“There is no greater threat to the survival of the American West than the Antithesis! Our city-states have held out- we have driven back Vegas, South-Utah, and Denver time and again, we have fought with other splintered nations ever since the xenos arrived- but it is not the aggression with which they fight that truly puts us at risk. It is not their ability to break through tears in space to crash onto our monuments, our fortifications.

  The reason is FAR simpler.

  Antithesis are pnts.

  And pnts need water.”

  —War-Consultant of the GasProg Water and Utilities Corporation, during the opening of the 2042 business summit to determine maximum potential price increases on utilities.

  The corridor going down into what the signs in the walls described as sub-level five, I couldn’t help but twitch. Steam hissed from somewhere, piles groaned, and the endless cacophony of explosions, gunfire, and shouts had fade from hearing two floors up.

  The Roots continued, getting thicker as I made my way carefully forward. Single digits. Young hive. Still, however, dangerous. I really didn’t know what to expect. My AI didn’t have a way to show me without augments, which apparently let someone connect to the internet and so on.

  “What do I call you, anyway?” I asked quietly, tucking my bionic body behind a concrete pilr as I tried to assess the room. Thermal imaging showed that there was a mass of slightly warmer objects moving in the dark beyond the broken lights. I hated how well the antithesis blended into the environment. At least the thermal imaging of the bionic eye let me even SEE down here. "I realize that I never asked, in all the madness we've been dealing with up till now."

  I am referred to as Scyl. Do you have preferences as to the voice I present to you? I have been communicating so far with a neutral tone, focused in crisp delivery and understandability, but I can customize the voice I present to you with ease.

  I nodded, figuring the AI would be able to register the affirmation one way or another. They could scan my brain, they likely would be able to read it's signals in more subtle ways.

  "I don't know that I care honestly. Have fun with the voice, run with whatever actually gets my attention. That said, Scyl, I need a way to destroy this hive. What kind of problems would arise if I solve this problem via detonation?"

  I have limited access to the broader schematics of the structure, as you are currently cking in the physical equipment which would allow me to interface directly with the security systems of this building, or to access the blueprints from the wider online community. However, I have been able to perform limited analysis as we have been moving through the space.

  I nodded slowly, waiting, as sounds of something shifting somewhere ahead of us in the darkened maze of pipes, vents, and whirring equipment reached my ears.

  "And?"

  Lamentably, it seems this structure is poorly maintained. You brought down a fourth of the structure with a jury-rigged detonation along a support column. I fear that a detonation strong enough to remove all traces of Antithesis roots within this superstructure will result in the colpse of a greater part of the building.

  I frowned. Without a doubt, any survivors in this hab-block would be doomed if I did that, with no guarantee I would actually make it out of the building afterwards. I had only found my way here by tracing the root structures, I wouldn't have that luxury on my way out. I gnced at the branching roots again. This close to the center, they were pulsing as fluids, liquids, and nutrients rushed through the structure, a few small leaves blooming next to one of the heating vents. There was no natural light, this deep into the structure, but the dark fronds seemed to be drinking in the heat, to use for some reaction or other.

  I flexed the talons of my right arm, the rocket uncher hissing into readiness as the sound of something rge banging a pipe echoed through the space.

  "Alternatives."

  There are nanite swarms engineered to destroy antithesis - however, they are most effective against deceased units at the prices you can likely afford.

  "Scratched."

  There are assorted acids, and even some fmmable liquids which could be used as an alternative, to actively destroy the root structure.

  I nodded slowly. Acids.... what was that one solution? The one I learned about in school?

  "Does Piranha solution work against these fuckers?"

  The AI Was silent.

  There are a number of highly aggressive acids which could be of use in this situation. I must point out that any acid capable of dissolving the Antithesis will also be capable of dissolving your organic components. Contact with solutions potent enough to destroy this hive will also be potent enough to leave you as a pile of disconnected cybernetic limbs.

  I pursed my lips.

  "Fine. Step one, find the main hive, yes?"

  Yes.

  I took a deep breath, extending the alien bde from my left arm, as I loaded another missile into the cannon on my right. I twitched a phantom muscle, and I felt the four hundred tiny missiles mounted to my back prime, ready to unch at a moment's notice.

  "Alright. Warning noted. Will the acid I have chosen destroy the superstructure?"

  No. The materials this building is constructed from appear to be advanced ceramics engineered through study of Protector materials. The acid selected will take time to do it's work, but will not destroy the foundational structure of this building.

  I began to step forward, crouching in the dark, my good eye closed as I kept the infrared camera running. I wished that I could process additional spectrums simultaneously for maximum effectiveness, but I had to pick and choose, toggling through the options this eye possessed, and down in these tunnels, I really couldn't think of a better spectrum than heat.

  Each step felt louder than I wanted it to be now. My metal-shod feet thunked against the concrete floor of this sub-level, the motors and servos of my new limbs hissed and whirred with each movement, making me feel like some kind of steam train in the dark as I did my best to move quietly through the space.

  One step, then another.

  I found myself suspended with a yell as thick tentacles wrapped around me from above, dragging me up towards the mass of pipes that hung from the ceiling. I could see now that a few of the "pipes" were in fact moving on their own to join the cocoon of limbs quickly winding itself around me. I filed, stabbing the thickest one around my midsection repeatedly with the bde, only for another to take its pce. I could see the main body of the thing now, a model four suspended above the cabling, a viny tentacle wrapping around my neck.

