Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Trigger Happy

“Manufacturing trends started to shift after the first incursion. Domestic production returned as international supply-lines were cut, and it suddenly became cheaper once more to build everything a local economy needed next to that local economy, rather than on the literal other side of the planet.”

--Excerpt from Economy of Scale - Wartime Manufacturing, 2034

***

I wasn’t sure what to do for a moment.

On the one hand, some guy was talking to me. That meant that unless the antithesis had learned speech and how to use guns, then I was probably just dealing with a nutjob or three. I could hear kids back there as well.

On the other hand... someone did shoot Gomorrah, and I was a little bit miffed about it. Shooting things had thus far proven to be an excellent way to work out my anger.

“I didn’t quite hear what he said.” Gomorrah shifted lower on the catwalk steps. “Can you hear him properly?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He wants us to--”

“Come on out! With your hands up!” the guy screamed. He was closer to the door this time.

“He wants us to do that,” I said.

Gomorrah sniffed. “I’ll admit I’m a little... what’s the word... salty, that I was shot. I’m tempted to burst in and spray everything down.”

“Bit rude, no?” I asked.

“I know you’re out there!” our pal called out.

I sighed, then flicked my comms off so that when I spoke he could hear me. “Then why don’t you come out and say hi, huh, asshole?”

“It’s not aliens,” someone muttered on the other side of the door.

I rolled my eyes. This was just stupid. Moving up to the door, I reached up, turned the handle, then threw the door open while standing well to the side.

A roaring blast blew through the opening, and some buckshot ripped apart the edge of the doorway, sending a spray of wood flying down into the factory’s main floor.

“Nice shot,” I said, entirely aware of the hypocrisy.

I heard someone shifting, and I could make out three figures behind a desk, two of them had shotguns. They both started reloading at the same time.

I bounced to the side, slipped through the entrance, then ran and leapt over the table before they could figure that anything was amiss. Being invisible probably helped to confuse them.

I grabbed the two men who had guns by their shirts, then yanked them back and onto the floor with hard thumps.

Standing, I spun and brought my Bullcat up and pointed its barrel between the eyes of the third guy.

The moment held for a bit, one of the guys on the ground started to shift back to his feet, but I pushed him back down with a boot on his chest. “Let’s not,” I said.

Once I was sure I wasn’t about to be shot, I flicked off my invisibility. The guy behind me shifted towards his gun. I lit the tip of my tail on fire and shifted it around so that the sparking, burning head was between his hand and the stock of his gun.

“I said,” I repeated myself very carefully. “Let’s not.”

“You’re a samurai,” the guy on the business end of my gun said.

“Yup,” I said. “So’s the girl you shot.”

“She was trespassing,” the idiot under my boot said.

“Paul,” the guy I had at gunpoint said. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Listen to your friend, Paul,” I said. I pulled my foot off his chest and retracted my tail, then I carefully lowered my tail. “I can hear a couple of dozen people up here. What the hell is this?”

“This is none of your business, you corporate dog,” Paul said.

I glared down at Paul. “I’m a cat, you dumbass. Didn’t I tell you to shut up? You--” I wiggled me gun in the direction of the guy that still stood. “You seem halfway sensible. What’s your name?”

“Charles,” Charles said. “I’m, uh, one of the leaders of this community. Paul is too.”

“Well, half your leadership seems a bit trigger-friendly,” I said. “What are you people still doing here? You don’t have any connections to the net? TV... radio, even?”

Charles sighed. “We know about the incursion,” he said. “But we elected not to head back to the city, not if it might mean losing our home.”

“Right.” I said. “How many people are here?”

“We’re fifty-nine members,” Charles said. “Not including children and those too young to vote. Maybe ninety people, total?”

Gomorrah peeked into the room, saw that it was clear, then stepped in while sweeping for trouble. “What’s going on?” she asked.

I gestured to Charles. “We have ninety people here. More or less. Don’t know what they were thinking.”

