A space which originally housed a dozen or so trains at a time had, over time, been heavily renovated. Several dozen large, permanent stores lined the outer wall, and, in between, every possible empty space was stuffed full of open air stalls. This place was usually busy 24/7 with people wheeling and dealing, seeing completely empty was, unsettling to say the least.

“Can we get that door closed?”

Not sure. If you had the right equipment I could probably pull the original plans from the city database, but not with what you have now.

“Shit…”

I hate to bring it up, but you DID make a fair number of points clearing out all those Model sevens, you’re back up to 632 points. You could use some of those points to open up the Robotic Sensor modules catalog for 50 points, then you could deploy another bot with acoustic, electromagnetic, thermal, and electrochemical detectors for 200 points. It would speed up the search considerably.

I let my eyes pass over the cavernous area, trying to estimate how long it would take to search manually. Too long probably.

“Fuck it, do it. If nothing else it can hold a gun."

Purchased - Robotic Sensor Modules catalog - 50 points

Purchased - Combat bot + Sensor modifications - 200 points

Purchased - T-22A Blackpaw assault rifle- 10 Points

Points remaining - 372

The packages appeared, and the larger one unpacked itself and revealed the robot within.

“I honestly thought it couldn’t get worse, I was wrong."

The new bot had the same basic skeletal structure, but the head was completely different. A pair of sharp ears sat on top of its head, a grill sat in the middle of its face where humans had a nose, and instead of a single eye there was a cluster of three on each side, giving it an insectoid appearance.

I crouched down in front of the bot, “I need to find survivors, if there are any. Find them."

It stood straight, swung its head back and forth for a minute, then headed deeper into the structure. Every once in a while it would stop, reorient, and start off again, until it finally stopped before a huge metal door with the words “Fuck Off - Employees only” stencilled on it in red.

“Classy." I knocked.

There was no response for a while, so I knocked again.

A deep, male voice echoed out. “You’re not getting in here, you freaks.” I’d never been as glad to hear another human voice before. I had to keep my cool though.

“I hear you. Since I can’t come in, and you’re not coming out, you mind telling me how to shut the doors?"

There was a moment of silence.

“Is this a trick? Who is this?”

“Evelyn Claire, your local, newly minted Samurai.”

There was a muffled shout, followed by a flurry of conversation. A security camera above the door came to life and zoomed in on me. I waved. Another flurry of conversation then a new voice came from behind the door, female this time.

“Teddy?”

“Fucking… yes, this is Teddy." The voice was familiar, “Who’s that? Jane?” Jane was another salvager my age, but while I was petite, she was curvy and tall as fuck. Some people have all the luck.

“Yeah, it’s sooo good to hear your voice. Mr Achre said no one can leave until the place is secured. Are you really a Samurai?” There was another quick, low conversation. “They want to know what you’ve got behind you."

I had to shoulder check to see what he was talking about, Spooky stared back at me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yes, I am, and those are my Samurai issue combat bots, they’re only dangerous to things I tell them to shoot. They’re harmless to humans… In theory.” I muttered that last part under my breath. I hadn’t actually tested them with other people yet.

The first voice came back, a little hope in his voice. “Listen kid, if you can reach the catwalks up top the old control room is up there. All the security goes through there. When this shit kicked off something got in there before we could get that door shut. You really think you can get up there?”

I glanced up, there was a room suspended directly above the middle of the market. Following the catwalks back I found a few points with ladders up from walls on the second floor.

“No problem.” I threw a thumbs up at the camera “I’ll be back when the door is closed.”

With that, I turned and walked away. As soon as I was out of sight from the camera I slumped.

You were confident.

“Yeah, well, better to seem confident and give them hope. Panic doesn’t help anyone in this kind of situation.”

Wise. How uncharacteristic of you.

“I’d smack you if you were more than a voice in my head."

