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We arrived to find an apartment building with the front doors shattered, but no signs of Antithesis or humans beyond that. I entered cautiously, noting that the overhead lights had been broken by the intruders, and flipped my vision over to low-light. There were no windows in the halls, as the first floor seemed to be a ring of apartments along the outer edge of the building surrounding a core of even more apartments on the inside, with the hallway sandwiched between them.
I had intended to do this slowly and cautiously, knowing the danger of fighting the Antithesis in close quarters and darkness by now, but a scream from my left put paid to that idea. I shot down the left hand hallway and turned the corner, barely making out the broken body of a man next to an open doorway before a Model Three collided with me at speed.
In my armor I was heavy, but I was already off balance from turning the corner and the Model Three had momentum going for it. I stumbled back, colliding with the wall and smashing through a layer of drywall to embed myself in it. The Model Three clung to me the whole way, and as I came to a stop, its jaws clamped shut over my helmet.
There was a brief moment of panic before I remembered that my armor was rated for spinach monster teeth. As I’m not an idiot, I had entered the building with one of my SMGs already in hand; I raised it towards the alien and opened fire, and the rail accelerated rounds killed it instantly…and continued on, blowing through the wall of what I assumed was the dead man’s apartment.
“Shit, I didn’t think about that. Juny, can I turn off the rails?” I asked as I shoved the Three off of myself.
“Of course! This model comes with a toggle switch right here,” she replied, highlighting what I had assumed was a safety. I flicked it, and the lights on the gun went out.
I didn’t feel anything else moving, so I began to move forward, intent on searching for the other Antithesis, only to find my vision obscured a moment later. I reached for whatever had draped itself over my face with my off hand, but before I could pull it off, I felt numerous impacts across my body, with most of them pinging harmlessly off the plating.
One didn’t. Pain shot through my left arm as something sliced right through the under layer, at which point I realized I was probably dealing with a Model Nine. My arm dropped uselessly, and I felt the suit contract around the wound to stop the bleeding even as I raised my right arm, gun in hand, and pressed it against the Nine.
I was taking a risk here. The Nine’s thin body was too close to my own to expect I could fire without hitting myself in the process, but I was pretty sure the Class I composites it was composed of could handle a few 9mm rounds. I pulled the trigger and shredded the Model Nine in an instant, bullets pinging off my armor as harmlessly as I had hoped.
“Juny, you said those things are invisible to sensors, right? Meaning cameras can detect them?”
“Yes!”
“Keep an eye out for them and highlight them for me. We aren’t in total darkness this time; I’m assuming you can see them on low-light vision.”
“Adding Model Nine filter now!”
My vision blinked for a fraction of a second, and then the hallway moved.
“Oh, fuck my life.”
I didn’t have time to heal my injury, and I was really wishing I’d had time earlier for that nanite implant, but hopes and wishes would get me nowhere. Letting my suit reload my SMG, I stood otherwise still, masking the fact that I knew the Model Nine swarm was there.
“Give me a grenade, armed, that won’t detonate if I kick it. Three second timer. Floor directly in front of my left foot, no box.”
New Purchase: Are Grenades a Sportsball?
Points reduced to... 3,561
Renaming items for comedic effect had to be a hobby for Samurai AIs, I swear.
The instant the explosive materialized I shifted my foot, punting the grenade forward with no wind up. It rolled and bounced down the hall, and served as a trigger for the resumption of hostilities. I opened fire on the closest Model Nine before the grenade even detonated, and then a second later, the hallway lit up like midday as lightning arced towards the remaining Antithesis.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Jagged bolts of white zapped the wall-clinging vine creatures, burning them with the power of Zeus. The closest of them dropped to the ground after convulsing wildly, curling up as smoke wafted from their charred corpses. Those further away were struck with less potent arcs, the closest ones having attracted the bulk of the energy, but were noticeably slowed from the damage to whatever passed for their nerves.
I aimed first at the ones nearest to me that still moved, clearing them up with a few sprays of bullets before the faster, uninjured ones from the very end of the hall could reach me. They moved more rapidly than I expected, though, and when I found myself moving to reload, they were already upon me.
The vanguard Model Nine launched itself from wall to wall, an impossible target while in transit, but its last jump was predictable: directly towards me. My good arm lashed out, and the Model Nine took the bait. Its bladed limbs tore into the ‘soft’ spaces around my hand first, not realizing that my actual hand was somewhere inside the forearm of my armor. Instead of removing my hand at the wrist, the Model Nine found itself cursed by its own momentum, impaling itself on my arm as its weapons failed to find purchase.
