[That should do it for this one. Next building? Oh, wait! What about the stealth servers?] Bomberman had turned and taken two steps before he remembered and rounded on me again. I had just barely retracted to my trash can size again.
[I didn’t look directly but I did find the vault class door that was hidden in a store room that should lead to it. Do you really wanna go down there, muck through all that melted plant, and check? Or should we just skip it and move on since it’s none of our business?]
He stood there and thought long and hard about it before we were interrupted by the colonel.
[You are both needed to check Shelters, not pursue criminal enterprises. There are a dozen more that need emptied and my men are almost back at your position. But you haven’t got anybody to send back with them. Please continue your stated objective.]
[Oorah.] I didn’t even wait, half way through I simply started moving.
Bomberman jumped to catch up. [Fine. But I’m too intrigued by this to let it completely go.]
We wound our way back to the elevator. Apparently opening it for ourselves gave the plants an in because it was wrecked when we got there. I moved in, and then engaged my new repair protocols, taking up all the space in the elevator for a moment or two before shrinking back down in a fresh and clean elevator.
“Okay. That’s useful.” Bomberman stepped in joining me. ”How’d you do that?”
“Matter rearanger class two, plus my primary which has repair and maintenance nanites for starships. Between the two I can fix anything I can figure out how works, plus make new stuff.” The elevator took us up one floor to the surface and opened. “So the next nearest is the one to the northeast?”
“Yeah. Two in the building. After that is a public shelter in a Gen Five housing block. Should have over a thousand people there.”
“Let's make the next one quick, I’ll shoot for the top shelter, you hit the mid. Check for people then do an end run for the housing block.” I got into the street and picked up speed forcing him to mount his dog and have it run to keep up.
“Got it. I don’t know what floors…. Oh, wait. I do now. Nice. Forgot I nabbed cyber warfare from you for a second. It’s still new.” He grinned and shot me the blueprint for the building.
“Forty and Eighty. Where’s the Housing… Oh, I see it. It’s that monster over there right?” I pointed a pseudopod north as we passed a cross street. He nodded as we approached the front door. “I’ll just go up to the roof and fly over. I’ll meet you there, okay?”
“Yeah. Wait you can fly?” The front of the building seemed secure, the windows were wrecked but seemed to be laminate or damage-resistant so they held shape.
“Yeah, sort of. More falling with Style if I’m fully out, but just enough and I can sort of glide. Need to work on it.” As I spoke I extended some ribbons and cut a hole in the glass, bypassing the armored security doors. “Where are we going after that?”
“After that, we can split up. You’re big enough now to manage against anything into the teens. If you hit something too big we’d both have to call for backup anyway. I’ll have Shilla drop you a map of our shelters to check.”
[Besides, we’re on com’s so it’s not like we’re alone, right?] I let myself into an elevator and hit the button for eighty. I still felt apprehension, muted but it was there.
[Fair enough. Hey Snips, is anybody else in the area to coordinate with?] I could hear the grin in Bomberman’s voice as he spoke.
[Awe man. Not you too. Fine. Yeah, there are two other teams. One with a pair of older Samurai one of whom was initialized in the last incursion like Bomberman. You may know her, MurderDeathKill.]
[Crap… Not her. She’s psycho. Shit. Who else?] Bomberman sounded honestly upset about that information.
[Funny she said the same about you. Anyway, she’s with Sam-O-Ray from out of town. Nice guy. On the other side is Drag-On with a newbie like yours. Though that newbie hasn’t got a gimmick yet. She’s apparently all over the place.]
[Got it. If it comes up, offer to link Drag-On with us. He’s Family but not objectionable. Dunno Sam-O-Ray but I’d rather avoid MurderDeathKill.]
By this time in the conversation, the elevator dinged and let me out onto eighty. It was the usual lobby with elevators and a big ass door so it was simple to figure out what to do. I shifted around a bit, extruding my human form, and settled into a military getup before plugging in to access the system.
[I kinda am curious now. Who on earth names themselves MurderDeathKill?]
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
[Samurai don’t name themselves. An elder names them. Kinda like being a Pilot in the Air Force. Your peers get to name you, and if you’re a tryhard they’ll fuck you with the name.] Bomberman chuckles across the link as he speaks. [Hence how I got mine. Fucking Dick of a local Family member in charge…. Never mind. You’ll meet him and get an idea eventually. For now, I’m here and clearing the Vault.]
I did a quick camera check as he was talking and confirmed that everyone seemed to be fine.
[The escort unit is outside. If you’re clear, send them down.] Lieutenant Snips was suddenly all business. [Attention as requested I have linked common communications channels for Teams five and six. You’re live.]
[Sending down ASAP,] Bomberman agreed. [Hey Drag-On, sup?]
“Hello?” I activated the door and the internal sound system. “This is a Samurai, I’m opening the door. You need to prepare for an orderly evacuation to the bus and escort on the first floor.”
