Chapter Thirty-One - The Bigger They Are

Chapter Thirty-One - The Bigger They Are

Chapter Thirty-One - The Bigger They Are

They say they want to uplift humanity. Yeah, okay. Sure. Thats nice. And how do they go about this? Give randos some space guns?

Yeah, no, thats not uplift.

Sure, theyve got other things going. Every so often a Samurai will buy a blueprint and sell it to some corp or another. Usually its the highest bidder.

And then everyone gets expensive hover cars.

It's all connecting, cant you see? They dont want to uplift us, they want to see what we do with their toys! And then they're gonna steal our memes!

--4Chan comment on the /ET/ board, 2021

***

There was no time like the present, but there was also something to say about being ready.

I made sure my Trench Maker was tucked up tight in the back of my pants, that the bulkier Sparrow was ready and had its safety off, and that the four grenades Id bought (at five points each, theyd flung my point count down to fifty) were bulging out of my pocket.

When Id asked for something that could break the bridge off the side of the building, Myalis had suggested something called a Spatially-Locked Graphene Garrot. It looked like a little cylindre with a thick black band around it, and, according to my AI friend, it would absolutely fuck up the local architecture without actually exploding.

I had other toys. One was a little two-point thing that looked like a ping-pong ball designed by Salvador Dhali. It had a pretty red button on top, the sort that screamed press me without needing any labels.

My thumb squeezed the top of the ball and it started to vibrate in little bursts, once a second, then twice, and shaking faster. A silent countdown.

I flung the ball as hard as I could towards the far end of the cafeteria.

It bounced off the ground once, then skid across the floor under it stopped next to one of those wooden boxes used to hide trash cans.

The ball glowed a deep red, then began to hiss. Oh no, Sally, your leg! -- Its okay! We can make it! Help me up. -- Youre bleeding out. What if they come?

I blinked as I listened to the terribly scripted discussion coming from the ball.

What? I asked as I dipped back down.

The moment I was behind the till, I glanced over to the side where Id been killing xenos. A few of them were missing. Back in the thai place Id been in already? It didnt matter.

I lunged over the counter and sprinted towards the open bridge. There were more aliens there, some of them turning my way, distracted away from their work flinging bodies down onto the streets below.

I tucked my gun under my stump and held it in place with my armpit, then I pulled out the first of my three garrot grenades. Yanking the pin out with my teeth, I flung it as hard and far as I could, and watched it sail over the heads of a dozen aliens.

Id always had a good arm.

The next came out just as the large Model Six whistled and every alien in the area started to move back towards me.

I flicked the second grenade underhand. It bounced to a stop just a meter or so past the entrance of the bridge.

Perfect.

The grenade froze in midair a foot off the ground. The black band around it popped off, sending two metal bits skittering across the floor a moment before the device started to make a whining noise.

A thin black circle appeared around it, first only a few centimeters wide, then larger and larger.

One of the passing xenos set its leg through the blackened circle. Its leg was chopped into a hundred wafer-thin layers, sending the rest of its body crashing through the spinning blender of a monomolecular razor-ribbon.

The circle expanded more until it was eating through the walls and ceiling in the bridge, turning them into faint dust.

Through the haze, I saw a piece of the bridge at the far end fall to the ground.

That would do.

My last garrot grenade was flung over to a group of xeno running over to me. It would give them something to play with while I ran.

The entire building creaked as the far end of the bridge gave out. The sudden stress on the closer end, coupled with the torn up section and my old pal gravity, did the rest.

Just as everything went down, a huge black form leapt into the cafeteria.

The Model Six was missing most of a leg, and it was covered in scrapes and cuts, but its four beady eyes still fixed onto me.

I found myself with a strong urge to get the hell away.