  I panicked, and flexed my new limb.

  Tiny rockets screamed off of my back, detonating against the flesh of the model four with a brightness and heat that temporarily blinded me as I dropped unceremoniously to the floor. I gasped as my muscles spasmed, trying to gain control of my breath, barely rolling out of the way as the smoking mess of the alien smmed to the ground, as if aiming to crush me. Most of its tentacles dropped to the ground around us, leaving only the main body of the hulking thing. I gasped repeatedly as I tried to orient myself, forcing oxygen to my brain as I broke into a run towards the creature, a few of the tentacles whipping out, trying to impale me on inky bck barbs I couldn't see with the heat vision.

  one smmed me against the wall, the mechanics of my new limbs whining with effort as I forced the limbo off of me, hacking down with my left arm to drop the tentacle unceremoniously to the floor. The damn thing had the jump on me, in a tight space, and it was preventing me from lining up a good shot, keeping my right arm occupied.

  I didn't know if it was intentional on the part of the antithesis, but it sure felt like it in that moment, as I fired off another 100 round volley from my back, the missiles colliding with the main body of the ugly, four-limbed monster before me. The hallway lit up with a fsh of so many small detonations, and the creature coiled in on itself for a moment, buying me time to rush in, talons extended as I surged through the creature, shredding as I went.

  It colpsed in a pile of fleshy material behind me, and I stood with a groan, shaking the goop off of my limbs.

  Point total set to 39.

  I rolled my shoulders.

  "Re-Arm whistling birds."

  A small bck case dropped to the ground next to me, and I opened it, revealing two simple boxes of tiny missiles. I detached the uncher, my body feeling suddenly... incomplete, and I thanked the protectors the rounds had been designed to load quickly into the tiny holes for the device. I had WAY more than had ever been shown in the series, from what I could remember, but I also knew that Mando hadn't had to take down a monster the size of a sedan using only small rockets, so I didn't feel like I was being ridiculous carrying so many.

  Point Total now resting at 37.

  I blinked.

  "I thought the birds cost 10 points?"

  The initial purchase of rge quantity rounds, yes. however, these missiles currently selected could be produced on your world. This brings down the price considerably. Additionally, ammunition refills are not nearly as expensive as the actual weapon, unless esoteric catalogues are applied.

  I nodded once. I growled.

  "Use my eye - deep scan for additional model fours in this passage please."

  Acknowledged.

  A pulse of red fshed before my eyes, and a single tentacle was marked as being out of pce farther down the tunnel. I growled, lifting my primed uncher, and a bst of white light resulted inthe creature dropping from the ceiling in a heap. Several pipes burst as well, clear liquid spshing down the hallway.

  Water.

  Roots wound around that pipe in particur, and I blinked as I realized that the pipe with the water was noticeably cooler than the surrounding area.

  I pressed forward, with monsters filling the hallway at every turn. I had to reload my whistling birds one more time, as swarms of small flying creatures bore down on me, trying to take my other eye as well, I imagined, the missiles seeking out and targeting a different flying target every time I saw them rushing down the hallway.

  The problem were the model threes.

  They surged through the passage like a never ending tide. I held my own in a narrow section, bded limbs filing and kicking, armor pting scratched and marred as alien teeth and cws scrabbled against the metal to find purchase, only for a fist, or a bde, or a missile to sm into the creature. My points ticked up, slowly rising as I pushed agonizingly slowly through the hallway.

  Eventually, silence filled the space. I panted, trying to recover my breath, before training my infrared vision on the space just visible through a rge doorway.

  I had come upon a rge opening, of some kind. A cylindrical wall the same temperature as that pipe filled the center of that massive space at the center of the building. Walkways wound around it, and at I could see, from my exit, a great many things that were about to be my problem. Model threes - most of them wolfish, but a couple seemed rger, and more predatory, if that were possible, were surging across the recessed floor of the rge space towards the exit I now stood it. I spotted three of the quill-covered monsters lifting their heads in my direction as well. I also noticed what appeared to be a massive tree, spanning all across the interior of this space. Orange fruits blossomed from thick branching structures that broke off of the main trunk against what seemed to be a cistern of some kind. I somehow managed to take in the hundred or so monkey-things that were tending to the fruits, climbing among the sprawling ttice of branches and limbs, leaping throughout the space. I watched a monkey-thing sever a limb with a bded cw, dropping one of the fruits to the ground. It burst open, revealing a six-limbed creature I didn't think would have even been able to pass through the hallways I had been walking through. It was easily bigger than a bear, and I noticed with some worry that the aliens around it seemed more focused, more alert.

  Smarter.

  Not good. The hive has spawned a model six.

  "Their specialty?" I primed my rocket uncher, firing a burst into a cluster of model threes, sending two of them flying off to the side, crushing the chest of the first. I fired a full volley of birds, the small rockets screaming through the air, clearing the space of flying pests in a moment, even as more tore themselves free of the limbs of the tree-hive.

  Tactics. 456 points ready.

  I had so far been fighting mindless monsters.

  Mindless monsters were easy. Cut, and stab, before they got the chance to cut, or stab.

  It seemed I was going to have to think.

  "Well fuck."