The alert surprised me for a moment, but I dismissed the file and contacted Eve after a moment. “Transfer me to the closest unit on level 16. In the meantime, take control of the security measures and lockdown everything above level 15 and below 17.”
“[Understood. Initiating consciousness transfer…]”
The familiar darkness embraced me, lingering for what felt like an eternity before my sight abruptly returned. Taking stock of my surroundings, I realized I was in the first row of a unit of Predators. Unlike the base variety, these ones had been equipped with Whiplashes, and their usual tear gas canisters were replaced by stun and fragmentation grenades.
“[Transmitting live video feed…]”
A small square appeared in the upper right corner of my vision, displaying the video from the security camera. It came from one of the larger storage rooms, with orderly rows of shelves and crates having been placed inside. Although the feed was slightly grainy, I was able to make out a hulking thing investigating the stored food, knocking over shelves in the process. In the background, a large tunnel appeared to have bored through the wall. I barely had time to analyze the video any further before we had arrived at the room.
The Predators arranged themselves into two lines, one on each side of the doorway, with me taking the spot directly behind one of the leaders.
“Synchronizing…3…2…1…”
As soon as the countdown hit zero, the door slid open with a sharp hiss, and the lights inside flared to life. The robots rushed in, weapons aimed at the elephant-sized entity in the middle of the room.
“HANDS UP AND DROP ANY WEAPONS. YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON RESTRICTED PROPERTY. SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY,” Several Predators recited simultaneously. I, on the other hand, was too stunned to speak. As the thing turned around to look at the robots, I felt an instinctual feeling of equal parts horror and revulsion rise up inside me.
Its body was slender yet sleek, with alternating black and yellow bands wrapping around its body. Two pairs of delicately thin wings were attached to its back, a quiet buzzing sound filling the air as they vibrated slightly. Green saliva dripped from the giant mandibles on its alien face, and beads of an unknown liquid seeped from the stinger on its rear end. In short: it was a giant wasp.
“Oh fuck…”
“KILL IT!” I shouted, opening fire at the wasp’s face. It reacted with an angry screech, lunging forward at the nearest predator and tearing into it. The rhythmic staccato of gunfire echoed off the stone walls as the other robots followed suit. Most of the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the wasp’s exoskeleton, with sparks flying off as they did.
Using its stinger, it pinned a Predator against the wall while its legs sent another one flying through the air. Luckily, it seemed the tight space restricted the wasp’s movement, and it struggled to push forward through the hail of bullets.
“RETREAT TO A SAFE DISTANCE. DEPLOYING FRAGMENTATION GRENADES IN 3…2…1… “ One of the robots announced. I wasted no time, diving behind a nearby crate for cover. I heard the soft pop of the grenade being launched, and after a few seconds, a deafening bang. Looking over the crate, I realized that a large chunk had been taken out of its abdomen, and pale yellow blood oozed at the grievous wound.
Judging by the wasp’s frenzied reaction, the injury only served to enrage it further. It scuttled forward, using its mandibles to rip the Predator to shreds, and I took the opportunity to aim a few shots at the broken part of its exoskeleton. Unfortunately, my actions drew its attention to me.
“Shit!” I cursed mentally. Jumping out of the way, I narrowly avoided being speared through the stomach. Stone shrapnel struck me as the stinger turned part of the floor into gravel, and I sprinted into a gap in the rows of shelves. Although I didn’t have time to look behind me, I heard the giant monster ripping through the obstacles in front of it in its pursuit. Thinking quickly, I switched my gun to full auto mode and spun around to face the wasp.
I could almost see the surprise on its face as I dove underneath it. My metal body screeched as it scraped across the ground, and I rolled to face upwards. I pushed my gun into the broken part of its exoskeleton, squeezing down on the trigger.
The giant insect shrieked in pain as I emptied my entire magazine into its vulnerable yellow innards. Vile fluids spilled out, completely drenching me. The wasp wobbled on its legs for a few seconds before finally succumbing to its wounds, collapsing on top of me. Its abdomen continued to undulate weakly, until the cold stillness of death set in.
“Ughhh… gross….” I groaned, propping myself up on my elbows. The remaining Predators acted quickly, working together to push the monster off of my legs and dragging me away.
“Eve, you there?”
“[Always.]”
“Great…get Mors down here. He’ll probably know what this thing is. And get some robots to check the structural stability of the place. I’m worried that the grenade compromised it.”
“[Understood.]”
“One more thing: Send as many reinforcements down as possible. I don’t know where that tunnel leads, but I want it locked down tighter than a camel’s ass in a sandstorm, got it?”
“[Interesting simile. Sending reinforcements.]”
Due to the lockdown procedures in place, it took the Deathwalker a while to make it down to level 16. While I was waiting, I had an Ashray Infiltrator brought down and took control of it.
“Greetings, my lord,” he said, spotting me standing outside the room. “If I may ask, what happened? Your golems seem to be on edge.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Take a look for yourself.”
“What…Ah…I see,” he commented calmly when he looked inside. “That’s something I haven’t seen in quite a long time.”
“So? What is it?”
“That would be a Titan Wasp, my lord. Apt name, is it not?” he replied with a wry smile.
I snorted. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.
“I assume you are familiar with aggregates?”
