Chapter Thirty-One - The Bigger They Are

“They say they want to uplift humanity. Yeah, okay. Sure. That’s nice. And how do they go about this? Give randos some space guns?

Yeah, no, that’s not uplift.

Sure, they’ve got other things going. Every so often a Samurai will ‘buy’ a blueprint and sell it to some corp or another. Usually it’s the highest bidder.

And then everyone gets expensive hover cars.

It's all connecting, can’t you see? They don’t want to uplift us, they want to see what we do with their toys! And then they're gonna steal our memes!”

--4Chan comment on the /ET/ board, 2021

***

There was no time like the present, but there was also something to say about being ready.

I made sure my Trench Maker was tucked up tight in the back of my pants, that the bulkier Sparrow was ready and had its safety off, and that the four grenades I’d bought (at five points each, they’d flung my point count down to fifty) were bulging out of my pocket.

When I’d asked for something that could break the bridge off the side of the building, Myalis had suggested something called a Spatially-Locked Graphene Garrot. It looked like a little cylindre with a thick black band around it, and, according to my AI friend, it would absolutely fuck up the local architecture without actually exploding.

I had other toys. One was a little two-point thing that looked like a ping-pong ball designed by Salvador Dhali. It had a pretty red button on top, the sort that screamed ‘press me’ without needing any labels.

My thumb squeezed the top of the ball and it started to vibrate in little bursts, once a second, then twice, and shaking faster. A silent countdown.

I flung the ball as hard as I could towards the far end of the cafeteria.

It bounced off the ground once, then skid across the floor under it stopped next to one of those wooden boxes used to hide trash cans.

The ball glowed a deep red, then began to hiss. “Oh no, Sally, your leg! -- It’s okay! We can make it! Help me up. -- You’re bleeding out. What if they come?”

I blinked as I listened to the terribly scripted discussion coming from the ball.

“What?” I asked as I dipped back down.

The Mark I Audio-Scent Lure is meant to attract all sorts of Antithesis, including those intelligent enough to parse basic human speech.

Well, that was fucking terrifying.

A Model Three rushed over to the trash can and started sniffing around, then a few more joined it. One of the Model Fours carrying a body dropped it and came closer too.

It was working. Not perfectly. Some of the models were coming closer but didn’t join the huddle, others just eyed things from afar.

That was good enough for me. I just needed them distracted for a moment.

Reaching into a back pocket, I pulled out a grenade. It was small, just a ball with a tab above it. Myalis called it a Directed Chemical Laser Grenade, It was silent, which is what mattered to me.

The grenade bounced and rolled, then slid off to the side when one of the Model Threes stepped next to it.

I ducked down and waited. The room lit up as if someone had just turned on the edgiest disco ball ever for a couple of seconds. No sound came, but the floor bounced and the faint scent of burning Antithesis flesh wafted by.

Now I just needed to finish the rest off. The Sparrow landed atop the counter with a clunk. One of the nearest Model Threes turned to stare my way.

Four, maybe five of the aliens were on the ground, their sides sliced open and still smoking, others had straight line burns as well, but were still standing. I’d fix that in a moment.

“Die, bitch,” I said.

I would need to work on my one-liners later.

The bulky SMG spat out a dozen rounds that stitched their way into a Model Three.

I didn’t stop to watch it die, instead turning the gun over to the next lone Model. Another bark from the gun and a Model Four was torn to shreds.

The large group around the lure started to turn my way. I greeted them by emptying my mag in a line that cut through the entire group. Some of them were missed outright, and others only got a glancing blow, but I saw a couple flinch back as two or three rounds punched through them.

The Sparrow clicked empty, so I pushed it aside, spun on one heel, and ran into the backstore of the restaurant, the door into the employee-only section slamming shut behind me.

My plan was fairly simple. I figured that was the best way to carry out a plan without it blowing up in my face.

I raced through the tight corridors behind the shops while pulling out my Trench Maker. When I saw a familiar double-arched logo on one door, I pressed into it shoulder-first and barged into a room filled with the scent of burning oil and processed mock-chicken.

The moment I was behind the till, I glanced over to the side where I’d been killing xenos. A few of them were missing. Back in the thai place I’d been in already? It didn’t matter.

I lunged over the counter and sprinted towards the open bridge. There were more aliens there, some of them turning my way, distracted away from their work flinging bodies down onto the streets below.

I tucked my gun under my stump and held it in place with my armpit, then I pulled out the first of my three garrot grenades. Yanking the pin out with my teeth, I flung it as hard and far as I could, and watched it sail over the heads of a dozen aliens.

I’d always had a good arm.

The next came out just as the large Model Six whistled and every alien in the area started to move back towards me.

I flicked the second grenade underhand. It bounced to a stop just a meter or so past the entrance of the bridge.

Perfect.

The grenade froze in midair a foot off the ground. The black band around it popped off, sending two metal bits skittering across the floor a moment before the device started to make a whining noise.

A thin black circle appeared around it, first only a few centimeters wide, then larger and larger.

One of the passing xenos set its leg through the blackened circle. Its leg was chopped into a hundred wafer-thin layers, sending the rest of its body crashing through the spinning blender of a monomolecular razor-ribbon.

The circle expanded more until it was eating through the walls and ceiling in the bridge, turning them into faint dust.

Through the haze, I saw a piece of the bridge at the far end fall to the ground.

That would do.

My last garrot grenade was flung over to a group of xeno running over to me. It would give them something to play with while I ran.

The entire building creaked as the far end of the bridge gave out. The sudden stress on the closer end, coupled with the torn up section and my old pal gravity, did the rest.

Just as everything went down, a huge black form leapt into the cafeteria.

The Model Six was missing most of a leg, and it was covered in scrapes and cuts, but its four beady eyes still fixed onto me.

I found myself with a strong urge to get the hell away.