"Many have theorized what criteria the protector AIs use to choose their vanguard. Some have claimed they pick the ones most likely to kill the most antithesis, but this is somewhat disproven by the multitude of non-combat focused samurai. Others have suggested its those the AIs find most pliable, but the fiercely indepedendant nature of most samurai makes me doubt this is true. My theory: they pick those who will rise to the occasion regardless of their weaknesses. After all, the most common line at Initialization appears to be 'Rise, and become a protector of the weak!'"

  — Dr. Finch Langley, University of Toronto, Incursion Studies, a lecture in 2055.

  The best way to describe working for Amazon in 2056 is that it could be worse.

  Quinn Takimura sat on the bottom bunk of a three tiered bunk bed fighting that mind numbing exhaustion that makes thoughts feel like they are going through a dial up connection. It was a Sunday, so she was getting dressed for work in the usual required pants and shirt and whatnot, while thanking her past self profusely for remembering to iron this set up to company regulation beforehand. She zoned out while putting on her socks on autopilot, staring out the window down at the expansive walled company compound she was in and, in the distance, the city of Madison itself. Eventually, the thought that she had actually finished getting dressed and it was time to go now managed to fully load in her brain, and she lurched off the bed before the rest of her mind even caught up.

  Heading into the tiny (but free!) bathroom they shared with the room next door, Quinn splashed some water on her face from the sink in an attempt to shake off the slept-poorly-malaise, not that she expected it to help. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, grimacing at her somewhat disheveled appearance - medium black hair with purple highlights, short bands framed by sweeping sides framing her face. Piercing green eyes dulled somewhat by tiredness, the angular features and light beige skin of her half japanese heritage.

  As she exited the bathroom there was a groan from the middle bunk. Maia, her favorite roommate, sat up with some effort, dark circles under their light brown eyes standing out against their tawny skin.

  “Fuuuuck. What time is it?”

  Quinn flicked her eyes to bring up the clock on her augs, the cybernetic overlay slash smartphone in built into her eyes.

  “6:24. When’s your shift?”

  Maia pinched the bridge of their nose “8. I can sleep a little longer then. Or maybe just call out sick” They flopped back down, leaving Quinn desperately wishing she could do the same.

  Quinn frowned “I thought you used your quarterly sick day.”

  She got a hand waggled wardingly at her in response “I’ll be fine, leave me alone.”

  The sharpness of Maia’s tone at the end of their sentence set off alarm bells in Quinn’s brain, unwelcome thoughts that she had stepped too far and pissed Maia off attempting to drag her into their clutches. She warded them back, wielding the knowledge she was just trying to help and Maia knew that as a shield. Her anxiety was a constant companion these days. It invaded her thoughts, thrusting in with accusations of failure or deceiving her into thinking people hated her. All over the tiniest of slights and missteps, real and imagined. She barely remembered her younger days, when it was medicated enough she could go entire weeks without a single thought sending her down an inescapable spiral of cascading self hate and fear from which it would take hours to wrench her train of thought back under her total control.

  At least Jing Qi, her other roommate, didn’t really need any reminders. Though that was more due to her massive debt to the company mandating much stricter penalties for being late to a shift.

  Quinn took the elevator down to the cafeteria on the second floor, grabbing a bowl of plain cereal, electing to soften it with water instead of paying for milk as well. One of the girls from her neighbors room smiled and waved from across the room, Quinn waved back while desperately trying to remember her name, coming up with a blank before taking a seat on her own near the door. Her cereal tasted like cardboard, but it was better than the nutribars that were the only option at her last job. She had splurged on a cup of caffeine substitute too, hoping it would perk her up enough to get through at least some of her shift, and downed it as quickly as possible to get through the nasty bitterness as quickly as possible. She took a minute to wash up her bowl and spoon to avoid the cleaning fee, then restocked them and took the stairs down to the ground floor.

  Checking the time again, she fast walked out of apartment block 5, heading towards the towering warehouse slash fulfillment center slash code monkey pen that dominated the compound. Hovertrucks flew onto uniformly spaced landing pads on the warehouse side of each floor, disgorging incoming packages and picking up the sorted sets the night shift had put together. The PMC that served as security strolled around in groups of two in their amazon branded riot armor, occasionally bothering an employee for an extended credentials check, usually the ones that looked most in a hurry. She remembered the last time they’d decided to ‘randomly’ check her she’d been fifteen minutes late to her shift despite leaving twenty minutes early.

  A brisk five minutes later she was past the whole foods, company recreation center, Amazon Rainforest cafe and manager level hovercar parking garage. Once upon a time she would have been outraged by the fact they put the stupid cafe she'd never afford closer to the main building than the rows of apartment buildings where most of the employees lived, but the fires of justice she once had were extinguished by years of mind numbing work.

