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Tarnished Honor
Chapter 34 - Monitors

Chapter 34 - Monitors

Insurance is such a scam these days. Most places require you to have antithesis insurance, to cover building losses in case of an incursion, but what most won’t tell you is that they all have a clause that waives them of any and all responsibility if the damage was caused by a samurai. It turns out that some samurai are able to cause so much damage that many insurance companies put an ‘Act of Samurai’ clause into their contracts. How is that fair?

-Top insurance complaint between 2030 and 2034

“I’m picking more signals near the top of the building, but they’re not moving. Should I send the drones to take care of them?” Skyler asked.

Emily bit her lip for a minute as she considered, then shook her head. “Bring them back for now. I think it’s safer to keep them nearby in incase something wakes up while we’re moving about,” she declared.

“Right, good call,” I mumbled as I cut my connection to the drones. I’d seen enough to know my father had put some serious security at this facility, that probably meant he was hiding something, but it also might have been enough to keep the people in the shelters alive. One could hope anyways. “So, downstairs first?”

“Sure, as long as you go first,” Steve mumbled quietly. I shot the man a dirty look, but ultimately decided to ignore him.

I waited by the stairway door until Skyler’s drones rushed past before I started heading downwards. I made a mental note to allow Skyler to clear rooms before entering from now on, robot or not, I’d already walked into a couple bad situations. Time to stop that.

The basement door was bent, so heavily damaged that it’d never open again, but intact. I paused for a moment, then drew my sword. “I’m going to try and cut open the top so the drones can get through. If it’s clear, I’ll open it further so we can follow.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Skyler replied. “You think the blade will be able to cut through solid metal?”

“For the price I paid, it better,” I grumbled. I carefully placed the blade against the twisted corner of the door and pressed down. I’d only meant it to experiment, to see if the blade could even cut the metal, what I didn’t expect is for the blade to hiss quietly, and cut through the metal like it wasn’t even there. I flicked the blade, almost casually, and a corner of the mangled wreck fell away.

When I turned away from the door, making room for the drones, everyone was staring at me. “It’s… a little sharper than I expected,” I said with a small smile.

Emily just nodded. “So it seems. Careful where you point that thing,” she mumbled in response.

It only took a minute for Skyler to clear the area. “Just a shelter and some maintenance rooms, nothing else,” she reported. The comms panel was lit up, so the shelter must have power.

“Right, opening it up, stand clear,” I declared, as I stepped closer to the mangled door. All it took was a single precise vertical stroke, aimed just inside the hinges to cut the metal door loose. Despite the much faster attack, I still didn’t feel any resistance. I was so distracted by that fact that I barely had time to sidestep as the entire thing came crashing down. Skyler flinched as the massive clang echoed back up the concrete staircase.

“You might want to send one of your drones back up the stairs, just to make sure that didn’t attract any attention,” Emily said dryly, staring my way.

While Skyler posted a scout behind us I carefully resheathed my sword. I knew it was strong, but this was scary strong. I had to show extra respect to this blade.

Emily took point as we entered the basement, sweeping her light around as she approached the massive, reinforced door at the far side of the room. I let the rest of the team follow, then entered last, keeping an eye out just in case something came down the stairs. Apparently I’d been lucky and those bots up stairs hadn’t come down to investigate.

Skyler practically skipped to the shelter, hammering her finger down on the cams button. “It’s full, and it looks like everyone’s okay!” she reported. “Guess your old man did install the generators, as promised.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Yeah… I wonder why that is?” I grumbled in reply.

“This place was inspected and Tanaka Industries was told they need to upgrade the systems, do you really think they’d just ignore government mandates?” Steve asked.

“If they thought they could save a few bucks, absolutely,” I grunted.

By the time I’d made it to the shelter Emily had already stepped over and engaged the comms. “My name is Emily Baker, I need to speak to whoever’s in charge,” she said to the screen.

