Chapter Twenty-Seven – Walk the Walk

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Walk the Walk

“Notice: We need new books for the K-2 classes. The phonetic alphabet books we have right now are all animal-based, and the teachers are tired of having to stop every few letters to explain that certain animals (B for bee, C for crab, E for elephant, J for Jaguar, P for Penguin … etc) no longer exist. It’s causing some of the kids a lot of distress.

Thank you.”

–Notice posted on Teacher Group Chat, 2029

***

I stood there with Intel-chan’s occasional remark and the updating report from the screens for all of five minutes, before I decided that I would be more of a front-line kind of general.

“I really want to be shooting things,” I said. The mobile base was a block away from the front line, not that the antithesis had breached the line just yet. There were more and more of them showing up though, some half melted, dying before they even got close enough to be worth shooting, others looking almost entirely intact. I suspected that we’d missed some chambers and tunnels underground.

Not a big deal, we could stomp them out once they came closer.

The militia were out in full force, which while nice to see, was also a little worrying. What would happen when they tired out? I couldn’t expect to hold them at full attention for hours on end. The volunteers under Lucy were going to take up some of that slack. Already I could see where a number of them were waiting on the front lines, with about half of them holding back for the moment, but they’d tire out too. Probably faster than the militia, really.

Basically, the best case scenario for us was a single, big flood of aliens that led to a single, big fight. If the antithesis decided to turn this into a prolonged siege, then the people working to keep Downtown safe wouldn’t be able to keep up.

We were human. We got tired, hungry, and jittery. Even most companies understood that sixteen hours of constant labour meant a hard decrease in the quality of that labour.

The antithesis didn’t have that concern. Sure, individually I was sure some of them would tire, but it didn’t take a hive sixteen hours to create a fresh batch.

“If you want, you can climb on the roof and shoot at the walls,” Intel-chan said. “We’re only a couple of hundred metres away.”

As if I could land a shot at that kind of range. “Hmm, no, I think I’d rather be close up to the front lines.” I looked at the screen that had… well, calling it troop-movements would be lying since neither side had anything like troops, but it was close enough.

The tide of antithesis was being somewhat agreeable at the moment with the way it lurched towards the most heavily-defended parts of our perimeter.

“Oh hey, the nun’s fighting a model thirteen.”

I whipped my attention around until I found the right screen. It was a screen-camera view of the front. Everything was covered in fire, which was rather predictable with Gomorrah involved. The nun herself was jumping to the side and rolling, showing surprising manoeuvrability for someone wearing a habit.

Ahead of her, half on the wall, was a huge model thirteen, one of those rare aliens with three tubular bodies linked together by long appendages. It was holding itself off the ground with some tentacles while others were moving so quickly the camera had a hard time capturing them as anything but artefacts.

I could see where they hit though. Asphalt cracked and chunks of concrete exploded apart.

Gomorrah returned literal fire, bathing the monster in flames which seemed to make it all the more energetic.

She was good, dodging back and weaving around strikes that I was pretty sure would have splattered me.

The model thirteen slowed, slumped, then fell to the ground, a burning wreck that Gomorrah nonetheless covered in more fuel as if to make sure nothing was left of it but ashes.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Big payday!” Intel-chan said.