“Good. Okay. How far to the shelter?” He relaxed and planted his hands on his hips.

“About…eighteen floors? It’s on floor thirty and then another on seventy.” I shifted into the shaft more to get a better look. “If there was a tactician here I doubt there will be anything but attack units above us. Maybe some were under control?”

“Okay. Other Ideas? We can’t let them be. Need to kill them.” He looked out the same door I had opened and shifted between down and up.

“We could just drop floor-clearing grenades on each floor?” The look on his face told me all I needed to know on that subject. “Or we could maybe lure them out?”

Glancing at my points told me I made a lot off either those zombies, or maybe the controller. Didn’t really matter, points are points, and I’m running low.

Points: 188

“A Lure would work. But I don’t have a catalog for that.” He pulled back and leaned against the divider between the elevators. “Do you?”

“No, but I have a hundred eighty-eight points. Would that be enough for one?” I glopped out further into the shaft testing if I could climb it.

<>You could. But you’d need another catalog for dispersal.

“Naille said I can get the catalog for a lure. But I have no way to disperse it.” The shaft and the anchors I could find inside it seemed to hold, and I could move, but not fast and not with a passenger. Instead, I reentered the hall and headed for the stairwell.

“I’ve got that covered.” He hopped to catch up. “I’ve got a couple of levels deep into exotic explosives.”

“Can we just do that? Share catalogs?” I stopped and turned a set of eyes on him.

It occurred to me then that I was handling having multiple eyes, focused in wildly different directions quite well. Something for later but probably had to do with either my older cybernetics or long use as a pepper shaker. In the end, it didn’t really matter to the situation at hand, merely a curiosity.

“Yeah. You just need permission. But it’s usually just a one-time thing. You’ll need permission basically every time. Not many Samurai are willing to open their catalogs for anybody permanently.” I entered the stairwell and scooped him up, causing a startled grunt before we began ascending.

“Naille I permit you to purchase the catalog needed.”

<>Done. It’s one hundred points.

“Ouch. A hundred points? Damn. Okay. Can I borrow a grenade catalog?” I stopped at the next floor.

“Sure kid.” He smirked at me.

“Naille. Grenade me.” I stuck my best manipulator out and took the box that appeared on the deck next to me. Instead of throwing it I activated it, held it, and opened the door.

Points: 88 → 38

“Ouch, fifty points for this grenade….” If I had a head to shake I would have.

Nothing seemed to happen. If it was releasing anything it was colorless. It took sniffing it to catch a whiff of scent from it. It smelled rank, like a lawn on fire.

“Remember kids, don’t try this at home,” I called cheerfully as I caught the scrabbling sound of claws from a few floors up. Turning I extruded my cutting laser and my gun, ready to shoot.

“Heh, seems to be working already. You shoot in the shaft, I don’t trust explosives in here but I have more than just that.” Bomberman chuckled as he spoke. I responded by extending another pseudopod and pointing down, where I was hearing more scrabbling. “In fact, maybe you should prop the door and retreat onto this floor.”

In response, I simply ripped the door off and shoved it into the cubicle farm beyond, using it as a ram to clear the way to get deeper onto the floor. This let me target the door with everything as a choke point. It didn’t take long before I opened up on the first few coming in. Or for them to overwhelm my fire with sheer numbers. Grenades started arching out to either side.

They emitted a particularly annoying high-pitched sound, one I recognized from earlier. It took seconds to isolate and ignore it, all thanks to Naille.

[Thanks for that.]

<>No problem.

[I need more ammo. And maybe a bigger gun eventually.]

<>Your points are going up so that’ll be possible soon. As for the new ammo, I’ll just drop it straight into you.

[Thanks.]

Time jumped up fast again and I found a new magazine floating in my armor. Quickly using a small arm to swap it out I went back to firing. The cutting laser was nice, but not super fast. It could liquefy steel, given a few seconds, yet plant matter started burning, and that made it harder to cut them in general. Especially when they weren’t holding still.

They swarmed in on us regardless. I ignored the point counter as dogs and tentacle bears threw themselves into our grinder. Most of the room was covered in sonic grenades, but Bomberman kept throwing out other kinds. Some with hair-thin wires sticking out that spun and shredded things, others that shot out needles that melted plant monsters quickly. A lot of plain old explosive types. The bodies kept stacking and melting into goo. For a solid five minutes, we kept the fire on, taking them out as they came.

“Talk about a mad minute.” Bomberman seemed exhausted as he spoke. Enough so that he had slumped into my side. “My arms are killing me.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The fuming grenade I had in my claw emptied itself a couple of minutes prior. So I dropped it before focusing an eye on him. “Really? I would have thought you’d be geared for throwing. Also, I think we cleared most of, if not all, the building. Plus that was more like five minutes.”

“I agree.” he gave me a nonplussed look. Shrugging he stood up. “I do have mods to make throwing easier. But at the same time, it’s wearing on me. I really should have gone a different route earlier.”

“Nothing says you can’t evolve. It’s something organic life is good at.” I turned and started for the stairwell again. “Come. We have two shelters to check.”

Points: 38 → 483

[That number seems high for the amount of damage I did.]

<>You split everything evenly with all other Samurai in the battle. In this case, it's Fifty-Fifty. What's more, you got a 7% increase for a cooperation bonus.

[Nice! Maybe now we should look at a better weapon?]

