"Didn't you hear the alarm!? We need to get out of here! Antithesis are landing all over the city!"
"We've got at least ten minutes before they make it here. Don't you see these deals? They're literally to die for~!"
"Then die for them! I'm out of here."
-Conversation between two shoppers during an incursion in Charlotte NC, 2042
----------------------------------------
One excruciating experience and subsequent recovery later, I continued my hunt for survivors. The militia squad left me on the third floor and headed to the entrance, having been ordered to secure it from the outside and prevent any Antithesis from leaving. Reinforcements were en route to back them up, but it was still up to me to clear the interior.
The next two floors, I found, were clear of Antithesis- probably because they had charged down to the third floor to kill me already. That made it easy to locate and usher out the handful of civilians hiding on those floors, and hopefully made up for the time I’d loss writhing in pain.
Floor six was my ultimate destination, as it was where the forces defending the mall had made their final line of defense. A cursory look at the building schematics made it clear why: the first and lowest skybridge in the mall was on the sixth floor, meaning if they broke here, the Antithesis would disappear into the connected residential building complex and be nearly impossible to track. On the streets it was possible to track them via cameras and determine where they had gone and in what numbers. If they got into the other buildings via the mall, though, it would take a full search and quarantine to stop them.
It was, in a way, a refutation of the right to privacy so many people, myself included, would normally advocate for. In mega cities and even many smaller towns, surveillance was everywhere, and even residential buildings were closely monitored. But here, in a town largely constructed before full corporate control was attained, that camera network was never installed, and that meant that while the residents enjoyed greater privacy on a day-to-day basis, during an incursion, they could die off camera and no one would even know Antithesis had been there until the body was found.
Which meant it was all the more important that this last line held.
As I started towards the escalator to the next floor, though, Juny pinged me with an alert staying that Nguyen was calling. I accepted the call and stopped at the foot of the escalator.
“Is this important? I’m kind of busy,” I said, glancing up towards the sixth floor. I was anxious to get to it quickly after…after what I just experienced.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, saint, but we looked into your report on the possible tunnel into the mall and Major Thompson had us do a scan of all the other tunnels on a hunch. We found that they all originate in the same location.”
Huh. Guess the Major got his rank for a reason.
“That’s neat and all, but is there any point in telling me this now? I’m not done clearing the mall yet. I can seal that last tunnel after I help the militia here.”
“Major Thompson would like to, um, request that you don’t seal it. He wants you to go in and destroy the next on the other side.” I took a breath, hearing that. Hundreds of Antithesis had come out of those tunnels. Maybe thousands. Could I really handle that alone? I doubted it.
“That’s a big ask. He couldn’t even ask me to go on a suicide mission himself?” I replied sharply, my opinion of the Major dropping just as fast as it had risen. Even if Nguyen was my designated contact, that struck me as insulting.
“He…his exact words were, ah, ‘I have enough trouble with one jumped up child playing hero, I’m not dealing with two. Have the samurai sycophant do it.’” Wow. Incandescent rage lit me up for a moment before I tamped it back down, making a mental note to deal with the problem later. Alana was definitely hearing about that one. “The tactical analysis does agree with his position that this is urgent, though. The holes are mostly sealed, but there’s nothing stopping them from sending more Eighteens.”
I sucked in air through my teeth, considering that. Yeah, if they pulled that trick again, there was no telling what would happen. They might emerge further into town where the holes won’t be spotted immediately, or even unload an entire wave behind our lines.
“Juny, what do you think?”
“Although the Antithesis had limited success on the first attempt, it was not enough to make them avoid a second. At least one more underground assault is highly likely! Destroying the nest the attack came from, though, would likely cause them to try something else instead!”
Damn. The Juny seal of approval.
Stolen story; please report.
“I don’t like it, but fine. I’ll do it. Do me a favor and throw Thompson in after me if I die.” I think I was owed at least that much satisfaction. I cut the call and turned back towards the down escalator, hesitating briefly as I heard another burst of gunfire. I was just going to have to hope I had already killed enough Antithesis on the way up to give them a fighting chance. “Juny, what are my points at now?”
“Exactly 1300!”
At least I would be walking into hell with the riches of a pharaoh in his pyramid.
My descent to the basement level was uneventful, but I gained another hundred odd points killing a few stragglers on the way there. That, or advanced scouts for the next wave, which was not a pleasant thought.
Like an uncomfortable number of places I’d been in in the last 24 hours, the basement was dark, the lighting reduced to piles of broken glass and filament on the floor. The Antithesis vendetta against lightbulbs continued. Low-light vision showed me the layout of the room all the same, thanks to what little light filtered in from the stairs. Normally it was probably a storeroom, but right now, it amounted to little more than a hole in the ground, its normal contents smashed and left in the corners.
