Chapter Seventy-Eight – You Are Being Hunted

Chapter Seventy-Eight – You Are Being Hunted

“Stay safe out there, okay?”

Cavalier’s wife, 2057

***

Cavalier’s last known location was just ahead. There was a sort of… I think it might have been a resort? There was definitely a restaurant to one side, with a large patio that was partially covered, as well as a dining room within. To the side of that was a parking lot and then a fancy store that looked like it exclusively sold skiing gear. Both were connected at the rear to a long, low building with a covered walkway on the exterior.

From the look of the cars left in the lot, this was the kind of place that was a little expensive for my blood.

The entire area felt crooked. Probably because it was on the side of a pretty steep hill, and the ground was pretty sharply angled.

The group of soldiers I was tailing slowed down, one of them in the group ahead raised a fist and they came to a halt. I did the same, taking the moment to scan the area.

It didn’t take long to see what caught their attention.

There was a mechanical horse in the parking lot. Left on its side, bits and pieces of its mechanical innards flung around and its armour-plated side ripped apart.

It wasn’t the only sign of a fight. Several cars here were dented and crushed. Windows shattered, tires punctured. It looked like something big had crashed onto them, but whatever that was, it was gone now.

“Samurai Stray Cat,” One said. His voice coming out of nowhere made me jump a little in my seat.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Our tech operator noticed some light scrambling over our secured comms. Can you confirm?”

I frowned. Scrambling? As in someone trying to fuck with our communications system? I had a thing for that. Buried somewhere in my augs was an app thing that would let me check for signal strength and whatnot. “Gimme a moment,” I said.

He’s not incorrect. There is a faint amount of interference. Look.

Myalis popped open a screen, and on it was what looked like the wave…thing of the conversation I’d just had with One. She highlighted some bits, little parts that looked slightly off.

“I don’t have the degrees to figure that out,” I admitted.

It’s very light. Faint, even. From experience, I believe that you’re in an area with a physical signal jammer in the air, but the quantity has decreased enough to make it negligible. I’m impressed that anyone even noticed.

I nodded. That could have been something one of the samurai here used, maybe? I could see a few reasons to want to jam signals. “Looks like your tech guy was right,” I said to One. “There’s some sort of signal jammer thing. Myalis, my AI, says it’s a physical jammer.”

“Understood. Switch to AP.”

The soldiers took turns, two by two, to pull out their magazines and replace them with another. AP? That had to be armour penetrating, but why?

We continued our approach, but this time at a slow walk. The soldiers spread out a little until there was nearly a metre between each of them and they formed up into a sort of grid. I stayed in the centre. Moving so slowly was actually kind of awkward in my mech, but it was doable, still.

“Approaching, one contact, friendly,” One said.

There was a whistle and I looked upwards in time to see a black speck in the distance grow much closer. As it did, it also grew louder until the form resolved itself into a man. A man covered in an entire fuckload of armour.

He had two large turbines stuck to his back on a pair of metal wings. They shifted and twisted, blasting air out in different directions to stabilise his flight. It threw up dust and leaves until he kicked the flight system off some five metres above ground and came crashing down.

His knees barely bent.

“Invincible! Here to bring the pain!” he said.

Invincible was wearing as much armour as one of Tankette’s tanks, but it was enveloping him in the form of a thick suit. His head was encased in a steel half-dome with slits on the front, and his arms and legs were almost as thick around as my mechs. The suit made him eight feet tall, so I imagined that the actual Invincible was probably buried deep in there.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Yo,” I said through my external speakers. “We, uh, were trying to be discreet.”