Somnus Deus Ex – Chapter Eight

Somnus Deus Ex – Chapter Eight

Daisy fired at the model seventeen, then paused.

The alien was still alive.

She frowned, then fired again, then again. It took four concentrated shots on one spot of its shell to break into the softer meat beneath and cook the alien from the inside. She did get her kill notification though, as well as a somewhat underwhelming fifty points.

The area stilled, no longer lit by the flashing red strobes of her laser. The only sound, other than distant wails and the tortured crumbling of fallen buildings, was the hiss of antithesis flesh cooked by her concentrated beam fire.

Some two dozen lay dead around her, killed by her own hand.

Three times as many were skewered through by shiny metallic bolts.

“Not bad, kiddo,” someone said.

Daisy spun, levelling her rifle in the direction of the voice before she thought better of it and turned the business end of the rifle away. Not so much that she couldn’t twitch it back on target, but… most antithesis wouldn’t start a conversation with her.

A man was standing atop the rubble. She couldn’t see him well, not until he hopped down, bouncing from outcropping to broken cement wall, until he finally landed on the street level some ways ahead of her.

He was, she decided, either a samurai, or an idiot.

“Is that a bow?” she asked.

The guy turned, then raised his weapon. It looked like a bow. A rather long one, with pulleys on either end and a complex sight by the middle. The design was sleek, however, and it was clear that it wasn’t some off-the-shelf product. That was a samurai’s bow. If a samurai had to stoop so low as to use one.

He seemed suited to it, however. A tall man, wearing light armour. He had a sort of jump-pack on, which Daisy immediately flagged as a future purchase. His helmet was angular and sharp, but left his face exposed. It was all coloured a deep, darkish grey, with solid green lines of neon running through it.

“It is a bow, yeah,” he said with a smile that lit up his whole face. “That’s what I fight with, when I can.”

She decided that maybe he was both a samurai and an idiot.

“I feel like you’re giving me a look. Are you giving me a look?” he asked.

“I might be,” she replied.

“Great, great. Judgement from the pipsqueak.”

“Lasers move faster than arrows. Just putting that out there.”

Bow-guy backed up a step. “Hey there. I was just stopping by to help. You looked like you were in over your head.”

“I might have survived,” Daisy said. “And if I did, I’d likely be better off than I am now.”

“Wow… you’re kinda hardcore, huh?” he asked. Stepping back, the samurai took a seat on a pile of stones. “Name’s Longbow. My AI says you don’t have a proper name yet. And that you’re pretty new.”

“I’m Somnus Deus Ex,” Daisy said.

“Deus Ex, huh?” he repeated. “Alright, Deus, sorry for saving your life. I didn’t mean to yoink all of your kills. My bad. Really.”

Daisy eyed the man for a moment. She was used to having to deal with people higher up on the social ladder than her. She didn’t like it, but it happened. Coworkers and managers that worked with her father, some of the teachers at school.

She felt like she was above them, in her own way, but that’s not how the world saw things, so she played to their tune. She knew how to bow and scrape and be exactly as polite as she needed to.

This was different. As far as she knew, she was now at the top of the totem pole.

And so was this guy.

“So samurai scramble for power at the top?” she asked.

Longbow tilted his head to one side, then the other. A very wishy-washy gesture. “Yes and no. Some compete to be the best, but generally, I don’t think we’re picked for our competitive natures. We don’t all get along when we’re off duty, but I think we’re all in it for the same thing.”

“For peace and quiet?” Daisy asked.

He blinked, then laughed. “Yeah! Exactly. Peace and quiet, made all the better for all the noise we make.”

“And your way of chasing that peace is with a bow?”

“Hey, what’s wrong with bows?” he asked.

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“About two hundred years of history making them obsolete,” she said.