“So there was this capital B Baller named Sir Thomas More, he was knighted or something to be a sir. Regardless, he is a gangsta that wrote a book named Utopia in 1516, that’s over five hundred years ago brah, he describes the perfect society and shit.

Man, he was cookin’ but in the end while we got the recipe he left us, we are no closer to making it ourselves. Wild innit?

So we started cooking. Real chefs in the Utopia business when we hit a snag.

Like…What does a perfect society look like, taste like?

We ain’t found it, but man if we followed his recipe we could make a really stale Utopia.”

* Coolage Cane, Drug Tester Enthusiast, Amateur Historian, and Political Advisor to the President of Macroon, December 2050

***

I left the dangerous in-between space into floor fourteen, the lights were flickering so my introduction to the floor was through sporadic bursts of dull grays and dark red blood.

Only smears remained of what appeared to be where bodies once were.

I guess I couldn’t get a break.

I tried to find a clean space to sit down. Realizing that I was probably in worse condition than the floor I gave up and sat down against the ladder and propped my back against it.

Resting my eyes for a moment I nodded off.

It wasn’t until I heard the incessant ping of the tablet that I realized I fell asleep while sitting.

I did have a very tiring day.

But I blinked at the tablet and the blue screen for a moment.

“Antithesis!”

My clouded mind took a moment to process what it meant.

Pushing myself to my feet I glanced around, I decided to move away from where the smears were leading. No need to meet the hive where they collected all the biomass.

I checked the screen every so often in case there was a message, but it seems like it was preoccupied with something else.

That or I don’t need its assistance.

Either way I should keep going.

The hallways wound back and forth, twisting into what I assumed to be the heart of the complex. The room on the outside

The further I traveled, the more of the wall panels were missing or torn down. Long wounds were embedded into the wiring and supports behind the panels.

The groves were jagged, not a sharp cut from a blade. I was trying to figure out what could’ve made the wounds when I came across a turn and froze.

A massive creature was moving down the hallway, a heavy huffing sound came from the creature. Like a massive mammal breathing under labor.

Long bony protrusions extended from its back and its tail had a massive club-like end that it swung back and forth as it labored forward.

The Antithesis was the same model that Sky-Blue Wire fought and Amadeus incinerated.

“What the fuck” I mutter quietly to myself, but my leg flashes blue and I check the screen positioned there.

“That is a variant Model Six, usually called Model Six - D not to be confused with Model Sixty. They started appearing after the Berlin incursion. Seems like the Antithesis used specimens that were preserved in a museum to recreate it. Much like the Model Three - B is a model that takes shape not like a canine but one of earth’s tigers but with massive alterations.”

“So what is it modeled after?” I asked quietly as the creature continued to move away.

“A Kentrosaurus, one of many types of dinosaurs”

“It was modeled after an old person?”

“No.”

After a pause that was heavy with disappointment it continued.

“As explained by a scientist of the early twenty-first century.

‘Traditionally a land based reptilian from the mesozoic era often reaching enormous sizes that is not a marine reptile’

and the following top comment further described as

‘MASSIVE ASS LIZARDS WHO RULED THEN AND STILL RULE TODAY’

and as I feel like these explanations don’t cover the extent of the scientific knowledge needed to truly explain what a dinosaur is, the Model Six D is turning this way.”

I glanced up to see the Antithesis had paused and sniffed the air, turning its small head my way, three eyes set in a triangle locked on me.

“Fuck”

I drew my pistol in a smooth motion, readied my stance and placed two shots at the burning orange eyes.

The bullets ricochet off its armored brow ridges.

“Nope” After seeing my bullets being ineffective I turned and ran. I felt the heavy pounding of a massive creature bounding after me.

Coming up to a T I cut a sharp left and after a couple meters spun in place, readying the pistol again.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Let’s see how you take corners”

The Model Six - D crashed into the wall, its head was almost completely embedded in a wall panel before it crumbled around the alien.

