Only my Railgun can make Skyrim Memes.

Only my Railgun can make Skyrim Memes.

The subway train sped toward the city. I (Blackjack Six) was sitting on a bench, watching the Kaiju advance through the telescope on the surface. Though it seemed to be nimble, the crystal Boboyote seemed to have been summoned to be a bodyguard to Jabberwock. It was pawing its way forward slowly, keeping the distance to the tentacle boss. But I was under no illusion it would speed up and destroy my FOB once it was sure its boss wouldn't become toast.

Scanning around, I noticed the area around Jabberwock was clear of Infernali. I hoped summoning the Boboyote had put his ability on a long cooldown that would take years to wear off. From what Marshall said, Jabberwock's horde was an issue on itself. Few people could kill hundreds of thousands of monsters. Heh, look at me, thinking I am people. Perhaps I was.

"We will need to evacuate Pitsmouth, won't we?" Marshall asked. He was sitting on the bench across the aisle from me.

I had run out of space in the LCD display.

"How fast can you build one of these subway trains going west?"

I had a better solution. The subway couldn't carry two hundred thousand people.

"No. Not at all. Jabberwock proved to be intelligent and able to summon specialized Infernali. If we hunker down and let it dominate the surface, it will find the right Infernali for the job and then we are screwed. Like that... Boboyote, you called him? That crystal monster. I bet he is immune to Light magic."

My lasers weren't magic but I gave up on explaining.

"What's the deal with Mr. Garfield Babbage? Is that your real name?"

I explained to him what it meant. Marshall laughed at me the rest of the ride.

*

*

I started a new business. Selling wagons and beasts of burden. I kid you not. People were desperate and Marshall suggested we did this to alleviate the pressure. If we gave people an out, the most vocal dissenters would take the chance and go out into the wilderness.

We were also selling the steel wagons pulled by two bison bulls for very cheap. A tenth of what it would sell for in a normal market. The demand skyrocketed.

You might ask, what of the Boboyote. I really don't want to talk about it. The two World Bosses are out there if that's enough.

No? Oh, well.

I tested the Boboyote's defenses with a salvo of cannon shells. It did fuck all. After the smoke passed, the Boboyote was not even chipped. Then the lasers. The Boboyote lit up like a blue Christmas tree, causing an aurora around it. Its crystal was too hard, its body was impervious to lasers.

Another FOB was coming live, thirty miles from the pit. In fifteen days, with the Kaiju in range, I wanted to test how it would react to Gauss cannons. The railgun project was about to become reality.

Meanwhile, I was spawning bison carts to sell and coding. Porting the Z80 to the 486 chipset took me a few days of work. I dismissed the chimpanzees, sending them to the savanna floor to live in peace. Or get eaten by lions. With my new Perks, I could code faster if I entered the programming trance.

From there I used the Norton book to implement the DOS and GUI OS. An application launcher and manager, and we were back to the nineties. And speaking of computers, I gave Marshall his Z80 machines.

My next project was the text-to-speech AI. I parsed thousands of audio files from both the people underground and the surface, footage from the surveillance cameras. The analysis software extracted the phonemes our language used. The AI didn't need to recognize the sounds, that would be a speech-to-text application. What I wanted was to mix the timbre and pitch and gain the ability to generate voices that belonged to nobody. Like that Japanese software that created the holographic singer, Hatsune Miku.

I watched as the impactors were slowly pushed out of his crystalline skin and dumped out, leaving spotless crystal behind. This meant that if I had any chance of defeating this Kaiju, I needed to deliver a Kaiju-sized amount of damage.

I Extended this FOB and Replicated a thousand railguns. Then I sank into my DM and SP reserves, burning 25,000 DM with each salvo. I had calculated the trajectories (using a computer!) to make sure the damn magnetic bullets wouldn't hit each other. I staggered the railguns to fire in groups, just like the cannon. Dozens, then hundreds of shots struck the Boboyote. Chunks of crystal cracked and fell off of his body. It howled in pain but didn't cause any special effect. I recalibrated the railguns to improve the precision of the shots. The crystal Kaiju dutifully kept its place as Jabberwock's meat shield. Crystal shield.

I didn't ask Marshall to make a raid group. I didn't want to give them false hope. Two lucky bullets struck the base of Boboyote's left ear. They punched through and a huge crack formed between the two holes. Boboyote shook its head and the ear broke off and fell three hundred feet down. The Kaiju spat a shower of shards into the air, taking the next salvo out. But then the next struck home. The cracks were more than his stunted regeneration could deal with. Chunks of its hindquarters crashed down.

Boboyote chafed and shook like a dog trying to get out of its leash. It scowled, showing his building-sized fangs, and glared forward with hatred in its eyes, which shone red. But I gave him zero respite and kept the railgun punishment. This fucker would go down, then its boss.

The damage to its hindquarters increased. Half of a leg cracked and crashed. Boboyote shifted its weight to compensate. Yes. Yes.

Jabberwock slapped a tentacle on the crystal Kaiju. Boboyote snapped and then it ran. Jabberwock stopped moving forward and suddenly the spot I had aimed all my rounds was empty. Freed by its master, the massive crystal monster started to run at about two hundred miles per hour. He would be upon the railguns in six minutes. I wasted one aiming them straight ahead.

Then I shot. Two hundred projectiles. Another salvo five seconds later. And another. Most grazed the dashing monster but a few struck its snout. It howled and slowed down to breathe more crystals and knock some bullets out of its way. But that allowed me to squeeze another salvo. Its right shoulder broke. And finally...

YES! YES!

One lucky shot struck its damaged hind leg right on the knee. The leg broke and the million-ton monster faltered. It limped and shifted its weight into its other legs. But it could no longer run. Now it was a sitting duck. A siting lame duck. Boboyote used to be a bad boss, but then it took... a railgun shell... to its knee.

The railguns sang their chorus of destruction. Whoomph, whoop, and the Boboyote went crash, smash, whimper. It crumbled into a pile of giant-sized crystal. As a last act of defiance, it howled. A red crystal in the center of its chest, now exposed, started to glow ominously. Even Jabberwock changed gears and backpedaled. Mana pulsed out with every beat of its crystalline heart. I felt a shiver ran up my spine (don't have one).

I think I should go. I jumped down from the tower and ran into the subway station. I dissolved the railguns on the surface, recouping some of the spent resources. I closed the surface access with Dungeon walls, knowing the station ahead satisfied the stupid requirement of having a path to my Core.

Boboyote went all Akira on us. A predator that carried a magical nuke with it. Pow.

The shockwave washed over the FOB even though it was eight miles away from the monster. It struck Pitsmouth walls and even tossed a few lazy wall guards who couldn't get a clue into buildings.

My observation tower was fine but the telescopes on top were yanked out of its supports and thrown away. A massive dust storm followed. The mushroom cloud rose.

Two hours later, it all settled down. No radioactive fallout. Jabberwock had covered itself with a shell made out of glowing hexagons but was otherwise fine. Shards and chunks of crystal dotted the land everywhere. A forest of crystals.

> For killing level 600 Boboyote, you gained 26,000 Experience points.

> You achieved a great feat! Your team killed a World Boss! You aren't in a team, raid, or party! You killed a world boss by yourself! Name your reward.

"I want all of NASA technical manuals, source code, and publications." I shouted right away at the system (no throat).

Should I have asked for Google's search cache? Damn. Now I feel bad. What about Wikipedia? Nah, too biased and whitewashed. I know, I should've asked for the library of Congress. Stanford's library. Maybe asking for NASA's data was stupid.

> You added 334,954 volumes to your library.

Meh, I'll take it.