Chapter Sixty-Eight – Darkness

Chapter Sixty-Eight – Darkness

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***

The darkness was… strange.

No, alright, it was normal darkness. Just a lack of light from above. The thing is, I could still ‘see’ perfectly well. My cybernetic cat eye was pretty good about low-light, and it was messing with my head that my meat eye wasn’t.

Strangely enough, the ears helped me see more.

I hadn’t noticed how accustomed I’d gotten to my new ears, I guess. They were supposed to have some sort of sonar to them, and I had noticed that I could see a sort of mental image of things that were around a corner, but it was all very subtle. A sort of impression that faded into the background when I wasn’t paying attention. Something about the system had to be there to prevent it all from disorientating me.

Now, in the deepening darkness of the mines, that system came into play again. Or it would be more accurate to say that I noticed it more. I couldn’t see into the deeper darkness, but I could sense what was there anyway.

Freaky.

Kinda cool though.

My grapple system lowered me down metre by metre until finally my foot touched the ground. I’d left Whisper in the Fury, figuring that a long-ranged, low-rate-of-fire weapon like that wouldn’t be of much use in a mine. Looking around, I had the impression it was the right choice.

The moment I touched down, I deposited the two Mecha cats I was holding. The suckers were pretty heavy, but at least they had little handles on them. The mecha deployed while I looked around.

There were big chunks of rock and stone all over, fallen pieces from whatever had caused the hole above, I figured, but the walls themselves were smooth, as if someone had polished them.

I unclipped myself from the grapple’s harness, then used an aug-command to send the whole thing wheeling back up.

Reaching into my coat, I pulled out my Trench Maker, then tugged up the hood on my cloak. The cat-ears on my helmet actually served to keep the cloak in place, which was handy.

Then with a flick of a switch, I turned on the cloak and faded away. My coat’s invisibility came on too, and with the two combined, I figured I was nearly entirely covered. My head from any direction but straight ahead, my legs from the same. Only the bottom of my boots and maybe my hands and guns when I stuck them out would be visible. That was pretty decent, I figured.

“Myalis,” I muttered. “Remind me to get a stealthy gun.”

Gladly.

My Trench Maker was fun, but it was the loud kind of fun. “I’ll need some silent grenades too.”

I see three options there. Either chemical grenades, that spread toxins or solutions to break apart Antithesis, or Flesh Melters. The nanites are silent. Both options are fairly slow-acting.

“And the third option?” I asked.

Black hole bombs, by dint of being what they are, do not let any sound escape.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s something.” I didn’t have the points for any gear like that just then, which was really starting to get annoying. I liked being able to buy my way out of trouble. “Let’s wait for Gomorrah to arrive, then we can look into farming for points.”

Wonderful!

Gomorrah’s timing was on-point. I heard the faint whine of the grapple system from above, and my favourite nun came sliding down like a spider on the end of a thread. She touched down and swung her flame-thrower around in an arc, the gun tucked under her armpit. Her other hand held onto the handle on the back of one of my mecha cats. “Cat?”

“Hey,” I said while bringing a hand out from under my cloak to wave.

“Didn’t see you there,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t see much. Are we safe?”

“Safe-ish?” I tried. I couldn’t see any Antithesis, but I hadn’t been looking all that hard. The ground was a dusty mess, and thanks to that, it wasn’t hard to see the trails left behind. Paw-prints, or the nearest thing to paws that the aliens had, other spots where things had dragged across the ground.

Gomorrah removed her mask, then pulled something out from within it. The insides? A box materialized by her feet, and she knelt down, opened it, and replaced the insides of her mask with a new insert.

“What’s that?” I asked

“Night vision,” she said. “Or dark vision? I’m not entirely sure of the mechanics. It lets me see in low-light. And I won’t be blinded by sudden changes in brightness.”

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“Neat,” I said. “Why not just get a whole new mask?”

“I have modular gear,” she said. “Most of it’s covered by my habit.”