“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”

- John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

When I was woken up, I almost jolted. I was feeling a bit clammy and sweaty, my sleep tormented by nightmares, as was typical when I thought about my past.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s me," a familiar voice said in a low tone while I looked around, trying to piece together where I was.

Rubbing my eyes I tried to focus on my surroundings, my mind still half-asleep. It took me a moment to even understand where I was and to realise it was Chloe who had woken me up.

Then things came back to me in a slow rush, the previous day, the alien incursion, me being a Samurai, us protecting the shelter. The conversation I had with Chloe, then our plans to set up watches. It probably was my turn, although from Chloe’s stature I wasn’t quite sure everything was fine. She seemed tense.

I nodded at her, still blinking the sleep out of my eyes.

“Morning," I mumbled, “Time for my watch?"

She shook her head in reply, a grimace playing around her cute features. Things were definitely not going to plan. A quick check of the time showed me that it was close to three in the morning, which meant I had at best four hours of sleep, probably a bit less. “Xenos are showing up more and more,” she explained in a low voice, “Patrick’s sensors have all been tripped by this point, things are getting dangerous out there. Atlas is pretty certain they formed a hive and with how much activity is going on out there it might be necessary to deal with it right now before it grows even more.”

I nodded, groaning inwardly. Sleep would have to wait. Getting up I stretched lavishly in every direction, trying to wake up my tired body. “Okay, what’s the sitch? Oh, and Kaysa, you got something to wake me up?”

Of course, please hold out your hand.

Doing as I was told I soon held a small cup of… something in my hand. It was around the size of a big shot glass and it held something warm that smelled… I think interesting is the most pleasant descriptor I could give here. “The fuck is this, Kaysa?”

A rather commonly used wake up agent. It should be strong enough to wake the dead and keep them going for a couple of hours. Normally I would advise against using it as it will wreak havoc on your body, but I predict a lot of activity in your immediate future and you are most certainly not rested yet. After this is all said and done I highly recommend taking some time off.

She had a point, so I simply nodded and put the drink back in one gulp. And good thing too, this shit tasted foul!

I coughed in between some gagging, “What the fuck, Kaysa? This shit tastes fucking awful.”

As it should. The taste is meant to prevent you from developing an addiction, since it has quite the strong effect.

“Guess that makes sense,” I muttered with a shiver, “Don’t think I’ll ever drink this shit again…” With my complaints out of the way I looked back at Chloe, who was eyeing the empty cup suspiciously. “Okay, sorry for that. So, what’s the sitch?”

She smiled at me, motioning for me to follow her. While we made our way over to Patrick she started filling me in. “As I said, Patrick saw a steadily increasing raise in activity out there. By the time he woke me up things were getting rather spooky out there. Bigger groups of xenos, and by the time I decided to wake you up, we saw more of the bigger models. More Sixes, some Eights, even a couple Nines. From what Patrick told me there is at least one model Eleven and one model Twelve out there somewhere. Worst part though is some strange variety of model Nine that while slower, is a bit bigger and has some strange quill attack. So far we’ve identified it as Variant S, but we don’t know much about it. All that has led us to decide that we might want to deal with the Hive sooner rather than later. From what Atlas could piece together it is most likely towards the eastern edge of the district, maybe even in the next district over, but close enough to be dangerous for us.”

“How about the other shelters? How are they faring?” I asked, although I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to know.

From her expression I really didn’t want to know. She frowned, “We lost one since we came back from our patrol. Castas informed me that the shelter near that brothel that was slaughtered has gone dark. No messages, no contact, no nothing. At this point we think it was overrun by xenos.”

I closed my eyes, mourning for them in silence. Maybe we should have moved quicker… Dealt with the hive before this shit went down.

“Don’t blame yourself. We were in no condition to fight back then,” Chloe said quietly and smiled down at me. I shook myself, then nodded to her. She was right. Still, it felt… ugh. These xeno fucks needed to be dealt with.

“Bet they cleaned out Pleasure Hills then. Lots of biomass, nobody showing up to clean it all up. Even if it didn’t form there, they will have cleaned the place out by now.” I said, just as we arrived where Patrick and Jenna were already waiting for us.

