Chapter Five - You’re a Security Guard, Harry

There is a surprising amount of money in Samurai psychology. Some Samurai embrace the carnage and become kill-crazy walking apocalypses, but most have at least some compunction with all the constant killing. The mysterious selection criterion behind them seems to ensure that very few actually go completely crazy, but it can be a close thing. The whole “kill things = more points” situation certainly doesn’t help.

—excerpt from a college psychology journal, 2029

***

I spent a few more tense minutes staring out the window, but nothing appeared. Eventually, I turned back to Harry, who was massaging his remaining leg. His face was beet red, with giant beads of sweat sticking his torn-up shirt to his bulky frame. It wasn’t a flattering image—but then, I imagined that I didn’t look any better.

We’d both been chewed up and spit out by a few low-tier Antithesis, which gave me a whole new respect for Samurai—sure, everyone grew up hearing how they were the best thing ever, and entire religions had propped them up as saints, but they were just incredibly well-armed celebrities to the average person. It was one thing to watch them online, waving their hand and instantly killing everything in sight, but now that I knew what the Antithesis were really capable of? I could see why humanity needed them.

Why humanity needed me. I’d gotten a bit of my indignation out of the way after I first heard Lynata’s voice, but I guess it still hadn’t really clicked yet: I’m a Samurai. The top one percent of the one percent—not just insanely rich and famous, but powerful in a way no normal human could even dream to approach. It was a heady feeling, for sure, but it meant doing this kind of thing for the rest of my life… However short that might be. Sure, it wasn’t hard to imagine myself actually being able to do what they did—I’d spent hundreds of hours on Mesh games, playing as whatever corporate-sponsored Samurai was popular that week, so I could at least understand some of what it meant to be like them. But did I want to be?

That was a loaded question, right there. Whether I wanted to do it didn’t matter at all. Choices were for rich people who lived in safe communities and always knew where their next meal was coming from. I was at ground zero of an Antithesis invasion. Screw “chicken or fish?”, this was “do you want to live through the next ten minutes?” To me, the answer to that was an emphatic yes. I needed to embrace it, or I was going to die.

Still…

My fingers danced over the smooth patch of skin that had very recently been a hole in my stomach. Even if alien medicine could close the physical wound, it couldn’t make me forget that I’d nearly died… Actually, Lynata probably could sell me something that would make me forget it, but that seemed like a bad idea. Redoing my brain chemistry to remove traumatic events was a slippery slope. I’d have to live with almost dying.

And boy, that was a change. I used to be so risk-averse that I wouldn’t even handle physical documents for fear of getting a paper cut. Now I was going toe-to-toe (toe-to-claw?) with aliens. Maybe it was true that life-threatening situations changed your priorities, or maybe Lynata’s arrival had just scrambled my brain, but the fact that I could even think after taking a wound like that was impressive. Didn’t mean I was keen on doing it again, but at least now I could be relatively certain that I would survive it. I was probably going to break down into a nervous wreck once this was all over, but for now it seemed like I was getting over my fears. Stupid exposure therapy.

But I wasn’t alone in all this. I studied Harry as I plopped down in the seat opposite to him. His breathing was starting to slow to a more normal rate, and now he was examining his shredded pants leg. “You doing okay?” I asked him.

He flicked the rags away, heaved out a sigh, then turned in his seat. “I can’t say I’m doing too hot right now. I know I’m out of shape, but… Damn. That was nothing like the first time.”

I smirked. “Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve heard you swear. I was starting to think you were allergic to it! And if I remember the first time correctly, that ended up with the both of us bleeding from a dozen different places.” I rubbed my knuckles, feeling a momentary phantom pain where I’d broken my hand.

The security guard chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not talking about that cafeteria. I… Remember how I told you about that Samurai?

“Yeah?”

