Chapter Fifty-Three - Mounting Up

“The biggest change to vehicles over the past thirty years is the addition of the hoverdrive.

The second biggest change may be the preponderance of tanks. In a world under siege, many types of ground vehicle are at least a little armored and, often, armed.

Where neither of the above apply, things have mostly stayed the same.

Self-driving features may be worth an honorable note, introduced more than thirty years ago.”

– Excerpt from The Wheeler, automotive magazine, edition of 2055

 

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To Leah I said, “We want a few more of the stealth drones anyway, right? To leave behind in this facility, so we can a) track anybody who shows up around here, and b) see if our part of the poisoning strategy worked.”

I also still needed to spread those signal boosters around, make sure the drones had uplink-connection everywhere.

“Yes. What about all the other drones?”

“Um, Tynea. If we strip down the Light Communications drone, how cheap can it get? I imagine we don’t even need the audio from it, right? Since the Antithesis make nearly no sound anyway.”

That would indeed be the least useful feature of them. I’d like to replace the audio-imaging with infrared sensing, though. Antithesis hives tend to generate a lot of warmth, and as we’re not in a jungle, they should be quite blatant to a heat-camera. I further suggest that we use cheaper, biodegradable plastics, along with smaller biodegradable batteries. Unless you intended to take the drones along with you?

I exchanged a look with Leah, who shrugged her shoulders at me, but added to the discussion. “If we wanted to keep them, they’d have to be able to follow us under their own power, right? Hard to pack a couple hundred drones on one or two ATVs with turrets taking up the available space…”

Indeed. If that is your plan, it would be better to upgrade their durability and battery life, rather than downgrade it, as I’m suggesting.

“Which would increase their price, even without the stealth, and we’d be limited to fewer of them. Yeah, let’s go with the disposable ones? Say, how long do they take to decompose?”

Most elements would take several months to several years to fully degrade. They would be evidence left behind, but that should not be an issue if we decommission them in hidden locations. They are very small, after all. To answer your earlier question, these drones would cost three points a piece.

I glanced up, giving it a final think. It would’ve been nice to have a figurative mountain of eyes for the rest of our journey, but that sounded more like a luxury buy, than anything we could reasonably afford at the moment. Plus, these weren’t even drones designed for scouting…

Oh, yeah.

“Hey Tynea, one question. How many of these throwaway drones do you need to have the equivalent scouting power to that quartet?”

You’re comparing very unlike drones, so that’s difficult to answer. If you consider only standard vision and heat-sensing, four drones for four drones. But basic as the Scout’s Quartet may be, it still has much better cameras with greater resolution and a wider viewing field, coverage in all directions on every drone, along with a radar, a lidar, echolocation, and chemical air samplers. They are true scout drones, after all. As such, the Light Communications drone cannot effectively substitute for even one of the Scout’s Quartet in most situations, and I would use differing searching patterns as a result.

Apples to oranges, huh?

“Alright. We have about three hundred points left. Two hundred after the ATVs. Leah, do we want to get those turrets installed right away?”

She shook her head, “Don’t have the points for it. That’s one-fifty per turret, and then more for weapons to install.”

“And the catalog?”

“They’re Warforge.”

“Ah, cool. Um, right. We can go loud. Want to attract attention anyway, and the swarm has passed. So, a few points for ammunition, too… Which leaves us with, say, one-eighty for drones? The more we get early, the harder we snowball, I guess?”

Leah curled her brows in confusion. “Snowball?”

“Uh, old strategy gamer slang, sorry. The more drones from the start, the faster we get rolling hard.”

“Ah… Yeah, sure. Let’s keep twenty points for emergencies, though. That nanite regenerator stuff costs twenty, right?”

“Right. One-sixty for drones, twenty or less for ammo, one hundred for ATVs.” I rubbed my nose, trying to come up with more. Nothing sprang to mind. “Anything else?”

Leah tilted her head, but her brainstorming also didn’t bear any fruit.

That meant it was finally time to get gone for good.

Well. We’d have to come back one final time, to poison the food and so I could set up all the tracking stuff. But, there’d be no more sleeping here.

I looked outside. Where it was still raining. I facepalmed. Of course.

“I’m stupid.”

Surprised, Leah looked at me. “Huh?”

“Well, I need something for my antennae to not go all weird on me in the rain. Especially if I’m going to be riding ATVs.”

Realization flashed across her face, followed directly by a sliiightly shifty look. Before I could play detective, she said, “Don’t get anything that you’re planning to use for very long. Um. Something really cheap?”

Hmmmm…? This girl had something planned. Something that would obviate any measure of antennae…what, rain-protection? Hmmmmmmmmm.

I grinned at her and saluted. “Aye-aye, capt’n!”

She blushed just a little, not enough to tinge her ears. Very adorable, indeed!

“Tynea, any suggestions?”

Regarding the sneeze reflex you experienced yesterday?

“Yes.”

Do you tend to sneeze when looking at bright lights?

“Uh, yes? Sometimes, anyway.”

Ah, that seems to be related, then. Your sneeze reflex around bright light is a fairly common condition called photoptarmosis. You share it with a lot of people, and it appears your antennae added their own trigger to it. They are made for flying, so neither wind nor weather should have that effect on you by design.

“Huh. Didn’t know that, what, photoptar…mis? Was a thing. So, a solution?”

