Chapter Sixty-Seven – Life Story

Chapter Sixty-Seven – Life Story

“Most people look at the charts and graphs that mark the spread of an incursion and assume that the aliens do things by the numbers. First they send out the weaker Models to scout and gather, these are the Model Ones and Threes and Fours, with the occasional Six and Eight and Five thrown in. And only when the area is saturated with them, when there’s no more resistance, do the bigger Models come out to play.

The aliens don’t have a doctrine. Don’t expect them to play fair.”

–Major Hunt, to Prisoner Platoon 5874, 2054

***

I don’t know why, between myself and Gomorrah, I was elected default leader of our group of two.

She had more experience with the Samurai thing than I did, not to mention she was a nun, which meant a sort of mental image of competency of a sort. I was an orphan with a limp and a bit of an attitude problem.

Gomorrah still deferred to me.

We made our way into a building with a Casper Blackman Associates LLC sign above a rusty door. Dumbass was able to unlock it while Dumbass Two and Three kept an eye on the area around us.

I didn’t like using my new Samurai buddy as a crutch, but until my leg finished knitting itself together I was kinda stuck.

“Where to from here?” Gomorrah asked as she looked around the lobby. It was the kind of place that was pretty standard for some front business. Lots of generic posters, a few plastic seats to one side next to a vending machine that looked near-empty.

There were offices at the back that looked mostly empty, and the reception desk had a defaced older-model android sitting behind it.

“I doubt you brought us here on purpose,” she said.

“Nah,” I said with a shake of my head. “Just wanted a spot out of the rain. Our goal is… somewhere that way.” I gestured across the offices, pointing more or less towards where we were heading. “I don’t know what these guys do here, but they had a door.”

Gomorrah tilted her head to the side just a bit. “Plushies.”

“What?”

“Plushies. They’re a LLC that does the paperwork for a factory in New Hong Kong that makes knock-off plushie Samurai.”

“Huh,” I said. “Okay. That’s nice. Let’s find an elevator up a few floors. There should be some bridges across the street. We can get to the hospital from above ground level.”

“Fewer aliens that way,” she said.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s fair. I’ve made a good deal of points. I’ll try not to be greedy.”

I started forwards and she followed along, a good thing because I didn’t want to faceplant any more than I needed to. The muscles in my thigh were getting better too. I made a show of looking for the elevator while thinking about what she said.

The way she worded that suggested that there wouldn’t be any more points to be made in a bit. Would someone stop the Incursion?

Of course they would. We were Tier Ones, barely even worthy of the title Samurai, but people like Deus Ex? A few dozen like her could probably clear half the city. Someone stronger and older would probably just glass the rotten parts of the city.

“Think there will be any work for us tomorrow?” I asked.

Gomorrah nodded. “This area’s under the Family’s purview. They usually leave the gutter clearing to local low-tier Samurai. That’s us.”

“Gutter clearing?” I asked.

She looked at me, then back ahead. We’d found the elevator, and it was still working. “The sewers and subways and the rest of the undercity. It tends to get swarmed pretty bad. It can take months to clear it all out. Not a lot of points to be made, but some are better than none.”

“I’d rather not go sewer diving,” I said.

“Then enter your name into the next lottery.”

I nodded while having no idea what she was talking about. “Myalis, which floor are we going to?” I asked.

Not even going to look at a map to figure it out yourself? How lazy. Floor Sixteen.