Chapter 67: Saint-Polycarpe-of-Monsanto

  “In modern farming, you’d be surprised at how much inspiration we took from the antithesis. Every single crop is genetically modified and we did make quite a few invasive species!

  In the end, if the environment around the farm is taken over by an antithesis inspired invasive form of soy, if it’s edible I’d say it’s a public service! I don’t get the hostility! That soy forest really helps the cricket population! Wild caught cricket mock-meat is pretty profitable on top of that!”

  –Ryan Sarsour, CEO of SoylentLive, 2046.

  ***

  “Is this what people mean when they say ‘middle of nowhere’?” I asked anyone on comms. Altany picked up the question however.

  Essentially, yes. This settlement is between New-Montreal and many Ontarian cities, but close to none of them. It is, essentially, in the middle of all of them, hence nowhere.

  I shrugged. Didn’t matter much to me. Lived all my life in NM, how the fuck would I know? This place had few actual workers, most of the operation automated, but it still had some. Oh, and a metric FUCKTON of plants!

  The agricultural towers reached high in a hexagonal pattern around the main office. There had to be hundreds, maybe a thousand! If the antithesis took over this little plot of land, the amount of damage they could do… fuck. Yeah, we wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Guys, this is an extermination job. I know I kept the details light for information security, and I’m sorry about that, but the plant fucks that killed so many of our people? Welp, they’re under that mountain of fuel, and I refuse to let them have it. With this much, they could really build some super-monster plant or some shit, maybe even come and threaten our home. Plus, I’m feeling just a tiny bit vindictive. Who’s with me?”

  The sound of not only twenty enforcers saying ‘fuck yeah boss!’, but also two hundred militia men armed to the god damn teeth with protector-tech and looted high-quality gear almost deafened me! We were about to fuck some fucking shit up!

  “Armored panda carrier going down, everyone stay up, we don’t know where they’ll pop out from, be ready for action.” We had a known exit, the point that would be forcibly open to let the antithesis out when the corpo cunts wanted, but these little shits could really burrow and hide anywhere.

  The skies were clear of traffic, which just looked weird as fuck to me. Well, not clear-clear, but just a few transport vehicles and a couple civilian cars and shit. Actually, one of them didn’t fit… some kind of old, fuel efficient piece of crap, not that I was big on non-military vehicles, so I might not be the best judge of quality.

  As we landed, a dozen security guards that actually had somewhat decent equipment came to greet us! “This is private property, leave or be fired upon!”. It was cute! Those little guys had ballistic vests over white shirts, the little tacticool shit all over, some low-powered assault-rifles and shit, I wanted to pinch their cheeks!

  I exited without fanfare and walked up to the still screaming little man. A few of them even shot me, so adorable!

  They are receiving strongly worded orders not to let you interfere in their operation. I believe the complicit executives are trying to stop your involvement.

  “Hi there!” I said to the nice man emptying his clip into my chest. Awwwwww, that low-caliber cheap rifle almost tickled! When he was done, I walked up to him, not giving him a chance to reload. His buddies didn’t want to fire since, well, they might hit him.

  I stopped in front of him, only a couple inches from his face, my animated eyes off. “What’s up?”

  In a show of courage that I found just so fucking pwecious, he actually had the guts to say “Y-you’re hum… under arrest?”

  Very, very slowly, I brought my hand up, then flicked his nose. He recoiled, but I kept up, my face staying exactly the same distance from his. When he’d recovered, I stared at him for a couple more seconds before saying one word: “Run.” Boy, those cute little corpos could really book it when they wanted!

  “It’s not nice to bully.” Said a voice to my right. I turned to see a… samurai. Had to be. The insectile limbs and bug-eyed helmet kind of guaranteed it.

  “They’re corpo-sec, it’s always nice to bully bullies.” I answered, to which the insectile helmet tilted more than I found comfortable to watch…

  “Interesting. Laser Jack said you didn’t like corporate people. He told me to inform you I am not a member of The Family. I do follow their lead most of the time, but I prefer simply having friends. Of course, many of my friends are part of the Family, but I will vouch that they are wonderful people!” She sounded quite upbeat. Something about her made me a bit uncomfortable, maybe the extra-arms? That got me to nod in response.