  She joined the line of menial workers getting checked entering the building, and after only a twenty minute wait was inside without any trouble from security. Her augs pinged her with her shift assignment for the day, picking duty on large unsortables on the 10th floor. Great, she’d spend the day getting told what junk some rich fuck ordered and having to find it and lug it to one of the trucks. Well, she could complain, but the lack of a bot to do the heavy lifting for her was the reason she even had a job.

  After a lucky catch of finding an empty spot on the huge, trundling cargo elevator to ride up to the 8th floor, she took the stairs for the last two to her designated work area. She ignored the doors to the truck loading bay on the warehouse side of the building to instead wind through the maze of cubicled office space in the other half, a trick she'd picked up to avoid a lot of the traffic this early in the morning.

  The hubbub and noise of the warehouse came into focus around Quinn as she stepped in from the side entrance. People were moving in and out of massive corridors of shelving reaching up to the ceiling, automated cranes pulling down items picked out so the worker could then haul it to one of the designated packing zones. The warehouse was close to multiple football fields in size, though most of the middle was taken up by the maze of shelving. She took in the sharp stink of probably carcinogenic adhesive filling the air. In the corner of her eye she spotted Tim, her ghostly white, lanky redhead of a team lead, sidling over to her past a couple of co-workers at the truck loading bays.

  “Takimura, I’m glad I could catch you before your shift started. I spoke to my team lead’s lead, but they aren't willing to budge on reinstating your mech privileges.”

  Quinn nodded as she processed the news, the hope she had been keeping somehow slightly aflutter snuffing out and trickling down her back like a freezing cup of water. She felt the tension in the back of her throat and silently fought it with everything she had. She would not burst into tears here. Not now, later. She glanced over at the side where the old gal sat - The Jeep-Chrysler-Subaru-Mini-Ferrari PowerLifter 4, aka Cassie, at least to her. It sat on two squat legs with circular feet and four cardinal toes, with an open air cockpit of sorts where an old faux-leather seat sat between two control joysticks and an inside frame littered with buttons and switches. Then there were two squarish three fingered hands on long arms, looking like a forklift fork with an extra thick tine on top coming down in the middle of the two in a basic opposable thumb like setup. It was old and grease stained from basic maintenance. Learning to pilot Cassie and spending her shift in the cockpit had made work close to tolerable for several months, at least until one of the other team leads had heard her speaking one of the forbidden words and the privileges had been revoked. Even after explaining that she was talking about the “Star Union” from a game hadn’t done shit. Tim might be weirdly formal, but he was at least a decent manager and had promised to make an attempt to talk them out of it, which was better than most would have done.

  The realization that the one bright spot in this soul crushing job might be gone forever hit again, just as emotionally agonizing as the first time. It was such bullshit, but she couldn't even muster up the will to be angry, just empty and hopeless.

  “However, I can probably get away with letting you cover for Alexei if he calls in sick, as you’re technically the only other person trained in the warehouse at this point. I can at least do that.”

  Okay, Okay, it was better than nothing. Maybe Alexei would be sick a lot. Maybe they'd change their mind if she was a stellar employee for long enough. She clung to a new raft of hope, trying to keep her head above water as she realized she'd been silent for just a little too long.

  “Thanks Tim, I appreciate you trying.” Quinn managed to spurt out as she turned to move into the huge warehouse room, trying to force her eyes to stay dry.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “No problem Takimura, now get to things while you’re still on time.”

  Quinn took deep breaths for a few moments until she felt the tension lessen somewhat. Somewhat in control of her emotions, she checked the popup on her augs for where she was headed for today. The sorting table, it looked like. She hated sorting with a passion. it was really turning into a great fucking day wasn’t it.

  She got at least a speck of good news when she followed the path to her assigned partner and found the bent over form of one Elliot Ruthers futzing with the wheel of one of the carts. She really liked Elliot, they had a few interests in net games in common enough to have a decent conversation, and it didn’t hurt he was nice to look at, with his over 6ft tall and cuddly yet firm physique, sandy blond hair, slightly tanned and near constant easygoing smile. Quinn dragged her eyes back upwards to a more appropriate place as she approached the worktable, just in time for Elliot’s own soft brown eyes to turn towards her, taking in her expression and briefly flashing with worry.

  “Oh hey, Quinn, you with me on picking today?”

  His mouth quirked up into a subtle smile.

  “Seems like it, unfortunately”

  “Hey, its not the most exciting work, but the company is good. Did I tell you I hit level cap on my psion in star… joining: legends?”

