[CHAPTER 15]

Leo caught up to where Kat was leading their party. They walked in silence for a couple minutes as Leo followed the trail of claw marks, dried liquids, and various other marks left by the passing Antithesis. Finally he gathered his whirling thoughts enough to ask, “That’s a lot more new gear than I expected. Anything interesting?”

Kat began listing off her upgrades as they walked, still keeping an eye around them. “Not too much. The armor distributes some kinetic energy to reduce how hard I get hit and the duster has some piercing protection. They both also have some heat mitigation tech in there from your catalogs. Beyond that I’ve got my shotgun and a bunch of fancy bullets. Ran out before I could get much in the way of turrets, but I can buy them later.”

He nodded. “Sounds like some good gear.” They continued on in silence. Leo couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard some snickering from behind them. But when he looked all he saw was Hawkins and Burns marching along, straight-faced.

He turns back and almost misses where the track he was following suddenly swerved into an air vent near the ceiling. “Well shit, what now? Are we able to get a blueprint of the building to figure out where that goes?”

Aegys spoke up in the comms. “I pulled a blueprint from the shelter network earlier. Looks like that air vent has a maintenance access in the next mechanic’s closet. Ahead on your right.” A short distance ahead one of the doors started glowing.

Hawkins let out a low whistle. “I could get used to having AI help during ops. Makes life a lot easier.” Burns just grunted in acknowledgment as they all hurried forward.

Leo was about to open the door when Hawkins stopped him. “Hold on now, we don’t know what’s behind that door. Do either of you have some kind of camera we can stick in there?” Both Kat and Leo looked at each other before shaking their heads. Hawkins just sighed. “Alright, here’s the plan. I’ll pop up this shield while one of you opens the door, that way if anything jumps out at us it’ll hit the shield. Questions?”

There were none so he got set up in front of the door and Leo got ready to open it. Opening the door quickly, Leo got ready to shoot something but nothing happened. A moment later Hawkins relaxed. “Seems nothing wanted to play, still, better safe than sorry.”

“Thanks Hawkins.” Leo said as he led the way into the small room. Inside there wasn’t much beyond what you would expect to find in a maintenance closet. Some cleaning chemicals, tools, a mini-fridge. Set into the back wall was what the team needed, an access door letting them into the air vents and other various pipes used to make the stadium function. He pulled out one of his pistols and slowly opened the door to reveal a bare hallway just tall enough for someone to walk without stooping and barely wide enough to not brush his shoulders on the walls.

He pulled back out and looked at his team. “It’s gonna be a tight fit in there. Especially for you Burns.” The man just shrugged. “I’ll go in first since I can put up a shield, Kat should probably take the rear in case some Antithesis decide to come in behind us. That puts you two in the center, make sure to keep some distance between each other so we don’t all get squished together.”

Hawkins spoke up, “If we do come across something in there, make sure to take a knee if you can. We won’t be able to fire around you otherwise.”

Leo nodded before turning back to the tunnel and delving in.

‘What should I be on the lookout for here? I have a couple ideas already but I’ve recently had the thought that my game knowledge doesn’t exactly translate all the time.’

Aegys snorted.

‘Sounds good. Please make sure the others are aware as well.’

He continued down the hallway for about five minutes before he began to see evidence of the Antithesis in the form of vines growing within the various pipes and cables on the wall. Glancing at the ceiling above them he could make out some more Antithesis matter there. He pointed it out to Hawkins behind him before continuing on.

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The tunnel was starting to feel claustrophobic. There were no alternate hallways, no doors leading out, and seemingly no end in the distance. All Leo could see was a gentle curve going in front of him. Finally, he spotted something different. There was a set of stairs set into the right side of the hallway. Raising a fist above his shoulder Leo stopped to observe the hallway. The vines he had been following seemed to come from this tunnel.

Leo spoke quietly into the team comms, “Looks like we have an offshoot tunnel where the vines are growing from and they go both back where we came from and towards the rest of the tunnel. I think we found our entrance to the hive.”

Kat responded, “Finally. I was starting to get claustrophobic here. Let’s get in and burn this thing out.”

