Chapter 15 – The gates to… Hell?

Chapter 15 – The gates to... Hell?

“In the mid 2010s and early 2020s people had kind of gotten used to the whole rush hour thing. Streets were utterly overfilled, everyone seemed to need their own car, nobody could get anywhere. After the antithesis started invading and the protectors stepped in to help us, the problem just shifted into the air. Now we have entire highways in the sky. Still, most of the time you are still stuck in traffic. Just that this time you have to worry about an alien landing in your floating convertible.”

- Car Nuts, episode 148

When Chloe had said that xeno activity had picked up, she meant it. We couldn’t get five steps before we had to deal with a patrol consisting of Twos, Threes, two Fours, three Fives, a Six, and a Nine! The only reason we didn’t get utterly swarmed was because Snuffles had just finished with her last group of aliens only a street over.

“Fucking hell!" I muttered, breathing heavily after the encounter was over. It was a short but brutal battle, no finesse, just straight up brawling. They had come out of nowhere and we didn’t have the time to think about any fancy plans. The Nine had almost taken Jenna’s head off, only her Sentinels had stopped it in its tracks. Snuffles was busying herself on the remains of the Six and the Fives, while I looked down at myself, covered in alien goo... again.

“We gotta be more careful," Chloe said, equally breathing heavily, “This could have ended very differently.”

“Agreed," Jenna said, still a bit in shock, “Let’s take things slow, yeah?"

I nodded, scowling inwardly at myself. It was my fault that we were surprised, I was the one with the fancy sensory shit, yet I hadn’t paid attention and it had nearly cost them dearly. This was unacceptable. If I fuck up and pay the price, okay, tough luck, but if I fuck up and someone else does? Inexcusable.

It didn’t take long for Snuffles to eat the remaining xenos, especially since her brood was helping her with the task. It looked... really weird, watching them devour half melted and half ripped apart xeno flesh, but to them it was tasty. Which, I guess, was even weirder. I could taste the things they tasted and I liked it! Normally I probably never would have, but my Hexclaws were having a field day.

Our trip continued soon after, although much slower this time and with me paying very close attention to our surroundings. One normal model Nine was bad enough, I really didn’t want to miss that new variant Chloe had talked about. It sounded like a pain.

The trek to the entrance of the undercity wasn’t a particularly long one, at least from our position. It also wasn’t the only entrance, of course, but it was the only one in this district and it was typically used rather often by the gangs to trade goods and shit. And, of course, another reason was that the redlight district was just a half step above the undercity in social hierarchy.

“I hear more xenos that, and that way. They aren’t coming closer, seem to be out of our way, but they could ambush us further down the road.” I muttered while we walked.

“We can’t stop for every group. We’ll never get anything done that way,” Jenna muttered in reply and looked around. Both she and I had drones running around to kill as many xenos as we could, but we didn’t really make much of a dent in the population.

“We need to hurry up with the lures,” Chloe said in a low tone, a frown on her face that I saw more with my hearing more than with my eyes, “I really don’t like how things have changed. Yesterday it was all model Ones, Twos, Threes, maybe the occasional Four or something bigger. Today we have Fives, Sixes, Sevens, Eights, Nines, Elevens, Twelves... I really don’t want to know how things will escalate tomorrow. Or god forbid the day after.”

Jenna and I both nodded agreement without stopping our collective scouting operations. Shit was going to go sideways soon if we couldn’t deal with things.

“At least we are getting points. Might be able to make quite a few before we head over to the Hive. Would really love some options there. I have some ideas of what to buy, but all of that is fucking expensive,” Jenna added and I agreed. Options would be good to have since we couldn’t know what exactly would await us there.

She was just about to add something when I raised my hand, silencing the conversation, “Xenos coming up shortly. Mostly Threes, couple Fives. Can’t find a Six or Nine, but keep your guard up.”