Photoptarmosis. Genetic editing is the most solid one, of course, but that would require some time to process. In the meantime, simply keeping the reflex in check should suffice. Your Medical Utilities offer a spray that may help. It’ll regulate spiking activity of nerves downwards wherever you apply it. Usually it’s used as a short-term painkiller for burns and it will mostly block the intense signals that lead to your sneeze reflex, without affecting normal operations. It costs one point for five applications, and one application will last for one hour.

“Sounds good, let’s add that to the shopping list.”

Done, Tinea.

That solved for the foreseeable future, I focused on my surroundings again.

Leah stood next to me, smoothbore in hand, slightly damp overall equipped, helmet held at the ready with the robot arm, counting something, probably points, on her fingers. She’d deposited the Sleeve, and I told it to move to me and fold itself into a small square.

Yeah, I’d better get ready, too. 

My bathrobe needed some work. It was going to get all kinds of soaked, and my silk tended to swell uncomfortably when it absorbed water. I cut away any loose silk, so that I ended up wearing a tight top and fluffy…undies. Sure. Better than sitting naked on an ATV, I guess.

Hmm. Rifle loaded with HSRP on a silken sling, Hummingbird glued underneath my arm, horseshoe and Sleeve glued to my back… Spray. Right. And the ATVs, obviously.

“Ready, Leah?”

“Ready.”

“Alright. Tynea, if you would please? And let’s prepare two magazines of those 20mm rounds I used on my first day for each of us. Leah can buy stuff from my catalog whenever she needs a reload, but let’s make sure we have real stopping power.”

As you wish. I’ve left out any stealthed drones in favor of more coverage as you may buy those later at any time. Please look through this offer:

She sent me a table with our purchases, and I forked it to Leah with a mental swish.

 

Cost	x	Item
50	2	Class 0 All Terrain Vehicle, wheeled, single seater, baggage rack
3	4	20mm Delayed Guided Gyrojet, Magazine of 20
1	1	Class I ‘Relief’ Anesthetic, local, spray
3	64	Class 0 Light Communications Drone, stripped
305		Total
30		Combined Remaining Points

 

“Looks good to me? Leah?” She nodded, too, and three boxes of varying sizes appeared in front of us. The biggest one had no lid, and dozens of little brown plastic balls with small black lenses and small openings with impellers inside, poured out the door with the hum of a hundred bees.

I’ll spawn the ATVs once you’re out front. The large box happens to be sized correctly to accept all the garbage and left-over boxes in the facility. If you toss it all inside, I can make it disappear for two points.

“Right, good idea. We’ll do that before we leave for real. Now is alien murder time.”

It appeared Tynea had nothing to say to that, and I picked up the larger of the two remaining boxes. Inside were four very chunky magazines, each one as long as my forearm. One I fed directly to my Sentinel, the other it grabbed and held next to itself, and the last two I gave to Leah.

“I’ve used these once before, and they’re really deadly. They chew through lines of aliens effortlessly. And they’re guided, too, so please make sure your targeting is set to these?”

Leah took the magazines and studied one of the cartridges at the top. They were twice as thick as our fingers, and about fifteen centimeters long. Most of that was the bullet itself—It used barely any powder, just enough to evacuate the barrel and travel a meter or two, before the motor kicked in and generated the actual kinetic energy. That was good; a caliber of twenty millimeters was traditionally installed as the main weapon on infantry fighting vehicles after all, not fired from the hip. Perhaps I could hoist and shoot a twenty mil cannon with my new body, but even so, my light weight would just see me get knocked around, and Leah possessed only human strength still.

The smallest box had my spray in it, a tiny bottle with Shake Me! printed on it. When I did, some liquid sloshed around inside and quickly dissipated, and the bottle itself cooled slightly in my fingers. A moment later, a small ‘ding’ announced that the spray was ready to use. 

I held one of my antennae still with one hand, while I carefully applied the misty vapor first to one side, and then the other. To anyone else, the thing would’ve probably been odorless, but my sensitive antennae could pick up an ever-so-light scent of disinfectant, and a chemical taste I couldn’t quite place, but that my antennae-implanted olfactory library told me was an anesthetic. 

I repeated the action with the other antennae, tested them out, and felt…nothing off.

Tynea did say the spray only killed intense signals. I lightly flicked the stem of one antennae, and instead of the very small pain I expected, I really only got a gentle knock echoing through. 

Helpful, I hoped. 

Huh, actually, that would be more than helpful in public situations where I might not be able to avoid having my antennae accidentally squished by somebody, or something. I wasn’t the biggest person anymore, after all…

Focus.

Alright. Weapons, ammo, drones. Gear ready. Glue sticky. Girl hot? I looked over to Leah. She had her helmet on, and gave me a thumbs-up with her free hand. Girl hot.

ATVs.

We walked out of the building, and two fairly unremarkable tan quadbikes settled on the damaged concrete, one next to each of us.

They looked quite durable, had thick plastic baskets to shield the hands and the feet, and probably oversized steel racks behind the seats. There’d be plenty of space for a turret.

Mine also had a small windscreen, and splatter guards for all four wheels. I’d have to be careful not to get those caught on trees, or something…

Elsewise, everything looked good. There was a white button for the ignition, some switches for lights, no key required…brakes… Yeah. I could already feel the vehicle training from the dreams kick in, as I cataloged every function, every lever, without even trying.

Oh damn, I was actually starting to look forward to this!

I gave Leah a wild grin, hopped on mine, and barely a second later, I twisted the handlebar to hear the engine rev.

 

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