Angeline shut down the displays built into her goggles, and turned to look at Evelyn in disbelief. “What did you just say?”
The two of them were riding on the top of Evelyn’s semi trailer, following behind the front lines. Evelyn, after buying a robotics repair learning shard, was standing on her tip toes, at the top of a step ladder. The girl had shoved her arm, up to the shoulder, into the back of her giant eight foot bear, trying to get its auto-repair functionality running again. “I said, do you ever feel like you should be doing more?”
“You mean like right now?” Angeline asked. “I don’t see how we could. I’m struggling to keep track of dozens of concurrent camera data feeds, despite all my implants; And you’re currently up to your elbows in a repair job, while also monitoring your teams for heavier threats. What else could we be doing?”
Something snapped in Bob’s metallic carapace, and Evelyn pulled out a crushed metal cylinder. She inspected it for a second, before passing it over to Deadbeat, who took it and passed back a replacement. She shoved her entire arm back into the giant metal bear, once again feeling around for the proper socket. “I don’t know, recently I feel a little restless. Maybe I’m just overthinking things… Fourteen approaching number three.”
Angeline flicked back to her displays. One of the oversized centipede like Antithesis was indeed approaching one of the squads. The IFVs cannon was slowing it down, cracking open its armor in several locations, but not doing any significant damage. Just when it looked like the Fourteen would overwhelm the squad, Silent Saber showed up, stuck his blade into the side of the monster and skated down its entire length, eviscerating the monster. The creature shuddered for a moment, then lay still, and the bears went back to their extermination just like nothing happened.
Angeline shook her head, “I thought you gave your bears more autonomy, how are you tagging these threats and informing everyone before I even spot them?”
There was a quiet click deep within Bob’s chassis, and Evelyn quickly removed her arm. Slowly, but surely, the deep indent in the bear's front started to push out, and the fuzzy covering began to regenerate. Evelyn took a rag from Deadbeat, cleaned her hands, and headed over to where Angeline was seated. “I'm not sure, I just know when they’re in trouble.”
“That’s due to the brain implant.” Nyx’s voice echoed out of Deadbeat, while the little bear cleaned up the repair area.
“Beg your pardon?” Evelyn spun on the spot and started staring down the bear. “What do you mean Implant? When did I authorise that?”
Deadbeat stopped cleaning for a moment and stood up, “The distributed command upgrade. It not only allows you to command the squad leader bots directly under you, but it also allows you to offload some processing to them. The squad leaders, once upgraded to class II, will then be able to do the same for the forces under them. Allows all levels of command to give more informed decisions, without overloading your brain.”
“I didn’t know that, I thought it was just an upgrade to my Augs.” Evelyn narrowed her eyes, “Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie, the majority of the changes happened in your Augs, it just happened to also require a very minor brain augmentation too.”
“Next time I do any upgrades I want you to inform me of the full extent of the changes ahead of time, got it?”
“Can do.” The intelligence left Deadbeat’s eyes, and the bear went back to cleaning up.
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“Smart ass.” Evelyn whispered, as she resumed cleaning Bob’s internal fluids off her arm.
Evelyn and Deadbeat were still cleaning up the area when Angeline started swearing. “Motherfucker. How the fuck did they manage this? The edges are too straight, is this man made?”
Concerned, Evelyn walked over. “What’s up, you’re not usually so… expressive.”
Angeline looked over, her goggles flickering as the interior displays changed. “Take a look.”
Evelyn pulled up the data feed her friend shared, and instantly groaned. “What the fuck is this?”
The feed, which contained the view from multiple squirrels spliced together, showed a massive hole in the outer wall, about two kilometres ahead of the column. It looked like there used to be a building in front of the hole at one point, but it had been knocked down by the Antithesis to get through. The worst part was there was a small, but steady, stream of Antithesis coming through.
“See how clean the sides are?” Angeline asked, “It probably started as a smuggler’s tunnel or something. There were no cameras pointed that direction, intentionally I would guess, so I wouldn’t even have noticed without the squirrels. I doubt the city administration would have left this alone, if they knew, so it must have been camouflaged before. Considering how messed up the surrounding area is, I suspect this might be one of the first places the Antithesis penetrated.”
“Right.” Evelyn chewed on her lip for a minute, considering the situation. “Let’s move ahead of the column, we need to close off that breach, but I don’t think it’s worth breaking up the column and risk leaving a pocket behind. It’ll only take about half an hour for the rest of the column to catch up, between my squad and the APC full of rabbits I’ve been keeping in reserve, we’ll be able to hold.”
Angeline considered for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll call Epona and get her to meet us there, then I’ll contact the camp and let them know we have an area that needs to be sealed.”
Evelyn took off towards the front cab of her truck, followed by Deadbeat. The sooner they got that breach sealed the better.
A couple blocks away Caitlin was getting Angeline’s update. “You’re not even joking, are you?” She asked, disappointedly.
Angeline sighed in response, “I wish I was. Evelyn and I are heading over, but could use some big guns just in case.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Caitlin cut the connection, then glanced over at the small group of bears beside her. She had to admit, they were a lot more efficient than she expected. Cute on the outside, killers on the inside. They’d be fine, for now, and if there were any issues Silent would be able to handle it.
She turned Áine and took off. The buildings blurred by, the few Antithesis that showed up in the way were either skewered by her spear or crushed under hoof, and after a few seconds later she arrived on site.
The ugly, square hole was impossible to miss. Not only was it big enough to drive a truck through, but there were a number of the smaller models pouring through. Rather than pausing, Caitlin drove Áine right into the middle of the masses. The horse's hooves crushed dozens of threes and fours, while Caitlin’s spear ripped through dozens more. A single model Four managed to make an attack on Áine, only to have its tentacle bounce off the horse's hide. Caitlin looked at the creature in disgust, pointed her spear at it, and pulled the trigger. The high intensity laser built into the lance fired, and burnt not only through the model Four but half a dozen Antithesis behind it. She swept the lance, burning a score more, before disengaging the laser and letting it cool down. With the majority of the Antithesis on the inside the breached wall dealt with, Caitlin turned her horse towards the outside.
Áine made it halfway to the wall when something literally threw a wave of Antithesis out of the way. Caitlin turned her horse away from the wall, just as a massive reptilian Antithesis stuck its head into the wall. The two story tall, bipedal monster swept its gaze over the area, then focused on the Samurai.
Caitlin kept her eyes locked on the monstrosity as she messaged the others. [We have a problem, Model Twenty-Three at the breach.] She took one last look at the breach, eyes narrowed, then turned Áine away, making for the open streets. The situation was swiftly going from bad to worse. [Make that two]