2

I cant help but think that this barren yet fertile patch in the depths of the forest would make a nice place for a base of operations, after all if what Raif says about the antithesis is true the earth is in for a lot of hard times ahead. I'm fairly certain that I could get away with building a cabin, or a shack, or something here as it is likely to go unnoticed by what passes for a government these days considering aliens and what not. Raif promptly informs me that is should by a catalog for that because no matter what I could build myself anything I order will be magnitudes better, and so I spend most of the night chilling in a clearing in the forest planning out my future house. Imagine if you will a nine sided ziggurat with three tiers below ground, and three tiers above ground level built around a tower twice that in height about. The tower would have a diameter 35 feet and reach 6 stories above the top of the ziggurat, each tier of the ziggurat would be a full story in height with the top being 18 feet wider than the tower at it's center, and each level downward would also be 18 feet wider then the level above it. With my current points I could only buy a construction drone for the excavation and what essentially amounts to an empty unfurnished place devoid of all amenities but easily enough upgraded.

I spent the next two days wondering the area in my gear to build familiarity with it while the drone and it's mini drones moved all the needed earth. I managed to stumble across a fair few antithesis in hiding trying to grow into hives. By the time the hole was dug I had more than enough points to allow for functional bathrooms, a kitchen, and both geothermal and solar power. I ordered my new house and watched as it appeared and the drones began once more moving the ground, when done the ground would be sloped from about half why up the forth level while gradually dropping down to its natural level at the end of the edge of the ruined forest. My house has four entrances three on the sixth floor and one by air at the top floor of the tower, one day soon I hope to properly fortify the place but for now everything is fine. I had a phenomenal sleep that first night, though I didn't have any furniture just have my base was well worth it.

Having slept of the towers top floor I was awoken by the sun shining through the wrap around floor to ceiling windows. Now able to look out on the forest from such a height in broad daylight I was some surprised by how far I could see. Slightly to the east I could see the campground I was haunting, to the north and west nothing but rolling forested hills and to the south much of the same until at the far horizon I could just see the nearest small city, I wonder if they can see my tower as well.

I decided to do my morning exorcise in house this morning by running all through the house up and down the stairs and climbing up the greenhouse catwalks as if they were monkey bars. I had just finished my final climb up the spiraling stairs to the tower when I noticed a helicopter flying straight towards my new place. I wonder, briefly, what this is about but in the end it doesn't much matter to me because my house is here and in not moving.

The helicopter continues on its approach and when it about a mile out my armor picks up their coms and I quietly listen in while sitting on the floor at the top of my tower having opened the windows to enjoy the air flow. The windows open in an interesting why for windows, the slide up into the ceiling in a fashion reminiscent of garage doors bending nearly 90 degrees. One day I may add a wrap around balcony but first I need fortifications and furniture, maybe a TV and computer. Once they reach the ruined forest they fly in a slow circle around the clearing, while trying to figure out how this gray metal ziggurat tower some how appeared over night. I stand up during the second loop around the clearing and jog down to the sixth floor and out onto the terrace.

When I reach the top of the stairs to the south I notice that my drone and it underlings have almost completely finished grading the yard. When the helicopter landed six people got out, one in a fancy suit and the rest in black fatigues and body armor carrying assault riffles with hand guns strapped to their thighs. I just stood motionless and watched them as they walk up to and then up the stairs like they owned the place. With the guy I the suit at the rear and the five bodyguards in a semi-circle in front of him they marched up my stairs with riffles ready, Raif was laughing in my head the whole time explaining that id barely feel it if they unloaded on me. With a thought all the entrances to my place shut just as they group reached the top of the stairs. Three of the soldiers took positions beside and behind me while the other two flanked the suit guy, and I still just stood there without moving and silent. The silence stretched into minutes as I just watched them growing more and more tense while the suit guy seemed to be getting angrier by the second. After about five minutes suit guy was about to blow a blood vessel, the guards started getting nervous shortly thereafter and about ten minutes in someone in the copter started complaining about suit guy being an overbearing ass causing one of the guards to snort in effort to not laugh but that caused another to guffaw before quickly trying to stop. When the third guard almost choked trying not to laugh it was the straw that broke the camels back and suit guy almost yelled through his clenched jaw that by order order of the government of the United States of America I was ordered to surrender my weapons armor and all technology ass well as my person for interrogation. I continued to stand silently for thirty whole seconds before I broke out laughing, one minute late I stopped laughing and simply said “no.”