“We voted,” Charles said. “We just want to stay home.”

“The aliens want to stay in your home too,” I said.

“We’re fine,” Paul said. He glared as he stood up. He wisely left his gun on the ground. “We took out a few of the things already.”

I frowned. “What about the hive?” I asked.

“What hive?” Paul and Charles asked at the same time.

I turned towards Gomorrah. “Think the reports could be wrong? Might have been this bunch doing something that the Family misread as there being a hive nearby.”

Gomorrah shook her head. “There are aliens here. We both saw the body, and they just admitted to killing others. If the antithesis are around, then there’s a hive nearby. We know it’s not closer to the nuclear reactor facility, they have enough sensors and security that we’d know. It has to be around this area. Though, I suppose it doesn’t need to be within this factory.”

“Huh,” I said. “Hey, Charles, are there any places that a nice alien hive could hole itself up in? Caves nearby? Maybe a really thick forest?”

Charles glanced at Paul, and Paul spoke up. “It can’t be a hive. We’d all be dead already.”

“Oh boy,” I muttered. “Come on, out with it. We’re not the feds, we don’t give a shit about your... weird cult thing going on here.”

“We’re not a cult,” Charles said.

“That’s what people in cults say,” I pointed out.

He shook his head. “We’re just office workers, factory workers. People who were tired of the rat-race. We all live here. It’s peaceful, it’s quiet, it’s less cut-throat than living in the city. Simpler. We garden for some of our food, buy the rest. Lots of us work online.”

“Cool,” I said. “Aliens, where?”

Charles gestured to the side. “We’ve seen a few of the smaller ones coming from that way. The far end of the factory, there was a large generator complex, with a big basement. It connects to most of the other buildings.”

“So, a tight series of corridors, dug under the earth?” I asked.

“Essentially?” he replied, turning it into a question.

Gomorrah shifted from side to side. “That does sound like the kind of place the antithesis would enjoy. Is there access to it from around here?”

“There’s an entrance below, yes,” Charles said. “We used to use it for storage, it’s rather cool, but it’s also very humid, and in spring it floods a little. We even had to run some pumps to keep it dry a few times when the river runs higher.”

“Ah, a wet dark tunnel, I imagine with no lighting, dug into the ground and covered in... I’m guessing cement?” I asked.

“I suppose.”

“Cool, so it’s like a free bunker for the aliens. Are you sure I can’t use explosives on this one?” I asked Gomorrah.

“Very,” she said. “Besides, you might cave the entire facility in. Seeing as how it’s humid though, using fire won’t pose too much of a risk. Atyacus can check to see if there’s any natural gases in the area that are flammable.”

“You get to have all the fun today,” I complained.

She sniffed. “You got to drop that large bomb yesterday. I think this is only fair.”

I nodded. “Alright, Paul, you seem like the most expendable one here. Guide us down to that entrance. We’ll see if there really is a hive down there. The rest of you should really consider voting on leaving again. It’s a long way to New Montreal, but it’s safer there than it is here.”

“We can’t just leave,” Charles said.

I shrugged. “I can talk to the Family. At least get the kids to someplace that’s safer than here. The rest of you are all adults, if you want to last-stand against the aliens in here, then that’s on you. Hope you have a lot of ammo though, because I’ve already seen and fought swarms of aliens hundreds strong, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Charles rubbed his eyes. “I’ll talk to the others, thank you. And... I apologise for shooting at you.”

Gomorrah nodded. “You’re forgiven. Thank you for apologising.”

I pointed my thumb back out the door. “Okay, we’re off. We’ll stop by after, hear what you guys choose to do. Hopefully it’s not something real stupid. Come on, Paul.”

Paul didn’t seem happy to be our guide, but he tramped down the catwalk after picking up his gun all the same.

Now to find that hive and burn it up.

Maybe I could use a small bomb? Just a little one?

***