“The goal of Arcology is to reduce the footprint of man’s cities. To place them all within one massive structure to reduce the overall sprawl that man enjoys when left with a blank template.

But the suburbs and sub-suburbs with their travel time also eat at the planet’s resources.

It also is harder to defend against the random incursions that Antithesis makes against earth.

Just condense it into a three dimensional space.

Who knew that it would take an alien invasion to help Paolo Soleri’s plan to help the planet to grow to fruition?

The planet is still being destroyed outside the walls of Macroon, but we aren’t the ones polluting it. If others follow our example then maybe we can revert some of the damage we have done to the planet. Look at New Montreal, just a massive Mega-City with no concern on its ecological impact on the Canadian landscape.``

* Macroon Magazine interview with Architect Dregech Maurck, Macroon Urban Planner, September 2052

***

Exiting the hotel lobby I noticed a nice welcome carpet. I tried wiping my feet, my boots were clean but still very wet. I hadn’t thrown them in the dryer earlier and I regret not doing so.

I squelched quietly along the hallway. It was nicer than the others. Clean white walls with intact wall panels.

The doors themselves seem to actually be locked to prevent random entry. I didn’t need to access them but I felt a lot safer.

Might be the fact that richer people than the floor’s usual residents visited here.

As I continued forward I asked Monitor a couple questions, some nonsense to fill the time and others that were more dear to me and my situation.

It was in the proceeding silence after this casual conversation that Monitor threw out:

“I don’t know why Sky-Blue Wire promised you that he could make you a Vanguard, maybe a Vanguard trained soldier who had all the gear from him but… In all honesty, you’d make a great Vanguard”

I was taken aback, “Really?” I said as I gestured to my wounded, bedraggled self. “I am not the alien killing machines they are”

“You are doing a great job. If you had access to the catalogs then you would fix yourself up and upgrade everything with all the points you’d made fighting everything up till now.

Most soldiers struggle with a single Model Four, let alone a Model Six - D.

They need specialists of a fire theme to kill those, with losses on their side. Not just injuries.

Vanguard are so good at it because they have the technology edge and an A.I. to help guide them through things.”

Smiling at that I responded, “Like you’re helping me”

“Yeah…Look, I don’t make the rules but since you didn’t get the message after your first few kills…it's unlikely you’ll ever join our ranks.

A shame, I really like you.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Might be all the times you saved me from a terrible death influencing my opinion, but I like you too.” I say in light tones.

Walking in the following silence was different. More content but there was an underlying feeling that once I make it to the exit then we’ll never meet again.

No more stalking from my monitor. It should make me feel relieved, but I was growing attached to Monitor.

I was entering a lobby of some sort at the end of the major hallway. An intersection that had elevators and a stairs entrance.

The lobby had some seating in pale colors to contrast the glossy white of all the other furniture, kind of a retro 2030s look they were going for. The reception desk was covered in actual papers behind the standard window glass.

The only other thing in the room that was not white was all the screens for ads, viewing screens for media for the lounge area, and the elevator’s floor number.

They were very distinctive when they all flashed blue twice.

First message:

“Fuck”

Second message:

“Duck!”

As I threw myself behind the reception desk I tried to remember how many times I’ve had this exact situation before. Two…three times? The Monitor was saving me again from-

Bullets slammed into the room, punching into, and almost through, the bulletproof glass of the reception desk.

“What the fu-” I was shouting but the noise of multiple machine guns firing was deafening.

I curled into a ball behind the desk and pulled the pistol in one hand and the tablet in another.

“What is happening? Antithesis don’t have guns!” I yelled over the noise of the bullets pounding into the about-to-be shattered glass above.

“Amadeus has engaged the security turrets here to target anything moving through, specifically Human.”

“These are built in turrets from the floor’s security?” I asked as the glass finally broke and rained down in large fractals.

“Correct, you can possibly use your pistol to destroy the turrets in time. Once you figure out their fire pattern and reload sequence, they have thousands of rounds and it will take time.”

“No need.” I said calmly, or at least as calm as I could be in this situation. “I don’t need to stick my hand out there. Scoot over.”

Monitor protested for a moment before I pushed the blue text box it was using to the side and opened up a processes tab on the small computer.

I had never reached this area so I first needed access to the net, the free connection was full of ads and I didn’t feel like paying for a connection even in the firefight. Instead I just glanced up at the bottom of the reception desk and found the sticky note I knew would be there.

Putting the password in, I started a connection with the computer on the desk and then hopped to their main server.

It seems like Purewater did more than just filter the water, they also sold security turrets and operated this glorified toll booth of a lobby.

Pure water my ass!

I was in the middle of the hack when I noticed Monitor poking around at what I was doing, kind of like a curious friend looking over your shoulder while baking and sampling bits you’ve made so far.

“Please, this isn’t the best I can do.” I said, feeling kind of embarrassed at the sloppy job I was doing. I was basically forcing my way into the system to do one thing: Change the targeting parameters.

Once I was in and found the targeting function, I tried deleting humans from an option or replacing it with Antithesis.

Both failed but I did add Antithesis to the list of things turrets will shoot at, which was a good thing.

The next thing I tried was kind of stupid.

I added turrets on the targeting list.

After a second I heard the spray of bullets change direction and then all of the turrets were silent.

Huh.

I didn’t dare to peek so I used the tablet to take a picture of the room above the desk and reviewed it.

The ceiling mounted turrets were all smoking from dozens of bullet holes, some barely hanging on with wires supporting the actual machine gun that was pointing uselessly at the floor.

I was very giddy but before I jumped for joy I went back and worked as hard as possible to erase my presence in Purewater’s servers. I didn’t have to do much to push the hack onto the other foreign visitor, Amadeus.

As I exited I saw Monitor tweak a couple sections of code and added some artistic static to the cameras to obscure my presence here.

I forgot about the camera footage. Luckily Monitor was watching. I’ll miss ‘em.

Exiting the cover I saw the massive damage.

The lobby looked like a warzone and as the only survivor, I claimed victory.

Moving past the wreckage I found the exit to a less prestigious hallway, the walls were covered in gun metal gray panels, less expensive to clean than white so this must be a residential area.

Entering the hall, I followed my tablet’s mapping feature and Monitor’s directions to find a massive room. Much like Sky’s gymnasium but instead of people lulling about there was clear order. Barricades were erected facing my direction and checkpoints were set up every twenty meters with armed mercenaries waving people through.

I guess this was the safety Monitor was guiding me to as I saw one last Blue flash and it was gone.

“Goodbye Engineer”