You want to know why we equip most of our tech related properties with class A shelters? Because the first thing most top tier companies look at these days isn’t the location, view, or even the tax bracket, it’s the quality of the shelter. They’re willing to pay a little extra to make sure their top talent is safe.

We originally offered a choice of class C or class D in our business properties, but realised fairly early on it wasn’t worth installing class C anymore. If an employee isn’t essential, most businesses would rather save a couple bucks, than pay for the luxury of a stronger, more reliable protection.

- Matt Rubbens, Excel Realty

—

The gun on top of our ride opened up a good two minutes before we arrived at our destination. I could see Emily swerving back and forth in the gunner seat, struggling to keep track of all the targets.

When the vehicle began to slow, I stood by the exit and waited for Emily’s signal to drop the ramp. It took a lot longer for her to clear the area than I expected. A lot longer.

“That should give us enough space to move,” Emily declared as she dropped down from her seat, grabbing the weapon that Bulldog held out for her. “You know where to go first?” she asked as she slid up next to me.

“I know where I’d like to go,” I said.

“Good enough, lead away,” she immediately answered, hammering the button to drop the ramp.

I put one hand on my blade, then quickly descended into the street. The entire area was a mess, dozens of antithesis carcases lay about the square, along with more than a few human remains. I did my best to ignore the corpses as I hopped through the nearest broken plate glass window and made my way towards the location of the shelter.

This area of town was slightly older, so the major shelters were actually located several floors off the ground. The idea was that if the shelter was located on the middle floors, it would take longer for the antithesis to reach it from either the street or roof, and it would be harder for the digging models to get to a position where they’d be a threat.

In practice, it was difficult to make large shelters above ground as secure. The metal plates and extra concrete in both the floor and ceiling added a ton of weight, and some buildings weren’t originally designed to support that extra stress. A lot of companies cut back on the materials or ignored the requirements entirely. The process ended when it was discovered that some companies didn’t even secure the floor and just put armored doors up, which allowed even low level antithesis to dig in from the floor above.

Since this shelter was still running, it must have passed the post disaster inspections.

[What’s the fastest way up there?] I asked Artymis as I glanced around the lobby. Since this was an office, there wasn’t much to look at. A security desk, which had a massive splash of blood on the wall behind it, and a massive bank of elevators.

There’s a set of stairs beyond the elevators, on the left.

I jogged over and placed my ear against the door. A scream echoed from somewhere higher up in the building, but I didn’t hear any movement. The squad took a minute to catch up, moving surprisingly quietly despite the heavy armor and weapons they were carrying.

“Please don’t run ahead too far,” Emily whispered. “We can’t cover you if you disappear.”

“I waited for you, didn’t I?” I replied quietly. “Are you ready? Our target is on the fifth floor.”

“We’re good,” she said with a nod. “Want me to go first?”

I simply pushed open the door and slipped inside, one hand on my blade. Even though the building’s power was out, there were emergency lights. They didn’t illuminate very far, but at least the squad would be able to see the stairs. As I moved further up the staircase, I flicked my glasses over to night vision mode and glanced up the stairwell. The entire thing was eerily quiet, despite being in the middle of an incursion, which made the occasional scream all the much more unsettling.

After a few seconds, Emily tapped me on the shoulder. “We’re good to go.” Only Ratchet had goggles on, the rest of the team was backlit by the glow from the scopes on their rifles.

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I nodded and slowly ascended the stairs. Every time we came to a new floor, I listened for movement before peeking inside to make sure we wouldn’t be flanked. There was a single Model Three on the fourth floor, which I took out with a shot from my bow, but the others were surprisingly empty.

“Based upon your experience, is this a good sign or a bad one?” I whispered to Emily as we crept up towards the secure floor.

“It’s not normal, that’s for sure,” she replied quietly.

Even before I made it up to the fifth floor, I could hear sound from the floor. Dragging, clicking, and, worst of all, the occasional moan. I exchanged a quick glance with Emily and gestured for the team to stop before flipping my glasses over to Spectral mode.

