"We're seeing an alarming number of people quitting due to lack of affordable transportation. We may need to increase wages before lack of personnel begins to impact our income."
"The shareholders will never go for that. If the employees can't come to us, let's move their housing to us. If they live right next door they don't have an excuse for not showing up."
-A conversation between two executives shortly before skybridges caught on in the old American territories
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After killing the Model Six, I quickly realized the way I had been traveling so far wasn’t going to cut it. The density of Antithesis was continuing to rise, and it had only taken a couple of minutes to confirm it was not the only one blocking my way. By the time I had dodged two patrols too large for me to engage, I decided it was time to try something else.
Boone was built in the early days of hovercars, when they were just becoming popular and standards had not yet been established. The creation of designated skyways for hovercar travel had had certain knock-on effects, like restrictions on the altitudes at which skybridges could be built, as well as significant alterations to the infrastructure at ground level. With ground cars going out of style, so too did walking at ground level- in most megacities, traveling along the actual ground was for the poorest of the population. The desperate.
While Boone had been built before most of these things had solidified, it had not escaped the budding popularity of skybridges linking the upper levels of skyscrapers. They were not at a uniform altitude, which would have made hovercar travel arduous, and would make my own path much more circuitous, which is why I had preferred the direct route in the first place. But the Antithesis population was simply too dense down here for me to get any closer, and that meant going up.
Or buying a hovercar with my limited points. Which I could probably do. But that seemed like a waste of points for mere convenience, and I could kill Antithesis just as easily here as from the city.
My decision made, I glanced up to check the positioning of the nearest skybridge, then realized Juny could give me a route much more easily.
“Juny, the streets are too crowded. Can you give me a path through the skyscrapers to the occupied section?”
“Only part way. There is a hundred meter buffer between the abandoned section and the wall, and no bridges connecting them.”
“I’ll take it. At least at the home stretch I should have covering fire.”
“Perfect! Drawing up a map for you now.” Despite the wording implying it would take a moment, the map appeared in the corner of my vision instantly. It was three dimensional and utterly convoluted, but I could read it well enough to follow the designated path in small doses.
I entered the first building quickly, making my way for the elevators. I tapped the button. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still dead.
“Juny?”
“This building has been abandoned for over a decade, the power lines leading to it were likely severed during the first incursion!”
Oh. Duh.
Cursing, I turned towards the stairs, knowing this was not going to be fun. I had to climb ten stories to reach the first bridge. With no light on the inside of the building, I first bought a single-point flashlight. The first flight of stairs I took with ease, having gotten rapidly into somewhat better shape over the last few days with leftover nanomachines to accelerate my healing. The second was just as easy. By the third, I was beginning to flag.
Five stories up, I collapsed on the stairs, breathing hard.
“Do you have something for stairs?” I gasped between breaths. “Like…like, I dunno, a grappling hook. A longshot? Fuck, a jetpack.”
“I could provide any of those options! You can even afford them! However, I suspect with your current levels of coordination, you would likely injure yourself on the way up unless you also purchase a learning package! As a reminder, you do not currently have a method of surviving being splattered!”
Okay, yeah, not happening. Messing with my body? Sure, go for it. Messing with my head? That seemed a step too far.
“What about…those genetic modifications. Can I get something for stamina?”
“Of course! Class I Genetic Sequencing and Class I Genetic Modifications in tandem would provide numerous modifications and ways of implementing them. It would only take three weeks for the modifications to take effect!”
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“I’m not going to camp on the stairs for three weeks to have an easier time going up the last five flights…” I sighed, climbing back up to my feet. Exhausted as I was already, I had to stop once more before reaching the top. At long last, I opened the door, and what I saw one the other side made me regret my life choices.
“Holy fucking Christ.”
Birds. The entire floor was covered in black-green birds, amidst a backdrop of vines intertwined with leftover office furniture. For a fraction of a second I stared in awe and horror at the sheer number of the damn things, wrestling over whether it was a good idea to just open fire or not. Finally, as they began to take flight in my direction, I slammed the door shut, deciding on taking the better part of valor.
It was too late for some of the Model Ones to stop. The door shook as several of them slammed into it, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as my points ticked up by six.
“Seriously?”
“Model Ones are not worth very much individually.”
“Not that. All I did was close the door.”
“Which directly contributed to the deaths of six Model Ones!”