  She gave him the obligatory eye roll, but her heart wasn’t in it. His infectious cheer did catch on however, and a little more of the storm clouds lifted.

  They started to move into the shelving to grab their first set of items, Elliot dragging the cart for the first bit. It was tedious and high effort physically, but at least she’d be unlikely to get it again for a few days. They got about twenty minutes of work in before Quinn’s entire world was turned on its head.

  They were returning the cart laden with goods to be dropped off to the packagers when the warning message flashed up red in her entire field of view.

  “Incursion Detected, please finish your current task and then proceed in an orderly fashion towards the nearest shelter. Map will unlock in two minutes after your current task is estimated complete.”

  “Fuck, Fuck, what the Fuck” was all Quinn had to say in response, glancing around and noticing the rest of her co-workers also being violently broken out of their monotony by presumably the same thing. She glanced over to Elliot, and let me tell you when you see a six foot four guy look panicked, that’s when shit tends to REALLY set in.

  “Okay, everyone stay calm, lets be nice and orderly about this”. Tim’s voice rang out over the slowly devolving mass, attempting to take command. “The Shelter is three floors down on the south side, we don’t need to wait for the two minute timer, lets head that way quickly but calmly”. Quinn could quickly see the vibes in the associates around her go from the edge of panic to a nervous energy, and people dropped boxes, grabbed belongings and began to move towards the west door Tim was currently doing sweeping indications towards with both arms. It was fine, they were probably on the very edge of the incursion, there would be plenty of time to get to shelter and hunker down before the first of the antithesis got here.

  A scream, quickly metamorphosing into a strangled gurgle from the north. It was NOT fine. The fight or flight reflexes of 30 odd tired and overworked menial employees kicked in and hard, and any semblance of control Tim had over the situation dissolved. Quinn was immediately bowled over by one of her nearby co-workers, (Sarah, maybe?) bashing past her in a mad dash for the safe door. She landed on her left shoulder with a painful thump, scrabbling to get back up when a strong hand grabbed her by the back of her overalls and yanked her upright. She caught a glimpse of Elliot moving to grab her hand when a crash and a fresh chorus of nearby screams heralded the antithesis breaking through the northern door of the distribution floor.

  Quadruped beings, like a dog turned into a horrid plant monster raced out of the gap, their triple hinged jaws unfurling. A pack of them jumped onto a balding middle aged man who had burst into the room in desperate flight and his screams were quickly cut short. Fuck, they didn't even make any sounds, no growling or even breathing, just the clattering of their footsteps and the wet tearing of their violence.

  Quinn threw a desperate glance at the far western doors, a figurative mile away as she and Elliot ran the hundred or so feet from the middle of the warehouse where they had ended up while working. Fuck, she could hear them getting closer by the sounds of other people being taken down and ripped apart behind her. Were they even going to make it to the western doors? Did it even matter, or were they going to get hunted down in the corridors before getting near any shelter?

  Elliot, moving faster than her, tugged her arm forward and forced her view back towards him. He might have made it out had he not presumably turned around for her, most of her colleagues closer to the western door scrambling through them at this point in time. Fuck, he didn't deserve to die for her, she wasn't fucking worth it. All the promise in the world and she'd still ended up here, shoving shit in boxes for people somehow rich enough to order stupid crap online.

  Her eyes swept over Cassie. It was fucking stupid, but getting through the training for driving her had felt like an actual achievement, proof that she had something worthwhile in her, at least for a bit. Not that it mattered any more, she was about to get torn to pieces by walking plants so they could make more of themselves from her corpse. What she would give to be able to drive Cassie once more.

  A stupid, stupid thought sprung to mind. Cassie was strong enough to kill a human by accident if the driver wasn't careful, maybe she could kill an antithesis? It was a better weapon than the shitty auto scissors used to open up boxes packed badly, certainly, and she didn’t have to hold Cassie. She glanced back at Elliot once more, sweet Elliot, before making the decision.

  Elliot's heart leapt out of his chest as he felt Quinn's hand wriggle out his. He turned around, trying not to panic at how close the model 3s were getting or at the bloody corpses, and not quite yet corpses, that he could see in the wide gaps between the objects on the shelving. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted someone sprinting… sideways? Quinn was there, hauling ass towards the loader mech sitting off to the side in its charging station, just as a set of three model threes finished their grim business with a shorter blond man nearby and turned their faces towards the girl.

  Quinn slammed her back into Cassie's driver seat and turned the ignition. The mech hummed into life as she grabbed the two joystick like controls on either side and desperately willed the boot sequence to not stall for too long this time around. A moment later the resistance on the joysticks dropped off and Quinn felt a surge of relief as the huge arms of the lifter mech swung upwards from a resting position and the knees unbent, lifting her further away from the floor.

