Chapter 2

I wasn’t sure exactly what I could do with the catalog but there had to be a reason that Cat sent me this info. I was struggling to get any credits and had finally broken back over the 200 mark today. “Inyris, what’s my current point balance sitting at? You said I have enough for the Gardener Biotech catalog but how much is it?”

Inyris answered in her usual calm, almost bored tone. ‘Your current point total is at two hundred twenty-four. I said You have just enough points to acquire the Class I Basic Gardener Biotechnologies catalog. And lastly, the catalog is two hundred points.’

‘This catalog features numerous organic methods of fending off, confusing, and even controlling the Antithesis. I am afraid that I won’t be able to tell you much more than that unless you purchase the catalog.’

“Inyris, You already know that I don’t really have much choice here. My current catalog isn’t really holding its own very well. Purchase the catalog.”

‘Class I Basic Gardener Biotechnologies catalog has been purchased. Points reduced to Twenty-four. With your current point balance, you have enough to purchase the Pollenary Pacifier. This is a type of microorganism that lives in your skin and would be able to produce a cloud of pollen that would confuse the senses of nearby Antithesis into thinking that you were an antithesis for a few minutes. This would only be usable once every six hours or so depending on how much sunlight it gets. It would also only last for around two weeks and would give your skin a slightly green hue. It would, however, keep you from having any more near misses when planting trap near the front line.’

I sat bolt upright. “Uhm, what? Inyris, does that really work?”

‘You are currently the only Vanguard on this world with this catalog but I have calculated the item to have a ninety-seven point six two percent chance of working as advertised with your biology. The variance would in largest percentile include only a reduction in functionality by no more than a twenty-five percent margin of error.’

I laid back down but I could tell I wasn’t going to be sleeping for a little while. “I… I really can’t fault you for that. I would like to purchase the… Wait, did you say that it would turn my skin green and would require sunlight to function?”

‘That is essentially what I stated.’

“Uhm… Okay, I guess I would like you to purchase that in the morning so it will have the best chance of getting a bit of light. Wake me if anything urgent comes up or when it gets light enough for the uhm, whatever you called it to work.”

It was a beautiful morning! There was a wonderfully clear sky letting plenty of sun into the store’s big, and expensive, glass windows. The humidifiers were actually working properly and only making the plants in the store damp. The ventilation system was even working so there was a nice breeze in the store. If only there weren’t sirens blaring warnings and ravenous plant monsters eating people, it would be even better.

I was standing at the window in an anxiety-induced paralysis watching buildings burning in the distance and throngs of people running through the streets below. I could see the emergency response vehicles stopped in the street, unable to move in response due to all the people swarming around them.

The people and traffic had mostly passed by the time I was able to gain a semblance of control back. I carefully reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the small case of pills with trembling hands. I almost had the small green capsule to my mouth when banging on the glass doors outside made me jump and I dropped the whole batch of pills on the floor.

I started to reach for the pills to calm down, only for the banging to resume below. I stepped carefully over the spilled pills and looked out the window between the shelves of funning plants in their special growing racks. What I saw made my blood run cold.

There were a group of about five people trying to get into the front door of the building but it was locked down right now. From my vantage, I could see them in the front door alcove but they couldn’t see around the corner of the building. Coming around that same corner were a pair of ugly, Quasi-dog plant hybrid monsters.

I recognized the creatures immediately from the news. This was the most common type of Antithesis, the model 3 as they had been labeled. I felt a wave of vertigo and panic and grabbed the shelf for support.

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I had to quickly let go as the shelf wasn’t very stable and the sudden shifting of the shelf towards the big, expensive, glass windows shifted my panic to the more immediate problem. In the sudden moment of clarity, I saw the possibility before me and after only a brief moment of pause for things to align themselves, I pushed the shelves with all my might and watched with anticipation as almost a ton of plants, pots, wet soil, and steel shelving went crashing through the glass with little resistance.

The crash below was deafening but the damage of the plant shelf falling three stories to the street below was worth it. The pair of M3s had been right in the path of the falling debris. One had been crushed outright but the other had enough forewarning to jump back a step and only got a highly debilitating wound. One of its legs and half of its face being forfeit to the scything of a topmost metal shelf at just the right angle upon descent.