I shook the body loose and retrieved my now-loaded gun, catching the next Model Nine as it landed from a jump. Behind it were three more, however, and I couldn’t kill them all before they reached me. Thinking fast, I ducked around the corner, backing up towards the entrance as I brought my weapon to bear.
My change in position forced the Model Nines to either make an additional jump or climb around the corner. The first made the jump and I flicked the barrel of my SMG in its direction, pulling the trigger and spraying it with bullets. Before it hit the floor the second whipped around the corner, clinging to the walls, but the turn slowed it down enough that it had hardly come into view before I shot it.
The third was conspicuously missing.
I had to make a choice that depended entirely on how smart I thought Antithesis were. It could be waiting for me to turn the corner in search for it. It might also be psyching me out, trying to trick me into thinking it was looping around to hit me from behind. And finally, it could actually be looping around to hit me from behind.
Okay, it was definitely that last one. Antithesis were cunning, sure, but probably not ‘reverse psychology’ cunning, not at this tier.
With that thought in mind I spun around, catching the third Model Nine dead to rights as it silently bounded out from the other end of the hallway. One final burst put it down, and I checked my final tally.
Points Gained: 410
New Total: 3,971
Good progress towards making back what I spent on medical supplies, although I had to immediately subtract twenty to repair my arm.
“Kind of wishing I had that nanite reservoir right about now.”
“It could be installed immediately by placing it directly inside you for a few extra points! You would need to remain still while it integrates, though.”
“I’ll buy it before bed. Wait, didn’t I need a surgical suite for that?”
“That was for the more extensive enhancements, such as the skin replacement!”
“Oh, that makes sense.” I sucked in a canister of nanites, hardly feeling the pain it caused over the throbbing of my crippled arm. “Hey, can your sensors detect any other people in here?”
“Scanning. No humans detected! Only a single body, as well! Records show this building was evacuated this morning!”
“Huh, weird. Wonder what that guy was doing here, then. Did he come back for something? Maybe he was a looter. Though, heck, I guess he might be the one that called in the Antithesis sighting.”
“You could ask him!”
“Juny, I’m not a medium. I can’t talk to ghosts.”
“A medium what?”
“You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Doing what on purpose?”
I sighed. As usual her tone was cheery to a fault and betrayed no sign of sarcasm. It remained up in the air whether she was messing with me or lightening the mood, but my arm was feeling better by the time we finished. I flexed my hand experimentally.
“Well, we already know your sensors can’t pick up the Nines unless you point a camera at them, and if they heard any of that, they’re probably disguising themselves by now. Guess we’re just going to have to check the building room by room. Juny, go dark and scout ahead. Give me a feed so I can see what you do.”
Only my low-light vision filter allowed me to see Juny’s Eyebot float up the stairs, retracting its antennae to minimize its profile. I followed behind, far enough back that I wouldn’t be turning any corners until I had a visual first. Sure enough, a Model Three was waiting to pounce just around the landing, halfway up the stairs, and I filled it with a quick burst from an SMG the moment I turned the corner.
I ducked back around, half expecting more to follow, but nothing happened. As Juny reached the top and turned from side to side, catching both sides of the hallway with her camera, I picked my way over the dead Model Three. There didn’t seem to be anything else around, but I was far too paranoid by now to make any assumptions.
“Go ahead and loop around. I’ll stay here and watch the other direction.”
The Eyebot bobbed up and down as if nodding and scooted off to the right. I kept an eye on the feed while watching the other direction. Unlike the first floor, the doors here were all closed, but I was unsure whether that really meant anything. The Antithesis might have rushed to the first floor when they detected that man, not have reached this floor at all, or…hell, the doors could be Model Nines for all I knew.
Juny seemed to be aware of the possibility at least, as she scrutinized each door carefully, giving me time to do the same over the feed. They all seemed normal so far, but I sure wasn’t about to assume I was off-base after only checking a few. Did that mean I would check every damn door in the building? Probably. Model Nines are the absolute worst.
My suspicions were proven correct after Juny had completed nearly the entire circuit, stopping just two doors away in the direction I was facing, and I noticed something off about the door she was now looking at. I decided after a few moments that something was wrong about the door’s wood grain, and, deciding to err on the side of caution, riddled it with holes.
As with all Antithesis, the Model Nine didn’t scream or make any noise at all as it entered its death throes. The ‘door’ just came apart in a flurry of writhing limbs, collapsing to the floor while leaking fruit juice.
“I hate these things so much. This is going to take an eternity.”