“Well, a long time ago, back when the world was young and dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I was in the National Guard.” He gave a wry grin at his own joke, then got a faraway look in his eye. “Back when Texas was still just Texas, and that big incursion hit down South of San Antonio. I was on deployment down in Austin at the time, so we all got thrown into it. It was… I don’t want to say ‘easy’, but you have to remember that this was right at the tail-end of the United States as a country—they were practically shoving money at us. We had all the best guns, gear, and gadgets money could buy. And we had two Samurai working with our brigade—that was a lot less common back then, when there were only a few thousand of them.”

“Huh,” was all I could respond with. I didn’t really know what else to say until I looked down again. “Is that when you lost…” I gestured to his missing leg.

“What? Oh, no.” He patted the area around the missing limb. “This happened during a training exercise, after all that. Hey, could you please grab me a water?”

“Huh? Oh,” I stated, as I noticed him pointing to a mini fridge tucked under the desk in the corner. I got up from my seat and searched the refrigerator, grabbing one of the few water bottles tucked behind the dozens of energy drinks and pop cans filling the rest of it. I snagged one of the pops for myself before returning to the table.

Harry hastily guzzled down half the bottle as soon as I handed it to him, pausing only to take a breath before emptying it completely. “Thank you, I really needed that. Now, where was I?” He tossed the empty bottle at the nearby trash can, wincing as it bounced off the edge and rolled under the desk. “Oh, right. That right there,” he said, pointing at the trash can, “is what I’m talking about. Used to be that I could have made that with my eyes closed, easy as tossing a grenade. But I can’t do that kind of thing any more.” He patted his prodigious gut. “Too much good food and not enough exercise after they made me retire from the Guard. I kind of regret that now…” He had that faraway look in his eye again, but quickly perked back up. “Actually, I take that back. I could’ve probably skipped a few meals, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

I furrowed my brow before taking a sip of my freshly opened pop. “Seriously? The barbecue just that good?” I wasn’t exactly the most in-shape guy myself, but at least I valued cardio—it had helped me escape more than one confrontation with the local gang, not to mention the alien invasion we were currently experiencing. Then again, I still had a fully functional set of limbs, so maybe his priorities were just different after that sort of thing.

Harry sighed, tapping his leg again. “It’s not that. It’s… Do you ever wonder how different your life would be, if you just changed a few little things?”

“Sure,” I responded dryly, “I’m currently pondering how much better my life would be if I had just called in sick like I wanted to this morning.”

Harry waved my joke off. “Look, not a day goes by that I don’t wish for my leg back. You get used to it, but it still feels like a part of me is missing. But if I hadn’t lost it, I wouldn’t have moved back up here, wouldn’t have met my wife—ex-wife, now, but still—and wouldn’t have had my daughter. I wouldn’t give up my baby girl for the world, much less my leg.”

I blinked. “Wow, didn’t take you for the single dad type. That’s rough.”

“Yes, it can be tough sometimes. That’s why I’m doing this.” He gestured to his torn-up security guard uniform. “I didn’t make a lot of money on disability, but it was enough to keep me floating by myself. With Kashmir, though…” He paused for a few seconds, eyes suddenly wet, and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “She’s out there, right now. We don’t live in the Shopplex’s apartments; we’re on the outer edge of town, and I’m all the way up here. There’s a shelter near her day care, but still… What am I supposed to do now?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I’d never seen a grown man cry before. It didn’t feel right to try to lighten the mood with a joke, but I also wasn’t exactly great at comforting people, either. Usually, I just left the room when someone started crying, and the only way I knew how to make myself feel better was with a healthy dose of sarcastic humor. I needed to dig deep for this one.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“... Hey,” I tried, “I’m sure your daughter’s doing okay. I’m not exactly an expert on incursions, but I know we got hit by a pod earlier—that probably means it’s focused around us. I’ll bet that the Army gets here long before they spread out and reach her.” Good job, Ben, mention again how the Antithesis could still reach her. Great start.

Harry looked like he was about to start sniffling, but didn’t. “I thought I could help; take out as many of those freaks as I could to stop them from growing. But I’m not a soldier anymore. Haven’t been for a long time. All I’ve got now is a cheap uniform and a shi—a shrimpy pistol. Now, I don’t even have my leg anymore.”

