“What do you mean you can’t fire the weapons? Before we came down here, you said all you needed was the coordinates. Now that you have them, you still can’t fire? Why not?!” Temporal cried. I’d lent her Wide-Eyes, my squirrel, to communicate with the samurai support team, and apparently the news wasn’t good.

“We can’t explain it!” the tiny squirrel relayed. “There’s a massive distortion field over that entire area! None of our teleportation systems can penetrate!” Seeing how violently Temporal was shaking the little squirrel, I kinda felt bad for doing something similar to Bright-Eye’s squirrel earlier.

“That doesn’t make sense! The creature hasn’t emerged yet, and although we’re facing some bruisers, I don’t see anything that could cause interference of that magnitude!” Temporal cried.

“All I can tell you is the interference pattern looks similar to the one generated by antithesis ECM units, but way more complicated. I can’t explain it!” the squirrel said.

Spooky stopped shooting for a minute, stood up straight, and turned towards Temporal and the Squirrel. “Low-level antithesis units can coordinate to create such a field, but it requires dozens of models, and coordination from a higher model to do it,” Nyx explained through the bear.

“Would Seventeens be able to do it?” I asked.

Nyx cocked the bear’s head to the side, almost like he was considering. “A single Model Seventeen, no. It would take half a dozen or more.”

“And, based upon how coordinated the attack on Jasper was, we expected at least that many down here,” I pointed out.

Temporal stopped shaking my squirrel for a minute and turned towards Nyx and me. “Is there a way for us to interrupt the field from inside?” she asked.

“There are some techs that could penetrate the field, but they’re very specialized and none of the samurai present are close to obtaining the required catalogs. The other option would be to find and eliminate either the Seventeens, or the antithesis they’re using to generate the field,” Nyx explained. “If you can find them.”

Both Temporal and I turned towards the roiling mass of antithesis that filled the room. “I guess we could get lucky?” I said hopefully.

Temporal sighed. “Unlikely, but who knows?” She gently placed Wide-Eyes on the edge of the parapets and looked down at it. “Keep trying to get through the interference, and contact us the instant you do,” she told our contact. The squirrel nodded emphatically in agreement then, a second later, the intelligence left its eyes as the connection was cut. “So much for an easy win,” she mumbled.

I turned back towards the line, raised my LCARS and fired a few more rounds into the mob below. “So, our instant win condition is out the window, we’ll just have to push through manually. I do wish we were making better progress though!” I shouted over the gunfire.

“Honestly? I don’t understand why we haven’t broken out of our corner already!” Temporal yelled back. “Gimme a second!”

A moment later I received an invite to a group chat in my augs. I quickly accepted, then placed the discussion off in my peripheral so I could keep an eye on it while concentrating on the battle at hand.

[Temporal: Hey Pesti… What the hell man? Shouldn’t you be carving a hole through the antithesis line right now?]

[Pestilence: I would, if there was a single strain here. It seems like every one of those pillars is acting like an independent hive, and they’re all pumping out something different.]

[Humboldt: Can’t you just whip something up for all of them at the same time?]

[Pestilence: I could, but I won’t. If I lose control of even a single strain, it could mutate and start attacking something other than antithesis, like trees, or humans.]

[Teddy: Got it, bad idea.] I mentally typed. [Can we at least start cutting towards one of the perimeter hives? Or, you know, shoot them with a missile or something? If we can cut off the reinforcements, we should be able to make some progress… right?]

[Grey: I’ve tried! Every time I launch some nanites at the pillars, one of those damned Model Ones swoops in to intercept. The clusters are programmed to reach the pillars and dissolve them. There’s just too much chaff between here and there. They burn out dissolving the ground units.]

[Magpie: It’s like a puzzle! Fun! How about we release the acid! That’ll get em!]

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[Humboldt: Let’s keep that as Plan B, ok? Although I’m pretty sure I’d survive, a lot of you may not. We’re not even sure if the acid will work on whatever that central hive is cooking up.]

[Magpie: Fine… I’m sure I can find something else fun to play with until then.]

[Dreamer: I’m getting bored now! Can’t we move this along?]

I heard Temporal snort off to my left, but kept silent myself.

[Humboldt: Teddy, can’t you whip out one of those massive railguns you had back in Seattle? That thing punched right through hives.]

