition, as they were fed directly by the walker¡¯s power plant. In the end what I had were walking coffins on stubby legs, missing most of their yellow armor and with their guns protruding directly from the shoulders. Frankly, they looked ridiculous.

    I¡¯d modeled the big walkers after the GDI Titan, which meant it was tall but somewhat clunky. They looked a lot more impressive than they really were. Almost everything going into them was essentially Class 0 tech, much to Juny¡¯s displeasure, but they had Class I railguns and that¡¯s where most of the cost came from.

    The Titans were twenty-five feet tall, just slightly rising above the walls, with digitigrade legs making up half that height. Above the legs was the section all the machinery went into, which looked a bit like one of those cars with a protruding grill or headlights to either side of the engine compartment, and strapped to the right side of it was a railgun nearly as long as the Titan was tall. Finally, on top there was a crew compartment resembling the turret of a tank if it didn¡¯t have a gun, and the whole thing was plated in dull yellow armor.

    Since they came up a bit short in height, I¡¯d also bought a few Class 0 shipping containers to stand them on, bringing their guns just above the height of the soldiers manning the walls. They would...well, get the job done. I couldn¡¯t afford engineering marvels right now. All dozen of the walkers were to be piloted by volunteers from wounded mercs and militia who couldn¡¯t walk due to their injuries.

    Mind you, I¡¯d offered medical supplies to fix up their legs, but they¡¯d deferred until after the battle, saying I might need the resources. I respected it, but I didn¡¯t agree. Still, I couldn¡¯t force them to let me heal them, so I didn¡¯t argue too much.

    ¡°We¡¯re all ready on our end,¡± Alana¡¯s voice said over the radio. ¡°Are you done on your side?¡±

    ¡°It was kind of a rush job so the pilots can¡¯t do much more than point and shoot, but Juny says they should let us hold out a bit longer. I¡¯ll be up in a moment.¡± Ending the call, I headed back to the hovercar I¡¯d ridden out to the walls. It was the same one from yesterday, which Juny had apparently extracted before it could be crushed by a falling building. Since the elevator was obviously still out, we rode the hovercar right up to the top floor of the mercenary base, entering the hangar through the shutter the Antithesis destroyed this morning.

    When I stepped out, I saw the other two gunships had been transferred to landing pads and crewed. The landing pads themselves had been mostly cleared of Antithesis, though some dried goo remained. Maintenance staff were using forklifts to shove the dead bodies onto the remaining pad that still had a functioning hatch so they could be lifted up to the roof and burned.

    The two rapid response teams had done a fairly thorough job making sure everyone was dead while I installed the turret on the roof, so I wasn¡¯t too worried about the possibility of survivors hiding in the pile.Stolen novel; please report.

    I met Alana between the two gunships where she was speaking to Lieutenant Alvarez. Their squads weren¡¯t present, so they¡¯d likely moved to their staging points already.

    ¡°I¡¯d feel a lot more comfortable with a Samurai holding the line. Are you sure both of you are needed for this?¡± Alvarez asked as I approached.

    ¡°The sonic piles are too big to carry on the gunships. We were able to buy them in advance so that we could split the points, but we have to deploy them on-site,¡± Alana answered, shaking her head. ¡°You¡¯ve essentially got fifteen mini-Samurai. You¡¯ll do just fine without me.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not the same. We can¡¯t buy more gear when we need it. But I¡¯m assuming it would be too slow if only one of you handled the deployments, so I guess we don¡¯t have a choice.¡± Alvarez sighed, running a hand over his shaved head.

    ¡°Unfortunately, you¡¯d be correct. That would double the time we need and the twenty-plus models will be showing up by the time we finished. If we want to finish this before they hatch it¡¯s going to take two,¡± Alana confirmed grimly.

    ¡°I¡¯m not interrupting, am I?¡± I asked as I reached the pair, stopping a few steps away. Both turned to look at me, shaking their heads.

    ¡°You¡¯re just in time, Erica. That bird¡¯s yours,¡± she said, pointing at the gunship to my left. ¡°Dylta already gave the pilots the coordinates. We¡¯ll just be along for the ride and they¡¯ll get us where we need to go.¡±

    ¡°Not sure I like the idea of sitting there helplessly if we¡¯re attacked in the air,¡± I said, frowning beneath my helmet.

    ¡°Both gunships have Class I rockets onboard that can shoot down any Antithesis air forces we encounter. They¡¯ve been keeping their heads down since you put that turret down on the roof anyway- there¡¯s probably not too many left, and they haven¡¯t had enough time to grow more yet,¡± Alana replied, adjusting a strap on her armor as she spoke. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t need to land either, just have your AI deploy the sonic piles from the air and move on.¡±

    ¡°Will do. Good luck, I guess,¡± I said, not sure what else to say. She just nodded and raised a fist, so I bumped it with my own.

    ¡°Right back at you. See you on the other side.¡±

    We went our separate ways. I approached the gunship I¡¯d been pointed towards, which already had its engines fired up and on standby. The craft looked a bit like an attack helicopter, but with four VTOL jets instead of rotors. A door in the side led into the crew compartment, which was empty except for the pilots. Seeing no reason to stop, I climbed right in and took a seat.

    ¡°Ready when you are, ma¡¯am,¡± the pilot told me over the radio. He was glancing at me over his shoulder, but the engines were too loud for his voice to be heard without his helmet mic.

    ¡°Ready,¡± I told him, and he turned and flicked something on his dashboard. The shutters above us creaked as they parted, and the landing pad elevator began to rise towards the roof. The door closed as well, blessedly. I¡¯d prefer not to see the ground rushing past below me. ¡°When you reach the first spot, just get me close to the ground, no need to land. I¡¯ll deploy the device from the air.¡±

    ¡°Copy that, wilco.¡±

    A few moments later I felt the gunship lift off the pad, and then I was shoved back into my seat when it shot forward. We were heading east while Alana went west, wrapping around to meet in the south. We¡¯d each be placing sonic piles in pairs at the top and bottom of the mountain slopes, which was important because these weren¡¯t terribly steep. The Appalachians are old mountains, worn down over millennia and forested over. They didn¡¯t really rise that far above the town, so it was important that we made sure the entire mountainside sloughed off, building up momentum and mass as it slid down towards the town.

    We had a few things in our favor. The Antithesis had undermined the foundations of a lot of the buildings in the outer city, which meant that they wouldn¡¯t hold up as well against lateral stresses. They¡¯d also, according to Juny¡¯s preliminary ground scans, eaten up a lot of the roots systems that would have otherwise held the mountainsides together. It probably made sense at the time- a stealth hive needed to gather biomass without being noticed, and it could gather roots without even emerging from their burrows.

    Which meant the soil on the mountains was being held in place mostly because they weren¡¯t steep enough for gravity to cause a landslide on its own, but if we saturated the soil with water and induced liquefaction, well¡­it didn¡¯t matter how steep the mountains were, liquid will always flow downhill with the slightest of inclines. And the sonic piles were designed to root themselves in the bedrock below and keep emitting sonic pulses at a frequency humans couldn¡¯t perceive and a decibel level high enough to shake the ground, even while tonnes of dirt and wood rushed past.

    The gunship started to slow, and I checked my map to find we were above the first location. Once we were near the ground, amidst a thin cluster of dead trees, the doors opened up and I stood, holding tightly onto a handhold while I looked out.

    ¡°So, what do I need to do now?¡± I asked Juny.

    ¡°Deploying the first sonic pile!¡± she said instead of answering, which was kind of an answer in itself. Below, an egg shaped object popped into existence, three struts holding it up. We were far enough away that I could see a spike below the egg extend downwards, then shoot into the soil.

    ¡°Huh, so that¡¯s what it looks like. What about the hydration capsule?¡±

    ¡°Those will be deployed inside the sonic piles we leave at the mountaintops, as the water would not spread far enough if deployed from here!¡± Juny explained. Obvious now that I thought about it. I sat back down, figuring that was the extent of my involvement. The pile would begin to burrow once it hit bedrock, which conveniently made it hard for the Antithesis to find even if they knew what to look for.

    ¡°First one down, let¡¯s head to the second location,¡± I instructed the pilot.

 Chapter Forty Four

    The task was simple: place sonic piles at the base of each mountain and another at the peak, along with a hydration capsule. With the battle focused on the inner city that meant a lot of flying from point to point and giving Juny permission to place the next device. It still took time to get to each location, which only added to how tedious the task was.

    It gave me way too much time to think. I couldn¡¯t see the landscape even if I wanted to, so my only remaining option was to sit and stare at the door, unable to even crack open my graphic design software because the shaking would make it impossible to work with. My mind kept going back to Major Thompson- and what he was doing in the CO¡¯s office.

    Something was off about that entire encounter and I hadn¡¯t had a moment to ponder it before now. Thompson hadn¡¯t reported his location to command, even when he was attacked, and they hadn¡¯t detected the automated defenses activating either. That meant they weren¡¯t hooked into the defense systems. I wasn¡¯t sure why it would be set up that way, and didn¡¯t really have any guesses. The other strange thing was that Thompson hadn¡¯t left with anything. That didn¡¯t rule out the possibility that he¡¯d been taking pictures of documentation, of course, but what would he gain by doing that?

    Was he planting something there? False evidence that exonerated himself, somehow? A listening device? Or was there a device he needed to use situated in that office, like a secure line of communications? It was likely that whatever he¡¯d been doing, he¡¯d already finished by the time I arrived, and that it was already too late to do anything about it. Thompson was under watch now, but¡­

    ¡°Ma¡¯am, strap in, we have incoming,¡± the pilot announced. Checking the map, I realized we now had skyscrapers between us and the inner city. The Antithesis must have waited until now to attack because they were wary of the AA battery on the mercenary headquarters building. They¡¯d certainly lost enough of their air power for even the yams that passed as brains for them would have gotten the hint.

    Well, that or they just ripened.

    I was jolted from my thoughts when the gunship lurched, beginning evasive maneuvers. I grabbed onto my seat and held on tight, an undeniable feeling of helplessness coming over me. This was the same sort of situation my fear of falling came from- being in a position where I had no control over what happened to me and having to wait and let fate decide how it ends.

    It was clear, though, that this gunship hadn¡¯t survived this long due to any dearth of opponents. With four jets on struts at each corner it was insanely maneuverable, capable of moving side to side while descending, spinning while rising, and even lifting one side or corner just by changing the output of each jet engine. All I could see through the cockpit window was a kaleidoscopic panorama, changing faster than I could even process the colors as the pilot took his gunship through movements that had me jerking from side to side, convinced I¡¯d be a pinball if I lost my grip.

    Occasionally I heard the thump of a rocket launching or the ship rattled with gunfire. We were changing direction so quickly I wouldn¡¯t have been able to tell how many Antithesis were out there even if Juny put it up on my augs. All of my focus was on fighting down a tidal wave of nausea rising from the depths of my stomach. If I lost this battle, I¡¯d have to buy a new helmet, because there was no way I would ever put this one on again.

    ¡°Ma¡¯am, we¡¯re running low on ammo! We could use a refill!¡± the copilot shouted into his mic, nearly making me lose control of my breakfast. How many Antithesis were out there? Alana¡¯s reckoning had clearly been off.

    ¡°Juny¡­¡± was all I managed, the effort leaving me nearly retching. Juny took the hint, though, as my points dropped. I think the copilot thanked me but I barely even perceived it. When the spinning and shaking had finally stopped I saw that it had only been a few minutes. ¡°What the hell was that?¡±

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t too many Elevens, but they got the drop on us using a Twelve and a flock of ones. They were too close for us to thing them out by the top we noticed ¡®em, so it took some tricky flying to clear them out,¡± the copilot answered, tension still in his voice. Hopefully that time they¡¯d actually exhausted their supply of air units, because I wasn¡¯t sure I could take another few minutes of my own personal vomit comet.

    There was nothing to stop us now, though, or so it seemed for a while. We were nearly three-quarters of the way through when Nguyen¡¯s voice came over the comms, tight with worry.

    ¡°HQ to Sigma-1, we have an emergency, repeat, we have an emergency,¡± he announced, inducing a groan from deep within my soul. Alana answered immediately.

    ¡°Sitrep, HQ?¡±

    ¡°Front line has been breached. A Model Twenty Three shrugged off everything we threw at it and smashed a hole in the wall- we think it¡¯s a heavy-armor variant. McIntire and Alvarez squads have mobilized but they¡¯re only slowing it down,¡± Nguyen relayed. I cursed internally but kept my mouth shut- I might be in on the communications, but I doubted anyone expected me to have a solution for this. ¡°We plugged the hole with reserves but the big guy is still on the loose.¡±

    ¡°Shit. Erica, I¡¯m doubling back. I¡¯ll take care of the variant and head back ASAP, so keep going, but wrap around to my side when you finish with yours so we don¡¯t lose too much time,¡± Alana instructed. I was all too happy to follow her lead on this. Though¡­I did feel like I¡¯d put a whole lot of effort into deploying those Titans for nothing. Hopefully they were keeping everything else out.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    ¡°I hope you¡¯ve got a plan, given that everything that was supposed to kill it failed,¡± I replied apprehensively.

    ¡°I¡¯ve found that most Antithesis have less armor on the inside,¡± Alana replied ominously. I chose not to say anything, but I was very much hoping she intended to shoot something into its mouth and not dive into it and shoot her way out. She struck me as smarter than that, though, and she had two very competent squads of mercenaries to call on for the job. They¡¯d probably find some way to make the Model Twenty Three sit still long enough to kill it.

    Now that I thought about it, I had no idea what a Twenty Three looked like. I wasn¡¯t in a hurry to find out, though.

    We continued on, making it almost to the end of my assigned section before we encountered any other issues. We had just dropped a sonic pile and were halfway to the next when the pilot cursed and spun the gunship around. I had no way of knowing why, but it was safe to assume it was more airborne Antithesis- while I turned out to be right, I was still slightly off the mark. The gunship shook for a few seconds as its machinegun fired, then the pilot spoke.

    ¡°Model Twelve almost got the drop on us. We shot it down, but some ground models jumped shipped before it went down and now they¡¯re sniffing around the pile. They¡¯re too close for us to fire, what do you want to do?¡± he said in a frustrated tone. I shared his frustration- after all, it wasn¡¯t the first time Model Twelve ECM had gotten in the way today.

    ¡°Open the door and lower the ship. I¡¯ll hop off and deal with them on foot,¡± I instructed him. As the gunship descended, I stood and grabbed onto a handle by the door to hold myself steady. ¡°Any idea what I¡¯m in for?¡±

    ¡°Threes and Fives, ma¡¯am. Biggest problem is how close they are to the machine. I don¡¯t think they know what to do with it yet, but it looks like they¡¯re stopping it from burrowing.¡±

    So I couldn¡¯t just gun them down and be done with it, then. I would need to get in close and make sure I didn¡¯t catch the sonic pile with a stray bullet. While I still had my assault rifle loaded with self-guided ammunition, there was always the possibility of an overpenetration causing damage.

    The door opened and I hopped out, dropping a few meters to the ground. I¡¯d actually been so busy thinking that I forgot to look before stepping off, but fortunately I was geared for it, and it didn¡¯t take too much effort to look like it was on purpose. Even as I fell the Model Fives were already launching quills my way, each hit knocking a few percent off my shields. My trigger finger twitched instinctively, but since I didn¡¯t have a weapon readied, nothing happened.

    ¡°Juny, I¡¯m going to need something less explosive for this,¡± I said as I grabbed my shotgun. Of my weapons, I figured it was least likely to cause an accident so long as I handled it carefully. The SMGs had too much spread and the assault rifle¡­actually, I guess that would have worked too if I swapped its load, but the shotgun was already in my hands.

    ¡°Would you like standard slugs or nonlethal buckshot?¡± Juny asked, floating directly behind my back to keep the Eyebot safe from stray quills. I assumed by nonlethal she meant something like what we¡¯d used against the last Model Twenty One, or maybe some type of cryo round, but I didn¡¯t want to risk getting anything like that on the pile either.

    ¡°Slugs, please,¡± I requested as I unloaded the shotgun and cleared the chamber. Another drum of slugs appeared in my hand the moment I stowed the one full of high explosive rounds and I reloaded. Now I just needed to get close- and I didn¡¯t have the points to spare for another shield drone right now, so my energy shields were going to be proving their worth.

    I¡¯d been dropped far enough away that the gunship wouldn¡¯t be in too much danger, so I had some ground to cover. I ran forward, weaving around trees to give myself at least a small amount of protection but mostly taking hits to my shields. Taking cover long enough to let them recharge would just get me flanked by Threes, so I had to do this in one go. My shields flared over and over, dropping as steadily as the distance between myself and the Fives.

    A Three jumped in front of me, but the Mistilteinn armor had a lot of mass, and I¡¯d built up plenty of momentum. I practically ran it over, first toppling it like a nine-pin and then crushing it with my boot, which I didn¡¯t really think through, because I nearly tripped in the process. Fortunately I caught myself, though, and there wasn¡¯t much distance left to cover.

    My shields finally fell. It was too late. I smashed into the first Model Five, demolishing its skull with the butt of my shotgun. Then I ducked under the sonic pile, figuring the best way to make sure I didn¡¯t hit it would be to aim my gun from beneath it. Before the next Five could turn, I had it in my sights. It only took one slug to blow a big enough hole in it to be lethal.

    A Three took the opportunity lunge in and grab my leg, but it wasn¡¯t going to get through my armor anytime soon and I didn¡¯t need to move anyway. I ignored it and shifted my aim around to another Model Five, pulling the trigger just as it launched a quill. Sadly for it, my weapon had a lot more kick to it, and while the quill was right on target, it just bounced off my visor without leaving a scratch. Our trade resulted in it falling over dead while I barely noticed I¡¯d been hit.

    There were two more, and this pair apparently came to a realization at the same time: the vulnerable spots on my armor were too small to reliably aim at. While another Model Three latched onto me, the Fives approached me from the left and right, wielding quills like daggers instead of arrows. I flipped my gun towards the one on the left and killed it, then hissed as the other planted its quill in the back of my thigh. Before I could react it tore the quill back out, taking a chunk of flesh with its barbed tip, and stabbed at me again, sinking it deep into my gut this time.

    That was right about when I finished turning and planted the barrel of my gun in its face. If Antithesis had a digestive system, the bullet I fired travelled the length of it, making a new route from mouth to ass. I hardly even noticed when it ripped its quill out of my gut in its death throes at the same time, though I certainly felt it afterwards.

    With the last Model Five dead, however, the Threes weren¡¯t much of a threat. Even as my internal nanite reservoir went to work on my injuries, I mopped them up, leaving the sonic pile unharmed.

    ¡°All done and ready for pickup,¡± I reported. It wasn¡¯t long before the gunship descended and I hopped back aboard. With the excitement over, we resumed our work, wrapping up the placement of my own allotted piles and starting in on Alana¡¯s when I finally received an update. It wasn¡¯t good news.

    ¡°Erica, you need to return immediately!¡± Nguyen shouted into the mic, the panic in his voice obvious. ¡°Someone shot Alana, and she¡¯s unconscious! Her team was able to extract her but they¡¯re pinned down.¡±

 Chapter Forty Five (Alana Interlude Two)

    Alana sat in the back of her gunship on the way back to Boone, bouncing her knee in frustration. The job was nearly three-quarters done when she¡¯d gotten the recall request. Just a little longer and she could have stemmed the tide of Antithesis, turning a siege into a cleanup operation.

    Then again, this entire job was supposed to be a cleanup operation.

    Regardless, she couldn¡¯t leave a Model Twenty-Three unattended in the middle of Boone. Much less a variant. There was no point defeating all the Antithesis if it came at the cost of all the lives in the city. She may have been down to the last quarter of the sonic piles she needed to place, but that still would have been a significant chunk of time.

    ¡°Sitrep, Alvarez,¡± she said over the radio. She was going to need a plan, and to make one, she needed to know exactly what the situation was.

    ¡°I have both teams distracting the big bastard but I¡¯m not sure how long it¡¯ll be before it realizes we¡¯re just flies. It¡¯s shrugged off fifty-cal, rockets, and even that weird napalm you loaded the flamethrowers with. Best we can do right now is trade off who¡¯s attacking it and keep it running back and forth,¡± the lieutenant reported, punctuated by gunfire.

    Alana knew she was definitely going to need to immobilize it somehow. Keep it from moving long enough to blow it up from the inside. A model that big would be hard to stop for long, though. It had the strength to break through almost anything used to bind it. But maybe they could restrict its movement rather than stopping it entirely, then give it something else to think about than getting loose.

    ¡°Alright, I¡¯m going to need both anti-armor and flamethrower specialists to meet me at these coordinates,¡± she said, marking a point on the map and sending it over to Alvarez¡¯s augs. The Stalking Tigers were all equipped with a military model with additional features such as map markers with coordinates by default for calling in fire missions and the ability for superior officers to update objectives and waypoints for everyone in their chain of command. Additional firewalls and security as well, but that wasn¡¯t relevant right now.

    ¡°Copy that, they¡¯ll be there.¡±

    ¡°Brown, I have something for you to blow up,¡± Alana said next, switching to a direct channel with the specialist.

    ¡°Really!? You¡¯re the best, LT!¡± the demolitionist squealed in excitement.

    ¡°I need you to go¡­here,¡± Alana continued, sending her a different set of coordinates, ¡°and rig the sewers to detonate and collapse when the Twenty Three walks over that spot.¡±

    ¡°I rescind my previous statement,¡± Brown replied in a much less enthused tone.

    ¡°Would you like to try that again?¡± Alana asked threateningly.

    ¡°Eep! I mean, yes ma¡¯am!¡±

    ¡°Model Twenty Three should be rounding the corner any moment now,¡± Jackson reported as a Humvee sped through the intersection, machinegun pointing backwards and firing. Once it was through the gunfire cut off, and Alana knew they would be speeding up and leaving the Twenty-Three behind now. Moments later the Antithesis emerged, long legs pumping furiously as it chased its prey. It was nearly ten meters tall, most of which was leg, but it was also a lot more heavily armored than any Twenty-Three Alana had seen before, almost like someone had put barding on a t-rex.

    As soon as it was in sight she starting shooting. High-caliber rounds which should have been more than enough to penetrate a Twenty-Three¡¯s hide bounced off harmlessly, but accomplished their actual purpose: drawing its attention. The monster turned towards Alana, now the only person firing at it, and charged. It closed the distance more rapidly than she had expected, but Specialist Brown had seen it in action already and knew her explosives well- with perfect timing the pavement ahead of Alana puffed up and then fell away, and the Twenty-Three¡¯s next step landed on empty air.

