"Come on down to Auntiethesis's Plant Safari, where you can see Antithesis in their (theoretically) natural environment! We keep our Antithesis safely locked behind meters of plexiglass and steel to protect both our plants and our guests. See Model Threes stalk through a simulated forest, and get an up close look at the mighty Model Six basking under the sunlights in the rock garden!"
-An ad for an Antithesis zoo. Shut down after three zookeepers and five guests were eaten on the opening day.
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“Do you have a plan?”
“Toooooootally. Yep. Got a great plan. It’s…well, it’s a plan.”
“Oh, okay!”
“You weren’t supposed to believe that! Do you have any ideas?”
“I recommend lots of explosives!”
“Very helpful.”
I was currently standing in a tunnel just close enough to the Antithesis hive that Juny’s sensors were able to map out the entrance, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. I had decided to wait here and mine some of the other tunnels while she went ahead to scan the entire cavern, but that had only taken me a few minutes.
Yes, I said cavern. The Antithesis under the city had been hard at work turning the maintenance tunnels into a space more conducive to mass producing Antithesis, or at least the advanced models. It was impossible to tell what this area had contained before, but it appeared they had carefully dug around the foundations of the buildings above, leaving them intact while turning the space around them into a growing chamber.
There were over a dozen pods gestating Model Fourteens already, and the feed Juny was sending me also showed several Model Thirteens hanging from the ceiling like wilted flowers and numerous utility models going about their business. There a few new ones I hadn’t seen yet- the worm-like Model Eights bringing in biomass, and apelike Tens with entirely too many hands tending to growing pods. Some Eighteens were working on expanding the chamber even now.
And those were the least of my worries. This hive was also growing combat models by the bushel, presumably to pack into the Fourteens when they were ready. Dozens of Threes had already matured and were resting in clumps or patrolling the periphery. None of them had noticed Juny floating by the ceiling, cloaked in darkness, but I was sure they would spot me the instant I got close.
My odds may actually have been lower than I previously thought.
“Forget the Thirteens, even that many Threes are a huge threat. I’m not sure I could kill them all before both of my guns ran dry, and then I’d be stuck reloading…”
“Maybe a new weapon is in order!”
“Gimme something with an infinite ammo cheat, then.”
“That would require a catalog with a much higher Class than you can currently access, and a significant number of points.”
“It exists!?”
“Of course! But for now, I believe you should consider a Class I Heavy Kinetic Weapons catalog. Machineguns are designed for use against large numbers of targets and can sustain fire for a long time if properly used.”
“Sure, but they also go through ammo like a hose, won’t I run out of ammo in like, less than a minute without a loader?”
“I believe an M8 Swarmslayer would be sufficient to address your concerns. It has a rapid-release barrel for easier replacement and an ammo feed that can automatically load new cases of ammunition when the current one runs low. It is also composed of Class I composites that can withstand high barrel temperatures, and even comes with a tripod!”
That could work…as long as they don’t dig around me. If I set up in the tunnel with a machinegun and hose down anything that comes at me, they’ll run out of Model Threes before I run out of bullets, and then I’ll have a few minutes unobstructed to plant charges around the hive chamber. Probably.
“Will it be able to kill those Thirteens?”
“.50 caliber armor piercing rounds should be sufficient to penetrate the skin of a Model Thirteen!”
Then I only had one more question.
“So…how much?”
“Two hundred points for the catalog and four hundred for the weapon. Barrel replacements will be ten points each, and cases of ammunition will be 10 points for standard, 20 points for armor piercing.”
“Big oof, but I’ll take it.”
Class I Heavy Kinetic Weapons unlocked!
Points reduced to... 804
New Purchase: M8 Swarmslayer
Points reduced to...404
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I was not surprised when an M247H Heavy Machine Gun came out of the box. It was almost expected at this point. My feelings on the matter were mixed- I was absolutely the type of nerd to ask for stuff like this, but having it provided for me without my input felt mildly embarrassing.
Oh well.
It took me a few minutes to familiarize myself with the weapon. I got it setup on a tripod and determined that it had two slots for box magazines- when one ran out, it would be ejected, and the weapon could switch to the other while an automated reloader sought out the next box and slotted it into place. The barrel release was bizarre. There was a lever that launched the barrel directly out the front like a javelin when pulled, answering my question of how it was meant to be quickly replaced with the heat cover and cooling systems in the way.
In one direction, a long tunnel leading towards the mall. In the other, a corridor into the heart of an Antithesis nest. Unless Boone is overrun in the next few minutes there was little chance of me being flanked. Well, they could dig, but there was no use worrying about something I couldn’t do much about. Time to get their attention.
“Juny, turn on the external speakers.”
“Aye!”
I took a deep breath.
“Your father was a Zergling and your mother was a shrubbery!”
As the words echoed through the underground, Antithesis all over the cavern ahead reacted to the sound. No way they knew what the words meant, but it’s the thought that counts. In seconds, nearly every Antithesis in the hive was heading my way, and even the Model Thirteens had descended, although they hadn’t disconnected from their stems yet.
