Ch. 1 - Initialization

" 'Yesterday we stood above the abyss. Today we're a step ahead!'

A meme attributed to various German politicians for its awkward English. It possibly originated from the times of the former nation's division into West and East more than half a century ago. The meme went mostly unremarked for decades: never famous; never quite dead.

When the reality of the Antithesis incursions hit the public consciousness, this meme suddenly went very, very viral in its perfectly expressed irony."

– Excerpt from Memes Around The World, A History, July 2031

***

I lay belly-down atop the roof of the condo, heels jiggling lazily, chin resting on crossed arms, attention split between the family-fest across the street, and the socials scrolling across my aug-gear's retinal display.

Birthdays always made for endless spam. I wasn't looking forward to my thirty-fifth next year, when nothing would stop several hundred corpos from inundating my feed with SPECIALS! for the apparently so-very-marketable anniversary of 'halfway dead'.

I hummed along under my breath as one of my favorite songs played, and smiled as the little girl absolutely thrashed another kid on the soccer field below.

What were their names again?

"Crap, I really suck at remembering names, don't I?"

The oral microphone-implant of my aug-gear picked up the mumble, and sent it to my visual augs—which automatically overlaid my HUD with an alphabetized list of names of every person in view. And my visual augs, which audibly listed them off, too. All one hundred and fifty-one of them. There was a counter in the top left for that. Why? No fucking clue.

"Yeah, that sure helps…"

 

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—

[iMA - p0T4To - t4k - Mai - m0ne - PL0x]

I let my head drop, and groaned. "Seriously?"

Mood ruined by designed stupid, I turned around, rolled onto my feet, and walked downstairs to my tiny one-room cubby. It cost me nearly sixty percent of my wage every month. Life was shit, but I had an extra door for the bathroom section.

I looked at the mirror, and fought the familiar wave of unhappiness at the thirty-something male me looking back. 

I'd been working for years on just accepting who I was, and I'd gotten much better. I wasn't unattractive. Even the bags under my eyes looked more…artistically haunted, than unhealthily tired. I had good hair, and my natural ice-blue eyes contrasted well with its deep black shade. 

I was trying to love myself. I'd been trying since I turned twenty-six. Sometimes it even worked, and I felt as happy as Joe Average could be in the twenty-fifties.

The mirror still didn't make it easy. But I'd get there some day, I hoped.

I breathed in, deep and slow, and worked on growing some internal sunshine. Don't let anything drag you down. Just breathe, live, and let yourself get used to the idea of being happy. You know it works, even if it takes another eight years.

I closed my eyes and leaned back. Better. Let that smile relax your face. Yeah. That's it. Don't let the unhappy little voice ruin your day.

Old, vengeful anger tried to intrude and my right pointer twitched with it. Flashes of muzzles and the imagined retort of gunfire. I lifted my head and looked myself in the eyes.

Hate won't help. Revenge won't happen. That's not your life anymore, Aden. Keep moving.

I sighed, and moved to my desk where I got to work designing, dictating, and testing prompts for the AI controlling the industrial robots of one of the smaller manufacturing companies in New Montreal nearby. 

Bills needed to be paid, and I wasn't rich. But I was okay. I was a freelancer and could afford food that was at least a little bit healthy. Even augs of middling quality were within my budget. Rent was a bitch and the place was small, but I liked it. It felt like home. I didn't mind taking care of this place, keeping it clean. I was as alone as I'd always been, but I was happier than I used to be.

Hours passed and I kept working, only stopping when the orange of the setting sun filled my room. I'd drawn iridescent, geometric patterns across the walls and loved the beautiful play of colors as the sunset illuminated them, millimeter by millimeter. It had been quite difficult to get the smart-windows to enhance the smogged rays sufficiently, but I'd done it. Every evening, I reaped the gorgeous reward.

I returned to my work with a smile, until eventually my alarm beeped bedtime and I turned in, dreaming of a kid girl winning on the soccer fields.

 

***

 

Noon of the next day, when there would be fewer people around, I walked the two or three dozen meters to the firing range next door. I'd grabbed my case with the recurve bow and an old bolt-action hunting rifle. One that I was deeply, deeply familiar with since childhood. 