    Even tumbling ass over elbows didn¡¯t seem to cause much damage. It was like the Twenty-Three¡¯s legs were unbreakable. That was fine though, because the goal was merely to put its head at ground level and give it no space to turn. With time it could easily climb out, but Alana didn¡¯t plan to give it that time.

    ¡°On my mark!¡± she ordered, dashing forward. The Twenty-Three saw her coming and opened its jaws, exactly as she wanted it to. ¡°Dylta, now!¡±

    A solid block of pure titanium manifested between the tyrannosaur¡¯s teeth. When they came down, the metal buckled ever-so-slightly, but that was all. Even a Model Twenty-Three couldn¡¯t bite through solid titanium, though Alana was a bit disturbed to realize its teeth had somehow survived the experience.

    ¡°Flamethrowers!¡± Alana shouted next, rapidly backing away. In came Specialist Fields and a man from Alvarez¡¯s squad, each toting flamethrowers capable of melting steel. Burning gel erupted from the nozzle of both weapons and coated the Twenty-Three¡¯s jaws inside and out, clinging tightly even as it shook its head and discarded the block in its mouth. A sound like pained shrieking accompanied the burning plant flesh, but Antithesis didn¡¯t feel pain or vocalize- this was merely moisture evaporating right out of its incinerated tissues.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

    On the outside, there was no visible damage. On the inside, muscles and tendons shriveled and became ash. The Twenty-Three¡¯s lower jaw sagged and fell open, no longer able to support its own weight, and without the ability to feel pain, it didn¡¯t even notice. It grabbed at the pavement in preparation to hoist itself up, not realizing it was vulnerable for the first time.

    ¡°Rockets, staggered fire, right down its throat!¡± ordered Alana, and then the first rocket erupted from its launcher. It struck the back of the Twenty-Three¡¯s throat and exploded, casting a cloud of smoke back out of its mouth and causing enough damage that there was nothing stopping the rocket after it from sailing right into the Twenty-Three¡¯s stomach. The next rocket did just that and struck home inside the large Antithesis¡¯s gullet, destroying vital organs and bones equally.

    That second rocket had probably been enough to kill it. Four more were launched just to be sure. Only when the Twenty-Three¡¯s insides were thoroughly pulverized and it collapsed to the ground, shutting its jaws for good, did Cabot and her counterpart cease fire. Alana approached the corpse and found that, despite it all, its armor remained intact.

    ¡°Good work everyone. Let¡¯s all get back to our posts,¡± she ordered, turning back to those present as she spoke over the group-wide channel. Two Humvees pulled up containing the remaining members of both squads, ready to carry the ones here back the front line. Brown stepped forward to examine the body more closely, a thoughtful look on her face.

    ¡°You know, I think I could have actually killed it by-¡±

    Alana tried to tackle Brown to the ground the moment she heard the gunshots, but her legs didn¡¯t respond. Looking down, she saw a gaping hole in her torso, right around where her diaphragm should be. There was surprisingly little blood- a benefit of her upgrades no doubt. She tried again to move, but her legs stayed put. It was only when her torso began to slump that she lost balance and fell to the ground.

    ¡°Sniper down!¡± someone shouted.

    ¡°Get the LT to cover!¡± yelled another voice.

    ¡°Hey, who are they- reinforcements already?¡±

    ¡°No, look at the uniforms, sir. They¡¯re not ours! Take cover!¡± a man barked, his drill sergeant voice enough to make Alana twitch instinctively.

    Dylta, what¡¯s the damage? Alana asked in her mind, directing the question at the AI she knew could hear her thanks to her extra implants. Given all her upgrades, she already knew it must have been bad. So much of her had been replaced with cybernetics already that Alana should have been able to keep moving even when severely injured, so the damage had to be catastrophic to disable her to this extent.

    Report: heart module at fifty-percent capacity. Lung module at sixty-percent capacity. Digestive module: compromised; stomach compartment ruptured. Toxin filter: unresponsive. Legs: unresponsive. Bone fragments detected in thoracic cavity. Thoracic vertebra eight through twelve shattered. Conclusion: spinal column severed by multiple high caliber bullets.

    She wanted to roll her eyes at the mechanical response of her AI, but her eyes didn¡¯t want to move. Instead, she asked: Am I dying or not?

    Prognosis: chances of survival one-hundred percent barring further damage. Internal nanite factories initiating repairs. Estimated time to completion: three hours. Alert: insufficient oxygen to maintain consciousness.

    Alana¡¯s consciousness faded before she could respond. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Alvarez took control of both squads, rushing to get the situation under control.

    ¡°How many of them are we dealing with?¡± he asked into the radio, leaning out from behind one Humvee to return fire. Both cars had been disabled almost immediately after Alana went down, but they were armored and could serve as cover even if they couldn¡¯t move. McIntire and Alvarez squads were pinned between the vehicles and the closest building, up against a solid concrete wall.

    ¡°At least two squads on this side!¡± one of Alvarez¡¯s men answered.

    ¡°I count three over here, and they brought portable cover,¡± Sergeant Jackson reported from behind the other Humvee.

    ¡°Any word on reinforcements?¡± Alvarez asked next, directing the question to his own sergeant, who¡¯d been tasked with calling for help.

    ¡°No dice. Our own comms are fine but we can¡¯t connect to anyone else. I think we¡¯re being jammed and the only reason we can hear each other is that we all have the upgraded helmets,¡± was the response, which Alvarez was not happy to hear.

    ¡°Great, so we¡¯re outnumbered at least two to one and no help is coming. Ammo check, everyone!¡± Various answers came in, but the short of it was that everyone was low after their extended fight with the Model Twenty-Three. All the advanced weaponry in the world wouldn¡¯t be of any use with no ammunition. The range was too great for the flamethrowers and the rocket launchers were entirely expended, as were the heavy machineguns. Both squads¡¯ riflemen were down to their last magazines.

    Their opponents had clearly come prepared, as well. When Alvarez leaned out of cover again he found the other pair of squads deploying their own cover as well. He fired a test shot directly at one and it bounced right off; these barricades were thick enough to shrug off Class I bullets from Class I firearms. It didn¡¯t help that, while everyone here had weapons far better than the rank and file, Alana had still had to compromise somewhat in order to outfit so many people.

    ¡°Need some solutions, people! Right now the only option I¡¯m seeing is rushing down one team while they¡¯re still setting up, and we¡¯re not pulling that off with no casualties.¡± As he spoke, Alvarez ducked back down, glancing around at the fourteen men and women crammed into this narrow space with him. One grenade would have decent odds of wiping them out entirely.

    ¡°Sir, my family¡¯s from Boone and I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s an emergency bunker in the building behind us!¡± answered Specialist Silverton, the marksman from Alana¡¯s squad.

    ¡°That¡¯s great but I¡¯m not seeing any doors!¡± someone else retorted.

    ¡°I can make one, sir,¡± Specialist Brown chimed in, already reaching into her vest pockets and pulling an assortment of tools out.

    ¡°Do it, specialist! Specialist Lin, you¡¯re the only one strong enough to carry Lieutenant McIntire, so get ready. You¡¯re going in first. Everyone else, keep up suppressive fire! Once we¡¯re in that bunker your ammo isn¡¯t doing us any good, so make them think we¡¯ve got plenty!¡±

 Chapter Forty Six

    ¡°Nguyen, what¡¯s the situation? Who are we dealing with?¡± I asked sharply the moment I heard Alana had been shot.

    ¡°We don¡¯t know. They¡¯re just holding position and firing warning shots at anyone that gets close. We don¡¯t have anyone we can spare to investigate further,¡± Nguyen replied.

    ¡°Juny, take the Eyebot ahead and figure out and get some scans of what we¡¯re dealing with, please.¡± I switched the channel so I could speak to the pilots. ¡°Take us back to Boone, there¡¯s an emergency and I need to deal with it.¡±

    ¡°Roger that ma¡¯am, taking off now.¡±

    Before I could decide what to do next, a voice I wasn¡¯t happy to hear came over the comms. There should have been no way for him to contact me since I¡¯d asked Juny to block him, which meant he was about to say something she thought I needed to hear.

    ¡°This is Major Thompson to all Stalking Tigers personnel. Alana McIntire has been incapacitated and I am taking command as senior ranking officer on-site. Any forces involved in her reckless plan to cause a natural disaster are to stand down and return to base. All field officers are to report to the briefing room so that we can discuss-¡±

    Anger rose from the base of my spine until my head felt like it was on fire. I was seething at this stupid, incompetent, pathetic man that had dared to pull a stunt like this before we¡¯d even beaten back the Antithesis. I hadn¡¯t known Alana or her team for long. And it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d had a lot of time to speak to any of them either. But I felt a sense of comradery. We¡¯d fought and bled together against unending waves of alien monsters. I didn¡¯t have any proof, but last I¡¯d heard of this man he was being locked up and put under watch. If he was out now, it was because someone had gone out of their way to free him, and that could only mean he was involved up to his neck.

    ¡°Yeah, shut the fuck up,¡± I interrupted before he could get any further. Surprisingly he actually obliged. I wasn¡¯t sure why- he might have simply been caught off guard by the response and may not have even realized who was talking yet. Or maybe Juny muted him. ¡°This is Samurai Erica Taylor. I¡¯ve got good reason to suspect Tommy tried to assassinate Alana, so here¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen. Major Thompson is KIA as of this moment, his corpse just hasn¡¯t noticed yet. I¡¯m currently on my way to rectify that, so I¡¯d advise all Stalking Tiger forces to stay out of my way and follow Alana¡¯s standing orders.

    ¡°Thompson, you¡¯re lucky I¡¯ve never killed anyone before. I would like nothing more than to tear your still-beating heart from your chest and show it to you like you¡¯re an Aztec sacrifice. Fortunately for you, I don¡¯t think my stomach is ready for that yet, so instead I¡¯ll settle for putting a bullet between your eyes personally. Keep your forehead clean for me.

    ¡°As for whoever is working for that zombie, you have until I get there to run. If you think you¡¯re just dealing with a newborn Samurai, then I¡¯d like to remind you that I¡¯ve been in near-constant combat for three days straight. You have no idea what I can do and I¡¯m not dumb enough to enlighten you, but I¡¯ll tell you this much: stick around to find out and your own mother won¡¯t be able to identify what¡¯s left of you.¡±

    ¡°Samurai Taylor, Captain Lafayette speaking. The Boone militia is with you.¡±

    ¡°Lieutenant-Colonel Radcliffe here. I¡¯m officially declaring in my capacity as chief medical officer that Major Thompson has been rendered unfit to lead due to suicide by Samurai. All forces, continue to engage the Antithesis.¡±

    I smiled to myself. It looked like everyone had already chosen their sides and Thompson hadn¡¯t been anyone¡¯s choice. I had one last thing to add, though.

    ¡°Thanks for the support. Oh, and Thompson? I¡¯m the one holding the detonator.¡± There wasn¡¯t a physical detonator, granted, but that would have just been for dramatic effect anyway. I strapped myself in and cut all my connections. ¡°Juny, can we trigger the sonic piles now or are we missing too much of the array?¡±

    ¡°Triggering them now will be sufficient to demolish ninety-four percent of the Antithesis-infested zone!¡± she answered in my head, her Eyebot no longer close enough to answer.

    ¡°That¡¯s good but it¡¯s still not everything. What¡¯s going to be left?¡± I knew that if I didn¡¯t trigger the landslides now it would probably be too late by the time I was able to finish the array, but I at least wanted to know exactly what we¡¯d be dealing with.

    ¡°The intact area will consist entirely of the old university campus,¡± she answered quickly. That was good, actually. Those buildings were never replaced with skyscrapers, and most weren¡¯t connected. Clearing them out on foot wouldn¡¯t necessarily be easy, but it would be less complicated since we could establish a perimeter and constrict it as we advanced. We also might be able to just plant the remaining sonic piles and bury it, but without the rest of the array shaking the ground in unison I wasn¡¯t sure it would have enough of an effect.

    I sucked in a deep breath and opened the door in front of me. The copilot looked at me as if to ask if I were going to jump, but I shook my head and just activated the sonic piles. I was pretty sure this show was going to be worth watching and also a great distraction from my acrophobia. I focused my attention on the opposite side of the city, where I had a clear view of the peaks I¡¯d seeded with sonic piles.

    For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then I noticed the trees had begun to shake. The vibration was so intense that the entire mountain seemed to blur. At first I couldn¡¯t hear much over the roar of the gunship¡¯s engines, but then I began to hear it: cracking and rumbling as the earth itself heaved. The trees began to slide downwards, looking for all the world as if a forest was marching upon the city. Dirt, rocks, and wood sloughed off the mountainside and descended in what looked like slow motion from here but was likely much faster.

    Liquefaction had set in, and it wasn¡¯t going to stop, not with dozens of sonic piles underneath the ground continuing to shake the soil with intense sound I couldn¡¯t even perceive. Soon the landslide reached the outlying skyscrapers, which were never designed for this type of stress applied directly to their bases. It didn¡¯t help that the Antithesis had undermined the foundations to make space for their hives, leaving the buildings capable of supporting their own weight but removing anything that could have resisted the forces they were now experiencing.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Mighty skyscrapers dozens of stories tall collapsed like giants whose feet had been swept out from under them. Some fell outwards, crumbling and contributing their wreckage to the ongoing landslide. Others toppled inwards, smashing into other buildings. The weakened foundations allowed each building¡¯s support pillars to be wrenched out of the ground, cracking open the Antithesis hives below and exposing them to be crushed by untold tonnes of earth.

    Every fallen structure contributed to a growing dust cloud that enveloped the entire valley until the destruction was entirely hidden from the naked eye. But even from within a gunship high above I could still hear the shifting and settling of the devastated concrete jungle below. Before my view was completely cut off, I saw that just as Juny had predicted, the inner city was untouched by the artificial landslide we¡¯d caused, and the soldiers on the wall were picking off the Antithesis that hadn¡¯t been crushed.

    There was a lot of work yet to be done and the cleanup would be an immense undertaking, but for all intents and purposes the siege of Boone was broken.

    ¡°I have a report for you!¡± Juny eagerly chimed in. I would have said ¡®as the dust settled,¡¯ but I was fairly certain that would take a while longer. ¡°The group that attacked Alana appear to be a private security force employed by the Appalachian Ventures umbrella company, which owns many of the corporations with investments in Boone. Their equipment is of significantly better quality than that of the Stalking Tigers but still falls well below that of a Class I Vanguard.¡±

    ¡°Their weapons were able to penetrate Alana¡¯s armor. How much of a threat are they to me?¡± My plan, if it could be called that, depended on them being incapable of contending with Class II power armor. I wanted to send a message the corpos wouldn¡¯t forget here.

    ¡°Alana¡¯s armor was likely on the lower end of Class I. I have located the weapon used to injure her and it was an anti-materiel rifle designed for penetrating Model Fourteen armor. It would likely take at least one direct hit to disable your shields and one more to your bodysuit to penetrate; it is not sufficient for defeating your armor.¡±

    ¡°So, don¡¯t be an idiot and walk straight towards them. Anything else?¡±

    ¡°Explosives may, in sufficient quantities, be capable of harming your body through shockwaves, but your bodysuit will mitigate them by design!¡± In other words, they came well equipped for a Samurai with access to Class I gear, not expecting Alana or I to have access to Class II gear yet. They¡¯d underestimated exactly how intense the fighting we¡¯d been involved in had been.

    They were exactly as doomed as I¡¯d declared them to be. Assuming I could go through with my threat. I¡¯d said a lot of things in the heat of the moment, but I¡¯d never killed a person before. My stomach churned at the thought. These people probably had families. They were just doing their jobs. But on the other hand, I was almost certainly on their hit-list as well, and they¡¯d already tried to murder Alana.

    I had to remember that it was me or them. I wasn¡¯t going to go out of my way to preserve the lives of people trying to kill me. There were probably methods I could use, aug filters, that would make it easier, but¡­this wasn¡¯t going to be the last time, was it? I would eventually need to kill more people in my capacity as a Samurai. Today I was going to make myself a killer and I couldn¡¯t look away from that fact.

    I would do it now, against targets I knew full well had almost no chance of harming me, so that I won¡¯t falter if I have to fight someone that could kill me.

    ¡°Juny, I need a landing spot where their forces are thinnest. Send it straight to the pilots.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I settled in to wait, hardening my resolve for the task to come. When the gunship finally landed, I unstrapped myself and stepped off without a word. I unslung my assault rifle and made for the corner where the street we¡¯d landed in intersected with an enemy barricade, glancing around it to see what I¡¯d be dealing with.

    Infrared was necessary just to make out their locations. They certainly knew I was here, but with a choking cloud of dust obscuring everything they were as good as blind.

    ¡°Juny, how tough are those barricades?¡± I asked, not wanting to embarrass myself by trying to shoot through their cover and failing.

    ¡°They are very thick!¡± the AI answered aloud, appearing from the dust cloud beside me. ¡°You would likely require an anti-materiel rifle or similarly heavy weapon to shoot through them!¡±

    In that case¡­up close and personal it was. I stepped around the corner and broke into a run, covering the twenty meters or so between myself and the corporate security troops so quickly they¡¯d barely noticed my feet pounding against the pavement before I was on them. Even as they shouted in surprise I leapt over their barricade and struck a man full on in the chest with both feet, sending him sprawling.

    Another man, a blur of colors in my infrared sight, swung towards me with his rifle at the ready. He fired and my shields barely registered the impact. I returned fire with my assault rifle¡¯s rails active and blew a hole through his chest, armor and all, causing a spray of blood and gore that coated the guy behind him. Someone tagged me in the back with a shotgun and I hardly even noticed- but one of his buddies definitely felt the ricochet that struck him in the leg.

    I grabbed the shotgun and kicked its wielder in the stomach. He dropped, clutching his bruised gut, and I stepped to the side and clubbed the blood-coated man over the head with the shotgun hard enough to crack his helmet. As he went down like a sack of potatoes the remaining soldiers rallied behind their squad leader and focused their fire, but even a volley of bullets from five different rifles to the back didn¡¯t dent my shield nearly as much as a quill from a Model Five.

    These guys were well trained. They reacted fast, were able to locate and target me even when they could barely see me, and operated as a single, well-oiled machine. While five of them were trying to suppress me with gunfire another snatched a grenade from his belt and pulled the pin, rolling it towards me instead of tossing it. He probably hoped I wouldn¡¯t notice it that way, but it didn¡¯t matter- when it exploded, my shields dropped by maybe thirty percent and I hardly felt the explosion.

    All the skill in the world wasn¡¯t going to make up the gap in technology. My opponents could likely point out a dozen things I¡¯d done wrong already and I could tell my reactions weren¡¯t nearly on par with theirs, but it just didn¡¯t matter. Their armor was paper before my weapons and they may as well have been armed with airsoft rifles for all the good their guns were doing.

    I finished turning and brandished my rifle. There was a chill in my belly as I held down the trigger and swept the barrel across their line, the flimsy and makeshift cover they¡¯d been left with after I vaulted their barricade doing nothing to protect them. Railguns did ugly things to human bodies. Just like the Model Threes I¡¯d first fought with my SMGs shortly after buying the rail-enhanced models, the people in front of me ceased to exist, their torsos obliterated by multiple rounds each.

    Almost as an afterthought, I put a bullet in the last survivor, the man that had taken the ricocheting shotgun slug to the leg. When I checked the one I¡¯d kicked in the chest I found his chest caved in, and the man I¡¯d stolen the shotgun from hadn¡¯t survived his squad mate¡¯s grenade. Less than a minute had passed and eleven people were dead.

    My energy shield hadn¡¯t gone below fifty percent.

    It took some effort to fight back the bile rising in my throat as I turned away from the carnage I¡¯d caused. I could throw up when I was done. They¡¯d picked this fight and I was going to show them one should never start a war with a Samurai.

 Chapter Forty Seven

    ¡°The corporate security forces have noticed one of their squads lost contact and begun to adjust their positions!¡± Juny announced before I¡¯d taken more than ten steps. I clicked my tongue. Fighting intelligent enemies is the worst.

    ¡°Give me the details, please,¡± I requested as I checked the map. I was currently at one corner of the section of town they¡¯d occupied and could go either left or straight, but going left would get me to the destination more quickly.

    ¡°They have left two squads on each of the routes you are mostly likely to take and are withdrawing the rest to the building Alana and her squads are barricaded in,¡± she explained as position markers moved around on the map. They must have realized they were too spread out to defend effectively.

    Did that only occur to them now? Or were they only prepared to fight the Stalking Tigers? Maybe they didn¡¯t have a choice but to deploy that way initially since concentrating their forces from the start would have given them less time to prepare when I attacked. Certainly leaving four squads behind as they were right now was to buy more time. I knew they were probably trying to get to Alana before she could recover, but maybe they needed time for something else too.

    Knowing where the enemy was positioned could allow me to go around them¡­if I wanted to. But they¡¯d still be there. Nothing would be stopping them from turning around and following me. Much as I didn¡¯t like it, I was going to have to clear them out before moving on. I decided to go left first, but both were going to have to go.

    I advanced carefully this time, as the dust cloud was already beginning to settle a bit. Only a thin layer had accumulated on the ground, but I could now make out vague shapes from a few feet away as opposed to having no sight at all. I relied on my augs instead. It was like being underground again with nothing but a wireframe to guide my way.

    Eventually I came upon the next enemy position. They had huddled down behind barricades like before, but with two squads this time they had been able to spread out. I spotted a pair of snipers a few stories up within the buildings flanking the enemy squads, and there were multiple lines of barricades so I couldn¡¯t just jump over and gun them down.

    ¡°Is there anyone in those buildings other than the corpo guys?¡± I asked first.

    ¡°All residents were evacuated to designated shelters in anticipation of the landslide¡¯s effect on the air quality!¡± Juny replied. Even though it was my plan I hadn¡¯t actually accounted for that; someone else must have organized it while I was busy buying vehicles. That meant I didn¡¯t have to pull my punches.

    I ducked down an alleyway and headed for one of the buildings hiding a sniper. Leaving the alley unguarded was a mistake I couldn¡¯t even fault them for under the circumstances; while the enemy troops had full-face helmets, I was pretty sure their sensors were a lot more nearsighted than mine were right now. Getting in was easy- it was an apartment building and the fire escape was down, so I just climbed right on up and slipped in through a window.

    While I already knew where my target was, I wasn¡¯t exactly equipped for stealth. The moment I crept up on them the fighting was going to start. I stopped outside the door to the apartment to consider my options. Just shooting the guy and disappearing into the depths of the building would probably draw some of them in after me, and I¡¯d have the advantage if I laid some traps, but that would take too long. I didn¡¯t know how long I had before the main group broke into the bunker Alana was in.

