“What do you mean you ’t fire the ons? Before we came down here, you said all you needed was the coordinates. Now that you have them, you still ’t fire? Why not?!” Temporal cried. I’d lent her Wide-Eyes, my squirrel, to unicate with the samurai support team, and apparently the news wasn’t good.

  “We ’t expin it!” the tiny squirrel reyed. “There’s a massive distortion field over that entire area! None of our teleportation systems pee!” Seeing how violently Temporal was shaking the little squirrel, I kinda felt bad for doing something simir tht-Eye’s squirrel earlier.

  “That doesn’t make sehe creature hasn’t emerged yet, and although we’re fag some bruisers, I don’t see anything that could cause interference of that magnitude!” Temporal cried.

  “All I tell you is the interferetern looks simir to the one geed by antithesis Eits, but way more plicated. I ’t expin it!” the squirrel said.

  Spooky stopped shooting for a miood up straight, and turowards Temporal and the Squirrel. “Low-level antithesis units coordio create such a field, but it requires dozens of models, and coordination from a higher model to do it,” Nyx expihrough the bear.

  “Would Seventeens be able to do it?” I asked.

  Nyx cocked the bear’s head to the side, almost like he was sidering. “A single Model Seventeen, no. It would take half a dozen or more.”

  “And, based upon how coordihe atta Jasper was, we expected at least that many down here,” I pointed out.

  Temporal stopped shaking my squirrel for a minute and turowards Nyx and me. “Is there a way for us to interrupt the field from inside?” she asked.

  “There are some techs that could pee the field, but they’re very specialized and none of the samurai present are close to obtaining the required catalogs. The other option would be to find and elimiher the Seventeens, or the antithesis they’re using to gee the field,” Nyx expined. “If you find them.”

  Both Temporal and I turowards the roiling mass of antithesis that filled the room. “I guess we could get lucky?” I said hopefully.

  Temporal sighed. “Unlikely, but who knows?” She gently pced Wide-Eyes on the edge of the parapets and looked down at it. “Keep trying to get through the interference, and tact us the instant you do,” she told our tact. The squirrel nodded emphatically in agreement then, a sed ter, the intelligence left its eyes as the e was cut. “So much for an easy win,” she mumbled.

  I turned back towards the line, raised my LCARS and fired a few more rounds into the mob below. “So, our instant win dition is out the window, we’ll just have to push through manually. I do wish we were makier progress though!” I shouted over the gunfire.

  “Holy? I don’t uand why we haven’t broken out of our er already!” Temporal yelled back. “Gimme a sed!”

  A moment ter I received an io a group chat in my augs. I quickly accepted, thehe discussion off in my peripheral so I could keep an eye on it while trating otle at hand.

  [Temporal: Hey Pesti… What the hell man? Shouldn’t you be carving a hole through the antithesis line right now?]

  [Pestilence: I would, if there was a sirain here. It seems like every one of those pilrs is ag like an indepe hive, and they’re all pumping out something different.]

  [Humboldt: ’t you just whip something up for all of them at the same time?]

  [Pestilence: I could, but I won’t. If I lose trol of even a sirain, it could mutate and start attag something other than antithesis, like trees, or humans.]

  [Teddy: Got it, bad idea.] I mentally typed. [ we at least start cutting towards one of the perimeter hives? Or, you know, shoot them with a missile or something? If we cut off the reinforts, we should be able to make some progress… right?]

  [Grey: I’ve tried! Every time I une na the pilrs, one of those damned Model Ones swoops in to intercept. The clusters are programmed to reach the pilrs and dissolve them. There’s just too much chaff between here and there. They burn out dissolving the ground units.]

  [Magpie: It’s like a puzzle! Fun! How about we release the acid! That’ll get em!]

  [Humboldt: Let’s keep that as Pn B, ok? Although I’m pretty sure I’d survive, a lot of you may not. We’re not even sure if the acid will work on whatever that tral hive is cooking up.]

  [Magpie: Fine… I’m sure I find something else fun to py with until then.]

  [Dreamer: I’m getting bored now! ’t we move this along?]

  I heard Temporal snort off to my left, but kept silent myself.

  [Humboldt: Teddy, ’t you whip out one of those massive railguns you had ba Seattle? That thing punched right through hives.]

