(Rewritten) Ch. 6 – Point Farm

"Nests usually double their count of units every twenty-four hours, all while still growing and producing ever more complex units. From hundreds to thousands to ten thousands.

Drop pods are a whole lot faster, but make smaller and weaker Antithesis. They're created from fruit-blisters instead of the supportive sacs that full nests use. Even the pod itself don't have the structural integrity of a proper hive. It's entirely specialized in growing lots and growing fast. Fast-grown model Threes are still perfectly capable of killing civilians and dragging their corpses back to the digestion pools, yeah?

Damn pods practically flood everything with Ones and Threes. And after about half an hour, even Fours. Small and weak ones, but hordes of them.

Good points."

– Road Rash, when asked for advice about farming points by a new samurai, 2030

***

I got up, turned around, opened the door, and looked.

I could see the edge of the roof. My hands went clammy. I focused on keeping my breathing even, trying to stay calm.

For the Grand Plan.

To distract myself, I tilted my head back and noticed that a rare break in the gray clouds let a few sunrays through. I giggled, sweating nervously. Part of me wanted to do a Y-pose and yell "Praise the Sun!" for no reason at all except that it was stupid and random.

I could see swarms of model Ones spread across the town, flitting back and forth in huge clusters that looked magical as they dove through the faint rays, in an apocalyptic kinda way. I sat down, lifted my rifle and asked, "How do I kill those swarms fast?"

Your scope will analyze all targets in its view and range, and indicate with symbols representing which of your weapons to fire. It will guide the bullets, even through multiple targets per bullet if that's applicable. Touch your Foxteeth Model D to the scope while having guided bullets loaded to add it to its controls.

I put the rifle across my knees and emptied my cheaper sidearm. Loaded it up with the guided nine millimeter Parabellum.

After picking up the rifle again, I touched the handgun to the side of the scope, and looked through its optics.

It shifted its weight along the rail to better accommodate my half-assed, one-handed stance and unfurled a soft fabric to cover my eye from light. Through the lenses I could see hundreds of little red diamonds and watched as dozens lit up in green, blue, and yellow. I saw three symbols along the bottom and recognized the outlines of the Sentinel in green, the rifle in blue, and the Foxteeth in yellow.

Thank fuck I'm not color blind.

I pulled all the triggers, and the world went white as dozens of smokey lines jumped, twisted, and bent through the sky.

"WHOOO! Holy shit!" I yelled as I watched a veritable rain of shredded fake-pigeon bodies splatter the roofs around me. My lips stretched with a mad grin and my heart beat faster.

The rifle rattled and shook in my hands, but as the Sentinel figured out how to shift along the rail and use its own mass, recoil, and unusual leverage from atop the weapon to dampen that of the larger gun, the kicks lightened into a much smoother rhythm.

I thought the Foxteeth got only two kills with that one bullet, but the rifle ripped through at least five model Ones. The Sentinel took no prisoners, and sixty rounds killed at least twice that many fliers as I kept the trigger triggered.

There was some quick flickering between the Sentinel and the Foxteeth, too fast for my eyes to follow, and then it beeped.

"What was that?"

The Sentinel has grabbed what spent brass it could and is currently recycling it. The scope is also calibrated to the rifle appropriately, now.

"I see…"

The scope showed a timer in the bottom right counting down, and a number next to it counting up. It would apparently take about a minute to recover all the spent ammunition, but I could already send a few rounds if I wanted to.

There were still a bunch of diamonds constantly updating themselves in the colors of the Foxteeth and the rifle, so I kept shooting those, and watched as the Sentinel switched the magazine of my rifle for a new one on the fly.

The Sentinel changed the bullet's trajectories in real time as better chains of targets showed up. Even if I had to slow down my firing drastically as the number of available targets and opportune trajectories decreased, I cleared most of the Antithesis from the skies near me in a very short time.

Hundreds of them.

"Amazing," I whispered. "Vanguard power, huh?"

I eyed the few remaining Ones and considered spraying them down with the recycled rounds.

Nah…gotta resupply. No more mags, and only a bunch of recycled rounds… Yeah. Better keep those until I've got backups again.