    So, I was going to want to get the first strike in instead. My guns were powerful, but the moment I popped up the sniper across the street would react, so I would have to kill them before I could target the guys below, giving them time to react. But maybe I could kill two birds with one stone with a fun little thing called ¡®defenestration.¡¯

    ¡°Juny, I need an Instant Star. Five second timer.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    I put my assault rifle away and accepted the sticky grenade with one hand while I opened the door with the other. As soon as it was open I retrieved one of my submachine guns, readying it before I entered. The apartment was empty- it looked like they¡¯d actually claimed one that hadn¡¯t had a tenant to begin with, judging by the lack of furniture. A single bedroom door was open at the corner of the building.

    There was no way I could mask the sound of several hundred pounds of armor against the floorboards, so I needed to make this quick. Instead of creeping closer I hurried through the empty living room and burst into the sniper¡¯s next with a total lack of subtlety, which is when I was reminded of an important fact: snipers worked in pairs. A sniper and a spotter.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Two armored figures reacted to my entrance, but only one of them was actually holding a gun. No time to think. I crossed the room in a few long steps and knocked the sniper¡¯s gun aside before he could bring it to bear, primed the grenade, stuck it to his chest, and shoved him out the window. He fell in eerie silence, any sounds he might have made muffled by his helmet.

    Now I had to deal with the spotter, but that wasn¡¯t much of an issue. He¡¯d pulled out a submachine gun that had no chance of getting through my armor. It would have been easiest to shoot him, but I hesitated- my own SMG would tear the man to pieces even if it wasn¡¯t as powerful as the assault rifle, and I¡¯d be able to see every detail clearly. When he opened fire I reacted reflexively- by kicking him out the window on the other wall.

    At the same time, I heard an explosion below. Hopefully it caught a few corpo bastards in the blast radius.

    An instant later my shields popped and I was reminded that I had one more sniper to deal with. I ducked out of view of the window while my shield recharged and swapped to the assault rifle, only stepping back out of cover when I had my extra layer of protection back. The man was fast, firing off another shot before I even had time to aim, but he couldn¡¯t chamber the next round before I returned fire and killed both him and his spotter.

    I was forced to back off again when the people below began firing up at me, their rounds mostly burying themselves in the ceiling or pinging off the concrete exterior of the building. Unfortunately it seemed the spotter had been too much of a distraction after all- if I hadn¡¯t needed to let my shields recharge, maybe I could have gotten the rest of these goons before they could react. Too late now. Jumping out the window and bringing the fight right to them was still doable, but I¡¯d prefer not to risk discovering Juny or I had missed something while I¡¯m free falling.

    Instead I headed to the interior stairs. I could just head down and engage them from the lobby, where their barricades wouldn¡¯t do them much good and I¡¯d have the building¡¯s outer walls as cover. The corpos had reacted quickly, though- if I hadn¡¯t upgraded my motion tracker I wouldn¡¯t have picked up on the fireteam coming up the stairs after me. If I¡¯d stayed upstairs they may have even been able to catch me from behind just like I¡¯d done to the snipers.

    Smart, but they stood no chance if I caught on to them, so now they were screwed.

    Crouching around the corner of one of the landings, I waited for them to reach the bottom of the next half-flight of stairs. The moment the corpo team was in place I stood and stepped into the open, both SMGs raised and ready. Before I¡¯d even finished aiming all four team members had opened fire on me, but nothing they had was a threat. It just bounced off my shields until I pulled the trigger, and even the weaker rails of my SMGs were enough to reduce the entire group to bloody chunks.

    Even though I¡¯d hesitated to shoot because I saw this coming just a few minutes ago, I¡¯d actually forgotten in the heat of the moment. I froze. There was blood everywhere. A pink mist was still settling inside the stairwell and the walls, floor, and even ceiling were dripping with viscous red fluid. Their innards¡­god, they were everywhere. I took in a shuddering breath, struggling not to throw up.

    It took everything I had to fight back my revulsion and move my feet. I lurched forward after gathering every bit of resolve left in me and jumped over the railing, falling down the empty space in the center of the stairs rather than walk through that mess. Once the sight was no longer burning itself into my eyes, resentment started to build towards the man that¡¯d put me in this position. True, I¡¯d jumped to conclusions by assuming it was Thompson¡­but if not him, then who else? If I didn¡¯t find him working closely with the corpo security forces I¡¯d track down my mangled cosplay helmet and eat it.

    By the time I reached the lobby the rest of the enemy forces had changed positions and they were now in the building across the street from me, using its outer walls as cover the same way I had intended. Neither building had floor to ceiling glass windows. But while their weapons could be stopped by concrete, mine couldn¡¯t. And they couldn¡¯t remain in cover all the time anyway, while my shields meant I essentially always had some.

    I ran to a window close to the front doors and smashed it out so I¡¯d have clear line of sight. The group across the street had already done the same, and they were ready for me. Numerous rifles filled the air with gunshots from positions on the first two floors of the other building, and someone fired a grenade launcher my way to boot. I just raised my guns and started shooting, taking out two targets at a time.

    With their close-faced helmets it was easy to think of my opponents as drones, silently watching their teammates be gunned down and ignoring it to keep on fighting. But under those helmets there was probably a lot of comm chatter. Team leaders exhorting their men to hold the line, squad members panicking when their command exploded, pleas for someone to order a retreat, and maybe even cold, calm casualty reports. Either their discipline was iron-clad or they had taken my threats to heart, because not a single one broke and ran.

    Instead they died to a man accomplishing nothing more than making my shields recharge somewhat.

    ¡°Good news!¡± Juny reported as I stared cold-faced at the carnage. My weapons had blown holes in the relatively thin concrete cladding my targets were hiding behind, and although I couldn¡¯t see it from here, I knew there had to be a mess just out of sight. ¡°The other teams were in contact with this one, and their fate appears to have had an effect on morale! The two squads blocking the other street have dropped their weapons and are fleeing, and enough personnel have deserted the main force that they were forced to abandon their positions and retreat further inside the building! Would you like me to track their locations?¡±

    ¡°No. Let them run. The fewer people I have to kill today the better,¡± I said in a voice that sounded so dead inside that even I could hear it. ¡°Just tell me if they turn around.¡±

 Chapter Forty Eight

    I jogged towards the building where the final confrontation was going to be taking place. The city had grown unusually quiet now with the Antithesis threat largely petering out, so the only sounds were my own footsteps and the occasional distant gunshot. Along the way I passed a pair of shot up Humvees clustered against the wall of a building I realized was the one I was heading for. The entrance was a bit further and around a corner.

    ¡°This is the hole Alana¡¯s team used to get inside! It has been heavily mined by the corporate security forces to prevent you from using it!¡± Juny provided helpfully. So, Haley made the hole. Who else would it be?

    ¡°¡­let¡¯s find a less explosive way in,¡± I replied, continuing on my way. Just as Juny had told me, I encountered no resistance. The exterior of the building had been fortified, especially around the front, but it was a rush job with portable cover and there was no one manning the defenses. The instant I stepped in the front door, I heard an explosion and my body rocked slightly to the left, but my shield took the hit. I looked at Juny.

    ¡°You totally knew that was there and didn¡¯t tell me, didn¡¯t you?¡± I accused.

    ¡°I have no idea what you mean!¡± she replied from conspicuously outside the blast radius. I was pretty sure that was meant as a lesson to watch out for traps. I wasn¡¯t exactly used to fighting people. The Antithesis used traps, but mostly in the form of ambushes or sabotaging the environment. Landmines and the like were the sort of thing I used against my enemies, at least until now.

    I turned to look in the direction the explosion had come from and found a blown-out box alongside a laser emitter with no visible beam. I was using thermal imaging and still wasn¡¯t seeing anything, so did that mean it was using ultraviolet? Some kind of claymore mine, I supposed, at any rate.

    The lobby was just as abandoned as the exterior. There were a few barriers but they¡¯d probably used most of them outside. I did my best to scrutinize the room for signs of any other traps, but this wasn¡¯t a video game- there were no blinking discs openly placed on the floor. Anything there was probably like the claymore, hidden behind an object or wall and using a trigger I couldn¡¯t see.

    ¡°Even if I¡¯d been looking for it I wouldn¡¯t have been able to see it. Just show me where they are, please?¡± I asked, and a moment later objects throughout the first floor of the building were highlighted. They must have used every single device they¡¯d been able to carry here just on this, because every doorway leading to the stairs down was mined. Some of them had enough bombs planted around them that they might actually be able to threaten me. ¡°Oh. That¡¯s great. And where¡¯s the bunker?¡±

    ¡°Below us and further into the building. There is a single entrance that can be accessed by going downstairs, which is heavily guarded and mined!¡± Juny replied, showing me the possible routes on a map of the building. Her sensors also gave me a look at what type of ordinance I was up against. Two heavy machineguns pointed right at the door, several mines, and a few rockets launchers I was pretty sure shouldn¡¯t be fired indoors. Which probably would stop anyone if they were desperate enough. I compared that map to the locations of the explosives and realized Haley had given me the solution to both problems at once.

    ¡°There¡¯s only a single entrance for now.¡±

    <hr>

    Multiple explosions rocked the building as shaped charges detonated in multiple locations, blowing holes in the floor separating the first level from the basement. I could have made it cleaner, but the rubble was the point- I had placed charges right above the enemy machinegun emplacements and heavy weapons, along with the largest clusters of their troops. They¡¯d been well prepared for a frontal assault but couldn¡¯t possibly have defended against this.

    One hole opened up directly in front of me without exploding. That one I¡¯d made with a rift bomb that had teleported the floor to parts unknown. I didn¡¯t need anything disturbing my footing when I dropped down, and I wanted Thompson, who was near where I¡¯d be dropping, alive. For now.

    While the corpos were still reeling I jumped down, both SMGs already raised and ready to fire. More than half of them were already dead or wounded and I wasn¡¯t going to give the survivors time to recover. I started by shooting the team that had been trying to cut through the door to the bunker, then turned around and opened fire on anyone that wasn¡¯t already on the ground. Their defenses were facing the wrong way, their only weapons capable of harming me were buried, and their command structure was probably still a mess from all the casualties I¡¯d inflicted. It didn¡¯t take long.

    Soon there were only two living souls in the room and I holstered my weapons. I turned towards Major Thompson as he drew his sidearm and walked in his direction as he started shooting at me. His aim was immaculate and he landed twelve shots in a row right to my head that barely depleted my shields at all. I just stared him in the eyes while he did it in order to make the point that he was well and truly fucked. The moment his magazine ran dry I snatched the gun from his hand and whipped him across the face with it, sending him to the floor.

    It would have been cool if I could have crushed his weapon in my hands, but since I couldn¡¯t, I just threw it over my shoulder. As I looked down at Thompson while he nursed his cheek, one of my hands came to rest on the grip of a handgun- that replica magnum I¡¯d purchased on day one. The first weapon I bought, which I used to make my first kill as a Samurai. I hadn¡¯t even realized I¡¯d moved its holster to the waist of this suit, but apparently some part of my subconscious did.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Maybe this was symbolic, in a way.

    ¡°Juny, give me a magazine with one bullet. Something powerful enough to make sure he doesn¡¯t get back up.¡± Silently, she placed the magazine in my hand and I removed the original, empty one from the magnum to load it. As I pulled back the slide to chamber my single round, Thompson managed to rise to a seated position. I placed the barrel to his forehead. He was bleeding where I¡¯d struck him and it looked like he¡¯d cut the inside of his cheek with his teeth or bitten his tongue judging by the bloody lips.

    ¡°Why¡¯d you have to go and make me do this, Thompson?¡± I asked coldly.

    ¡°She killed my friend,¡± Thompson growled out, which I supposed was a good enough reason for most. My own motivation wasn¡¯t far from his. Of course, understanding and forgiveness were two separate matters.

    ¡°How¡¯d you even contact them? You were supposed to be locked up,¡± I interrogated.

    ¡°You think I just had a company of troops in my back pocket this whole time? Fuck no. Must have been one of their other collaborators. A company the size of Appalachian Ventures wouldn¡¯t just plant one agent,¡± Thompson denied.

    ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ll tell me who they are,¡± I replied, the question more of a statement since I already knew the answer.

    ¡°Can¡¯t tell you what I don¡¯t know. Max might¡¯ve known, but, well¡­¡± he said, trailing off. ¡°It was need to know, and I didn¡¯t. So the information never even crossed my desk.¡±

    ¡°Then where do you factor into all of this? I¡¯m not buying that you¡¯re innocent.¡± I pressed the barrel of my gun into his forehead just a bit harder to remind him of his position.

    ¡°I had no idea they¡¯d even shot that bitch until they came and broke me out in the confusion. I just followed my orders when they told me to take command and call your plan off. Way they phrased it I thought you were both out of the way until you came onto the comms,¡± Thompson ranted. I couldn¡¯t help but notice, though, that he¡¯d said he only found out Alana had been shot when they picked him up. Not that he didn¡¯t know they were coming, or at least that they might be.

    ¡°Did it never even cross your mind that it might be a better idea to side with the two Samurai?¡± I wondered aloud.

    ¡°Sure it did. But you¡¯ve been on the job for what, less than a week? How many Samurai do you think even make it seven days? If they¡¯d gotten here a day sooner you¡¯d be dead.¡± Thompson worked his jaw like he wanted to spit, but he was smart enough to keep his head right where it was. ¡°Besides, I wanted revenge. We were so close. Just a few more minutes¡­¡±

    Thompson trailed off. I kept my eyes on him, but I knew that if I looked at the bunker door, I¡¯d find a bright line right down the center where the corpo goons had been cutting through the locking mechanisms. It was pretty close to the bottom. But Thompson wasn¡¯t done talking.

    ¡°And if it wasn¡¯t me it would have been someone else¡­not that I had a choice. I didn¡¯t want to be turned into one of those¡­things.¡±

    Now that was interesting.

    ¡°What things?¡± I asked him, keeping my weapon right where it was.

    ¡°They showed me a video when we took this job. There were these twisted monsters, failed experiments, they said. All they could do was scream. They did it until they were hoarse and kept on going. Screamed and begged for death. At least if I cross you I just die.¡± Thompson sounded haunted as he spoke. Afraid. I¡¯d assumed on some level he was scared of something other than me, Alana, or the Antithesis, but I would have guessed it was torture at worst.

    ¡°What were they?¡± I pressed, suspecting I was going to have to deal with this at some point too. Whoever sent their security forces here certainly wouldn¡¯t be less mad after I¡¯d wiped out half of them.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. All they told me and Max- Colonel Tavish- was that we¡¯d be their next test subjects if we didn¡¯t do our job and keep everyone out of the outer city.¡± I searched Thompson¡¯s face and decided he was probably telling the truth. So even the contract Juny had presented during that meeting hadn¡¯t been the full picture, then? Tavish hadn¡¯t been corrupt at all. We just misunderstood what his job was from the start. I¡¯d be willing to bet what we thought was ¡®embezzlement¡¯ was actually just part of his compensation.

    ¡°Not too smart of you to give up all your bargaining power by admitting you don¡¯t know anything else,¡± I pointed out. Not that anything he could have said would have made me spare him. He¡¯d proven himself too dangerous to leave alive. Before now he¡¯d been annoying and shown no love for Alana nor I, but he hadn¡¯t been an active threat. Now, though, he¡¯d brought a company of hostile troops into our midst and nearly prevented us from destroying the Antithesis at the cost of the city.

    All to protect some stupid corpo secrets.

    ¡°You would have found out anyway. But you still don¡¯t have to do this. You¡¯d-¡±

    ¡°Are you about to spout off with a clich¨¦ ¡®if you kill me now you¡¯ll be just as bad as me¡¯ line? Fuck you. I killed dozens of people just getting here. Seventy, at least. I know as well as anyone that they weren¡¯t just faceless minions. Those people had lives, families. And I killed them because it was either them or myself, Alana, and her people, and I chose us. Your life isn¡¯t worth more than theirs¡¯ were. If I let you walk out of here alive then I killed them for nothing,¡± I told Thompson in a cold, flat voice with no inflection. His mouth began to move, but no sounds came out.

    Behind him, the bunker door opened. I kept my eyes on Thompson as it receded into the wall and members of McIntire and Alvarez squads stepped out and began securing the room. Alana must have still been out of commission because it looked like Alvarez was giving the orders.

    ¡°Thanks for the rescue. We saw and heard everything from here. You don¡¯t have to do this.¡± As he spoke, Alvarez raised his hands in a placating gesture, than reached for his sidearm with one hand, keeping his other still raised. ¡°I¡¯m not telling you to let him live. Just let me do it for you.¡±

    He must have seen my hesitation and mistaken it for reluctance. Thought he was doing the kind thing and taking the weight of this deed off my shoulders. I¡¯d made my peace with what I was about to do though.

    ¡°You¡¯re wrong. I do need to do this. I just needed to prepare myself for it. This is the first time I kill a man while looking him in the face. I ain¡¯t no fink.¡± I pulled the trigger before anyone else had time to talk, splattering Thompson¡¯s brains across the room behind him. I didn¡¯t catch how anyone reacted because I was too busy yanking my helmet off my head.

    It was barely out of the way before I threw up.

 Chapter Forty Nine

    "I don''t know why he gave me this name, honestly. I haven''t even played that game! My friendos don''t look like any of the monsters in it, either!"

    "I''ve heard before that Samurai can turn down a name if they don''t like it. Is that not true?"

    "You''re telling me I could have done what!?"

    -From an interview with the Samurai Monster Rancher, 2032

    <hr>

    Once the action was over and I¡¯d washed my mouth out, I plopped down on a particularly large chunk of concrete and just disassociated for a while. I spent a bit of time just scanning the room to avoid thinking. It was some sort of antechamber to the bunker, maybe for organizing people on the way in or just so defenders had a place to set up. At least a dozen holes had been made in the ceiling through which light filtered in, illuminating the dust hanging in the air. Bodies and debris littered the room, and the smell was probably awful, but I¡¯d put my helmet back on to avoid both it and the dust.

    Alvarez and the two squads with him had moved the more exposed bodies aside and appropriated their ammunition, using it to manufacture more for their own weapons. They¡¯d since secured the building and cleared out the explosives I¡¯d bypassed, which was probably a lot easier from the other side, and now they¡¯d taken up position to defend the main entrance as best as they could with only fifteen people. A few had tried to talk to me, but I couldn¡¯t find the words to respond.

    Now that the adrenaline had worn off I found myself questioning my decisions. Had it really been necessary to butcher those corpo security troops the way I did? I knew I¡¯d had a reason to do it. I even remembered what it was. But what I couldn¡¯t figure out was whether that had just been a pretext for my anger, a way of using logic to justify something I¡¯d wanted to do based mostly on primal emotions. I¡¯d probably receive a different answer based on who I asked. It wasn¡¯t an entirely black and white situation.

    A far better question was whether I could live with myself having done it. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d have an answer to that any time soon.

    I jolted upright when someone tapped on my visor and found Alana standing in front of me. Even the hole in her armor had been repaired- assuming she hadn¡¯t just replaced it. I must have been sitting there for longer than I¡¯d thought if she was already back on her feet.

    ¡°Thanks for the rescue. They would have made it in before I recovered if you hadn¡¯t been there. I¡¯m¡­sorry you had to go through that,¡± she said, patting me on the shoulder sympathetically.

    ¡°So am I,¡± I said shortly, my voice flat. Alana took a seat next to me on the concrete block. ¡°And I¡¯m sorry I couldn¡¯t do anything to help you recover faster.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the tradeoff I made when I went full cyborg. Way harder to kill me but I have to be repaired, not healed, and it takes a bit longer. Should¡¯ve replaced my spine too, though. Won¡¯t make that mistake next time,¡± she told me before allowing the conversation to lapse into silence for a minute or two.

    ¡°Did I do the right thing?¡± I asked eventually. I wasn¡¯t sure why. Maybe I saw Alana as something of a peer, being a new Samurai of about the same age.

    ¡°I could say yes. Tell you that you got the bad guys and saved lives. But I don¡¯t think that¡¯s what you want to hear right now. The reality is that you just did what you had to do. To survive, and to protect the people you were fighting alongside. There¡¯s not always a right and a wrong to be had there. Maybe you could have gotten by while killing fewer of them- but maybe your shock tactics were the only reason there weren¡¯t twice as many to kill. No one can know for sure in the end,¡± Alana said at length, a weight in her voice. It felt like I was hearing someone else talk- like she¡¯d heard these words herself they first time she killed someone and was now passing them down to me.

    ¡°Thanks, but¡­that doesn¡¯t really make me feel any better,¡± I replied, staring down at the dusty floor.

    ¡°Only time will, I¡¯m afraid. Killing other people is hard. Soldiers need to be trained to do it. It doesn¡¯t come naturally to most people, and it leaves scars that never fully heal. You went through it without any of the conditioning I had, so I can¡¯t fully understand how it feels for you, but¡­just know that there¡¯s at least sixteen people that are grateful to you,¡± Alana said, giving me a brief side hug even though we were both wearing armor. Sixteen¡­weighed against seventy. It was like the trolley problem. I¡¯d pulled the lever and killed a greater number of people to save the ones I knew.

    I didn¡¯t believe in hell, but there was a chance I¡¯d purchased a ticket to it for myself nonetheless.

    Suddenly, Alana stiffened, putting a hand to her ear. She was wearing a helmet so I couldn¡¯t hear what she was listening to, but I didn¡¯t have to wait long for her to tell me. She stood quickly, gesturing for me to accompany her.

    ¡°The Antithesis are back. It¡¯s not over yet.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

    <hr>

    I found myself standing on the wall looking out over a devastated landscape. So much dirt and debris had accumulated that the ground level was now a lot higher, with only a short distance in front of the wall where the terrain was unaltered. I could see the broken skeletons of skyscrapers in the distance through a haze of dust and mixed in with the mangled remnants of trees. Among that apocalyptic vision, a multitude of figures loomed large.

    ¡°Looks like they¡¯re mostly Model Twenty Threes. Dozens of them. Some of them are the armored variant I fought earlier. Dylta tells me they came from the old university campus- there must have been a large hive there then we thought, hidden by ECM or just buried far underground,¡± Alana explained, although I didn¡¯t need it. Juny had filled me in already.

    I wondered- was this the goal when that Model Twenty Three broke through the wall earlier? There was no way for the Antithesis to know precisely what we had planned, but they¡¯d known we were doing something. Had they accelerated the growth of one unit in the hopes of disrupting our plan and making us both retreat to deal with the problem? To buy time while more finished growing? I wouldn¡¯t ever know the answer to that question, but I hoped it was just paranoia speaking.

    ¡°Juny, is there anything I can afford now that can even harm these?¡± I asked, seeing the horde approaching.

    ¡°Of course! Several of your catalogues include weapons capable of damaging a Model Twenty Three! What type of weapon would you like?¡± Juny chirped. Part of what she said stuck out to me.

