Chapter Fifty-Six – Le Bad Suck

Chapter Fifty-Six – Le Bad Suck

“I see you, I feel you. You thought I was dead? You wish I was. But you forgot that I’m It. I will fuck you up in ways that no one’s ever fucked someone up before. They will invent words to describe what I’m going to do.

I am a broken mirror and my shards are in your throat. I’m going to tear your reflection out of your spine… bitch.”

–Mad Vlad to Calliope Corp CEO before their bankruptcy, 2045

***

“Alright,” I muttered just low enough not to wake Tankette up. “Myalis, what have you got for me? Keep them under… call it one thousand points a shell? We need to fire a fuckload of these.”

Certainly. Are we still going for variety first?

I considered it, then realized that I had two others to do the thinking for me. “Hedge, do we go for variety or just lots of what we think might work?”

He frowned, then nodded slowly. “Variety. But please don’t grab anything wasteful. We only have a few dozen more shots to make this count. We can try new things–and we’re probably better off varying the kinds of damage we deal–but we can’t afford to waste effort and shots.”

“Got it,” I said. “Heard that, Myalis?”

I did. Let’s start then! First, might I suggest something simple to whet the appetite?

“Go on.” Was she trying to sound like a fancy server on purpose? Actually, scratch that, she definitely was.

The first is a Scrambler bomb. This one detonates and creates a field around itself that shifts items around. It’s not quite random, but it might as well be. The Scrambler will remain active for a relatively long time after deployment and will continuously move atoms away from their current location and to a random one nearby.

“And that does… what to a person?”

It scrambles them, Catherine. That kills people.

“Oh,” I said. “How big of an AOE are we talking here?”

“AOE?” Gros Baton asked, but it was aimed at Hedgehog. The man started to explain about video game terms like Area of Effect and how they ended up co-opted by the military.

The area of effect begins at a kilometre across, give or take a few bus-lengths. Then it shortens over time with the incident of atomic re-materialization increasing exponentially. I must add that this creates a lot of radiation, both as heat and across the radioactive spectrum.

“Fuck it, we won’t have to deal with that, the aliens will. Add one of those to the shopping cart,” I said. “Next?”

Next… an Electron Suppression bomb would have some interesting effects on the Phobos object. It would give all protons in a large area a negative charge.

“I don’t know enough about physics to tell what that would do, but I can imagine it would be bad. Add it!”

Fantastic. A riff on a bomb that you’ve purchased before as a grenade might be interesting; the Full Stop is a device covered by a nearly unbreakable shell. Once activated, it stops moving.

“Why would a device that can’t move be good?” I asked.

You misunderstand. It cannot be moved. It is spatially locked.

I shrugged. “What would happen to Phobos if it runs into a spatially-locked indestructible thing?”

Hedgehog perked up. “You should get that.”

“Alright, add it. Anything else?”

Gluon bombs. I’d explain how changing the environment reacts to the Strong Nuclear Force could be destructive, but by the time you’d understand it, Phobos will have landed.

“Fine, fine, add your glue bomb too.”

“That doesn’t sound as destructive,” Hedgehog said.

“I know, right?” I said. “Next?”

Short-duration black holes?

“Fuck yeah!” I said. “Nothing says ‘fuck off’ like chucking a black hole at someone.”

“That sounds good, yeah,” Gros Baton said. “Give them le bad suck.”