  “I like having friends too. So, you’re the other samurai?” I asked, to which she clapped her hands, all six of them.

  “Ah, yes, I apologize, people call me Grasshopper! What may I call you?” That… fit very well, actually. I was a bit surprised that Laser Jack didn’t tell her who I was until I remembered how I met Johnny… Fuck.

  “I’m Mad Panda, but folk often call me Panda.” Just like that, the woman’s enthusiasm clearly jumped a few degrees! She clapped her hands in excitement and I got a bad feeling.

  “That’s wonderful! I imagine it refers to red pandas, given your equipment. Did you know that red pandas are as perplexing an organism as platypuses?” My animal knowledge, one hundred-percent derived from my media feed, kind of hitched on that.

  “How?” Platypuses were maybe the weirdest organism on earth! I wasn’t that attached to red pandas, but still!

  “While being often called ‘firefox’ and being named the same as a bear, they are more closely related to raccoons, all the while being geographically far removed from said species. Yet, they are carnivores that eat ninety-eight percent bamboo. They quack like a duck, are descendent from dogs but share many behaviours with cats! Their children are named cubs and they whistle to get their mommy’s attention. Oh! And their cute little faces slightly glow in the dark!”

  I stood there, stunned into silence for a good long while. It took Lila stepping up behind me to get things rolling. “Hi! You’re the other samurai I’m guessing?”

  “Oh! More friends! I’m Grasshopper, it’s nice to meet you.”

  Before the woman could say anything, I introduced her! “Oh, right, I’m sorry, this is Mama bear!” I thought the punch was a bit superfluous, but she didn’t go full strength at least.

  “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you! I didn’t know there were so many new samurais I hadn’t met!”

  “No, no, I’m Lila, not a samurai, it’s just a stupid handle my brother won’t let me get off the stupid comms… By the way, his is papa bear!” I glared murder at her.

  “No it’s not, and I know that because I scrub all traces every single time you try…” Grasshopper interrupted our banter with giggling.

  “You make quite a cute family. Do the both of you have cubs?” Yes! Just from Lila’s stance I could tell calling our kids ‘cubs’ got under her skin, mouhahahahaha!

  “While I wouldn’t put it like that, I have three kids and she has one. Speaking of, do you know Jackal?” Lila’s head snapped towards me violently. God damn, I was on fire today!

  “Oh, yes, quite a nice young woman under that hard shell!” Behind us, the rest of the enforcers walked up, a lot less hurriedly than Lila. I did appreciate that my sister wanted to help me with social situations. I might have put my foot in my mouth a few times… or a lot, who’s counting? Moving on!

  So, I didn’t push her buttons any more than that, showing extreme and magnanimous restraint! “Ah, yes, these are my enforcers, Ripley, Roger, Alex, Felix, Francis…” I introduced everybody and appreciated that the obviously powerful samurai didn’t treat them with any less politeness than either me or Lila.

  “Enforcers? Do you have gang?” She asked with interest.

  Ripley took this one. “We’re the Bear-Yakuza, we mostly exist to protect our building, Peach-Trees.”

  After a bit of a pause, Grasshopper started giggling harder than before, one of the extra limbs stopping in front of her face as if covering her mouth in amusement. “Did you know that red pandas live in trees? They’re one of the rare species with a sixth digit, a pseudo-thumb made for climbing.” That… okay, now I was getting the platypus comparison a bit. “They also love fruits, and can be fiercely protective of their tree. Although, they tend to be quite solitary…” How, in the ever living fuck, did our badass xeno-extermination mission turn into a ‘twenty interesting animal facts’ article!?

  My enforcers all looked profoundly amused, which didn’t help. “You equip your friends very well mister Panda!” She praised approvingly.

  “Oh, he gives us part of his points when we kill antithesis, so we get to buy our own equipment.” Roger clarified, which actually made the woman jump.

  “Sharing!” Jesus, the woman actually started clapping in glee… with all six hands, creating quite a lot of metal clanging!

