"Antithesis: alien menace, or the next big superfood? Find out tonight on Vegan Ventures!"
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Walking into an Antithesis hive was like walking into an underground orchard. Being plants- fruits, technically- they didn’t hatch from eggs, or get birthed by a queen, but instead they were born from sacs hanging from vines that grew over every available surface. The size of those sacs varied widely, from ones that could pass for actual fruit that carried Model Ones to enormous pods the size of a minivan.
If I was being honest, it wasn’t until I stepped into the cavernous space that I actually knew how I wanted to deal with it. I had been mulling over how to destroy a hive thoroughly enough to prevent them from simply reoccupying the space and reusing the tunnels, and burning it out wasn’t going to be sufficient. The only way to deny them this space was to completely destroy it, filling it with so much concrete and, more importantly, steel rebar that they would never be able to simply tunnel through.
As a bonus, the rubble would probably fill up the surrounding tunnels in the process, gumming up their underground transportation network even further.
“Alright, here’s the plan: we blow it up.”
“Demolishing the entire building would cause a cloud of dust to form that will have negative effects on the health of everyone in the area.”
“I will personally buy the Samurai-grade medical equipment to heal them if we all survive this.”
“As you wish!”
It was difficult to even tell that I was in the basement of a building, or what was left of it, anyway. Juny helpfully highlighted the pillars that held it up for me; they were engulfed by plant structures that seemed to be helping support the building above. That certainly explained how it hadn’t fallen down when they expanded the space to make room for more pods.
I picked my way over roots and around sacs full of unripened aliens carefully, one
SMG in hand so my other would be free to catch myself if I tripped. It felt almost like I was trekking through a Flood nest in real life, but less squishy. Juny seemed to have been correct when she predicted there would be little to no Antithesis remaining to defend the hive, having depleted their own numbers trying to stop me from entering in the first place.
“Am I going to need to destroy all the pillars to bring down the building?”
“You will not! There is a certain amount of redundancy in the design, but eliminating a few key pillars should make the load impossible for the remainder to bear.”
“Perfect, give me a few fire bombs to clear out the roots, then we’ll plant the charges.”
“I have a fast-burning grenade optimal for burning roots out for 20 points each!”
“Give me as many as there are pillars to destroy, please.” Juny materialized three grenades in a single case as my points dropped by sixty, bringing them down to- by the Forerunners that was a lot of points. I’d lost track while I was effectively shooting fish in a barrel, but at the start of this I’d had just over a thousand, and even with all the ammo, Eyebots, and machineguns I’d purchased, I was now sitting at several times that. And a couple tokens, which I still didn’t know the purpose of or have time to ask about.
Predicting what I would ask for next, Juny helpfully highlighted the three specific pillars that would have the most effect if destroyed. I primed the first grenade and lobbed it underhand towards the furthest pillar, and my visor went nearly black as the roots went up in a blinding white flame, sending a rush of hot air outwards that I felt the push of even in my armor. In seconds, the roots coated in whatever substance those grenades contained collapsed into a pile of ash.
Now I was a bit more confident in what the safe distance would be, so I moved far away from the remaining pillars and lit them up as well. When the third bomb was done burning, the hive chamber returned to darkness, lit only by my flashlight and a few remaining embers still burning.
I could see the foundations of the building clearly now. Scorched concreate stood proud, protecting a core of steel bars. These were the structures capable of holding up countless tons of materials in direct defiance of gravity. They were…honestly, barely an obstacle to my plan with Samurai technology available.
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“Okay…now I just need some kind of remote-detonated charge that will destroy the pillars. Guaranteed. I am not fighting my way in here again.”
“You could use a matter disintegrator keyed to atomize specifically concrete and steel. It is available in your esoteric explosive catalogues for 100 points each.”
“And I can detonate it through any radio interference caused by the charges being underground?”
“The detonator I have selected utilizes quantum entanglement to bypass interference.”
“Great, let’s get this over with then.”
The charges were big enough that I might have had difficulties lifting them, but Juny was able to summon them directly in contact with the pillars themselves as long as I was close enough. All I had to do was touch the detonator to each charge to pair them, then push the big red button once I was at a safe distance. As soon as the third one was down I turned towards the tunnel I came in from and booked it, knowing intellectually that I was safe unless I flipped off the cover and pushed the button, but still not wanting to be under millions of tons of skyscraper primed to fall.