As I retreated back into the staircase to reload, Tynea showed me my kills:

Targets Eliminated x420!Foxteeth: 33 rounds fired, 60 kills over 16 seconds!Sentinel: 60 rounds fired, 180 kills over 5 seconds!Rifle: 60 rounds fired, 180 kills over 43 seconds!New point total…493!

"Okay, wow. What the hell? So many points so quickly?"

There aren't many aerial units in range anymore. Another killing spree like it would require a lot more effort—though you'd get several thousand points, considering your targets would be sturdier, land-based units.

"I guess the smart targeting has proven its worth? Extracting maximum value from each projectile, and all. How does the guidance work on the bullets? The cartridges in the magazine looked no different."

The brass at the rear of the bullet is partially replaced by a malleable metal, which is shaped into aerodynamically effective forms via electrical impulses to adjust trajectory.

"Hmm. Doesn't that increase drag and thus reduce penetration, though?"

Yes, but improved impact placement and angle more than make up for that.

"I see."

Model Ones are usually barely worth the ammo, if you buy it from me directly.

"Oh?"

The right purchases will allow you to print your own ammunition. That setup costs a lot initially, but it'll be cheaper in the long run.

"That makes sense, yeah… We'll sort that stuff out after I've had my transformation, though."

Understood.

"Hmm. Almost five hundred points…"

I could see myself getting many more points than I needed today.

Aden, you have access to four different types of bullet now. The guided versions, your old 7.62, and the nine millimeter Parabellum. You could feed all dumb versions to the Sentinel and use voice commands to choose between them at will.

"That's probably a good idea," I thought aloud, "if I don't wanna have to switch manually while running from Antithesis. Tynea, worth going downstairs again and gathering up my old bullets?"

No, you'd make more points spending that time killing Antithesis than you'd save.

"Gotcha. Could you get me some ammo please? Same as before for the Foxteeth, but get me a lot more for the rifle and the Sentinel. Also, I'd like to test a magazine of those hypersonic bullets, and another with some random stuff to see what I can do."

Certainly.

2x 9x19mm Guided Parabellum, Magazine of 33, 2pts total8x 7.62x39mm Guided FMJ, Magazine of 30, 8 pts total1x 7.62x39mm Guided HSRP, Magazine of 10, 2 pts1x 7.62x39mm Various, Magazine of 10, 5 ptsPoints left: 479

"Oh, that's quite the difference in points. Five for one mag? Why? And HSRP? What's that mean?"

HSRP stands for hypersonic rocket-propelled, they accelerate just as they hit the target. That will effectively disintegrate both the bullet and the target. The microtized rocketry is considerably more expensive to produce than the more basic guided bullets.

The last magazine contains ten esoteric bullets, all dumb-fire to display their fullest effect with maximized payloads. I will name each as they are chambered. If you like them enough, it might be worth it to buy an even more specialized esoteric ammunitions catalog.

"Huh. Gotcha. I'll consider it."

I began unpacking the new boxes and fed four of the fresh FMJ magazines to the Sentinel. It bloated itself again with rounds and the consumed magazine steel. Another four FMJ magazines were designated for the rifle, and finally I took both of the smaller magazines and laid them flat. One had 'HSRP' printed on it, and the other 'Various'.

Figure I'll use the HSRP against something tougher than a model Three, won't I? Those are gonna appear at some point too…

I put it in a pocket and let the overall contract around it.

The other magazine I immediately loaded the rifle with and chambered the first round, and as she'd promised, Tynea informed me what it was and what it did:

Extremely wide-angle Camera. Good for a quick snapshot across the battlefield. Useless for sustained observation. Fragile, do not use offensively.

"Oh, handy. But probably not helpful for guidance data, huh?

They can be if you mix multiple into a magazine. Use them when any local surveillance is down or otherwise unreliable, or when you need an extremely fast scout.

Nodding, I got up and stepped outside through the doorway. I once again looked at the edge of the roof with trepidation. My heart palpitated uncomfortably and the cold sweat started up again.

My finger went back in the divot.

I froze. My breathing stopped for a second. The divot wasn't right.

