[Well that solves that. Thanks, Naille. Anything else damaged beyond repair?] I monitored the dozen-plus swarms as they hit each building, nothing unusual so far besides some random plants hunting for leftovers.

[<>Not really. Most have already been healed, such as your fine motor control and perception. Things went smoothly as soon as the human-made knock offs were replaced by higher-grade class two variants.]

[Fucking corpos…,] Alex growled over the coms. [What the hell did they do to you?]

[Dunno. Not really anyway. Most of the files I got on myself were redacted. There was a cyborg killing machine experiment using comatose brains. Guess they figured we wouldn’t need our memories if we were just going to be organic CPUs. Something about dreadnaughts and the glory of the emperor? Whole thing fizzled for some reason and they transferred the viable “Fuzzy Logic Nodes” to a new project. Got stuffed into a janitor drone and been doing that since before I woke up.]

I began moving to the nearest building. I would clean it while checking the seemingly viable Shelter. Wasn’t hard to hack the building to open all the elevator doors at once to pull the elevator blender idea again. I was set up and started lobbing sticky lure grenades up the shaft and onto the walls at intervals before anybody else said anything.

[So they just cut up your still-living brain?] Alex sounded almost as disgusted as when we were talking about eating antithesis.

[Basically. One of the few mostly clear documents was a release form from a family member, who was redacted from the file, to pull the plug on me. Another was a signed organ donation form. But all the signatures on everything was redacted as well as names and dates. There was another form that I can infer was the one releasing my still-breathing “Corpse” to the company. Don’t even know which company since that’s a name that was also redacted.]

Clearing the building was actually easy doing it this way. Just hack the building, use a few lures along the open elevator shaft and blend, then eat all the plants. They just ran right into my gaping maw. Stupid plants.

[I know someone. Send me the file and I’ll see if we can find something sugar.] Drag-On was somber in their request, not that it mattered to me.

{Send them the full file we got.} I started up the shaft, aiming for the floor the shelter was on to check in directly. [Man, I wish they connected the damn shelters to the building network in some of these buildings. Directly verifying viability is such a pain in the ass. I’d rather clear the building and chat over the network instead of having to go directly interact.]

[I know, right?] Bomberman sounded just as annoyed as I felt. [There’s set standards for capabilities but none of them say anything about isolating the network. I guess It’s just cheaper not to integrate them. Cheap assed corpos. Though this cyber warfare intrusion kit I got from your catalogs is super helpful, that plus the drones make this a cinch.]

[Dude. I’m opening the elevators, using lure mines, and doing the blender at the bottom of the shaft. Clearing these places is going to be cake.] I let out a chuckle at full eldritch horror levels. [Smoothies are easy and tasty.]

[Please, that is disgusting.] Alex sounded mildly sick again. [Don’t equate antithesis with a smoothie. I may never be able to have one again if you do.]

[Apologies.] I shifted back to my more normal speaking voice. [I keep forgetting you’ve got a bit of a weak constitution on that front. No offense.]

[None taken. That you’re so… inured to it is disturbing from my end. Though I do have to thank you for the “Ship Girl” idea. I decided to use my favorite spaceship for it even.] She sounded exceptionally excited. [Though I had to make some major changes so as not to step on the original source material. Fuck the Corpos but I don’t want to screw over the original author.]

[Good for you!]

[Thank you Bomberman.]

[Let me tell you two, she is adorable in her little military-style hat!] Drag-On sent pictures to back it up.

[Good fucking lord. You’ve got a career ahead of you.] Bomberman didn’t bother to hide the sheer lust in his voice. [Poster girl for somebody’s space endeavor. Gorgeous and well styled.]

[That’s kinda par for the course with “Ship Girls” from what I remember.] The cameras on the shelter showed everybody was fine and the system was operating at expected levels as I interfaced. Instead of interacting with them I left a message on the system and retreated, heading for the next location. [You are quite lovely Alex. Or should we call you Ship-Girl now?]

[No, Hon. She’s absolutely going to get the name of the ship she’s imitating!] Drag-On drowns out everybody on the channel. [The Sufficient Gravitas.]

[Well Congrats on finding a gimmick Sufficient Gravitas]

[Thank you very much Shoggoth, you as well.]

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

[Thanks. That’s two buildings clear. Everybody in the vaults seems safe too.]

[Damn. I’m still finishing my first.]

[Gotta move faster Bomberman!] I laughed and quickly maneuvered into building three. This one, unlike the last, had stand-alone shelters, two of them.

<>Might I suggest you spend some of your growing bounty to buy some slightly larger Drone types that can link into the stand-alone shelters while you complete your building clearing?

{Wow me with your idea.} It would be worth it, depending on what kind of thing it was thinking of.