I didn’t stop running until I reached my surviving machine gun, which I stopped to grab, folding up the tripod and ejecting the empty case to make it lighter before magnetizing it to my back above my shotgun. Climbing up the hole the Antithesis had entered from was a lot more difficult than entering had been, and took several minutes, during which I ignored any attempts to contact my on account of not having the breath to talk.
Finally, I reached the top and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath. It took me another few minutes to get my breathing back to normal before I was ready to talk. I peeled myself off the floor and went for the stairs as I accepted a communication from Nguyen.
“Thank the Protectors, you finally picked up. I was worried when you went offline. Is everything alright?” the Samurai-worshipping lieutenant asked frantically as soon as the channel was open. I hit the stairs as he finished and started heading up; I wanted to see the building go down when I pulled the trigger.
“It was pretty close at a few points, but I made it out. There’s a pretty big hive beneath one of the skyscrapers in the outer city, but it’ll stop being a problem in a few minutes.” Reaching the ground floor, I headed towards the door, recalling that there should be a hovercar waiting for me outside.
“…in a few minutes? Didn’t you already destroy it while you were down there?”
“Just keep an eye on the city, you’ll know it when you see it,” I said, power walking right out of the building and to the car. I took a moment to set down the heavy machinegun in the passenger seat before settling in and switching the vehicle on, climbing sharply to a height just high enough to give me a view of the city.
With my eyes on the vista ahead, I thumbed the shield out of the way and pushed the button.
For a few moments, nothing at all happened. Just as I was getting worried, one of the skyscrapers a couple blocks past the frontline began to sag, and then it started. I could just see one side of the building from my current angle, but I witnessed it as the first floor’s walls crumbled outwards while the core of the building descended, dropping the entire first floor into the basement and crushing the hive below. I instantly received 500 points and a token, but the show wasn’t over yet.
After the first floor fell, the supports holding up the remaining several dozen floors failed, and the second floor pancaked the first. Then the third came down, and the fourth, each level of the colossal building collapsing faster than the last as the mound of rubble where the building stood expanded. Concrete, glass, and steel erupted into the street, accompanied by an apocalyptic amount of dust.
Where it had taken several seconds for the initial floors to collapse, now they were crumpling in less a second each. Even the Antithesis in the streets fell victim to the destruction. Hell, I was pretty sure some Antithesis in the neighboring buildings died too, struck by debris launched from the falling structure. By the time the demolition was at last complete, a full city block was buried beneath the rubble, the surrounding buildings’ lowest floors entirely inaccessible from some sides, so high had the piles risen.
I was pretty sure I could enter some of those buildings from the fourth floor. It seemed the surrounding buildings had contained the destruction somewhat, forming a larger pile that might have formed in a more open area.
Even the gunfire below had halted in the aftermath. The Antithesis appeared to have stopped attacking for the moment, and I could only assume they were reeling from having a building dropped on so many of their numbers. I’d gained around 2000 points from collateral damage alone.
My comm pinged, and I accepted the call. Instead of Nguyen, it was Major Thompson. The first words out of his mouth were “are you fucking insane!?”
“Yes,” I answered brightly, knowing full well the only proper way to respond to an accusation like that was to just own it. Thompson didn’t even bother to address my honesty.
“My company was hired to keep this city intact. We can’t just have you going around destroying shit because it’s the fastest solution! Am I clear?”
Was this guy serious?
“If you’d rather have Antithesis showing up in the basement of your command center, sure. Should I dig them a tunnel?”
“That is not the point, and you know it, you smarmy fuck. If you’re going to wreck the city we may as well just pull out now; we’ll be out of a job either way!”
His lack of regard for the deaths that would incur made me wish he’d suffer from apoplexy right about now and put us all out of his misery. I could imagine the veins on his head protruding and practically felt the spittle flying into his mic.
So I just cut the call in the hopes it would send him over the edge.
“Juny, block all calls from the major, please, and maybe keep an eye on comms traffic and cut him off if tries to, I dunno, create a friendly fire incident.”
“Gladly!”