    ¡°Wait, you said several of my catalogues. Not just the Class I Mechanized Warfare Platforms? I thought you said I couldn¡¯t buy anything that would hurt a Model Twenty One, were they just that expensive?¡± I replied in confusion.

    ¡°You have many options, but did not have time to deliberate in your first encounter with a Tier III Antithesis, so I needed to convince you to retreat! I did not have sufficient time to correct the misunderstanding during the second encounter,¡± Juny explained, sending my blood pressure through the roof.

    ¡°You could have told me at any time after either fight! No, you know what? We don¡¯t have time for this. I need something that can fight those things, now. Can I buy something that would let me fight them all off?¡± I asked after scolding the AI. Probably fruitlessly. As always I had my suspicions that she was nudging me in order to fuel my growth without putting me in too much danger, though, so maybe she¡¯d judged I hadn¡¯t been in serious peril, at least in the second fight with a Model Twenty One.

    ¡°If you purchase the Class II Mechanized Warfare Platforms there are several options available capable of engaging Model Twenty Threes. Due to the number of them, however, success is not guaranteed. You will need Alana to purchase a similar platform to ensure even odds of victory!¡± Juny told me. Alana was probably having a similar conversation with Dylta in her head. She¡¯d said even odds though, meaning even then it wasn¡¯t enough to guarantee we won. There really were a lot of Model Twenty Threes out there, lumbering towards us as they shrugged off tank and Titan fire.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s-¡± I began before a person behind me interrupted by rapping their knuckles against my shoulder hard enough I felt it through my armor. I turned to find a woman I hadn¡¯t felt approach standing there, dressed in a cowgirl outfit. She was lean and tall, with sun-kissed skin and brown hair, and she looked at least five years younger than me at a glance.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you worry your head about it darlin¡¯. Cavalry is here. My friendos will handle any of ¡®em that get too close, but¡­I think the Mountaineer has it covered.¡± The woman, clearly a Samurai, smiled broadly. ¡°Name¡¯s Monster Rancher. Heard you were in a spot of trouble and figured I¡¯d give your reinforcements a lift.¡±

    I knew that name. Monster Rancher was a veteran. She was from Texas, but had been around long enough that I¡¯d heard of her even though the United States had long since broken up. Although she looked younger than me, she was old enough to be my mother, having been in the business for a good two decades.

    ¡°Can I¡­have your autograph?¡± I asked, my inner nerd slipping through while I was caught off-guard. She let out a hardy guffaw, slapping me on the back hard enough to make me tilt forward. How strong was this woman?

    ¡°Thanks for coming,¡± Alana cut in. ¡°I don¡¯t think we would have survived another two hours against that many of them.¡±

    ¡°Just doing my job is all. Us old timers¡¯ve gotta look out for the new bloods. Say, ya¡¯ll got names yet?¡± Obviously she wasn¡¯t asking for our real names. She wanted to know if we¡¯d been named. Given that neither of us had met a more senior Samurai before now or even had time to think about it, the answer was no. Alana and I glanced at each other and then looked back and shook our heads, both baffled by the shift in tone this conversation had taken.

    ¡°No, ma¡¯am. Hasn¡¯t been a priority,¡± Alana replied aloud.

    ¡°Which one of ya¡¯ll came up with that idea?¡± Monster Rancher asked. There was no need to ask what she meant. I raised my hand. ¡°Hm. I¡¯m thinking¡­Woodfall. Get it? ¡®Rocks fall, everyone dies.¡¯ Dirtfall might be more accurate, but that sounds awful, and Landslide is taken, so¡­Woodfall.¡±

    Woodfall. The name had nothing whatsoever to do with me general theme or style, but¡­I liked it. It called me back to a game I¡¯d played as a kid, back before my relationship with my father went sour. A more¡­innocent time. Maybe I needed that reminder right now.

    ¡°That sounds¡­good,¡± I replied, feeling a bit emotional. It felt strange to be receiving my Samurai name while an unstoppable horde of Antithesis were at my back, but¡­

    ¡°Don¡¯t have to take the name if you don¡¯t like it. Speak up now, don¡¯t worry none about my feelings. I didn¡¯t learn that til a good decade after I got mine, and well¡­would¡¯ve been nice to know sooner,¡± the veteran Samurai told me, mistaking my response for dissatisfaction.

    ¡°No, no. I like it. It¡¯s just a big moment,¡± I assured her. She nodded.

    ¡°And you¡­I¡¯ll admit, I don¡¯t know a whole lot else about what ya¡¯ll¡¯ve been up to here. I do know you¡¯ve been taking charge, though, and doing a bang up job of it. Might feel a bit half-assed, but how about Archon?¡± Monster Rancher asked Alana next.

    ¡°A name¡¯s a name. I don¡¯t really have much preference,¡± Alana replied, accepting the name with a shrug. Monster Rancher nodded happily and clapped her hands.

    ¡°Well then, Woodfall, Archon, take a look! Show¡¯s about to begin. Watch and see what the old guard can do,¡± she said, diverting her attention back to the scene outside the walls just as a burst of air blew apart the cloud of dust.

 Chapter Fifty

    The remains of Boone¡¯s outer town hadn¡¯t settled evenly. Towards the center a mountain had formed where several skyscrapers had fallen towards each other. Flowing earth had broken upon that formation like a wave, building up a ramp of soil leading to the top. And at the peak of that mound a figure now stood.

    I zoomed in the image to find a lumberjack staring down at the Antithesis. His hair was black and unkempt, and he had a bushy beard that fell halfway down his chest. He wore no armor; instead he was clad in a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and work boots together with one of those trapper hats with the furry interior and the long flaps over the ears. The only weapon in his hands was a thick-headed double bit axe.

    ¡°Why is that the exact image I would have expected from a guy named the Mountaineer¡­?¡± I wondered aloud.

    ¡°Probably because he¡¯s basically the mascot of Appalachian State University brought to life. Except for the hat,¡± Monster Rancher replied with amusement in her voice. Below, I noticed a procession of creatures marching into position in front of the wall. Most were the size of a large dog, about a match for a Model Three, although their shapes varied wildly, with some resembling cartoon squirrels and others close enough to a Zergling to spark a copyright dispute. Leading them were larger monsters the size of a Titan walker which spaced themselves out over the length of the wall.

    Monster Rancher¡¯s friendos had arrived.

    My eyes were drawn back to the Mountaineer as he began to walk forward. His gait was casual even though he was walking down a steep incline composed of loose stone, dirt, and broken branches. I couldn¡¯t imagine how he was doing that without the ground giving way below him. He hadn¡¯t even reached the closest Model Twenty Three when he swung his axe as if chopping a tree, but his attack somehow connected across fifty meters of empty space and toppled the unfortunate Antithesis to the ground with its legs falling in the opposite direction.

    That got their attention. Hearing the first of them fall, the other Twenty Threes in the horde began to turn around to face the Mountaineer, correctly identifying him as a major threat. Several of them discovered they had clustered too close together when he swung again and carved the lot of them in two. The survivors were spurred into motion, intent on preventing him from swinging again.

    If they¡¯d had a modicum of survival instinct they would have fled instead.

    Some Model Twenty Threes charged directly for the Mountaineer while others swept out to the sides to flank him. Armed with only a single axe, he could only kill so many at a time, but his absurd range allowed him to fell several tyrannosaur-shaped trees at a time. Dismembered Antithesis dropped to the ground in twos and threes, buying every inch with their lives. There were too many there for him to kill them all before they reached him, but he didn¡¯t need to.

    The first Twenty Three to get within biting range took a fist to the face that packed the force of a pile bunker. Its head whipped backwards, jaw shattered, and it collapsed to the ground with a broken neck. The Mountaineer took another swing with his axe while the, killing a few more of the Antithesis coming in for a frontal assault, then turned to face a Twenty Three coming from the opposite side.

    As the newcomer brought its foot down to trample him, the Mountaineer casually stepped forward and out of the way, then spun and struck the Twenty Three¡¯s shin with a back fist that snapped the bone in half like a stick of pocky. Without breaking a sweat the man continued to butcher the Antithesis that Alana and I might have only beaten at the cost of our lives.

    ¡°Sorry about him. Normally I¡¯d just cull them until ya¡¯ll could take the rest on your own, but the Mountaineer doesn¡¯t leave survivors. It¡¯s like he can¡¯t. I¡¯ve never heard him utter a word from his own mouth, but when he¡¯s fighting even his AI won¡¯t respond to messages. Guess that¡¯s why he never leaves the mountains and no one ever sees him outside emergencies,¡± Monster Rancher explained helplessly as the Mountaineer showed the Antithesis what it was like to fight a tornado that touched down on top of a saw factory.

    They may as well have been Model Threes for all the chance they had against the guy. None of them survived more than a few seconds within arm¡¯s reach of him. Whether it was his fists or his axe, every Model Twenty Three died without laying a single claw on the Mountaineer. It was looking like the fight was nearly over when a new enemy joined the fray, bursting from the ground at his feet.

    Monster Rancher let out a long whistle as a bizarre chimera emerged amidst an explosion of dirt. It had the head of a raptor, a long, snake-like neck, and the body of a scorpion. Its legs ended in avian feet with wicked claws and a long, segmented tail rose from its rear, terminating in some kind of nozzle instead of a stinger.

    ¡°Ya¡¯ll must have done a number on their stealth units if they¡¯re sending out one of those. That¡¯s a variant of the Model Thirty Three. Ain¡¯t seen one like it before, but Ymwy tells me it¡¯s a hunter-killer meant to engage and fight to the death instead of performing hit-and-run attacks like the standard type,¡± Monster Rancher explained casually. She didn¡¯t move a finger to help, though, and she definitely didn¡¯t sound worried.

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    One might question why it had waited until the fight as almost over to attack¡­but I think I understood. For the duration of the fight, the Mountaineer had been laser-focused on combat. His senses were honed by years of fighting and he was on guard. If it had attacked when the fighting was at its peak, the Model Thirty Three had no chance of catching him by surprise. So it had waited until things wound down, expecting his mental state to be affected by the knowledge was just about down. If that was its plan¡­then it hadn¡¯t worked.

    The Mountaineer rolled out of the Thirty Three¡¯s way before its teeth or claws could grab him, chopping down another Twenty Three on the way past. As he came up, the dirt on his clothes fell away, leaving them spotless, and then he whirled around to face the Thirty Three. Before he could swing his axe the scorpion chimera shot a compressed jet of some kind of fluid from its tail that the Mountaineer barely dodged in time at the cost of his axe, which was severed just below the head.

    Instead of doing the normal Samurai thing and buying a new weapon, he just squared up. Taking up a boxing stance, the Mountaineer ducked and weaved around subsequent sprays of fluid until the Thirty Three decided that wasn¡¯t working and swung one of its enormous armored pincers at him. He met it with his bare fist and the pincer lost. It rocked backwards without even budging the Mountaineer from his spot, a crack left in the chitin that rapidly repaired itself.

    ¡°How did that not send him flying?¡± Alana asked Monster Rancher, who just shrugged.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know the particulars of his upgrades, darlin¡¯. Could be gravity manipulation, could be that he¡¯s just incredibly dense¡­might even have some way of locking himself spatially,¡± the veteran Samurai replied.

    Undeterred and already finished healing, the Thirty Three kept swinging its pincers at its prey, who batted them away in turn like he was fighting a child instead of a monster the size of a hoverbus. The enormous Antithesis mixed in pressurized streams of fluid that the Mountaineer dodged effortlessly, then when his view was obscured by its two meaty pincers, it shot forward with its serpentine neck and bit down on one of his arms.

    Its dagger-teeth crunched down on his bare skin, but apparently he was Luke Fucking Cage because his skin didn¡¯t break. The Thirty Three shook its head back and forth like a dog with a rabbit, neck straining to move the Mountaineer even one centimeter, but all it got for its effort was a punch in the nose from his free hand. While the massive Antithesis staggered back, momentarily dazed by the blow, the Mountaineer darted forward, running underneath the Thirty Three. The next thing I knew he was on its back, arms hugging the monster¡¯s tail.

    He squeezed. Chitin buckled under the pressure and then broke outright. The Thirty Three reacted instantly, its long neck reaching around to attack the puny human on its back, only for it to get smacked in the face with its own severed tail. At this point I was starting to get the feeling he was either showing off or just torturing the damn thing, because he easily could have torn its head off instead. Casting his makeshift weapon aside, the Mountaineer grabbed hold of the Model Thirty Three¡¯s head with both hands when it came back around, gripping it tightly around its temples.

    With crushing force, he brought his hands together- and they met in the middle of the Thirty Three¡¯s skull.

    As the great beast fell to the ground, seemingly lifeless, the Mountaineer spat on its corpse before something appeared in his hand. He hopped to the ground, tossing the object over his shoulder, and then a conflagration rose up behind him, consuming the body in seconds. Apparently still not done yet, a new axe identical to the first materialized in the Samurai¡¯s hands as he stalked off towards the old university campus.

    ¡°Hope ya¡¯ll enjoyed the show. I think we can call your little Antithesis problem done and dusted, darlin¡¯s.¡± Alana and I nodded at Monster Rancher, too stunned by what we¡¯d just witnessed to reply with words. That was an upper level Samurai? Can you even be called human if you can fistfight aliens large enough to contend with the biggest dinosaurs? ¡°Anyway, I mostly just came here to give him a ride, so I¡¯ll be heading off now. Stay safe out there, sisters.¡±

    Finished speaking, Monster Rancher casually walked straight off the wall in front of us, landing on one of her friendos. With one final tip of her hat, she took her army and left just as suddenly as she¡¯d arrived. For some time after, the soldiers on the wall just watched as a parade of unique and strange monsters marched past, trying to wrap their heads around how quickly and easily all of our problems had just been solved by two people.

    Maybe, like me, some of them were wondering how bad an incident had to be in order to delay even them.

    Only when both the Mountaineer and Monster Rancher had disappeared did Alana let out a sigh and shake her head. She turned to me and her voice came over the comms.

    ¡°I know I agreed to the plan, but¡­good lord is that going to take a lot of cleanup,¡± she commiserated as her eyes panned over the ruins we¡¯d created. ¡°Heh. Wonder if I can get the Stalking Tigers base for cheap since the contract¡¯s been voided.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re staying?¡± I asked, surprised. Alana seemed like she thrived when leading people in combat, and this incident was a rarity among rarities for Boone. Another wasn¡¯t likely to come any time soon.

    ¡°Sure. Town still needs protecting, and I¡¯ll be dealing with the rebuilding for a while anyway. May as well set up shop here. Even if there¡¯s nothing going around locally, I¡¯m sure with a few fast dropships I could respond to other emergencies in the area. Maybe¡­give some other new Samurai the help we almost got too late,¡± Alana explained, hands on her hips. She turned to me. ¡°How about you? If I¡¯m a leader, you¡¯re one hell of a fighter. I think in a less desperate situation our skill sets would complement each other nicely.¡±

    ¡°Well, I did promise to help fix things up¡­¡± I hedged, thinking it over. I kind of always assumed I¡¯d just be going home to Charlotte when this was over. What kind of Samurai lives in a rinky-dink apartment, though? If nothing else, it would save me a lot of trouble claiming and fortifying a base of my own. Working with Alana would allow us to pool our resources for that purpose, even.

    ¡°Yeah. I think we¡¯re just getting started.¡±

 Epilogue

    Conventions were a funny place. Everyone was in costume, so nothing looked out of place. I could walk the stalls dressed in hundreds of pounds worth of power armor, strapped to hell and back, and not a single person questioned it. I got a lot of compliments on how amazing my ¡®cosplay¡¯ was from people I passed and not even one question about all the guns.

    Of course, that also meant that no one asked my mom what the fuck she was doing wearing a Feferi costume in the year of our lord 2056.

    ¡°Hey, mom,¡± I greeted her as I reached our meeting spot. ¡°I see you decided to undercut my blackmail by using it to torture me instead.¡±

    ¡°I have no idea what you mean, sweetie! Is that new? It¡¯s amazing! You might want to consider leaving the Eyebot at home unless you want to make a Fallout cosplay, though¡­¡± my mom replied, giving me a hug despite the armor. I patted her on the back in turn and tried to scrub my brain of the image of my mom in tight-fitting sleeveless top and multi-colored skirt that was shorter in the front.

    ¡°About that¡­¡± I said as I reached up to remove my helmet. ¡°It¡¯s not cosplay. It¡¯s real. I¡¯m a Samurai now.¡±

    <hr>

    It took a good four hours to cover the entire story of my last week. Mom wanted every detail, so I couldn¡¯t just skim over parts of it, and Juny helpfully kept giving her information I would have preferred to leave out like my many, many injuries. And of course she insisted on grilling me about my relationship with every woman I¡¯d met along the way in the hopes she¡¯d have a daughter-in-law in the near future.

    By the time I was done the occupants of the caf¨¦ we¡¯d settled in had cycled in and out several times over. I took a sip from my third drink to wet my throat as I finished telling the part when the Mountaineer and Monster Rancher had arrived and finished off the Antithesis for good. Mom was silent for a few moments- she¡¯d been talking a lot less since I got to the part about the massacre I¡¯d committed.

    Although mom had always been supported, I supposed there was a pretty big difference between reacting to your son telling you she¡¯s actually your daughter with ¡®thank god you told me now, there¡¯s still time to alter you cosplay from Male!Shep to Fem!Shep before the con¡¯ and being okay with said daughter killing over seventy people in an afternoon.

    ¡°¡­you¡¯re a fucking idiot, you know that?¡± were the first words from mom¡¯s mouth after I finished the story. I was reeling from that response when she kept going. ¡°Do you even realize how many times you almost died? You should know better than to just stand in the open like that! I know for a fact that you know what cover is! How did never occur to you to buy a damn barricade!?¡±

    Right. Forgot she had been a gamer for twenty years longer than I¡¯d been alive and had played all the original cover-shooters.

    ¡°And you even bought armed drones at one point, but you never thought to keep some around to watch your back? Sure, the shield drones were a good idea, but you didn¡¯t even use those consistently once you thought of them! Good lord Erica, it¡¯s like you wanted to die,¡± my mom continued as she reviewed my combat tactics instead of commenting on any of the stuff that was actually morally questionable.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re concerned about? Not the fact that I killed a bunch of people?¡± I asked in disbelief. This conversation was not going the way I imagined.

    ¡°We¡¯ll get to that. Now, you had access to grenades almost from the start, so why didn¡¯t you start every fight with one? You could have avoided some ambushes if you led with a grenade. And why didn¡¯t you have stealth drones checking rooms before you enter them?¡±

    ¡°Because I¡­didn¡¯t think of it?¡± I replied dumbly. Apparently this was now an after-action review.

    ¡°Clearly! Hell, why didn¡¯t it ever occur to you to ask for clarification about what kind of weapons you¡¯d need to kill a Twenty One? Erica, I love you, but you are alive right now because of luck,¡± mom concluded. While dressed as a character from forty years ago and with her skin painted gray.

    ¡°Okay, I get it! I could have done a lot of things better! I¡¯m an artist, not a soldier,¡± I replied in exasperation. She had a lot of good points, but I did the best I could think of in the moment. Mom sighed and leaned back in her seat.

    ¡°I¡¯m just worried about you. And scared. I had no idea you were in so much danger this whole time. Why didn¡¯t you call me?¡± she asked, putting one hand to her forehead.

    ¡°I knew you¡¯d worry. I didn¡¯t want you to spend all that time wondering if I¡¯d make it through or not,¡± I admitted, looking to the side.

    ¡°What about next time? And the time after that? You¡¯re walking around in that armor so I have to assume you intend on continuing with this.¡±

    ¡°About that¡­I think you should move to Boone,¡± I told her. Mom¡¯s face instantly was painted over with confusion. ¡°Alana and I are going to be taking over the Stalking Tigers HQ and turning it into our own fortress. If you¡¯re living there you¡¯ll know everything I¡¯m up to.¡±

    ¡°That can¡¯t be all there is to it. You were so excited when you moved out and got your own place. You wouldn¡¯t just suggest that for no reason,¡± mom observed, narrowing her eyes. She¡¯d seen through that pretty quickly.

    ¡°If you stay in Charlotte you¡¯ll have a target on your back. The companies invested in Boone have been quiet so far but what Thompson said has me worried. There¡¯s something in Boone, something we haven¡¯t found yet, that they were really concerned about¡­and I think it¡¯s buried under the outer town,¡± I explained.

    ¡°But you¡¯re a Samurai. Everyone knows what happens when a corpo goes after a Samurai. If you¡¯re so worried, couldn¡¯t you do something now, or have your AI look into it?¡± mom asked. She was raising good points, but this time they weren¡¯t ones I hadn¡¯t considered.

    ¡°I¡¯m not her AI, I¡¯m Juny!¡± my floating torture device threw in. I rolled my eyes.

    ¡°You¡¯re both,¡± I corrected. ¡°Anyway, the answer is that I¡¯ve tried to have her hack into their networks, but she didn¡¯t find anything. Our theory right now is that any data was scrubbed or on a non-networked device to begin with. We¡¯re working on excavating the outer town, too, but it¡¯s going to take some time even with Protector equipment, and we can¡¯t devote everything to that since we¡¯ve got an obligation to clean up the air and rebuild the inner town too. I can¡¯t even be sure Thompson was telling the truth¡­even if I think he was. But I don¡¯t want to just start killing people and blowing things up on a hunch.¡±

    Mom stood and walked around the table, giving me a tight hug.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry you had to go through that,¡± she told me. I knew she was referring to the events with Thompson specifically. I¡¯d largely made my peace with it, but that didn¡¯t mean I was eager to go through it again.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± I said, patting her arm.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind seeing more of my daughter, but I¡¯ll need a bit of time to arrange things,¡± she said as she let go. ¡°I¡¯ll call you when I¡¯ve got everything taken care of.¡±

    ¡°Hell no,¡± I insisted. ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere. I might just be paranoid, but I¡¯m not going to give anyone a chance to target you while I¡¯m away, so I¡¯m sticking with you until we have you moved to Boone.¡±

    ¡°Oh, fine,¡± mom relented. I¡¯d expected more of a fuss, but she must have understood the gravity of the situation. ¡°Well, we¡¯re here anyway, so let¡¯s go enjoy the con before we get on with the serious stuff.¡±

    Well, there was no harm in that. After all, Juny was already in full control of the security systems.

 V2 Chapter One

    ¡°Hold up a moment, I need to drop a bomb,¡± I said to my mom in the moving truck behind me. I made to slow down my hovercar and opened the window, checking the ground below before tossing a firebomb out, incinerating the Antithesis corpse below and setting a fire that would burn out the scattered bits hidden around the field.

    ¡°I thought that was a euphemism for taking a shit,¡± said the absolute creature in the other vehicle.