The case held five hundred rounds in 7.62x39mm—the good old AK ammunition the world just wouldn't stop producing, and about as cheap as bullets could get. It was good enough to destroy the brains of most Antithesis single-digit models, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to stay in practice.

One benefit of owning a hunting rifle that usually goes unremarked is that people worry less about you owning one. Folks get much more anxious if you run around with smaller handguns, weirdly enough. I figured it was because hunting rifles weren't exactly suitable for committing crimes. Too big, couldn't hide one easily. It marked you as someone who would protect others, rather than steal from them. I received more good will for possessing my rifle than if I had no weapon at all, even. 

The range was fairly run down; it had an unusually cheap membership and I could tell. I didn't know how it survived, honestly. The space it used would be worth so much more if it were turned into additional flats. Perhaps it belonged to somebody local and more cognizant of the need for people to beat off the occasional Antithesis incursions, than greedy for credits? I wasn't going to question it.

I put on some ear protection before I entered the range proper. Good habits matter.

The range itself was divided in two, thanks to a long wall down the middle. The left side was for slow projectile weapons with reusable ammunition, and the right for firearms, with several bullet traps at the end.

The range had a minor slant downwards; barely detectable to the human eye, but it added up. It meant that while the range would only have had so much space at surface level, it actually dug deep such that the furthest target was a full mile out, beyond the city limits of the suburb above.

I walked past two shooters and set up on the left side. I'd use the first ten to twenty minutes while I was still fresh to practice with the bow. Then I'd switch over to the other range once my focus and my groupings began to suffer a little.

As I strung the modern composite incarnation of an ancient weapon, let my mind calm, and emptied my thoughts. I loved this ritual. It was how I meditated each and every day.

Take four arrows. Move to the cubicle. Set your feet. Straighten your back. Look at the target. Focus. Nock the arrow. Look around: Clear. Lift the bow. Draw the string. Keep your arms relaxed—it's all in the back. Shoulder blades together. Set your anchors. Know where the arrow will pierce. Breathe out, tighten, tension, shoulders even and low. It's all in the back. From the hand lifting the bow to the opposite elbow, one smooth line. Relax the hand hooking the string, watch the arrow fly. Exactly on the twelve o'clock line of the bullseye. Relax, take in the motions, reflect and meditate.

Nock the next arrow. Look around: Clear. Focus. It's in the back. Precise motions, breathe out, use the right muscle groups. Loose the arrow. Three o' clock. Reflect. Breathe in.

Nock. Clear. Focus. Tension where it should be, breathe out. Loose. Six o'clock. Breathe in.

Nine o'clock.

A gentle bell chimes, a warning flashes across my vision, and I put down the bow. A twang announces the final bolt from a crossbow to my left, then the range is safe. I gather my arrows and set up again.

And again.

…

Eventually my first arrow flew a little wide, my meditative focus broke, and I knew it was time to stop. Bow unstrung and packed into the case, I picked up the rifle and checked it for safety, refilled my magazines with cartridges and prepared to move to the appropriate range.

Suddenly, a prompt overlaid everything:

 

[Incursion Detected!]

I froze for a second, breath stuck in my throat. "Fuck." I whispered. My hand clenched on the rifle's stock, and then an old, familiar warmth seeped into my muscles.

Combat. Real combat. It's been so many years…

Mixed emotions chased each other through my head. Giddy expectation, worry what it might do to me. That it might send me back.

Several shooters nearby swore and I looked around me.

Wide eyes everywhere. Then one ex-military-looking woman started to move, and that shook the rest of us out of our shock. I saw someone run for the doors, and the realization that there might be Antithesis right outside sent adrenaline through my system. Cold buckets down my back.

"GUNS!" I yelled, "Reload your mags!"

Some hadn't needed the reminder, but the rest of the room hopped to it. The guy at the door jerked to a stop and ran back down the stairs instead.

I checked my own weapon over, closed the case and stuck four magazines each into their own pocket of my trousers. Time to move.

Don't wanna get penned in down here.

I threw a quick glance at the general chaos around me and quickly moved to the door. Slowly I pushed it open, trying to avoid making much noise. I knew it would squeal if I stretched the mechanism more than half way, so instead I crabbed out sideways, head on a swivel for any plant buggers, and closed the door again.

