Chapter Fifty-Eight – Gimmick

Chapter Fifty-Eight – Gimmick

“Not all samurai have a gimmick, but nearly all of them do. These sometimes form from necessity or preference. A samurai adopting a certain kind of weaponry might specialize in that. Others prefer taking a certain role, and will purchase equipment according to that.

Still others will find a theme, and over time, will push and develop that to its sometimes illogical extreme.”

–Fa-Fa-Fashionista, On The Evolution of Trends, 2057

***

“Cat?”

I jumped a little at the sound of my name. It didn’t take much more than a second to place the voice though. Gomorrah, talking to me through my augs. “Yeah?” I asked.

I was stationed just outside of the headquarters in the middle of town, watching the last of the civilians running over. A few other families, and the rare single person, had been joining the file of people filtering into the big building behind me.

That meant that there were probably still hundreds of people in the town. I’d need to figure out a way to gather them all up and bring them over to the headquarters. Easier said than done, I figured.

“Cat, I found the third Samurai. He’s livestreaming things from the east-end of town.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah. That’s where the antithesis are mostly coming from. It’s probably for the best, actually, the headquarters aren’t too far from the eastern edge of the town, so anyone who wants to find cover will have him between them and most of the aliens.”

I nodded along. “We still need to let people know.”

“I’ve been working on it,” she said.

“Really?”

“Do you think I’ve been sitting up here enjoying the Fury’s AC and twiddling my thumbs? Atyacus and I broke into all the televisions and phones and augs we could reach in Black Bear and have been directing people over to the company headquarters. I might have to swing around to escort some of the groups closer to the edges, they’re too far to be able to run over here.”

“Right,” I said. It was easy to forget that I wasn’t the only samurai around. “So now what? We sit pretty and snipe at any aliens coming our way?”

“I was thinking you could head over to our new samurai friend. We both know how great you are at making nice with people,” Gomorrah said without a hint of sarcasm. She was pretty good at the whole deadpan thing, though.

I nodded along. “Fair enough. It’ll mean being closer to the action too. I’ll leave my cats here to guard the headquarters. Worst case scenario, none of us should be too far away. Do you think Atyacus and Myalis can work together to keep an eye on the civvies?”

“They should be able to manage. Especially if your drones are around to see any antithesis before they cause any trouble.”

“Right then.” I shifted my shoulders and looked about. Most of the civilians on the street were running over. The last of the line had filed in and only the stragglers remained. The cops had mostly gathered out by the front of the headquarters, some of them were passing out riot armour and shotguns and such. They were gearing up for a protracted siege. I bet there were a few folk in the headquarters who would be willing to volunteer to man the walls as it were, but so far there hadn’t been all that many aliens to deal with.

“I had some time to look things up. In situations like these, with a stealth hive, there tend to be some patrols of lower-level antithesis on the fringes. Then a lot more stronger ones closer to the middle of the hive. We might have trouble later.”

“Would they even come this way?” I asked. “Sure, there’s people for them to eat, but that’s it. Aren’t trees and grass and shit like that on the menu too?”

Myalis was the one that replied.

The antithesis tend to prioritize things. First taking out any threats, then subsuming any local biomass that isn’t dangerous. It’s why they tend to attack people in an area first before focusing on retrieving bodies and other sources of biomass. A stealth incursion tends to function under similar rules, though with a much greater degree of restraint and subtlety.

“Can’t say I’d call the antithesis subtle about anything,” I said.

They might surprise you, then. And that surprise may well be deadly. I would encourage you to be more careful than usual, but your usual level of care is nearly nonexistent.

I snorted. “Fine. Gomorrah, I guess I should head out and meet our new friend first. Maybe we can create a barricade or something to stop the aliens from coming this way.”

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“Our goal is to kill them, not just keep them out of the town,” Gomorrah said.

“We can go around murdering them after the town’s properly secured,” I said.

“That’s fair, I suppose. I’ll be moving around and watching over the last civilians moving around. Keep in touch if you see anything strange, or, god willing, a miracle happens and you have a good idea.”