The nightmarish creature then turned to look directly at me and I knew I was dead! It began scrabbling up the pile of debris that I had made and leaped from there. The damned thing missed the window by only the narrowest margin.

On its second attempt, I wasn’t so lucky. It managed to get its single front foot onto the windowsill and began trying to scrabble inside! I began looking around frantically for a way to stop it.

I was terrified that I didn’t have long before it might gain enough traction on the glass windows below to pull itself inside. I could hear its back feet squeaking across the slick glass repeatedly in its quest to find purchase and a meal. I looked around in ever-increasing desperation.

Finally, I spotted something that just might help me survive. Leaning on the wall a short distance away are the gardening tools for use in maintaining clients’ shrubbery on the rare house calls into the River Heights neighborhood. I could see one tool that stood out to me above the rest.

I grabbed it and a battery for it before I ran back to the window. Slapping the battery into the back of the hedge clippers I grabbed the cheaply made and worn plastic of the handle and squeezed the rigged-up trigger praying it would work. The tool began to buzz and I was worried that every Antithesis in the surrounding three blocks could hear it.

I reached it down to the thick taloned foot anchored on the edge of the windowsill and swung it to the side. The spikes on the sides made contact with the foot and the whirring blades were held at bay. I twisted and angled the trimmer quickly trying to find a vantage to reach its flesh with the blades.

Finally, I managed to make contact but the blades were too dull and the foot was too tough for them to do much good. The Antithesis took note of my attempts though and began lunging as best it could while hanging out of the third-story window. When it first came up at me, I nearly fell backward and I did scream.

Seeing that it wasn’t making enough progress to get itself inside, I decided to keep it that way. I got on my knees near the windowsill and looked down at the creature hanging there. It was terribly grotesque seeing all the dripping green ichor oozing out of its half shorn off face. It still had a leg and the other half of its face dangling just past its right shoulder as it tried in vain once again to lunge at me.

I decided that if I couldn’t cut the outside maybe I could cut the inside. I leaned down yelling profanities that I only half realized I was speaking at all. My goal was to swipe the shears into the side of its head where it was open and exposed.

I almost slipped on the glass at the edge and had to get a better grip. My vision blurred and I realized I was crying but I had to do this if I wanted to survive. I swiped at the thing's head a couple times and made small furrows into the flesh there. It then began snapping the remains of its jaws to try grabbing the trimmer.

I was trying to get another good swipe when it lunged up at me. In a panic three things happened at once. I slipped and my swipe turned into a stab which combined with its lunge to drive the dull wedge-shaped tip of the trimmer deep into the back of whatever passed for its skull. The force of the lunge pushed me back into the window with only a sprained wrist to show for it. Then lastly, not that I knew at the time, but the trimmer wedged sideways shearing what passed for its brainstem off.

The next thing I knew, the Antithesis I was so terrified of just went slack and fell limply from the window to the pavement below with a dull thwack. I was just processing that I wasn’t dead when a sudden voice almost scared me to death another time that day. The voice informed me that I now had a point balance of one hundred twenty points. The voice went on to recommend that I purchase the class I medical utilities catalog for fifty points and buy something called stablemax ultra for five points.

As I stood in the window looking down at the alien below, I suddenly felt myself slip and the alien turned its mangled head full of gnarled teeth up to catch me. As I landed in its maw and it snapped its jaws shut on me, I suddenly woke screaming. I was sitting next to my bed in the floor but was very much alive. “Ugh, Inyris, give me my higher dose. I don’t think I’ll be functioning today without it.” My shaking hands as I made to get up only confirmed my suspicions.

I really didn’t have to wait long for it to show its worth. That very day I was putting out a few more trap plants near the barricade that had been piled up when it happened. A model five rushed the defenses and based its way inside. I was less than a dozen yards away and suddenly, I was in a faint cloud of yellow dust. The model five and the three model threes that followed it in all ignored me and ran towards the waiting guns of the PMCs that were just pulling up.

I had enough time to realize what was going on and then began taking shots at the backs of the Antithesis as they ran away from me using the laser pointer that Stray Cat had left with me. I learned that the damned things aren’t nearly as toughly armored in their rear as they are in the front. That’s probably because they never show their back to the enemy. Well, they did today and they didn’t have long to regret it! I can’t wait to see what else is in this new catalog!