Chapter Forty – Oncoming

Chapter Forty – Oncoming

“The battle is only lost when there are no more humans left to save. That is when we can finally allow ourselves to despair. They might come in their thousands or millions, but as long as we are here to meet them, then there is hope.

Despair for all these aliens. Hell. And may none of them escape satisfied!”

-Major General Dimitri Strugatsky, moments before detonating a fail-safe nuclear device near the city of Mogocha, 2050

***

I hated it when I had to make hard choices without the time to think them through, or any ways to weasel my way out of the problem in the first place.

“We’re not leaving until we warn the idiots upstairs,” I said.

Gomorrah paused and half-turned to face me. “What?”

“Look, we’ve barely dented this hive. The least we can do is warn the people living here that the hive is still active and that we’re leaving. They think that they’re relatively safe, you know?”

“It’ll take more time than we have,” Gomorrah said. “Laserjack’s request sounded urgent.”

“I don’t care,” I decided. I wasn’t going to run off and leave these people without at least a warning. I stared at Gomorrah, and her emotionless mask stared back.

“Fine,” she said. “We’re losing more time arguing. I’m going to park the Fury out front. Once we’re out of this damnable basement you can warn them all you want.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We walked our way back out of the basement, retracing our steps as we went. Neither of us seemed patient enough to walk with the same care as we used to enter the basement, so we made good time on our way out.

This time I took the lead, sloshing through the water with frustrated energy. The faster we made it out, the faster we could warn folks, and the less Gomorrah would be irate. And we’d get back to the city faster too.

Once back in the dryer section of the basement I jogged over to the door and pushed it open.

I wasn’t expecting to find Charles and Paul and a few others all grouped up in the factory’s main living space, but there they were. One of them was even lounging on the couch. “Hey!” I said.

They jumped. Not hearing my footfalls I could forgive, but the big iron door? That thing squealed when it opened.

Charles jogged over, and it seemed that he was something of a spokesman. “We voted again,” he said.

“So, you’re getting ready to pack up?” I asked. “That’s good, because I’ve got bad news and worse news, and you don’t get to pick the order.”

“No, actually. We’re going to stay. Enough of us want to stay that… we can’t justify abandoning them. In either case, the vote was clear.”

I shook my head. “Well, fuck.”

“The news?” he asked.

“Bad news, the hive’s still down there. We didn’t kill it. Didn’t even reach it, really. Burned out a few aliens in your basement, but my bet is that there’s a lot more where they came from.”

Charles winced. “And the worse news?” he asked. It didn’t feel like he wanted to ask at all.

“We’re leaving,” I said. “Gomorrah and I. New Montreal’s about to get hit, the walls aren’t done, and no one’s ready to take the brunt of it. So we need to go do our thing. You’ll be all alone for a bit. I’ll make sure the ping’s still up, so maybe someone else will pop around. Or maybe Gomorrah and I can swing by once things calm down, but… yeah, I don’t know when that’ll be.”

Charles nodded along. “It’s fine. We’ll manage.”

I looked at him, with his old rig over a sweater, then at the others. A couple of them had bulletproof vests. Ill-fitting things that looked like they were police surplus from three decades ago. Their guns weren’t much better.

“Right,” I said. I heard Gomorrah stepping out of the basement. She didn’t waste any time here and headed outside to get the Fury. “I’m going to leave you some things. Otherwise you’ll all be dead in no time.”

I moved over to the side, to an open space on the floor.

“Myalis? What do we need to keep these idiots safe?”