“I said the same thing,” Jenna said with a warm smile and a nod in my direction, “In any case it’s definitely something we need to check out. If they have cleaned out the place we need to make certain of that, and if they didn’t we need to deal with the bodies.”

I nodded at her logic, it did make sense. “Also allows us to check the shelter,” I said, although it wasn’t something I really was looking forward to.

Patrick cut in, “No need,” he said, voice full of displeasure, “I sent a drone around. Door is wide open and everyone inside is dead. Looks like a model Seven got in. Half the corpses have already vanished while the rest are slowly churning out more Sevens.”

I raised an eyebrow. I had heard of Sevens before, everyone had. It was that one model of antithesis that was universally known, at least for the most part, but I didn’t actually know too much about it. “Those were the Zombie aliens, right? I don’t actually know how they work.”

The model Seven is one of the stranger kinds of antithesis. They come in the form of small worms that infect a host and slowly meld with the nervous system, all the way until the host is dead and they obtain full control of the body. Once done they usually walk the bodies back to the hive, but they have been seen sometimes using them to sneak into human fortifications.

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I shuddered at that description, it sounded very unpleasant. “Well, isn’t that peachy. Any way we can deal with them easily?”

“Burn them, and getting Anti-Seven pills for the civis,” Patrick said, “I also talked to the Family, laid out our situation. They have nobody to send over right now, but they did say that they will make it a priority. Hopefully in a couple of hours we get some help down here.”

“That doesn’t mean we can just fuck around though. And if we have more shit walking around out there now we need to deal with the Hive now. I don’t think we have the time to wait and let it grow even more,” I said, scratching my head, “Then again… We aren’t that powerful, so we need to be careful. Do we have anything we can do to deal with the Hive?”

“I have some ideas,” Chloe said, “I can get a rather powerful bomb that should be able to burn out the thing, the problem is getting it into the Hive center. To that end I would like to set up a lure near Pleasure Hills. As macabre as it sounds, the shelter there is already toast, so if aliens gather there it won’t be too much of a problem and maybe that way we can thin the herd sufficiently to deal with the Hive.”

It did make sense, even if it was a rather grim look at things. Regardless I nodded, that would be a good plan. “Okay, so we head there and set up. Anything else we need to keep an eye out for? I’d much rather not have a bad surprise fall into our laps while we are busy with something else.”

“The undercity,” Patrick said immediately, “I can go ahead and try to find the Hive’s exact location, but we need someone to at least check the entrance to the undercity and try to fortify it. If the xenos can get down there and are given enough time to truly settle in, it will be a nightmare to deal with them. Best we try and stop them before they get the chance.”

That was another good point. “Okay, so we go there first then, make sure they are fine. Then we head to Paradise Hills. No clue what to do though should they have gotten into the undercity. Not to be an ass, but I want to deal with the aliens in the redlight district before I go someplace else,” I said, looking around our little gathering.

“No, I feel you there. If they got in we let the rest know. Maybe we can coordinate something with Shrapnel and co,” Chloe said with a nod in my direction.

“Oh, that reminds me,” I muttered, quickly going through my augs while I spoke, “I’ll set up the communications suite again. If you need to just invite people in. Every important thing should be filtered through there to make sure nobody misses anything. If need be I think Kaysa can play secretary for that. Is that okay with you?” I asked my AI.

Kaysa actually sighed at me, before she spoke.

Considering that there is nobody more capable present I will have to do. Would you like your coffee with milk or with sugar, or both?

I snorted at that, “Thanks Kaysa, that helps a lot.”

It didn’t take long for me to finish setting everything up and soon I found my virtual self in the familiar virtual rooms, standing across from an… extremely attractive elven woman?

“Uh…”

I found it prudent to have a physical appearance in this virtual space you created. The challenge of creating a fitting body for myself was… interesting. Took quite the number of milliseconds. Do you like my new look?

That had me snorting again, “Yeah, you look great. Try not to steal my clientele?”

Kaysa indeed looked utterly gorgeous. The proportions of her virtual body were just right to look pleasing to the eye, without being unrealistic and she wore a similar style of dress to my own, although a lot less revealing. In a way she very much looked like a secretary, which probably was the point considering my comment.

I have no interest in that. Humanity’s enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh is not something I, or any other AI I know, shares in any capacity.