<>You currently have one token and almost five thousand points, that’s raising even with upkeep on lure grenades. Which we should also purchase the blueprint for. As for drones, simply creating smaller versions of yourself would work. You have most of what you need, only requiring a few lesser blueprints to make it work, including a scout drone variant.

{Talk cost to me.} I started the blender again.

[You two are lucky, we barely cleared another while you were covering the Mega Block.] Alex sounded tired. [I’d almost be glad for a wave to fight at this point. Buildings are tedious.]

[Are you planning on specializing in clearing them?] Bomberman sounded curious but distracted. [Because that’s what Shoggoth seems to be doing. And it’s gotten quite good at it.]

[Cleanup is easy enough. Steady work too. It’s not for everyone honey, but it’s considered relatively safe. Do you want to be a front-line fighter, a mid-region cleanup, or a post-battle sort of Samurai dear?] I was unsure to whom Drag-On was speaking, but it didn’t stop me from considering the question.

<>All told including the lure grenade blueprint there will be four at a total of two thousand even.

Points: 11,612

Tokens: 1

[I should point out that while I do well on cleanup, I am a mid-region combatant at this point. Eventually, I’ll be front line.] I didn’t feel any pride, simply a sense of purpose. I tried to make that clear as I spoke into the com-line. [Sometimes you need to start small to build up to something big. I can manage into the mid-teens at this point, I’m looking to hit the twenties before we finish this incursion.]

<>Oh that may change a few future purchases. Are you looking to upgrade your melee capability or plasma?

{Buy the blueprints and get a couple mini-me’s out asap. I don’t want to crawl all over this building or any future ones.}

<>Done. You have a token to upgrade another catalog to class two?

{Any Suggestions?}

<>I would suggest deepening your cybernetics catalogs as you expressed a wish to eventually merge with your nanite swarm. Which would be a class three catalog for minimum levels of safety, I’d prefer using class four. Still, to get there you need to dig in deeper.

{I get it. But I also want to do more damage to bigger plants. So other ideas?}

<>Why not ask the others?

I mussed on that as I cleared yet another building. This time taking advantage of ten-pound gloop babies to go and check on the people while I dealt with the pissants. While I thought I ignored the chatter between the others, they were talking about gimmicks and how to change them later in your career. Something I may need later but for now wasn’t something I cared about. Not that anybody seemed to have a good handle on the idea anyway.

[Sorry to bust up a truly fascinating recursive argument.] I was not, in fact, sorry or contrite at all. [But I have a serious question.]

I got a chorus of “shoot” or “go for it” from the others on the channel.

[If I had, say… nine thousand points and a token, how would any of you suggest taking my theme to the next level for damage? I mean I can always dump it into cybernetics and get faster or more able to link with my Nanos or something. Totally on the list of things to do. But we’re in a yellow sector now, having cleaned it enough to pull back from orange and I’m going to be finishing my checks soon. I was planning on delving into an orange to hunt bigger groups. Just not sure how to go about it.]

[Well sweety, with only one token you won’t be able to go into class three for anything. Are you class two in Nanotech honey?]

[Yeah. I’ve got, what, six different class twos. Nanotech was one of them.]

[You might be eligible for class three by now then dude the AI are kinda sketchy about when that actually happens.. But that said they cost more tokens. You’ll need to save a bunch of people who really need it, nobody we’re checking on would count, that or kill another weird hive. Something like that.]

[How many tokens do you need to get class three Bomberman?]

[Well Gravitas, you typically need the level of the class you're at in tokens to go to the next class. But I only have class three myself. So I don’t know what four takes.]

[So I’d need one more then. And we’re in too light of a danger zone to earn one?]

[That's right, sweety, unless you find another stealth hive or something.]

<>That’s not entirely true. Clearing a major portion of the city of antithesis will also net you a token. An endeavor you are quite well on your way to.

That lit a fire under my ass. [Welp, that just means I need to bust ass and get back into the main fight which doesn’t seem to be slowing down based on what I can see from the other end of town.]

[That’s true hon. But you may also want to think about going deeper into a catalog you already have. Don’t you have sensors sweety? Upgrading them would allow you to be faster at identifying threats and more accurate over all, which would in turn make you more points and tokens. What do you think Bomberman?]

[Uh. Yeah? I guess. I mean the way you were looking through thinner walls was exceptionally useful. Your drones are too. Would upgrading your sensors make your drones better?] Bomberman paused for half a beat before jumping right on his own question. [My AI says, yes that is exactly what would happen. You could upgrade your drones as well as yourself. Allowing you to see beyond walls a whole lot more. I’d say go that route. You can make up the points and tokens later. No reason to rush to be a heavy hitter now.]