Chapter Sixty-One – Trapsetter

Chapter Sixty-One – Trapsetter

“Do Not Remain In Your Domicile During An Incursion!

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***

I stuck to the shadows, either those cast by the bridges overhead, or the shadows next to every vehicle.

Any passing alien wouldn’t be able to spot me under my coat, but my gun was still visible, as were my feet and hands. Worse, I was moving. If the antithesis had eyes like humans, then they’d gravitate towards any motion.

So I stuck to the shadows.

Also, it made me feel cooler, which was a not-inconsiderable part of it.

I stopped by a semi-trailer at a four-way intersection. I’d ranged out about a block and a half from the shelter. Far enough that I could see the sniffing packs at the lead of the alien wave. For now, there were just Model Threes moving in large groups. There would be a whole lot more coming around.

“Myalis, door,” I said as I tapped the side of the truck I was using as cover.

Something in the door clunked and I reached up and pulled it open to slip in. The truck had mirrored glass on its front, making it hard to see within. That suited me just fine.

“Turret, Sparrow and ammo,” I whispered.

Two boxes and a small pile of magazines appeared on the passenger seat. I popped the biggest open and removed a turret drone from within. They were book-sized things, with three thin legs that had little grippy holsters on them, a little body with a lens at the front, and a trio of arms above that.

I set it on the dash and watched as its back legs gripped onto the steering wheel and the third unfolded a drillbit and dug into the plastic next to the window to hold itself in place.

I tugged the next box open and pressed the Sparrow within onto the arms above. The gun twisted this way and that, then its safety clicked off all on its own and I knew it was ready. The last step was clicking the three spare magazines onto the turret’s legs so that it could reload.

“That’s one more down,” I said as I looked out the front. The aliens were getting closer, and from two directions. The street to my right was pretty much clear of them for now. The one behind me was a maze of explosive traps and hidden turret emplacements. “Grenades.”

Myalis gave me a pair of them. The first, a resonator, dropped onto the floor of the truck, its laser pointing towards the ceiling. If… when something broke in to get at the turret it would give them a nice surprise.

I dropped out of the vehicle and, after getting to my knees, rolled under it. Two more grenades were placed there. One of those adhesive canister bombs and a second resonator for good measure.

And then I rolled out and was on my way.

The shelter was more or less in the middle of its street, and I had blocked the northernmost route towards it with turrets and proximity-detonated bombs. That left one other route to the shelter from the opposite side. That, and a bunch of alleyways linking that road to the one behind it.

I turned right at the next corner and started making my way down while keeping an eye open to the world ahead.

Pausing at an old minivan, I used its front grill as a shelf for another glue-and-goo combo of bombs before running on. My points were dropping by the dozen every time I stopped, but I figured what I lost would be returned tenfold as the traps I set went off. If each trap killed two aliens I’d be in the black in no time. The turrets needed to kill a dozen or so, but I figured it was doable.

I was about to duck under another truck when I heard something out ahead of me.