Suit guy opened his mouth to make more demands but I cut him off and told him that he should go find a goat and get fucked because as a citizen of the USA I had the right to bare arms and if he tried to take them I would at Raif's suggestion wipe all trace of him from the internet. To prove the point Raif flooded his phone emails and computers both home and work with goat porn links. When his phone started going off almost constantly he reached into his shirt coat pocket and pulled it out but when he unlocked it to see why it was blowing up it was already playing a goat porn video, and when he tried to close it out two more started playing and no matter what he tried it wouldn't stop, even when he tried turning it off it just kept playing. At this point all the guards were cracking up and trying hard not to and suit guy was getting more and more angry.

Before anything else could be said I launched in to the air and flew away, my flight speed is fast for a quick burst at around 30 miles per hour for up a minute but otherwise tops out at around 15 miles per hour. Once I was in the air I used the burst to gain some distance before I began a leisurely flight just above the tree tops scanning for creatures that I can murder freely. Today the random play list began with Flogging Molly's “Scalawag” although “Walpurgisnacht” by Faun was playing by the time I finally found an antithesis.

I found a group, a rather large one, there were 5 bugs, 12 noodlers, and probably around 50 doggos, and as I lift my mbr to start shooting a few hundred fliers burst from the trees. My auto-turrets opened fire as I gained a bit of altitude while I lined up on the ground based units. I mostly ignored the fliers letting the micro-missiles do the work as I put shots into doggo after doggo and some noodlers then bug the doggo again, and so on. I did wreck a few fliers that got in my line of fire but even after passing though on of them my round would more often than not still hit my target thanks to the fliers small size. The fake government guys show up in their helicopter just hovering a about a hundred feet above me just when I finish killing all the baddies. I of course ignore them and drop a few nanite bombs on the bodies below before setting of in the direction the aliens had been coming from after I few hundred feet I drop to the ground and go on foot, it easier to follow their trail from the ground. The copter follows me at a distance as I manage to take out a few more wondering plants.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As I stalk through the forest Raif convinces me to invest in medical technology so I buy that catalog and a multipurpose nano-machine generator that promptly begins constructing its self, once done it will utilize the things I consume to create a variety of nanites that will make me harder to kill. I'll end up with medical nanites to repair damage and both prevent and cure disease, nanites that will reinforce and strengthen my bones flesh and skin, and nanites that will prevent aging by doing work on my telomeres. By the time the itching finishes I find my self fighting though increasing numbers of enemy units.

I keep dropping nanite spreading bombs as I go but I have been fighting nonstop for almost three hours before I notice the tell tale forest ruin dead zone combo that reveals the presence of a hive. Well this hive is almost identical to the other one but it appears to be more densely populated, it also has far more buds and the only reason I can imagine for that is because this hive has sprouted from a large creek and been hording all the water. I consult Raif for a moment to make sure that my plan in still viable with the water added in, I didn't want this to get washed safely down stream when the dam breaks. Once I have prepared I activate stealth and launch into the air quickly reaching the place I want to be, however just as I'm about to drop the bomb I see an abomination.

My ever faithful stalkers having lost me when I went stealth take this moment to fly into hive air space and as they do all hell breaks loose. Thousands of fliers take off forcing me to quickly drop the bomb and break out puff the magic dragon as my auto-turrets begin to crank out micro-missiles. I wanted to ignore suit guy and his squad but when the triple bodied abomination moved faster than I could see to latch onto the very vehicle that they were inside of I let out a tired sigh and blasted it with as short and careful a burst as I could manage the burst still consisted of a few dozen rounds and though still alive the abomination fell only to die as I opened up again. I was about to carry out my initial plan when the helicopter's engine coughed and the thing started spewing black smoke as it spiraled its way to the ground. Raif highlighted its landing/crash style/ site for me so I was forced by morality to start there right next to the hive instead of working my way in. Interestingly as I cleared the area for the idiot and his people I got to listen to “Flight of the Bumblebee” and I made sure to broadcast my play list over their coms. The pilot managed to land in one piece but the were surrounded even though I was killing every thing that came towards them they still had a cloud of angry birds attacking them and I had to focus puff on the other more ground based sort as such they needed to defend themselves while micro-missiles whittled the flock down from the outside.

