Chapter Twenty-Three – Sludge

Chapter Twenty-Three – Sludge

“In an ideal world, the Samurai’s task would be to fight the alien threat and to provide humanity with the tools to do the same.

This is not an ideal world.”

— Professor Asimov, Lectures on the Antithesis Threat, New Oxford University 2027

***

“You could have warned me it would be that loud!” I shouted.

I did warn you.

“No, you said it would be loud, not that loud.” I rubbed the butt of my hand against my uncovered ear, my other was blocked with my shoulder, It didn’t stop me from wincing at the still-constant ringing. Forget firing my gun in an enclosed space, that bomb had been impossibly loud. At least the gunfire was one loud noise that ended quickly. The grenade I’d flung, on the other hand, kept wailing and wailing like a demented siren.

At least nothing was bashing at the door anymore.

The aliens were probably just as stunned as I was. If they had better hearing than a human that… well, then that wasn’t the case anymore.

I dabbed at both ears to make sure they were blood-free, then worked my jaw a little until my ears popped. Had there been a difference in pressure too? Besides the sound thing? Whatever, it didn’t matter. I had been having a bit of fun gunning aliens down from the relative safety of the elevator, but I still had to get a move on. The idiots wouldn’t save themselves.

I shook my head and tried to ignore the fading ring in my ears as I pulled out my gun and held it poised before me. “Alright Myalis, open her up.”

The doors squealed open. A torrent of green and black sludge seeped in past the door and into the tiny crack between the elevator and the floor proper. There was enough gunk that some of it flowed in.

“What the shit?” I stepped back then got onto the tip of my toes as the sludge rolled closer. “What is that?” I asked. The doors were still only opened a crack but I couldn’t see anything alive on the other side, just a floor covered in a few centimeters of liquid gunk.

Those are the remains of the Antithesis adversaries that had been waiting for you.

“They were gooped?” I asked.

Don’t you know what a resonant frequency does?

“Yeah, it’s not this,” I said as I gestured at all the blood and flesh and other bits that looked like they’d been passed in a blender. The doors finished opening, revealing a hall with a dozen skeletons strewn across the room with little more than tattered muscles still attached to them. Some had holes in their skulls and bodies, those that I’d shot before, but the rest were fresh and new.

I wrinkled my nose and stepped in the goop so that I could stick my head out of the elevator. Nothing. At least, nothing alive.

“God, that did a number on them,” I said.

Indeed. Do you want your new point total?

“Yeah, whatever,” I said.

Targets Eliminated!
Reward… 80 points!
Current points: 192!

“Was that all of them?” I asked as I moved over to one skeleton with too-loud splish-splashes. My shoes were basically fucked if the goop didn’t wash off. My pants too, while I was at it.

Doubtful. There are probably dozens of them on this floor alone. The Antithesis tend to be fairly thorough with their scouting.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Why?” I asked. “The scouting I mean.” Leaving little pockets of survivors here and there didn’t exactly harm them, I didn’t think.

Biomass. Each kill is marked with a pheromone. Each large gathering of plantlife, patch of fertile soil, source of food and so on as well.