When the First Emergence started, most governments’ responses weren’t to deploy the military or arm their citizens, or even to declare a state of emergency in the hundreds of cities filled with murderous machines. Instead, they focused on protecting themselves and their images. The example of the Battle of Chicago demonstrates this fact.
The Emergence in Chicago, like other First Emergence events, occurred on December 1, 2025, near Navy Pier. Police responders quickly created a security cordon along Lakefront Drive, evacuated the Shedd Aquarium and museums in the area, and were able to contain the Type Ones with small arms fire. However, they could see larger machines digging in along the lakefront. Mayor Jessica Stirling called the U.S. government on December 2 asking for help, but didn’t receive a response until December 4. By that point, the Type Twenty-Ones had started bringing in higher classes of machines, and a dozen or more Class Fours had pushed into the city well past the Chicago Midway and O’Hare Airports. A limited air strike failed to contain the machines, and nuclear weapons were approved for use against downtown Chicago on December 6th.
President Martin’s administration was not the only one that had a fatally slow response to the First Emergence. In China, for example…
* Excerpt from “Apocalypse Then: Refuting Claims of Innocence in Emergence Responses”, by Jonathan Doniger, 2037
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Chapter Thirteen
“You don’t have the mana to Mana Surge, Luciole. You’re at 10 out of 60.”
“So what do you think I should do?” I was inside the bleachers again - the Type Four had left, letting me run there in safety. Now it was back, hanging from the basketball hoop’s backboard and scanning the room. Its yellow light flicked across the bleachers and I pulled back from the crack so it wouldn’t see me.
“I think you should run,” James said. “If you use the bleachers, you can get it to spend time adjusting its height instead of moving at full speed. It also has a damaged leg from your first run-in with it. If you use that to your advantage, you might be able to avoid most of its attacks. That leaves actually getting damage on it. You’re too low for a Mana Surge unless you want your creation engine to go critical and start undoing your wound patches and cannibalizing nonessential organs to make new spells and items, and you don’t have many bolts for your crossbow.”
I checked my Delphi’s magazine to make sure all three shots were in it. “Is that what happened to Overclock yesterday? Tell me my mana count when I buy something. I have a plan. If it works, I’ll get some free shots off before the Mack finds where I’m shooting from. Once it figures it out, I’ll start running.”
“If it buys some time before the real fight starts, I’m for it. I’ll keep you informed of your status block.” James went quiet, letting me concentrate.
Pulling up my crossbow, I propped it on the bleachers’ steel frame. The bolt barely had the clearance to make it through the narrow crack between the rows of seats, but I managed to get the Type Four inside my sights. The red dot hovered over its torso.
I pulled the trigger and the first bolt zipped out, fletching catching on the bleachers. It smashed into the Mack’s small, round body and arcing blue sparks raced across it. Its eye spun haphazardly around the room, locking on to the bleachers, but it stayed yellow.
I pulled the lever back, reloading the bow, and fired again. As the bolt whooshed out from my hiding spot, the Type Four’s eye flashed red and its tentacles started unwinding from the hoop. Then the bolt hit. The blue sparks ripped across its body and up its arms, and the whole machine crashed to the floor! The plan was working!
Not wanting to waste time, I quickly set up my third shot, putting the sights back on the pile of white-steel tentacles. The Mack was quickly untangling its limbs and dragging itself toward the bleachers at the same time, so I pulled the trigger. The arrow whooshed out of the bow - and crashed right into the plastic stage in front of it! I pulled the empty magazine off my Delphi and dug in my pouch for the next one as I sprinted toward the end of the bleachers.
The Type Four didn’t give me a chance to reload, though. It raised its body to waist-height and moved toward me almost like a liquid, its long limbs giving it an impossibly long stride. My boots squeaked as I slid to a stop on the basketball court, leaving a black scuff mark. I threw myself up toward the top of the bleachers. My feet were under me, and I slapped the new magazine of explosive bolts onto my Delphi.
The Type Four stopped and tripodded, its fourth limb reaching up onto the stage. I fired a bolt, then flinched and screamed as fire and white Mack plating fragments burst out and flew everywhere. Had I killed it? Was that it?
No. But I had gotten a good hit in.
The leg I’d sliced with Overclock’s dagger flopped uselessly on the bleachers, connected to its body by charred, holed plastic and a single tube inside. The Type Four retreated, running around to the bottom of the bleachers and using them to climb toward me. I pulled the trigger again to another explosion, this one behind the oncoming machine. I started getting the next shot ready, realized I wouldn’t have the time, and ran.
My boots gripped the bumpy plastic bleachers as I sprinted to the far side. My hair blew into my eyes and I pushed it away. I skidded to a stop at the bleachers' edge. A moment later, a spike erupted from my stomach, twisting and turning before pulling back through! I screamed in terror and…not pain? Where was the pain? I looked down.
Fogform had saved me! Instead of ripping apart my middle, the Type Four’s tentacle had pushed through thick mist that swirled and reformed into solid flesh and cloth even as I watched.
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I launched myself off the bleachers, hitting the floor on all fours as James shouted in my ear. “Go underneath! It’ll follow!”
Head down and body hunched, I ducked under the stage. My chest pumped as I tried to catch my breath - how could I be so winded already? Then I screamed again as a tentacle slammed through the bleachers and ripped into my right shoulder. I fell, landing on my back, as another tentacle broke through the plastic, sending shards of it raining down on me.
