(Rewritten) Ch. 7 – Attention Finder

"There's always that one step too far. The one that twists your ankle. Or maybe your nose says hello to the fist. Or your rib to the elbow.

Or maybe your foot explodes. Just one step too far."

– Road Rash to his Twitch Chat, during post-incursion cleanup on Twitch after he accidentally blew up his foot with his own sensor mine while trying to locate said mine, December 2053

***

Finished with the extra cartridges, I opened my condo's door and stepped back inside. There was a sort-of-sweet, chemical smell and I rubbed my nose.

Somebody leave a kookiepak plugged in? 'S probably simmered into a soup, by now. Yuck.

I decided to cross the condo's ground floor and run down the strip, see if I couldn't find a better place to start shooting from.

The moment I moved past the stairs leading up, a blur of tentacles slapped and stabbed at me, my overall turning solid all over my front. I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass.

Heart beating out of my chest I screamed, "SPRAY!", at the Sentinel and yanked the trigger. It whined as an absolute rain of balls rammed into the forest of tentacles in front of me. Hundreds of brass and steel balls shore off tentacles like hurricane winds ripping up grass. Tentacle knife-tips flicked away like thrown daggers and embedded themselves in the walls, floor and ceiling.

The body of a Four revealed itself, and it was too massive to be moved by the brass hail. One of its legs cracked and bent backwards. Dozens of little impact holes bleed green pus. It started stumbling towards me.

I scrambled backwards, until my back hit the door and the Sentinel whined an alarm at me that it was empty. Breathing fast, I fumbled for the Foxteeth and got it pointed at the model Four's brain case hidden at the base of its nest of tentacles, and shot bullet after bullet until it finally keeled over sideways.

A Three squeezed past its body and my sidearm clicked empty just as the beast jumped at my face. Lightning sent a frisson through my spine with the hollow ding and my eyes went wide. A weird half-scream, half-laugh escaped me as I twisted my head to the side and kicked the canoid alien in the belly. There was a weird, fleshy tearing sound. I couldn't tell if it was from the thing or from my messed up leg. It sounded painful, though.

It flew high and its jaws crashed with an ugly crunch into the door's metal just above me and left a dent and a scar in the black paint. I grabbed its neck and whirled around to crush it into the floor with my weight when it fell onto me, still scrabbling to bite me with its mangled teeth.

My overall blocked the claws on its feet as I smashed my Sleeve-empowered fist into the side of its head over and over again. Every strike tore a grunt from me, louder and louder, until I cracked its skull with a yell. Another two strikes and I'd broken through and embedded my hand in green mulch and the creature finally, finally stopped moving.

Then, breathing hard, I just sat back and stared. The sweet smell from the kookiepak was giving me a headache.

Aden, you're safe, but your face remains exposed. You were very lucky the Four attacked your center of mass, not your head. May I suggest a helmet?

Tynea's voice shook me out of it and helped me focus again. I turned around once more and went back out onto the familiar road.

"Yeah. Yeah. Let me just… Any offers?"

A cheap mask might suffice as your overall has an armored hood. But a helmet would be better to protect your fragile brain.

"I'm not going to skimp on this. Actually, do you have one that can see Antithesis from around corners or through walls?"

I do have helmets that can acoustically sound out a room, but dedicated scouting gear would perform far better and render you safer. Drones, E-War software packages in your current augs to hack surveillance cameras, communication devices, upgrades for your senses, et cetera. Tools that act beyond immediate ranges. I'd suggest drones suited to your urban environment.

And for personal defense there's an interesting helmet with basic acoustic, close-range scouting abilities that combines direct protection via armor plus smart gels to absorb impacts, with small, spatially locked shaped charges that displace themselves into the path of hostile projectiles. These are powerful enough to counteract the kinetic energy of anything up to and including handheld cannons. The magazine holds twenty charges..

"That sounds like the explosive reactive armor used by tanks, doesn't it? And what's spatially locked mean?"

The explosive will not impart momentum on itself. In other words, it won't smack you in the face just because it exploded right in front of you.

My eyebrows jumped a little.

"That's…not Earth tech, alright."

Yes, esoteric recoil management systems are still a bit beyond humanity. These come from the Class I Esoteric Defensive Systems catalog that you'd unlock in the process.

"Mm…"

I rubbed my nose again. The simmering cookie smell was getting to be distracting.

Time to move.

I went to get up and my eye fell onto the mangled front of the Four. I froze.

Right. Four. Sweet smell. Fours make weak hallucinogenic gasses. Too weak to affect humans, but it'll cause migraines eventually.

"Say, does the helmet come with a gas mask?"

It does create a seal and filters the air you breathe, but it has no oxygen tanks against suffocation. This helmet can't parse scents, so you would not be able to smell your surroundings after filtration, either.

"I think that's fine. Yeah, let's just make sure I don't die. And I'll try those javelins with the bombs. Enough creepers out there to get the points back."

I've selected a javelin with the Antithesis pods' destruction in mind, as well as a cheap targeting visor to use its directed-flight capabilities. It goes beneath your helmet and you'll want to equip it first of all.

