Chapter Fifty-Three – Who Let the Worms Out?

Chapter Fifty-Three – Who Let the Worms Out?

“The common nomenclature for Antithesis names follows a simple pattern, one determined by the first responders in the Ohio incursion and which was then adopted globally and refined.

Still, the plethora of nicknames for the various antithesis models does lead to more confusion than the official nomenclature, and their use is therefore discouraged.”

– Mrs. January, licensed educator for teenagers, Jan 2033

***

“So, what’s the sitch?” I asked as Gomorrah and I both stepped into the kitchen. Some of the kittens were reclaiming the living room, and none of them wanted to be in the kitchen in case they were bullied into dish-cleaning duty. It made for as good a place to talk as any.

Plus, I was a little thirsty, so I pulled a can of something from the fridge and offered one to Gomorrah who nodded and took off her mask. “The… situation is turning a little rough on the outskirts of the city.”

“Really? Damn, I thought we were doing alright.”

“New Montreal is one of the safest cities in the world right now,” she said. “We were lucky that there was an incursion before this global one. Ironically. And we did a decent job pushing the aliens back and reclaiming territory around the city. The problem is the north.”

“The north?”

“South is the old USA. There’s plenty of force down there. Burlington might have been in a bad state, but other cities handled themselves better, and were cleared out over the last week. Territory’s being reclaimed and hives burned. The issue is that north of New Montreal is a lot of nothing, and that’s also a lot of room for hives to grow.”

“Right,” I said. That made some sense. Even with the winters mellowing out and the northern parts of what was Canada becoming prime real estate, there still wasn’t much that way. “So we’re gonna get fucked from that way?”

“I wouldn’t put it in those terms, exactly,” she said. “But we can expect some resistance and some assaults from that direction, yes. And some Samurai, once freed up, might be coming here as a staging ground for the East-coast assault on the far-north.”

“More samurai in the city, huh?” I asked. “That’s not so bad. Could use a few more.”

“There are a few more that we haven’t met. But getting samurai to work together can be like–no pun intended–herding cats,” Gomorrah said, and I replied with a snort. “There’s Battlepoet who’s relatively new. She’s been around the city for a while, but not in it until recently. This samurai from Calgary, Teddy, sent some mechanised war-bears to help with the push north. There’s more.”

“It’ll be nice to have lots of samurai around all at once,” I said. Less work for me.

“Yes, but they’re not all willing or able to work right away, and the problems with the infiltrations are problems right now. Especially with the antithesis acting strangely.”

“Acting strangely how?” I asked.

“Atyacus suspects that it’s a network of model seventeens.”

I shrugged. I had no idea what those were. Also, the normal naming convention for antithesis was not doing me any favours. I was bad enough at math as it was without having them all be called numbers all the time.

“They’re the models that make model sevens,” Gomorrah said. At my incomprehension, she went on. “The zombie worms.”

“Oh,” I said. I knew those. “Nasty fucks.”

“Seventeens are hard-shelled models, small. They lay worms that can control people, but also worms that can control other antithesis. And they can lay out long strings of organic wires that can let a hive communicate over long distances. Atyacus thinks that the way the hive is moving now, tactically, means that we have a few model seventeens playing games just outside of our defences.”

“Great,” I said as I rubbed my face. “And this is right up against the walls, huh?”

“PMCs can’t keep up with shifting battlelines. Not when they’re changing approaches and testing different areas this quickly,” Gomorrah said.

“And the wall?”

Gomorrah leaned back, two of the legs of the stool she’d taken over tipping back then clunking back down. “It was a good idea, I suppose. And it is working, for the most part. But the wall has gates. And there are a lot of them.”

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“When do they need us there?” I asked.

“Ideally, right now?” Gomorrah said. “I think the PMCs in charge want to do a counter-offensive.”

“Really? That’s ballsy.”

“It makes sense.”