I stopped at the entrance to the upper level stairs, turning. “Spooky, take your two friends and hold that door. If there’s anything you can’t deal with, retreat and let me know. Searchy comes with me.”

The three of them ran off while I ascended the stairs. The upper level was posh, at least for this area. Clean, plush chairs and sofas, a bar, and what I could only guess were private rooms. I’d heard the VIPs got individual service, everything was brought to the client, it was probably done up here. A quick glance around revealed the nearest ladder was behind the employee area of the bar.

Quickly and quietly we moved up to the bar. I was about to vault it when the bot put up its hand, its head snapping to the right. Scratching, very faint, the sound had been covered by my footsteps before. I watched the bot’s head turn slowly, extremely slowly, tracking the exact position of the sound, and when it reached an open door there was a single shot. It looked like a feathered worm of some sort.

That’s the true form of the model sevens, there must be some loose ones around here. You’ll have to make sure to supply the survivors with anti-seven pills before we let them out.

A shiver went down the back of my neck. “Those are a thing, why didn’t you tell me before I... you know, killed all those people."

Calm yourself, the pills are only effective at preventing people from being infected. The model seven can be removed, in some cases, if the infectee is found early enough. Like I said before, once the infection progresses far enough nothing can be done for the host.

“Right," I glanced again at the worm. So much loss caused by such a little thing. “Lets get this done”

The ladder was metal, and well maintained. A nice change from the tetanus inducing options I had in the slums earlier. Climbing was smooth, catwalks were stable. For the first time since this started, I felt like things were going my way. Which is, of course, when the gunfire started.

“Nyx, what’s happening?”

The twelve is back, and it brought a load of threes with it. Your bots have no problem mopping up the threes, the twelve however…

“Get them to pull back and get to cover, no point in losing them now. If I send Searchy into the control room, can you direct it to close the door?”

Probably.

“That’s going to have to be good enough. You!” I said pointing at the bot, “Clear and close.”

I didn’t stop to watch it work, there were bigger issues below. I crossed the catwalks at a dead run, and slid down the ladder. Rushing to the edge of the landing I got my first clear look at the model twelve.

It was even larger than I expected, at least the size of a bus, rushing around on six thick legs. Thick, overlapping armor plates coated its torso. With a short squat head it reminded me of a bulldozer. A very angry bulldozer.

I’m losing contact with the bots, the model twelve has a built in ECM and it’s interfering with communications. It’ll probably shut down the bots completely if it gets too close.

“Then just get them out of there.” The CAR came up, and for the first time, I saw it fail me. Three rounds, center mass, which considering the armor, was a bad choice. The damage was negligible. The three eyes on one side of its head zeroed in on my position, it snorted, turned and charged. Thankfully it was stupid and just crashed, ineffectively, into the store below. I still decided to move before it hit any supports.

“Nyx, you know that catalog we were discussing before? The weapon emplacement one? It wouldn’t happen to have any anti-tank guns would it?”

It would! The XR-42 Heavy Railgun with bipod mount is 100 points. Shall I order one?

“Wait until I’m in position.” I couldn’t get a good shot from directly above the model twelve, so I had to sprint to the bridge that connected the two sides of the upper level together, hopefully I’d have a shot from the other side. The twelve was still stomping around the store, which I could now see was named ‘High Fashion’. Part of me was glad to be firing an anti-tank gun in that direction, that was a terrible pun.

“Drop it!” The gun materialized, sitting on a bipod, four feet long, most of that a thick rectangular barrel lined with capacitor arrays. The thing was a monster. Sliding into a crouch I pulled the gun up, balanced it the best I could, put the model twelve in the sights, and pulled the trigger. There was a momentary pause, then the coils down the barrel flared, there was a sudden kickback followed by a deep thump sound. I once again found myself on my butt.

The twelve fared much worse. The round had hit the Antithesis just above the back leg, cut all the way through the beast, before exiting through the neck and burrowing a few inches in the floor.

Across the way the door finally started to close.