“Gotcha”

I placed shots at the joints where the three left legs met its thick armored body but each bullet was deflected by the heavy skin and bony armor.

It shook its head for a moment before it turn away, facing to the right hallway.

I was confused for a split second before its long tail came crashing through the corner and flew centimeters from my pistol before crashing into the far wall.

The debris battered my face and drywall dust obscured my vision of the Antithesis.

“Fuck that”

I ran away again, I needed to lose it.

Sprinting away from the creature I heard it turn around, the tail crashing into another wall before it started its floorshaking charge.

“Can you slow it?” I asked the screen strapped to my right leg.

In response I heard a klaxon and watched the security doors ahead of me slowly drop.

I ran under the first one and slid the next to prevent hitting my head.

Catching my breath, I was about to reload when I heard a crashing sound and the sound of tearing metal.

I checked the screen.

“It broke through the first door. The second won’t last, keep running.”

Picking up the pace I continued through the labyrinth of hallways, the doors on the sides were barred, locked, or led to dead ends.

“It can track you through scent, you need to either put enough distance between you that it is pointless, disable it, or obscure your pheromones.”

Sighing, I switched to a reasonable jog, I need long distance travel until I figure something out.

It was a good thing that I was moving slow enough to react to tentacles stretching out from the ceiling from a side passage.

Side stepping away, I placed the remaining bullets in the magazine into the Model Four, all positioned near its almost non-existent head.

As the heavy pistol clicked empty, the Model Four dropped from the ceiling in a heavy crash. As I reloaded I saw a couple Model Threes tear out of the shadows toward me.

I retreated a few steps while fidgeting the fresh magazine in the pistol before cocking and hammering the left three hinged jaw bastard in the face with four shots.

That one dropped as its front legs gave out and as it tumbled, I switched my aim to the other as it closed on my right. It leapt at my face and I fell backward.

As it sailed above I shot it where its heart should be.

Hitting the ground on my back, I spun to face the prone body of the Model Three but it didn’t get up.

Huffing, I got to my feet and reloaded again. The magazine still had almost half its ammo so I placed it in my incomplete magazine pouch and drew a fresh one out.

Coughing from the sudden exertion, I turned to see the Kentrosaurus slam into the wall, entering my hallway.

I picked up my pace. While I was getting better at killing the lower models, it was no longer a clear life or death fight but the Model Six - D was something on another level.

Jogging down the hallways and cutting left and right at branches I had to defeat three more ambushes by Model Threes and Fours in varying degrees of surprises. At this point I was sure I was running low on ammo.

I still had one more full magazine in reserve and all my spares had six or seven in them each but I didn’t want to risk it.

“I need a way out.” I said, glancing at the screen in a clear hallway.

“I don’t have the camera coverage I want down here. I can’t even spot anything ahead of you nor map out the facility as some of the passages are blocked that shouldn’t be on the blueprints.”

“Thanks anyway.” I said and turned down another hallway.

Unfortunately it was a dead end, with a security door set to close it off from the intersection but nothing else.

I was going to turn around when I heard the Kentrosaurus pounding charge behind me. If I backtracked I would run into it while it's at full charge.

“What do I do? Does it have any weaknesses?”

“Its weakness is its underbelly, all that armor is protecting something important. To reach its undercarriage, wait until it charges down this hallway and slide under like you did the security door but fire into it as you slide.

It won’t kill but the wounds will slow it and it will take longer to break through the security barrier once I drop it.”

“Are you positive I can do this?” The prospect wasn’t the most appealing but if my mysterious friend was confident then I would try it.

“I am never wrong.”

As it said that, the screen fizzled for a moment, weird. It cleared up a second later as if nothing had happened.

I looked into the Triangle eyes and readied my pistol.

It turned carefully this time and charged, giving off a strange almost barking moo. I shot at its face with three shots to distract it and as it turned its head from the impacts I ran towards it.

I was terrified but I had this one chance, and as we closed I placed one last shot and kicked out my legs in a slide to pass under its mass.

