Chapter Thirty-Four - Can't Glare Away the Truth

"As inconvenient as the truth may be, you'll never be able to glare it away. Not without the Nerikson 1800-series Cybereyes!"

--Nerikson ad, 2049

***

The hospital smelled like a hospital. That uncomfortable too-clean scent that came from a million layers of anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-whatever sprays all overlapping, with a nice undertone of bleach and alcohol to spice it up.

The smell only distracted me for a bit, though. Rac and I were greeted at the door by a pair of stiff-backed soldier-types. They saluted, said 'ma'am' to the both of us, then gestured us towards a large elevator at the back which was guarded by a few more soldiers.

I nodded to them in return and started that way, only to pause as a gurney was swept through the corridor. It was being pushed by two men that I assumed were army nurses from the strange fatigues with nurse clothes over them and the medic cross on their arms. A doctor, with the ubiquitous white coat ran over and started doing doctor things.

The guy on the gurney was a soldier as well, one that looked like he'd been clawed open.

"Damn," I muttered.

"I guess there's still fighting nearby?" Rac asked.

"We cleared out a nest not far from here and must have killed a thousand bugs in the last day or two," I said. "But there's always more. They'll be hiding around the city, and in it. It's going to be a nightmare to actually get rid of all of them."

"Oh," Rac said. "Is this place safe?"

"The hospital? Probably. I can't imagine the army using it without clearing the building first."

Actually, from the reports I tapped into only a full third of the building was cleared before use. The rest has been verified, but there's a team still actively doing a deep search for antithesis life in the hospital.

Well, that was concerning. "I guess they needed the facilities badly enough," I muttered. We got into the elevator, then were pushed to the back as someone pushed another gurney in. This one had some kid on it who was too knocked-out to notice much of anything.

The nurse pushing the bed didn't register us until the elevator was going up already. When she did, she jumped and started to apologize but I waved her off. It was fine, we didn't mind the slight wait.

It was one thing to short some exec to get somewhere faster, but I wasn't a stone cold bitch. I glanced at the chart at the foot of the bed, it was some tablet with a lot of codes, but on looking at it Myalis placed the code translations next to them.

Kid had a ruptured spleen? Well, at least that didn't sound like an antithesis thing. Not that I knew what a spleen was.

We left the kid on the second floor, which seemed pretty damned busy, then continued to ride up to the topmost floor of the elevator. According to the panel, it was the admin floor, which I supposed made sense. The bosses would want the nicest view.

Stepping out, we were greeted by more soldiers but they quickly let us through, one of them gesturing towards a room where the others were waiting for us. A long conference table was set up in the centre of the room, with General Thibodeau at the far end and all of the commanders minus one lined up to his right.

There was Moreau of the scout company, Juno, and Major Tinwhistle of the engineer corp.

Across from them, the local samurai were looking like they were trying hard to appear casual. Crackshot was succeeding. He was sitting backwards in a chair in one corner of the table, his old rifle disassembled before him. He had a rag, a bottle of something, and a complete lack of fucks.

Hedgehog next to him was sitting too straight, and past him, closer to the middle of the table, were Princess, Knight, and Tankette, the three caught up in some discussion that stalled as I arrived.

"Oh good, I'm not too late," I said as I removed my helmet. "Good to see you all! Sorry for getting you all gathered up, but I wanted to talk about the end of the world and how we might need to do something to stop it. It's kind of importan--"

I was cut off as the door into the room slammed open and a familiar face stumbled in. "Ah, criss, j'suis pas en retard?" Ah, christ, I'm not late?

"Hey," I said. "Happy you could join us." Little twerp ruined my entrance. "Get a seat."

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"Uh-uh," he said before he started towards the samurai side of the table. Then he caught sight of Rac and almost tripped over his own feet. "Oh, salut, allô. Moi c'est Gros Baton, j'pense pas qu'on s'est déjà rencontrés?" Oh, hey, hi. My name's Gros Baton, I don't think we've met?

The twerp, Gros Baton, I suppose, gave Rac a winning smile. The little shit thought he was all suave. It wasn't working. Rac had mastered the resting bitch face and she shifted her hands to her hips when he extended his for a shake. "Salut," she replied coldly.

"She likes them older," I explained.

Rac kicked me in the shin.

"Who's your friend?" Tankette asked. "Hello, by the way, I'm Tankette!"

"This is Rac, or Racoon, properly. She's my shadow today. Go sit down, Gros Baton, the chairs won't eat you. General, do you mind if I take the, uh, metaphorical mic on this one?"

"I don't mind," General Thibodeau said while Gros Baton circled around and sat down. He smiled like he'd just won an award when Rac slipped around and sat in the last free chair next to him.

"Okay, well, first thing's first, Myalis, can you get me something for privacy?"

Certainly. Here, only twenty points but it should keep prying ears at bay.

A small box appeared on the table, then unfolded itself to reveal a glowy ball thing that was spinning in place atop... what looked suspiciously like a statue of an upside-down cat with all four legs pointing upwards.

"Right," I said. "So, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and that's why I'm going to skip right on past to the good news."

"And what's the good news?" Crackshot asked.

"If we all work together, we won't all die horrifically," I said. "Phobos is rushing our way, but we have a plan. Well, Grasshopper has a plan, but that plan relies on all of us working together."

"And what's the plan?" Hedgehog asked. The officers were interested too.

"It's mostly Grasshopper's plan," I deferred.

"Thank god for that," Hedgehog muttered. He probably didn't account for my very good hearing. I wanted to glare but... shit, the dude was right.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway. Grasshopper says that we need help, so here I am, recruiting you all into helping. We're going to need a heap of stuff, and I don't even know where to begin, but the first thing we need is a private, secure staging area, and we're probably going to need to build stuff there in a hurry."

Major Tinwhistle sat up straighter. "You're gonna need my engineers," she said.

"Yup. And we're going to need a secure perimeter. Both from the aliens who might be pissed that we're blowing up their moon and also from... you know, everyone else. Corps might wanna steal our ammo, other countries might not like the fact that we'll have a gun here that can blow up moons. Might even get some pushback from people like the Family. They're not in any hurry to save everyone before they can get the most concessions out of it."

"What sorta ammo?" Crackshot asked.

"Might count on you for some of that," I admitted. "I've got bombs for days. Gomorrah has... fire stuff. I think we might adopt the good old 'throw shit and see what works' method on this one. I think we'll just order up a bunch and then fire it off later."

The general raised a hand for attention, somehow he made it look serious and not like a too-old kid in a classroom. "Are you suggesting that we'll be storing weapons of mass destruction on Canadian soil?"

"I mean, we might build a bunker or something for it, so it'll be under the soil," I pointed out.

He didn't seem to find the distinction funny or relevant. "I'm very much inclined to deny this entire project based on that alone. However... the consequences of failure would be worse for the people, economy, and territory."

"You bet," I said. "Besides, if you say no, we're just gonna do it anyway."

He stared. "Really?"

"I mean... yes? There's a dozen samurai on this project. I don't mean to be a bitch, but we're getting this done."

He nodded. "That's enough of a reason for me," he said. "Lieutenant Juno, I want you and Moreau to split off three platoons each from your battalions, tell them that this mission is rated above top secret. Tinwhistle?"

"Sir?"

"Give them whatever they want and make it speedy. Only your best work here. Forget the budget."

"Words I've always wanted to hear," she said.

***