There were dozens of blobs all over the floor, not just in front of the shelter but inside too. At first I had hoped the shapes inside were people laying down, but that died when one of the shapes contorted unnaturally and extended writhing tentacles. I slipped the glasses off and offered them to Emily.

She looked at them suspiciously for a moment before trying them on and surveying the area.

“I guess that answers the question on whether the doors closed or not,” she whispered as she swept her head back and forth to check out the situation.

“I’d still like to go in,” I told her quietly as I took my glasses back. “There might not be any survivors, but I want to be sure.”

“There won’t be,” Helen whispered. “But it’s your choice. We’re here to back you up, not question your orders.”

“Thanks,” I said, slowly rising to my feet and drawing my blade. “I’ll go left, please try to avoid shooting me in the back.”

I put one hand on the door handle, picked a target, and burst into the room. The first antithesis, a Model Three with half an arm in its mouth, died before it could even turn. My sword cleaved it in half, tail to head.

Behind it was something I’d never seen before. It looked less like an animal and more like a mass of tentacles in the rough shape of a bear. I managed to take two steps towards it before it shot several of these tentacles towards me, each tipped with a foot long spurred bone spike. I threw myself sideways, which allowed me to avoid the first two spikes but not the third. For that, I had to rely upon my reflexes.

As I rolled to my feet and started moving towards the creature again, my blade flashed, catching the third tentacle right behind the bone spike, severing it. The rubbery limb still struck me a glancing blow, causing me to teeter on my feet, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. As soon as I was in range, I plunged my blade into the side of the thing and kept running forward. I used my momentum to help me drag the sword all the way through the creature, from front to rear, and spilled a ton of foul smelling liquid on me as I eviscerated the ugly monster.

I stepped past the corpse, my vision blurred, my head started spinning, but I had to deal with the last two Model Threes before they became an issue.

Then the pair of them turned… Well, I say turned, it looked more like they shifted. The closest one's head melted back into the body, then emerged again from its back. Then the head opened up impossibly wide, the upper jaw extending all the way down to the neck, and surged forward to bite me. I hesitated for just a moment, but still managed to cut the upper jaw off, before severing the neck.

The second Three was just a constantly melting, and regenerating mess. It never seemed to lose any mass, despite its constantly sloughing flesh. When it shook its head, parts of it flew away to pool on the floor a few feet away. It screamed like a demon before charging, entire parts of it sloughing off, and all I could do is watch the creature in horror. I froze, and almost forgot to raise my blade until the very last minute. The monster thankfully impaled itself on the extended blade, because I wasn’t quite sure if I had the state of mind to actually strike it down.

As it slid off my blade I sank to my knees, heart hammering in my chest, having a minor panic attack.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck…” I mumbled repeatedly.

Reina please listen to me. When you killed that Model Four, that tentacle model, you split open the pheromone gland and poured the contents all over yourself. It causes mild fear when expelled into the air, and you’ve drenched yourself in it. You need to purge it or you're going to have a heart attack.

“How…” I managed to mumble as I watched a hole open in the floor, slowly starting to pull everything towards it.

I need you to authorize purchase of the Class I Medical Utilities catalog, and a Mark I Pheromone Purge. Fifty five points.

“There’s a hole in the floor,” I mumbled, as I pushed myself away from the center of the room and up against the wall. Across the room the walls pealed away, revealing a literal hellscape outside.

Focus!

“Right, purge, do it!” I growled, closing my eyes to block out the crazy shit I was seeing. I felt something bump against my hand, so I glanced down. The plastic box was surprisingly normal, despite everything else.

Inject yourself, quick!

I flipped off the lid, grabbed the strangely normal syringe and stabbed myself in the arm. Within seconds normality began to reassert itself.

I stared at the squad, which had just finished clearing the opened shelter, and was heading back my way. “I never want to experience that again,” I mumbled.