Without another word we got ready, sticking close to the run down house next to us and keeping an eye on the ruined intersection I heard the xenos coming from. Snuffles was laying low, primed to pounce the aliens, while my Hatchlings started clambering up the wall on both sides of the street. They were actually quite mobile, their strong back limbs allowing them to easily climb up even pretty smooth surfaces, as long as it was soft enough for their strong jaw-like claws to burry into it. Not that we had anything even remotely smooth in terms of walls around here, most of the buildings either had cracks or badly patched holes in them, which made climbing for them a cakewalk. Hell, I probably could have climbed up if I really wanted to. Risk of cutting myself on rusty metal or broken windows aside.

It didn’t take long for the xenos to arrive, and the moment they came around the corner we struck. I focused mainly on defence, walling them in to prevent them from running away, while Chloe and Jenna started cutting them down. In Jenna’s case that was literally true. She seemed to like the sweeping blades my Pristine Fortress could produce and used it as her main weapon.

Chloe of course had her rifle to decimate most of them, but the Fives were a bit too tanky to take out instantly. I did my best to project Hard-Light shields to block their quills, but it was a close thing. Two of my Hatchlings died, crushed by the Fives, and I was just about to panic a bit when Snuffles finally moved and jumped. A moment later she crashed into the two model Fives, jaw wide open and biting one of their heads off, while the other got crushed beneath her body and skewered by her long tails.

The fight was over quickly after that, which was just fine by me. I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself down a bit, while Snuffles once more went back to eating. It took roughly half an hour for her to produce two Hatchlings. I could accelerate it a bit, if I didn’t mind the Hatchlings being a bit weaker, but right now I needed them at full strength.

I was just about to relax when every sense in my body screamed at me, reflexively I threw up a Hard-Light shield, barely intercepting a large quill the size of my forearm. A moment later Snuffles pounced again and utterly decimated an old decrepit car, which turned out to be one of those model Nine variants. It died instantly, but I didn’t dare to let my guard down. Heart beating a mile a minute, it had nearly taken Chloe center mass which even her armor probably wouldn’t have helped against. After scanning our surroundings again, then once more, I slowly let the tension dissipate.

“Fuck, that was close.”

“Yeah... Thanks,” Chloe muttered and gave me a slightly panicked smile. I smiled in return, though I couldn’t help the small bit of dread in the back of my head about her possibly dying.

Once we had calmed down a bit, still on full alert, we continued, Chloe and Jenna much closer to me now, not that I would complain about that.

I had Snuffles run ahead a bit, keeping an eye out, while the remaining Hatchlings and Jenna’s Sentinels fell in around us in guard formation. What I found interesting was that I didn’t actually gave my Hatchlings the orders to do so, they had organised that all on their lonesome, which I found a bit... confusing.

“Kaysa, are these things smart?”

Yes and no. Hexclaw Hatchings do not possess much intelligence when birthed by a Protector grown Progenitor model. But they do have their instincts, and their main priority is to keep the Hive alive, which in this case means protecting the Hive-Queen. Namely, you.

“I have some basic ammo that’s pretty cheap, plus a couple cheap weapons for you to use. Won’t be the world but I can promise you that they’ll be better than your crap.” Chloe said.

The group looked... torn. I could guess why. Gear like that was liable to get you mugged, so before they could say anything I spoke up.

“Make sure the weapons look shit though. Won’t help ‘em much when the first idiot sees them having alien tech and stabs them for it.” It seemed to calm the nerves of the people, although some obviously looked disappointed. Chloe seemed a bit confused at that, but she shrugged, then nodded.

“Thanks, lasses. We’ll try our best to keep them out from the down low, got enough shit going on there already, don’t need an incursion on top of that.”

“Anything I could help with?” I asked. If I could without compromising the mission, then I would. It was the kind of stuff I was used to and honestly if it meant stabilising the undercity it would help the redlight district as well.

“Unless you fancy breaking up a four way gang war I don’t think so. Grey Wolves and Sweeping Dragons are currently duking it out in ol’ Sirius territory, and it seems like Napalm and Wasps are tryna take advantage of it. Even heard tell some topside gang is trying to move down or something.”