Lucky for the interlopers their landing area was saturated with nanites that soon began to show visible results on the small fliers. Its hard for a bird to fly when its wings are being turned into dirt and fertilizer, as such soon the people inside could see through the flock but they saw what was happening to the flock and I think that birthed real terror in them. I didn't listen to their conversation as I focus of my extermination efforts but the tone of their voices made me feel bad for them, I ended up telling them they would be fine as long as they stayed in the copter and didn't break any of the windows. Having ensured they stay out of my way I continued my assault, it took longer almost twice as long as that first hive, partly because of the greater numbers but mainly because of the idiot and his people forcing me to protect them.

Once I finished off every creature at the hive I was tempted to leave, sadly morals suck and though I stayed I did return to stealth and stopped my music listening instead to suit guy complaining to his boss about how I refused to surrender my equipment in spite of his claiming to be government as well as his ire that they couldn't retrieve samples of the aliens because the nanites converted them into high quality soil. About twenty minutes after the hive had been completely broken down a new helicopter flew in and began dropping people in hazmat suits and boxes of equipment, I watched until they were done dropping everything and the helicopter began to fly back to where ever it came from before I decided it was time for me to leave. I scouted the area nearby, killed what aliens I found and then I went back to base the spend some points.

During the trip back I discussed my goals with Raif and by the time I place a weapons control system, a communication system, and a master control system on the top floor (they are attached to and fill the space in the almost conical ceiling) then take off again to land on the roof of my tower I had a plan. First I order 18 rapid fire (2 shots per second) singularity canons that I place around the edges off the roof at a 135 degree angle with the tower wall, then I place 9 full spec long range sensor arrays halfway towards the peak the last thing I do here is place an anti-antithesis nanite cloud generator that immediately begins producing the cloud it is known for, once it is done it will expand outward to 400 meters and any antithesis that enters it will be exposed to nanites similar to the ones from the bombs I use but 75% longer lasting and 50% faster acting. Sadly that consumed almost all of my points, however my clearing is now protected and if need be my singularity canons are able to target anything within line of site as is promptly prove when they all begin blasting stupidly high velocity (65%c) energy beads the size of baseballs into what Raif tells me is space. Apparently this setup allows for my household defensive system to shoot at antithesis in space, the ones currently being shot at are somewhere out past Jupiter.

I find it interesting that the sensor arrays use some crazy faster than light (ftl) science magic but I will not complain about that, I might whine a bit about the wait time needed to determine if the barrage hits its target. While I wait I ask Raif what happens to any shots that miss and also what happens to shots that hit. So the gist of it is that upon impact the energy shell breaks inflicting plasma burns to the target but also freeing the temporary black hole, the black hole then does what black holes do and eats everything it can before exploding a very small fraction of a second later. What I learned from this is “singularity canon is AWESOME!!!!” and “if at all possible never get shot by a singularity canon.” In less than I minute the canons fire stops the canons adjust and the process repeats, then once more, before returning to the neutral position. As I wait I verify that I will get points for killing my enemies at such a range, I will and they will only be docked a tiny amount because of my proximity to the weapons used at the time they were fired.

Eventually I get tired of just waiting and so I start planning future acquisitions, and when the points come in for the kills the canons scored I begin wondering through an around my house installing things I think I might need. First I order 9 maintenance/repair drones, second I place 63 more rapid fire singularity canons. On each of the three above ground ziggurat levels I put one canon at each corner, one in the center of each straight section without stairs, and one on each side of the stairs. I also buy a bed and find myself once more devoid of almost all of my points. As I lay in my new bed after such splurging I can't not smile, the thought of some plant monsters trying to attack my base right now is simply not something I'd want to miss.

Next points I get are going to be dedicated to furnishings, plans for floors will follow in list format.

12th floor is my bedroom.

11th floor is my closet and bathroom.

10th floor kitchen and dining

9th floor armory explosive and exotics

8th floor armory fire arms

7th floor armory melee weapons

6th floor entrance lobby and drone charging stations

5th floor command center, computer room, and game room

4th floor barracks

3rd floor exorcise area and matter reclamation/item production room

2nd floor greenhouse/vertical garden and fish farm access

1st floor fish farm