“People tend to forget that the Samurai that juggle nuclear bombs and flying in laser fueled hyper-cars are still human.

They seem godlike with the powers that people can’t seem to comprehend. I once saw a samurai use an artificial sun to annihilate a city block, fight an army’s worth of Antithesis with a wave of the hand, or catch a falling building with a swarm of drones and raise it back to its foundation and repair it just to save the three people still inside from death.

They seem like the beings from myths and legends. The ones old religions sang praises to.

But at the end of the day they are still human. They still bleed and break down, they crash and fall down. Words can cut what steel can’t, pierce what bullets can’t.

They make mistakes, they have emotions.

They can lie and be lied to.

Neither Omnipotent or Omniscient.

Of everything I’ve seen of Samurai, that’s what I am most afraid of. Their humanness.“

* Neo-Psychologist Gordon Friswick, Lectures on the Mentality of Gods, New Oxford University 2039

***

The hallway was lit and the security filed out to cover the space as Sky walked forward casually.

His easy going behavior did a lot to calm the nerves of everyone around, including the security.

They didn’t relax completely but I guess it was because they were briefed on what was to come so they could deal with it.

Or perhaps that was in their job training. Who knows? I wasn’t going to ask even though I was doing the same job as them.

I took the middle of the front row, Sky moving five meters ahead before we could react.

As I joined the security, a couple looked my way. A mix of curiosity, disgust, and annoyed-fear crossed their faces behind shaded eyewear.

I waved.

“You have a weapon?” One asked.

I nodded and pulled the Hammerhead out of the holster. Some were more focused on the weapon than me.

“Have you used it?” The same asked in a brusk voice. I could be annoyed but…it was likely relevant to their job so I answered.

“Yes, on Antithesis and then Sky-Blue Wire trained me further.” I licked my lips under the gaiter. They shouldn’t recognize my voice.

“You’ve killed the bastards? Good. Just don’t point it our way.” He continued and turned back to Sky.

Following him in a brisk walking pace, we wound through the complex of hallways, some with the remnants of fights with the Antithesis.

Bullet holes and corpses both alien and human littered some areas while others had the smears of something very dead being dragged away.

In one area there were bloody hand prints along the smear as if they took someone alive to wherever their nest was. I knew the technical term was Antithesis Hive but so far it felt a lot more animalistic than plant or insect.

The remains made the security stutter step, their nerves worsening every scene we crossed. They muttered to each other every so often but I couldn’t make out their hushed tones.

I turned to the nearest security guard on my right, his posture was guarded, tense with their SMG spanning left and right but lingering on the shadows of the doorways.

One his lapel was a badge displaying his name: Coriro.

“Has anyone faced Antithesis before?” I asked, keeping an eye on Coriro in case the sudden question freaked him out.

The others shook their heads, Coriro included.

“Nah, we usually deal with the unruly customer, a hostile agent sent to collect information or sabotage the company. Never any Antithesis, we are too young as the last incursion was nearly twenty years ago.” The one on my left said, a thick 7th floor twang permeated his voice.

Turning to him I say his badge read: Rudolph

“You said you’ve fought some before?” Coriro asked, his accent of the 15th floor clear and precise with a bit of posh desperation.

“I have, just this morning. We had something nasty we had to lock in a room but the Model Threes and Fours aren’t too terrible. Just look for ambushes on the ceilings.” I answered, focusing on the hallway in front as we continued our trek.

“An’ which ones are those?” Asked Rudolph.

“The Model Threes are the dog looking ones with scary jaws and the Model Fours are the Tentacles buggers that are pretty big.” I answered.

“Fuck. Those bastards are nasty.” Rudolph said, adjusting his weapon strap.

“What kind of weapon are those?” I asked, pointing at the SMGs they all held.

“Ah, They’ll called Stingrays. They use 9 mm so our ammo isn’t interchangeable with yours. Sorry.” Coriro said.

I shrugged. As long as Sky bought me more I would never need to use their ammo.

Our caravan proceeded down the hallway at a sedate pace. Every so often we would have to stop because the civilians needed to rest.

I needed to rest a couple of times too, I wasn’t suddenly more fit than my regular self. But I felt a little guilty for resting while Rudolph and the others continued to watch our surroundings.

It was during one of these rests that Rudolph and I began chatting.