The term sounded familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I had heard it before.
“Eve?”
“[Retrieving data… Aggregates: Large subterranean gatherings of Vitae-infused insects.]”
“Oh. Right.”
“What about them?” I asked, refocusing on my conversation with Mors.
“As you might have guessed, the Titan Wasp is one of the inhabitants of the aggregates. While they don’t have the ability to manipulate laws, thier size and speed more than make up for it. They typically charge into enemy ranks in order to cause chaos.”
“Why’d it decide to attack?”
Mors looked around the room, taking note of all the food and perishable items that had been ruined in the altercation. “If I had to guess, I’d say it smelled the food in the room, and tunneled all the way in.”
“You’re saying it sensed the food through a wall and however much distance of solid earth?” I asked skeptically.
He shrugged. “You would be surprised at the sensitivity of their antennae. I worked in a division tasked with the regular culling of aggregates for many years. Every meal break, we were forced to have a Mage that could manipulate the Law of Dark to conceal us, lest the bugs swarm us while we ate. If we were so unfortunate as to not have one on hand, well, it was better not eat at all.”
“Does that mean we’re in danger right now?”
Mors thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I do not think so. Aggregate activity lessens greatly during winter, leading me to believe that this Titan Wasp attack was merely a fluke. Of course, I would still urge caution. If one could make it, others could be coming.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s something at least.”
The Deathwalker walked over to the Titan Wasp’s corpse and leaned over it, examining the large hole in its abdomen. “Lord, what do you plan on doing with the Titan Wasp?”
“Well, I’m going to have the body taken apart and analyzed. I want to know how the Vitae could mutate an insect to such a degree.”
“If I may be so bold, I do have a request,” he said with a hopeful look in his eyes. When I motioned for him to proceed, he continued, “I would like to take some of the meat. While I haven’t made it in quite a long time, I do know how to make a delicious bug-meat roast. And I think the meat would do Aurea some good too. It would strengthen her bones and flesh like how the Vitae did for the Titan Wasp.”
I chuckled and motioned at the corpse. “Dude, have you seen how big this thing is? If you can find yourself a piece of meat without metal in it, you’re free to take it.”
“You have my thanks,” Mors bowed slightly. Unsheathing his sword, he positioned at the point where the thorax and abdomen met, before plunging it in as deep as he could. “Their weakest points are the joints where the pieces of the exoskeleton meet,” he explained, noticing my curious look. He worked like an experienced butcher, separating the two sections and carving out a chunk of pale meat from the thorax. I had a robot quickly bring a plastic bag for him to put it in.
While I was curious on how he planned to cook it, I had bigger fish to fry. After bidding him goodbye, I ordered my robots to lug the corpse to the fabricator. I could almost hear the metal squealing in protest as the machines struggled to move it. After nearly an hour, the robots finally completed their task. The fabricator whirred to life and began systematically and efficiently disassembling the wasp.
“[Analyzing…Analyzation complete. Subject: Titan Wasp. Subject appears to be an enlarged version of a yellowjacket wasp. Aside from the large size, its biology appears to be similar to their normal-sized counterparts. Key differences include: Increased density of muscle fibers, increased sting potency, and increased exoskeleton density.]”
“So what’s the best way to deal with them?”
“[Blunt force trauma, armor piercing ammunition, and explosives would likely prove to be the most effective methods of dealing damage.]”
“Hmmm…”
“[As a precautionary measure, I suggest we fabricate modified Hammerhead demolition robots.]”
“That's…not a bad idea actually.”
Hammerheads were robots that were primarily used on construction sites. Instead of hands, they were designed with reinforced steel blocks that resembled sledgehammers, which allowed them to smash through walls made of stone, brick, and even reinforced concrete with little effort.
“Only problem is that there’s already too much of a backlog,” I thought, looking at the fabricator that was already back to work making the parts for the two Hurricanes.
“[Solution: fabricate a second fabricator.]”
“We already used all of the metal from my Chassis, remember? So unless you have some boron nitride or tantalum carbide lying around somewhere, that option’s out of the question.”
“[While you are correct that we cannot make a fabricator identical to the one we are currently using, with the resources in our possession, it should be possible to build a simplified version. The simpler fabricator could assist in tasks that require less precision, such as welding and forging simple components.]”
“Let me think for a second…Alright, I agree with your plan, but I want those Hurricanes to be our highest priority. Since we don’t have those Hammerheads yet, I want every Predator assigned to security to be equipped with extra explosives, just in case another one of those giant wasps shows up, got it?”
“[Understood. Reordering queue…]”
The next several days were a blur of activity. Between managing security, overseeing the extremely delicate process of making missiles for the combat helicopters, conducting further research on the Titan Wasp, and planning the infrastructure of Maplepost, I barely had any time to myself. At one point, the mental fatigue was so much that Eve basically forced me to take 12 hours to rest and recover.
While I was in the middle of running diagnostics tests on a set of robots, Eve notified me that I had received a message. “[Venari Stratis would like to speak to you in person.]”
“Venari? What does she want?”
“[She did not say. Should I begin the consciousness transfer to the robot left in Ocaephis?]”
“Yeah, go ahead,” I replied, sighing heavily.
Before the familiar darkness took me, my last thought was, “There really is no rest for the wicked…”