Everyone’s got to breathe, everyone’s got to pay taxes, everyone’s got to shit, and everyone’s got to shit to store. We didn’t invent self-storage, we just made it better.
--Add campaign for Y’haul Y’store Y’stuff.
We only needed one. What are we going to do with twenty Gargelizer Two Thousands? What do you mean they don’t have a return policy? Well, send them to storage. We’ll figure something out later. We don’t have time to deal with this; there’s a deadline coming up.
***
I did not respond, since I had a whole horde of Anti’s bearing down on me. As my experience with the guidable rounds grew, I was able to handle more of the rounds in flight at once. I switched to full automatic, and the round’s whistles blended together into a shrill, warbling tone.
The gun spat out a steady four rounds per second, and I strained to keep control of so many projectiles. With four or five rounds in action at once, I had to plot trajectories for each and guide the rounds along the twisting paths. After a couple seconds, the guidance became more automatic as my hind-brain helped guide the rounds.
The M-4 fell in droves. When a flechette did not kill, it still passed through to damage at least one more. I found that while I wasn’t winning, I wasn’t losing yet. On the other hand, I was getting low on ammo.
“I’m in place,” Haruka said.
I turned and ran. No fancy shooting while backing up; I ran in a flat out sprint.
After turning, I ordered up three of the spiked barricades, and they dropped in an alternating pattern. After that, I concentrated on running while hoping that no M-5cs could fill me with quills until I turned a corner. When the door into the storage room came into sight, I opened the conference call again. “Tara, where are they?”
“A couple squigglies are right behind you. Most are still working through the barricades. Expect mostly squigglies to start. Some of the shell beasts are stuck on the spikes.”
I thought about asking how large the horde was but decided that would be counterproductive. At this point, it was like swimming in the ocean; it didn’t matter how deep the water was when you only swam in the top couple of feet. The door into the storage room was on my right, and I skidded on the slick tiles as I made the turn.
“Careful, it’s slick,” kidded Kaitlyn.
“Hold here for a few minutes, maybe after the first couple die, then pull back.” I moved into the storage space to find it completely rearranged.
Ginny was nearby, providing directions via hand motions as a lifter pivoted a full set of shelves around the end point. The unit had three shelves reaching four and a half meters in height. With the contents still on the top shelf, the ceiling only granted a few centimeters of clearance. Moving them was a delicate bit of work being done precisely at an insane speed, and I was impressed by the skill.
“Wow! This is completely different from before and much better than I expected.”
“Manuel spotted the lifter, and I asked Corie if she could get it running. It’s the only thing that made the change possible.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I see.” I peered through the gaps in the shelves to get a feel for the new layout. It looked properly complicated. “They are almost here. Have folks take a few minutes and dump stuff off the top two shelves onto the floor. Leave anything heavy alone. Anything that can be reached from the floor should stay. We want to block sight and make the floor hard to walk on.”
Kaitlyn overheard me and piped in. “Any way to make the floor slick? It’s already pretty slippery.”
I liked her idea. “Corie, do I have anything that would do that?”
--The Combat Engineering catalog has a sprayer for, well, here’s the full name; it’s a kick: Super Slicker Slide and Glide Surface Treatment. The treatment bonds on contact to create a zero-friction surface. It comes in a spray pack and covers 500 square meters.
For Kaitlyn’s amusement, I ordered it out loud. “One Super Slicker Slide and Glide Surface Treatment, please.” She snickered appropriately.
A double-cylinder backpack appeared with a wand attachment. I handed it to Kaitlyn. “Get the hallway from beyond the first door down to the end wall.” I pointed where the third entry to the storage room stood. “Inside, hit anywhere they would be making turns towards us. Haruka, stay with Kaitlyn and cover her. I don’t think we need to hold the door anymore. Tara, why are the Anti’s taking so long to get here?”
“Not sure. The nearest squigglies are a couple corners back, standing still and doing nothing. Maybe they are waiting for the rest to catch up?”
I frowned. That was not normal behavior for Anti’s. “Odd. Let us know when they start coming at us again.”
“Roger.”
I weaved my way through the maze, dodging the occasional falling box, and finally reached the back corner, where we would be making our stand. In front of the corner we would be defending, a small open area gave clear fire lines, but we did not have anything to stand behind.
--No. You could piece one together, but it would be prohibitively expensive.
“I need a couple crates or boxes, about waist high, on either side of the corner,” I said to the shelf-moving team still present.
One of them scanned the shelves quickly before pointing at a stack of something on the third level. “Tommy, get a couple of those flats, and I’ll get a pallet of something. The lift’s forks can be one with a flat on it, and the full pallet will be the other.” They quickly mobilized, and within minutes I had two elevated places people could stand on by each corner of the doorway. To those, I added a full barrier for cover. Smaller boxes formed steps up to the platforms.
When they were done with the floor, I posted Kaitlyn and Haruka on the improvised shooting platforms. The moving crew joined the evacuation, taking the slick spray pack with them. Around our little corner, I set up Stegosaur barricades, leaving no gaps. In the center, I had a couple pieces of heavy equipment to hide behind for cover.
“I feel like I’m all dressed up for the prom, but she’s not ready yet.” A mid-teen stood to one side nervously. He had introduced himself as Jasper and said that he had volunteered to fill ammo for Kaitlyn and Haruka. I would need to get my ammo directly from Corie, and I had already reloaded my rifle and set a spare to the side.
“I know what you mean. Tara, any word on our guests?” I asked, switching to the conference.
“Two of the shell beasts are clear; they still have the spikes sticking out of them. The closest one is still trying to get free. It should be a couple minutes yet.”
“Good. Ginny, how is the evac going?”
“We’re all at the base of the stairs now or in a room just before it. Tara sent a drone up, and we have a couple Model Threes in children’s wares. Kang says he can deal with that. But we’re waiting to check on the other doors and hallway here.”
“I’m worried about defending that area,” I admitted. “It’s not a good place to hold. And we’re pretty close. We’ll be coming in hot when we do.”
“What do you want to do defense-wise?” she asked.
Since I didn’t have a lot of inspiration for any of the spaces before the stairs up, I gave her some general ideas and let her go with them. “You did great here in the storage room. Do what you can with what you have, and I’ll bless it with Samurai magic when we fall back.” I couldn’t micromanage at a distance, and, despite a lack of experience, she had done much better than could be expected already.