"They say sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but come on. Black hole bombs and dimensional shunting is one thing, but fucking with the laws of physics with your mind? That seems like some bullshit."

  — Teen Vogue's Newest Vanguard Tech article, October 2057

  As they tromped towards the cargo elevator for hopefully the last time. Quinn had a thought.

  “Hey Elliot?”

  “Hmm?” he perked up from his scan of the room, giving her attention that made her heart jump just a little.

  “So, I think I have my direction in mechs, but did you have an idea of what you were going to try to do?”

  Elliot quirked the side of his mouth up “Well, I figured I wanted to be your boots on the ground, support you in the places you can't get to and such,. That said, all the ideas I had that weren't just ‘Use a gun’ didn't seem doable, so I was trying to think of something simpler.”

  Quinn pouted “Why not, might as well ask?”

  “I guess. Well one idea was to do time manipulation”

  “Technically possible Darling, but not until tier 7, and even then likely not how you think it works. Not that way either.”

  Elliot chuckled as they stepped onto the elevator. “Fair enough. Well the second was Psionics, the sort of manipulating stuff like gravity and telekinesis and stuff with your mind.”

  “Oh you can do that! Well not exactly as it requires a focusing agent and a calculation engine and a hyperdimensional potential shunt but it ends up looking like that!”

  A little bemused, Elliot responded “That sounds great Hylios, but I'm not really sure what that all means.”

  “Oh.. Right!” Hylios started off despondent, but near instantly regained his near ubiquitous energy. “So you need a power source, a way to direct it on site and a biiig computer to do the math needed to do what you want and not turn something in the next solar system over inside out.”

  “That sounds simple enough” Quinn commented, as Elliot pressed the button for the ground floor. “So he just need to buy all three of those and hook them up?”

  “Oh no” Hylios corrected “There's no way to get a potential shunt and engine of the power needed to do anything useful at tier 1.”

  Elliot furrowed his brow “So I can't do it yet?”

  “Oh no, I didn't say that, you'll just have to have someone else do it for you for the first few tiers.” At this point, Hylios produced a noise something akin to a dial tone in double digit melodic harmonies for a second and a half. “ ‘s AI and I go way back, and it has been offering such services for fellow vanguard for a few centuries or so.”

  Quinn and Elliot just stared at each other in pure incomprehension through the barrier of the cockpit. Quinn regained her composure first.

  “What?”

  Hylios sighed “Right, I forget. Aia are digital siliconian aliens the size of the average gas giant. One of them, maybe best translated as 'The-harmony-of-pulsar-z5120-hitting-the-celestial-bodies-of-the-sevdikar-system-at-the-time-of-my-awakening' sells use of their computing power and equipment in a timeshare like fashion for this purpose at cost. So you'd just need to purchase a nanofractional share to get access in short bursts.”

  “And a planet sized.. AI is a vanguard?”

  “Yup! We don't just uplift your scale of being.”

  The cargo elevator finally trundled to a stop on the ground floor, and the two scanned the corridors, looking for antithesis

  “That sounds damn cool, I'll talk with you privately Hylios, let's go find this Lieutenant.”

  They swept towards the loading docks, finding no moving antithesis on the way, but a number of corpses. They spotted a group of heavily armed people in the distance at one point, two escorting a clearly wounded third somewhere, and while glances were exchange neither party stopped to chat.

  As they stepped down the ramp leading to the outside, Quinn caught the strong whiff of slightly mouldy grass coming from the air entering her cockpit even before she saw the large piles of antithesis. The people standing around outside as they exited wore Amazon logos, but they were significantly better armed and armoured than the standard security officer. Sleek tan rifles rested in their hands, and their armor was bulkier and came with proper helmets, some fully enclosed.

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  Small squads of them were entering and exiting the various buildings around the compound. The Whole Foods by the edge had its windows smashed and produce and shelving splayed across the ground. The company apartments seemed mostly fine from the outside, but as you looked closer more apartments had missing windows than not, and there were blood stains faintly visible from some of the doorways.

  Quinn blanched a little, she had forgotten Maia, her roommate was home sick today. Either way, it was probably too late now, so she just had to hope they had made it to a shelter in time.

  As they rounded the corner of the huge distribution center, the entrance to the Amazon Corporate Compound came into view. More of the presumably PMC soldiers were placing metal barricades and sandbags in the entrance in front of a pair of armored looking trucks with mounted machine guns. Small groups of soldiers in slightly fancier getup (see, hats with more shiny bits) meandered around keeping an eye on things. One of the soldiers motioned in their direction to his superior, who then gave some orders that sent said soldier running off into the security building next to the entrance.

