Somnus Deus Ex - Chapter Seven

She was not ready for it.

Daisy grit her teeth and kicked out ahead of her. Her foot landed in the face of a hungry model three, stalling its advance for a moment, but also throwing her back.

She hissed as she landed kidney-first on some rubble. The suit helped. It spread the damage out across her lower back. It hurt anyway.

Still, that kick had earned her a few seconds. Enough to get her weapon trained on the alien. She pulled the trigger.

A pair of anaemic beams shot out, frying alien flesh and cutting across its face and head.

The model three, already a little dazed from her kick, growled and shook its head. One of its eyes was burned out, but the other locked onto her and she imagined that it wasn't all that happy.

"Oh, get over yourself," Daisy grunted as the alien leapt for her.

Models three were not smart. It kept its mouth wide open and practically choked on her Pillowfriend as she shoved the gun into its throat.

A pull of the trigger later, and the alien's body went loose.

Daisy ripped the gun back, then pushed herself to her feet. Without taking any time to wait, she ran forwards and into the first cover she found--the interior of a small boutique in the building across the street from where she'd started and where she'd been thoroughly ambushed.

The counter-ambush had gone poorly.

She had tracked the location where she thought the model seventeen was hiding, and had even maybe seen it from above with her Sleepy Eye drone. She approached it, and was utterly unsurprised when she was jumped by a few model threes. The tentacled model was an unwelcome addition, but she'd taken it down with a few shots.

The big, tanky model that rammed through a still-standing wall and which sent her sprawling had been an even worse surprise.

Fortunately, the ambush occurred on the far side of the toppled megabuilding. She had a decently clear road out of the area.

It meant running while being chased, but the ruins provided cover, and she was able to land a few hits on the aliens following her, and could chart a path from above.

That was, until a flying alien swept her drone away and she lost contact with it. Then she started running into model threes clearly on the hunt.

She didn't doubt that they had heard her most recent kill, or noticed the flash of her laser rifle. This bit of cover she had now was temporary, at best. Diving deeper into the boutique, Daisy shouldered a back door open, then pushed into a small office space. It was a dead end. The shop didn't have a backdoor, or a way out except for the front.

"Shit," she muttered. Then, because she wasn't a fool, she went quiet and closed the door she'd just broken open and pulled some boxes to lean against it. Then it was into the office further in.

Daisy knew herself. She'd done gymnastics and sports of one sort or another her entire life. She knew that with five minutes to rest, her heart-rate would be down to something more reasonable. A dark, unlit office in what seemed like a boutique that sold cosmetic cyberware wasn't the greatest spot for rest, but it was better than out there with the aliens.

Are you alright?

"I'll be fine," Daisy muttered. "Points?"

Two hundred and ten.

That was... a pittance. About a dozen kills worth. Then again, that was about what she'd managed. If she'd stayed at the wall, she would have gotten a lot more by now, just picking off strays.

"First priority is a new gun," Daisy said.

Her Pillowfriend wasn't terrible... until it ran out of juice. Then it became a dangerous paperweight. The first shots could take out a weaker model in one hit, but after a few dozen shots, the laser became weak enough that it did little more than scar the enemy. That wasn't enough.

What are you thinking?

Daisy folded the handgun's stock, then set it atop the office's sole desk. "I need more punch," she muttered. "I don't mind the laser part. But I need more power, and more staying power as well."

I see. Budget?

Daisy considered it. She'd spent fifty points on the Pillowfriend, she had two hundred on hand. "A hundred," she decided as she picked her handgun up and slid it into a holster.

She went over a few small details with Lynus, mostly picking out the form factor. She didn't want something too heavy, or too large. So far, she'd stayed alive by moving quickly, and a gun that needed magazines to reload, or which was bulky and heavy, might cost her her life.

Weapon unlock: Slumberblaster

Points reduced to: 110

Her new gun was sleek, the same colour as her skintight armour, with a few red highlights. A bullpup, of sorts, with the trigger near the centre of the gun. She tucked it against her shoulder and aimed across the room. "It'll do," she said.

There was a clank from the other side of the door. Something was rooting around in the main part of the boutique.

A good-enough opportunity to test her new loadout. "Can I auto-buy items?"

Certainly.

"Once I hit five hundred, get me another one of those drones. Can you make it appear without the box? Ready to go?"

I can manage that. Though it might be best if you're not moving at the time? There might be a slight bit of disorientation that might be dangerous.

"That sounds fair," Daisy muttered.

She must have been heard, because the alien on the other side of the door came over and started pushing against it.

Daisy snuck out of the office, then levelled her Slumberblaster at the door. The moment a snout poked out, she fired.

The laser burnt through the door and into the alien, burning a hole clean through it and partially blinding Daisy. Her inorganic eye could handle the light bloom, her other... not so much.

"Damn," she muttered.

I'm sorry. Do you want protection for your vision?

"I'll be fine," she said. "Let's go kill that model seventeen. Then I'm retreating back towards the wall. I want that second eye in, and a few more easy points."

Certainly.

Daisy tore the door open, then closed one eye before taking a trio of shots. It took that many to hit the one other alien in the shop. "Fucking depth perception" she muttered.

Foul language was unbecoming of her, she thought, but at the moment she felt as though it might be somewhat warranted.

"Nevermind, I need both eyes," she relented.

A few moments later, she slipped back onto the street with a pair of glasses on.

She regretted the lack of oversight from a drone almost immediately. But, on the bright side, she wouldn't have to go find the model seventeen.

It had found her instead.

Daisy backpedalled into cover, but it was too late, she'd been seen. The ruins and wreckage strewn across the road were covered in aliens. Mostly smaller models, with a sprinkling of larger ones. And they were all heading her way.

In the middle of it all, sitting atop a mound of rubble, was an alien with a thick carapace and a tiny head. It was squat, smaller than the model threes around it, though it was a little wider. It was also looking her way.

Dozens of thin lines were linked to its carapace, several of them spread out to the nearby aliens around it.

The model seventeen, and it had brought a small army.

Daisy didn't waste any time, because she knew she had little. She snapped a few shots off towards the bigger aliens on the road, a trio crashing into a model five, a few into a tentacled model four. Enough to kill them, or at least injure them while they were out in the open and not up in her face.

Then the aliens swarmed.

Daisy continued backing up, but she didn't rush it. The last thing she needed to do was to trip. She took careful, even shots. She was aiming quick and firing quick, but not wasting her attacks. Efficiency was paramount at the moment.

But it wasn't going to be enough.

She didn't need to be great at math to tell that there were more aliens than she could handle.

Part of her was trying to think of what to say, what to ask Lynus to provide, but she wasn't sure. Another part of her was berating herself for not thinking this far ahead.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a sudden rain of bolts. Metre-long metallic bars plunged out of the sky, skewering aliens through and scattering across the entire street.

Daisy paused, but only for a moment. The intervention had helped, but some still lived, and she wasn't going to let some points go just because someone chose to save her.

There was only so much merit in gratitude.

***