  Alright, we had to get back on track. “So, hum, yeah, what’s your gimmick? Just asking due to the, you know, big hive under us.”

  “Oh! Yes, I focus on long-range ballistic strikes. Do you mind if I ask about yours?” I deciphered her meaning by looking at the huge as shit rifle on her back. I… didn’t really notice past all the weirdness, but in my defence, there was a lot of it!

  “I’m a close-quarters specialist! Mostly focusing on shotguns, strength-augs and being hard to kill.”

  Grasshopper nodded her head, like I’d made some kind of wise statement. “It is good to focus on not dying.” Welp, couldn’t argue against that!

  “So, want to get on top of one of those towers? Could probably get some good lines of sight in all directions from the top, I think?”

  “Oh, yes, that would be a good idea.” Suddenly, she ran and leaped harder than even I could with all my augs, and started… skittering to the top. A shiver ran down my reinforced spine at the sight, although mostly for the weird movement… “I like math.” She added on comms. “Did you know that by knowing the height of the tower, as well as the distance from it, you can calculate the exact distance to the target by using Pythagoras's theorem?”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Huh… Well, I clearly needed a better education apparently, this sounded kind of useful!

  Bella looked at the spectacle in fascinated silence for a bit, before answering the question. “I did. I’ll take the easy way up.” She said, climbing in the Panda Carrier. “Altany, I’d appreciate a range grid.” Yeah, that might also work. Oh, yeah, and the range-finder in her scope! Haha! Screw math!

  I switched off comms for a second. “Fucking hell this mission got weird…”

  Vanguard Grasshopper is quite accomplished. She may even be of service to your building’s populace. For the moment, you may wish to focus, because I am blocking the detonation signals sent towards the bomb meant to fully open the hive.

  I highly doubt any method they have, aside from manual suicidal activation, could bypass my hack. This does not make this situation safe. There are many ways to wake up the antithesis violently, and they may start exploring them soon.

  “Oh, fuck, hum… What hum… what do I do? Just find the nearest… access point and dive in?” I was about to make a sex joke but it felt a bit tasteless given the situation.

  Essentially, yes. However, this hive has had time to set up while receiving massive amounts of biological matter in the form of excess fertilizer, and discarded plant matter. This could be fairly difficult. You should prepare for a hive ready to expand quite violently.

  “Oh, shit, fuck, alright, directions please!” I had no clue how to handle this shit! “Okay, alright, hum…” I reconnected to enforcer and samurai comms and sent out a squad-wide warning, trying to sound confident and shit!

  “Okay, everybody be on guard for flying units, these fuckers are ready to export their brand of fucked up and I expect you to hinder that shit. None of these goat fuckers get to approach a fucking centimeter closer to our home! Is that understood?” There was an art to motivating people. I didn’t succeed every time, but Robin claimed I had a talent for it.

  From my understanding, the whole thing was about knowing what motivated people. The usual ‘protect loved ones’ did wonders in pretty much any scenario, including this one! The chorus of extremely varied determined responses told me I didn’t fuck up!

  Or, well, at least for most people… “Language!” I might have problems with Grasshopper afterall…

  ***

  “So… ‘You sure this is the way in?” The best way to make cheap fertilizer? You take all your bio-garbage and put it in a big ‘ol pile. It quickly became very similar to a massive pile of shit… Which I was supposed to dive into…

  Yes, there is an entry point under this. It is meant to feed excess compost, which is easy to hide on a corporate ledger, to the antithesis.

  “Do… do I really have to? Seriously?” I asked, disgust clear for all to see on my face, even through nothing but the animated eyes.

  “You know, decomposition is a byproduct of bacterial activity, recreating the cycle of nature.” Okay, interesting fact, still didn’t want to be covered in… that.

  You should sink quite easily given your enhanced weight.

  “Why can’t I blow up an entrance for myself again?” That attempt might’ve been a bit desperate…

  Because it would create an exit and alert the entire hive to an external threat. Internal threats are handled quite differently, increasing the chance of the antithesis choosing to attempt discretion for longer.

