We walked outside into the sunlight, the oppressive heat instantly hit, I swear the sun was trying to kill me.

I very much doubt that others would appreciate your wish to shade the Earth a bit.

Devoy stepped out into the sun as well, stopping beside me.

“Damn sun. Alright, let’s go check on the truck stop. The Foxes are staying put, so it will be only us again.” He said.

I’m really hoping that the truck stop is also not full of Model Sevens, and it has another group of barricaded humans.

I bring up my swarm commands and disperse them across the town to search out the truck stop.

“Sending out the drones to investigate now.” I said to Devoy.

“Great, can you link the feed for me, please.” He asked.

With a quick thought I sent the feed over to Devoy, almost instantly he pressed his hand to his head and staggered a little.

“What the shit, Mori, how do you watch all these feeds at once? It’s giving me a headache.” He said.

Whoops! I adjust the settings to only send the feed for the small group at the truck stop, limiting him to a single point of view.

“Sorry, I have an aug upgrade to handle the load.” I said with a grin.

The swarm was swirling around the truck stop and then flew into the building. Immediately my heart sinks, in the public showers is a mass of bodies. I activate the medical scanner on the drones looking for Model Seven infestation. But nothing shows up, it’s just a pile of dead bodies maybe two hundred or so.

Why would the Antithesis leave such a pile of bodies behind and not drag them off to become extra biomass?

“What is going on here?” Devoy asked.

“That’s what I’m wondering too. Why haven’t they dragged the bodies off yet? It looks like they have been there for a while, judging by the decomposition, maybe three days?” I said.

Perhaps they are holding them for future use as an emergency source.

In the feed, the ground starts to rumble and shake, three holes opened up around the pile. Massive Model Eights drag themselves up out of the ground. They start circling the pile of bodies. These are the largest Model Eights that I have seen so far, easily twenty feet long, and five feet around. They all at once open their massive mouths and start snarfing down human bodies.

Makes sense now, they were digging tunnels below to move the bodies without having to drag them across the surface. It seems this hive is trying to be as discreet as possible. That would explain the new Models, and the Model Sevens. This group of humans appears to have put up a fight, if you look closely, you can see dead Model Seven slugs around the ground, and a few Model Nines as well. The Antithesis must have sent an assassin group to handle them. Be wary, this hive may have more tricks up its sleeve.

“Right, I think we’ve seen enough and made enough noise. Let’s head over and cleanse the area before they get too much of the biomass secured.” Devoy said.

“I agree, let’s run. I’ll follow you.” I said, securing my gear for a run.

Devoy takes off at a brisk run, I easily catch up to him and match pace.

It only takes us a few minutes to reach the truck stop at our pace. The outside looks vacant and run down. Only a few trucks are sitting around the building, it must have been fairly empty when it got hit.

We slow to a walk and, make our way into the building. The nice thing about my drone swarm is that it takes away a lot of the surprises and guess work of clearing a building.

We quickly skip through the building’s interior going right to the showers. The place is super creepy, I am realizing that I don’t like being in buildings that should be busy and are eerily quiet.

We approach the entrance to the showers and I can hear the Model Eights shuffling around inside.

“Right, I’ll go clear this mess with my wand, if you will stand watch outside, just in case something comes to crash the party.” I said to Devoy.

“Sounds, good, I’ll post up here.” He said.

He pulled out his rifle and set up in a shooting stance, facing away from the showers.

I pull out my wand and get ready to fireball the place. I walk into the shower room quietly, my sneak boots doing most of the work since I’ve never had to sneak anywhere.

The shower room is maybe forty by thirty with shower heads spaced around the room with little dividers and curtains for privacy.

I recall my drones from the room and set them to standby.

Without putting too much thought behind what I’m burning, I unleash a bead at each Model Eight, and one at the pile of bodies.

The room is instantly converted into a fiery inferno.

KAFWOOSH!!

The fireballs sucked all the oxygen out of the room causing a little vortex of air to suck in from the hallway. My shields momentarily flare up protecting me from the random debris that flies out from the room.

What’s left is a smoldering pile of ashes and destruction. The curtains, and everything else flammable is ash. The ground is practically glowing from the heat generated.

I summon in my swarm of drones back in and send them down into the ground.

Gauging by the direction of the tunnels It should deposit directly at the hive to the North unless it veers off somewhere.

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The drones continue following the tunnels, it appears that Merlin is right, or would have been but the tunnels take a sudden and drastic direction change and dive deeper underground. Not to the hive above ground, worse.

The drones drop out into an expansive cavern several miles across, and several hundred deep. Hundreds of tunnels lead off in all directions. The walls are covered with Model Eights, thousands upon thousands of them. Crawling into and out of holes just like the ones my drones dropped out of.

Holy Stars.

At the bottom of this massive cavern swarm tens of thousands of Antithesis. More than twenty full grown hives sit at the bottom spewing out models by the bucket load.

Sweet baby sun, this is bad news bears.

I see that, it appears that they have burrowed below the southern region of Nevada. Judging by the size, tunnel locations and amount of Antithesis this colony is several years old and spans many miles out from here. This could be a problem.

That is a worry, this hive will take a large, combined effort to cleanse. It may be wise to call Hank and the Family.

I summoned the drones back up to the surface with all haste, and walked back out to where Devoy was waiting,

“We have a problem.” I tell him, sending him the images the drones took of the cavern.

“God damn, that’s a cluster of get fucked if I’ve ever seen one!” He said in disbelief.

