Chapter Fifty-Seven – In Space No One Can Hear You Buzz

Chapter Fifty-Seven – In Space No One Can Hear You Buzz

“Top 8 best selling AUG games of 2057
1. Reality Runners [AR Collector Game]
2. The Family [Samurai Gacha]
3. Silly Starlight Symphony [Rythme Gacha]
4. Galaga 2 [Fixed Shooter Arcade]
5. Quantum Heist [Party Game]
6. Minecraft [Sandbox]
7. Verseforge [World Creator]
8. Catastrophe Clicker [Clicker Game]

–Game News Networld, 2057

***

I thought being on watch would be boring, and I was mostly right. It did have a few highlights, though.

A dinky little alarm clock went off a few minutes after Hedgehog carried Tankette away. It was one of those small red ones, with the two big bells on top of it, and the purely analogue clockface. I wasn’t even sure how to read the time on it, but I did figure out that smacking the little knob on the top shut it down.

“Okay, I’m guessing that means it’s time to shoot something,” I said.

“Ça l’air pas mal ça.” Gros Baton said. “What’re we shooting?” There was a whole menu with all of the loaded shells on it on one screen that he was flicking through, each option highlighted one after the other.

“Good question,” I said. “Uh. What’s the situation over around Phobos?”

I eyed the consoles and realized that there were a lot of blank buttons. I pressed one at random, then some part of my less stupid brain realized that I’d just pressed a random button on a kilometre-long gun’s control station and that was probably a bad idea.

Instead of pushing random buttons, how about you just let me handle things and leave the poor coolant control system alone?

“Yup, sorry,” I said as I drew my hands back from all the buttons. “Just… can we throw up Phobos’ status ATM on the big screen?”

Certainly.

I felt Gros Baton eyeing me, so I half turned to meet his gaze. That gave him the push he needed to ask me a question. He even bothered to ask it in his accented English. “Why do you talk to your AI, uh, out loud?”

“You mean Myalis? How else am I supposed to talk to her? Text?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod.

“Oh. Well… isn’t that impersonal?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I text my best friends all the time.”

“I mean, sure. I don’t know. I guess I could, but it feels more natural to talk to her out loud?”

“You could whisper.”

“Do I look like the whispering sort?”

He considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said. “Looks like the evil moon is busy, eh?”

I squinted at the screen. He was pretty spot on there. Phobos was surrounded at the moment. Hundreds of little darting dots. It looked like… actually, it kinda looked like flashing a light into a super dark and dusty room. Lots of little particulate catching the light and swirling around. “What are those little things?” I asked.

Mostly lower-tier models. It seems as though Phobos has launched several thousand model elevens and a number of model twelves.

Model elevens? Those pterodactyl looking motherfuckers? That was pretty low on the food chain, all things considered. “Wait, they can fly in space?”

“Why not, at this point?” Gros Baton said.

I mean, sure, but while I might have been lacking any sort of proper education, I was pretty sure wings didn’t count for shit in zero-g and without any atmosphere. Then again, the antithesis seemed to have a knack for not giving a fuck. “Okay, whatever,” I said. There were frequent flashes as Keiretsu drones sniped some of the models away with what looked like laser fire, but the models seemed to swarm around organically, and I saw one drone get taken out by a screen of them smashing into it.

“Let’s load up one of those Bee Bombs,” I said. “We can fuck up their screen, give the Keiretsu a chance to get their drones in closer.”

“Ça m’semble bon,” Gros Baton said as he took the second seat and started to fiddle with the targeting. I had no idea if he knew what he was doing, but I didn’t want to show that I was clueless so I left him at it.

The ammo selector thing was pretty simple. A sort of menu with a flicky wheel next to it that I could roll to switch between ammo types. There was an entry for every kind of shell I’d bought with the number remaining next to it. I noted that there were a few HE shells that I hadn’t bought as well. Probably Tankette’s purchases.

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I rolled the wheel until Bee Bomb was selected, then tapped the accept button next to it.