There was a moment of silence, then a quiet female voice drifted out of the monitor. “I guess that would be me ma’am. My name’s Katie Sanderson, I’m the head secretary.”

“First of all, did everyone manage to evacuate properly? Are you safe there?” Emily asked.

“Yes Ma’am. We do regular drills and I did a full headcount when we closed the doors. Everyone from floor one down made it, we even had a couple visitors here.” Katie replied, apparently proud of the fact.

“Good. The incursion is still ongoing, so we can’t evacuate you right now, but someone will be by as soon as possible,” Emily paused. “Did the other shelters also have backup power installed?”

“Absolutely ma’am. The entire building went through a retrofit a couple months ago, everything is up to code now!” Katie said excitedly. “Can you imagine what it would be like if they hadn’t? We’d be sitting in the dark.”

“I can imagine,” Emily replied patiently. “It’s the reason why we stopped by, the last time these shelters were inspected they weren’t up to code. We wanted to check on everyone.” She paused again, “What can you tell me about the bots, do you know how many there are on the premises? Why were they installed?”

“Bots?” Katie replied, confused. There was the sound of whispering on the other side of the monitor. “Oh, you mean the monitors? Headquarters installed them a couple months ago when they performed the shelter upgrades, about the same time we started taking VIP clients.”

“VIP clients?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes ma’am. I don’t know much, I don’t have clearance to go up there, but they completely rebuilt the top floor to cater to VIPs. They park on the roof, get a private consultation, then leave, that’s all I know,” Katie reported.

“The top floor, where the other two ‘monitors’ are?” I asked suspiciously.

“Maybe? Again, that’s above my paygrade,” Katie said.

“Alright, thanks for the information Ms. Sanderson. Just concentrate on keeping your people calm, this’ll all be over soon,” Emily told the woman.

“Yes ma’am! I can do that!” Katie replied. She certainly was upbeat for someone stuck in a concrete room in the middle of an alien invasion.

Emily cut the connection. “So not only should all three shelters be clear, but they have military hardware wandering around to protect the place. Doubt we need to worry about the other two,” she announced.

“You’re probably right,” I started hesitantly, “but I’d still like to check upstairs.”

“You still don’t trust your old man’s on the up and up?” Steve asked sarcastically. “After seeing this? You ever consider you may just be biased against him”

“And maybe you’ve never met the man,” I snapped at him. “You certainly don’t know him like I do. He would absolutely let those people die, if he thought it would have made him money in the long run. The fact that he spent all this time and money probably means this ‘VIP’ area must be pretty special. I want to check it out.”

“We should check out the other shelters, just in case,” Skyler added, trying to support my decision.

“Look, you don’t have to try and convince me, you two technically outrank me,” Emily explained. “As long as you don’t order me to intentionally place my squad in danger, or abandon you, we have to follow.”

“Right. I forgot about that,” I replied quietly, before straightening up. “Checking the other two shelters is still our priority, but I’m going to check out this ‘VIP’ area before we leave.”

“You’re the boss,” Bulldog grunted. “Back up we go.”

I took the lead, jogging back to the stairs, pausing just for a moment to both look and listen. I could hear gunfire echoing down the stairs, it sounded like it was coming from outside, so I glanced back at Emily.

She didn’t hesitate, she immediately activated the radio hanging from her vest. “Jockey, how are things looking out there?” Emily asked.

“Got some stragglers in the street now boss, not that many, the gun is handling it,” Jockey’s reply squawked out of the tiny radio.

“Right, let me know the instant the situation changes,” Emily said, letting go of her mic.

“That ‘monitor’ must have killed everything at street level, then chased down the stragglers upstairs,” Skyler suggested, “and now that it’s disabled the antithesis are wandering back into the area.”

“Yeah, that must be it,” Bulldog agreed, but I could see that he didn’t fully believe it. Something felt off.

“Let's get moving,” Emily suggested. “You saw what can happen if we sit around for too long at the pet shop, I’d prefer if we avoided a repeat performance.”

“Then up we go,” I declared.