“Small mercies,” I said with a smirk, before I focused back on reality. “Everything’s set up. If you find anything, send it to Kaysa, she’ll distribute it to the rest of us.”

With a nod Patrick got up, “We got a plan then. I’ll send whatever I find your way. For the moment I recommend you move as a group until we identify all the hotspots. I work better alone, but I’ll be careful.” And so, with another nod, he turned around and wandered off towards the entrance of the shelter.

Looking at Chloe and Jenna I raised an eyebrow in inquiry and soon both of them were ready to head out as well. We had just started our treck to the entrance as well, when I felt a tug on my attention. Snuffles alerted me to even more xenos nearby, and I sent her out to deal with them. It did also alert me to another thing I had entirely missed. I had even more links to other Hexclaws, a dozen all together, all looking… Strange.

They had a generally human look, by which I meant that the general body shape was human. It was very clear though that they were very alien. They had four arms, two larger where normal arms should be, with two smaller ones underneath. Their legs were digitigrade and had sharp claws, while a long prehensile tail grew from just above their behind. Two strong limbs grew from their shoulder blades, similar to the ones Snuffles had. Their entire body was either covered in an extremely pale skin, or grey chitinous armor, which covered the torso, their lower arms and legs, and the tail, while leaving the thighs, upper arms, and part of the cleavage and neck bare.

Their face was… Imagine a human crossed with an insect. That was the most pleasant description I could come up with. Each had six eyes, two triangles of three where normal human eyes would be, and their mouth was much too wide for comfort and filled with the same sharp silvery teeth that Snuffles had.

In a word they were hideously terrifying. I loved them immediately.

“Wow, Snuffles was busy, wasn’t she?”

I had it devour a good part of the Devouring Rose once it died before I had it follow you here. Snuffles… should be capable of producing a couple more Hatchlings while you are underway.

“Great,” I said, before I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder. Turning around I found Castas, looking tired and uncertain.

“Hey, uhm…” he began, “I heard the news about the Hive and all… You think we’ll be safe here? Not that I doubt your abilities, but you can’t be everywhere at once.”

I gave him a reassuring smile, “I got Snuffles here now and a small army of Hexclaws, plus Jenna’s bot is still protecting the entrance. I’ll leave some of the Hatchlings with you. Just, uhm… make sure people don’t try to shoot them, yeah? They aren’t exactly innocent looking.”

Castas sighed a long sigh, then nodded. “Better than nothing, I suppose… Sorry, people have gotten twitchy. News came around about the Hive and they aren’t happy. We are trying to do what we can to keep them calm, but it’s not as easy anymore. People don’t like being locked in an enclosed room with the apocalypse going on outside and with no hope of help coming. Yesterday things were easier, nothing much going on, they felt safe. Now? I know I can’t order any of you around, and hells know I don’t want to piss any of you off, but if possible, could you try to be quick about the Hive? Just needs one lunatic to rile them all up real good and then things will be a nightmare to deal with.”

He had a point. Normally people could depend on getting evacuated, but we weren’t exactly on the list of people to care about. True, the Family had promised to send someone, but for the people in here that was a slim chance at best, and a complete lie at worst, no matter how truthful the Family was about their intentions. “We’ll try our best, hm?”

“Thanks. Good luck out there, Princess,” he said with his best attempt at a smile, then turned and walked away.

Once outside I stretched once more and looked around. “Y’know, I’m starting to feel really bad for thinking so poorly of Castas before all this. Dude’s really putting his all in making sure shit stays calm and everyone’s safe.”

“Yeah,” Jenna nodded, “Things I heard about him made him look like a monster. And maybe he is and he’s just trying to not piss us off, but I doubt it.”

“To me it looks more like the latter honestly. He’s a smart guy and seems to be the adaptive type. He knows if he keeps us, or specifically Seraphine, happy, he’ll have better chances at getting more pieces of the pie for himself,” Chloe said, eyes peeled for any xeno trying to sneak up on us.

I just shrugged at her comment, “I really don’t give a fuck. As long as he’s helpful I don’t care what motivates him. Now, let’s see about killing some xenos. First things first, the undercity. Then we can head over to Pleasure Hills and start planning on how to deal with the Hive.”