    ¡°Mom!¡± I objected, rolling my eyes. ¡°No, there were just some dead Antithesis left over from when I became a Samurai that needed to be cleaned up before they made any more problems. Juny neglected to remind me how they spread until after we¡¯d left because I couldn¡¯t spare the points at the time.

    ¡°Oh! You figured it out!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not an idiot, it was pretty obvious when I saw how much the explosives catalogue cost,¡± I replied to the AI in my head, currently puppeting a spherical robot in my passenger seat.

    ¡°¡­was that your old car down there?¡± my mom asked somberly.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it too much. I¡¯m fine now,¡± I replied, not wanting to dwell on the subject of how I became a Samurai.

    We continued towards Boone, me driving the battered armored car I¡¯d essentially pilfered from the Stalking Tigers and my mom driving a long hover truck containing all our worldly possessions. It¡¯d been over a week since I¡¯d been back. My original intention was just to bring my mom back with me since I could guarantee her safety there, but she¡¯d insisted on stopping by my own apartment to retrieve my own stuff while we were at it.

    Unlike last time I¡¯d gone down this route, there were no incidents, so we arrived in Boone shortly after. It¡¯d been a bit of a detour, but I wanted to make sure that chore was taken care of while I was out. When I stepped out of my car I immediately received a message- Alana had asked to talk to me the instant I¡¯d arrived.

    ¡°Yo, Haverson!¡± I called out to the former sergeant coming out to meet us. ¡°That¡¯s the truck with our stuff in it. Do you need to know which rooms are ours?¡±

    ¡°Nope, I got ya¡¯ll covered. I¡¯ve got some grunts on the way to handle the heavy lifting,¡± the quartermaster said amiably, clapping me on the shoulder on the way past.

    ¡°Thanks, man. Mom, this is the former Sergeant Haverson, I asked him to help us with the move ahead of time. I need to go meet with Alana, so go ahead and get started without me,¡± I told my mother as she exited the truck.

    ¡°I can¡¯t tell if this is an attempt to get out of the work or your way of hooking me up with that fine young gentleman,¡± she whispered after Haverson had walked past, smirking.

    ¡°Mother!¡± I chided, taking off my helmet just to make sure she could see me glaring holes in her.

    ¡°Alright, alright. Have fun at your meeting, sweetie,¡± she said with a chuckle as she walked towards the rear of the truck. I huffed a bit and then went inside, following Juny¡¯s waypoints to the meeting room.

    ¡°Welcome back. How¡¯s your mom doing?¡± Alana greeted as I entered. She was dressed in fatigues, so I felt a bit overdressed, but I hadn¡¯t had time to remove my armor before coming. Also seated at the table was Captain Lafayette- a late-thirties woman with short cut hair and severe features dressed in the uniform of the local militia.

    ¡°Oh, you know. Ordering grunts around, probably flirting with Haverson by now. What¡¯s up?¡± I asked as I took a seat in a chair that was clearly intended for me, given how heavily reinforced it was. Evidently Alana was expecting me to be here in full kit.

    ¡°Now that you¡¯re back, I there¡¯s some things the three of us need to discuss about how we¡¯ll be moving forward. I believe you¡¯ve met Captain Lafayette before?¡± Alana replied, waving at the other woman. I nodded.

    ¡°Call me Selene. You¡¯re not exactly military anymore, and you never were,¡± the captain replied, looking to each of us respectively.

    ¡°Selene, then. Moving on, with the Stalking Tigers having pulled out, we¡¯re short on manpower, so I thought it was important to touch base with you and coordinate our efforts,¡± Alana said to Selene.

    ¡°Past tense? I knew they lost their contract, but I thought it would take them a bit longer than that to make the move,¡± I said, frowning.

    ¡°While you were out, I negotiated for possession of this building and everything in it. I was able to trade a handful of templates that shouldn¡¯t cause much trouble in exchange, and I bought out the contracts of anyone that wanted to stick around on top of that, so they only needed to transport their personnel.¡± Alana shrugged.

    ¡°How many did you manage to keep?¡± asked Selene.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°About a quarter. Mostly people either personally loyal to me or itching for more action. I can¡¯t blame the rest; mercenary work is fairly stable for the larger outfits, and the Stalking Tigers mostly handle security jobs. What happened here was an anomaly,¡± explained Alana.

    ¡°Less than I¡¯d like. We lost a good fifth of our people during the siege and another fifth were too traumatized to return to action. There were fewer casualties than I¡¯d expected thanks to the supplies you both provided, but it¡¯s still going to be hard to make up the difference,¡± Selene said with a scowl. With the size of Boone¡¯s population, I could understand how they¡¯d have trouble recruiting.

    ¡°We can probably make up the lack of quantity with quality if we outfit more people with Samurai gear, but¡­that might get a bit expensive depending on what we buy,¡± I said with a frown, drumming my fingers on the table in thought.

    ¡°About that¡­Dylta and I have been talking, and I think we have a solution. It¡¯s the same as the ammo press- if we purchase fabricators and templates instead of directly buying gear, we can mass produce equipment as long as we have materials. And we have a literal mountain of materials right outside the wall that we need to deal with anyway, preferably before the Antithesis biomatter under it starts growing,¡± Alana told us. I was already starting to have ideas, but I had a question first.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t most of that material just dirt?¡± I asked skeptically.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry too much about that. We have a number of tunnels we need to fill in, not to mention structural damage to buildings and the wall. We can just process the raw earth and wood into bricks and planks,¡± Selene answered confidently.

    ¡°Cool. In that case, is there any limit to what the fabricators can make?¡± I followed up, this time prompting Juny to chime in.

    ¡°There is not! Fabricators capable of faster production times and volume will be more expensive, and higher class templates will require commensurately higher class fabricators to use, but on the whole they are quite versatile!¡± the AI said.

    ¡°In that case¡­you know those walkers I bought? I cheaped out on them at the time because I didn¡¯t have enough points anything better, but we might be able to use fabricators to upgrade them to use Class I materials,¡± I suggested eagerly. Alana and Selene nodded their agreement.

    ¡°That¡¯s a good idea. We should set up separate lines for vehicles, weapons, armor, and building materials. It¡¯ll cost a hefty chunk of points, but I think the efficiency would be worth it. Especially if we ever need to upgrade the standard issue gear,¡± Alana replied.

    ¡°Are you planning on recruiting more people to outfit?¡± Selene asked carefully. ¡°Or do you intend on subsuming the militia? It doesn¡¯t seem like you have that many people.¡±

    ¡°I think it would be best to maintain separate chains of command, but I¡¯d like to equip your people as well,¡± assured Alana. Selene still looked unconvinced.

    ¡°It seems a bit risky to just give out Samurai gear like that. If people sell it they could make a pretty penny,¡± the militia captain pointed out.

    ¡°We¡¯ll be smart about it. Secure armories, serial numbers on all the gear, maybe embedded trackers for the really dangerous or valuable stuff. Fact is, even combined we don¡¯t have enough people to fully man the walls. You need our tech and we need your manpower,¡± Alana retorted, apparently to Selene¡¯s satisfaction.

    ¡°That does still leave the question of who¡¯s in charge, though. You said you don¡¯t want to absorb the militia, so how will we handle that?¡± she asked next. I was starting to feel like an accessory, to be honest.

    ¡°We¡¯ll coordinate assignments as equals when Erica and I are around, and when we¡¯re out of town I¡¯d like you to assume command of our people as well. You¡¯re the most experienced officer around, anyway.¡±

    ¡°How often are you expecting to be gone?¡±

    ¡°Fairly often. I don¡¯t anticipate much more in the way of Antithesis incursions here going forward as long as we sanitize the ruins properly, so we¡¯d just be sitting on our thumbs here. I think the Family could use a pair of mobile Samurai that can respond to incidents like the one that happened here.¡±

    I¡¯d already agreed to that when I decided to stick around, so I didn¡¯t object. With that matter out of the way, though, I thought I¡¯d steer us back to the previous topic.

    ¡°Getting back to the logistics- how are we going to be splitting those purchases up?¡± I asked Alana.

    ¡°Going half on everything is fine with me. We¡¯ve probably got all the catalogs we¡¯ll need between the two of us, minus any additional facilities we might need,¡± she replied.

    ¡°Only other thing I can think of is how we¡¯re getting this stuff in the field. We can resupply ourselves, but the portable ammo press wasn¡¯t able to keep up when your team was separated from you.¡± I scowled, considering another problem I¡¯d already been giving thought to. ¡°I¡¯m also having issues transporting all the weapons I¡¯ve got. They all have their purposes so I don¡¯t really want to leave any behind, but they¡¯re more than I can carry and a cargo bot would be vulnerable to Antithesis.¡±

    I left out that we wouldn¡¯t necessarily be fighting only Antithesis¡­mostly because I didn¡¯t want to consider it too closely.

    ¡°That¡¯s true, but I¡¯m not sure what we can do about it other than putting together some kind of baggage train.¡± Alana raised her hands helplessly.

    ¡°Well, hell, you¡¯re Samurai aren¡¯t you? Can¡¯t you just¡­I dunno, teleport it to you? That¡¯s basically what you do when you buy shit anyway, isn¡¯t it?¡± Selene suggested with a raised eyebrow.

    ¡°Huh. That seems obvious now that you mention it. Juny, can we do that?¡±

    ¡°Of course! Many Class I items already utilize short-range teleportation. If you purchase a Class II Teleportation Technology catalog, you can teleport equipment directly to and from the field, and at Class III you can also transport larger things like people at long range!¡± Juny answered eagerly, happy to explain. ¡°It will require a significant amount of power, though!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure we can solve that with some sort of reactor tech. We¡¯ll discuss it further when we decide where we¡¯re putting everything, but I think this meeting had gone on long enough for now. Unless anyone else has something to bring up?¡± Alana said, looking between Selene and I.

    ¡°Nothing from my side,¡± Selene told her with a shake of her head.

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s more of a personal matter, but¡­I did have one request,¡± I replied with some trepidation. What I was about to ask felt a bit embarrassing as a Samurai, but I was in the perfect position to request it and I had to take advantage of it.

    ¡°Sure. What is it?¡± Alana asked curiously.

    ¡°Right now I¡¯m basically a civilian with fancy toys. I think what I need most right now is training.¡±

 V2 Chapter Two

    I plucked a large sheet off of a crane and showed it to Terry Jackson, formerly the sergeant that headed up Alana¡¯s second fireteam. I knew what the verdict was before he spoke, though. This last round was at fifty meters of distance and I was fairly sure the hits I¡¯d landed had been sheer luck.

    ¡°Well, I think it¡¯s safe to say you have absolutely no talent,¡± Terry chuckled. ¡°Your trigger discipline is impressive, though. When I had you try burst firing without changing the selector, every burst was exactly three rounds. Experience is the best teacher, and you¡¯ve certainly got plenty of that by now. Don¡¯t worry, though; I¡¯ll turn you into a competent rifleman in a matter of weeks.¡±

    ¡°That quick?¡± I asked, surprised. ¡°I thought I¡¯d need, like, months or something.¡±

    ¡°How long do you think boot camp is? Ten weeks, and recruits are only practicing shooting for six or so of them. If I can¡¯t teach you to shoot in a month and a half I¡¯ll eat my hat,¡± he said, dropping the target sheet onto a pile. ¡°I¡¯ll need to put together an individualized plan for you, though. Can¡¯t imagine you have much use for half the shit we teach fresh meat.¡±

    ¡°I certainly wouldn¡¯t mind getting out of the physical training. I¡¯m planning on buying some genetic upgrades tonight, so I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be necessary,¡± I replied. I¡¯d put it off while I was out of town, but it time I finally got around to finishing my mods. I still needed to enhance my skin, muscle, bones, and nerves, so I¡¯d just get them all taken care of together.

    ¡°Actually, the muscular enhancements will only enhance existing musculature. Getting the most out of them will still require building additional muscle mass through training!¡± Juny corrected me, netting a hearty guffaw from Terry.

    ¡°¡­okay, so maybe I can¡¯t avoid the physical training. Well, I should still only need the weight training, right? Since my new lungs improved my stamina already,¡± I said hopefully; thankfully, Juny bobbed up and down in an imitation of a nod.

    ¡°Correct! You may also require an adjustment period for your nerves, but that should not require physical training or therapy,¡± she said, much to my relief.

    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll get to work throwing together a plan that¡¯s limited to just muscle training and shooting practice. We¡¯ll be using standard issue weapons on the range. Samurai weapons might damage the facility and they sometimes have modifications that won¡¯t be universal to every weapon you handle,¡± Terry told me, signaling the end of today¡¯s practice. It had really just been intended to gauge my starting place, so we¡¯d just tried a few a single round for each of several firing modes at various ranges.

    ¡°Thanks, man. I¡¯m sure you have better things to do than one-on-one training,¡± I said with an appreciative smile.

    ¡°Hey, it¡¯s not every day you get to train an actual Samurai. How could I miss that? But you¡¯re right, I do have other things I need to get done, so we¡¯ll be calling it a day for now. Meet me in the gym tomorrow at o-eight-hundred and we¡¯ll get started for real,¡± he replied, offering me a handshake before leaving the range. I turned my borrowed rifle in to the range master and headed out myself.

    After checking in on my mom, who¡¯d moved on to unpacking her things in her new room, I headed back to my own which was now packed full of boxes. It wasn¡¯t the same room I¡¯d stayed in previously. With the Stalking Tigers having left the building to Alana, the suites previously used by the higher ranking officers were left open and I¡¯d claimed one for myself.

    Getting the equipment for maintaining my armor up to it had, reportedly, not been easy. Fortunately for me, that had been taken care of while I was gone.

    I settled onto the couch and propped my feet up, then called out to Juny. ¡°Alright, it¡¯s finally time. Let¡¯s¡­start with the skin and work our way down, I guess?¡±

    ¡°Of course! For skin, I assume you would like to prioritize defense?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Right. It¡¯d be nice to¡­well, bleed less, I guess.¡±

    ¡°Within the Class I Biosculpting catalog you already possess, the best option is like the Nemean Hide skin replacement. It would gradually replace your skin with an enhanced version that resists injury, heals faster, and bleeds less. The extra protection is minimal at Class I, however!¡± Juny explained, to which I shrugged.

    ¡°If it¡¯s the best we¡¯ve got then it¡¯s the best we¡¯ve got. I know I have a lot of points right now-¡± somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 after the calamity I¡¯d caused- ¡°but with all the other stuff on my shopping list right now I¡¯d rather not go overboard on something that only helps if my armor fails.¡±

    Granted, it would help if I was ever caught without my armor as well, but I could always buy something on the spot if it came down to it.

    ¡°Next would be muscles, then! For this, I believe you should purchase the Megingjorth Enhancement. This would result in tissue that produces less lactic acid, is more difficult to tear, and is denser. It will also strengthen your tendons to compensate for the increased strength. You should, after training, be on par with the strongest natural-born human while possessing a much more compact musculature!¡± Juny continued. I didn¡¯t see anything to object to there, so I just agreed.

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    ¡°Sounds good. Nerves?¡± I asked next.

    ¡°For this, I have selected the Cat(?) Reflexes Nervous System. It would systematically replace your nerves with new fibers that conduct signals more efficiently. Your reaction times should be an average of fifty milliseconds faster!¡± That one seemed oddly short. She¡¯d also flashed the name on my augs as if to make sure I saw that (?), which I was assuming was a reference to something.

    ¡°That¡¯s it? Also, what¡¯s with the name?¡± The way she described it, I¡¯d only be getting one improvement out of it.

    ¡°It would also cause your nerves to regenerate. However, I do not believe this is worth mentioning, as you are unlikely to notice nerve damage before it is repaired by your existing Phoenix organ anyway. As for the name¡­don¡¯t worry about!¡± Juny answered. I was beginning to suspect she¡¯d been developing a pop-culture affliction of a different nature than mine, but I decided to let it slide since the name of my nerve upgrade didn¡¯t really matter anyway.

    ¡°If it makes you happy, sure, why not? That just leaves the bones.¡±

    ¡°For bones, you have several options. The most sturdy upgrade would entail a complete replacement of all osseous tissue with a new material that incorporates more metal. This would significantly improve the ability of your bones to resist damage, but slow healing and drastically increase your mass. It would also take longer and make subsequent upgrades take longer as well,¡± Juny began. That one didn¡¯t sound worth the drawbacks.

    ¡°I¡¯m hoping the other options are more attractive,¡± I said wryly, knowing she¡¯d likely started with the worst option.

    ¡°I believe so! You could also have your bones entirely encased in a thin metal sheath. While this would not result in the same degree of strength, it would keep bone matter in place when they are broken, allowing for more rapid healing. This option is the next heaviest, however, and gaps would be necessary at muscle insertion points,¡± Juny went on.

    ¡°And I¡¯m guessing option number three is the best one,¡± I replied. Juny bobbed up and down.

    ¡°That depends on your criteria, but I believe so! The final option would involve lacing the outer surface of your bones with an advanced alloy lattice, similar to that used in the fictional Spartan II program. Your bones would not be as difficult to break as in fiction, but the lattice has a minimal footprint and can be extended to create a final layer of protection between your ribs and around your abdominal cavity,¡± Juny finished, unabashedly throwing in that reference to influence my judgement. Which wasn¡¯t necessary; I could spot the thread myself, and I liked that final detail.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take it. Maybe make the protection thicker around my skull if possible. Anything I¡¯m forgetting?¡±

    ¡°You have not yet enhanced your vision or hearing. Would you like to consider options for those as well?¡± Juny proposed excitedly. ¡°I believe you also wished to complete your existing modifications!¡±

    ¡°Complete my¡­? Oh!¡± I exclaimed, slapping myself in the forehead. I couldn¡¯t believe I¡¯d forgotten that. After so long in survival mode it had somehow slipped my mind that I had access to technology for transitioning that was practically magic. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve gotten pretty much the best mods money can buy using my father¡¯s life insurance money, but finishing the job would be¡­pretty great.¡±

    ¡°Fortunately, that is relatively easy! A simple retroviral package can correct the chromosomal issue and your existing nanite reservoir can assemble any missing organs at the cost of a temporary reduction in regenerative efficiency,¡± Juny told me. Obviously that downside was nothing, so I decided to take it and move on.

    ¡°Sharper vision and the ability to see in the dark is probably enough for my eyes. Can my hearing be improved without making me painfully sensitive to loud noises, though?¡± I had to admit to a certain temptation to ask for eyes with extended color vision like mantis shrimp have, but on the other hand, that would probably be pretty disorienting and make it impossible for me to describe colors to other people.

    ¡°For the first, the Eye of Horus gene enhancement should be sufficient. Unfortunately, the latter is impossible at the current Class level without using cybernetics. The modifications needed to improve your hearing increase sensitivity as a consequence,¡± Juny explained. I shrugged. My hearing wasn¡¯t on the top of the list for improvement anyway, and my armor was capable of the things the cybernetics she¡¯d mentioned probably would have handled.

    ¡°Just the eyes then. Anyway, you used words like ¡®gradually¡¯ a lot, so does that mean most of these can¡¯t be done immediately?¡± I asked, putting the other matter aside.

    ¡°It would drastically increase the cost, as it would involve stripping away the majority of your body mass, leaving only bones and internal organs, and then converting or replacing that mass to produce an entirely new body on the spot!¡± she responded in a terrifyingly enthusiastic tone. I couldn¡¯t suppress a bit of a shiver.

    ¡°Yeah, uh, let¡¯s¡­not do that,¡± I told her.

    ¡°As some of your purchases will require an external source of raw materials to install, I believe a more efficient option would be to merge all upgrades into a single package with multiple specialized nanite reservoirs, but you will need to wear a backpack directly against your skin for the two-week duration of the upgrade period,¡± Juny explained.

    ¡°Good thing I don¡¯t sleep on my back¡­¡± I grumbled before giving a thumbs up. ¡°Let¡¯s just get on with it. Gimme.¡± An instant later there was a literal treasure chest on my coffee table. I gave Juny a bit of side-eye as I opened it, but I¡¯d be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t planning to keep it as a decoration. Following the instructions on the backpack, which resembled one of those water bladders with a hose to drink out of, I took off my shirt and bra, then slung it over my shoulders.

    There was a bit of a sting in several places as the pack punctured my skin, but it was hardly even noticeable compared to having a Model Five shoot me in the arm.

    ¡°So¡­that¡¯s it?¡± I asked, carefully putting my shirt back on.

    ¡°That¡¯s it! You just need to be careful not to tear the pack off or sustain any injuries for the duration of the upgrade period!¡± I was certainly aware of that last one; it was the entire reason I¡¯d put this off for so long. I was prepared to not leave the base for the next couple of weeks, though, so the only other thing to do was make sure not to drop any weights on my foot or anything dumb like that.

    ¡°I know, I know,¡± I assured her before my brain slid to a halt. Not due to any kind of realization; I just ran out of things to think about. For the first time in a while I had nothing to do. After a few moments my eyes slid over to the piles of boxes around the room. ¡°Hm. I wonder which one has my computer in it?¡±

 V2 Chapter Three

    Physical training was a mistake. I¡¯d been forced to get up at the crack of dawn and drag myself up to the gym, navigating around the many holes in the floor left by the Antithesis and currently patched with little more than plywood boards in order to reach the weight machines. Terry had then proceeded to put me through a regimen that would make a Green Beret cry uncle.

    That wasn¡¯t to say I was in such amazing shape that I could outpace or out lift a Green Beret; I was speaking relatively. It was more that my torturer- I mean, trainer- was aware of my regeneration. Since I could rapidly heal from overdoing it, he¡¯d tailored my regimen to do that deliberately. It would drastically increase the speed I built muscle at but it was an absolutely miserable experience.

    What neither of us accounted for was the suite of upgrades I¡¯d begun last night. A swarm of nanobots was currently tearing my body apart and putting it back together and that meant I was itchy and sore all over to begin with. That wasn¡¯t even factoring in the new organs being built in my gut from the ground up, which reduced my regeneration, or the glut of nanites in my veins that limited their capacity to carry more.

    It didn¡¯t actually make the workout Terry had designed less viable; it was just a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than he¡¯d expected and I was stubborn to a fault on the best of days so I¡¯d endured it to the end without speaking up.  In other words I¡¯m a dumbass and brought it upon myself.

    ¡°Well, you look like shit. Have a fun morning with Terry?¡± Alana asked wryly when I met her in the underground parking section of the building.

    ¡°I did all my new body mods at once last night. It was not my greatest decision,¡± I admitted with a groan. ¡°Let¡¯s just get on with this so I can go die on a couch somewhere. What¡¯s up first?¡±

    ¡°First I wanted to install a maintenance bay for the walkers and expand the entrance to the parking lot. Right now the Titans don¡¯t fit down here so we don¡¯t have anywhere to shelter them,¡± Alana said, gesturing to the room where a handful of Wolverines had been moved. There were no cars down here anymore; most had been personal vehicles of mercenaries that no longer lived here and the rest were hover vehicles that could be stored elsewhere.

