Humanity had barely learned that it was alone in the galaxy before the first Antithesis Incursion took place in Ohio in 2022, leading to massive public unrest and riots worldwide - The First Day of the Apocalypse by Sylvia Kincaid.

I’ve always hated Los Angeles in the morning. The city wears the smog like a veil, muting the skyline until everything looks like a fading photograph. Some people romanticise it—the city’s haze or nature’s filter. I call it suffocating. Maybe that’s because I spend my days working in a glass box, a biotech lab run by Pinnacle Corporation. As a recent hire and a junior biologist, I don’t get to work on any “important” projects. I had been put on a project to modify fruits and vegetables so they could more easily be grown in hydroponics. It’s no secret that Pinnacle is working on anti Antithesis bioweapons.

As I walked into the lab, I caught my reflection in the glass, and I looked like shit. I was skinny from subsisting on microwave meals and ramen, and the bags under my piercing blue eyes made me look almost ghoul-like and, mixed with my dark, messy hair, just made me look haggard. The team I worked for had been put on mandatory overtime until our latest product was finished. My workspace is a steel desk cluttered with a computer, synthesis data, and a stack of unread reports from management.

Sighing, I began sifting through the reports to find anything important. I’d only been working for Pinnacle for a few years, and I had quickly learned that most of the stuff management sends us is useless. Finish my sifting, I start getting ready for the day. Unfortunately, the biologist's life isn’t all that exciting; there are no finding lost species of plant life deep in the jungle or resurrecting dinosaurs from a hunk of amber and turning them into a theme park. Instead, today's job was to carry on from yesterday. The team I worked for had managed to modify and grow a tomato plant that had the texture of a potato; we were calling it a Tato for now. We just had to make sure it was a viable product. 

Entering the hydroponics, Julie and Andrew, two more senior biologists, greeted me. “Finally, have you decided to start work, Gideon?” Andrew stood by one of the hydroponic bays, taking notes

“Oh, shut it, Andrew. You and I know he was going through the reports management sent us,” Julie defended me. She was kind of the team's mum, an older woman who wouldn’t take shit from anyone when it came to our team.

I stepped up beside Julie. I gave her a small smile as she handed me a data slate with the reports from the hydroponic bays. “Alright, Carlos has gotten back to me on the nutritional elements of the Tato, and they are close to what we had hoped. This will not be some new superfood that will revolutionise the industry, but it will hopefully help with many of California's food issues,” Julie said as I skimmed over the data.

“That’s good,” was all I could reply before Andrew said, “The harvest on our latest plants has increased by nine percent.”

Rolling her eyes, Julie turned to me. “How’s it looking on edibility?”

Scrolling through the data slate, I brought up the animal testing data: “From what the animal testing has shown, the Tato is edible, with no outward signs of adverse effects. The pigs from the first testing group were found to be a bad batch bought cheap, hence their poor health, and was ruled unrelated to the Tato.”

Getting a scoff from Andrew, Julie and I turned and left the hydroponics lab. Julie turned to me. “Alright, could you please review the data again and write up a report to be sent to management.”

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Nodding, I left to return to my desk. I hated writing reports. Management always seemed to find the littlest details and then rail on you for months afterwards. 

The day went by relatively quietly and quickly until lunchtime. I was boiling the kettle to make some Ramen when alarms began blaring. I almost didn’t react to it, my sleep-deprived brain barely registering the loud noise. It wasn’t until one of my co-workers came running past in full panic that I realised something was wrong, “Antithesis” was all they shouted before running through the Lab.

There were only three ways out of the lab: the main elevators, the stairways and a service elevator deep within the Labs, making for the elevators. The labs had turned into pandemonium. Everyone was making from the elevators, causing a lot of congestion in the main hallways. 

A scream from behind me just made it worse as the people in the back started pushing frantically everyone in front of them. The pushing and shoving eventually got too much for me, and I tripped on something, sending me tumbling to the floor and landing hard on my left arm. To make it worse, the mosh pit of people pushed and stampeded, not bothering to help me. More than once, someone stepped or kicked me as they rushed past, causing me to curl into a ball, hoping to protect my head. 

Hurt and winded from the multiple times I’d been stepped on and kicked, I struggled to stand, and my ribs hurt like hell” The labs had quietened out quickly as the horde of people had left the sealed area of the labs. Limping, I started my way towards the exit to the Labs.

A scream interrupted my attempts. Whirling around, I tried to pinpoint where it had come from, perhaps someone who was hurt like I was. The hallway was empty except for a toppled-over cart of some sort. Limping my way down the hall, I could pick up scratching on the laminate flooring as well as an almost rhythmic banging of metal. Making my way toward the noise, the banging got quicker and more frenzied, and another scream rang out, one I could recognise. It was Julie.

Quickening my pace, as I turned the corner of the hall, I spotted one of the lab's glass doors smashed; running towards it, another scream rang out as the banging of metal turned into a scratch of metal being torn, to a scream and then silence. Speeding up, I entered the lab. I almost stopped what, at first glance, I thought was a dog looming over a body in a torn cabinet, blood splattered inside. It must have heard me as it turned its head as soon as I entered the office; that was when I realised it wasn’t a dog. Its body was made of corded dark green muscle with dark brown, almost black plates with a bark-like texture covering its back and head. It was eyeless with a triple-hinged jaw that splayed out full of razor-sharp teeth dripping with blood. It was a Model Three Antithesis. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen one; there was a group project at University where we had to dissect one for tissue samples.   

Without thinking, I dived towards the desk almost tripping as I forgot I had already hurt my leg. The model three took advantage of my stumble and lunged towards me. I had barely reached the desk when a searing pain shot up my left arm. Looking down, the type three had clamped its jaws around my forearm. Being lurched back as it began to pull.

 I grabbed the first thing I could—a microscope. Hefting the microscope, I used all my strength to pull Model Three towards me while bringing down the microscope. With a sickening crunch, Model Three let go of my arm and strumbled back, a large crack on the carapace on its head. 

Almost as if in a frenzy, it lunged at me again; without thinking, I swung the microscope again, catching it on the side of the head, causing it to barrel into me, knocking me over. Before it can write itself, I push it off me before bringing down the microscope again, Crunch, and another time, Crunch, on the third time, instead of a crunch, a squelch crushing the model head spraying me with dark “blood”. 

A sudden piercing headache came over me.  

System Initialized!

Congratulations. Through your actions, you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a protector of humanity. I am Amanyta. I will assist you in uplifting humanity so that you can defend your home world from the Antithesis threat!

Rise, Gideon Mori, and become a protector of the weak!