Chapter Thirty-One – Sprout

Chapter Thirty-One – Sprout

“Samurai may have similar profiles with several commonalities, but it’s worth noting that every one is a unique individual, and applying the same brush across all of them will lead to errors in judgement and application.”

–On the Mental and Psychological Treatment of Samurai Patients – 2046 Psychological Profiling Database

***

I stepped out of the toy store and nodded to the nearest militia guys. “Place is clear for now,” I said. “Move on to the next place that needs you.” And with that said I grabbed onto the back of the pickup I’d ridden over and climbed onboard. “Intel, got any news for me?”

“Ohaio!”

I suppressed a full-body twitch. Intel-chan’s avatar now had a pair of cat ears on, both sticking out of a hairband of all things. “What?”

“Sprout-dono could probably use your help. He’s in bad shape. Not kawaii at all.”

I glared. “Are you getting worse?” I asked.

The avatar’s eyes widened into a look of pure, unbelievable innocence. “What do you mean, Stray Neko-sama?”

“Pain in the ass,” I muttered. “What’s wrong with Sprout? Is he alright?”

“He was injured while taking care of the other sneaky-sneaky hive,” Intel-chan said. “I sent more of our backline to the area to help stop the antithesis from spreading out from there.”

That was frustrating. “How’s the front-line?” I asked.

“So far so good! There’s less aliens than there were before!”

That didn’t sound right at all. “Myalis, what’s that mean?”

It either means that the nanomachine attack was significantly more effective than expected, or the antithesis are holding back for reasons unknown.

“Let’s assume that it’s the aliens fucking with us, that’s the worse possibility, isn’t it? Don’t they usually just charge in mindlessly? What’s keeping them back?”

Higher tier antithesis can sometimes display a certain level of tactical and strategic acumen. Lower-tier antithesis also tend to remain in the vicinity of their greater counterparts. It’s an instinct that presses them to protect the more valuable members of the hive.

So we were probably going to get messed up by some higher-tier aliens soon. “Intel-chan, keep an eye out for any models in the double digits. I want to be informed right away if we start seeing more of them.”

“Yes ma’am!” Intel-chan said with a sloppy salute.

“And tell the driver to get me to Sprout’s location. I want to see how badly he’s hurt, then we need to plug that hole.”

I got moving soon after, the militiaman at the wheel zipping across the city with no regard for any laws, which I supposed was only fair. We didn’t need to get too far before reaching the spot where Sprout was supposed to destroy the antithesis pushing in from below.

There were a dozen armoured trucks and a couple of APCs sitting around in two groups. Stacks of sandbags had been placed in lumps across the street with machine guns on bipods set up to aim at a single building.

It wasn’t all that big of a building, maybe seven stories high, with the kind of dull grey facing and squarish architecture designed to make your eye skim right past it. It barely had any ads on it too. An office building of some sort, then? Maybe a call centre or one of those places where a couple of hundred coders were locked into cubicles and made to write lines all day.

The first floor’s walls were covered in a spray of bullet holes, most concentrated around a nondescript doorway which looked like it had been smashed out. A few corpses–all antithesis–were splattered on the sidewalk, hinting at who had ripped the door out of the wall.

The pickup slowed to a stop and I jumped out, landing without any sound and just a slight bend to my knees.

Instantly, I noticed a dozen militia folk looking my way and I could see the tension bleeding off their shoulders. “Intel-chan, who’s in charge here?”

“That would be Sprout-dono, I guess. But if you mean for the militia, Second Lieutenant Hawke.”

“What’s with all of the second lieutenants?” I muttered. I’d seen more people at that rank than any other.