Chapter Fifty-Four – Essentially Doomed

Chapter Fifty-Four – Essentially Doomed

“The entire generation born after the year 2000 was made aware, from a very young age, that they were essentially doomed, and that no one was going to do anything about it.

So for a lot of them, the alien invasion was just a cherry on top.”

–Extract from Memoirs of a Zoomer, 2047

***

I glanced around the parking garage, helped by the spotlights from the two mecha cats that were still lingering by the entrance. “I can’t see anything left alive down here,” I said. “Except for us, I mean.”

Emoscythe nodded, flipped her sword around, then slid it into a loop on her belt. Somehow that loop coated the sword in something that looked like a sheath. “We’re done here, I think,” she said.

I asked Myalis for a few of those nano-machine grenades that ate antithesis flesh, and after activating them, I tossed the nades to the far ends of the room. The few resonators left were winding down and going quiet at last.

“That should make the area a little less hospitable for them.”

“But only here,” Emoscythe said. “Ideally we’d go floor-by-floor to ensure that there aren’t any more xenos left, but I don’t think that would be wise right now. Securing one building which is likely surrounded already isn’t going to help anyone. We’re going to have to push back the entire wave, then secure this part of the city building-by-building.”

“We’re going to have to do that everywhere,” I said. “The entire country side, every little shithole town, every cave and forest… we’re kinda fucked, you know.”

“You don’t sound depressed about it,” Emoscythe said.

I shrugged, but I wasn’t sure how well that gesture came across with my bigger armour on. “My entire life I have been acutely aware of just how fucked I am. And I don’t mean just the big-picture shit. I’ve always had bigger, closer problems to worry about than climate change or the economy.”

Emoscythe started towards the exit. “You know, I’m the one that’s supposed to be all doom and gloom.”

“Hey now, there’s enough gloom for everyone to share a bit of it.” We walked up the exit ramp and I raised my gun and fired point-blank into the side of a model three that was sniffing around. “Back to the wall?”

Emoscythe checked our surroundings, then started walking that way. “Might as well. Something tells me the defenders are going to need all the help they can get.”

“Is that ‘something’ the presence of a model twenty-something? Because I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to see those for a while.”

“It’s too early for them. And if a model twenty did show up, then we should have spotted it.”

“But we didn’t,” I pointed out.

Her eyes narrowed. “We didn’t. I can think of a few reasons why we might have missed one, and I don’t like any of them.”

“Sabotage?” I asked.

“Possibly. Or carelessness. Let’s not attribute malicious intent to what could simply be idiocy.”

Emoscythe bent down into a runner’s stance, then she took off in a sprint that would put the average doped-up super Olympian to shame. She hit the wall of a building, ran straight up for a bit before gravity took a hold of her, then she jumped off and flipped to the next building over. She ping-ponged her way up onto the rooftops while I watched. It was pretty impressive, the kind of shit I’d expect to see in one of those exaggeratedly over-the-top Japanese games.

I shook my head and jetted my way up to the rooftop. “Myalis, can you have all the cats in the region head over to the blockade?”

Certainly. Though a number of them have since been destroyed.

That was unfortunate, but not too surprising. The city was still being shelled, there were loud explosions in the distance and as I looked back east and towards the outer edges, I could hardly make out the horizon from all the smoke climbing into the air from some two dozen or more fires.