Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seventeen - Growth

“There’s famous samurai, and then there’s Famous ones. I’m not talking about your average joe with an alien chip in their head and a bit of an attitude problem who likes saving orphans. I’m talking about the samurai who leave behind a legacy.”

--Three Swipes, Late Night With AI-567 Interview, 2032

***

“Now what?” Manic asked.

I reached up to rub at the bridge of my nose, then let my hand fall. “Well, we’re kinda fucked, aren’t we?”

Manic shrugged. “Honestly, that’s nothing new for me.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. Want to go out with a bang?” I asked.

She grinned. “Always imagined that the best way to go was while blowing something big up. A last, final show, you know?”

I nodded along. That was the big dream, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, I had responsibilities now, and Lucy would be upset if I died, even if it was in a blaze of glory. So, basically I couldn’t strap a nuke to my chest and charge at the aliens.

Besides, I didn’t feel like swimming.

“Myalis, I need a few more of those cat drones. Can you start mapping out the underground for us? We need to know more or less where they’ll be breaking through,” I said.

Certainly. I’ve already begun, though I don’t yet know the extent of the underground hive’s reach.

That was fine. I let Manic open the boxes that showed up around me. I had to think in the meantime. Downtown was woefully under-defended for the number of aliens we were seeing. “Myalis, you’re the expert here. When will they attack?”

An undisturbed hive will, generally, continue to expand, grow, and harden itself until such a time as it encounters resistance or a threat, at which time it will work to eliminate that threat.

So if I planted bombs down there and set them off, then we’d be swarmed within the hour. I started pacing the little room. It seemed as if I had three problems. I opened a text box and typed them up.

1- Fuckloads of aliens were going to mess us up soon

2- Downtown wasn’t ready to deal with even a moderate swarm

3- All I had to work with were three noobs and Gomorrah

I hesitated, then added a fourth line.

4- Lucy was going to be annoyed if I wasn’t back home for dinner.

“Myalis, what could we do to mess the aliens up?” I asked. “I don’t think we can just nuke them to hell.”

“Nukes are an option?” Manic asked.

“Always,” I said. “But they might be a bit rough here. How much of these hives are under the city that the people we’re supposed to protect are living in? Nah, we can’t afford to nuke anything, I don’t think. We’ll have to be more creative.”

Myalis brought up a map and superimposed it over a 3d representation of Burlington. It was pretty clear that the hive was stretching around downtown, with a few little tunnels leading inwards. Of course, we hadn’t uncovered the entire thing yet. The two cat drones we’d sent ahead were still moving along, and the new ones were playing catch-up. It would take... well, I didn’t know how long it would take to figure out the size of the hive. The bigger it was, the longer it would take.

I started cycling through options.

Resonators would melt the hive up nicely, especially if they couldn’t turn them off in time. Just disconnecting the various root networks would fuck up the antithesis’ logistics for a minute. But that would be super obvious.

If we did that now, they’d react, and then Downtown--and River Heights--would burn.

Lighting everything on fire was an option too, but I figured we’d run into the same problem. Plus, fire would pour out into the city above, and then everything would literally burn. And the hives were underwater. I was sure Gomorrah had fire that burned underwater, but I imagined that would just make it more dangerous.

So, something more subtle than that.

Fuck, I wasn’t too good at subtle.

“Myalis, you remember those nano-bombs? The ones that eat antithesis meat?”

Of course.

“If we set off a number of them in the hive network, would that kill it all without alerting them too quickly?”

The nanomachines can be programmed to only eat the antithesis after a certain set time has passed, ensuring a wider distribution.

“Oh, that could work,” I said. We’d need to insert them all over, then find a good time to set the bots off.... But yeah. Eating the entire hive all at once would be fantastic. “They’re kind of slow-acting, aren’t they?” I asked.

Depending on the mass of the subject being consumed and the number of available nanomachines, the amount of time spent ‘eating’ will vary greatly. But, generally, they are a little slower.

I could still work with that. “Okay. Send everything we’ve found so far to Gomorrah and Atyacus. Prioritise finding routes in the hive that lead into Downtown. We’ll use those to pour our nanomachine friends in.” I tapped Manic on the shoulder. “In the meantime, we’re getting back to Downtown. Once the swarm starts being eaten, I bet they won’t just sit back and enjoy it. We need to defend the city, which means arming up the locals and setting up defences that aren’t as budget as what’s there already.”

“I’m not sure that’s my kind of deal,” Manic said.

I looked at her. No, I imagined her deal was charging in and making a mess of things, which was usually just fine, but not if she did that now. “Can you hold back for like, a couple of hours? Soon we’ll have more aliens breathing down our necks than we’ll know what to do with.”

“I guess,” she said.

Patting her on the shoulder, I gave the hole in the floor one last look before slipping out of the room. At the same time, I called Gomorrah. “We have a problem,” I said.

“That’s a fun way to say hello,” she replied. “What is it?”

“The hive here’s bigger than I thought. I think it’s got double-digit models, maybe up to the low twenties, and they’re all snoozing below-ground right now. But hey, I’ve got a plan.”

“Does it involve copious amounts of explosives?”

“No, actually,” I said. I was pretty proud of myself in the moment. “We’re going to poison the well, or however that expression goes. Basically, I need you back in Downtown ASAP. We need to up the defences until they’ll be able to survive the aliens getting all uppity.”

There was a long pause before she replied. “I don’t think the antithesis get ‘uppity,’ so much as they get murderously angry.”

“Potato potato,” I said. “We’ll be killing them either way. Do you think you’d have time to make a quick run from here to New Montreal and back?”

“What for?”

“We’ve been making turrets at my place. We must have half a hundred of them by now. They’re pretty cheap shit, but they’ll work well against the weaker models,” I said.

“I’d much rather stay here, but I can ask Franny to take the church van and grab them,” she said.

I nodded along. “Much better idea. I’ll send Lucy a text about it. We really need to get things moving, I think that every hour we waste adds a whole shitload of extra aliens we’re going to have to kill.”

“I know. We’ll go over whatever half-baked plan you came up with... want to meet at the mall again?” she asked.

“Sounds good. We’ll have to distribute better weapons and coordinate with the general, whatshisname from the militia. We need everyone on their A-game. Talk to you in person in a bit.”

Hanging up the call, I continued walking through the museum, Manic a step behind me. “So, where to?”

“The mall,” I said.

“Fuck me,” she replied.

“Don’t like the place?”

“It’s fine. It’s the people I don’t like. There’s only one sort of person that hangs out in a place like that, and they’re the worst sort of human around. Hyper-consumerist fuckwits who’d sell their own mothers for the latest micro-version of whatever’s the status symbol of choice this week. Can’t fucking stand the place. And you know it only exists for people to flash their wealth. Otherwise they’d just buy their shit online like the rest of us.”

“I like malls,” I said. “Used to go there with my girlfriend and stare at all the shit we couldn’t afford, filch half-eaten meals out of the trash too. Great smoothies.”

Manic snorted. “I guess we have different memories of that sort of place.”

“Guess so,” I said. “Anyway, it’s where everyone decided to gather in Downtown, so that’s where we’ll be heading to.”

“You can blame that Sprout guy, he chose it. I think he used to work there.”

“Really?” I asked as I stepped out into the sunlight. I got my bearings, then started walking towards the bigger skyscrapers.

“Yeah. Worked in this little flower shop.”

“Huh,” I said. Then I put that out of my mind because I had bigger concerns to deal with.

***

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