Nothing. The street was completely empty of threats, only people running in every direction.

Phew. I'd avoided the attention of everybody and every…thing. 

Good. Fight best on my own. …Need a chance to get used to it again.

I decided to head home to get a better view from the roof. The condo was one of the taller buildings around in the suburbs of New Montreal, though that didn't mean much at only five floors. It backed up against the end of the wide shopping strip on one side, and this road on the other. I could walk back and forth to keep an eye on both. There'd be lots of shoppers entirely unprepared who'd need somebody to have their back and I could do that for the entire strip from up there.

Rushing up my condo's stairs, I ripped open the door and took my first proper look around.

The sky was painted crimson, its deepest shade over New Montreal. 

Antithesis bacteria and pollen-slash-pheromones, huh?

I could see giant fleshy ropes dropping above the megacity, several tall buildings on fire and even the occasional flash from explosions too far to hear clearly. It wasn't even a particularly big incursion, didn't cover the entirety of the city, just some kilometers wide in these first minutes. Centered inside the nearby edge of New Montreal. 

I saw a rope burst against that new museum that they'd begun building, what, six months ago? It splattered some kind of fleshy pods all over it, and little Antithesis alien figures climbed out of them and entered the museum through broken windows. Some slipped with scrabbling claws, lost contact, and fell from the building. I hoped they wouldn't hit anyone down below.

Oh, right. The incursion would grow. 

"Start timer from…five minutes?" I whispered to my augs. "Undo. Start timer from incursion warning." A new overlay popped up in the top left corner of my vision, counting four minutes and up.

We were at the very outskirts of this invasion, almost clear. But nonetheless, the sirens started up across the neighborhood as a couple of those ropes crashed at the edge of our suburb closest to New Montreal. One smashed a few houses, the other fell across the shopping strip several hundred meters in front of me, squishing several ground cars and buses, and also blocking the entrance to our community shelter. 

Those buses had passengers in them. The cars probably too, but there weren't any bloody messes being squeezed out of those. My heart beat heavily and my hands went sweaty.

Today's killing people.

What would it do to me? Was I going to…revert? I feared for myself. But I breathed in, breathed out, and decided that no matter what, I'd fight. Fighting was what I was best at. Even if I hadn't, really, for almost twenty years.

As I watched, both expelled hundreds of the black-plated canoid model Threes and began growing greenish pink fruit-blisters. Those would flower and become more model Threes, and a lot of the model Ones, the ones that looked like weird, fake pigeons.

Antithesis, huh? Haven't killed these, yet. Wonder if they're…easier?

Pictures, old memories, of masks sliding from bleeding faces whisked through my mind. I pushed them away with clenched teeth.

Behind me, a child began crying. I spun around and recognized the girl from yesterday, the one who'd played soccer with her brother. She was sitting in front of their house, by the door. Her mother was already rushing down the stairs with her brother, and there weren't any hungry aliens around. Yet.

I dropped my case and opened it to attach the two sights I had: a variable long-shot scope, and a red dot. The red dot went on at an angle to make space for the scope on top. I'd need to make sure the scope was accurate—shame I'd taken it off for a firmware update just yesterday. At least the new stabilizer software should help.

Damn. Lost the ear protectors. Ah, that's gonna hurt. Fuck.

Sighing, I stood again, looked around, and spied an empty can on a slightly smaller building a few houses down. Bare, dead trees behind the house, no people there.

My feet found their positions, toes digging in against the recoil. My sense of balance transformed. I became the unmovable anchor, a weapons platform constructed from blood and bone.

My left index crept along the stock and found the seat of the receiver. There was a tiny divot there, worn blank by years and years of questing from my finger. An old memory rose, of a wobbly gun, of a receiver that didn't sit right. Of a bullet that went astray, and a target that lived a second longer, long enough to return fire. Pain.

The questing finger placated the memory. Yes. The receiver sat correctly. Everything was as it should be. Yes.

I racked the bolt to chamber the first round, aimed at the can about fifty meters away from me and memorized the picture printed on it to locate the front and back. I gently squeezed the trigger, and the can spun away to the right with the sonic crack of the projectile.