    ¡°So we need to start by smashing the floor to expand it? I¡¯m down,¡± I said.

    ¡°That should not be necessary, but would not hurt either!¡± Juny exclaimed. ¡°Installation of building materials will replace the existing sections seamlessly, but I can recommend explosives that would make a fun alternative!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s hold off on the elective demolitions for now. Haley would never forgive us for doing it without her anyway,¡± Alana said before I got too excited. ¡°I was thinking we¡¯d just buy a garage with automated maintenance equipment and replace both this floor and the one below with it.¡±

    ¡°How many underground levels are there, anyway?¡± I asked. I¡¯d never been much more than one or two levels deep during the siege.

    ¡°Four. They¡¯re all parking from before hovercars were popular,¡± Alana replied.

    ¡°Were you thinking of putting the fabricators on the lower ones?¡± I asked, to which she nodded.

    ¡°The ones for vehicles, yes. Probably the reactor as well. Do you have the upgraded blueprints for the walkers?¡± Alana responded. I looked at Juny.

    ¡°Go ahead and send¡¯m over.¡± I turned back to Alana. ¡°Seems like a Titan will take a month to build, but the Wolverines should only take a week.¡±

    ¡°Considering the size difference, that sounds about right. We don¡¯t need four times as many Wolverines as Titans, but that just gives us fabber time to build other things. Maybe we can get a few more of those anti-air turrets constructed. Dylta, go ahead and send over the specifications we chose so Erica can look them over,¡± Alana said, sending the facility schematics over for me to look at while she reviewed the walkers.

    It was mostly a formality. There wasn¡¯t much I was going to be able to suggest to improve on a garage of all things. I noticed she had selected two smaller fabricators that wouldn¡¯t have the space for a Titan, but the answer to why was also in the list: a small automated factory that would take the components and build them into a finished mech. That saved on points because the factory required fewer advanced components than a large fabricator would, so it was cheaper to buy both than to consolidate into one larger fabricator.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    There was also a reactor in the list that would power the numerous fabricators and the teleporter we were planning on. Antimatter, apparently. As long as it had enough capacity I didn¡¯t really need to know much more about it.

    ¡°Looks good to me. Wanna go ahead and buy it all? Juny, split our points 50/50 on the purchases,¡± I said after reading through the list.

    ¡°May as well. Dylta, go ahead and place it all.¡±

    The shift was instant. One second we were in a grungy, decades-old parking garage and the next we were standing on a gantry in a two story, state of the art facility with numerous bays. Larger spaces were lined up to my right while smaller ones were to the left, with a central elevator at the far side leading down to the factory level and a very gradual ramp leading to ground level behind me.

    ¡°Huh, Juny wasn¡¯t kidding,¡± I said as I looked the room over. Which was a lot easier with the better lighting included with the new facilities. I¡¯d seen plenty of things appear out of nowhere by now, but seeing a purchase make things vanish was new.

    ¡°Dylta, go ahead and tell Selene we¡¯ve got a place to stow the Titans.¡± Alana looked my way. ¡°All our tank drivers left, so the militia had to fill in.¡±

    ¡°Anything else we need to do down here?¡± I asked, feeling like I hadn¡¯t done all that much so far. Alana had really done most of the work with selecting the building upgrades. I¡¯d volunteered to design and select the equipment blueprints we¡¯d be buying for the fabricators to make up for it, though, so I¡¯d feel like I actually did something. It would be some time before I had everything completed but the vehicles were already done.

    I wondered how long it would take Alana to notice the sheer amount of nerd crap I¡¯d slipped in.

    ¡°No, we can move onto the armory,¡± she replied as she headed for the ladder leading down from the gantry. ¡°We can look the plans over on the way.¡±

    As we headed for the elevator I received the layout for the armory. It would be going in near the middle of the building and would have three small fabricators dedicated to weapons, armor, and ammo respectively. The specialization made them slightly more expensive, but it also made them faster at the cost of scope, which was vital for mass production.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have many weapons selected yet, but I have a basic set of light power armor we can use,¡± I told Alana. I¡¯d designed something akin to the Semi-Powered Infiltration armor used by Spartan IIIs for this; like my first suit it hardly provided any strength or mobility, but it carried itself and had a self-contained environment so we wouldn¡¯t need to worry about providing gas masks and such. I¡¯d gone for the appearance of ODST battle-armor, though. This was for general use, not super-soldiers.

    ¡°Great; I¡¯d love to get a head start on armor production. Weapons are less of a concern since we can feed the fabbers the ones I issued my squad in the short term, until we can source something better,¡± Alana replied, reaching the floor. We headed for the elevator.

    ¡°We could also use my old armor as a base for a heavier model. Maybe issue it to heavy weapon specialists like Huifang?¡± I suggested. The armor itself was as good as scrap, but the plating was just metal. It was the frame that was important, and that could support much heavier plating than the smaller-profile frame going out to most troops.

    ¡°If you¡¯re fine with that, I¡¯ll have someone take it up to the armory once we¡¯re done,¡± Alana said as the elevator doors closed and we began to ascend. ¡°I think it¡¯s still in your old room.¡±

    We only stopped on the middle floor briefly; just long enough for our AI to coordinate the purchase of the fabricators, secure armory section, and long-range equipment teleporter. I would have liked to test the latter, but my gear was in my suite right now and I would need to install transponders in my weapons first. The plan was to stage all of my weapons in the armory and only teleport what I needed to me, sending it back for reloading. It would increase my flexibility quite a bit and make it impossible for me to be disarmed.

    Field units would instead carry ammo crates that could be sent back for refill- the power expenditure for shipping weapons that way was a bit extravagant.

    ¡°So, that leaves¡­the hangar and the industrial fabricator, right?¡± I asked as we ascended to the top of the building.

    ¡°Right. The hangar facilities are already pretty good, so I think I¡¯ll just use the industrial fabricator to repair the shutters, but we can install a dedicated aircraft fabricator on the storage level below. We still have two gunships, so we could just feed it one and have that replicated. They performed fairly well during the siege as-is,¡± Alana explained. That wouldn¡¯t do though; I was determined to put my favorite gunship into service.

    ¡°I¡¯ll foot the bill for the gunships if you want. I have a design I¡¯m pretty fond of that would be an improvement,¡± I replied.

    ¡°How are you doing on points?¡± Alana asked with a frown. ¡°Did you reserve any for your own upgrades?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve already gotten my body-mods and I have points ear-marked for heavier weapons, a sensor upgrade, and performance upgrades for my armor to take advantage of my enhanced strength,¡± I assured her. All taken together it still wasn¡¯t a huge amount; most of my points were going into these building upgrades, actually, but I didn¡¯t mind. I¡¯d be benefiting from them too in the form of better backup and access to replacement parts and ammo, among other things. ¡°That should cover the biggest of the problems I ran into during the siege. I¡¯ll be able to detect Model Nines in the future and will have a few weapons that can take on models above twenty.¡±

    ¡°Hm, I should get a sensor upgrade too. I can probably get something internal that can be networked to allies¡­¡± Alana said, going silent as she consulted with Dylta. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s doable. Anyway, if you¡¯ve got yourself taken care of, then I won¡¯t complain about better air support.¡±

    ¡°Great!¡± I said with a grin. ¡°Let¡¯s get the fabber put in and then I¡¯ll show you what I have in mind.¡±

 V2 Chapter Four

    ¡®Getting the fabber put in¡¯ turned out to be a bit more complicated than I¡¯d expected. In the areas we¡¯d visited previously, it was fine to just replace the rooms and structure of the building with our new facilities. For the hangar, though, we were placing the fabricator in the storage level- which happened to already be occupied by spare parts and ammunition.

    Since we didn¡¯t want to lose the items in storage, we¡¯d been forced to move it all aside before putting in the fabricator. It had been tedious but not particularly difficult; there was a claw running the length and width of the ceiling that we were able to use to move the crates stacked all over the room. Technically we could have gotten someone else to do it, but we were already here.

    ¡°And¡­there,¡± Alana said as the fabricator popped into place. It took up a large portion of the floor and the shutter finished products emerged from was positioned to dispense them directly onto the elevator leading up to the hangar. Along the side was a massive hopper for raw materials.

    ¡°It¡¯s even bigger than the mech fabricators,¡± I commented, surprised by the scale of the thing.

    ¡°Technically it¡¯s not,¡± Alana denied. ¡°I just realized I could ask Dylta to sheath the entire thing with an outer wall so that it looks like a single unit instead of a fabricator and an assembly machine.¡±

    ¡°¡­why?¡± I asked, giving her an odd look. It didn¡¯t seem very important whether it looked like one machine or two from my perspective.

    ¡°Huh. You know, I hadn¡¯t actually thought about it,¡± Alana replied, taken aback. ¡°Because I could and it looks better, I suppose.¡±

    If she ever realized everything I designed was ripped from fiction and asked about it, I was repeating that back to her verbatim.

    ¡°Well, anyway, now that that¡¯s done¡­¡± I said, transferring a file over to Alana. ¡°This is my replacement for the gunships. It¡¯s called a Sparrowhawk.¡±

    Unlike the ground vehicles in Halo, the air vehicles were occasionally designed well enough to use. The Sparrowhawk was a akin to an attack helicopter with the entire fuselage forward of the tail tilted downward, with stubby wings emerging just before the tail containing Vertical Takeoff and Landing lift fans. Those would have been vulnerable to Model Ones, so I¡¯d replaced the VTOL fans with the same technology used in hovercars. Between that and the craft¡¯s jet engines it could achieve a pretty respectable speed while being extremely maneuverable at low velocities.

    Each wing had a 20mm autocannon for engaging ground targets and a missile rack for dealing with air targets, while the nose was equipped with a laser cannon that would burn a hole through just about any Antithesis I¡¯d fought so far. Vehicle-mounted weaponry could afford to be a lot more powerful than anything man-portable, so that main weapon was a threat even to Model Twenty-Threes. It didn¡¯t fire fast enough to have stopped the horde of them that the Mountaineer had slain from overrunning the walls of Boone and murdering most of the defenders, though, even if I¡¯d known how to operate something like this at the time.

    Beyond the modifications to the Sparrowhawk¡¯s VTOL gear, the other change I¡¯d made was that it was a bit bigger in order to accommodate a small troop compartment- just large enough to hold a full squad. It needed to be able to replace the existing gunships, which doubled as transports, after all.

    ¡°¡­enough of these and we wouldn¡¯t have even needed the Mountaineer,¡± Alana observed after reading over the specifications. ¡°Not that we had enough pilots for that many of them, though. This is seriously just Class I?¡±

    ¡°It¡­has its drawbacks,¡± I admitted. ¡°It¡¯s not much better armored than the gunships we already have, and the main laser cannon would probably need a direct headshot to kill something the size of Model Twenty-Three in one hit.¡±

    ¡°It is also so maneuverable that it might be hard to control!¡± Juny added.

    ¡°Well, that last part is nothing training can¡¯t fix. I¡¯ll have Dylta draft up a training plan and I¡¯ll start having people train on it the minute one comes off the assembly line,¡± Alana decided, apparently having taken a liking to my proposed replacement. ¡°So, that¡¯s¡­the mechs, reactor, armory, hangar, and teleporter taken care of. Am I missing anything?¡±

    ¡°The industrial fabricator for building supplies, I think,¡± I pointed out. Then a thought occurred to me. ¡°Oh, and we might want to look into getting some combat drones. My mom will never let me hear the end of it if I forget about those again.¡±

    ¡°Your mom?¡± Alana asked in an amused tone.

    ¡°Yeah¡­she had some things to say about how I didn¡¯t utilize my drones effectively after unlocking them,¡± I said with a tinge of embarrassment.

    ¡°I already have half a dozen new Eyebot patterns designed and ready!¡± Juny volunteered.

    ¡°You do realize we¡¯ll be building things other than Eyebots, right¡­?¡± I asked the AI. Alana ignored the byplay.

    ¡°We can probably squeeze another fabricator into the basement for those¡­hm. That really should have occurred to me sooner.¡± Alana frowned and a frustrated look came over her face.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry about it too much. I can¡¯t help much with running this whole operation, so you¡¯ve got way too much on your plate for anyone to expect you to think of everything,¡± I assured her. In the end, I was mostly a fighter and didn¡¯t know the first thing about running an organization. My only subordinates in the past were AI artist which, next to a Samurai AI like Juny, hardly qualified for the name. ¡°Anyway, I didn¡¯t think of it until just now, so I don¡¯t have anything ready, but I¡¯ll add that to my list.¡±

    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    I was probably going to be going with the Sentry Bot for this. It had a mass equivalent to a Wolverine but in a squatter package, so it would fit indoors more easily. More importantly, it was heavily armored and its wheeled tripod design could operate on all sorts of terrain. I would need to decide what weapons to give it, though- while I could always change those later, I would probably need to plan for a decent balance between lethality and collateral damage on the standard loadout.

    ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll install the fabricator later so we don¡¯t need to head all the way back down. Now that you mention it, though, we can probably clear that mountain of rubble faster if we mass produce construction drones. I think the industrial fabricator is generalist enough that it should be able to make those¡­¡± Alana fell into thought for a moment, trailing off. ¡°It may not be a bad idea to get more scout drones either. We still haven¡¯t figured out how those security forces got into the city.¡±

    ¡°Still? You have Dylta looking into that, right? I¡¯ve had Juny trying to trace back who sent them, but she¡¯s convinced that Appalachian Ventures¡¯ entire executive team weren¡¯t aware of the deployment,¡± I replied, shifting topics. Given that I¡¯d spent the entirety of the previous week wary of an attempted kidnapping or assassination, I was eager to know more about what was going on there.

    ¡°Correct! According to electronic correspondence between executives and the board, they are currently searching for the culprit themselves! While it¡¯s possible someone is feigning innocence, my analysis points towards a near-certainty that their responses are genuine, with a lower but still significant chance those forces were not from Appalachian Ventures at all,¡± Juny explained more thoroughly. It was vexing; we knew who the attackers were affiliated with, but the company was so large and possessed so many subsidiaries that the two of us would need months of dedicated assaults to go through them one by one.

    We needed a place to start.

    ¡°It unfortunately is a possibility that they were working for another company and using Appalachian Ventures¡¯ uniforms as a disguise, though I wouldn¡¯t rule out them being from one of that company¡¯s subsidiaries. That, or they were organized entirely using analogue methods so there wouldn¡¯t be an electronic trail to follow. If we can figure out how they got in we might be able to find more evidence- currently, Dylta has managed to use camera footage to trace them back to a single city block, but if there¡¯s a tunnel beneath it then it¡¯s well-shielded against scans,¡± Alana shared.

    ¡°Well enough to stop Samurai-grade sensors?¡± I asked, concerned. Sensing my train of thought, Alana was quick to shake her head.

    ¡°Yes, but I don¡¯t think there¡¯s a Samurai involved. It¡¯s more likely that it¡¯s hidden using reverse-engineered tech. Samurai are usually pretty quick to shut down projects like that, but occasionally you get someone smart enough to hide their operations well and keep all the information on local servers,¡± she assured me. ¡°Which isn¡¯t surprising. If they weren¡¯t at least that intelligent we¡¯d know who we were aiming at by now.¡±

    ¡°We could ask the execs directly,¡± I suggested. Maybe under duress they¡¯d be less able to fake ignorance, assuming any of them knew anything.

    ¡°I¡¯m holding that back for a last resort. Mostly because I agree with Juny- they don¡¯t know shit,¡± Alana replied, shooting me down.

    ¡°Why so sure?¡± I asked.

    ¡°A company that shady would have a fake board to take the heat when a Samurai rolls up. It¡¯s the sort of thing everyone in my line of work knows but doesn¡¯t talk about. No¡­we need to figure out who¡¯s really in charge. Right now I have Dylta trying to trace back the identities of the guys who attacked us. The ones that were recognizable, anyway,¡± Alana replied, shooting me down. I didn¡¯t have to ask why that was difficult and Alana was nice enough not to mention it.

    ¡°If you¡¯d had any luck with that I imagine you¡¯d have mentioned it, so¡­¡± I said, prompting her to continue.

    ¡°The bright side is we¡¯ve identified some of them and Dylta has figured out where they came from. Problem is, all it can figure out is that they all came from the underworlds of a variety of megacities. I¡¯m not even sure they were hired- they were all people that the corpos would consider ¡®undesirables,¡¯ so they might have been press-ganged. It¡¯s not like the lower levels have great surveillance, so it¡¯s like they just disappeared one day and showed up on our doorstep,¡± she complained in frustration, one fist clenching and unclenching.

    ¡°Mmgh,¡± I groaned, pressing a hand to my forehead. ¡°If I¡¯d known it was going to be this much of a pain I would have taken some alive.¡±

    ¡°That was never an option. There were bombs planted in their heads. Some of them actually survived when you dropped that ceiling on them, but their brains were soup by the time we got to them,¡± Alana revealed with disgust. ¡°Between that and their weapons, I think they might have been trained to kill Samurai. They had guns powerful enough to punch through Class I armor, and equipment like that definitely isn¡¯t standard issue. . Just another reason to think they wouldn¡¯t have made a stupid mistake like wearing official company armor.¡±

    ¡°Did Thompson have a bomb in his brain?¡± I asked, letting the rest pass. I¡¯d already more or less suspected that my Class II power armor had been a wrench in our enemy¡¯s plans, so that part didn¡¯t come as a surprise.

    ¡°That bullet you fired pretty much obliterated his augs. There wasn¡¯t enough left to determine if he had the typical military-grade augmentations or if there were¡­add-ons,¡± Alana explained. Juny probably knew, but if she wasn¡¯t speaking up, it was because I wasn¡¯t going to like the answer. I decided to just move on.

    ¡°I¡¯m guessing they escaped the same way they got in?¡±

    ¡°Yeah. But it¡¯s a relatively low-class residential district and was one of the first to go up when Boone was rebuilt. Any cameras around there were broken years ago and never replaced.¡± In other words, we couldn¡¯t figure it out remotely and we¡¯d be displacing a lot of people if we used more destructive methods.

    Fortunately, I had an alternative.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go find their escape tunnel myself,¡± I declared confidently. For that, I got a look that said ¡®what on Earth is this moron talking about?¡¯ Which was fair- I was just a graphic designer a few weeks ago.

    ¡°You¡¯re free to try, but¡­how do you plan on finding it?¡± Alana asked hesitantly, probably praying I wasn¡¯t planning to just blow the place sky-high.

    ¡°My father was a corporate executive. Back before my parents divorced, he made sure I knew all the escape routes in any place we frequented. Execs like him are paranoid- they know any Joe off the street would shank them just for the satisfaction of killing a parasitic fuck living off their labor and a Samurai with a chip on their shoulder could roll up and off them with no repercussions at any time.

    ¡°Which is all to say that I know how they liked to hide their secret passages around the time those buildings were constructed and shielding them against sensors won¡¯t stop me from finding it.¡±

    My sperm donor was a bastard of a man and I delighted in having used his life insurance money solely on things he would have hated, but maybe in death he could be useful one last time.

 V2 Chapter Five

    After parting ways with Alana and getting my range time out of the way, I retrieved my armor and headed over to the block where the corporate hit squad had vanished. It was close to the back edge- not quite on the ridge, where wealthy people would have staked their claim on account of the view, but relatively close. In a larger city I doubted low-income apartments would have been placed anywhere close to the upper class areas, but this one happened to border the eastern wall and no one of any influence wanted to be first on the menu in an Antithesis attack.

    That anyone managed to infiltrate the city so close to the walls spoke to exactly how thinly our forces were stretched during the siege. Between the gunfire and the all-out assault on the walls, it wasn¡¯t surprising that no one heard the corpos enter, and none of them had had the leeway to look in that direction at the time.

    ¡°Juny, are you able to detect any dead zones in these buildings? Spots your scans don¡¯t penetrate that should be empty space on the schematics, or maybe rooms missing from them entirely?¡± I asked my companion as I stepped out of the hovercar I¡¯d arrived in.

    ¡°My sensors indicate that these buildings are an exact match to the blueprints!¡± Juny replied, bobbing around excitedly.

    ¡°Yeah, didn¡¯t think it would be that easy,¡± I muttered as I headed inside the first apartment building. The fact that the blueprints matched and there were no zones blocking Juny¡¯s sensors told me that I could restrict my search to the first floor and any basement levels, as anything connecting to the upper floors would have shown up. ¡°What about the basement?¡±

    ¡°It has only half the square footage of the upper levels, being smaller around the edges, but that appears to be the norm in this section of the town according to other building schematics,¡± she reported. It didn¡¯t make the basement less suspicious in my opinion, but it could plausibly be a design choice.

    I headed down to the basement first, taking the stairs. I checked all the fixtures I encountered on the way down for those hidden passage gimmicks people like so much, then went for the elevator doors when nothing turned up.

    ¡°Juny, could you send the elevator up if it¡¯s on this floor and then open the doors?¡± I requested, intending to check the bottom of the shaft for hidden levels.

    ¡°Of course!¡± she agreed as the doors slid open. I peeked in, my newly-enhanced eyes doing a good job of allowing me to make out details without a flashlight. Nothing; the elevator shaft ended right where it should. I didn¡¯t take that at face value though, dropping into the shaft to knock on the floor myself. It didn¡¯t seem to be a false floor. Shrugging to myself, I moved on to searching the rest of the basement level, which seemed to mostly be dedicated to laundry and utility equipment.

    ¡°Let me know if you detect anything that might be a hidden button or switch,¡± I told Juny as I poked, prodded, and pulled at anything remotely suspicious. I came up empty, but this was only the first building, and I still needed to check the first floor as well. Once I¡¯d finished with the basement I headed back up, intending to check the rooms- but I could probably escape having to check every single one with a little detective work. ¡°Juny, did any of the tenants of these buildings report a break-in during the siege? And are any of the first floor apartments terminally empty?¡±

    ¡°No reported break-ins, but several apartments have never been occupied!¡± she answered cheerfully, marking them on my mini-map. One was in this building, so I headed right for it, finding it locked. A forceful twist of the knob later and I walked right in, looking around the empty room. A thick layer of dust had settled everywhere, telling me everything I needed to know. No one had entered this room in years.

    But I wasn¡¯t going to get hung up on searching just the first building- there were three more of them making up this city block, after all. I moved on to the next and repeated my steps, carefully examining all the machinery, fixtures, empty rooms, vending machines, and anything else that could contain a disguised activator or cover up a concealed door. During my search I encountered only a few of the people living in the buildings, but they mostly ignored me, save for one old man in a camo hat that gave me a small nod. I replied with a casual two-finger salute before moving on.