I ignored the cacophony that started up inside the shelter, and simply stepped aside as the door opened while listening to Drag-On and Bomberman trade barbs as a way of greeting. Instead, I caught the first person out by the shoulder.
“Help your fellow evacuees. Get them sorted into lines and chunked up for the elevators or stairs based on mobility.” I caught the next person and repeated the process, the third and fourth as well. No one freaked out at a seeming solider, making my decision to be more human-looking a good one in my mind.
Quickly enough The elevators were assigned, left bank for us and right for the lower floor. People started moving, albeit grudgingly and cattily, in some form of order. It still took fifteen solid minutes before the last person out of the vault was out of my sight. I took a quick check of the vault with a couple of micro-drones before hitting the stairs to go up.
[Shoggoth, you ignoring me up there?]
[Oh, no, sorry Bomberman. I was focused on making sure the Managers didn’t step on anybody in their urgency to flee. Fuckers were completely inconsiderate.]
[Yeah they’re like that.] A new voice came across the line. Thinking back I recognized him as answering to Drag-On. He sounded butch but spoke falsetto. [How are you doing honey?]
I blinked. Paused a moment thrown by the dissonance, then went back to going up the stairs. [I’m fine. About to head to a nearby Megabuilding housing block. Just hit the roof to make my glide over.]
[Oh really, a Shoggoth can fly?] Drag-On sounded quite amused. He also sounded like he was a Full on Okama.
I’m okay with that. To each their own after all. Those in glass houses after all.
[You’d be surprised what an amorphous blob of angry eyes and plasma breath can do.] I was not expecting the vote of confidence from Bomberman but accepted it in stride.
Instead of responding I simply stepped off the edge, extending my flight organs out of the humanoid forms back to fly over to the roof of the Gen Five Public Resource Housing Project.
[Bomberman I’m going in from the top. Going to saturate it with scout drones on my way down. Fucker’s a hundred stories tall. Has shelters every ten levels. I’ll meet you in the middle?]
[Yeah. The military just left with the last shelter. I’m on my way. Probably a little lower than middle at this rate.]
[So you’re just an amorphous blob then?] This voice was new. Female and fresh. Probably in her twenties, nineteen maybe.
[Sort of. I do have an endoskeleton I can mimic a person with for talking and interacting. But I don’t have a really set form with it. Just use it to look like a generic soldier to not freak out the civilians.]
[Oh honey! You should have the most beautiful form possible! Especially if you’re going for Eldritch Horror. There are only two types of those, the mind-bendingly terrible and the mind-bendingly beautiful.]
I hit the roof of the Brick of a building and looked around for an entrance. The roof was apparently wide open to a central shaft so I started that direction, intending to just lower down the easy way.
[That’s a solid point.] I agreed. [Perhaps a generic gender-neutral timeless beauty would be appropriate. Go full Uncanny Valley with it.]{What do you think Naille?}
<>I think I have the perfect pattern! Based on your former browsing habits even. Allow me to apply it. Former browsing habits? I let that one go, no time at the moment.
I waited at the edge as my whole exterior changed, absorbing everything but the weapon in my hand. Soon enough I looked like a bloody Cultivator, timelessly beautiful. Such that you can’t even tell if Jade Beauty or Young Master should be applied. Naille showed me a 3d render on my AR.
{It’s horrible. I love it. Send that out to everybody.}[How's this for terrible and beautiful?] I shifted around and began to lower into the central area, dumping all my drones to check the floors as I went down, aiming for the first vault on ninety-five but taking it slow.
[Oh god yes!] Drag-On made a loud vocalization that drowns out everybody else. [Honey! Whoever made that is a goldy sculptor!]
[Naille, my AI did it. Thank them.]
[<>You are quite welcome. It was entertaining to try and come up with something that would fit for humans taste.]
[You amazing little alien! Now I need to see this in person!] Drag-On seemed to be getting a bit rabid.
[Later! We still have places to clear!] The new girl was definitely harried with herding Drag-On, like a bunch of cats.
[Oh little Alex-Chan! They’re just a little off from where we are! And such a big building. Surely we can go help!]
[We’ve got this.] Bomberman sounded heavily amused as he added his two bits. [The sooner each region is cleared the quicker people can get back to their lives.]
[Fair at this point you should be clearing the antithesis and letting people free in that Gen Five. Just be sure to lock up behind you before you go.]
[Already sealed the front door. Kid, did you get to the top?]
[No. But I will now.] I turned my attention up, focusing on the giant slab that was set to cover the overhead. {Naille, close that will you?}
<>On it!
[We’re not finding any antithesis up here on the upper floors. Just a few Birdys.] I was currently being swarmed, probably because the doors were closing. Extending ribbons I cut them down, letting the corpses fall to the floor hundreds of meters below. [And clear now. But I’m only down to ninety-five.]