Wincing against the painful ringing in my ears, I waited until the can stopped rolling and studied it through the scope. I'd aimed middle and the entry bullet hole was at the top left. The new digital stabilizer adjusted itself automatically, and the reticle moved. Then it blinked. It couldn't adjust far enough. The gun was calibrated for a hundred and fifty meters' distance, not fifty, so the vertical lift was okay. But the horizontal alignment wasn't.

I quickly extracted the spent casing and removed the bolt so that I could look through the barrel.

As best as I could, I lined up the barrel with the entry hole in the can and held the gun steady while I shifted to look through the scope. A few adjustments back and forth, and I'd aligned the scope and barrel as tightly as I was going to get it without a proper stable setup. The stabilizer would manage the remainder.

I gave the red dot a test shot too, and it worked fine enough. I wasn't going to use that at longer distances—I had a scope.

Finally ready, I looked along my home street once more. Still no aliens, so I turned towards New Montreal. A lot less anti-air fire than when I'd first viewed the incursion, but even so, the sky was criss-crossed with tracer lines, and the ratatat of the guns was still a steady beat in the backdrop, even this far out.

Closer, the ropes continued to bloat with fruiting blisters, and the dog-like model Threes sniffed around doors. Some of them ran towards shop windows, with people cowering beneath tables and behind bars. A few people had pistols and were trying to figure out how to shoot them.

Shaking my head, I thought, That's why you practice at the range, idiots.

An advertisement metaphorically poked me in the eye when my scope scanned past it. Another synthCaf claimed it would kill me with a caffeine overdose long before the carcinogenic chemicals in it could get to me. Same ad I'd seen a thousand times, different brand. Sighing with tired aggravation, I swiped it away. 

Another ad for an adblocker subscription popped up. I almost swiped that away too, an automatism built from years of practice. But then it caught my attention with an unusual line: Double price, but it'd last just for the duration of the invasion, guaranteed. Promised through the use of one of those open-source contracts that corporations usually didn't touch with ten foot poles, due to how tight they were against loopholes.

Interesting. I actually won't get stuck in subscription hell. If anything, the higher fee makes it more legit.

I accepted. It took all of three seconds for the entire shopping street to lose the digitized neon displays. My brain almost hurt from the sudden lack of visual strain.

Ah. Shit. I snorted to myself. So that's how they get you.

But, finally secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't be shooting through surprise-blindness every time I moved my sights, I studied the first model Three through the scope and found myself uncomfortably revolted by it. The three-hinged jaw, the weird flesh that was too green, the squat, alien shape that shouldn't be. I'd heard of this. They called it the uncanny valley effect in the media. Supposedly nearly every person to see the Antithesis gets hit with it, but it went away, or at least became weaker, from exposure.

This one was standing still, just sniffing for something.

"That's what, three hundred meters?" I murmured and kneeled to steady my rifle. I aimed and waited for the scope to range itself. The picture cleared up, a gently oscillating figure-of-eight predicted the slight weaving of the muzzle, caused by my breathing. I adjusted accordingly. Then again, a tiny, tiny bit, as my instincts and experience spoke. My first shot took the first model Three right in the head. Its brain splattered the road behind it and I raised both eyebrows as I racked the bolt. 

Yeah. The update was worth it. Wouldn't have hit quite so effortlessly.

Another prepared to jump through a window and I ripped a bullet through its rear legs to stop it. It stumbled when its feet went nowhere, looked my way, and I plugged it through the brain. Racked the bolt.

My left index tested the divot between the stock and the receiver again.

I was doing fine, but I felt kind of shifty. I wasn't able to find the zen from the range and felt dislocated, somehow. I couldn't sink into my shots the way I could during training. The way I used to. It had been too many years. And the incursion left me a little shaken. Things were real in a way they hadn't been for a long time.

But they also weren't as…horrible as they used to be. Back then.

These are just alien beasts. Not humans.

I wasn't shivering and could place my shots, but I continued to feel uneasy. I guess that was to be expected, what with the situation.

I…didn't know how I was going to react if any Antithesis managed to get close.

More memories swam through my head. The battle trance. I knew how to sink in a different way. If I really, really allowed it.

Sink? Sink not? What'll it do to me? What's needed?

My ears rang. No protectors.

Index brushed the divot. A nervous tic. Unnecessary. I knew that. It still calmed me.