  [Teddy: I didn’t buy that. It was salvaged from one of our panions who died back there. I have no idea what it would require to purchase.]

  [Nyx: About four tokens and sixty thousand points. Although you have the points required, you’d need aoken.]

  [Teddy: Nyx, what the fuck? How did you eve in here?]

  [Nyx: Please. I monitor every possible work for threats to your persoy-four-seveering a chat room isly difficult.]

  [Teddy: … I guess that’s fair]

  [Executable: Pablished. Destroy silying hive cluster to establish heavy ranged support]

  [Teddy: Teically yes, but that still leaves the question, how do we get to that first cluster?]

  [Humboldt: Send Bob to me. I think the two of us are resilient enough to wade through the small stuff ao that closest pilr.]

  [Teddy: But if you get surrounded by the Twehere’ll be no way to get to you!]

  [Humboldt: Fuck it, I’ll figure it out.]

  [Teddy: Don’t say that, you sound like me.]

  [Grey: Let her go! We o make progress, and this might be our best ce.]

  “Fug… fuck,” I muttered. I didly want to send Humboldt out there, but it was her decision. I quickly lowered my LCARS and looked over the wall towards the pce I saw Bob. The big bear appeared to be having a field day, smashing many smaller models with peared to be the lower jaw of a Twenty-Three. “Bob! Meet up with Shannon, yoing to take a walk!” I yelled in his dire. He stopped bashing, pletely ighe Threes and Fours tearing at his legs, and threw me a thumbs-up.

  “That bear is monstrous,” Temporal said from my side. I just nodded as we watched the bear simply wade through the antithesis towards the rest of the group, only stopping occasionally to smash a Twenty-One, or Twenty-Three, in the face.

  “Best purchase I’ve ever made,” I admitted.

  Without Bob to intercept the rger models, the antithesis immediately pushed towards my walls. The smaller models were easily dealt with, but when the bigger models came rushing forward, I realized I’d made a mistake. The rail guns were suffit to deal with the Twelves wandering around, and wound the Twenty-Ones, but they weren’t good enough to take dowwenty-Three’s.

  As soon as the first Twenty-Three reached the wall, it stretched its neck out, reached over the wall, and started biting bears. I had to leap back when the sed o the wall to avoid getting gobbled myself. “I think I might have made a minor miscalcution,” I said, turning to Temporal. “We might want to get down.”

  “Holy shit, no kidding! What do we do?” She asked, creeping towards the dder.

  “Fug JUMP!” I cried as the third Twenty-Three smashed into the wall, nearly grabbing me as I lept off the wall. The bears followed me, half jumping, half falling. Ane antithesis smmed into the wall, causing the wall to tilt and the anchor bolts to creak at the strain.

  “You might want to let the others know what’s going on!” I shouted at Temporal, without taking my eyes off the wall.

  “What are you going to do?!” She shouted back.

  “Fug… Nyx!”

  Yes?

  “Will the Css II railguns be enough to hahose bastards?”

  I’d ask you which, but I know time's of the essence right now. If you unlock the Css II Linear Accelerator ons catalog, there are a couple of options.

  “Then fug gimme one! Any one!” I cried as a crack appeared between two ses of the wall.

  Purchased

  Css II Linear Accelerator ons Catalog - 500 points

  ‘Devastator’ Heavy Coilgun - 300 points

  Points Remaining: 63,245

  The thing that dropped at my feet was huge, it looked more like Jesse’s psma on than the railguns I was used to. It was defie for me to wield.

  “Nyx! How the fuck does this help?” I yelled as one of the Twenty-Threes pressed its head through the growing gap in the anels.

  Nyx didn’t reply, instead Heavy swept in. The big bear casually discarded his ser on in order to pick up the coilguook a couple of steps forward, stuck the gun right up to the creature's mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  The round, whatever it was, straight up removed the creature’s head. The remaining part of the neck slipped outside as the body crumpled, allowing the walls to slip back together.

  With the first offender dead, Heavy simply threw the neon over his shoulder, and walked over to the dder to tinue ing the walls. As I watched him go about his business, I sat heavily on the ground, breathing heavily. “Fuck me, that was close.”