Chapter Thirty-Seven - Resolution

“Keep your priorities straight.

You’ll find yourself torn between options sometimes, and it’s easy to get greedy. Being greedy is fine, but being dumb about it is not.

So, when you prepare for battle next time, stop for a moment and think about what really matters, and what you’re willing to give up if it comes down to it.

Recall that argument when you’re about to do something stupid. Measure your choice against it.”

– Road Rash, on his livestream during Blood Month, when incursions hit three large cities in North America at the same time in June of 2045

 

***

 

I wanted to know who’d kidnapped us—and I imagined that need was a whole lot stronger for Leah.

But what could we do? If we stuck around, we’d get overrun quickly. If we left, we’d leave the place defenseless. And we couldn’t leave behind any obvious measures to protect it.

Hmm.

“Leah, whoever kidnapped us was a professional. They know to prevent samurai from lashing out, by simply not being available. That means they probably have practice, they’ve done this before, or at the very least, are going to do it again.”

She looked at me, then continued my line of thought, “Which means that even if we lose them here, we can keep an eye out for other victims and pick up the trail there, again. Assuming it’s the same assholes.”

“Yes. It’d be a pretty long hunt, though. It might take us years and years to find enough clues to really start digging.”

“If we even find others like us to investigate and rescue. And again, we wouldn’t know for sure they were the same people.”

“Maybe,” I said, still holding Leah by the hand, halfway up the stairs, “we aren’t completely reliant on somebody showing up here, and them not getting spooked, and us being able to track them, and...”

“No, but it’s still our best chance. And it’d be most likely the right bastards we’d be chasing, if they came here.”

“So, we still want to secure this facility?”

“Yeah, I’d prefer making sure beyond any doubt that I get the right people. Even if I had to give up a lot of points for that.”

“Okay. We do need to prioritize, though. We’re not made of points, not yet. I value our lives above uncertain justice.”

Leah nodded at me, and I decided that I’d worry about the facility at a later point.

Come to think of it, it was already obviously damaged, around the door. Uh, yeah. The whole point about drop-ins not getting spooked might be moot. Whatever, I’d see later.

“I’m gonna get us both a few water bottles and food, then we’ll start moving?”

“Sure. I’ll keep an eye on the door.”

I rushed down the stairs, jumping as far as I could, and really poured on the speed in the corridor. It took me less than eight seconds to cover the entire distance, where normally walking would require more like a minute.

“Tynea, my new body is awesome. How close am I to actually being able to use my full force?”

Just a few more hours. Your bones have largely been reinforced, and the majority of the effort goes to securing the connecting tissues across your musculature and where they attach to your skeleton, as well as a few final adjustments to your organs. You will eventually require specialized nutrition to replace all the minerals that were used up throughout your sleep.

“Those food marbles didn’t cover them?”

They did, though not entirely. You are healthy and will remain so for a long time, outside of injuries. It would be ideal to deal with the deficiencies, if only to improve your ability to heal those safely.

Ah, that made sense. And I should go for something that costs points, too. Didn’t want to skimp on stuff that would affect my healing…

I grabbed four bottles and two jars, and ran back upstairs to Leah.

“Say, Leah, would you mind if we stored these bottles in your legs?”

She gave me an amused grin and said, “Redefine ‘water legs’, huh? Sure.”

I mentally ordered the Sleeve to open up at the front of her upper and lower thighs, and glued the bottles in. There was more than enough space for the jars as well, and I used a bunch of silk to pack everything tightly, so there wouldn’t be any loose jiggling. Hmm. I could’ve done that with stones to weigh her down earlier, couldn’t I? I just hadn’t thought of it…

“Alright, now we’re ready, right?” I raised my brows at Leah questioningly.

“I’d say so. Can’t think of anything else, and it seems we’ll return anyway, to prep the place for any additional kidnappers, yeah?”

“Yup.”

“Then let’s go.”

I grabbed her by the hand again, and we moved closer to the door where I reconnected with the spy drone for a quick gander about. There were multiple aliens coming in from every direction, of different sizes, but none that would reach us within the minute.

After I sent access for the spy cam to Leah, we moved out and began sneaking towards the nearest pack.

“We have thirty-five points combined, right?”

Correct, Tinea.

“Okay, I’d like some silent ammunition for the Sentinel’s railgun, please, and a silent weapon for Leah. Something she can reload easily while she still has to focus on not tripping.”

I would suggest an unusual solution. Do you remember that impulse muffler I mentioned earlier? A lesser variant of it could be adapted to silence any gun it is attached to. Your Class I Small Arms Ammunition catalog provides subsonic bullets, as well.

“That does sound like a good idea. I suppose the Hummingbird wouldn’t benefit from the muffler?”

No, indeed not. The launch itself is already the quietest part, and the muffler would not silence the whistle of the missiles in flight.