"Start tally from two." A number displayed beneath the timer.

Another model Three chased a man. I had to be careful with this shot, but they were still several meters apart. I hit it in the head and it dropped. Racked the bolt. The man looked behind him, stumbled, and cried in relief. Got back up and kept running.

"Tally."

A trio of model Threes ran down the middle of the strip. The first two I killed with one shot each, but the last needed another round, and the rifle beeped for a fresh magazine.

"Tally three."

I heard gunshots nearby and further away, saw one Three get absolutely torn apart by a shotgun from around the corner of an alley.

Rifle reloaded, I kept firing at every Antithesis I saw. Ten cartridges in the magazine, eight tallies.

I mostly forgot about the painful ringing in my ears. I'd kinda gotten used to it as the minutes passed.

My shoulder stung a little, eventually, from all the recoil. Even though the stock was fitted, and I knew to keep it properly seated against me. I'd still get a bruise, probably.

The first model One flowered, formed itself from alien petals, and took wing. These were small models, about as dumb as they get. Easier to shoot down than I expected, but I still lost several bullets to nothing. I'd started loading each round directly from the case, all four magazines long empty.

There was a lull after I killed three to four dozen model Ones. I saw the drop-pod-rope-things grow more fruit-blisters, but these ones seemed a little bigger. More model Threes?

My finger dug into the divot. It was still exactly as big as it was supposed to be. And my rifle found its next victim as easy as breathing.

I continued to brain any Three as I could, but eventually the first of them showed up inside windows and on top of roofs.

My tally told me I was at nearly a hundred kills already. I'd fired hundreds of rounds. My shoulder hurt. I hadn't shot so much for a very long time. Lots of hits, but no model Three would die from the first if it wasn't in the head. Even a bullet to the heart wasn't an immediate kill against these biological terminators, and the things could attack a final victim before they'd drop.

Ten minutes on the timer. My hands were going numb from the vibrations in my rifle. I didn't have gloves. Heat was getting to be an issue. It was just a hunting rifle. Not one of the modern ones with swappable heatsinks.

My index searched the divot. I burned myself on the metal block of the receiver.

Do I stop shooting? When will the gunpowder start to cook off prematurely?

I held two of the used magazines against the barrel for extra mass to soak up the heat.

The alien blisters flowered and turned into several unusually large model Ones, and a lot of smaller model Ones. The smaller ones formed flocks around one each of the bigger ones, and the groups split up, apparently going after separate targets. 

One came for me and my heart thudded as things became a lot more real. I felt that old, hated battle stress pull at my mind in ways that were still far too familiar. It wanted to turn me back into a thing at home in the middle of shed blood and shredded guts.

I sighted the big one, and pulled the trigger, but it swerved in the same moment. My shot went wide. I tried again, but it dodged once more.

"What the fuck?" My hands started to shake a little and I panted for air.

They were only two hundred meters out, now. I switched to the dozen smaller birds, and those didn't dodge. Them getting closer and flying almost straight at me made them a lot easier to kill and they would drop as fast as I could jam new cartridges into the painfully hot chamber.

The big model One had a wingspan that roughly matched my own arms, and I didn't want to let its mass hit me. Even with bird bones and bird muscles, I figured I'd at least break ribs, nevermind letting the talons eviscerate me.

I aimed but the round fired itself prematurely.

"FUCK!" I yelled, as I hurriedly worked the bolt. Fucking cook-off!

I lined up my last shot only meters away, but it suddenly jerked to my right. I only ripped up one of its legs and it sprayed greenish-black fluids all over the place, spreading the smell of cut grass and mold.

The thing rammed my case, pushed it right over the edge on the other side.

"Fuck, my reloads!" 

A few rounds had fallen out of the case and I scrambled for the nearest, and then ran to the edge the big One had disappeared below. I saw it scrape against the ground and slowly get up and flap its huge wings.

Kill it.

I desperately blew inside the chamber to cool it. Just a little. Come on. Don't blow up my round. The One was flapping its wings. It couldn't run, but I hadn't hurt its ability to fly.

Then I gingerly loaded the round, trying not to burn myself on the radiating metal, and finally killed the thing as it was still struggling to rise after that dive-bomb.