“No kidding, I’m going to call Hank, if you want to call the Family and let them know.” I said to him.

“Yeah, good idea.” He said.

I mentally bring up Hank’s number and dial.

“Hey Mori, I hope all is goin' well.” Hank said through my augs.

“Not really, you see we found something worrying.” I said.

“Oh? What is it?”

I bring up the images and data gathered by the drones and send them over in a packet.

“We found this hive cluster sitting under Beatty. Merlin said it’s possible that it has been growing and expanding for years.” I said.

A few minutes go by before Hank responds.

“Well, I’ll be a double headed mongoose, they have been playin' us hard! That is quite the discovery, this is going to be a tough’n to clear for sure. I’ll need to gather the local Samurai, military, and PMCs to form a game plan. Go ahead and clear Beatty and I’ll get back with-ya.” Hank said.

“Sounds good Hank. Devoy and I will do what we can here, we found an infestation of Model Sevens and a new Model with camo effect that covers a large area. I will have Merlin send an info dump on what we’ve found here.” I said to him, all in one breath.

“Good hunting.” He said before dropping the call.

I look over at Devoy, he’s also done with his call to the family and waiting on me.

“Alright, this place is clear, let’s get the surface hive cleared out. It’s a straight shot North on the 95 from here. Lets make this quick, maximum lethality.” He said, grinning like a kid with a new toy.

We headed out of the truck stop at a gentle trot, we don’t have far to go and don’t want to arrive tired.

I deploy my drones ahead of us to find out what is left guarding the hive. I’m kind of worried, this entire venture has been far more than we bargained for. A Model Twenty-Three, a new model, Model Sevens, and a super-secret hive.

No more surprises, please, stars above.

The swarm beats us to the grove, we duck behind a casino across the street from the dirt path that leads up to the grove, to check the drones.

I see a full-grown hive tree, and two mid-sized ones that seem to be past infant but not full grown. They are growing in a tight ring, forming a perfect triangle on top of a hill.

Strangest of all, no Antithesis in the area. Just some random trees that have not been harvested and plenty of human biomass that has been deposited under each tree.

The wave that contained the new model, and the Model Twenty-Three did indeed account for all the Antithesis that I could detect with the satellite. However, that does not mean they have not left invisible units behind. The satellite is not equipped for that sort of detection. I suggest advancing with caution.

I will continue to watch the area for activity so you may focus on searching for hidden foes.

Devoy was peeking around the corner, watching up and down the street, looking for anything sneaking up on us.

I send a quick snap of the feed to him.

“Looks empty, but Merlin thinks there are hidden models around, I will use my sensors to search for them, but let’s get going.” I said to Devoy.

He nods, we walk across the road to the dirt path leading up into the hills and the hive. The path is heavily used, the dirt freshly plowed by the recent activity. I keep my mental focus on my class II scanners and try and decipher every bit of information I can on our surroundings.

I really don’t want to be surprised by anything.

After a few minutes walking we reach the tree line and we can see the hives at the top of the hill maybe a hundred feet in.

Morigana, your sensors are detecting the presence of Antithesis, it’s hard to sense what it is though… I want to say that it’s the entire hill. However, nothing seen on earth is that large, I’m wondering if it’s the tree roots expanding out in an extraordinary dense configuration.

I focus on what my sensors are telling me, and I see what Merlin is talking about. It’s easy to miss because it’s so massive. It almost just looks like a rock or a blob of minerals. Resources gathered by the Antithesis perhaps, or even like Merlin said, roots?

“Devoy, something is underground, I think we can expect maybe a group of Twenty-Eights? Or a mass of eights, I don’t know but lets be careful and slow.” I said to Devoy, chewing my lip to fight off my nerves.

“It’s okay, we got this. We are two prepared Samurai with amazing gear, plenty of smarts and muscle. Let’s go save this town from alien asshats.” He said, laying into his smooth confident voice.

We advance up the hill slowly, Devoy activated his shield and drew out his sword, I held my breath and got ready to sling a fireball or my whip at the first thing to move.

We get to about forty feet from the hive when the Earth tilts us to the side.

A deep rumbling and cracking sound came from below us as the whole area raised up into the air with us on it.

I struggle to maintain my balance and grab onto Devoy for stability.

“Hoooly shit! Mori, I think we found what was underground!” He shouted.

The ground shook back and forth like a dog trying to dry off. It’s too much for us and we get thrown into the air, and land in a pile near the edge of whatever is lifting out of the ground. We slide off the side on the loose dirt and drop twenty feet onto the ground below.

My shields flare to life and absorb some of the impact before I hit the ground. Devoy gracefully lands on top of me, only my armor prevents me from having the wind knocked out of my lungs.

We scramble to untangle our limbs and get up. I ignore the pain in my body, trusting my nanites to start repairing injuries.

Standing over us is the largest creature I’ve ever seen or heard of.

Standing forty feet tall, and about fifty wide is a huge tortoise. Its shell a super massive chunk of stone and dirt, easily ten feet thick, its skin is covered in giant plates of armor covering everything but it’s joints. Its head is ten feet wide and six feet tall with a giant beaked mouth that could swallow us whole. Coming from all around its shell were groupings of tentacles each varying from a couple dozen feet long to seventy feet or so, most ending large bulbous formations like hammers. Lastly, it had the three hive trees growing out of its back, swaying back and forth.

It was looking at us, with it’s six eyes, and it looked hungry.