"The Responsible Lighting Initiative was an attempt by the city of Charlotte to offload maintenance over street lights to the taxpayer by installing cameras on street lamps and charging people passing under lights during active hours. The program was abandoned when so many people adopted anti-identification measures that the maintenance cost of the cameras exceeded income three times over."
-Dumbest Government Programs of 2042, 2042
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The first bit of good fortunate I’d encountered in a while was that that Model Seventeen seemed to have run out of gambits after throwing everything it had at me. The Elevens were almost certainly its final assets. Or at least, the last ones in a position to attack me. Collapsing the building around me had certainly slowed me down, but it hadn’t been enough to kill me, and it almost certainly was preventing any reinforcements from coming up the building.
I fell into a rhythm climbing the rest of the building due to the lack of new surprises. Shoot the Model Fives, run to the first bit of cover, shoot the ones that were out of sight before, and then run to the next set of stairs. I was expecting more ambushes the entire time, and I continued checking for them around every corner, but nothing manifested in the end and I found myself on solid floor again.
Stepping onto the…honestly, I’d lost track of what floor it was, but it was immediately clear why this floor was spared in the destruction of those below it. I had stumbled upon another hive, albeit a small one. It seemed to be one of the Antithesis’ aeries, dominated by Model One sacs, many of which had almost finished maturing. The previous generation were probably killed by my flak grenade earlier.
Unlike the last Model One-centric hive I’d found, however, this one contained some places for larger models as well. Three skybridges connected to this floor- or at least, they had, before they were torn down to provide an area to place the enormous Model Eleven buds that now lay empty, their occupants hatched and subsequently killed not long ago. Given their size, it would take a long time to grow another set. There were some new buds atop the old ones, but they were still so small that they couldn’t be differentiated from Model Ones.
“Well, this has all gotta go. Have anything that can destroy this hive without causing any more damage to the building?” I asked Juny, glancing at her personal Eyebot just so I had somewhere to look.
“A Nanobot Dispersal Canister would provide a slow but effective way of breaking down the hive!”
“How slow?”
“Due to the size of the nanites, the hive would be broken down over the course of several hours. However, the new growth would be destroyed much earlier, preventing further Antithesis from hatching!”
“Perfect, give me one.”
New Purchase: Nanobot Dispersal Canister
Points reduced to…6,806
I just lobbed the grenade into the center of the floor, the walls of which had been torn out by the Antithesis at some point, allowing the nanites to be dispersed across it in an instant. The canister burst and spread a gray mist throughout the floor, and though I couldn’t see the effects with the naked eye, I thought it was safe to assume it was working.
“Alert! I am detecting a tier three Antithesis on the upper floors!” Juny announced, bobbing up and down in midair in alarm.
“What’s a tier three?” I asked, hearing the term for the first time. It didn’t sound good, either way.
“An Antithesis with a Model number between Twenty-One and Thirty. This particular individual appears to be a Model Twenty-One. Sensors indicate it is in close proximity to the Model Seventeen we are searching for. Model Twenty-Ones are heavy stealth units with six limbs, hands, invisibility, and armor!”
“So it’s some kind of elite guard? Are tier three Antithesis smarter than lower models?”
“On a case-by-case basis, but yes! A Model Twenty-One may be more intelligent than a Model Seventeen, and could merely be making use of the Model Seventeen’s communication abilities!”
Obviously that meant things were worse than I’d thought. An isolated case, or were these distributed across the frontlines as I’d been assuming Model Seventeens were? Did that mean they were going to be deploying models in the twenties more regularly now? And most importantly…did I even have a way of killing it?
“Will anything I have hurt it?” I asked, figuring that was the best place to start. The answer surprised me with its bluntness.
“No.” That was it. No elaboration, no encouragement, just ‘no.’ What I took from that was ‘you’re screwed.’
“Can I buy anything that can kill it?” I asked next, knowing the answer in my heart. Juny would have said so if I could.
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“No.” Yeah, that figured. Hard to say if that meant it would take Class III gear or just more points, or whether it was just a matter of being too close to use a sufficiently powerful explosion, but knowing the answer to those questions right now wasn’t helpful anyway.
“Lovely. So-”
“I believe it has noticed you!”
Pure instinct caused me to back up the moment the words were spoken, and it saved my life. The ceiling above where I’d been standing blew apart in an instant and my shield drones moved to protect me, but something I couldn’t see made contact and smashed them apart in a single blow. My armor wasn’t going to survive something that could demolish those sturdy shields on a whim, so I did the bravest thing I could do at that moment:
I turned the fuck around and charged in the opposite direction.