[Teddy: I didn’t buy that. It was salvaged from one of our companions who died back there. I have no idea what it would require to purchase.]

[Nyx: About four tokens and sixty thousand points. Although you have the points required, you’d need another token.]

[Teddy: Nyx, what the fuck? How did you even get in here?]

[Nyx: Please. I monitor every possible network for threats to your person twenty-four-seven. Entering a chat room isn’t exactly difficult.]

[Teddy: … I guess that’s fair]

[Executable: Plan = Established. Destroy single outlying hive cluster to establish heavy ranged support]

[Teddy: Technically yes, but that still leaves the question, how do we get to that first cluster?]

[Humboldt: Send Bob to me. I think the two of us are resilient enough to wade through the small stuff and get to that closest pillar.]

[Teddy: But if you get surrounded by the Twenties, there’ll be no way to get to you!]

[Humboldt: Fuck it, I’ll figure it out.]

[Teddy: Don’t say that, you sound like me.]

[Grey: Let her go! We need to make progress, and this might be our best chance.]

“Fucking… fuck,” I muttered. I didn’t exactly want to send Humboldt out there, but it was her decision. I quickly lowered my LCARS and looked over the wall towards the place I saw Bob. The big bear appeared to be having a field day, smashing many smaller models with what appeared to be the lower jaw of a Twenty-Three. “Bob! Meet up with Shannon, you’re going to take a walk!” I yelled in his direction. He stopped bashing, completely ignored the Threes and Fours tearing at his legs, and threw me a thumbs-up.

“That bear is monstrous,” Temporal said from my side. I just nodded as we watched the bear simply wade through the antithesis towards the rest of the group, only stopping occasionally to smash a Twenty-One, or Twenty-Three, in the face.

“Best purchase I’ve ever made,” I admitted.

Without Bob to intercept the larger models, the antithesis immediately pushed towards my walls. The smaller models were easily dealt with, but when the bigger models came rushing forward, I realized I’d made a mistake. The rail guns were sufficient to deal with the Twelves wandering around, and wound the Twenty-Ones, but they weren’t good enough to take down the Twenty-Three’s.

As soon as the first Twenty-Three reached the wall, it stretched its neck out, reached over the wall, and started biting bears. I had to leap back when the second one hit the wall to avoid getting gobbled myself. “I think I might have made a minor miscalculation,” I said, turning to Temporal. “We might want to get down.”

“Holy shit, no kidding! What do we do?” She asked, creeping towards the nearest ladder.

“Fucking JUMP!” I cried as the third Twenty-Three smashed into the wall, nearly grabbing me as I lept off the wall. The bears followed me, half jumping, half falling. Another large antithesis slammed into the wall, causing the wall to tilt and the anchor bolts to creak at the strain.

“You might want to let the others know what’s going on!” I shouted at Temporal, without taking my eyes off the wall.

“What are you going to do?!” She shouted back.

“Fucking… Nyx!”

Yes?

“Will the next Class II railguns be enough to handle those bastards?”

I’d ask you which, but I know time's of the essence right now. If you unlock the Class II Linear Accelerator Weapons catalog, there are a couple of options.

“Then fucking gimme one! Any one!” I cried as a crack appeared between two sections of the wall.

Purchased

Class II Linear Accelerator Weapons Catalog - 500 points

‘Devastator’ Heavy Coilgun - 300 points

Points Remaining: 63,245

The thing that dropped at my feet was huge, it looked more like Jesse’s plasma cannon than the railguns I was used to. It was definitely too large for me to wield.

“Nyx! How the fuck does this help?” I yelled as one of the Twenty-Threes pressed its head through the growing gap in the wall panels.

Nyx didn’t reply, instead Heavy swept in. The big bear casually discarded his laser weapon in order to pick up the coilgun. He took a couple of steps forward, stuck the gun right up to the creature's mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The round, whatever it was, straight up removed the creature’s head. The remaining part of the neck slipped outside as the body crumpled, allowing the walls to slip back together.

With the first offender dead, Heavy simply threw the new weapon over his shoulder, and walked over to the nearest ladder to continue cleaning the walls. As I watched him go about his business, I sat heavily on the ground, breathing heavily. “Fuck me, that was close.”