  “Fuck… Jesus horse-cock sucking cum gargling prolapsing christ fucked by a nailed baseball fucking bat…” I did NOT want to bathe in compost… God, the things I did to save innocent people… I deserved a fucking medal for what I was about to do!

  “Oh my…” Instead, I got Grasshopper commentary on my languageasss…

  “Fuck it…” I stepped into the… “Biological mass, just biological mass, don’t think about it…” … and easily sank through to the ground underneath for several meters. When I finally got to the alien feed-ramp, that shit felt like a slip and slid thanks to the liqu– nop, nopity nop nop nop!

  I emerged inside a tunnel, and got immediately spotted by quite a few model threes and tens, all of which did wonders for venting frustrations! I’d yet to make a lot of noise, so as far as the xeno-fucks were concerned, they only had a small problem on their hands. Oh, how fucking wrong they were!

  “Alright, I’m in position, absolutely do not look like a garbage golem and plan to find the heart to fill the place with super napalm… Then bath in that fire for a bit for my own fucking sanity… Any activity outside?”

  “Nothing yet. Do not worry, I’ll keep your litter safe mister Panda.” Grasshopper informed me with a massive smile in her voice.

  I closed my mic. “Fuck me, there’s another you…”

  So, you’re usefulness has doubled?

  “One, fuck you, two, where’s that fucking hive’s heart, I really need to burn off all this… gunk…” My entire body shuddered in revulsion.

  I can estimate its location, but not with any certainty as long as you do not make more noise. It would grant me echolocation data to work with.

  “But if I do that, it might wake up the whole fucking hive, right?”

  Yes.

  “Oh no, guess I’ll have to melee my way through the fucks, suck a crying god damn shame…” The super-Paw assembled in my hand and I walked straight into hell, eagerly awaiting the moment I could burn it down…

  It took quite a few little shits before the xenos got a bit serious. Honestly, finding the hive became more a question of following the direction each model thirteen came from. Every single one hit the ever loving shit out of me with those whips at least a couple times, but the pain didn’t feel crippling, so I refused to use battle drugs.

  Also, I started being experienced at dealing with those assholes! I could kind of tell where they’d aim, the type of attack they were ramping up, how fast…

  Honestly, it felt a bit… too easy… “Fuck!” I shouted in my helmet to no one.

  Is something bothering you?

  “I just fucking jinxed myself…”

  When something feels too easy, it is usually your brain’s way of analyzing patterns and finding problems which you cannot properly identify. Pattern recognition and analysis is a basic survival instinct for your species, one of the extremely rare things the human brain is somewhat capable with

  “It’s still a bad fucking idea to…” I finally arrived at the hive’s chamber and… “Told you so…” The god damn hive… tree or whatever looked massive! “Fucking hell, that thing could birth, like, half a dozen model sixes at a time, minimum…

  A quite massive army turned towards me at my arrival, surrounding… eight trees… fuck.

  This wasn’t a cabin or cellar, the damn place looked bigger than our central concourses! I had no fucking clue how in the ever living fuck this hall kept standing without bowing to the pressure. Although… this had to be in the center, not that close to any actual tower, which meant vastly reduced pressure.

  Also, well, tentacles, those might help.

  No fucking clue why I called it a 'hall’ when it rivaled our concourses in width and length!

  I know what you’re thinking,

  “Okay, okay, we can deal with this hum… Super-napalm?” I asked, my legs bending slightly, preparing for one fucking hell of a fight! “Need to put out a fuckload of it real fucking quick Altany! Please?”

  Loading. Cluster Low-velocity Arsonist Warming Shells ready. I’ve focused on a composition without Chlorine-Trifluoride as it would quite literally kill you more quickly than you’d prefer. Fire when ready.

  Didn’t need to tell me twice! Especially not with that name! I did not need to hear to name ever again, fucking acronym obsessed AIs…

  The railgun fired, my whole body caught a bit out of balance while cutting great swaths into the enemy. That might have made me faceplant… Hey, no one could prove it!

