TRIED AND TESTED BY THEWACKYWOMBAT

The vibroblade slid easily through the head of the last model three in the room. The antithesis scouts had been scavenging a cafeteria on the fifteenth floor of the skyscraper I’d been resting in, so I decided to test some of my new tech on them. Between the presence damping, and olfactory obfuscation techs the stupid plants barely realized I was there.

“Chansy, note time!” I called to my AI. “The vibroblade is a write off. It slices too easily. If it was ever mass produced I can only see it being used as a weapon. I thought maybe it could be used for cooking, but considering how easily it sunk into that concrete wall, no cutting board is going to stop it.” I sheathed the blade, before stowing it away in one of my dozen storage bags. “The olfactory blocker was much more successful, it completely prevented the model threes from hunting by smell. I didn’t notice any serious side effects from deploying it.”

‘Maggie, you're wearing environmentally sealed armor. That stink bomb you used to cover your advance would have destroyed your respiratory system without protection.’

“Really? That’s unfortunate. Guess we’ll put that one on the backburner for now too.” I fished a couple new biomass recyclers out of my pack, before throwing one on each antithesis. The piles of flesh started emitting glorping noises as they quickly broke down, leaving little more than a puddle of green goop. “Effective, and faster than flesh melters. It’s unfortunate that the enzyme resequencers have such a major downside.” Even as I said it, the first puddle of goop finished burning through the floor and disappeared into a lower level. I carefully leaned over the closest hole, and took a look at the room below. “It’s actually impressive how fast the acidized corpse can eat through solid concrete.”

‘Was that actually necessary? I told you what the enzyme resequencing catalog would do.’

“There’s a difference between being told what something does, and seeing it in action. How am I supposed to figure out what’s worth reverse engineering without seeing the tech in action?”

‘You could just ask.’

“Booooring. I have a ton of test subjects around, so I might as well take advantage of them,” I replied.

‘Seattle is literally flooded with Antithesis, and you’ve lost all contact with the other Samurai in the city, maybe it’s time to deploy tech you’ve already tested, and verified, instead of testing new catalogs?’

I stopped rummaging through my pack, just for a moment, while the idea rattled around in my head. Chansy was usually supportive of my experiments, he must really have been concerned if he wanted me to cut them short. “Not going to happen,” I said with a smile.

‘Yeah… I figured you’d say that. What’s next?’

“I’ve had enough of a break, it’s probably time to head back down to the street and see what we can find. What’s the fastest way back outside?”

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‘There’s a patio on the north side, with a view of the intersection.’ I nodded, then slunk my way across the floor to find the exit. No point in drawing attention before I was ready.

The view from the patio outside wasn’t exactly encouraging, the antithesis were swarming the streets, and slowly making their way through the surrounding buildings.

[Chansy, are you able to locate any survivors from here?] I asked, subvocally.

‘I haven’t found any, and I calculate that there is only a 3.2461% chance that anyone would be able to survive outside of the shelters.’

[That high? Fuck. I wanted to try some of those chemical weapons. They’d really clear up the street, but I’m a little hesitant to do it knowing I may melt the occasional human, along with the plants.]

‘Those would be acceptable losses to a lot of Samurai.’

[Not to me] I dug into my pack and pulled out a handful of orbs covered in speakers, two in each hand. [Besides, I have plenty of other toys to play with.]

‘The acoustic devastator is a powerful weapon capable of incredible damage at short…’

With a quick flip of my wrists I chucked the orbs into the street below, then leaned over the railing to watch their effect. Thanks to my enhanced vision I could track the orbs all the way down, and just as the antithesis at street level went to investigate the orbs, they activated. I reeled back, the noise was overwhelming, even fifteen floors up, but that was nothing compared to the damage at the source. The ground cracked and split, the antithesis around the area burst open, and every window in the area exploded. It was quite spectacular.

“Think we can call that a positive test. Maybe not the greatest when people are around, but maybe it could be modified for demolitions in a more controlled form.”

‘Speaking of demolitions… As I was trying to tell you before, the acoustic devastator does incredible damage to biological matter at close range, but it also causes extensive damage to nearby infrastructure, if not used carefully.’

“Nearby infrastructure like…”

‘Windows, underground pipes and wiring…’ There was a series of cracking sounds, which echoed up through the building. ‘Building foundations.’

“Ah.”

‘Ah indeed.’

There was another crack, this one much louder, and I felt the floor shift slightly, causing me to slide towards the railing. That was a bad sign.

“Time to relocate,” I grumbled, before leaping off the side of the building. There was a moment of freefall, before my wingsuit opened up and my jetpack fired up, then I soared back into the air, heading for the roof of a building a couple blocks away. Thankfully, there weren’t a lot of model ones flying around, those buggers could have made my escape a lot harder.

I landed hard on the roof, but that didn’t matter, not as much as seeing the status of the building, so I scrambled back to my feet to see the results. A large section of the bottom had been destroyed and, as I watched, the building slowly tilted, then fell over. It smashed into one of the adjacent megabuildings, causing a chain reaction as that building then collapsed back towards the first, burying the majority of the surrounding area in rubble.

There was a moment of silence as I took in the carnage.

‘I think the chemical weapons would have been less destructive,’ Chansy quipped.

“You’re right, better take note of that for next time.”