I shrugged. “Hey, you still saved my life a few times already. And on that note: you have me now. Not to brag, but apparently I’m a badass Samurai. With you and me together, I bet we could take on every alien in this dump. I could even buy you a new leg—a cooler one, with a grenade launcher and shit built in.”

Harry gave a small smile. “Yeah, there is that.” After a short pause, he suddenly surged up and hopped around the table, putting up his hand to stop me when I rose to help him. “That’s actually why we’re here. The guns are all well and good, but what we need now is intel.” He slid into the seat in front of the desk in the corner, booting up the ancient computer sitting on top of it.

I slid on over next to him. “What do you mean?” Harry didn’t respond immediately, instead idly clicking a few keys as he waited for the computer to finish loading. I took a look through the tower’s transparent case—no wonder this was taking so long: it only had thirty-two gigabytes of RAM. This thing was old.

As the password screen finally flicked up, Harry clacked out a code and finally responded to my question. “Before you told me what you were, I just wanted to get up here to grab some guns so I could go John Wick on the aliens. Worst case, I could hold out in here until reinforcements arrived. You saw—this room is nearly as tough as one of the shelters. But that got me thinking: there are other security stations like this all across the mall. There are dozens of stores in the Shopplex, all with their own rooms and their own cameras.” He clicked a few keys, bringing up a rotating view from every camera in the Macy’s. Most of the screens showed empty aisles and racks, but a few at the front of the store were throwing up “shoplifting alerts” as we watched a Model Three scarf down all of the candy bars at the checkout.

Harry tapped a few more times, and the screen was replaced by a chat server panel. He typed out a short message, then spoke again. “Sometimes we need to coordinate with the officers around the Shopplex, so we have this little chat room that allows us to talk and share cameras. I’m willing to bet that someone was on break when this all kicked off, and decided to hunker down in one of the other rooms. If we can reach them, we can get a more complete picture of this clustertruck. That’s when you come in: once you know where everything is, you can do your Samurai thing and take out the rest of them.”

“My ‘Samurai thing’?” I responded, “I’m glad you have such a high assessment of my non-existent skills. But, one problem becomes apparent: how are we going to talk to them? Lynata told me that the internet is out.”

Harry sighed. “Yeah, city networks always get overloaded during incursions. And that probably means that we’re not going to get any cameras for the Shopplex itself—that’s all run through a third-party service center in India. However, the mall has a local network that a bunch of its services are run through, including our security. That should still be up and running.” As soon as he finished speaking, a little chirrup played on the monitor’s tinny speakers, and a message popped up on the chat server’s screen.

“Yup, we just got a response. Let’s make this a video call.” Harry joined one of the server’s call rooms and adjusted the computer’s blocky webcam. After a few moments, we were greeted with a video panel as the other security guard joined the call. I didn’t recognize him—which was weird, because the best word I could think of to describe him was "distinctive”: he looked like he ate bodybuilders for breakfast and tanks for dinner. What parts weren’t replaced by heavy-duty aug-gear were covered in glow-ink tattoos that seemed to proclaim allegiance to at least half a dozen gangs, while his face was a mix of anvil-thick brow and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. This was made all the more ridiculous by the tiny outfit he had been stuffed into, so tight-fit that it probably required him to use a pair of scissors to get it off at the end of his shift.

Harry waved cheerfully. “Hey, José. Is everything safe on your end?”

The gorilla of a man had to bend down for his whole head to fit in-frame for the camera. “Yes sir, Mister Markus. There was a few people in the store when the alarms came on, so I invited them in here. Haven’t heard a peep from no Antithesis so far, sir.”

Harry patiently nodded along. “That’s good, José. It’s probably too late to get them to a shelter, so keep them safe in there. Could you please do me a favor and connect me to your cameras? I want to see what’s going on around the store.”

José bobbed his head, his chair creaking dangerously as he shifted. “Can do, Mister Markus, sir. But we’ve only got the two cameras; one at the counter and one outside.”

“That’s fine, anything you give us is a big help.”