He glanced back to see the other two nodding so he turned into the stairs and began to descend the steps. After a couple seconds he came to a landing with two hallways going to either side. As he got closer, his attention was pulled to the ceiling above the landing where he was just able to make out the form of a Model Four. Raising his pistol he filled it full of crystal.

The corpse thudded into the landing with the tinkling of falling crystal. “We’ll need to be on the lookout for hidden Antithesis. Just took out a Model Four.”

Target Eliminated!

Reward - 15 Points

“Holy shit, I didn’t even see it there.” Came Hawkins awed voice. “What did you even hit it with?”

Leo realized he had not fired his pistols since he ran into the Nine. “Some pistols I got before I met y’all. They fire crystal shards that play havoc with Antithesis bodies. Gotta be careful with ambient heat though.”

The group continued moving down the long stairway as Hawkins replied. “Well shit. Think I could get one?”

“I might be able to swing one for you later. No guarantees though.” Leo looked around carefully as they passed another landing.

“Hell yea. I’m gonna get a minigun and turn a Four into a fancy chandelier.”

Leo just shook his head and kept sneaking down the stairs. The farther he went, the more the air changed. The smell of metal and grease turned into the damp smell of dense vegetation. The air got more humid as the walls turned from the gray of concrete to the greens and browns of the Antithesis vines and roots.

The group reached the bottom of the stairway where there was a large room with lockers, presumably full of gear, on the walls around them. On the opposite side of the room stood a door, or rather, what used to be a door. Instead there was a roughly broken opening with roots and vines exploding out of the opening and consuming the entire room.

Leo paused on the last step, not willing to step into a room that reminded him so much of every pre-boss room he had seen in any game. Instead, he spoke quietly into the team comms. “I think we found the final approach to the hive. We should probably pause here and figure out our game plan.”

Burns spoke up. “Naw, back up to the last landing. I’d like to have some distance in case we get surprised. We’ll have a better chance of avoiding the hive taking notice.”

Leo slowly backed up the stairs, keeping an eye on the shattered doorway to watch for any Antithesis coming in. Once the room was out of sight and he was on the previous landing he relaxed marginally. “Here’s the situation. It looks like there are a bunch of roots that broke through a door down there. We may have to clear them out before we can get through because it would be a tight fit for any of us. I can only assume that the hive is just on the other side, but I’m not sure. I would expect a heavier Antithesis presence if that was the case.”

Hawkins spoke up, “It is a bit odd. Most of the hives we assaulted before would have many more Antithesis before you could ever get close. Do we have any way to get eyes on the situation without sending one of us through the door? A drone of some kind?”

Leo shook his head and looked over at Kat. She shook her head as well, “Buying this new gear cleared most of my points. I have just enough to buy more ammo if I need. Usually Echo would be the one to buy all the drones so I didn’t even think about it.”

Hawkins sighed heavily. “Nothing to be done for it then. Aegys, what is on the other side of that door? Do the blueprints show anything?”

“Nothing beyond a large room. The blueprints are blank beyond the various entrances to it almost like what was supposed to be there was removed. There is no record left anywhere in the system either. It may have never been uploaded.”

They all sat there for a few moments trying to think of a way to solve their problem before Leo spoke up. “Sitting here thinking won’t get us anywhere. For some reason there are no Antithesis over here so me and Kat can’t gather points to solve the issue. Aegys, my acid should melt through those roots without issue, correct?”

“You are correct. You should be able to concentrate the acidic compound to melt through rather quickly.”

“At this point I think we should stick to the oldest advice in the book, ‘No plan survives first contact.’ and make it as simple as possible. I’ll melt through the roots and then we move through the door. Beyond that is what Samurai are best at, we can buy whatever gear we need to adapt. If we get overrun, we retreat through the door and I set up hard-light walls to delay anything coming after us. Questions?”

Nobody had any and so, with plan in mind, the team made their way down the stairs. Upon reaching the room they had to carefully cross to the door since the floor was covered in roots. Leo stopped in front of the door and tried to peer through but could see nothing through the various leaves and vegetation that filled the door. He glanced at the rest to make sure they were ready before beginning to charge his gauntlets with extra concentrated acid.