Chapter Forty-Four - Dirty Break

Chapter Forty-Four - Dirty Break

Chapter Forty-Four - Dirty Break

Mental health services are, like healthcare, one of those things that just arent profitable for a society whose main concern is monetary.

In fact, its worse than healthcare. With that, you can at least extort people for money. Someone with a gaping wound will be willing to pay much for treatment and to live. Someone hearing voices though? Someone going through a depressive period? Well, theyre just not great clients.

I think thats why all of the help and assistance we had just... disappeared one day.

--Jacob Washington, last member of the all-volunteer Suicide Watch group, 2023

***

Id seen buildings collapse before. I mean, on my media feeds.

Happened all the time. Usually it was buildings that needed to be demolished, but every couple of weeks some mega-complex would fall apart all on its own. Shitty construction, too many cut corners, maybe the place was only designed to last thirty years and that was before you counted the years shaved off by subpar materials.

So yeah Id seen plenty of buildings fall apart.

Never seen it happen from the inside in first person though.

Fuck fuck fuck, I swore as the floor started to tilt.

Office shit went flying, desks crashed down and chairs with those little wheels at the bottom went sailing across the room.

I half-turned and planted a foot onto an exterior wall. The building was tipping towards the street below. The chairs and desks crashing around me eventually lost their momentum or hooked onto something, so the din in the room stilled.

The cacophony outside though, didnt. A glance out the window showed blackened marks and craters punched into the road where a liberal application of heavy ordnance had rained down.

The aliens had been pushed back a bit, but then so had some of my defences. Most of the garrote grenades were destroyed and I didnt see any of my acid sprayers left.

The aliens regrouped and resumed their charge, this time meeting a lot less resistance.

Dammit! Myalis, can you tell whoever aimed that last volley that Im going to kick their ass? We need to reset the defences.

Message sent.

Right, thanks, I said. I paused as the building creaked. A building this big tilting wasnt good, but maybe whoever had built the place knew what they were doing because it seemed to be holding.

Catherine! Incoming volley!

Are you seri--

Explosions rained down across the street, shells rammed into some of the buildings across from us, shrapnel and glass raining down in a cascade atop the aliens below. Then I heard something punch through the ceiling.

I spun and saw a hole the size of my head missing in the middle of the office.

Whatever had punched that hole went off and a gout of dust poured out into the office. I was blind, dust and smoke robbing me of sight.

The floor fell out from under me, and I swore as I tumbled. Everything was moving in different directions, and for a panicked moment, all I could do was be rag-dolled around. Even with my armour, the breath was blown out of me as I was thrown about.

Metal screamed and glass shattered. I think the building just decided to give up and crashed down onto the street.

I hit something hard and it shifted beneath me. Then all my fighting and rolling around was stopped. A pressure grabbed onto my mechanical arm and didnt let go.

Everything ended in a single, final boom that rattled my head.

I shifted, then sat up. There was barely enough room for that.

Myalis, I want to get out of this hole.

Are you certain? Its actually relatively safe.

Are you kidding me?

If youre going to purchase new limbs and new armour, then it makes sense to do so from a place of relative safety.

Just get me out of this hole!

I closed my eyes and leaned back, head clunking against the cement behind me.

Sorry, I muttered.

No apology is necessary.

The ground shook a little, and I almost screamed, but the building held.

Just artillery hitting nearby. Now, as for options to remove yourself from this location, might I suggest a short-range wormhole bomb? There are several other options, but this seems like the cheapest and most expedient. It is also relatively safe.

I dont know, the words wormhole and bomb put together dont sound... safe. At all.

I can guarantee its safety, if that helps.

And if youre wrong? I asked.

Then youll be too dead to make a complaint.

I felt like that deserved a laugh, but what escaped wasnt quite that. I sniffed. Okay, okay, lets do that.

New Purchase: M.I.C.E. Bomb

Points Reduced to... 35,742

Mice bomb, really? Whats that one mean? I asked as a box landed on my chest.

Micro-scale Intralocation Cat Extractor

I paused. You really dove deep for that one, I said. The box had a cylinder in it with a switch. That was it. Not even a pin to pull, or options to toggle. I shrugged, suppressed the weird feeling from my right side at the motion, then flicked the switch.

I was in mid-air.

That didnt last long.

I crashed down, fortunately only a couple of centimetres, and winced as cement and rebar rained down around me. I was back on the street, or above it and the building I had been on. Did that teleport me a few metres straight up?

Okay, I said. It was immensely easier to breathe without the metaphorical weight of a building atop me.

Unfortunately, being up here meant that I didnt have a building between me and the beasties.

Ah, fuck, I muttered.

***