"I solve practical problems, for instance: how am I going to stop some vegetable bastard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new beehind? The answer, use a gun, and if that don't work... Use more gun."
— An unnamned PMC engineer, when asked about what he does for the company.
Quinn and Elliot stepped down the shadowed corridor a little ways from the shelter in tense silence. Something had happened to the power while they were in the shelter, and the corridors now were lit primarily with the dull red glow of emergency lights, with occasional sunlit relief from the windows along the edges of the building. Thus the duo were attempting to make up for the lack of visibility by using their ears. Unfortunately however, unlike any earth animal that they may resemble, the antithesis had no need for breathing, growling or any such superfluous noises which was making that endeavor difficult.
They swept the floor at Elliot's direction, starting in one corner and moving in a pattern back and forth, first with the gridded maze of offices in the northern section, and moving towards the fulfillment worker half in the south. About as they were closing on the large warehouse on this floor, their careful attention paid off.
Elliot poked his head around the next corner and held up a hand, before retreating to speak quietly with Quinn.
“There’s a lot of blood trails leading into the central warehouse, and I can hear shuffling. Once you get closer they'll probably hear you, so get in position and when they show up just hold down the trigger till nothings moving okay?”
“Okay, will do.” replied Quinn with a slight waver, nerves beginning to set in now their prey was within sight.
She rounded the corner and bringing her gun to bear, finger on the trigger and waiting.
Ahead the double doors to the fulfillment warehouse stood, one moderately ajar with trails of blood converging and snaking through the opening, light from inside . She could hear them now, a constant susurrus of tapping and shuffling from a large number of sources. For a tense few seconds Quinn sat there, crosshairs on the monitor pointed at the space right before the opening.
A tri-jawed face poked its head through the gap, looking in her direction. On instinct she clicked the trigger once, and there was a loud thump, followed by the sudden lack of a head, replaced by a smear of sap and a multitude of holes in the surrounding door shining new pinpricks of light into the darkened corridor. For a brief, pregnant moment there was nothing but silence.
The doors burst open as a veritable wave of antithesis poured out towards her, crawling over each other in their mindless fervor. Quinn screamed.
A roaring cacophony of thump thump thumps drowned out the scream as she squeezed the trigger down and flechettes sprayed from the barrel of her gun. Green blood and limbs flew as the shell casings hit the floor, rapidly turning the corridor in front of her into something resembling a terrible accident involving a blender and significantly too much kale. Cassie handled the recoil like a champ, keeping the gun on target as Quinn dragged the crosshairs across the corridor and back again.
In that hazy, adrenaline fueled mixture of fear and battle rage Quinn wasn’t quite sure how long it had been, but eventually she couldn’t see anything moving up ahead and let off the trigger. Broken bodies of model-3s and maybe a couple of other types lay still within a vague antithesis coloured goop. She registered Elliot walking up next to her, rifle in hand.
“Goddamn, that made chunky antithesis salsa.. Heh, antithesis guacamole.” Elliot tittered at his own joke. “How many rounds do you have left?”
She checked the little display Irys had set up for her in the bottom right of her display. “35, that should be enough right?”
He nodded “Likely. Take point and let's check it out.”
She pushed her way into the warehouse beyond, squishing a few antithesis underfoot as she went. This was a small items floor, and so the warehouse was more a fleet of shelves parked on top of pallets with wheels and a rudimentary AI, many of which had been mauled or tipped over. Elliot followed close behind, checking the ceilings and upper shelving for lurking fours. They found a couple of stragglers, quickly dispatched with a rifle burst or shotgun blast, and a pile of unfortunate victims that Quinn quickly had to look away from.
They were just about getting to the far end of the warehouse, towards the packing and loading areas, when something blurred on the screen. Irys had just enough time to yell a “Quinn, watch..” before something smashed into her front, sending Cassie reeling back. Quinn flailed at the controls, managing to keep Cassie upright. One screen was a painting of various greens, the other entirely broken,, and there was a dent angled towards her in the shield plating. In a panic, she squeezed the trigger and unloaded her weapon in a vague pattern in front of her, trying to put down the unseen threat.
“STOP.”
A sharp, commanding word from Irys cut through the frenzy, and Quinn let off the trigger. “I’m.. sorry, I panicked”
Irys’ tone returned to its normal motherly tone.”You’re not at fault darling, a loss of vision is a perilous situation.”
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“Quinn, you okay in there?” Elliot called out.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just a little panic. Did you see what the fuck that was?”
Her monitors were suddenly replaced by a pink blur, and then suddenly she could see again. Elliot stepped away from her front, having just cleared whatever was covering her cameras.
“Some sort of antithesis leaped at you, smashed right into your front. It was a fucking blur, but apparently enough such that it splattered itself on your mech, got goop all over your camera. Looks like one is broken though.”
“Concerning, looking through your camera’s feed it seems like it was something new, a combination of a model-3-1P and an Earth Flea.”
Quinn furrowed her brow “I thought Model-3 were the dog like ones, what’s a 3-1P?”