I could see the Antithesis moving on Juny’s wireframe projection, but I didn’t need it. The second I felt movement on my motion tracker, I slammed down on the trigger, holding tight on the machinegun to keep it in place as dozens of rounds left the barrel every second. Dozens if not hundreds of Model Threes poured into the tunnel, with reinforcements boiling out of connections to other hives as quickly as they died.
My weapon was spitting out twenty rounds per second, and the muzzle flash alone lit up the tunnel like day time to my enhanced vision. .50 cal was far in excess of what I needed to kill a Model Three, and a hail of them left Model Threes looking like what came out the ass end of a lawnmower.
Twenty seconds. That’s how long it took for this machinegun, this Mower of Lawns, to run through a box of ammo. Juny was spawning in another box the second the previous one was loaded, the weapon moving like clockwork to replace spent magazines with a rapidity not possible for a mere human. Spent boxes flew over my shoulders constantly, and a pile of brass shells was forming around my feet.
If I hadn’t gotten a helmet with hearing protection, the deafening sounds would have blown out my eardrums by now. Still, the Antithesis charged forward, desperate to protect their nest. Larger, more dangerous models began to arrive, and were shredded as surely as their smaller cousins. I could see Eights dragging away bodies before they could clog the passage, reaching in just far enough to snag them and pull them away.
Probably could have killed them too if I shifted my aim a bit, but I wanted them to do their thing and keep this wide tunnel nice and clear for me, so I let them do it.
The horde made it first bit of progress a few minutes in, when the Swarmslayer’s barrel finally overheated. I pulled the level and ejected it, launching a red-hot tube onto the tunnel floor, where its glow provided enough light for my helmet to give me limited sight even while my machinegun was silent. In the instant between the barrel being jettisoned and the new one appearing, the Antithesis made over a dozen meters of progress.
“The Antithesis aboveground appear to be losing steam- or, rather, I believe they have determined your efforts enough of a threat to redirect their forces to this position.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Alana has been attacking them constantly.”
“What we were seeing before may have been the extent of their forces while they were occupied defending against her team. Now they are contending with you both, and dedicating more bodies to your deaths!”
“Don’t say that like it’s good news, Farnsworth!”
“I’m not Farnsworth, I’m Juny!”
In the corner of my eye, the counter for my points was a constantly changing number, spinning ever upwards and then dropping every few seconds as another box of ammo was replaced. I was definitely killing things other than Threes right now, but only Jeebus knew what they were amidst that mess.
But they were taking me seriously now. I could tell, because the Model Thirteens were moving.
“Juny, start buying armor piercing magazines.”
“Of course!”
When the first Thirteen arrived, I was still using up my last box of standard ammunition. While .50 cal wasn’t entirely ineffective on its own, the rounds were mostly glancing off their hardened skin or getting stuck in without penetrating. The shift was noticeable when armor piercing rounds finally entered the chamber and I began punching holes in its front-most body.
The Model Thirteens, more clever than their kin, were entering the tunnel in single file, using their own bodies like extra lives. Even as I chewed through the first body, one Model Thirteen advanced several meters down the hallway, and when its body collapsed, the next one continued on as if nothing had changed.
Even armor piercing rounds couldn’t penetrate the thick clubs that tipped their pseudopods. To kill the second body, I first had to shred its arms above the clubs, causing them to drop out of position and leaving its vitals exposed. This one progressed even further down the tunnel, making it almost halfway to me before it fell.
One body remained, but another Model Thirteen trailed behind it still as well. I was beginning to sweat as they came ever closer. The smaller models had stopped advancing or taken cover behind the Thirteens, so I was free to concentrate my fire, but even then, it was taking too much time to slay them.
Finally, the first Model Thirteen died, and I noticed my point count update to include a single token- something to ask Juny about later. The second Thirteen was more than halfway to me, and I had little time for thought. I found that if I shifted my aim to the base of the pseudopods they would lose strength faster, but it still wasn’t enough.
The enormous flower-shaped Antithesis continued on even as its first body fell to the ground, trampling over its own flash with nary a care. The Swarmslayer’s barrel was hot to the point of overheating, but I couldn’t afford to change it out now. It was me or the gun, and I chose me. I held down the trigger so hard my hand began to shake.
Body number two was looking increasingly Swiss, and it finally fell to the ground, but I was out of time. A metal-tipped pseudopod whipped towards me, faster than I could follow, and a screech of ruined metal sang out as it demolished the machinegun in front of me and tossed me back several meters. I snatched my shotgun from my back and raised it, aiming for the vital point I had sussed out through trial and error, and pulled the trigger even as the next limb shot out towards me.
My first shot went wide as I struggled to dodge. So did the next, as I took a glancing blow to the shoulder, denting the metal. But then the Thirteen was overextended, and I had the advantage for a moment. I snapped off a third shot, hitting it in its core, and the big Antithesis wilted on the spot.
Which is right about when the walls exploded around me.