He approached me like a security guard watching over a VIP. I waved his formal replies off and had him sit while we waited for the civilians to get back on their feet.

“Rudolph, how does someone become security?” I asked, always curious about my surroundings but this time I used my…disguise? Situation? To be the catalyst for conversation rather than eavesdropping on others.

Rudolph shrugged, he was taking the order to relax very seriously. He was sitting on a turned over cart that might’ve belonged to a courier company.

“Most security at this level, or floor, are trained as PMCs first. If you show promise and fit the criteria of scariness and professionalism you get an offer to change professions.” He said after a moment of thought. “And if we’re talking casually, call me Roody, everyone else does.”

“So you don’t need schooling? Also what’s a PMC?” I asked.

“Schooling? Like college? You know most folks below the seventeenth floor don’t have the means to get an education. There are vocational programs or company internships that will teach the relevant skills for a price of free labor. Most do that if they don’t have the needed connections to get another job. Corporate slaves are usually for those who don’t try to find something or are blacklisted for some reason.” Roody was listing all these while his eyes were closed. His gun was off to the side but ready in a moments notice.

“Oh, also a PMC is a Private Military Company, a business that provides security and or warfare for other entities that isn’t explicitly tied to a political body.” He added.

I guess I had a non standard upbringing. Not rich by any means. Nor did I live on the fifth floor but I was able to get the schooling to become an engineer. I did have to work pretty hard to get the position I held at RuCorp.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I remember the thirteen hour days to finish projects but at the end of the day I was able to go home. Sounds like I had it pretty good.

If I actually became a Samurai I might have to look into correcting Macroon’s education system. And living conditions. And the economy. And human rights. Man. I think I understand why the other Samurai don’t try. It's…a huge problem to fix.

Fuck.

I never really wanted power. I liked being part of something else. To lose myself in the machine.

But I guess I need to do some maintenance and updates on an old system before it runs smoother.

My internal monologue was interrupted by Roody. “It's time,” he said, getting up in a fluid motion. His grace was surprising for his bulky figure.

I followed him back to the front of the group to take position between Cariro and another security guard named Belken.

We were positioned in a triangle with me in the lead.

It wasn’t until another hour in that we met our first group of Antithesis, five of the doglike Model Threes.

They were in the process of dragging corpses to a side closet when their eyes flicked back and forth, turning towards us with their two eyes, one stacked on top the other, unnervingly unblinking.

They bounded over without another beat.

With a surge of air, Sky appeared above me and threw a knife out to meet the first. His knife sailed through the air in a flash, impacting the Model Three like a brick and throwing it behind the others before he pulled his hand back, yanking an invisible chain.

The knife ripped out of the first Model Three and revealed the thin wire that snaked through the rest of the running Model Threes, slicing them clean through as they fell apart by their own momentum.

Blinking in fascination at the fight that lasted four seconds. I saw the wire retract back into Sky’s hoodie, between the underside of the metallic forearm he had and the hoodie’s sleeve. The wire was so thin that it was only visible in flashes of reflected light.

Turning to check the others around me I saw that they were also shocked. After a moment the security collected their wits and looked a lot more at ease, knowing that they had a Samurai on their side was one thing.

Seeing them in action was another. Very comforting after the carnage we witnessed along the way.

It was a little easier after that, walking with a little more certainty because Sky was with us.

“You were trained by him?” Roody asked, his voice full of awe.

“Well…yeah. But I don’t have any of his gear.” I said, realizing the vast difference between regular people and samurai.

“Shit man” Belken said, his voice strained by stress or nerves.

“No need to stop and stare, let’s keep moving.” Coriro barked and everyone started moving again.

After fifteen minutes of walking Rudolph stepped close and offered a food bar my way.

“What?” I was confused. But while looking at it I realized the last time I ate. It was breakfast before the first repair…hours ago.

“Action tends to make people forget to eat.” Roody explained. “Don’t want to run out of steam while fighting.”

I took it but made no moves to eat it right away.

“Eat, Coriro distributed this himself so we can work at our best.” He opened his own and it revealed something dull, dark red, and processed. “Hell, think about maintenance on a machine. Without oiling what needs oil it will wear down to a point where pieces need to be replaced. Don’t do that.”

I nodded and opened the package and my processed thing was a lighter shade of red.

