Ch. 44 - Like Fish in a Barrel; Or: A Need for Sleep

  "You know, the brain's actually really fucked up. It's an absolute master at survival, but that's…not necessarily a good thing.

  You gotta realize how easy it'll mess itself up to adapt to threats and survive being exposed to them. It gets used to the pain, and at that point, well, it'll make you stick around what causes that pain.

  'Cause you see, you know how to survive that now, don't you? So, obviously that's safer than risking new threats you aren't familiar with.

  Do you see the bent in the brain, there? No? It's assuming that there's only threats.

  Real fucked up."

  – Road Rash's non-sequitur after being asked about his love life, talking to his Twitch chat

  ***

  I hid myself in the trench, and watched as the Antithesis broke through the treeline opposite of me. They surged right for the jar in the center, one big blob squished into a queue of aliens led by the unit that had caught the scent of food first.

  Ah, I'd fucked up the placement of the grenades some. I should've placed them in tighter rings around the slop, not spread them evenly across the clearing.

  "Leah, get your grenades ready? I want to make sure we kill the Sixes and Fours with them, at least. I'm going to trigger the burrowed ones as soon as the coverage is better."

  "Okay. I'll start tossing once we see which ones survived?"

  "Yeah."

  The corners of my mouth kicked up as an avatar popped in that could only be Ypsi, sending a Leah-style thumbs-up, but with little-girl hands. That AI was entirely too good at being cute.

  The invasive plants snuffled at the jar, until a Four picked it up with a tentacle and accidentally spilled it across a Three, which ran in circles like a dog chasing its own tail, trying to lick the juice off of its rear. It should've been comical, but the uncanny nature of the beasts just made it look weird and, well, alien.

  They milled about chaotically, until the Sixes kicked up an insistent background hum. The slow and steady changes in amplitude and frequencies ebbed and flowed, creating almost hypnotic harmonies that brushed across my sensilla. I pinched myself to focus.

  The behemoths were slowly circling the clearing, and the smaller Antithesis fell into even patterns around them, like moons orbiting planets. They did a remarkably good job of an organized search, all without the guidance of great logic or cognition.

  I held back with the ex—, uh, implosions, because neither of the Six were in range of any. Hmm. Should I just go for it, and trust that we would be able to catch them with thrown grenades? Didn't wanna rely on our piddly darts—

  One of the Fours was moving towards one of the Sixes, and it held in its tentacles a grenade. A few Threes trailed after it, and looking from where they came, I found that indeed, they'd dug out one of them.

  Huh. Oh, the Four had almost reached the Six. I grinned at the situation, happy to take advantage. It looked like I had my chance to do damage.

  "Heads up, Leah!" I finally activated all the mines, and extremely unruly, deformed spheres of glassy void ripped reality across the entire glade, swallowing most of the Antithesis. Even to my antennae, it was like black holes of nothingness just replaced the world in those places. No energies, no currents, no vibrations reached me.

  Black razors flickered out and bisected a few more, and through the spy drones, I witnessed the head of the Six just disappear. Its body flopped to the ground unceremoniously and didn't move anymore. Massively oversized as the things were, a brain gone is a brain gone.

  The heavy smell of cut grass reached me. There was so much of it, so concentrated, that it'd gain the attention of every other Antithesis within several hundred meters, at least.

  What to do, what to do? Ah well, let's just finish this first.

  The other Six lost a hindleg to one of the grenades. It was otherwise unharmed, but several Fours responded to the new injury-smell and rushed towards it again. Hobbled and lacking in mobility, the Six was an easy target for Leah, who used her new robotic arm to toss a grenade right into their middle.

  I couldn't help but smile at the sight of so much, uh, salad getting shredded so thoroughly.

  All across the tiny battlefield the void bubbles collapsed, and the violent popping of air rushing into vacuum heralded a momentous lull. There was no screaming, no breathing, no rustling but for the trees. Nothing moved.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Then, Tynea broke the silence: I'll mark the outlines of all surviving units, if you'd like?

  "Oh yeah, go for it. And share with Leah, please."

  I will.

  A rainbow of wireframes populated my vision, with the approaching ones color-coded red. The scratchy tickle-rasp of Leah's gun-muffle reached me, and one of the red ones faded out as it dropped.

  "Tynea, how many are left?"

  Eight Fours, and seventeen Threes. The Sixes are both dead.

  Easy. Especially since the Antithesis hadn't located us yet. The death scents thoroughly drenching the air were driving them rabid, but Leah's firing was too quiet to pinpoint and left them confused.