I looked down at it hurriedly, and couldn't see the difference. But I could certainly feel it.

Then I almost slapped myself.

You're wearing the Sleeve, fool. Of course it's different.

I gave the rifle one more visual once-over, then closed my eyes and just…breathed.

You want those points, Aden, I reminded myself. Need them for the Grand Plan, bitch. Keep it together. Just a little longer.

Shivering, I slowly stepped forward as more and more of the shopping strip came into sight.

There was a respectable mass of the black and green dog-like Threes near the rope thingy, but they seemed to be streaming directly away from me, towards the big city. I could see lots of flashes of gunfire from there.

Tynea spoke up again.

The Antithesis will head wherever they face the most resistance. They equate threat with biomass. Your actions earlier may have saved several people, but it seems samurai in New Montreal are causing a lot more trouble.

I thought about that a little and wondered if I should try to move over there.

Eh. Kill Antithesis here or there, makes no difference, does it? And anyway, I got new bullets to test… Extremely wide-angle on the camera, was it?

I lifted the rifle to about forty-five degrees, in the direction of the long bridge the aliens were crossing, and popped the trigger. The first round went flying, and the Sentinel automatically racked the bolt to chamber the next testing round.

Fragmentation. Small area of effect will kill tiny groups of weak units.

"Gotcha. And what's the camera show?" I asked while I sent the frag-shell at a random model Three in the middle of the crowd.

A small explosion cratered the side of the thing and sent it tumbling hard enough to break bones, but didn't quite kill it.

Probably bleed out and die very quickly, though… After it manages to crawl up to one more civvie and bite them, or something.

The models around it suffered a bunch of minor injuries and lacerations, but only one got hit in the head and fell to the shrapnel.

"Don't bother with the fragmentation at this caliber, that was anemic."

Target Eliminated, 10 pts!New point total… 489!

Tynea acknowledged and played the recording of the previous round's camera on my augs in slow motion.

I almost puked.

"Urgh, that's horrible, nauseating. Can you, I don't know, simulate it so that I can see it as if I were the bullet, but at normal human viewing angles, instead of the weird fish lensing?"

Sure, but first, please take care with the current round in your rifle. It contains a tiny swarm of short-life nanites. They deconstruct any organic matter within roughly half a meter of the impact site, over the course of ten minutes. Do not aim near non-targets. Use protective gear to approach active swarms. The following round will discharge a powerful pulse of electricity on impact, which may be used to destroy the nanites ahead of their scheduled shutdown.

"Understood."

Then, please allow me to play the scout bullet's telemetry.

A normal-looking picture popped up in my augs, entirely free of vomit-inducing camera angles.

"Much better. Thank you."

You're welcome. Please try moving a little.

I did, and it panned around as I turned and shifted. I found that I traveled along the timeline of the bullet as I walked a few steps back and forth. Tilting my head to look at my feet, I got a nice view of the masses of aliens running along the other end of the strip, through alleys, and even through houses. I saw dead Antithesis and human corpses being dragged into both ends of the rope.

Fresh biomass, huh? Also looks like the ropes are like three times longer. And sinking into the ground here and there.

Burrowing, or just damage from their crashing down? The snapshot didn't really show enough motion to say.

"Tynea, say, can I destroy those drop ropes somehow?"

If you bought one of the Class I Explosive Devices catalogs, as well as a bomb-sized delivery system.

"Uh…like what?"

Class I Rocket-Powered Javelins, perhaps? They're primarily thrown weapons, but their size offers space for enhanced capabilities. Beyond serving as weapons, they could be made to carry up to four grenades, or two small bombs, for example.

You would need a personal targeting augmentation, though, to control the flight of a javelin remotely. The Sentinel is not designed to work with these weapons.

"And how much does that all cost?"

Most of the points you just gained.

"Shit, maybe? Not yet. There's plenty of aliens to kill here. Let me just…farm points until I can do the transformation, yeah? Or at least until I'm comfortable investing in something one of those older, stronger samurai is gonna do anyway."

Very well.

"Oh, and don't bother with the target elimination messages please. Just show me my current points in the top right corner?"

A green 489 blinked in the specified corner.

Like this?