This was surreal. The guy looked like a cross between a movie villain gangbanger and a human trash compactor, yet he was nothing but one-hundred-percent respectful to Harry, and as his window minimized to be replaced with camera footage, I saw him get up and delicately hug a woman who was crying behind him. Confused as I was by the spectacle, my attention soon shifted to the video dominating the screen. By the looks of it, José worked for one of the electronics shops on the upper floors, which seemed so far untouched by the local alien menace. The view didn’t help much, but it at least showed us that some parts of the mall were still safe.

The cameras’ view shrunk as an additional video screen joined José’s. It was another security guard, but this one was familiar to me. It was Frank, one of the “asset protection specialists” for TJ’s; he’d been working there almost as long as I had, after retiring from the Billing’s police department. He was a rather nice guy, if a bit low on patience for people who “sassed” him, and he loved telling me funny stories about his career. However, he currently looked rather out of sorts: sweat stained his shirt collar and light-brown skin, half his greying mustache was straight-up missing, and he was nervously running his hands through the grey stubble on top of his head.

Before Harry could say anything, Frank spoke. “Oh, thank God! Listen, Harry, I need some help over here. Some alien pukes have been pounding on my door for the past half an hour, and I don’t think it’s going to hold for much longer. If they make it through, all I’ve got in here are a few cans of pepper spray. I need help.”

I’d never seen Frank stressed before. The former cop had once had a knife pulled on him by a shoplifter, and he hadn’t even batted an eye before breaking the guy’s arm. But right now he was obviously about two seconds from losing it completely.

“Understood, Frank. I’ll try to coordinate a response with the rest of—” Harry started, trying to calm him down, only to be cut off by Frank’s cursing as repeated bangs were heard from his side.

“‘Shit! I don’t care how you get it done, just get me out of here!”

Harry nodded, then muted our side of the call. He turned to me. “Well, how about it? Feel like helping him out?”

I furrowed my brow. “Me? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “I would think that would be obvious. I’m not sure if the situation is as dire as Frank seems to think it is, but I’d rather not find out I’m wrong, either.” He shifted in his seat. “You need to be out there—killing Antithesis and saving people are the only ways to get points. This does both.”

“You want me to go out there, alone, cross half the mall full of aliens, and save a guy who’s probably fine right where he is?”

The mall cop sighed. “Believe me, I’d join you if I could, but—” he tapped the stump of his leg, “—I can’t. I would just slow you down. I know this seems stupid, but you need to start somewhere. You have a weapon, now you just need the ball rolling. If you stay in here, then you aren’t saving anyone.” He pointed at the computer. “At least this way I can give you some intel. I’ll ask Frank to—ah, nevermind, he’s already sent me the security feed. Let’s just see what we’re dealing with here.”

Harry maximized the display, showing the view from a new set of cameras. It was the store I’d worked at for the past four years, but I hardly recognized it in its current state. It looked like a stampede had run through it, knocking aside shelves and racks throughout the entire store. There were pockets of Antithesis patrolling the area, including several models that I didn’t recognize. Looking at it, my every instinct screamed “oh fuck no!”, but the decision was made for me as Harry unmuted us and addressed Frank. “Thanks for the cameras. Help is on the way, just sit tight.” He looked back at me. “Give me your number, I’ll make sure you’re on the LAN so we can all communicate.”

I shook my head. “Harry, I don’t know about this. I get wanting to help, but—”

Harry stretched out, nearly toppling from his seat as he put a hand on my shoulder. “I know, kid; believe me, I know. Honestly, I wouldn’t be sending you out there unless I absolutely had to. But I absolutely have to. Either you start making points real fast, or we’re all screwed. I’m rooting for you.”

I chuckled, despite myself. “Gee, thanks.” He was right. I didn’t like it, but he was. As much as I preferred the “sit and wait” option, our little safe space wasn’t going to be safe forever. If we were as close to the center of the incursion as I thought, this place would be covered with aliens within the day. I’d read too many stories about shelters getting cracked open before they could be saved, and damned if I was going to let that happen while I could do something about it.

This was going to suck.