When I looked down into the hole, I couldn’t see the bottom. There wasn’t enough light. I did have a headlamp I could use, but that wasn’t the most stealthy option in the world, and I had something of a surplus of points at the moment. In fact, I could probably kill a few Model Ones with one stone right now.
“Now that is some advanced darkness right there. Juny, I think I’m going to need something to let me see in the dark, but not just a piece of equipment. Is there like, some kind of recon drone I could get that would be able to feed data right to my augs, keep itself safe, and give you a mic to speak through when other people are around? We can treat it sort of like an avatar for you.”
“I have just the thing! I recommend an ‘Electronic Yager-Explorer Broadcasting Observed Telemetry.’ It’s essentially a stealth drone used for recon, and includes a sensor package much more powerful than what your suit contains, in addition to stealth paint and a quiet ion drive that will make it difficult for Antithesis to detect in darkness.”
“Wordy name, but sure. How much is it?”
“One hundred points for the Class I Utility Drones catalog and another three hundred for the drone itself.”
“Make it so.”
Class I Utility Drones unlocked!
Points reduced to... 1305
New Purchase: Electronic Yager-Explorer Broadcasting Observed Telemetry
Points reduced to...1004
A box appeared next to me, then folded open all on its own, revealing a metal sphere the size of a basketball. After a moment of stillness, it began to vibrate for a few seconds before lifting itself up into the air. Antennae began to poke out of the sphere in multiple locations, and then it spun to face me, revealing a grilled faceplate. In the low light, it was difficult to make out, but it seemed to be silver with gold edging.
And then the lengthy name clicked in my head. It was a fucking Eyebot.
“I feel like I’m being mocked. Just…why?”
“I like the design!”
“Y’know what, I can’t actually argue with that. Isn’t it a bit too shiny though?” Even as I finished the sentence, the Eyebot seemed to fade from sight. I flipped my headlamp on for a moment, revealing a matte-black orb where the Eyebot had been. “Ah. I see. Not invisible, but it may as well be in the dark. Can you activate the sensors, please?”
This time, when I looked into the hole, a wireframe appeared in my vision outlining its dimensions. I could see deep into the tunnel- in fact, I could see the outline of it far beyond what should have been possible from my current vantage point. It seemed the Eyebot- maybe I should just call it ‘Juny’ going forward- was mapping out the tunnel somehow.
“That’s much better. Bit disorienting but I’ll get over it. Is it safe for me to jump?”
“Yes!”
It was somehow easier jumping off a ledge I couldn’t see, into impenetrable darkness rather than a very real elevator shaft. I could feel myself going faster this time, thanks to the Dainsleif armor and extra weapons, but it was nothing the suit’s exoskeleton couldn’t absorb. The sound of my landing echoed just a bit.
Before going any further, I checked to make sure my suit’s external speakers were off and turned off the lights on my SMGs. Both tasks checked off, I started forward as quickly as I dared. I wasn’t interested in fighting the entire hive head-on, so I wanted to get as close as I could without being caught, then find some way to…I dunno, blow the thing up to fuck.
My suit wasn’t built for stealth, of course, but it did have rubber soled boots rather than bare metal. Conventional rubber, mainly for traction, but it made walking softly just that much easier. And I’ve always been light on my feet. Even then, I could hear the servos working with each step and the soft crunch of dirt and pebbles beneath my boots. If I was lucky, which I’m not, then the only reason I could hear those sounds was the audio sensors in my suit.
At least I could see that for a good while in front of me, the tunnel seemed to be clear. Juny floated along behind me, ion drive quieter than my own movements, mapping out the tunnel ahead as we went. Whatever she was using had begun to fill in detail quite far out, and was even giving feedback from some other tunnels where they intersected.
It was hard not to think about what would happen if I was caught. I’d struggled to kill a Model Thirteen practically on its deathbed already. My Impaler would be capable of killing one in theory, but how many shots would it take? Where did I need them to land? How fast were they when uninjured? How many hits could my armor survive?
Yeah, I had a lot of concerns about this. And that was assuming Thirteens were the only thing I might run into. But still, I had to acknowledge how important this mission was. It was hard to quantify the intelligence of plants, but what if the first attack was something like ranging for artillery? That might mean the exit points were scattershot this time because they weren’t sure about the distances, but next time they might be more precise.
And that would mean the end of Boone.
Which meant I essentially had three options: plug the hole and pray they don’t attack, clear the hive, or flee the town. The first option sounded like tempting fate and the third would make me feel responsible for everyone that died after I left, so that left one option. I would have to see it through or die trying.