TBoB - Book 3 - Chapter 25 - Seeds on the Wind

When we pulled into the central area I wasn’t sure what to expect. Well, to clarify, I was expecting a shit ton of antithesis. What I wasn’t expecting was the fucking two story tall wooden pole covered with hundreds of thousands of thick vines, embedded in the ground. 

“The fuck is that?” I muttered, before I opened up upon a swarm of antithesis in the streets around it.

That, my dear Evelyn, is a seed pod.

“Bullshit! That looks more like a spear than any seedpod I’ve ever seen,” I snapped.

Arclight stopped lasering for a moment and glanced over, “Pardon?”

“I’m talking to Nyx, my AI,” I explained. 

The man cocked his head slightly, “Why don’t you subvocalize?”

I sighed, “Nyx, reply in the traditional way for our new friend here, please.”

Deadbeat twitched slightly, “Alright. As I was saying, it is a seedpod, just one that’s already disgorged its payload. See all those vines? They’re used to both keep the antithesis in place during the descent, and secure the outer shell. Once it hits the ground the outer plates fall away, and the alien payload is released,” Nyx explained. “The Eights typically clear up the remains before moving on, this one must not have landed too long ago.”

I watched Arclight look at Deadbeat in surprise, before glancing back at me. I just mouthed ‘AI’ at him, before I went back to firing.

“Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, larger?” Hoppy asked.

“The pods are modular, and if they’re hit with anything large enough to damage them, they split to avoid being destroyed in a singular heavy attack. That’s why it’s so difficult to prevent the antithesis from landing. This is just a single compartment,” Nyx continued to explain. “I guess the one advantage to having several additional anti air vehicles in the area, is they’re able to crack the shells.” 

“Yeah, too bad they’re too absorbed with their infighting to actually help though,” I grumbled. 

As we slowly approached the massive spire, we managed to slowly grind down most of the antithesis with a combination of conventional arms and lasers. The coilgun only had to fire twice, against a couple Twelves that arrived late to the party. 

Once the street was clear I noticed what appeared to be massive bark plates, under the bodies. Guess the mass of antithesis standing on them had hidden them from view. “How do I get rid of that? Will flesh melters work?” I asked as we drove up to the stake. It was significantly thicker than I originally thought, probably over six feet wide, and some of the tendrils were still writhing.

“That’ll work, you’ll need a few more than usual though. If any part of the core survives it’ll dig down into the ground and become a new hive,” Nyx replied.

“Of course it will,” I snorted. “Seems like everything the antithesis has becomes a hive, given enough time. Pass out melters to the team.”

A moment later a handful of grenades fell into the bears laps, and they began the strategic removal of the antithesis remains. Arclight just watched the process in silent awe.

“You okay over there?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “Are you always this coordinated? With the bears I mean.”

“Not all of them, but I could control quite a few now that I’ve got the hardware,” I replied, knocking on the side of my head. “Why?”

“Watching this… I’m glad you stayed out of the conflict,” he mumbled.

“As far as I’m concerned, there are far bigger issues than who’s dick is bigger,” I replied lightly. I heard Hoppy snicker at that, but I chose to ignore her. “I’d rather spend my time making the place I live in a better place, then fighting someone I don’t know, over something that honestly, is never going to affect me.”

Arclight stared at me for a second. “The board’s decisions affect the entire city, how can you say it doesn’t matter?”

“You have obviously not spent much time in the undercity,” I grumbled. It was obvious that he wanted me to elaborate, but I really didn’t feel like giving him a full breakdown of Calgary's structure. Thankfully the bears scrambled back before I had too. I watched the seedpod's core slowly collapse in upon itself for a minute, before turning towards Bandit.

I didn’t even need to say anything, he just pointed towards one of the east bound roads, and we were off again. 

“They’ve really started to spread out, a lot of the antithesis have dug into the local buildings,” Hoppy said as we made our way down the road. “Digging them out is going to take a lot of time.”