“Sure, whatever. Why were there so damn many of them? Inside the building?”
“I believe you’ve found a subhive for producing Model Ones! Antithesis attack in waves, and you must have encountered this group just before they left.”
“No, I found hell. Bird hell. That is a plane of hell in there, and it is made of birds.”
“Technically they’re actua-“
“Not important. I need a way to kill them, because I don’t have enough ammo for all of them and they’re going to bury me the moment I run dry.”
“I have just the thing! I recommend the Atlas Mk III Grav-Mine from your Esoteric Explosives catalog!”
“Can I maybe get a description before I go buying it, please?”
“Of course! The Atlas Mk III Grav-Mine produces a miniature black hole inside of it that will drag flying Antithesis to the ground by doubling their effective weight.” I twisted my lip in contemplation. It would certainly stop them from flying, but…
“So I still have to shoot them?”
“Then it explodes!”
“Perfect. I’ll take one.” I held out my hand and an odd disc appeared above it. It looked like three discs stacked on top of each other, actually- the bottom one was flat and widest, the next one up was slightly bowl shaped, and inside of it was a rounded dome. The whole thing was a somehow-disturbing shade of purple. The moment it appeared in my hand, a box appeared on my augs with three buttons- arm, detonate, disarm. There was also a radius setting, which I set to the maximum- three meters, more than enough to cover the door.
“Juny, the moment this thing hit the ground, turn it on.” I opened the door and tossed it in one single motion, and it landed smoothly on a pile of splattered Antithesis bodies. I backed away, feeling a brief moment of heaviness before I stepped out of range, and then the show began.
Antithesis, apparently, are not very smart. With no other way of reaching me, the Model Ones simply dove right into the doorway, where they were promptly dragged to the ground. More and more angry avocados joined the pile, which swiftly reached up to half the height of the door before tapering off. The Model Ones closest to me continued to drag themselves along the ground, but they were too slow to reach me before their time ran out.
When the stream of Antithesis finally ceased, I ducked further down the stairs and hit the virtual button. I couldn’t see the explosion, but I sure heard it and saw the effects. Dozens of Model Ones were instantly reduced to goo and spread across the walls of the stairwell and office - along with the floor, the ceiling and the door frame. Dead Antithesis goop rained line confetti and I just barely seemed to avoid it from my position just beneath the lip of the stairs.
Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 152 Points
New total: 536 Points
My funds continued to rise! Again, I was tempted to purchase the armor I so direly needed, but I was still a bit short of what I had drafted up, and I was on the edge of a bonafide hive. That would just be borrowing trouble.
“What do we do about the hive itself?” I asked as I stepped into the office, SMG raised as I checked every corner of it for an ambush. It was a wide open floor plan, and I could see every corner of the floor from my current position- along with several shattered windows that told me how the Model Ones were getting out. Nothing but guts, vines, and egg pods. The smell of grass was overpowering.
“I would recommend destroying it! Would you like some firebombs? Or perhaps nanites?”
“Fire, then. Can you give me markers so I know the best places to put them?”
“Of course!”
New Purchase: Remote Detonated Inferno Grenades x10
Points reduced to...486
At the same time, a box of grenades appeared at my feet and so did ten waypoints on my augs. They appeared to form a ring around the floor, with three bombs evenly placed around the center to ensure full coverage. Wasting no time, I snapped up the box, dropping a grenade at each position even as additional Model Ones grew within their pods at a visible rate.
The last bomb planted, I booked it for the bridge.
“Juny, blow them as soon as I’m on the other side!” I instructed as I stepped onto the bridge. I only had a few minutes before another swarm of birds was ready to mob me. A wave of heat rushed over my back as I reached the next building, sucking the oxygen out of the air momentarily before cooler air rushed in from my side of the bridge. Behind me, the other building had become a sea of flames.
There was a chance the raging inferno would take the entire building down with it, but, well. It was abandoned, so who cares? Although, if every building I go through is like that one, someone probably is going to care eventually.
A problem for future Erica.
Now I knew that the Antithesis could be literally anywhere in this city, even somewhere I least expected them. Still, it was safer than the streets. That much was obvious just from looking out the window. From my vantage point, I could see a tidal wave of black-green flesh flowing in the direction of people, backing up Juny’s earlier point. It seemed I had escaped the streets just in time.
Occupied or no, the towers were safer than the ground.