“Hit points are 23/40! One bolt left!”
“Reload, tasers, now!”
I held my Delphi close to my chest and rolled out of the way of the next set of tentacles. The roll ended with me facing up, so I quickly aimed and pulled the trigger. The bleachers above me came apart and crashed down in a cascade of green and white plastic, fire, and Type Four.
I looked at my shoulder. The cut had gone deep - I thought I could see bone - and blood squeezed out as I shrugged, but I could still move it. I pulled myself up to my feet.
The taser rounds materialized next to me. I pulled my spent magazine off and slapped the fresh one on even as I ran. “Mana is 6/60!” Behind me, the Type Four once again untangled itself from its fall. This time, though, it moved through the bleachers’ frame, ducking and twisting to make up ground.
I practically flew out from under the bleachers, popping off my Delphi’s stock to make it a true hand-crossbow. My skirts flared as I spun around. The red dot slipped across the Mack’s red eye.
I shot. Then I reloaded. And then I shot again.
The gym filled with a crackling sound as arcs of lightning jumped from one bolt near the machine’s eye to another lodged in between two white plates. The Mack seized up, spasming, and an acrid stench filled the air. The eye went blue. I put my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and sucked in air. I’d done it!
A red glow burned against my eyelids and I dove onto my injured shoulder as the Type Four groaned back to life and moved toward me. Its eye followed me as it pushed itself forward with its two damaged tentacles and dragged itself forward with the two good ones. “Reload! Anything!” I screamed as I fired my last bolt at the machine. It clattered against the bleachers’ wreckage harmlessly.
A magazine of orange bolts started shimmering near me, but the Type Four’s onslaught pushed me away from it before I could grab it. “Mana is at 1/60! HP is at 18/40!” I crab-crawled backwards, then flipped over and pushed off of the ground as I sprinted toward the center of the room.
The Type Four followed. Whatever I’d done with the taser bolts had slowed it down, but without any ammo, all I had to fight with was my dagger, and I couldn’t get close enough to it to use a melee weapon - not with the tentacles flailing around.
I turned the corner near the art hall door and made a long loop back toward half-court, where my reload was. The Type Four swung at me, and I jumped to the side and over the flailing spike. I reached for the magazine, grabbed it, and tumbled across the floor, bow tucked against my chest. Waves of pain surged from my shoulder. I felt the wet spreading across my right side from the wound I’d just torn further open.
“HP is at 15/40 and dropping!”
The Type Four’s tentacle slammed down as I brought my legs in tight, leaving a massive gash in the elk head at center-court. I picked myself up, burning pain in my shoulder, and slotted my last magazine into my Delphi. I ran for the bleachers - mostly collapsed as they were, they were the best barrier I’d get from the Type Four’s aggression.
“HP is at 14/40!”
The bleachers groaned under my weight. The frame, damaged by my explosive bolt and the Type Four’s attempts to kill me, twisted and creaked as I pushed up the stairs. At the top, I looked down. The Type Four extended its four tentacles, wobbling forward as best it could with the two damaged ones, and raised itself to its full, eight-foot height.
“13/40, Luciole!”
I fired my Delphi and a bolt crashed into the broken bleachers below the Mack. I shot again, and the bleachers gave way entirely. Both the machine and I crashed to the ground, a tangle of blown-up bleachers in the way.
“8/40! One bolt left! 2/60 mana!”
My ankle burned. Black spots appeared on the edges of my vision. I clawed my way back to my feet, crossbow still somehow in hand. The Type Four was, somehow, still coming. One of its tentacles was completely off, another unusable, so it crawled toward me with the two it still had.
I limped out onto the court. The Mack followed, just a touch slower than me. Would another explosion destroy it? I didn’t know, and there wasn’t time to ask. I kept limping until I was past the basketball hoop. I leaned against the pads on the wall, letting them take my weight.
The Type Four dragged itself forward. I took aim. I pulled the trigger.
Glass flew everywhere and metal squealed as the frame holding the hoop up twisted violently. The whole contraption tore from the cinderblock wall, teetered, and fell. I pushed off the wall and launched myself away from the ear-shattering crash.
“6/40! Initiating Operator override! I’m ordering medical supplies!”
“Good…good idea, James…” I panted. The empty feeling grew until I felt like I was starving as I found my bearings. The Type Four struggled against the maze of steel pipes on top of it as I pushed myself off the ground. Its white-armored tentacles had cracked and twisted, its body armor sported ripples where something heavy had smashed right into it, and it flailed feebly. I pulled out my stiletto and gingerly made my way through the destruction until I stood next to the Mack.
I put the tip of my stiletto in its eye and pressed down. The red light faded and the gym went dim. Behind me, a tube of QuikClot and a tiny HemoTonic had appeared. I sprayed the pink Easy-Cheese into my shoulder, jammed the Hemotonic’s spikes through my tights, and leaned against the wall as the timer ticked down from 1:45. “James…I won.”
“Yes you did, Alice - er, Luciole. Look at this! Two levels!”
Level Up! Congratulations!
You have reached Level Four! Consult your operator for help assigning points to your statistics.
You have reached Level Five! Consult your operator for help assigning points and learning spells!
“Two levels, huh? Well, it was a tough fight.” I grinned, teeth clenched in pain as the Easy-Cheese did its work and my bones started to ache from the HemoTonic. “Give me a second to get back on my feet, we’ll get the survivors moving, and then you can tell me about spells.”