Sometimes the only smart move is to relocate and redecorate. It’s time to drop a bang and set wheels to heels.
--Exeter Dan, live stream while running from a horde of antithesis that caught him by surprise.
***
In the corner of my glasses, a camera view showed two of the doors from a high angle. The large aliens had rammed the shelves, and now they were pushing against them with all six stubby legs. The camera shook and started to lean over into the room.
“Run!” I ordered. The other rifles stopped as Kaitlyn and Haruka sprinted away. The shelves toppled over, one into the other like dominoes. I backed up to the door frame but continued to kill Anti’s while the shelves toppled into a giant mess. Over the debris, I watched as one of the heavy M-6s raised up on its hindmost pair of legs and slammed down onto the pile in front of it. Metal shelf supports bent, and boxes collapsed into a flattened heap. It moved forward a few paces and repeated the action. They were making highways—flat channels for the Anti’s to bypass the broken remains of our maze. Behind them, a dozen M-5Cs formed a long, straight line, and their tails cocked back in unison.
I ducked behind the jamb and kept moving along the wall as I heard the impact of a hundred thorns landing in our holdout. The wall shook as thorns blasted through the plaster around the doorway.
"Purchased: Kniesen Enzymatic Corpse Reduction
Cost: 20 Remaining points: 3,913”
The stretch of hallway between the storage room and the stairwell was mostly straight, with only two turns forming an extended dogleg. Fortunately, the first turn was blessedly soon, or I would have been a pincushion. I still had no idea if the enzyme cloud would deter the Anti’s or not. At the least, I figured it would fog up the air and make it harder to target me. Either way, I cleared the two corners and was soon in the final straight hallway to the emergency exit. “Stay left. They’re not following you yet.” Tara said. I must have passed by one of the drones.
Ahead of me, the hallway opened to the left. Beyond the opening, I could see several makeshift platforms. One of the shelf movers stood still in the hallway, waving me on. She had the slick spray backpack on. I started to slow down to be last, but she said. “Go on. I have to fill in the safe path behind us.”
I shook my head and went on in. She followed, spraying the floor and walls behind her. Coming into the room, I saw that Ginny had done an excellent job setting up defenses using the only thing available: office furniture. About six meters into the room stood shooting towers made from filing cabinets and desks fronted by cubicle dividers, and a short wall of tables and more cubicle dividers bent back towards the opening. As the sprayer and I came though, a team slid a final side wall in place to close the kill zone off behind us. Beyond the towers, several standing partitions stood in a cascade. They should prevent any Anti’s from seeing the civilians still waiting to go up the stairs.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
I quickly walked around the defenses, reaching over the walls to drop a Stegosaur every few meters. Before settling in, I hurried over to the other side of the stairwell. Ginny’s workers had stuffed the hallway full of furniture and sealed it with foam to prevent trouble from behind. At least we’d hear them destroying the furniture as a warning. I added three more Stegosaurs and a barrier. The last of the foam sealant went to secure the barrier to the walls.
Back at the main fort, I saw Kaitlyn grinning. At my raised eyebrow, she explained. “The feed’s going bonkers over the sliding aliens. They want more.”
“Too bad we couldn’t have them sliding into a wood chipper or something,” Haruka added.
“Or a pit,” I said while staring at the floor in our killing zone. “Does anyone know what happened to the Wallcutter stuff?”
Ginny replied. “I had it sent up since I couldn’t think of a use here. Why? Holes in the walls will only let more Anti’s in.”
I started climbing up on one of the platforms. “What do you call a wall on its side?”
Haruka was grinning. “Matt! We’ll need some way to get over the barricades.”
“Only one direction. I’ll need an exit, something extended over the spikes.” I leaped out into the killing field, landing in a roll. As proof of how good an AI I had, a new squeeze gun dropped into my outstretched hand while I continued the roll into a stand. I started to make a single loop on the floor, extending into the greased space and covering most of the space inside the barricade.
--You’ll probably have to do two passes. Floors are usually thicker and stronger.
I nodded and started to apply it thicker before starting on a second pass. Everyone waited in silence. Down the hall, I heard the skittering of claws on tile. Even while still spreading the line, I added two of the trigger flags at separate spots. As soon as the can was empty, I ran to the side wall, where a ladder was leaning out over the spikes while two people held the other end. I jumped on board, and they started levering me up while I climbed. As soon as I was up high enough, the rifles started to fire. Hands pulled me along the ladder, past the barricade, while bullets whizzed past my feet. The gunfire ended. Getting around to my firing position, I saw five or six doglike bodies lying in the hall.
“I do have two unused laser pistols if anyone wants to volunteer. But anyone who is not armed should get out of sight and be ready to evacuate. There are emergency responders up at the top, waiting to help with the last set of stairs, so everyone should go all the way up to ground level. Don’t bother waiting at the top of this stair; keep going on out. Once everyone’s up, we’ll clear out of here. I know we’re all tired. We only have to hold a little longer, and then we can all relax.” A wave of M-3s turned the corner and started sprinting toward us. “End of speech. Time to kill.” I opened fire on the incoming horde.