I hadn’t wanted to give Leah the Foxteeth because it had no guidance by itself, and because the Hummingbird was extremely convenient to use for somebody who’d be constantly distracted trying to stay upright.

But she’d had enough practice by now to walk somewhat more naturally, and between my specialty bullets and her eye and tracking visor, she’d have no issues hitting targets.

So the muffler was a solid reusable option, and I passed the idea to Leah and Ypsi.

After a few seconds, she tugged me to a stop and affirmed the purchase for fifteen points. I handed her my Foxteeth after disconnecting its cartridges from the Sentinel, and gave her a pocket for the Hummingbird.

I bought us both some subsonic ammunition, these ones with nanites to destroy the flesh of anything we would kill.

 

 

My darts came in two simple and plain boxes of thin steel, which I simply touched to the top of the Sentinel and watched as they were absorbed and made the thing bulge out even more. When I gave it the command to switch to “Subsonic”, I realized that it might be time to discard some of the rounds in there—the switch took nearly a full second, much slower than it usually was, as the Sentinel positively squirmed to get the things delivered to its barrel.

Meh, they were loaded now, and I wasn’t going to need to switch. Plus, the recycled rounds were pretty quiet themselves, too. And I wasn’t going to use any of the loud ones. I’d hoard for a little while longer, at least until I was sure I wasn’t going to run into problems with only forty deadly shots.

Oh, but I could actually unload them and keep them, couldn’t I?

I wove myself a belt of silk like a tube, with soft cottony silk inside to stop the cartridges from clinking against each other, then I had the Sentinel empty itself into it of all gunpowder rounds - not that I had many of those left, and most of the recycled ball ammunition, before I wore the sash of a belt like a bandoleer. Like this, I could basically just upend the tube into the Sentinel, if I ever needed to.

Leah traded her magazine for a subsonic one with a practiced movement, ejected the chambered cartridge, and clicked it back into its magazine. I gave her another two pockets in the small of her back for the loud magazines, where they’d be out of the way.

Next, she stretched out her hand, and Ypsi teleported the muffler into her waiting palm. It was a little boxy device Leah affixed to the underside of the Foxteeth’s barrel shroud, just a few centimeters in front of the trigger. When she activated it, three very small dishes emerged, pointing forwards, each one about the size of a knuckle. They looked like high-tech versions of those old magnetic speaker membranes, ready to emit whatever energies it used to muffle sound.

I called both Leah and Tynea via my aug, “How effective are our subsonic rounds, Tynea? Are they going to kill Sixes and other large Antithesis?”

Not necessarily - or not quickly, at least. The nanite payload will kill them, but that’ll happen over the course of minutes. The 9mm rounds are enough to kill a model Six with a good headshot, but your darts lack a little in penetrative power due to the short barrel of the Sentinel and the resultant low velocity. You’ll have to hit the eye and take advantage of the extremely thin bone plates behind them. I suggest upgrading to a proper main weapon soon, or switching to a quiet ammo type that is deadly even if it doesn’t penetrate the skull, such as ‘Ripwire’ rounds, if used wisely.

So, in a pinch I could still kill a Five or Six, if I took advantage of the guidance the flechettes came with.

“Leah, this time I’ll leave the larger models to you, and take out the small ones myself.”

With a nod at me, she stood up again and we kept moving through the brush surrounding the facility, carefully using gaps in the foliage and bare ground to avoid tipping off any Antithesis, while I kept the spy drone flying in circles around us. Combined with my antennae, I was very able to detect movement nearby, and we surprised a model Three that Leah killed with her newly muffled gun, to test it out.

I could sense the push of the projectiles through the air, but it was a quiet little wave with no energy behind it. It wouldn’t get us noticed, not even by aliens with very sharp hearing.

But the energy field of the muffler was a different matter. It felt like the air around and up to about a meter in front of the Foxteeth had been grabbed for a split second, forced to hold still by a perfectly inverted force even as the bullet pushed through it. A weird shiver raced down my antennae and planted itself in the base of my skull, as if the screech of a microphone feedback short-circuited itself and left a shadow behind.

It had lasted only for a very short pulse, and I suspected that I wouldn’t have noticed it if I’d stood a dozen meters away. We couldn’t use that in ambushes without potentially tipping additional nearby targets off, but it had done its job and Leah had a way to kill silently, even if it messed with me a little.

We continued on, creeping up on the group we’d been tracking with the drone through partially thick, partially sick, foliage, finding a good position to engage from. A final gander for other aliens we might attract by fighting said there weren’t any. We’d chosen our targets well.

Six Fours, and three Threes. It wasn’t anything compared to the hordes I had killed ten days ago, but unlike then, I’d have to hold back and act with caution. That did make this fight feel rather more perilous, somehow.

 

***