Chapter Thirty-Six - The Survivalists Who Probably Won't

“Life in a mega-city isn’t for everyone. There’s a constant hustle and bustle, millions of people crowding in around you, and you never know which one of them might want to harm you.

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--Comtown.com ad, 2047

***

I swore, or at least screamed something that might have been a swear. I wasn’t entirely coherent for a moment as I heard the rattle of gunfire and saw the asphalt around Gomorrah spark and crack with missed shots.

She stumbled, and I froze, expecting her to fall.

Then Gomorrah raised her flamethrower up above and ahead of her and pulled the trigger.

A massive burst of fire, spread wide like a flaming umbrella, burned the air above her and created a barrier between her and whomever was shooting down at her.

She ran faster, and I jumped to open the door. The fire stopped, but not before licking at the roof of the entrance.

“Shit, shit, are you okay?” I asked. “Myalis, I need shit for bullet wounds. Fuck, okay, sit down, sit down here, and it’ll be okay, we can fix this.” I pulled her to the side and started fretting over her, looking for the blood, for the wounds. I could fix this, just shove the wound full of magic healing goop. She’d be fine.

“Cat.”

“Oh, fuck, fuck. Okay, which one hurts more? Shit, we need to--”

Gomorrah poked me in the belly, then looked up to me with her expressionless mask. “Catherine.”

I paused, breathing still a bit ragged. “Yeah?”

“My equipment’s bulletproof. All of it. I wouldn’t go out to fight without decent armour on. Not like some people.”

“Oh,” I said. That explained the lack of holes in her gear. Though I did notice a few wrinkles in her habit, and some bronze smears on the metal bits of her pauldrons. Was that where she was struck? “Okay.”

“I appreciate the concern though,” she said. “But you can let go of me now.”

I let go of her, then grabbed my gun from where I’d dropped it next to the entrance. I couldn’t remember letting it go, but everything had happened so quickly that I wasn’t too surprised that I’d dropped it.

“So, that wasn’t an alien,” I said.

“Not unless they’ve started carrying fully automatic guns, no,” Gomorrah said. “That came from the right side of the factory, on the second floor, I think. I just saw a flash before I started to burn the air.”

“That was clever,” I said. “The fire, I mean.”

Gomorrah chuckled darkly. “I thought of the move as something of a deterrent against model ones. I suppose it works well enough against people shooting at me.”

I nodded, then moved back over to the door. My head was entirely invisible, so I wasn’t too worried when I poked out of the building and looked around. No sign of the shooter, but I didn’t have a good angle from the doorway. The fire that washed over the roof seemed to have burned itself out without catching the bricks or tin on fire. That was good.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re not dealing with aliens here. We’re dealing with armed people. Which might be worse. Should we call this one in?”

“There might still be a hive around,” Gomorrah said.

Sure, there might be a hive, but there was also at least one punk with a gun and poor eyesight. That, or he didn’t mind opening fire on someone who didn’t look anything like an antithesis. “I’m going to run ahead, check out the rest of the factory. Keep your coms open, I’ll shout if I meet anyone.”

“I don’t like staying idle,” Gomorrah said.

“You’re not exactly equipped for dealing with people,” I said. “Not unless you intend to cook them.”

“That... is a fair point.” Gomorrah swung her backpack off, then set her flamethrower down on the ground next to the entrance.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She glanced up. “Buying something to deal with people. I can spare the points, and I can store it in the Fury once I’m done with it. In case something like this comes up again. What would you suggest, weapon-wise?”

I sighed. “Something that won’t burn people? You had that glue stuff in the sewers. That was non-lethal, right?”

“True, but the range wasn’t ideal. Ah.” Gomorrah dropped to one knee and a box appeared next to her. She flicked it open to reveal a grenade-launcher looking gun. “This should do it. It fires taser nets.”

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“Cool,” I said. I pulled the magazine out of the back of my Bullcat. “Myalis, got non-lethals for me too? Taser-y stuff should do it.”

There are taser slugs available. Though I’d suggest taser flechettes. They’ll pierce through a bit of armour and will auto-modulate so as to avoid being lethal while also ensuring that anything hit that has an electric nervous system will be unable to function.

“Neat,” I said. A fresh magazine appeared inside the gun and loaded itself in.

I worked my shoulders to loosen them up, then pushed on to the door leading into the factory.

If there were any doubts about people living here, they vanished as soon as I was on the main factory floor. Lights hung from the ceiling, like those old Christmas lights, but without the coloured bulbs. Couches were pushed up against walls, and partitions had been created to split the room apart.

Some girders and brackets stuck out of the floor where I imagine the machinery used to make bricks or whatever, had been long ago. The factory was split into two sections. One with a tall ceiling, the windows on the upper section allowing dusty light through. The second half was much lower, with a second floor taking up the upper section which could be reached via some catwalk stairs.

A corner of the factory had been turned into a kitchen, and I noticed that someone had dragged in a dozen solar panels of different makes and models and left them piled up in the middle of the room.

What the hell was going on here?

A drug op, maybe? With self-sustaining power stuff they could grow all sorts of shit without anyone noticing.

I passed by a partition that was made of smoothed wood. There were toys within, and an older TV. A playpen?

I wasn’t sure what to think anymore.

Gomorrah was moving along behind me, much slower than I was. She was taking a bit more time and watching out for trouble. “I think this was some sort of commune,” she said.

“You mean a bunch of hippies hid in here?”

“Something like that. Could be a cult too. Stuck far away from the city, cut off from the rest of the world. They might not even be aware that there’s a mass incursion occurring.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. I glanced around, but other than a few posters for some bands and brands in one of the partitions that had a little living space, I couldn’t see anything overtly religious around. One partition had a cross, but the one next to it had a star of David. I didn’t think we were dealing with a cult of that sort.

I reached the catwalks first, then hesitated. “Above or below?” I asked.

“We could split up,” Gomorrah said.

“I’d rather not,” I replied. “Alright, I’m going to summon up a mecha cat. We might need one later anyway if we’ll be hitting a hive. It can keep an eye on the lower floor while we go above.”

Gomorrah nodded, then slipped to the side where she could stand behind a cement pillar that was chipped away on the edges.

Just the usual sort of mechanised cat drone?

I nodded. “Something quiet and fast-firing, yeah.”

Noted.

New Purchase: Stealth and Reconnaissance M.E.O.W

New Point total:

19,674

“You really worked hard on that acronym, didn’t you?” I asked.

It stands for Mechanised Environmental Obliteration Weapon.

A box appeared next to me with the barest ‘click’ as it touched down. The top slid to the side, and an all-black panther-like mecha cat jumped out of it. It was a bit smaller than the usual cat drone, with proportionally bigger paws, and with some slits on its back where I imagined its guns were tucked away for the moment.

“Right, let it scan around, I’m heading up.” I took the catwalk two steps at a time. My boots didn’t make any noise on hitting the steps, but the entire thing shifted with my weight, and there was no hiding the creak of rusty metal and the occasional clink.

On racing to the top, I shuffled closer to the only doorway up there and pressed myself close to it. Now that I was closer, my bullshit alien-tech ears could pick out sounds from within. People breathing, a kid trying hard not to be heard while crying, metal things shifting around.

There had to be a dozen people in that room.

“W-we know you’re there,” someone said. “Come on out, and we won’t blast you!”

Well, so much for stealth.

***