  She didn’t kid me with calling those ‘low-velocity’. My improvised magnetic-catapult only really ‘lobbed’ the things like… a low powered grenade launcher?

  Thankfully, I could see no conceivable way to complain about the effect! The ammunition, half the size of my head, detonated mid-air into a dozen smaller projectiles that had to be compressed since they put out a massive quantity of burning liquid!

  I’d have to fight this hive for as long as possible. It’d give me more time to fill the cursed caves with fire! More fire! All the fire! Caveman loves fire!

  Our battle would happen with a ton of light, in the middle of a rain of napalm! So metal! I stayed in range, jumping with the Super-Paw switching form constantly, dodging and rolling away from the worst hits while tanking the light ones! My railgun never stopped firing.

  “Militia, offensive cordon around the center! Don’t stay too close, expect an army to crawl out of that fucking hole! If you’re there, evacuate the middle right fucking now!”

  “Boss, where’s the hole?” Gary asked, very intelligently.

  “I told you, the center! ALL of it!”

  “Oh shit…”

  Every second the plant fucks gave me space, I assembled and unleashed the Tunneler with great glee! “Better ammo please!” I screamed with a massive smile on my face! So far, I chose hyper-compressed buckshot, send tungsten destruction to the fuckers in such vast quantities, it might have made me fucking rock hard, as in I felt so stiff and horny I could fuck a rock! ANY ROCK! No need for holes, I’d make one!

  O-kay, my thinking might have been growing hazy with battle frenzy, no need to comment on weird thoughts, moving on…

  Ready. These are similar, but explosively decompress inside their target instead of outside the barrel. They may be slightly more expensive, but given the current return on investment, I imagine the cost will not bother you.

  Fuck me, the smaller little shits I shot demonstrated how devastating that was! I could see the violent effect play out sometimes, smaller model threes blowing up to half-again the size from the destructive forces involved, before returning to their original shape and dropping dead. Hell, just because the damn slugs decompressed, that didn’t remove the amount of energy they dumped normally…

  “Fucking hell, nice work Altany!” I said while employing those rounds with great joy in my heart.

  My armor did its job, model threes biting ineffectually while whip-tentacles got intercepted by FUBAR dogs and well positioned plates. Some of them hurt like a bitch and a half, but that didn’t bother me, just meant it was a real fight!

  Model fours jumped on my back or grabbed from unexpected angles, but now, with all my weight and strength, each of them could be overpowered and thrown at other bastards… Even if not easily. Every single grab fucked with my mobility.

  My tail usually handled such impediments, using my incredible strength mixed with insanely sharp blades and spikes! I felt every stab more than ever, few things able to make me happier, or work out as much anger and hate… Moving on!

  The super-paw was pretty fucking heavy, a fact I abused to make way for my Grave-Digger to send explosive shells, rapid-fired in the direction of antithesis burning too slowly for my tastes, but the majority were shot at the fucking trees! I did not want one of those to survive! I didn’t give a fuck how much napalm-B those suckers soaked up, they could all use more explosive ordnance!

  Might’ve been because they looked so fucking creepy… Tentacle trees, man, tentacle trees…

  Something bothered me though… The thing Altany said nagged at me: It felt way too easy…

  One thing I should have considered, just because the damn things produced a ton of antithesis in this room, that didn’t mean those were the only trees, or that this was the biggest chamber…

  Something quick hit my chest with insane violence, clearly heavier, stronger and bigger than me! It came from below, somehow burrowing or breaking through the ground. My back hit the roof and kept on going, the thing using me as its battering ram to the outside!

  After analyzing the model, I almost laughed! “Hit by… Bus-kun…” Yup, the transport fucker, who clearly had a lot of little buddies to add momentum, hit me straight in the chest.

  Boy, my ribcage did not love that… Did I break most of my ribs again? The pain every time my back hit something said yes, yes I did. Fuck.

  And since it broke through the ground diagonally, I got a quick glimpse of another chamber, with at least twenty more of them…

  All full, and surrounded by a fuckton of flying models…

  And as I finally saw the outside, I also noticed the collision course with one of those towers.

  Welp, shit.

  good complicated! :D