I smiled. "Yeah, that's good."

Hmm… I'm gonna be fighting more Antithesis and hopefully saving people. Who might be injured, too…

"Tynea, please subtract one hundred points as my medical emergency fund. If I ever dip into it, paint the value in red. And…another twenty above that for ammunition, and make it yellow if I dip into it. Anything beyond, keep it green and show me how much I have to play with."

The helpful AI complied, and my augs displayed a 368 in green.

"Yeah, like that. Thanks."

You're welcome.

I had to smile again at her happy tone, and decided to engage her a little more personally.

"Say, Tynea, where does your name come from? And why do you sound the way you do?" I asked as I lined the Sentinel up on the model Threes.

They were running away from me and towards New Montreal, and I waited for a bunch of diamonds to light up in the scope, before I let her rip. From this angle I got no multi-kills as the trajectories had to curve from above to hit their heads. A bunch of the hits weren't lethal at all.

Twenty seconds later, I had 900 points. I was a little stunned at the result, but Tynea's voice shook me out of it.

My name is randomly generated, but adheres to human sensibilities for enjoyable syllable-chains. My gender and voice were based on the profile I had of you. It seemed that what I could see of your past would have resulted in a preference for a female with gentle, perhaps even affectionate tones. I kept a degree of professionalism instead of affection to avoid sounding…invasive. I can change if you would prefer me to.

I rubbed my nose and scraped the skin on the tip of it with the rough fabric of the overall. Oops.

"No no, that'd seem wrong of me, somehow. I guess you had to have that profile to determine whether I should be a Vanguard? You said something like that earlier. Also, I need magazines, just the normal guided ones. Please gimme one whenever the Sentinel runs out, yeah?"

Understood.

I checked the invasion timer and was surprised to read only thirty-five minutes on it. Things seemed so dense, so fast, that I'd completely lost sense of how much, or rather, how little time had actually passed.

I…just kept firing and reloaded the Sentinel occasionally. Weirdly enough, it'd already become a little routine. Might have had something to do with trying hard to forget about being up on a roof.

I had a profile indeed. It was created by analyzing your online presence, as well as a variety of other items. Work ethic, family circumstances, that kind of thing. We use them to make sure no candidate would be the end of your species one day.

"Thorough, huh? I guess privacy is merely a novel concept these days. Although, I wonder why you aren't hunting down the Antithesis yourselves, what with all your superior technology?"

More dead model Threes, for around a thousand five hundred points. I had a feeling I should travel closer to the masses to up my efficiency, so I decided to get off the roof. Weight off my shoulders anyway.

We certainly do have the strength and capability to wipe out every last Antithesis in this solar system. Unfortunately, once they have chosen a target, they never stop attacking it until all resistance is gone and all biomass appropriated. We would be forced to station a permanent fleet, which would be wasted between incursions. It's far more effective to let your species advance enough to repel them on your own, even the large ones. To be clear, you have not seen one of those. The full weight of a great incursion will match the mass of your moon.

That silenced me for a while. The idea was…too big. So big it was abstract and I couldn't quite grasp it. That itself scared me. The rate at which I was already getting points and the basic understanding of what I could already do with what little I had used, gained an entirely new shade.

"Does anybody know?"

We have made no secret of it. Every Vanguard asks, sooner or later. Vanguards have been warning governments for decades. We do not interfere in whether they share the knowledge or not. But it is known.

"Oh. I…didn't. I guess they're keeping it secret? I'm not sure if knowing would've changed anything. I'm not even sure I would've wanted to know… Do you…do you know when…?"

You have enough time to become much more powerful. There is no entirely stable pattern to these incursions, but we can guess. A larger difficulty is to predict how your species will continue to advance. Humanity is rather tenacious, but also chaotic, greedy, and self-serving to a destructive degree. It's difficult to say how things will end up.

I didn't know what to say to that, and decided that maybe I should just keep going. Worrying about something that I couldn't change?

Well. I knew exactly how that went, didn't I?

Feeling a little depressed, I hit the street and found a good three dozen loose cartridges to feed to the Sentinel. It started to look like a proper tower of top-heaviness.

***