  As Quinn and Elliot approached, an owlish looking man with several insignias on his shoulder stepped out of the security building and power walked over to them, stopping before them and giving them an appraising stare.

  “You two must be Samurai Elliot and Quinn then?” He paused briefly enough for Elliot to nod before immediately launching back in with a measured tone.

  “I'm Lieutenant Briggs. We appreciate your efforts thus far, but we have a situation. While the majority of the seed pods that landed within the compound have been dealt with, it appears that a large number landed even further away from the city proper than we are here. We have intelligence that they have consolidated and are rapidly approaching this position. The city's standard complement of Samurai are combating the incursion within the city itself, and will not be available to reinforce us for some time. We require your assistance efficiently dealing with multiple larger threats detected within the swarm to hold this position.” He leveled a commanding gaze at the two of them “I have no official authority over you, but can we count on your assistance?”

  Quinn didn't need to think twice. “Yes, what do you need us to do.”

  The Lieutenant's brow unfurrowed slightly “I appreciate your compliance. The walls of the compound are rated up to mid teens of models, but the entrances here and on the south side are vulnerable. We've reports of at least two model-6s within the swarm; we have limited solutions for those, so station here where we are most likely to see them, and we'll send the anti-tank weaponry to the other entrance. Other than that, just holding the choke points until we kill them all or reinforcements arrive. If things really go to shit, we’ll detonate the planted explosives and fall back to basement of the main building.”

  Elliot hummed “Seems reasonable, but do we have a way for me to reposition quickly if the south side needs reinforcements?”

  “A good thought, Not currently. I’ll get one of the support staff to bring a car around to transport you if necessary.”

  He started to turn away, then turned back.

  “When was the last two you two ate?”

  Quinn thought back, she was pretty sure she'd had breakfast?

  “This morning, I think.” she answered tentatively.

  Briggs furrowed his brow again “Unacceptable. Come with me, we're getting you a couple of energy bars and a water.”

  Elliot just snorted “Yes sir.”

  Quinn dismounted, and they followed the lieutenant into the security building. Inside, they passed a room where a half dozen soldiers were studying monitors or talking into headsets, and then they rounded the corner and stepped into a weirdly spacious break room, with fridge and coffee machine and the usual trappings.

  Briggs walked over to a set of crates, pulling out four rectangular wrapped bars and a pair of large canteens. He brought them over to the pair of Samurai before turning back and briefly interacting with a tablet sat by the supplies.

  For some reason the sight of food, even if it was military energy bars, caused Quinn's appetite to wake up and remember it hadn't actually eaten breakfast. With a couple of seconds she was shoveling one bar into her mouth at record speed, it tasted like bland oats that were slightly too salty and slightly less sweet with a strange, chemically aftertaste, but she was hungry enough to not care.

  “You know darling, if you were hungry you should have said something. We could have gotten you some vanguard grade food that would have been better than… that.”

  “After the incursion, maybe?” she replied, starting work on the second. “Points are precious.”

  Elliot was next to her handing her a canteen. “Drink this, then I'll fill it up again to take with.” She complied and washed down the food with lukewarm water. She noticed the Lieutenant give her an approving look, before interacting with the tablet again and bringing over another couple of bars. “Shit” she got out as she finished the canteen. “I didn't even realize I needed that, thanks.”

  He nodded as she took the two bars and got started on a third, pocketing the fourth. “You can get caught in the moment and not realize you're running on empty till the crash if you're not used to combat.” Upon noticing Elliot giving him an amused smile, he continued “I started in logistics, been keeping soldiers fed for a decade. Old habits die hard.”

  After refilling the canteens, the three headed towards the entrance of the building. As they got to the room with the monitors, the Lieutenant paused. “I'm stopping here. If you'll allow it we can interface with you via your augs, keep things coordinated. Else, good fighting, may we all see the day through.”

  Elliot gave him a salute, a serious one unusually. “Will do, Hylios, Irys can you patch them through if anything pertinent comes up”

  “Of course!”

  As they headed outside, the mood of the soldiers had gone from hurried to anticipatory. The barricades were built, and soldiers stood behind them watching the outside, or manning the machine guns on the tops of the transports. As Quinn got back into Cassie, a professional sounding voice came through her augs.

  “Two minutes till estimated contact at the north gate. Here they come.”