My motion tracker failed to react, but I knew there was little to no chance it wasn’t following me. Discretion being the better part of valor, I aimed for a broken skybridge and pushed my legs as hard as I could. Given the speed I was moving at I wouldn’t have been surprised if Juny told me she was overclocking my Dainsleif armor, but it was also possible adrenaline was pushing me faster than I’d ever run before, survival instincts activating even in the absence of fear.
The moment after I hurled myself off the skybridge, I heard an impact behind me, which I hoped was the Model Twenty-One landing and not it taking off, because the latter would mean it might catch me in midair. Thankfully, I sailed across the gap unmolested, the Double Jump 5000 activating to give me enough lift to clear the street below and land on the skybridge opposite me.
A dumber person would have stopped there and checked if they were being followed. I just kept running. Any hesitation would mean by pursuer would catch up. I plowed through empty cubicles like a runaway freight-train, and without asking, Juny highlighted the walls ahead for me, indicating where the support pillars were and where the drywall was.
Powdered plaster filled the air as I emulated the Kool-Ade Man, some of it leaking inside my helmet and making my eyes tear up. The Model Twenty-One, too smart to coat itself in powder, lost time going around it, but I knew it was following me because I heard something breaking off to the side, presumably as it blew through a less risky obstacle.
Leaving a trail of destruction in my wake, I quickly reached the opposite side of the building, which was closer to its neighbor than the other side had been, probably bordering an alleyway instead of a street. The sturdy glass in my way didn’t even hold up for a fraction of a second before it blew apart under the weight of my armor. With how close the buildings were, when the jump pack activated, I ended up gaining enough elevation to crash through the windows of the next floor up, which I hoped would confuse or delay the Model Twenty-One for even a second.
Model Ones rushed into my path from somewhere, but I didn’t even bother trying to figure out where they were coming from, as the impacts against my armor weren’t so much as slowing me down.
The Antithesis juice that seeped in through my visor was gross, but I was used to that after yesterday.
While the Model Ones were of little concern, some Model Threes emerged from before and behind me, coming around corners at the last second and attempting to latch on. Their weight was enough that it would have been a problem, so I whipped the first one to get close across the face with my assault rifle as I passed, not sticking around long enough to see how much damage I did.
“Grenade!” I shouted, and Juny helpfully materialized an Instant Star in my hand, which I promptly triggered and dropped. Whether the explosion killed anything or not wasn’t really important right now; it would momentarily block anything from following directly in my wake, and that’s what I was shooting for.
I blasted through another wall and jumped through the window ahead, soaring out over a street full of Antithesis dozens of floors below me. I was in the air for only moments before I broke another window with my face, hitting the ground running.
“Is it still following me?” I managed between panting.
“I’m unable to detect the Model Twenty-One directly, but circumstantial evidence suggests it is on the floor below you!” Juny replied directly into my head for the first time in a while. I didn’t sense her drone nearby, so it must have either been destroyed or staying out of the way.
A stream of f-bombs flowed through my head as I realized I was in a building like the mall I’d entered earlier, with a central column cut out through the center. This one, unfinished, didn’t even have guard rails. I nearly ran right over the edge without spotting it in the fading light of day, only managing to put enough strength into my legs for a jump at the last second.
Based on what Juny said about the Model Twenty-One’s position, it probably couldn’t jump quite as well as I could, so at the very least, the gap would slow it down, forcing it to go around. I thought so, anyway, right up until a patch of concrete behind me exploded, and I realized the tier three model had used the corner of the cut-out section to place us on the same floor again.
That didn’t last long, because I was already reaching the other side of the building by now, darting through the door of an unfinished store and heading right for the windows as usual. Jumping with all my might, I defenestrated myself once more, refenestrating myself a moment later one floor up again.
Refenestrating probably wasn’t a word but it described the situation well enough.
This time I encountered my third sub-hive, the second of the day. My armored boots crushed roots and egg-sacs alike as I stormed through, scattering a swarm of freshly hatched Model Ones like confused pigeons as I caught them by surprise. They rallied quickly, though, shooting after me in a murderous frenzy as usual.
With roots underfoot and Model Ones filling my field of view, I struggled to place my feet on my way through the sub-hive. My toes ripped apart thin roots and vines that I had failed to spot several times, and on one occasion, I stumbled a bit as I kicked a thicker root by mistake. The delay nearly proved fatal when the Model Twenty-One erupted from the vegetation to my left, bowling me over and sending me rolling.
My saving grace this time was that it failed to keep its grip on me, and I managed to regain my feet before it could turn around and pounce. My course was altered though, and now, instead of running parallel to the front line, I found myself running away from it, deeper into the abandoned section of the city.
Delving right into Antithesis territory wasn’t a winning proposition, that much was obvious, but right now there was no choice. I needed to come up with a plan, though, and soon, before the unseen predator tracking me tore me limb from limb.