Chapter Eleven – Getting Ready to Get Hot

Chapter Eleven – Getting Ready to Get Hot

“Megacities have their place. We need them. Workers need to be close to factories and offices, homes need to be close to schools. Utilities and electricity are simpler to route when everything is close together, and of course, concentrating security makes it more viable. Shelters and overlapping gun emplacements mean that, even with a higher concentration of people, a city is a safer place to be in during an incursion.

That’s not to say there aren’t any problems. Notably, how do you feed a hundred million people?”

–Opening Text from Megaurban Development 101 textbook, fifth ed. 2039

***

I found a loveseat tucked between two plants in the hotel lobby and sat back onto it. If I had to wait for Gomorrah to show up, I might as well be comfortable during the wait. “Alright,” I said as I looked over the map of New Montreal. “Looks like… Cause Player, Nomad and one other who doesn’t have an icon are dealing with that big orange lump along that highway there.”

There were more and more yellow stains appearing around the map. Mostly in areas that looked like forests or the like, but a few were showing up on the borders to some towns. The biggest, and the one where the map indicated three samurai were already waiting, was along the old Trans-Canadian that led into the northern end of the city. A splotch of orange in the middle of the lump was using the road.

“I think three samurai should be able to take care of that without our help,” Gomorrah said. “We should focus elsewhere, I think. There are two of us, we could go after some of the larger danger zones.”

“I don’t want to get swarmed in,” I said. “Biting off more than we can chew wouldn’t be nice, I don’t think. I’d rather not have to call for help before the timer’s even ticked down to zero.”

“Not the greatest timer if the aliens are active already.”

I chuckled. “It’s an estimate, I guess.”

I noticed a ping on the map, a small yellow-green circle that appeared over a spot some ways outside of the city. It was pretty far out, near the outer edge of the map. The area was only just on the edge of one of the smaller yellow zones. Focusing on it opened a pop-up.

CropCorp LLC – A subsidiary of Soil is Green – Facility 658-NM
Facility currently being relocated. Low-Mid priority.
Location holds several hundred tons of fertilisers and plant-materials that could pose a risk if captured by xeno forces.
Samurai volunteers needed for guard duty during facility move.

“Did you see this one?” I asked Gomorrah. There was a handy share button to ping others about a location on the map. “Guard duty seems a bit easy right now, but we could fly over and check it out?”

“There’s some orange near it, we might run into a few antithesis on the way. We’ll be far from the city though.”

“Close to some other samurai,” I pointed out. There was another orange splotch next to a little town with a marker for… Buzz-Buzz? That wasn’t one of the samurai who’d been at the meeting.

“I’m down for it,” Gomorrah said. “By the way, I’m pulling into the hotel now.”

I climbed to my feet, tugged my coat on straighter, then glanced around the room. A few folk were looking my way, but more of them were looking at their phones. A TV against the far wall of the lobby was presenting an emergency broadcast. Laserjack was there, nodding seriously while some reporter asked him questions. A bullet-point list was taking up some screen-space next to his head, telling people to keep on doing as they’d normally do.

Couldn’t have people staying home from work just because the world was ending.

I headed out of the lobby. I didn’t have time to stare at bad news or doomscroll with the rest of them.

The Fury slid into hotel’s parking tunnel and slowed to a gentle stop right in front of the doorway. A few other cars had to shift lanes to get out of the path. The driver’s side window lowered with an electric hum, and I saw Gomorrah looking out to me, maskless for once. “You getting in?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I jogged around the car. The window went up and the passenger side door rose. I flopped into the seat and shifted around. Gomorrah had just removed her mask from the seat and was placing it onto the dash. “You’re not all geared up?” I asked.

“I have my things,” Gomorrah said. “Just had to get changed and I didn’t bother equipping everything before I left the church. I like my suit but it could use some more breathable materials. It gets hot in there.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Really?” I asked. I tapped the chestpiece of my armour. “No problems here. Not that I’ve noticed at least.”

Gomorrah shrugged as she put the car into gear. “Mine’s designed to be resistant to my own weaponry. I use a lot of burning liquids, so I can’t really have the suit be porous or anything. My next upgrade will be a better undersuit, something with built-in cooling. I should have spent a few more points when I first bought it.”

I nodded along. “Yeah. I’ve got to start shopping for gear too. I left my grenade launcher at home. It’s too… clunky? Like, I like it as a weapon, it’s versatile, but at the same time it feels like it’s too niche. I don’t know if that makes sense?”

“I think I know what you mean. We should be making some decent points soon, it should be enough for you to try a few things. Both of us are still really new to this, I think it’s kind of expected that we’ll try a few things before settling into a niche.”