Chapter Sixty-Seven – Becoming Strong Enough

Chapter Sixty-Seven – Becoming Strong Enough

“How many samurai does it take to defend a city from an incursion?

They just need to be strong enough.”

–Menage a Trois, after the Quebec City Incursion of 2035

***

“Now what?” I asked as I looked over the burning city.

Gomorrah shifted. “I’ve turned off the heat generator. It’ll still continue to spread for a while, but without an actual source, it should all slow down.”

I nodded along. That was probably for the best. Didn’t want to see New Montreal burning down because we’d left the oven on. “I’m guessing all of this is going to have some sort of consequence, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Gomorrah said. “We might have found an effective way of wiping a hive out without too many horrible side-effects.”

A shorter skyscraper nearer to the middle of the burn twisted, its frame, which was visible since the rest had burned off, bent like cooked spaghetti noodles under the weight of the rest of the building. The rumble didn’t even reach us atop the wall. “I’m not so sure about the lack of side-effects,” I said.

“Oh, we’ve destroyed half a city, sure, but there’s no nuclear radiation, no dangerous biological matter, and once the area cools down in… a week or two, then it’ll technically be inhabitable again. They might even be able to scrape off the melted metal and recycle some of it.”

I hummed. “Yeah, I get it. Can’t imagine deploying this kind of thing all over the place though. Plus most hives will be underground, right?”

Actually, hives in non-contested areas tend to be out in the open. Or nearly so. It makes it easier for antithesis drones to bring materials to the hive and for the hive itself to collect energy from the sun and wind.

“So, what, we burn the planet, root out the buried hives afterwards?” I asked.

Only if you wish to make the planet’s environment entirely uninhabitable. The heat bomb you deployed today will increase the planet-wide temperature for the day by a sizable fraction of a percent. Not enough to be directly dangerous, but if repeated it may be enough to destabilise the planetary ecology.

“We’ll try not to burn the entire planet,” Gomorrah said. It didn’t sound as reassuring as she hoped, not coming from an obvious pyromaniac. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m wearing a helmet, you can’t see my expression,” I pointed out.

“I can read body language,” she said. “And no, I won’t burn down the planet just to see a big fire. I live on this planet. My favourite things are here. It’s also, possibly, against my religion. Though I suppose that part’s up to debate.”

“Let’s not,” I said. There were few things I wanted less than that kind of debate. “So… now what?”

Gomorrah sighed. “We call Laserjack and get an update on the situation? He should know more than we do about what’s going on, or so I hope. Then we find the next fires to put out.”

I nodded, then with a few flicks through my augs I set up a conference call with Laserjack, Gomorrah, myself and Crackshot Cowboy. He might have missed the last part at the end there, but he’d done his share and in his shoes I wouldn’t want to be left out of the loop.

“Uh, hi?” Crackshot said. He was the first to reply. “Is everything alright?”

“We’re fine,” I said. “Back atop the wall. Just a bit warmed up.” That was an understatement. My armour was still smoking lightly. I think it was mostly just heat dissipating off the metal.

“Hah! I felt that from here. Regret not wearing my sunscreen today,” he said, rather jovially for someone talking about a city being lit up. Then again, I guess not being near the burn radius was a good enough reason to be in a good mood.

The line clicked and Laserjack picked up. “Hello,” he said. “Sorry for the delay there, I… well, you can imagine how hectic things are.”

“Hey,” I said.