    Once I¡¯d finished looking through the forth building, of course, I had begun to grow a bit frustrated. After speaking with such confidence it would be pretty embarrassing to go back empty-handed. Still, I had one final place to check: the two alleyways running between the buildings, intersecting in the center.

    ¡°Shut down any alarms on this door, please,¡± I requested before immediately opening a fire door and walking out into the alley. It probably hadn¡¯t taken Juny one-hundredth of a second to handle that.

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    Looking around, I found the alley much more crowded than those in the outer city, unsurprisingly. These buildings had actual fire escapes grafted onto their sides, and trash that had missed or escaped the dumpsters littered the pavement. I found myself glad I was wearing armor because the smell was surely indescribable.

    ¡°Any loose bricks¡­? No, probably too obvious. What else is there out here¡­¡± I muttered to myself as I slowly walked down the alley towards the spot in the center or all four buildings. I was starting to get a feeling in my gut; some part of me had noticed something I wasn¡¯t consciously aware of yet. Then my eyes stopped on a utility box. It was nothing special, just the typical locked cabinet that wasn¡¯t of much interest to anyone but building maintenance.

    On a hunch, I broke the lock and opened the cabinet. There were a lot of switches and buttons inside labeled with little more than numbers, so I tagged Juny in.

    ¡°Any chance one of these doesn¡¯t belong?¡± I asked the AI, trusting her to have access to even the most minute of details about the building¡¯s construction. Sure enough, she did.

    ¡°This one is present on the schematics, but does not appear on those of any other building in the city!¡± Juny informed me as she highlight one of the buttons on my augs.

    ¡°Dylta didn¡¯t notice that?¡± I asked curiously, thinking that if Juny had then surely Dylta would have.

    ¡°They did, however, it would appear that every building in the city possesses minor differences in places that would ordinarily be standardized, none of which would stand out without cross-referencing the blueprints with others in the city. Even now I cannot be certain this button is of any significance!¡± she explained. I hummed an acknowledgement and pushed the button.

    Nothing happened.

    ¡°¡­I might just be wrong, but let¡¯s check the other boxes to see if anything else stands out,¡± I told her, an itchy feeling inside still insisting I was onto something. The next box I checked contained nothing unusual, but the one after that had an extra switch, which only reinforced my suspicions.

    Eventually I found a total of five additions made to the panels dotting the two alleyways. Once I¡¯d turned one final dial- it was easy to figure out what to change it to given it had only two options- Juny immediately detected a change.

    ¡°The floor just rose up in a nearby hallway, telescoping into an unused second story bedroom above it! It appears the floor was thick enough to disguise that it was hollow, so it needed extra space in order to move out of the way! Even now I am entirely unable to detect the mechanisms involved with my current sensors. Fascinating,¡± she reported as she marked a nearby door that fed into the alleyway. When I opened it, no trace of the normal hallway was there; all I could see was a staircase leading downwards.

    ¡°Clever bastards¡­¡± I muttered as I descended the stairs, cautious of any traps. The way seemed to be clear, though, and after entirely too many steps I found myself in an underground tunnel leading northward. That meant it would end somewhere on the opposite side of the ridge Boone was sat up against, which had been carved out on that side to create a sheer cliff for the city to abut. I decided to make a call to Alana immediately to let her know what I found.

    ¡°Good news I hope?¡± she asked after picking up the call, jumping straight to business.

    ¡°It was in literally the last place I looked, but I found the tunnel,¡± I informed her proudly. I let her in on the way to open it before continuing. ¡°Can¡¯t imagine what anyone would build one here for, but it had to have gone in when the building was first constructed. I¡¯m going to take a look at what¡¯s on the other side and the decide whether to collapse it or trap it. Might need to get Hailey out here for that part.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t think anyone was alerted when you opened it?¡± Alana asked, homing in on the suggestion to place traps, I think.

    ¡°Oh, someone absolutely was. But Juny told me she can¡¯t detect the mechanisms even after they activated, so the tech used to build it had to be Class II minimum. I¡¯m thinking¡­it¡¯s more likely this tunnel was built by a Samurai the corpos just took it over,¡± I theorized in a low voice.

    ¡°And the only way that could have happened is if that Samurai is rogue or dead. But if they were alive they¡¯d probably have gotten involved by now, and if they¡¯re dead, the corpos don¡¯t necessarily have access to the entire system,¡± Alana replied, finishing my train of thought. ¡°Either of which is more likely than them having reverse engineered Class II tech.¡±

    ¡°Exactly. So I think there¡¯s a chance they might not be able to receive alerts from the security system, depending on how it was set up. Might make it worth laying traps instead of collapsing the whole thing,¡± I continued, explaining my reasoning.

    ¡°You could be right, but be careful. That overly-complicated entry setup probably means that¡¯s an entrance to a base, not an escape route. It would take too long for one person to use in an emergency. There could be automated defenses down there,¡± Alana cautioned me.

    ¡°I won¡¯t be letting my guard down, don¡¯t worry. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s likely though, not unless the corpos have complete control of whatever is down here,¡± I assured her.

    ¡°Just remember Murphy¡¯s Law. Anyway, I¡¯m worried there might be more tunnels now that we know for sure there was one, but the city is too big for us to check buildings one by one. If there are any computer systems down there, there could be a facility map,¡± Alana suggested, although her tone said she doubted it.

    ¡°If there is, you¡¯ll be the first to know. Let¡¯s not get ahead of ourselves though; it¡¯s just as likely there¡¯s nothing more than an exit on the other end,¡± I pointed out as I started walking. ¡°Either way, I¡¯ll know soon enough. Talk to you later.¡±

    Personally, I thought we were lucky just to have located this tunnel. Even if we did nothing but place surveillance over it, we¡¯d have neutralized the threat of another sneak attack coming through it. Now that Alana had mentioned it, though, I was definitely worried about the potential for other tunnels. Considering that, it might be time to upgrade Juny¡¯s sensors to something in the Class II range.

 V2 Chapter Six

    ¡°So, Juny. Can I afford to upgrade your sensors enough to detect whatever this place is built out of?¡± I asked as I walked down the tunnel¡­and walked, and walked, and walked. It was quite long.

    ¡°I believe I will require some clarification! Would you like to entirely replace this drone with a Class II model, or simply the sensors? And would you prefer to purchase a Class II drone catalog or a sensor catalog of the same tier?¡± Juny inquired in return, which was an unusual amount of questions for someone that usually just suggested whatever she thought would fit best on the occasions when I was too lazy to search the catalogs myself.

    ¡°I¡¯ll probably get more mileage out of the Class II drones catalog than a standalone sensors catalog,¡± I replied. It just felt more efficient, and it¡¯s not like I had infinite tokens; I was already planning on spending one on new weapons, and I¡¯d already spent another on the teleporter catalog¡­which meant this was the last one I could freely spend. I¡¯d been hesitant to use it, but we really couldn¡¯t take the risk of another surprise attack.

    ¡°Class II Utility Drones, then! An upgraded version of this drone would cost 1,750 points when compounded with the price of the catalog. That price can be reduced by approximately 300 points by only upgrading the sensors,¡± Juny informed me.

    ¡°That¡¯s not much of a discount,¡± I pointed out dryly. Made sense though; the Eyebot that Juny was operating was essentially nothing but a sensor suite. The savings were probably from not upgrading its minimal armor and camouflage, neither of which I had reason to improve on right now. ¡°Go for the upgrade.¡±

    ¡°Of course!¡± Juny acknowledged. I waited for a moment.

    Nothing happened.

    ¡°¡­did you do it?¡± I wondered, having expected something to appear out of thin air like usual, but then I realized there probably hadn¡¯t been a need for that. It was like how she and Dylta had been able to replace parts of the base in-situ. ¡°Never mind. How are they working?¡±

    ¡°I am now capable of detecting the building materials used to construct this tunnel! They appear to have been of relatively low quality, likely intended to defend against Class I and Class 0 sensors but not Class II,¡± the AI reported eagerly, antennae extending and retracting.

    ¡°Do you detect any other tunnels nearby?¡±

    ¡°Checking. I do not! However, I may need to be closer to make a definitive statement!¡± she told me, much to my disappointment. That was easy enough to fix, though.

    ¡°Once we get back to base, go ahead and take the Eyebot around town just to be sure, then,¡± I instructed, knowing I¡¯d forget by the time we were back.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

    A few more minutes of walking later, we reached the end of the tunnel. There was a sliding door here, but it appeared to be unpowered, as it was just sitting mostly open. I stepped through after checking for tripwires- or lasers- and looked around, finding myself in a surprisingly well-lit room. Other than lighting, though, it was essentially bare; while there was some furniture here and there like tables, there was nothing of real substance.

    ¡°Juny, is there anything in here, or is the whole place like this?¡± I inquired instead of wasting my time searching room-by-room.

    ¡°The entire facility appears to have been stripped clean,¡± she informed me. ¡°There does not even appear to be a generator; I believe the lights are only functioning by siphoning a small amount of power from the city¡¯s grid.¡±

    ¡°Any signs of a fight?¡± I wondered as I idly wandered around the room, taking a close look at the furniture. It was all sleek, space-age aesthetic stuff, mostly colored in white and silver.

    ¡°None! However, I¡¯ve located an insignia associated with the Vanguard named Reentry,¡± Juny replied, giving some genuinely useful information at long last.

    ¡°Great, what do we know about them?¡±

    ¡°Reentry was a Vanguard that initialized during the first incursion into Boone, and was instrumental in the preservation of the inner city, but a hostile relationship with the corporations owning most of Boone resulted in his refusal to assist in clearing the outer city in the aftermath. He was active for several years, but was recorded as missing following a major incursion in Winston-Salem,¡± Juny explained as I strolled into the next room to find more of the same.

    ¡°Missing? Not dead?¡± I prompted, likely exactly what Juny had been waiting for.

    ¡°Correct! He was theorized to have been devoured by the Antithesis following his death, but no confirmation was ever found,¡± she elaborated.

    ¡°There¡¯s kind of a jump there between him going missing in Winston-Salem and some corpo fucks looting his secret base,¡± I pointed out as I experimentally tried sitting in a chair. Despite my weight in armor being much higher, it supported me without complaint.

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    ¡°I am unable to determine how that eventuality came about. It is possible that he was betrayed or that a personal acquaintance merely made use of the abandoned equipment following his disappearance, but it is also possible he captured and interrogated,¡± Juny theorized.

    ¡°How in the world would they have pulled that off?¡± I asked incredulously.

    ¡°If Reentry was gravely wounded in combat while low on points, he may have been left vulnerable enough to be contained. Although he would have received his ten-point daily allowance as usual, he would have needed significant time to purchase advanced healing supplies when starting from nothing, much less equipment to aid in his escape. That¡¯s just a possibility, of course!¡± Juny expanded before ending with a figurative shoulder shrug and an overly-cheery exclamation.

    ¡°For his sake, I hope he¡¯s dead,¡± I muttered, loathe to imagine what he might have endured in a situation like that. ¡°Well, it doesn¡¯t seem like there¡¯s much point searching the place, but I¡¯ll give it a final search after I call in Haley.¡±

    With that decided, I made a call back to base to request the explosives specialist¡¯s service and then gave the base a full tour while I waited for her to arrive. It wasn¡¯t much larger than a few thousand square meters, and while it was a shame to lose it considering the materials in was built from, the back door into a nearby valley was an unacceptable security risk. The most I found in my search was some clay tracked into the garage by vehicles that were long gone, and a quick search by Juny found that their trail became untraceable after reaching a highway.

    Eventually I ran out of things to check and settled down on a table in the first room to wait for Haley. She arrived some minutes later in full combat gear, even though I just asked for her help with setting up some explosives. She practically skipped across the room and offered me a high-five that I humorously accepted.

    ¡°Sup, boss? Is this the place I get to blow up?¡± were the first words out of her mouth. I would say she was getting straight to business, but for her this was pleasure.

    ¡°Not quite yet,¡± I replied, feeling a bit bad when Haley deflated slightly. ¡°Just destroying it now would be a waste. I¡¯d rather string it up with explosives and rig them to blow when intruders show up.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I can definitely do that. What am I working with, and what¡¯s the place made out of?¡± she asked, eyes sharp.

    ¡°Some kind of Class II materials I doubt we have a name for, and whatever you need to get the job done, in reverse order,¡± I explained. I instantly regretted it when I heard the next words out of her mouth.

    ¡°Got it, boss! I believe that, given this bunker was built by a Samurai, I will have to use a nuclear bomb to guarantee its destruction!¡± Haley asserted with a snappy salute that didn¡¯t fool me in the slightest. I could see a spark in her eyes that her serious demeanor failed to hide.

    ¡°You need a nuke, or you want a nuke?¡± I pressed, not about to detonate a nuclear weapon so close to where I lived. Some of the confidence drained from her face.

    ¡°Uh¡­I sure would like to see a nuke go off,¡± she admitted pleadingly.

    ¡°Let me rephrase. What¡¯s the minimum you need to collapse this place on the head of whoever is dumb enough to walk inside?¡± I clarified, feeling like I needed a lawyer to draw up the terms of my request.

    ¡°I need more information. Are the walls some kind of concrete? Are the supports a steel alloy or something with a higher melting point? I can use human-made materials as a baseline, but I¡¯ll need at least some details to make a proper estimate,¡± Haley responded honestly, displaying her status as the resident subject-matter expert.

    ¡°Juny, you took some scans of this place, right? Can you send the specifications to her augs?¡± I requested of my AI partner, who bobbed up and down in response.

    ¡°Done!¡±

    Haley didn¡¯t say anything immediately, but she had the focused look of someone reading some virtual text displayed only for them. After some time spent reading, the demolitions expert looked back to me with the same confidence as earlier, but mixed with something I couldn¡¯t quite name that told me whatever she was about to say was an indisputable fact.

    ¡°Looks like this building was mostly designed to protect against detection and attacks from the outside. The supports would be difficult to sever conventionally, but the interior doesn¡¯t have any way to properly disperse pressure from an explosion on the inside, and if the doors are sealed their sturdiness would actually contain the blast until it exceeds the strength of the structure. I should be able to pull it off with about twice the usual amount of C4 in a few key locations, which would pulverize everything but the supports and cause it all to collapse around them,¡± Haley explained matter-of-factly¡­and she wasn¡¯t even done.

    ¡°Alternatively, I can try to use shaped charges to target the supports themselves, but the amount of explosives I¡¯d need for that would be prohibitively high, since I wouldn¡¯t be using the properties of the material itself to compensate for lower yield. Something made with CL-20 might do the trick for an immediate demolition, but we don¡¯t currently have access to any of the more stable variants that could be used for a long-term trap. If you¡¯re willing to dip into Samurai-grade materials¡­I don¡¯t know enough about them to make a judgement call, but I could probably work something out with Juny.¡±

    I stared for a few moments after Haley finished her speech, though she couldn¡¯t see my eyes through the visor. That was sure a lot of words, and I understood nearly all of them, but I wasn¡¯t well-versed enough in explosives to understand the logic behind any of it.

    ¡°We¡¯ll just¡­go with option one, I guess. We can requisition as much C4 as you need from the armory now. Think you can rig it with some type of IFF so it won¡¯t blow up on our people, and make it so the doors automatically seal before the bombs blow? Maybe make it so nothing happens until they get close to the tunnel door?¡± I suggested, at least in part to sound like I was keeping up with the conversation. I was going to have to add some more broad weapons training to my lessons with Terry if I ever wanted to keep up with this sort of talk.

    ¡°Sure can! Wanna help me set the charges? I¡¯ll walk you through it!¡± Haley volunteered, probably hoping to indoctrinate me in the way of explosives.

    ¡°Eh, why not?¡± If nothing else, it would save some of Terry¡¯s time if I just learned this stuff from Haley.

 V2 Chapter Seven

    Once the secret base was rigged to blow, I found myself with not a whole lot to do. I tasked Juny with scanning the city for additional tunnels and headed back to the base to remove my armor. Deciding I was in a social mood, I headed down to the lounge on the rapid response team floor; specifically, the lounge dedicated to Alana¡¯s squad, whom I¡¯d been getting to know the most. No one was there when I arrived, but there were some gaming consoles set up, so I opted to play some games while I waited for someone else to show up.

    I¡¯d considered checking up on my mom, but she somehow had a date with Haverson already.

    ¡°How¡¯d you do it!?¡± someone shouted around thirty minutes later, startling me so bad I nearly threw my controller. I was starting to think Alana had the right idea in putting her sensors inside her body instead of a suit. Turning, I found Jamal behind me, an excited look on his face.

    ¡°¡­do what?¡± I inquired, confused as to what he meant. I¡¯d done enough things recently that it was hard to guess what he was referring to.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, man! The armor! How¡¯d you convince the LT to issue Halo-themed armor?¡± elaborated the sharpshooter. That made things click; I remembered his reaction to my own armor pretty well.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t. I just asked to design the equipment and she didn¡¯t ask any questions,¡± I replied with a shrug. ¡°Don¡¯t mention it to her- I want to see how long it takes her to notice all of our equipment is giving a huge middle finger to copyright laws.¡±

    ¡°Damn! You¡¯re way braver than me. Just thinking about what she¡¯d do to me if I pulled a prank like that is terrifying,¡± Jamal said as he circled the couch I was sitting on, plopping down on a nearby chair.

    ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t think she¡¯ll care that much. She might even just be humoring me because there¡¯s not a whole lot else I can do around here,¡± I responded with a shrug. In theory I supposed I could learn those sorts of administrative duties, but it takes longer to make an officer than it does to make a rifleman- and that wasn¡¯t even factoring in the fact I¡¯d need to know more than just how to lead a platoon.

    ¡°I mean, you¡¯re kind of a one-woman army, so you¡¯re probably doing enough as it is¡­¡± Jamal remarked, raising an eyebrow.

    ¡°An army is only useful when there¡¯s something to fight,¡± I pointed out in return. ¡°Until we know who to fight, I¡¯m just an artist, and I can only spend so much time per day hunting through catalogs for things I can remodel.¡±

    ¡°How does that work, anyway? There¡¯s not just video-game themed stuff you can buy, right?¡± Jamal asked, leaning back in his seat.

    ¡°Honestly, I¡¯m not convinced our AIs don¡¯t design half the gear themselves. I mean, it¡¯s supposed to be alien tech, so why would it come in a form humans can use?¡± I posited. ¡°Juny pulled the Eyebot design out of her robotic butt, so she could probably offer me nothing but equipment that¡¯s already game themed if she wanted.¡±

    ¡°I assure you I do not have a butt!¡± the cheeky little thing living in my head contributed.

    ¡°Hush, you,¡± I replied instantly.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t say anything,¡± Jamal pointed out, not realizing I was speaking to Juny.

    ¡°Sorry, Juny is talking straight to my brain since her drone body is busy,¡± I explained. Avoiding this situation was the entire point of the drone, but it couldn¡¯t be helped since I¡¯d chosen to get something with actual utility. ¡°Anyway, I think Juny knows I like to model the designs myself, so she usually just redesigns something to fit the appearance I provide. I¡¯ve been stocking up on designs in my free time.¡±

    ¡°You cooking anything up right now?¡± Jamal asked with a grin. I leaned forward, as if I was sharing a secret.

    ¡°Well, you know that first suit I bought? The armor is ruined, but the frame is still good. So I was thinking we could feed it to the fabbers and issue it to machine-gunners and the like. Since I won¡¯t be the one wearing it, I¡¯m going to nix the Mjolnir design and use something that¡¯s bulky to begin with,¡± I told him conspiratorially.

    ¡°Nice. What¡¯re you thinking, T-51b? Maybe CMC?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve mostly been sticking to a Halo theme for weapons and armor, so I¡¯m going to model it after the Hrunting/Yggdrasil. For the first iteration it won¡¯t be able to match the performance, but we¡¯ll probably upgrade the underlying hardware for everything as points allow, so we can get there eventually,¡± I shared as I watched someone sneaking up behind Jamal with a finger over their lip out of the corner of my eye.

    ¡°Oh, I like that. Too bad I won¡¯t-¡±

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    ¡°Sup, nerd?¡± greeted Haley as she slapped Jamal in the shoulder, eliciting an undignified yelp.

    ¡°Dammit, Haley!¡± Jamal yelled as Haley skipped around just outside his reach and settled on the couch beside me.

    ¡°The LT is always telling you to watch your surroundings,¡± she reminded her teammate.

    ¡°Not in the lounge!¡± Jamal argued back, rolling his eyes.

    ¡°To be fair, there were Antithesis on this very floor less than two weeks ago,¡± I pointed out, looking in the direction of the room I¡¯d broken through the wall of. It still hadn¡¯t been repaired yet. The bullet holes, at least, had largely been plastered over.

    ¡°It¡¯s not like they just showed up out of nowhere,¡± Jamal countered. I decided the joke had run it¡¯s course and decided not to pursue it any further.

    ¡°Come to think of it, how come you already knew about the new armor? I didn¡¯t think anyone had it yet since Haley was still wearing her old gear earlier today,¡± I asked, setting aside my controller.

    ¡°I already got mine, but not everyone has yet,¡± Jamal replied a bit cagily. Haley snickered.

    ¡°Yeah, because the LT prioritized based on who gets hit the most,¡± she filled in with glee. I gave Jamal an odd look.

    ¡°¡­aren¡¯t you a sharpshooter?¡± Considering his role in the squad he was the last person I¡¯d expect to be taking hits. On the other hand, he was also the one that almost got turned into a pincushion by a Model Fifteen in the hangar battle.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter how far away he is if he forget to duck,¡± Hayley jabbed.

    ¡°Remind me: which one of us had been deployed to a sewer?¡± Jamal threw back dryly. I lost track of the conversation as the two began to bicker back and forth, seemingly throwing every bit of bad luck they¡¯d run into since joining the Stalking Tigers at each other.

    ¡°Ah. I was wondering what all that noise was,¡± Huifang said as she opened the door to her room, which was catty-cornered to the lounge. Shaking her head, she walked over to take a seat on the chair to my other side, across from Jamal. ¡°You made the mistake of letting them talk to each other, I see.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m starting to see the pattern,¡± I told her as I remembered our conversation in the cafeteria. ¡°Are they always like that?¡±

    ¡°If I didn¡¯t know any better I¡¯d think they were siblings. So, yes,¡± Huifang replied acerbically. Clearly this was common enough that she was over it.

    ¡°Why join us in the lounge, then?¡± I asked curiously.

    ¡°Because I knew I wasn¡¯t going to get any reading done anyway,¡± the muscular woman answered, making a tossing motion with one hand.