I shrugged, “Gang shit is not something I involve myself with. Not until they try and threaten the redlight district.”

“Well, it might,” he said with a frown, “Purple Haze is doing some deals with some fuckwits down there. Don’t know the details, but I heard one of them thinks they can get their hands on White Doves. There’s always one fucktard that tries to take advantage of the aliens showing up.”

Oh well, that did change things. Haze was not a gang I was too familiar with, I knew they were poking at the Crows and I also knew they were not far from the redlight district. I thought them smarter than trying to start bullshit while an incursion was ongoing, but I guess I was wrong. Not that I could do something about it now.

I sighed and shook my head. “Maybe once all is said and done I’ll look into it. Right now though we need to focus on the aliens.”

He nodded, “Agreed. Fuckers have been a lot more active since a couple hours ago.”

“We know, it’s why we decided to speed up destroying the hives,” Jenna said.

“Well, Kaysa, put together a good box of things these folk could use. Meds and stuff. Call it... Ah, to hell with it, make it a 100 points and make sure they’re settled for a couple of days if possible. If they fall we have an entirely too fucked situation to deal with,” I said, much to the surprise of the good man in front of me. He seemed to have some inkling on how much that was worth, though the rest really didn’t seem to grasp it.

My trusty brainworm compiled an extensive list that I decided to ignore, too focused on keeping my senses sharp, and soon I was down a hundred points and up one relatively large sized box that appeared at my feet. Chloe also got a box for them, this one a bit bigger and roughly the same point value if I had to give it a guess.

The old man looked down at the two boxes and looked at us severely. “Thanks to the both of you. I know how much this shit is worth, not lots who would push that much value over to beggars and homeless folk.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said, “I know quite well how you feel. We gotta stick together to survive against the antithesis, and if we can help, we will.”

With a mental order I assigned four Hatchlings to remain with these fine folk. The moment they stepped out of hiding to start the grizzly task of disposing of the xeno corpses everyone seemed to tense for a moment. But since neither the Hatchlings nor us were showing any signs of immediate danger or battle readiness they seemed to get the message that things were fine.

“If you need any help just talk to my Hatchlings, I’ll get the message. Not sure how quickly we can get here though, need to deal with Paradise Hills and then the Hive.” I explained, although I didn’t miss his shift in posture when I mentioned Paradise Hills.

“You, uh... Don’t know by chance what happened at Hills, do ya?” He asked, glancing over to the younger woman with the group.

I frowned, “It got raided pretty much the moment the incursion began. Far as I know there are no survivors.”

Both he and especially the girl jerked back at the news. They obviously had some emotional attachment to the place in some way.

“Couldn’t they have gone to the shelter nearby?” she asked, almost desperate in her attempts to reason with me.

“It’s toast,” Chloe cut in, shaking her head sadly, “Some Sevens got in. No survivors. Even if some of them entered the shelter they are dead anyways.”

“Might I ask why you ask?” I asked the man, keeping a close eye on the girl. She seemed... struck, wounded, but desperately tried to remain calm. From her expression I was pretty certain she had quite the good self-control, she looked like she wanted to stomp off and deal with it herself, but remained quiet. Good kid that one, if she has some smarts she could make it far in a gang.

“My wife, her mum, worked there.” The man muttered, eyes downcast. “We haven’t heard from her yet... Quite proud she got a job around here, but now...” He shook his head, “We won’t keep you any longer. Thanks for the help and good luck out there.”

I nodded, “If we find something about her we’ll let you know. If only to give you some closure.” It was the best I could promise under the circumstances. Again a heavy weight settled down upon me, another sob story, another family ripped apart by the bullshit going on outside. It wasn’t new, of course. It wasn’t any kind of news in these parts. But it didn’t make the emotions any easier to take.

We bid farewell and turned around and started the trek back and towards Paradise Hills. This day couldn’t end soon enough for my tastes.

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