Chapter Seventy-Seven – Deeper

Chapter Seventy-Seven – Deeper

“The Cleaners are a group of samurai that show up after the main thrust of an incursion is done, and after the hive is declared dead. Some of them are somewhat popular, but never as much as the more famous ‘main-line’ samurai.

Their work is out of the limelight, cleaning up after the bigger, louder samurai, and ensuring that an incursion is well and truly dead.”

–Excerpt from, The Cleaners, a documentary, 2037

***

Gomorrah continued to clear the way, even though the fires were finally starting to die down. I think the lack of stuff to burn was finally calming things down.

It was still swelteringly hot though, and I could feel myself sweating like mad in my suit. I kinda hoped that it was going to cool off soon, but the patches of ground that were still glowing-hot after the fire finally went out hinted that it wouldn’t cool down that quickly.

“I think we’re nearly there,” Gomorrah said.

I looked around and vaguely recognized the area. It wasn’t like there were road signs to follow, but I did have a minimap of sorts and the passages seemed familiar. We were at an intersection away from the hive. “How do you figure?” I asked.

“I was looking at your progress on the map earlier; this is about where you stopped. In the next section, I mean,” she said.

Made sense. “Aww, were you watching out for me?”

“More points if you leave to join the Lord.”

I laughed. “Nice. Yeah, the next spot is where the hive was.”

“Was? You sure it’s entirely gone?”

“I hope it is,” I said.

The room had been pretty large, and I wasn’t sure if I’d put enough canister bombs to fully cover it. On our trek down, I could spot the places where the bombs’ range didn’t overlap—there wasn’t usually much damage in those spots. A few Antithesis had tried to hide in there, but it looked like they’d been cooked anyway.

We reached the hive, and I cursed and brought my Icarus up.

Some of the trees remained, burning merrily and tossing up brackish smoke to the ceiling. Roots still covered the ground, oozing puss and whatever passed for blood in an Antithesis hive. The outer layer of the roots had been burned off, but the fire hadn’t turned the whole place to ash.

The wrecked remains of one of my cat mecha was laying nearby, crushed and broken into so much scrap.

“Nothing moving,” Gomorrah said as she swept her gaze around. “This place is big though.”

“Not as cooked as I’d like,” I said.

“I can fix that,” she said. “Give me ten minutes or so.”

“Yeah, actually, that’s not a terrible idea.” I pointed across the room. “That tunnel’s the one I didn’t explore. Some Model Thirteen spotted me when I was going down it. I tossed a bomb in, but I don’t think it’ll have burned too deep into it.”

“Maybe we can head over that way, then burn the hive behind us,” Gomorrah said.

I started to nod, then swore and jumped onto Gomorrah.

She gasped as I collided into her and sent both of us sprawling.

Then a Model Thirteen, or a third of one, crashed into the ground where we’d been standing. Its tentacles, mostly cut short and burned to nubs, whipped around and crashed into my back. Shields appeared and burst apart under the impact, and I was shoved down harder onto Gomorrah.

Then my cats opened fire, all three of them shooting at the Model Thirteen from three directions and gouging out the Antithesis’ flesh.

I rolled off Gomorrah and scrambled for my gun, but it was already done, the alien slumped down, properly dead.

“Christ,” Gomorrah said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I climbed to my feet, then stepped over to the Model Thirteen. It was riddled with holes, some of them bleeding quite a bit. It looked a little charred on the edges, but I guess it had slipped to somewhere safe… ish.

I kicked it with the tip of my boot, just to make sure.

“Where did that come from?” Gomorrah asked.

I looked up. “They can cling to ceilings, and there’s smoke,” I said. “Spooky fuckers.”

Gomorrah grunted as she got to her feet. Her back-mounted flamethrowers deployed and started scanning the ceiling. “Good way of knowing that the hive isn’t entirely dead. I don’t envy the samurai that do clean-up work.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I asked.

“Not quite. There are some that come in only once the hive is confirmed to be dead, just to root out pockets of Antithesis, and burn any remains so they don’t start growing again. It’s not a job that pays very well, point-wise, but it’s lower-risk and someone needs to do it.”

“Let’s make their jobs easier then,” I said. “Myalis, resonators, I need… eh, about six of them?”

The sound-based bombs acted pretty slowly, but they lasted a while. I tossed the first one across the room, then saw Gomorrah shaking her head.