"Bigfoot is real! And he's in the Appalachian Mountains!"
"If Bigfoot were real the Antithesis would've made a meal out of him by now, dumbass."
"Well who else could be killing all those hives up there!?"
- Conversation between a guest caller and the host of the podcast Cryptids in a Post-Antithesis World
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Day two wasn't a whole lot more exciting than day one...for the first couple of hours.
With two more Model Threes under my belt, I finally encountered something different. The trees were ending just up ahead. I approached the edge slowly and quietly, but I needn't have bothered.
A sea of felled trees lay before me, stretching off towards the horizon. It was as if a tornado had touched down in a perfect circle and obliterated this entire stretch of woodland. And the only thing I could smell was cut grass.
"It would appear we have found our destroyed hive. This must have been the work of a higher tier Vanguard, judging by the size of the area. The hive was quite large."
It took me a moment to muster up a response to that. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of awe, and not the good kind. This is what a samurai could do? What I could do, one day? This wasn't a battlefield. It was a natural disaster. An act of god. Acres of woodland, flattened, in what, an afternoon?
"Where are all the bodies?" I asked, noticing the discrepancy after finally absorbing the scene in full. All I could see was trees.
"Either the Vanguard in question left as much of his targets behind as your hovercar did, or they employed some method of destroying the bodies to prevent a new hive from forming." It was then I noticed something important, something I failed to question yesterday.
"Wait, haven't I just been leaving the bodies behind?"
"The rounds for your SMG include a nanite package that eats away at Antithesis flesh. It will destroy the bodies over the course of several hours. This was not necessary for the first four you killed, as there was little left of them anyway."
I remembered the obscure acronym Juny had used for my ammunition; that must have included the nanites. I suppose I had technically signed off on it.
"But...I killed the first one with the magnum."
Juny was silent.
"Juny, am I going to have to walk all the way back there to clean up that body? Please say no."
"...no."
"Are you saying that just because I asked?"
"You will not have to walk, as we have several days before a hive can form, and as a Vanguard, you may simply commandeer transportation in town."
"I can what? Are you telling me I didn't even have to walk to town?"
"You will earn more points this way. As the density of Antithesis is low, it is a good way to increase your points before the next incursion."
I tried to respond to that, but all I managed was an inarticulate gurgle. She wasn't technically wrong. I was earning points and gaining experience with my SMG. Trudging through the woods was terrifying, but I was kind of becoming numb to that, too.
And besides, I kind of wanted to see if I could get a samurai-tech suit of Mjolnir. Screw copyright. Nerds gonna nerd.
"Fine. I can accept that, just...give me all the options next time? I might have agreed to this if you had pointed that out anyway," I said with a sigh, starting to cross the see of dead trees.
"Preferences adjusted. I will be sure to inform you of any options you miss in the future."
The cleared area was vast, but relatively easy to traverse. The felled wood crumbled under my feet, and the clear lines of sight made it easy to tell I was in no danger.
"Why is this wood so...brittle? It's like it's been rotting for years, but it looks fresh."
"The Vanguard that destroyed this area may have also taken efforts to reforest. As the Antithesis often cause wide spread ecological collapse, there are many catalogues that contain a myriad of terraforming technologies to reverse the damage. Without sensors I do not have enough information to be certain, but I suspect something was deployed here to quickly break down the dead trees and replace them with new growth."
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Huh. Good to know, I guess? Not terribly important, though, in the moment.
After passing through the destroyed hive, my journey became much easier and much more dull at the same time. There were no Antithesis at all for the next day. My legs and feet became progressively more sore as time went on, but I only stopped to eat, sleep, and relieve myself, as I just wanted out of this damn forest. It was even more annoying thinking that the entire purpose of coming through here was gaining points, and I wasn't even doing that anymore- other than the daily allowance of ten, anyway.
In the afternoon of the third day, though, Juny interrupted my silent trek.
"I have gained access to the public network of the town of Boone. A stealth hive has gone active in the unoccupied section of the town."
I blinked. That escalated quickly.
"Do you have any more detail than that? I'm not even familiar with the town."
"Thirty years ago, before the Antithesis, Boone was a college town in the Appalachian Mountains, which we are currently in. When the Antithesis arrived, the population briefly swelled to about forty thousand and a significant amount of new construction was started with the goal of preserving the university and fortifying the mountain passes, as it was deemed an acceptably defensible position by the residents of many nearby towns.