<>Opening up class one exotic grenades would be a good idea too. That way you can make lure grenades on your own. Perhaps go with something halfway from here and your preferred fire for new weapons and go with a class one Plasma Casting Weapon catalog?

[Cost?]

<>Fifty for the grenades, one hundred for the plasma weapons.

[Done deal.]

Points: 483 → 333

<>Now for the weapon, might I recommend a Strohl munitions plasma cannon? Now with an ominous hum sound standard. For one point extra it can even make a “Thoom” sound when you fire.

I paused long enough Bomberman poked me for not moving. I held up a pseudopod to him. “One moment. My voice just offered something that makes my meat brain go burrr…. I need a moment to clean my shorts.”

<>So that's a yes then? It’s only a hundred points.

[GIVE ME!]

A box appeared and I ignored the point total dropping by a hundred and one points as I ripped the box open and absorbed the new toy. I extended it and primed it. It was a grip with a loudspeaker that had been rounded towards the back more giving it a bell shape that felt oh so satisfying.

“That… is ominous. It fits you perfectly somehow. Please don’t burn the building down around us.” He backed up a little, raising his hands even though I was pointing at the door.

“It’s mostly concrete. It’ll be fine. I’ve already blown up the sub-basement.” I released the trigger and pulled the muzzle back. “Time to go up. I’ll pop another grenade when we get to the right floor. Bought the exotic grenades catalog for that purpose entirely.”

<>Just be warned, when you do it it’ll only draw in a few floors, I used a class three from him, your class one won’t have as much oomph. Though you did clear out the building with that one.

“Oh. Naille says we cleared the building. Won’t hurt to be cautious but still. Up we go.” I started in the direction of the stairs again.

Once there I offered the seat again instead of getting grabby. He seemed to not like that last time. He hesitantly hopped on again allowing me to start moving up the stairs again, this time I didn’t stop until I arrived at thirty.

“I’ll go first this time? Uh, where is the vault?” He hopped off and tried to push past me.

I moved aside, allowing him to pass. “It’s a cubical farm, but the central third is the safe room. The door should be directly in front of you about forty meters away.”

Thank you Naille for the mini-map in the bottom left of my vision. I followed him in, weapons extended and ready. Not that anything came at us. The room was dead silent except for the sound of electronics interspersed around the room. I hung back as Bomberman moved up and tapped away at the interface next to the slab of metal that was used as a door.

“Hello? Is anybody in there?” I didn’t catch the reply to him as I had turned to focus all my sensors on the surrounding floor and the door.

A minute later he approached me again, tapping me on the back of my armor. I turned an eye to focus on him.

“They’re fine, no issues. Warned them about the prevalence of sevens. Apparently, they have anti-seven pills in there so we should go up.” He pointed at the stairs absently.

“Yes, the basement was the same. It should be fast unless you want to try another lure trap between here and there?” I started moving, extending a pseudopod for him to ride as I went.

He hopped on again, apparently less weirded out by me now. “Yeah. Let's try on floor sixty, it sounds like a good spot..”

“I’ll need to borrow your class three exotics again to get a good range. Class one can only cover a couple of floors.” I didn’t even slow down as I entered the stairs, chugging away to climb to the proper floor.

“Sure. You have permission for that.” He nodded and patted my back. “For a creepy fucker you’re a good egg.”

“Thank you. I was trying to instill fear in the hearts of my enemies, not regular people.”

“I hate to tell you this, but they don’t feel fear.” He stifled a laugh as he responded.

<>He’s correct. Individual models are incapable of such things.

“Oh. Well. Whatever. I am kinda digging this now.” I shrugged, almost throwing him off by accident. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. As long as you’re having fun with it.” He laughed heartily until we stopped. “Why did you stop?”

“We’re here.” A pseudopod extended to indicate the floor, Sixty. “Naille, grenade me.”

I popped open the box, extracted the grenade, and activated it within seconds of its arrival. Proceeding to do the same thing as last time, using the door to bulldoze the cubicles deeper into the room to give me a clear killing field. This time I had more firepower.

Sadly after a minute, the grenade sputtered out and we didn’t have any visitors. We waited four more just in case.

“Guess that’s all of them.” I sighed, a horrific sound now since I was only toning down the creep factor for civilians. “What a waste of fifty points. Ah well. Shall we?”

Points: 182

“Let’s.” He climbed back on when I set up to carry him and we lurched off at what would be a brisk jog for him. I didn’t even need to slow down for the stairs.

Floor seventy came up quickly enough, there were only about twenty more floors or so that were all executive floors for the really big wigs then some for a parking garage and a communications tower. They all had a couple of exclusive elevators straight down to the safe room on seventy, so there wouldn’t be anybody else higher that survived.

“So, basically this whole floor is a panic room. There’s a space with a bunch of elevators here, then the panic room door directly opposite. It should be nice and fancy and expensive. I’ll wait just outside after covering you to the door.” I moved out of the way and pulled the door open from the stairwell.

After peeking through, a pseudopod with an ominous hum coming from the bulbous end swept the room. Seeing nothing, even with my level of enhancements, I withdrew and let him through. I didn’t even want to hear what was going on, afraid I might do something stupid. The company higher-ups weren’t on my nice list after all. I only paid enough attention to make sure he didn’t get ambushed, the rest of my attention went to the stairs to make sure nothing was following any leftover scents.