“What is this?” I asked Roody since he was munching away on his own, surely he knew what he was eating.

“Fruit leather. Looks like you got strawberry.”He said around a mouthful of…fruit leather?

I took a bite and yea, it tasted like strawberries. It was rather…potent but not in a bad way.

So we ate and walked, resting for a few minutes here and there as we let adrenaline make its way out of our systems.

After another hour we reached an interesting change. The hallways that held posters, waste receptacles, and signs of decay slowly transitioned into a nicer section.

This one held a plexiglass ceiling revealing the floor above. The lights changed from ceiling mounted to the corners where the walls met the plexiglass with a steel frame.

It was here that we met another much larger group of Antithesis. Model Fours clung to the plexiglass and Model Threes swarmed from below, feeding in from a branching hallway that ran to the right.

Sky jumped forward again, this time piercing one of the Model Fours with a knife but instead of cutting through the Antithesis, the knife seemed to sink in and stick, Sky turned midway and ripped the wire down in a diagonal swing that carried the Model Four from the ceiling to the opposing edge of the floor, squishing two Model Threes that were approaching.

He was about to continue when he paused for a beat then turned to me. “Cover the front, we have company behind. I’ll deal with it.” and jumped up, kicking off the air to run over our heads, heading back the way we came.

The Model Threes bounded forward as the security and I opened fire. I took care to place three bullets one after another into the skull of one of the incoming creatures. I seemed to hit something vital as it buckled as its skull cracked and broke under the heavy hammering of the rounds.

Three works. I turned to the next and emptied three more shots, then turned to the next. Each Model Three dropped like the one before until I had a row of five dead Antithesis.

Reloading I glanced and saw the rest were taken care of by the security.

Each killing one to two Antithesis apiece, using their compact semi-automatic machine guns to spray the Aliens with 9 mm rounds but with enough rounds they too ripped them apart.

Roody looked frazzled, Belken was tense, but Coriro was taking everything in stride. The other guards had varying degrees of control after this encounter.

With the hallway seemingly clear we continued forward, reaching the side passage. I checked the ceiling for any Model Fours but it was empty, the hallway itself was full of the dead as well, both Antithesis and human alike.

Moving on I relaxed slightly until I felt the impact of something hot and wet hit the right side of my body, in the corner of my eye I could see one of the security on that side’s head pierced by a sharpened tentacle, his brain matter and blood on my face.

Belken was dead.

Spinning I poured bullets into the hidden Model Four laying in the corpses. The other security did the same and it was dead after the first few rounds but many of the security around me continued to empty their weapons into the hallway in a panic.

I scanned the corpses around. I found another Antithesis hiding, a Model Three this time, and placed another Three rounds into it before checking for any more movement.

Nothing appeared to be alive down there.

But that’s what we thought fifteen seconds ago as well.

I motioned to Coriro, who I just assumed was in charge. “Let’s wait until Sky-Blue Wire returns.” He nodded and barked a couple orders to the others to move the dead to the side, and to cover both the hallway that split off to the right and the one that stretched forward.

That being taken care of I reloaded and placed the half empty magazine in the miscellaneous pocket not to be mixed up with the fully loaded magazines.

Pausing for a breather I felt the aches of quickly moving and my ringing ears. Working on them I noticed one leg hurt more than the other, looking down I realized the tablet was a problem.

I tried to distract myself from the dead body right next to us. Someone I was talking to a few minutes before. I don’t even remember what we said.

Focusing on the loose tablet was something I could do.

It was bouncing up and down as I moved, no problem while walking but I was quickly shifting stances and running and it was smacking me everytime I moved quickly.

Pulling the electrical tape I taped the bottom half to my leg, the top half connected to my utility belt and the other wrapped around my thigh, the tape running along my inner thigh like a leg holster.

That done, I glanced up to find Roody grim. He probably lost a friend. I reached out comforting hand his way. It was strange that I hesitated to do this same thing earlier this morning with…Dossi?

This human contact wasn’t terrible.

After speaking quietly with Roody I looked to Coriro.

He was furious. He wasn’t taking the loss easily. His eyes burned and I felt guilty. Real guilt for not seeing the Antithesis sooner. When he turned my way I looked away quickly.

That’s why I was staring directly forward when I saw something new in the distance down the way we were going.

