Chapter 174: Building an Army

Chapter 174: Building an Army

First Problem: Weapons.

Deliberately making something less than his best was an interesting experience.

Perry considered making just a gun to help clear the outskirts of the city of megafauna, but the simple fact was a human body couldn’t handle the kind of recoil it would require to reliably put the monsters down.

Prawn guns were at the edge of what the human body could tolerate, and their track record was spotty at best.

And that meant Perry had to break out the Mk.3 blueprints and use his second casting of Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation to creating a factory capable of making them.

It was capable of making the guns, the power sources and motors for the traincars, as well as re-activating concrete.

Why settle for one thing?

“Alright Ronnie, strip down to your underwear, stand on the footprints, put your back against the wall, hold your arms out straight and close your eyes.”

Ronnie hesitated, but the beanpole did as he was told, and a moment later a blinding light washed over him, measuring his dimensions down to the nanometer.

“You should have a well-fitting suit of armor in about a minute,” Perry said.

“A minute?”

A shower of sparks began to fill the far side of the factory as a robotic arm began cutting out the shapes for the armor out of a rolling sheet of metal.

“Yep.” Perry said, motioning to another one of his captains: The guys who’d tried to kill him first. This particular one’s name was Mark Dober, a tall young guy with a mop of dark, curly hair.

“Alright Mark, don’t shut off this machine,” Perry said, motioning to the control console for the suit creation section of the factory. “Or I’ll have to be the one to turn it back on again. It’s...weird that way. Once you guys have armor, Take the rest of your crew and grab local junkers and push them into that.” He pointed towards the recycling section of the factory, where a massive steel cow-grinder was spinning, its metal teeth constantly shredding and drawing things into the center.

It was twenty feet across and thirty feet long, ready to chew on old-timey metal frame cars and separate them into useable components.

“Be extra careful with that one.” Perry said. “If you fall in, you’re not gonna have time to pray.”

“Over here,” Perry motioned his captains to follow him, pointing at the massive grinding vat for concrete, massive fans above already sucking up the air and pulling it out of the factory, filling the air with a constant hum of activity.

“Concrete re-activation. We’ll use this more later. Don’t fall in or you’ll wind up as architecture. Oh, and don’t smoke in here, or you’ll end up a smudge on the wall.”

“I don’t-“

“Moving on,” Perry said, bringing them to the guns.

“These are your new guns,” Perry said, pulling the first one off the conveyor belt. “They’re handheld rail guns. They’re self charging. The battery can handle about fifty shots before you have to let it recharge overnight. They use a magazine of six of these slugs,” Perry said, pulling out one of the slugs, a piece of rebar that’d been cut down to about the length of his hand. Almost a full pound of iron.

“You can change settings on the control panel here, but I suggest leaving it on ‘standard’ until you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t fire these without your armor on either, or you’ll break something,” Perry aimed out the window at a nearby street lamp and pulled the trigger.

CRACK!

The sound was a bit different, missing the explosion of gunpowder. It was replaced with an electrical pop as the capacitors discharged along the barrel, and the sound of a heavy chunk of iron breaking the sound barrier.

The steel street lamp in the distance crumpled around the blow like it’d been kicked in the balls.

SCREEECH!

The sound of tortured metal reverberated along the street as the steel pole flopped over and smashed its light against the asphalt.

“Now some ground rules.” Perry said, turning to face his stunned audience. “You are allowed to use these tools to do three things: What I tell you to do, clear out the megafauna on the outskirts of Chicago, or protect a civilian. If I hear you’re using one of these guns or suits against other people for personal gain, I will break you.”

Perry snapped the rail gun in half between his hands, the capacitors discharging at the sudden short circuit and sending lightning crackling along his arms.

HP: 13

Worth it, Perry thought as the crowd paled.

“What if we lose it?” one of them asked.

“Then you’re out.” Perry said. “And if I find out you sold it...” Perry simply shook his head, but they got the message. “The rules are a bit vague and open to interpretation, but do not push it.”

Here they come, Tom thought to himself, readying himself to grab the girl and haul her into the van, where his soldiers were waiting to pull her in, secure her and drive away.

A glimmer of movement caught his attention behind him as something cold wrapped around his arm.

A slightly transparent woman’s hand was clamped down around his wrist, sending a thrill of terror straight to his heart.

A ghost was holding his wrist.

“Ah don’t like yer look,” She said, her speech nearly unintelligible.

Adrenaline sang through his veins, but as hard as he tried to struggle, the grip might as well have been a vice.

“Oh,” The redhead said, looking at Tom caught in an extremely suspicious position right around the corner as she passed.

The ghost said something in a burst of incomprehensible gibberish.

“Nah, I don’t think that’s what they were trying to do,” The redhead said, smiling sweetly as she raised a hand.

Tom froze as her forefinger elongated into a blade, gently pressing against his throat.

“Because if that’s what they were trying to do, they wouldn’t survive the next fifteen seconds,” She said.

Scraaaaaaaape.

The blade began to drag along his neck, causing his stubble to go flying.

“He just looks a little suspicious because he needs to clean up a little.” She said, shaving Tom as he tried not to hyperventilate.

“You weren’t planning on doing what my friend thinks you were... were you?” She asked.

“N-no ma’am,” Tom said, his voice breaking for the first time in twenty years.

“Follow-up question,” She said, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t hear me expressing anticipation at including Perry as part of date night, did you? Planning on telling anyone?”

Tom read the room.

“No, ma’am. To both.”

“Excellent,” The redhead said, taking the blade off his cheek and walking past him and the rest of his gobsmacked crew as they leaned out of the van. “You’re welcome.”

“F-For what?”

“Saving your life!” She called over her shoulder as the chef trotted after her, casting the heavily armed men nervous glances. “You were in some serious trouble there for a moment!”

Fuck this. I’m leaving Chicago. There’s some weird shit going down and I don’t wanna be a part of it. Smoke and mirrors my ass.

***

“So here’s my idea for harvesting those pike.” Perry said, rolling out his proposed blueprint while Natalie looked on with excitement. She was a bit better at the nitty-gritty of architectural design, while Perry was more of an Idea Guy, and he wanted a second pair of eyes, because there was a good chance she might catch something he didn’t.

Like the water pressure thing she already pointed out.

“The primary issue seems to be moving parts and the sheer amount of force involved with reeling them like a normal fish, which causes accidents and destruction, so what we could do instead-“

“I’m home!” Heather announced her presence as she walked in, spinning around in a circle as she elegantly demonstrated the height of seventies fashion for pregnant women.

At this point ‘shopping’ and ‘looting’ were kind of the same thing. At least she only robbed large department stores, whose owners didn’t really exist anymore, so the point was kind of moot.

“How was your walk?” Natalie asked, brightening as Heather dominated the space, her brilliant red-gold hair drawing their attention away from work.

“All proceeding according to my master plan...” Heather said with an evil grin as she steepled her fingers.

“Why’d you say it like that?” Perry asked, frowning.

“Say it like what?” Heather said, adopting an innocent look in the blink of an eye.

Perry’s eyes narrowed.