“There are actually an uncountable number of antithesis models, but for simplicity's sake humanity uses a basic number system. As such, when encountering another model close enough to a numbered model for practical purposes, we have taken to designating it as a variant of that number. In this case, a 3-1P refers to models with a long, armor piercing proboscis, designed to latch onto and drain large biological targets, close enough in general shape to a model-3 to be designated a variant. You wouldn’t see them in most incursions here because humanity doesn’t employ biological armoured vehicles and similar. This one however seems to have been evolved to add the exceptional jumping power of the flea, which allowed it to launch itself at quite some speed at you.”
“I.. see. Irys says its some sort of unusual model, sort of like a three but with jumping power from a flea.”
Elliot mulled briefly and nodded.
“Makes sense, we should be careful for more, it looked like it could do some real damage to Cassie. Though.. We might want to get your armor fixed and your weapon reloaded or upgraded?”
“Sure, that makes sense. Irys, would one of those adaption nanites suffice?”
“Yes, though may I suggest an alternative? Your wholesale extermination of the antithesis in the corridor netted you quite a number of points, 758 to be exact, enough to afford a hive, rather than just a swarm”
“Oh! I think I know what that means, it means it would be able to work more than once, right?”
“Exactly. you'll need to improved power capacity and an adaptable engineering ai as well, but in combination cassie will be able to both self repair and assimilate new material for upgrades. It will even make purchasing upgrades cheaper, as you will be able to purchase just the components and occasionally raw materials as opposed to paying for ad hoc installation as well, though you may need to upgrade the swarm later to handle more esoteric materials.”
Now that, to Quinn, sounded like a plan. Taking cassie from humble roots, to the mecha menace of her wildest dreams. There was however one, minor snag.
“That seems like a really good path, but uh, didn’t I need to upgrade my weaponry?”
“It would be prudent, and it was my next query. If your intention is to never branch into handheld weaponry yourself, we can purchase a cheaper catalog for only vehicle mounted weapons, although the weapons within won’t be the cheapest. Why don’t we purchase the hive, and it can begin repairs while we discuss weaponry options. Do I have your authorization to purchase the required items?”
“Yes, do it.”
New Purchase: Yrassian Conclave Mechanical Adaptation Hive
Points reduced to... 228
New Purchase: Yrassian Conclave Miniature Schrodinger's Reactor Cell
Points reduced to... 150
New Purchase: Yrassian Conclave Rapid Adaptation Engineering AI
Points reduced to... 108
The box that dropped into Quinn’s lap was black, with what looked like a stylized, and moderately feminized, boxy looking robot in white, dark purple and charcoal. As she pulled the top apart, a tentacle of fuzzy sand in the same dark purple reached up out of the box, dragging a rounded tube about the same length as a pringles can and double the thickness. It lazily snaked up to the ceiling of the cockpit, before coiling and bringing the tube up and pressing it into and through the metal at the top back, leaving the metal uncannily pristine. The tentacle then reached back out, before pulling out a ring of some kind that caused Quinn’s thoughts to muddle when she looked at it, and dragged it back into the metal behind her as well. Finally, the purple sand re-emerged as a thin sheet, travelling towards the front of the mech. It fully obscured the broken screen, and then the dent, before leaving a fully fixed replacement behind as if by magic.
“Holy crap, that’s kind of awesome”
“Indeed. With your current power supply, it will need a little to recharge between bigger operations such as that, but it will be able to make further adjustments after some time. Now, weaponry. You have enough for a single tier 1 catalog and a weapon, I would recommend acquiring something a little easier to bring to bear while swarmed. Did you have any thoughts as to your direction?“
“I’m honestly not sure, what are my options?”
“Well, Darling. An automatic machine gun would cut down medium models such as threes quite effectively, and be able to deal with smaller swarms of ones and twos. A flak weapon would allow you to deal with much larger groups of flying foes, and would do just fine against medium models in close range. Finally a magnetic weapon would allow you to damage higher tier models from afar, but would be near useless against swarms of little enemies.”
This was… too many options. Time to phone a friend.
“Hey Elliot, Irys is suggesting I get something to avoid being surrounded; she’s suggested a machine gun, or a flak or.. Magnetic weapon?”
Elliot hoisted his rifle and laid the sight against his shoulder, his face scrunched a little in thought.
“Flak. I’ve seen model-1s swarm an armored vehicle before, they can worm their way into small cracks and cause quite a bit of a problem. Would be best to have a solution for them before we go outside.”
“Okay then, Flak for me Irys? Could you make them fire on their own? Also maybe a reload for the main gun?”
“Coming right up darling. Ask Elliot to be a dear and hold them up to the shoulders for me? The hive should have enough vivacity to perform the installation.”
New Purchase: Tier 1 Medium Mounted Weapons
Points reduced to... 58
New Purchase: Tier 1 Automated Flak Turret - x2
Points reduced to... 8
New Purchase: Tsunami Flechette Thrower Drum Magazine
Points reduced to... 3
She heard the boxes lightly hit the floor outside.
“I see you’re going for a certain.. theme, now?” Elliot teased
“Blame Irys, she did that herself” Quinn shot back in mock outrage. “Can you hold them up to cassie?”
“Can do”
She didn’t see the purple sand slither out, but after half a minute or so her HUD on the monitors updated to show an ammo count for the flak cannons.
“Ready to go? Lots more ground to cover” Elliot asked her, slotting in the new shotgun drum, reseating his rifle in both hands and moving towards the door.
“Yup, lets go.”
