Chapter Sixty-Two – Arena

Chapter Sixty-Two – Arena

“The best thing you can do when there are aliens about is keep low, and keep your head on straight. It’s the best way to stay alive.”

–Deus Ex, 2054

***

As soon as one of my cat mechs joined the civilians, I ditched.

Felt a little bad just leaving them behind, but they had a walking weapons platform watching over them now, and they were only a block away from the headquarters.

A glance at the map to make sure I was heading in the right direction, and I continued on towards the arena. From what Myalis was able to pull up in a hurry, the old arena looked fairly secure. It was a pre-incursion building, but like, way before the incursions started. It had a cold-war era fallout shelter in the basement. Nothing up to modern code, I bet, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing.

No cameras on or around the building, which was annoying, but Myalis said that she could triangulate a lot of phone signals in the area that hadn’t been there a few hours before. People really were gathering there.

I’d be using that phone tracking trick again. There were still a few pockets of people around Black Bear. If we did our job right, they’d be safe if they had somewhere to lay low for a while, I figured. Still didn’t want to risk it too much. Having everyone in one place made it easier to defend them all. Plus, more guns manning the figurative walls.

It would suck if one of them had a cold and spread it around, but I’d take that over aliens eating everyone any day of the week.

I was just past the back of the headquarters when my augs told me I had an incoming call. Gomorrah.

“Yo,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied. “I reached out to Deus Ex, to get some news about that orbital strike. I think she was sleeping, but her AI wasn’t. It directed me to speak with someone from the Family.”

“Alright,” I said. Made sense so far. Pipsqueak needed her naptime.

“Long and short of it is that they’ll be bombing the area in about five minutes.”

“Five minutes!” I shouted. That was real fucking soon. I glanced at the sky but all I saw was a thick layer of grey, but that didn’t mean they had to bomb the place now.

“The Vanguard I spoke to said the area of effect would only barely touch Black Bear. Though… Cat, I didn’t have all that much confidence in the man from my one conversation with him. He sounded a bit stupid.”

I paused. Was it wise to head out to the arena now? The headquarters looked a lot tougher and was closer to the centre of the city to boot. More buildings around it to serve as cover. But that would mean abandoning however many people were at the arena. “Fuck. Look, I’m going to join up with some folk, then try to get them all into cover. What are you doing?”

I started to run ahead. Still looking around for Model Nines, but prioritizing getting my ass out of the blast radius more.

“I’m landing Fury now. I want it safe from the blast. I’ll be in the headquarters. I’ll see what needs doing after that.”

“Right, did he tell you anything about what kind of bombardment we’ll be dealing with here? Deus Ex said orbital, but that just means the bombs are coming from on high.”

“He said rods of god and some thermobaric explosives.”

“Fuel-air?” I asked.

“You’re familiar?’ Gomorrah asked.

I could still vividly recall nearly cooking my eyebrows off a couple of days ago. “Yeah. Bombs are my thing. Shit, are they sure it won’t hit the town?”

“He mentioned skirting the edge of the town. Starting here, then working over to the actual hive to make any Antithesis move away from Black Bear. Or something like that, I’m not sure I understood entirely.”

“Skirting? Skirting is close,” I said.

“Get to cover. We’ll have to trust that our fellow samurai know what they’re doing.”

“I don’t like trusting people I don’t know,” I said. “Myalis, you got anything on this?”

I’m afraid not.

I grumbled. “Fine, I’ll get to cover with the civilians. Stay safe too, alright?”

“If you die I’ll burn the one responsible, then scatter the ashes.”