    ¡°Wanna have a match?¡± I proposed, offering her a controller. I wasn¡¯t sure what else to say since I hadn¡¯t spoken to Huifang much before and she didn¡¯t seem like the talkative type. Wordlessly, she accepted the controller. Taking that as a yes, I went ahead and left the single-player mode I was in and started up a player vs player mode instead. Several minutes passed before either of us spoke again; our game was proving competitive enough that I¡¯d locked in and forgotten to talk.

    ¡°How did you become a Samurai?¡± Huifang asked suddenly, just after getting killed in the game. Caught off guard, it took me a moment to process her question.

    ¡°Killed a few Model Threes with my hover car. Blew up the fuel-cell to kill one more. Next thing I knew there was a voice in my head and I had a little robot pulling shrapnel from my skull,¡± I recounted as I tried to find Huifang again.

    ¡°Hm,¡± she grunted. Apparently she didn¡¯t have any more questions so I decided it¡¯d be fair for me to turn that one around.

    ¡°Why¡¯d you join the Stalking Tigers?¡± I asked.

    ¡°Big family, not enough money. Pretty typical story, I¡¯d say,¡± Huifang dropped casually.

    ¡°I joined to get out of the undercity,¡± Jamal volunteered, apparently having tuned back in at some point. ¡°It was all gangs down there so life was pretty rough. Learned pretty quick that I was a good shot though, so I figured I might be able to take those skills somewhere a bit more professional.¡±

    ¡°Damn, that¡¯s rough.¡± I hadn¡¯t expected such a heavy answer, much less from someone I hadn¡¯t asked directly, but he didn¡¯t seem to broken up about it so he must have made his peace with it.

    ¡°I just wanted to blow things up!¡± added Hayley. In the wake of that answer, Huifang got a free kill in on me while I side-eyed the demolition specialist.

    ¡°Would you believe this one¡¯s an heiress?¡± Jamal followed up.

    ¡°Wait, seriously?¡± I asked, keeping my eyes on the screen this time.

    ¡°Yep. My parents run a pretty big company based in Raleigh. Not one of the major corpos, but big enough to be noteworthy back home,¡± Hayley affirmed. ¡°I wasn¡¯t all that good at the business side, though, so they were happy to let my brother take over instead. I¡¯m way better at math and physics.¡±

    ¡°I figured out that much during our impromptu explosives lesson this afternoon.¡± At one point I¡¯d asked Juny to check her calculations out of curiosity and discovered she essentially had the precision of a calculator when it came to determining how much C4 to use.

    ¡°Oh, god, you actually let her talk about explosives?¡± Jamal asked in horror. Even Huifang seemed unsettled.

    ¡°I made that mistake once. I realized my mistake about two hours in,¡± she recounted with a distant look. Taking advantage of her distraction, I managed to make up for the freebie she¡¯d gotten from me earlier.

    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m a great teacher!¡± the subject of the conversation objected.

    ¡°Honestly, she really was. I learned a lot. I¡¯ll probably still need to rely on Juny for figuring out what yields I need, but I¡¯ll need a lot less instruction on the more general stuff. I¡¯m thinking of adding a grenade launcher to my arsenal,¡± I said in my teacher¡¯s defense.

    ¡°Really!?¡± Hayley squealed in excitement. ¡°Please let me use it. At least once. I know I¡¯ve already got a Samurai-grade grenade launcher, but I bet whatever you get for yourself will be way cooler.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m seconding that. For her, I mean. She¡¯s not going to shut up about it until she gets her hands on that thing now,¡± Jamal despaired, burying his head in his hands.

    ¡°I don¡¯t have the points right now, but maybe after the next time I kill some Antithesis. Not sure when that¡¯ll be, but Alana and I should be registered with the Family as available for mission now, so I¡¯m sure it won¡¯t be too long,¡± I assured the long-suffering man.

    Ah. I died again. I need to focus before Huifang takes the lead.

 V2 Chapter Eight

    Several days passed uneventfully after discovering the abandoned bunker. I had a few more game nights with the members of Alana¡¯s team, but mostly I put my nose to the grindstone and worked on self-improvement. I was essentially on standby right now, so the best use of my time was to improve my skill with firearms, progress my weight training, and continue producing designs for arms and other equipment.

    I¡¯d gotten the Sentry Bot blueprint done first; in the end I¡¯d gone with modular weapon mounts and a standard loadout of a minigun and a shock projector; essentially a wireless taser that delivered enough voltage and current at full power to threaten a person in full-coverage armor. It was¡­theoretically non-lethal. At low power. If the target wasn¡¯t wearing anything that might impede the electricity, necessitating higher output. More importantly, the shock projector wouldn¡¯t damage the building much.

    In addition to that, I¡¯d gone ahead and chosen my new heavy weapons, though I could only afford one for now. It was sitting in the armory now with the rest of my guns, tagged with a teleporter beacon so I could bring it to me at a moment¡¯s notice. The rest of my points had largely been sunk into an upgraded motion tracker for my armor and a strength multiplying undersuit that was better tuned to my newly-enhanced physiology. Next time I punched something while suited up, it would be learning why I¡¯ve never bought a melee weapon.

    I stepped off the elevator on my way back from weight training to find my mom standing in the hall, presumably waiting for the elevator herself¡­along with Haverson. I wasn¡¯t sure I wanted more details about that. It wasn¡¯t strange to run into her here though; we were both occupying high ranking officer suites on this floor along with Alana and Radcliffe.

    ¡°Hey sweetie! Josh here is taking me on a date! At my age; can you even imagine?¡± mom announced, much to both my and Josh¡¯s embarrassment. I gave him a nonplussed look.

    ¡°Okay, I know she¡¯s not as old as she makes it sound, but did you really get seduced by a woman twice your age?¡± I asked Haverson dryly. His embarrassment actually seemed to fade a bit and he gave a hearty guffaw.

    ¡°Hah! I¡¯ll take it as a compliment, darlin¡¯, but I¡¯m actually closer to her age than yours,¡± he informed me happily.

    ¡°I¡¯m not a cradle robber, you know,¡± mom insisted in a huff. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t date someone my own daughter¡¯s age.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be holding you to that¡­¡± I replied with a sigh. ¡°Just remember we¡¯re still on the lookout for whoever attacked us. Stick close to Haverson and yell for Juny if you¡¯re ever in danger.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m always listening!¡± the AI added happily, which only made the comment creepier.

    ¡°No worries, boss, I¡¯ll keep her safe,¡± Haverson assured me, patting his hip where a handgun was holstered. And pointedly ignoring Juny. Honestly, a pistol didn¡¯t impress me all that much at this point, but considering it was from our armory, it was at least Class I.

    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not like we¡¯re leaving Boone. We should be perfectly safe here, right?¡± mom asked, patting me on the shoulder.

    ¡°I had Juny confirm we¡¯ve blocked off the only secret tunnel into town, so it should be fine, but there¡¯s no such thing as too careful,¡± I insisted.

    ¡°It¡¯s a Juny guarantee!¡± she added.

    ¡°Thank you, Juny. But Erica, if you¡¯re so worried, I know what you could do!¡± mom exclaimed, instantly giving me a sinking feeling. I already knew what she was going to ask for; I¡¯d been expecting it for a while.

    ¡°I¡¯m not buying you Samurai-grade cosplay,¡± I told her firmly. Even if I wanted to it would be too expensive right now.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need to go that far. I heard you have some machines that can make Samurai gear!¡± she replied. I looked at Haverson. He shrugged.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m more of a commando than a quartermaster. If you want time from the fabbers you¡¯re going to have to convince Alana,¡± I said, shifting the responsibility. It wasn¡¯t really meant to discourage her; there was enough gremlin in me to want to see how that went.

    ¡°Challenge accepted! Ah, but for now, I guess we should get going. I¡¯ll tell you all about how it goes later, see you then!¡± mom declared as she stepped into the elevator, dragging Haverson with her.

    ¡°Please don¡¯t,¡± I replied as the door closed, referring to the date. Once it started to descend I heaved a sigh. Talking to her could be draining sometimes.

    ¡°Did you really have to foist her off onto me?¡± Alana asked as she stepped around the corner.

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    ¡°Hello there!¡± Juny greeted as if she hadn¡¯t definitely known Alana was there the entire time.

    ¡°How long were you standing there?¡± I asked in turn.

    ¡°I was about to turn the corner when I heard you refer your mother to me. I decided to wait until she was gone,¡± she answered with a shrug.

    ¡°Probably wise. But yeah, I really don¡¯t know how things are going with the armor fabber or how much it would cost us to give her some time with it, so you were the best person to refer her to. Haverson might have an idea but that would¡¯ve been a conflict of interest,¡± I explained matter-of-factly.

    ¡°Armor doesn¡¯t take that long to make, but we need quite a lot of suits¡­well, I¡¯m sure a few minutes wouldn¡¯t hurt,¡± Alana decided, pinching her chin.

    ¡°Unless someone gets shot before they get their new armor, in which case it will hurt very much,¡± Juny riposted in an unnervingly pleasant tone.

    ¡°Someone is in rare form today¡­¡± I sighed. ¡°Anyway, don¡¯t feel the need to give her special treatment just because she¡¯s my mother. The bit about safety was just an excuse, she really just wants cosplay that¡¯s more authentic than she can make herself,¡± I advised.

    ¡°I¡¯ll make sure it doesn¡¯t impact operations any. Once all our key personnel are fully equipped, though, I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll live if someone a bit lower on the priority list needs to wait a few extra minutes,¡± she responded. ¡°Besides, I don¡¯t see why we can¡¯t humor your mother a bit. We¡¯re already imposing on her quite a bit by tying her down here.¡±

    That was really more on me than her, but she was probably trying not to make me feel guilty. I wasn¡¯t going to let it get to me. This was more on the corpos than me.

    ¡°What about your parents?¡± I asked. It¡¯d occurred to me before, but I¡¯d never had a good moment to ask. Standing in the hallway wasn¡¯t the greatest time either but it¡¯s not like Alana had much free time to just sit around and chat.

    ¡°Both dead. I don¡¯t remember my own mother, but my old man died fighting the Antithesis when I was young,¡± Alana shared proudly. ¡°My grandfather took me in after that, of course, but he had my dad when we was already pretty old. He¡¯s gone now too, but he lived a good, long life.¡±

    ¡°Wow. I¡¯m sorry for your loss. Is¡­that why you joined up with a PMC?¡± I wondered.

    ¡°Sort of,¡± she said while teetering her hand. ¡°I would have preferred a real military, but a PMC was the closest I could get around here¡­and even then, it took a bit of searching to find one that would accept someone my size.¡±

    I had noticed that Alana seemed short for a soldier on our first meeting. It would have been rude to just ask, though. I¡¯d always been curious, so maybe now was the right time.

    ¡°How¡¯d you manage to get in?¡± I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

    ¡°That requires a bit of background on my old man. He was actually a Samurai himself- initialized back in the ¡®20s. By the time I was born in the ¡¯30s he had a few gene mods and some of them were the type that can be passed on, so even though I got my mother¡¯s height, I got my dad¡¯s strength. Even before I had the cybernetics, I could already have benched Huifang,¡± Alana shared, slapping a hand to her chest.

    ¡°So you just needed to get far enough for a group to give you a physical,¡± I concluded. Certainly, anyone that realized she was literally superhuman would have wanted to hire her.

    ¡°Bingo. The important thing was that I was strong enough to hump my gear and carry an injured teammate if I needed to, and I could manage that easily, even if I looked ridiculous doing it,¡± she affirmed with a chuckle.

    ¡°But¡­wait. If you already had genetic modifications, why not lean into that? Why go with cybernetics instead?¡± I inquired, given that replacing her limbs would have entirely negated the impact of her genetics.

    ¡°It was just the pragmatic thing to do,¡± Alana contended. ¡°I had a catalog for prosthetics and not gene mods, so it was more efficient to lean into that at the time. I didn¡¯t think clinging to my old man¡¯s legacy was worth wasting points, and I¡¯d rather be my own person anyway.¡±

    ¡°Huh. Well, I can respect that. It¡¯s not really the same thing, but I¡¯ve spent my whole life doing the opposite of what my father would¡¯ve wanted me to,¡± I commented wryly.

    ¡°You mentioned you didn¡¯t have a very good relationship with him,¡± Alana prompted. I hadn¡¯t gone into much detail the other day but I didn¡¯t have a reason not to share.

    ¡°He was just a greedy, homophobic, transphobic douchebag that saw me as a tool for securing his legacy,¡± I said nonchalantly. Though the words were venomous, my tone was casual. ¡°When he realized I didn¡¯t have a head for business he lost interest, so when my mom divorced him he didn¡¯t go for custody. Biggest favor he ever did me was forgetting to take me off his life insurance before he died.¡±

    ¡°You sure it was an accident? Maybe he cared about you in his own way,¡± Alana suggested carefully, her tone giving me the impression she was just being considerate, not trying to change my mind.

    ¡°Oh, he was pretty explicit that I was never getting a dime from him and he even removed me from his will. Being a successful businessman doesn¡¯t mean he was smart, though- he forgot that it didn¡¯t matter if I was named in it or not if I was his only next of kin, and he was too much of a dick to his lawyer for the guy to bother reminding him,¡± I related as if sharing a funny story. Which, to me, it was. ¡°Well, there wasn¡¯t much left of the estate after paying off his business debts, but that¡¯s why I¡¯m pretty sure the life insurance was an oversight.¡±

    ¡°Archived emails corroborate Erica¡¯s view, incidentally,¡± Juny contributed unexpectedly. That was new information.

    ¡°When did you even look into that¡­?¡± I inquired.

    ¡°Just now!¡±

    ¡°New revelations aside, that¡¯s a hell of a tale to share like an amusing anecdote,¡± Alana observed with a bit of concern.

    ¡°It all happened years ago, and my mom has always been supportive, so at this point it is one,¡± I assured her with an unconcerned smile. A devious smile grew on Alana¡¯s face at that point.

    ¡°I suppose Haverson will just have to show you what a good father is like once he marries your mom, then!¡± she suggested, provoking an uncontrollable shiver in my spine.

    ¡°Gee, thanks for that image. I think I need a shower twice as much now,¡± I said as I retreated to my suite, Alana¡¯s laughter filling the hall behind me.

 V2 Chapter Nine

    My uneventful vacation ended the instant Juny cleared me to remove the backpack providing resources for my upgrades. Most Samurai were content to defend their own local environs, if they actively fought the Antithesis at all, so there were always small towns in need of help. One would think that in the current age most people would have gathered into larger groups for mutual protection, but there would always be people more attached to their homes than their lives- and sometimes they got lucky enough to survive a very long time before running into trouble they couldn¡¯t handle.

    In the center of my suite I¡¯d installed the armor maintenance station needed to equip and remove my armor. When it wasn¡¯t in use it looked strange; almost like an altar with nothing but a pair of armored shoes on it, surrounded on three sides with walls far enough away that I could stretch my arms out without touching them. Only when I stepped into those shoes did the station spring to life.

    Above me a compartment opened, revealing the undersuit of my armor. It was built in a way that would have made it impossible to slip on like a wetsuit, so it was instead split into front and rear halves. I spread my arms out as the two sections of the suit were lowered down and brought to meet with myself in the middle. They were held in place by the armor station while it performed some kind of arcane scientific magic to seamlessly merge them into a single piece I wouldn¡¯t be able to remove on my own, at which point the undersuit began molding itself to fit my contours perfectly like a second skin.

    Gimbaled arms began to unfold from the walls around me carrying the components of my armor. All at once they began to attach plating to hard points on my undersuit in a process bereft of any screws or rivets. Some parts, like the sections of my vambraces and greaves, snapped together when brought together, but I knew from experience that they were just as firmly affixed to the suit below through no mechanism I¡¯d been able to spot.

    Once my limbs were armored, next came my torso. That section consisted of just four parts, the largest of which were the ones making up the chest and back protection, but they were affixed as quickly as any of the other components of my armor. In seconds all that was left was the helmet, which was lowered smoothly over my head without me having to lift a finger, my hair already tied up and out of the way. Finally the platform I was standing on spun so that I could step forward and out of the armor station.

    Since I was still in the base it wasn¡¯t strictly necessary to carry any weapons, but I chose to get it out of the way now so I had something at the ready. I looked over to the side of my HUD where a list of weapon icons had been added and blinked twice over the SMG icon, already shifting my hands to be ready to accept them. Teleported from the armory, both guns materialized in my hands, where they remained for only a moment before I attached them to the magnetic carriers on my thighs. Just to have one more weapon at the ready I repeated the process with my shotgun and stuck it to my back.

    ¡°Would you like to know the details of the mission?¡± Juny asked helpfully as I headed for the door. I shook my head.

    ¡°Where¡¯s the fun in that? I¡¯ll just hear it all from Alana with everyone else,¡± I told her. By now I knew where to find the typical briefing room for the rapid response teams, who were the only ones that would be involved in this mission, so I headed for the floor dedicated to them. Everyone but the officers lived on that floor, so they were probably waiting there already.

    I got there to find fourteen men and women in full gear seated in rows. The room was built lecture-style with each row being slightly higher than the one before it, but with no tables but the podium at the front. While the rank-and-file had beaten me here, neither squad¡¯s officer was around yet. The room was built to hold twice as many squads, though, so it looked empty with only half its seats filled.

    That couldn¡¯t be helped; one squad was killed on day one of the siege and another had followed its leader back to the Stalking Tigers. In terms of manpower that was certainly a loss, but truth be told, I¡¯d forgotten there even was a third squad for a while there. I never even met the lieutenant that commanded that team. It was a consequence of the shift schedule; the four squads hadn¡¯t been intended to be on duty at once and there weren¡¯t enough gunships to deploy them all together even before Richter¡¯s squad was lost. I only ran into Alvarez because his team was off-duty when the base was attacked.

    At any rate, there were plenty of seats available¡­but other than nodding to the people in the crowd I knew, I ignored that area as I headed to the front of the room and took up a spot leaning against the wall. Why? Well, it certainly wasn¡¯t because I felt like I belonged there. I was just too heavy for the chairs.

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    Shortly after I settled in, Alana and Alvarez- whose first name I really needed to learn but was too embarrassed to ask for at this point- arrived and Alana headed to the podium. Both carried their helmets under their arms, which stood out from those carried by the others. While their armor was similar to the standard black ODST gear I¡¯d designed for the troops, they¡¯d received the Recon variant with some extra features packed in for commanders. I planned to eventually distribute specialized variants for other roles as well, but I didn¡¯t have access to the components I needed yet.

    ¡°Alright folks, vacation¡¯s over. Boone might be safe now, but there¡¯s a whole lot of places around that still have Antithesis to worry about, and we¡¯ve gotta earn a paycheck somehow,¡± Alana announced as she took her place at the podium, setting her helmet down.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t we just go through a whole bunch of hubbub where we quit being mercs?¡± some member of Alvarez¡¯s squad asked sarcastically.

    ¡°I hope you don¡¯t think that means I¡¯m paying you to sit around, jackass,¡± Alana countered with a smirk. ¡°We may not be mercs anymore, but the Family has agreed to reimburse us generously for filling in the gaps in underdefended areas, so that¡¯s what we¡¯re going to do. Considering they sent the Mountaineer to save all your asses, I¡¯m sure there aren¡¯t going to be any complaints.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you mean our asses, ma¡¯am?¡± asked Rick Torres, who I knew was part of Terry¡¯s fireteam but not much else.

    ¡°Torres, I had the points to buy a flying tank the size of a barn. You had a shotgun and your brown undies. I would have killed those Twenty Threes eventually, but the only part of you that would have survived that is your dignity, and that¡¯s only thanks to plausible deniability,¡± Alana roasted the man to the chuckles of his squadmates.

    ¡°Now, if we¡¯re all done joking around, here¡¯s the deal. There¡¯s a little place in Arkansas called Jones Mill that just found out Antithesis moved into their abandoned cable plant and the neighboring quarry. It¡¯s a tiny little town with only a few hundred residents, and they had a fortified school building to fall back to, but there¡¯s no corpo security and the local military units are either occupied or exist only on paper,¡± Alana went on to explain. She put a map up on the projector behind her showing the town as she spoke.

    It was small, and it looked like it had gotten smaller in recent years. It had all the signs of a country village that used to have a lot of land to go around but which had contracted into a more defensible area when the Antithesis appeared. There was a cluster of several dozen buildings- maybe over a hundred- at a density that you wouldn¡¯t typically see outside a city surrounded by scattered and run down structures that were much more spaced out.

    The place probably didn¡¯t even have a school thirty years ago. Some enterprising local probably got the idea to build and fortify it to make sure the local children would always be in the safest place possible if aliens rolled in.

    ¡°So here¡¯s the plan. We¡¯ll be taking the new Sparrowhawk and one of the old gunships to reinforce the defenses. Alvarez, you¡¯ll be dropping in with your squad to defend the school. Word is that the evacuation is complete and everyone is already there or dead, so dig in and hold your position. No need to clear any hives, so gear up accordingly.¡± Alvarez nodded in acknowledgement, so Alana moved on.

    ¡°My team will be tackling the quarry. We¡¯ll be dropping at the school and fighting our way over. Usual gear, but I¡¯m not expecting anything big. We shouldn¡¯t have to deal with anything larger than a Six, and even if we do, the Sparrowhawk is going to be remaining on station to provide air support.¡±

    That just left me, which meant I was going to be clearing the cable plant myself. I gave a nod when Alana looked my way to indicate I understood.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I need to say it, but I¡¯m trusting you to handle the other hive yourself. Do you think you¡¯ll be needing any support?¡± she asked, letting me know where I factored into the plan without quite telling me what to do. She probably felt a bit awkward about it; we were technically equals here, and I don¡¯t think she was entirely sure how to coordinate with me yet as a result. As a mercenary she¡¯d led a single squad and someone else had told her and the other squad leaders what to do, and during the siege she¡¯d been the unambiguous commander.

    ¡°A hive that size should be perfect for testing out my new upgrades. You might want to be quick though. I¡¯ll probably be done so fast I¡¯ll be getting bored by the time you finish, if you don¡¯t hurry,¡± I joked with a laugh and a thumbs-up. She had a full squad but a quarry is a lot bigger than a factory.

    ¡°Hear that everyone? I think Erica just volunteered to buy us all drinks if you can prove her wrong!¡± Alana declared, turning back to face the troops. That got some cheers from her squad and chuckles from Alvarez¡¯s team, who didn¡¯t have to lift a finger either way.

    ¡°Sure, but if I win, ya¡¯ll get to buy me drinks until we find out if I can still get drunk,¡± I tossed back.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure I like the sound of that,¡± I heard Jamal mutter, to which I grinned.

    ¡°We can¡¯t let her win, our wallets might not survive,¡± Haley whispered back.

    ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got. Grab your weapons and meet up in the hangar!¡± Alana ordered, ending the briefing.