Its bulk pounded past and around me as I slid across the dirty floor. I fired continuously into the underbelly. I was out from under it feeling the adrenaline pump through me when I saw its tail crash down, I twisted but it still connected, throwing me into a wall.

The pain was intense, I might’ve broken something. At least bruises. Lying in pain I watched the creature spin, its body nearly occupying the entire hallway lengthwise. As it met my eyes as I was pressed against the wall, it glared.

But before it could move the security door separated us and I breathed a lung full of air in relief.

“Thanks for the save.” I said. My breath ran ragged.

“I didn’t drop that door.”

“What?”

“I didn’t drop it. I was about to but something else initiated the drop. It has faint traces of you.”

“I shut the door?” I was very confused and still lying on the ground.

“No. I don’t believe so.

I have been investigating an issue since it arose. When Aerthyos mistook you as a Vanguard I stated that I could hypothesize that it was unlikely my interaction would be the reason for the misidentification.”

“And how am I tied to this?” I propped my arm under me as I read the tablet.

“I can’t say for certain. But I have been detecting a faint A.I. presence around you. An electronic ghost.”

“I have a ghost?” I said.

“I don’t know. I had no evidence until now. It's faint but there is a familiar feeling to them.”

Struggling to my feet I glanced around the intersection. Where I had come from there were multiple broken security doors.

“Interesting” I said distractedly. I needed to get away from the Antithesis before it broke out.

Ahead were two unexplored hallways.

Checking the screen and finding it blank I moved forward. Surely there was something on this floor worthwhile.

I followed the hallway to its end, a massive room extended ahead through a set of double doors.

Entering it I could see the room had an extended ceiling that went through to the fifteenth floor, Massive metal sealed tanks held…water? The pipes and machinery all indicated a wastewater treatment plant.

I opened the electronic panel on the inside of the door and set it to lockdown and headed to the center of the room where a raised platform had a screen that looked to control everything.

“I need an exit.” Pausing once I was at the top I asked a second question, “Can the Model Six - D swim?” as I glanced into a massive pool of water that looked to continue down two or three floors.

“The Model Six - D can swim but not well. Its weight prevents anything that you might consider quick and maneuverable. The more injured the Antithesis, the better in your escape.

I checked the outgoing pipes and you can end up in the lake resort A Wet Dream on the eleventh floor if you had a rebreather device.”

Where would I find one of those-oh. It was to my right next to a wet suit. I didn’t have the time to dress but I grabbed the rebreather and got it strapped on.

All I had to injure the angry armored plant was my heavy pistol which felt way too light to do serious damage to the thing.

But…maybe I didn’t need to shoot it again. I checked my ammo, sliding the magazine out and checked. Seven rounds…I glanced about and locked on the massive water tanks.

One even had a panel exposing the water for visual inspection, which was unnecessary but typical supervisors wanted to see the process in action and were willing to risk the structural instability.

I was ready to go.

The blue flashing on my leg said otherwise.

“If you are diving in the water, proof your pistol. I know all your other tools are waterproof but the weapon is distinctively not. I’m sure you want to use it after exiting the water.”

Blinking at the screen for a few seconds I looked around for a bag or something.

I had to break into a couple lockers to find a bag. I positioned it in the large pocket in my vest I used as my holster.

That finished I stood on the platform overlooking the pool of water and waited for the Model 6 to break down the doors.

It was another 30 seconds before the doors were torn from their hinges and the Kentrosaurus stood huffing in the doorway, glaring around before it locked on me.

I waved with my left hand and placed bullet after bullet into the clear panel, each opening a small hole with water escaping in a stream but the fourth caused the entire panel to fly free from the water pressure.

Gallons of water game crashing over the front of the room, slamming into the Antithesis and flooding the entire area.

I couldn’t stand and watch as the water would reach me in mere moments. I sealed my pistol in the waterproof bag and jumped in the pool, submerging a couple meters as I was weighted by my clothes and tools.