“Yeah, this would have been a lot easier if I could have committed my entire force here, but if we thin the antithesis out enough I should be able to slowly collapse the perimeter. The bears can perform sweeps as they go,” I replied as I took a couple pot shots at the few antithesis sitting in a nearby lobby. 

“Stop,” Bandit hissed as soon as we hit the next intersection. I silently commanded Dusty to halt the vehicle, then turned to look at him. The fox sniffed the air for several seconds, then pointed straight up. 

“Fuck,” I muttered, as I followed his finger. One of the pods had embedded itself three quarters the way up the nearest megascraper. Now that I thought about it, it was a miracle the first one we encountered managed to make it to the ground, it would have had to have come nearly straight down.

“What do we do now?” Arclight asked quietly. “Stairs?”

“Fuck walking,” I grumbled as the IFV’s engines roared to life. It took a few seconds to leave the ground, but after that the accent was smooth.

“This thing can fly?!?!!?” Arclight gasped.

“Of course it can, didn’t you see my column fly in?” I replied incredulously.

“We thought those were supply trucks! The only military hover vehicles are typically fast attack, or bombers, even top of the line engines have trouble carrying all that heavy armor,” he replied.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing I have access to class II techs then,” I said. “It would fucking suck if my forces were ground bound all the time.” The IFV slowed, then leveled out at the floor the seedpod penetrated. There were a couple antithesis here, but since it crashed through multiple floors, they were spread out. “This is our stop I guess.”

I vaulted the six foot gap easily, landing on the nearest stable looking piece of floor, followed a moment later by Hoppy. The rest of the bears, and Arclight, had to wait until the Grizzly backed right up to the edge and deployed the ramp. As soon as Heavy took his first step inside the floor collapsed beneath him, sending him several floors down. I didn’t even bother checking if he was alright, the rapidly flashing light and sound of sizzling plants told me everything I needed too.

“The rest of you spread out, and find a safer way down,” I ordered the rest of the squad. As they scattered, clearing rooms as they went. I sighed, “Do you have another question, Arclight?” I asked. The man had been staring at me more and more the last few minutes and it was starting to get on my nerves.

“How… long have you been a samurai, might I ask?” he finally said.

“We’ve both been samurai for about… six months now,” I said, taking a second to consider. “Although we’ve both apparently seen more action than most samurai have in their entire careers.” 

“Fuck, I’ve been a samurai close to five years, and I can’t even imagine the amount of points you must have sunk into your stuff,” Arclight replied, finally recovering enough to go find some loose antithesis.

“Yeah well, points mean prizes, but they also mean I’ve gotten my ass kicked a whole lot in the last six months. It also means jack shit to a lot of people, until they do enough to piss me off,” I told him. “Thankfully I only know one person that’s good at repeatedly pushing my buttons, and I’m normally rather chill.” Hoppy snorted again. “Okay, chill is the wrong word,” I clarified. “I don’t direct my anger at people, unless they really deserve it.” My augs chirped, notifying me of an incoming call. When I saw the caller I groaned. “Speaking of which,” I mumbled.

[Mirage, I’m kinda fucking busy right now, this better be important,] I grumbled.

[Evelyn, I’m just calling to let you know the Denver samurai backed off,] came Mirages reply. I felt my eye twitch.

[I’m aware. They thankfully volunteered to help us protect the city from this incursion, like you should be doing,] I shouted.

[Yeah, well, I’m sure you’d be glad to know that I’m currently clearing out the South-West] he replied indignantly.

[Oh. Well… thanks? I guess?] I said. Not quite sure what else to say to that. [So then why are you calling me?]

[I just got word from one of my PMC contacts that the Denver armor column has started to move. It’s headed straight for the incursion,] Mirage reported.

[Any chance they’re on their way to help?] Just as I asked that I received an emergency signal from one of my perimeter Grizzlies, it was under fire. I groaned. [Never mind, I think I already know the answer to that.]