  Can't match the sensitivity of my antennae, huh? I thought, as I watched their restlessness grow more and more unfocused. …They'll start running everywhere very soon.

  "Leah, can I leave the Fours to you? Your bullets do more damage."

  "Sure!"

  I finally picked my target, a Three that had oriented itself in my direction, popped up over the lip of the trench I was kneeling in, and just as it sighted me, I pulled the trigger and felt the smooth recoil of a 13mm dart being accelerated via, uh. Electromagnetism? Alien electromagnetism tech, anyway.

  Its left eye went splat as the single flechette ruptured it on the way through to mulch the brain, where it would release its nanite payload.

  Another model right next to it spun around when the first one dropped, and sniffed at it. I watched as it bunched its legs to sprint, and shot it in the side of the head before it could sling itself away.

  When I tried the same against the head of a Four, though, my shot glanced off of the top of it and ricocheted into the woods behind it. The blow was still a stunner, so I let the Sentinel guide the next round through an eye, and it had no trouble with the thin bone at the back of its orbit.

  I returned to shooting the smaller Threes, as Leah's voice whispered through my aug. "Do you think other aliens will come for us? With all this plant stink around."

  "Yes, but let's take care of these first. The rain might obscure the scent fast enough, too."

  "Okay."

  It took only a few more seconds for Leah to kill the remaining few Fours, and I got another five Three kills, leaving us with ten, when they finally spotted me and charged my way.

  I jumped out of my trench and ran sideways, setting off around the perimeter of the glade, as Leah kept plugging away at the plant-based menace chasing me.

  "Tinea, is this supposed to be this easy?"

  I hurdled a low branch without slowing down. "How do you mean?"

  "Well, we're not exactly at risk here. I feel like…where the hell am I? Why… Why is this so easy?"

  I let her concerns percolate through my hindbrain as I focused on corralling the remaining aliens, leaving the killing mostly to Leah while I made sure I didn't trip. Eventually though, I arrived at an answer for Leah.

  "Well, how many Antithesis were here, before we started fighting?"

  "Around forty?"

  "And how many samurai are here?"

  "Oh. Two."

  "Yup. How many are needed for this fight?"

  "None, really. This is the kind of thing a small group of random people armed with machine guns could've handled. If they didn't panic."

  "Yeah. This fight should be as easy as it is."

  "Okay. Yes. That makes sense."

  "Right, mission accomplished?"

  "Mission accomplished."

  There was a smile in her voice and I could almost smell the stress leaving her. I hopped past the uneven grenade craters in the ground with a happy smile, letting Leah pick off Three after Three as they darted after me. Before long, we'd finished off the remaining monster plants.

  Frankly, this whole ambush had been a bit of an overproduction. I could've taken care of it minutes ago with less preparation…and probably for far fewer points. But if it had helped Leah sort her worries out and let her stay in one piece until we got home, it'd be worth it and I'd be so fucking thankful.

  "I think we're done?" Leah asked me. "Wanna help me get off the tree?"

  "Coming!"

  "Tynea, are there any nearby Antithesis heading for us? And how long until the rain actually hits?"

  A group of one model Four and six model Threes will cut you off if you try to head directly for the facility. It'll begin to rain in about five minutes.

  "Any others?"

  There are several other units milling about at various ranges, but since you've been moving between kills, their attention is quite split.

  "And the rain is going to wash away any tracks, too."

  Yes.

  I arrived at Leah's tree, jumped up, and she climbed onto my back, where she tied her Sleeve's legs and arms around me so they wouldn't get tangled as I carefully dropped from branch to bough.

  "Leah, we'll get wet soon. Or wetter, anyway—"

  "That's what she said," Leah snickered, making me giggle.

  "Shush, you. Do we still want to go into hiding from the storm?"

  "I'd say so. This overall isn't actually waterproof. Samurai or not, I'll catch a cold that would cost points to cure."

  "Right. Uh, Tynea, can I get sick, actually?"

  Not from weather-related loss of temperature; your skin is designed to insulate you at altitude and in wind. Your bionites would be effective against viruses and infections, but you would still use energy to fight them off.

  "I see. So, we crawl back under the sheets and hibernate until the sun's out again?" The thought of rest surprised me with a sudden yawn. I hadn't actually slept properly since waking from my chrysalis, and my new body had kept me going well enough. "Yup, let's go back. My cocoon."

  Back on the ground, Leah untangled herself from me and we started walking next to each other.

  There'd be one last, hopefully quick, fight through the rain, and then sleep.

  …

  I didn't look forward to the nightmares.

  ***

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