Although I’d seen images I didn’t realize exactly how uniform, and confusing, the tunnel network actually was. Even with Bandit leading the way towards the nearest hollow, I decided early on to keep a small copy of the map up in my augs at all times to prevent me from getting lost.

After about an hour of walking I realized that Jesse had been particularly quiet. “Are you doing alright back there?” I asked.

“I’m fine…” he grunted. “I’m feeling a little claustrophobic, but I can handle it.” I saw him glance at me through his comically large infrared goggles. “How far is this first chamber anyways?”

“Not much further,” I replied as I referred to the map. “Maybe ten more minutes, then we’ll take a quick break and let the foxes see if they can find any traces.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We fell back into a comfortable silence, and quickly advanced towards our destination. It didn’t take long for the tunnel to open up into a massive hollow space. The cavern was much more impressive in person than it had been on camera. This particular one had to be close to twenty feet high, and a hundred feet across. There were numerous pits and crevices in the floor, which probably had root systems running through them at one time, but now just made the center of the area treacherous to travel through.

“Seems strange for the antithesis to dig out a chamber like this,” Jesse said as he wandered over to check out one of the larger fissures.

“My squirrel wandered into one absolutely full of some sort of root they were using as a food source, before it got destroyed. I assume these other hollows were used for a similar reason,” I told him as I slowly meandered around the perimeter.

“They do that?” Jessie asked.

“Not normally, no. This group seems to be making a lot of unorthodox, and relatively smart, moves,” I replied.

While we were talking, Bandit and the other fox were crawling all over the rubble, looking for any trace of the antithesis. The pair stuck their heads in gaps, grabbed random rocks, and performed other random things that I could only assume was helping them search.

They’d barely started searching when I felt a familiar pull in my brain. Bandit was staring off into one corner of the area, at what appeared to be empty space. I immediately raised my rifle, and ordered the bears into a fighting formation.

“On your feet Jesse, I think we have company,” I said quietly.

“What? Where?” the big man asked as he grabbed his rifle. To his credit he seemed calm and collected. He just slowly ran his gaze around the perimeter, appraising the situation.

“Far corner. I don’t see it either, but Bandit, my fox, does.” Jessie immediately focused on that area, still scanning. Nothing moved, which meant either Bandit made a mistake, or the thing was just watching us. I didn’t like either of those options. “Bob, go introduce yourself,” I said to the big bear.

“Got it boss!” he replied. I noticed Jesse glance at the big bear as he passed.

Bob casually walked towards the far side and, following Bandit’s directions, wound up and punched at a part of the wall. Seconds before his ponderous blow landed, a section of wall blurred, and slipped away. The glitchy, living texture avoided the punch, but was still caught by the huge wave of debris that exploded out when Bob’s pile driver activated and destroyed the wall.

“Fuck me!” Jesse proclaimed, “What the fuck is that?”

“A Model Nine, stealth model. Shoot it!” I cried. As I took aim the model nine struggled to stand, spasmed, then fell limp. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t going to take any chances, and a moment later the space was filled with gunfire. The Nine’s body jerked from the weight of gunfire. My heavier rounds blew chunks out of it, while the bears and Jesse filled it with holes. In a matter of seconds, it was unrecognizable.

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Once the firing stopped Bandit immediately sprinted towards one of the far tunnels, the other fox only a few steps behind. The pair stopped just inside the entrance, exchanging a glance, and taking up defensive positions.

“What the hell are they doing?” Jessie asked, focusing on the opening. “More hostiles?”

“I don’t think so… Gimme a second,” I replied.

While Bob stepped on the Nine, just to really make sure it was dead, I sent a quick query to Bandit. The little camouflage wearing fox looked down the tunnel, then back at me, before sending me a few images as a reply.

The first image was the Nine, as it attempted to disengage, nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I could tell. The second image showed the Nine at the moment of its spasm, where there was something clearly emerging from its back. Finally, the last image showed what appeared to be a model seven flying away, down the tunnel Bandit and his buddy were defending.

“What the fuck is this? A flying Model Seven?” I asked quietly. I could see Jesse’s puzzled face, so I shot him a copy of the file.

“It’s not flying, it’s being retracted.” Nyx said taking control of Spooky. “That’s a control worm”

I stared at the bear for a second. “I have no idea what that means,” I admitted.

Nyx wandered closer, so they could address both Jesse and I. “As you know most early antithesis models operate almost entirely on instinct, they’re not smart enough to use tactics. That being said, the swarm has developed ways to keep these early models in line. Among these commanders, the smartest is the Model Seventeen. They don’t just direct the other models, but assume direct control.”

“Using the worms?” Jesse asked. “That doesn’t make much sense. The worms struggle to even move the host post zombification, never mind carrying out complex orders or tactics.”

“Normally you’d be correct,” Nyx said. “However the control worm isn’t a separate entity, it’s connected directly to the Seventeen. Check out that last image again, the worm isn’t flying, it’s being pulled by a thin filament.”

I pulled up the image again, and tried to focus on the fleeing worm. It did appear to be attached to a line, but one so thin I would have dismissed it as a spiderweb at first glance.

“So the Seventeen is literally connected to all its troops at once?” I asked.

“Correct. That makes it an exceptional ambush predator, but this level of control does have its downsides.” Nyx declared, putting its paws behind its back.

“The string…” Jesse said as he caught on. “If we had known about it, and managed to follow it back, we could have eliminated the central body. That’s why it retracted the worm.”

“The Seventeen is also able to sever the connection from its side, in the case of emergencies. It must have had further use for the worm,” Nyx explained.

“Wonderful,” I mumbled. “How many units can a Seventeen control?”

“If they just wanted to direct the lower models in a direction, as a horde, they could handle fifty at once. For fine control, they’d hit their limit around thirty five.”

“Are Seventeens smart enough to plan the attack on Jasper, then force a horde to retreat?” Jesse asked.

“They are, although I’m unsure what they would be after, besides biomass” Nyx admitted.

“There would have had to have been hundreds of these things to control a raid that large,” I said, rubbing my head. “Are they really that common?”

“No, in fact they’re usually specialist units, and hives need to be directed to create them,” Nyx replied.

Jessie glanced my way. “I don’t like where this is going,” he said.

“Me either,” I replied. “I better report this to the others. I’m guessing the group in Jasper already has their suspicions, but I’ll let them know too.” Just before I started relaying the information, a thought popped into my head. “Hey Nyx, do we need special protection against the control worms, or will the pills be enough?”

“Seventeens prefer to control other antithesis, but if they do attempt to directly control a human the Model Seven pills will be just as effective as they are against the base Model Sevens,” Nyx said.

“Great, at least that’s something,” I mumbled. “Do you have access to something that can get rid of that corpse?” I asked Jesse. The big man shook his head, so I just turned to Nyx, “Give him a flesh melter, I need to make some calls.”

As Jesse and Nyx wandered away to deal with the corpse, I started to remotely connect to some bears. I didn’t think we’d have to update everyone so soon after entering the tunnels, but I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time.