It was small but growing bigger as it closed ground. I realized a few things as it got close enough to see details.

First, that it was clearly an Antithesis Model I wasn’t familiar with. Maybe it was something Sky showed me on his holodisk but I couldn't remember.

Second, that it was massive. The size of a hover car, its six powerful legs pushed its heavy bulk forward.

Third, it had massive spikes on its back.

“Forward!” I heard Coriro shout and they poured rounds into the creature but they seemed to not pierce its thick reptile-like skin, let alone its bony plates covering its back and heavy tail as it barreled closer.

I tried a couple of shots but even the heavy pistol’s 10 mm failed to penetrate the massive creature. Its head grunted with the exertion of its weighty charge.

I was staring down a ton and a half of mean alien, closing the distance almost as fast as I could run.

But if I ran now, all the civilians behind me would not be able to react in time to get away.

I was steeling myself to hold my ground when a burst of air buffeted my back and Sky flew over, throwing a knife forward and cutting into one of its legs.

Sky continued forward, jumping from air burst to air burst to make up the distance between our group and the creature, then over the top of it. Dodging the boney spikes and plates on its back, and pulling the wire to try to trip the creature.

While the Antithesis did slow, it redirected its movement into an insane thrash of its tail, crashing into Sky and throwing him into a wall and it spun in place, sliding backwards towards me before it threw itself forward towards the momentarily stunned Sky.

It wasn’t bothered by one of its front legs being disabled from Sky’s knife, as it closed on the Samurai.

Sky twitched then planted his feet on the wall and sprung off of it and onto the ceiling and the creature slammed into the wall, the bone plates buckling the wall panels.

Sky shot out two daggers at the same time to its back legs but it thrashed its tail and knocked one away. The other connected with a meaty thud before Sky twisted and pulled the dagger out, trying to disable another foot.

And the fight continued, the creature absorbing debilitating blows again and again, Antithesis blood soaking the hallway as the creature crashed into walls trying to pin Sky down.

It was in the middle of this fight that I saw my leg light up.

“Down the Right Passage, NOW!.”

As I read the blue text box that appeared on my tablet I heard a grating noise coming from above.

Throwing myself down the passage we cleared I heard the crashing sound as the plexiglass ceiling fell in from the left side, swinging down and crushing a couple unfortunate security guards as it blocked the hallway.

I was soaked in their blood as they were pancaked between the plexiglass and wall.

My first thought was that it could've been me.

My second realization was that I didn’t even know their names.

The ceiling was parallel to the right side wall, giving me a window into the fight and damage but no chance to join in.

In the dust that filled the space a hulking form appeared. Humanoid in appearance, a towering seven and a half feet tall.

It must’ve dropped in from above where the ceiling caved in.

There was a bang and a massive explosion ripped through the dust cloud.

As the flames cleared, more details became prevalent. Gunmetal gray interspersed with red, it held a heavy looking weapon, an open barrel at the end carried a tongue of flame.

“Hey Amadeus! Care to join me?” Sky said, his light jovial voice in contrast to his body being thrown side to side as he desperately held onto the thrashing spiked tail.

Amadeus said nothing as he torched the creature in torrent of liquid fire.

The fiery stream clung to the creature and burned everything but the creature didn’t die immediately, instead it ran towards Amadeus as a fiery skeleton and slammed into the mech suit with enough force to move it back a meter before it collapsed to burn.

The flames it carried did nothing to Amadeus.

“Thanks for the assist! Dropping the ceiling was cool and all but surely you could’ve used an elevator?” Sky-Blue Wire said, brushing off some of the liquid fire with one hand. When it didn’t come off he tried again.

“Now, don’t be so silent and broody. Are you still mad about Jericho? Is that it?” Sky said distractedly as he continued to brush at the flames that were licking on his left shoulder.

The mech suit that was Amadeus moved closer to Sky, each step shaking the floor slightly, an imposing figure in all matters. When Amadeus was within arms reach of Sky they said nothing.

“So whatcha doing here? You’re typically on the other side of the complex. You know, Sectors 5-8?” Sky said, not looking at the figure towering over him.

After a moment of silence Sky stopped shaking his hand and then looked up at the fiery giant.

Finally Amadeus broke the silence by grabbing Sky by the faceplate, screaming a mournful cry, and slamming the smaller Samurai into the broken wall.