I breathed easier. Sighing, I found three more shots lying around.

Scraping of claws against tile, almost next to me.

I froze.

One model Three on the neighbor's roof. Close.

Two people screamed and I twitched in surprise. The Three jerked towards them, away from me. Somehow the next cartridge didn't blow up. I quickly shot it, and the bullet skipped off the roof and smashed the body of another one behind it. I laughed.

Then I looked down, where the screams were coming from.

I couldn't recognize the shrill tone, but leaning over the edge on the side of the residential road, I saw the mother and the girl from across the street trying to get in a hovercar, right below me. The brother was already inside and had grabbed his sister's arm, trying to pull her in. A model Three had clamped onto the mother's arm on the other side, and she and her daughter were shrieking.

The mother was holding onto the girl. Didn't she realize she was keeping her from getting away? Panic, probably.

With my final shot, I barely grazed the side of the Antithesis's head. Its skull broke open and big shards of bone pinged away. But it didn't die.

It did let go of the woman's arm and stumbled back. I could see a furrow in its brain as it jiggled around like pudding without the support of a skull holding it in place. A manic giggle escaped me. The damage caused it to jerk and twitch in uncoordinated movements, but it gnashed its teeth and wobbled towards the mother.

A movement a few meters behind them all, behind the little girl. Another model Three. A healthy one. 

I was out of rounds. Nothing. I looked around. There wasn't anybody else lining up a shot. The kid was going to get torn apart.

With a twisting in my stomach I realized I could just…step forward and I'd probably paste the thing. But five storeys? That'd kill me.

I giggled again, and started shaking for real, sweat in my eyes, heat and cold shivering through me.

A hysterical laugh escaped me at the panicked memory of that old German joke from before the Fall. Yesterday we stood above the abyss. Today we are one step ahead!

The good Three looked up and saw me when I laughed more. I couldn't breathe properly. My eyes were glued to the girl and tears clouded my vision. 

I took that step.

In the middle of it my other knee just went weak and collapsed. But I was over the edge and dropping.

A weird sort of wheezing panicky shout squeezed itself out of me. The model Three looked up at the sound. Something crossed itself in my brain and the world became silent and slow and very very clear.

I didn't have anything to lose anymore. Nothing much mattered, except for that thing's death. That became everything, I existed for it.

Hello darkness my old friend!

I lined up my feet, and crashed heels-first right into its head, screaming wordlessly.

I absolutely squelched that head. Then my feet shattered. Before I could even really feel the pain, my legs…changed shape. I sort of slipped and keeled over backwards, across the body of the Three.

I heard a staccato cracking sort of sound and a fizzing, lightning, blue pain in my spine, but nothing from my legs. Or from my pelvis, which probably also wasn't where it should be.

Then I stopped hurting. Mostly. I was almost pain-free, despite how completely broken I was. 

I still had the rifle clutched in my arms. I didn't know how, but the Three had broken my fall enough that I took no injury to my head. Even my arms were fine. Not even a scrape on them. Just my lower half looked like minced meat in a blender stuffed into trouser sausages. I didn't feel any of it.

It was a miracle. I laughed. There was silence around me. I looked up, saw the little girl stare at me. The mother.

The other Three. Grinning, I tossed my rifle butt-first at it and equally miraculously, the stock hit true and mulched its brain.

My vision went dark. Sharp pain at the back of my head. 

Fuck, I hit something after all. 

Hot stabbings through somewhere back there.

My vision flickered back on, and off again, then stayed on. As if my eyes were TV-screens. I chuckled, then I choked on saliva. I couldn't breathe deeply enough to cough it away, but it was fine. I figured I was going to die of internal bleeding long before I'd suffocate painfully.

But the headaches stopped. A soft and gentle voice inside my head, clearer than any aural aug-gear I'd ever heard:

 

System Initialized!

Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Tynea. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!

Rise, Aden Rheinschiffer, and become a protector of the weak!

 

"What?" My eyes started swimming a little. I felt off-balance.

I am Tynea. Your custom-built AI. You are now a Vanguard. You are also very injured, in shock, and I would suggest we skip the confusion until later, in favor of treatment.

"Oh. Okay?" Breathing wasn't easy. It took up a lot of attention.

 

***