  “Quinn, to your right!”

  She took a second to react to Elliot desperately yelling at her, before glancing over to see a pack of three model threes racing towards her from around a row of shelves. She jammed the right joystick forward, forcing Cassie to take a huge, awful screeching step forward with her right foot as the right arm speared out. The top prong of the claw hand hit the head of the lead model three and kept going, turning a mad dash by the canine creature into being mostly impaled on the thick metal. Adrenaline surged through Quinn as she jerked the joystick to the side, causing the hand to sweep outwards and catch a second model three in a vicious blow that sent it flying into a group of metal crap on a middle shelf with its bodily integrity very much compromised, while slinging the first off in a spray of sap. Never had Quinn been so glad that Jeep-Chrysler-Subaru-Mini-Ferrari had designed Cassie after pretty much all safety regulations had been repealed.

  The third model three tried to dodge her left hand, so she lashed out with Cassie's left leg, catching it as it juked right, but causing several components to clatter out of Cassie as well. Quickly smashing the left hand down on its back half as it scrambled to get back up, then again on its front to cease its movements for good.

  She glanced up to see another pack of three gunning straight for her, with another two veering off slightly to her left. She flashed her eyes over to see what they were aiming for, only to despair as she saw Elliot hadn't had the sense to leave her to die. He was sprinting over to her with what looked like some sort of dull metal pipe in his hands.

  Quinn pivoted back towards the oncoming antithesis. She wasn't sure if the impromptu spear lunge would work a second time, or if Cassie could even take another wild maneuver like that again. Suddenly an idea hit her.

  She dashed to one of the heavy shelving units to her right before shoving against it with all Cassie’s might, servos groaning in effort. With an unholy shriek it toppled over towards the advancing antithesis, knocking further shelves down the line over too in a deafening domino effect. To her dismay however, she’d judged it wrong and the shelf crashed down slightly to the side of where the oncoming pack was dancing through open gaps in the shelving. The warehouse gods taketh, and giveth though, as a number of ceramic toilets and bathtubs fell to the side and crashed into the ground in front of the pack, though one was just a bit more agile and used the debris as a springboard to leap at her. She swiped upwards with a slightly bent mechanical arm and swatted it out of the air, just in time for its packmates to regain their footing and follow suit.

  She backpedaled clumsily, desperately trying to create some room as the two organic hellhounds lept to try to catch her on the back foot. Desperately she swung Cassie's arms down in an overhead swing and caught the second of the three with a metal forearm. It flattened into the floor as she yanked the joysticks around to catch the third in a claw and throw it off into the distance. Shoving the joysticks forward again Cassie lifted a foot and planted it heavily on the upper body of the second as it struggled to its feet with a squelch.

  A yelp to her left had her glancing over to see Elliot smack a model three with his pipe, blood splattering where it had gotten a lucky swipe in as it came in. The second that had gone for Elliot was lunging in now, taking advantage of the backswing of the pipe to go for the kill.

  Quinn and Cassie lunged forward, the mech's internals shrieking in protest, grazing the offending alien with a metal fork tip. It wasn't much, but it was enough to knock it off course, and Elliot took the window given to recover from his swing and then bring the pipe down on the back leg of the model three as it landed behind him. The things back leg bucked under it as it tried to turn, and Elliot swung again, this time removing its use of its entire back half.

  Quinn veered back towards where the first Model three that had gone for Elliot was rising from its own knockdown, and stepped forwards to deal with it before it could threaten either of them again. A quick overhead slam turned its head into pulp, and Quinn was just shifting the joysticks to turn back once again and ensure the one Elliot was fighting was dead when he yelled her name in alarm.

  A flash of movement. On reflex Quinn moved Cassie's hand back protectively, grabbing at the blur as it streaked towards her, and it probably saved her life. Pain lanced through her chest as something stabbed into her, but her claw closed on the offending Model three before it's jaws could reach her and inflict a mortal wound. On instinct she effected Cassie to yank the thing away from her and squeeze as she felt the pressure in her chest lighten but not vanish. As the three tines of the fork moved together, the squirming antithesis had its front and back pushed up and it's middle pushed down, until its body was little more than a trisected pulped mess in Cassie's fingers.

  As she looked around and didn’t see anything else coming, the adrenaline from the fight started to come down, and with it the feeling of wetness seeping through her chest. She looked down to find out what it was, only to find what remained of a large claw still embedded in her chest, with a blossoming red pattern spreading from it into her shirt around it.

  Well fuck, she thought. This is turning into a really bad day.