"Unfortunately, before the fortifications were completed, an Antithesis Incursion struck the town directly. The population was withdrawn into the portion of town higher up on the mountain and the defenses were completed around only that section of the town, about one third of the total area. The incursion was a small one and rapidly eliminated, but the death toll and subsequent emigration reduced the population of the town to pre-Antithesis levels, and the unfortified section was abandoned as a result.
"Since then, various PMCs have been hired by the town to prevent the Antithesis from moving back in. It seems a coup d’état has resulted in a junior officer of the Stalking Tigers PMC taking command of the group."
What I learned from that is mostly that Juny only has two settings: uselessly little information and Exposition with a capital E.
"Which side of the town are we on?" Juny projected a map, highlighting two spots: the area inhabited by humans, and my current position, a few dozen meters from the road leading into the south side of town. Naturally, they were on opposite sides. "Yeah, that figures. Could you give me a safe route to the fortified area?"
"I can provide a number of routes. However, I cannot guarantee their safety, as I do not have access to local security networks. I would need a cyberwarfare suite for that, which will cost more points than you currently have."
"Okay. Well, fuck it. Guess I'll just have to run and gun. Maybe pray a bit..." I could probably afford a moderately better weapon, but nothing game changing. Basic armor was also a possibility...but I wasn't about to change in the middle of the forest, potentially surrounded by Antithesis. I would just have to earn some more points and make my purchases as I went- currently I was down to 61 after keeping myself fed, watered, and on my feet for several days in the wilderness.
I started forward and in moments I was on an embankment over an empty road. I hopped down, finding scattered collapsing houses to my right that abruptly transitioned to dense city to my left. It looked like the locals had started by building dense, vertical housing when they began construction all those years ago, and this was approximately where a wall would have been.
The street was wide, but a far cry from what I would see in a megacity. Designed for actual ground traffic rather than hovercars, I think. Not that I could tell- it was completely free of any vehicles, given that these buildings were never occupied in the first place. I started into the cityscape, concerned by the twisting road that cut off my vision just a few blocks down, as well as the alleys dividing the buildings.
As I crept forward, I glanced side to side, keeping in the center of the road and monitoring the lobbies of the nearby buildings. I wanted as much time to react as I could get, and I figured the lack of cover was countered by the reduced chance of something jumping through a window directly behind me while I looked the other way.
After a few tense minutes of nothing, I encountered the first Antithesis- yet another Model Three, the only variant I had encountered so far. It rushed out of an alley, but my SMG was already raised and ready. I feathered the trigger, sending a dozen rounds at it in just a fraction of a second, and it dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Target Eliminated!
Reward... 10 Points
New total: 91 Points
"You may want to hurry. The smell will attract more of them." I think I recalled Juny telling me that once before, but the urgency was different then. At the time we didn't know how many were nearby; now we knew there could be a hive anywhere in this concrete jungle.
"How fast?" I asked as I dipped into an alley, cursing as I realized it was a dead end. The wall facing me was low, though, and I could probably climb it using the dumpster nearby...
"Slowly at first, with rising speed as more scouts die. The response is proportional to the perceived threat." I crouched in the shadows, realizing I had an opportunity here. If I killed the first wave, at the least, it would draw more of them here, and away from any other road I took. The points wouldn't hurt either.
It wasn't long before I saw the first group. From my vantage point in the shadow of a building, I saw two more Model Threes approach the body, accompanied by a handful of birdlike Antithesis. Model Ones, according to Juny. Before they had a chance to spot me I opened fire, quickly gunning down the Model Threes. The Ones whipped around in midair and divebombed me.
I struggled to react in time, winging one of them before another rammed into my forehead, its small mass only managing to rock my head back, but the distraction allowing another two to slam into my stomach, below my fake armor- they must not have been able to tell the difference. I hopped up to my feet and backed further into the alley, managing to shoot down the remaining three when they no longer had space to maneuver.
Target Eliminated!
Reward... 24 Points
New total: 115 Points
I grinned at my rising funds.
"Hey, if the smell of dead Antithesis draws more of them, is there anything I can do to amplify that? And maybe leave the reinforcements a present?"