Unlocked: Class I Basic Cyber Warfare Utilities, 100 ptsUnlocked: Class I Auxiliary Weapon Utilities, 50 ptsUnlocked: Class I Remote-Controlled Rocket-Powered Javelins, 100 ptsUnlocked: Class I Esoteric Single-Use Explosive Devices, 50 ptsUnlocked: Class I Basic Stealth Systems, 100 ptsUnlocked: Class I Basic Drones, 50 ptsUnlocked: Class I Esoteric Defensive Systems, 200 ptsTotal cost: 650 pts

1x Mark II 'Efficiency' Decryption Protocol, 40 pts1x Mark II 'Fire'n'Forget' Targeting Visor, 20 pts1x Farstrike Javelin, 25 pts2x Small High-Explosive Bomb, 10 pts total1x Mark I 'Scout's Quartet' Jumping Drones, Case of 4, 100 pts1x Mark V 'Paragon' Personal Protection, 100 pts1x Spatially Locked Reactive Explosives, Magazine of 20, 10 ptsTotal cost: 305Combined total cost: 955Remaining points: 548

"Ah, the additional costs of the unlocks, of course. Forgot about those. Also, wanna try bullet points next time?" I said as a load of boxes materialized around me.

Certainly, Aden.

I've already installed the decryption protocol and there are several model Four accompanied by dozens of model Three heading in your direction. I believe they've recognized you as enough of a threat to react.

"Oh crap, how long do I have?"

Roughly one minute. Eleven until the hallucinogenic gasses would grow concentrated enough to pose a problem.

I got busy throwing open all the boxes. The helmet was all black, and glossy smooth. It had no faceplate to see though, but a few camera lenses where my eyes would be and turning it upside down revealed an already active display on the inside.

I put it aside and picked up the targeting visor instead. Two wires with small balls of skin-colored, soft material at the ends, and a section of flexible, clear rubber—roughly as long as my face was wide—suspended between the wires.

Place the sheet in front of your eyes, then push the foam balls towards your skin.

The balls sucked themselves onto my skin as soon as they touched it, and the wires changed shape to stretch the visor and match it to my facial contours. The whole thing lay so close to my skin that I couldn't tug it away.

Satisfied, I took the helmet. It readied itself by softening its neck and I could easily recognize the magazine Tynea had talked about attached to the outside at the neck. After a quick look around I lowered my armored hood and shoved the helmet on. Already feel much better with this thing around my skull.

Much like the visor, its insides also fitted themselves to me and the display showed everything in fine detail. The sweet smell of the Four's gas faded and visual pings highlighted every source of sound. The entire screen went haywire when the echo of my overall scraping against itself jumped across the room.

"Uff."

One source of headaches gone, another gained. Great.

"That's a bit much. Tynea, can you handle the visuals?"

Yes, I'll take care of it.

"Thank you."

The next box contained the scouts. I put the case on the floor and before I could touch them, all four drones unfolded eight legs each and jumped and stuck to the ceiling. I looked at the mechanical spiders as they hung there for a moment. Before I could even say anything, they scuttled and leapt away into the depths of the condo. One went up the stairs, another moved to the opposite exit, and the other two spread out on the ground floor.

Four tiny screens shifted across my visor, relative to the position of each drone to me, showing what they saw. "Condo's still clear so far and the hud's getting a little cluttered. But it'll probably save my ass…"

The extra magazine for the helmet, a u-shaped thing that was large enough to slot around my neck, got strapped over my shoulder with a few handy straps of velcro.

A few more boxes to go.

Two with bombs, dial for timer, button to activate, obviously labeled.

The javelin. A stick not quite as long as I was tall, with a well-shaped grip right in the center. Two slots for payloads, one at each end of the grip. The flying spear had piercing blades at the tips, each as long as my hand. There wasn't a clear front or back end to the thing, nor did the handle indicate which way to throw it.

As I picked it up, clusters of small rocket engines just below the blades gave small burps of flame from both sides and in all directions.

You can give verbal commands to program the behavior of the javelin, to plan when or where to drop the payloads, to abort and return, to change targets, and more. Touch the bombs to the slots.

I did so and found that the metal flowed around the bombs to create a bulbous cage.

It's ready. Look at a target and say 'target', then throw. The javelin can travel up to a thousand meters with its current payload, but these high-explosive bombs would break the weapon if detonated within its cradles. The Class I Esoteric Single-Use Explosive Devices catalog contains payloads that would not damage it, if required.

"Where's the closest group of Antithesis?"

Inside the house to the right of your condo's exit to the shopping strip.

Tynea highlighted one of the drones' monitors.

Close. I looked at the model Four surrounded by a dozen model Threes and said, "Target." A white diamond appeared around it, with a white javelin logo at the bottom. I recognized the iconography from the Sentinel.

I stepped out onto the street where I'd fallen earlier. Looking at the spot still sent a shiver through me and cold sweat covering my back. I forced myself to focus on the mission.

"I'll toss the javelin straight up. I want it to fly over the condo and break through the window of the room the target is heading to. Wait for commands there."

I hefted the javelin experimentally and threw it. It wobbled badly, stabilized with a puff of rocket engines, then the three bottom-facing ones lit up and it shot upwards at an arc to clear the condo. I grinned as I saw it drop down on the other side of the building in the display of the drone at the exit. The stick reoriented, and dove through a window. It instantly arrested its momentum and just hovered there on jets of flame.

"That's pretty fucking awesome, Tynea. Real samurai stuff. Are there any people in blast range?"

No, none I could find. Not even any communication devices.

"Activate one bomb with a five second timer, drop it, then return."

I saw one of the cages shift and drop its package. The javelin corrected with a wobble and shot back out onto the street and over the condo. It dropped right next to me and stood on its tip, tiny puffs from its top thrusters keeping it upright. I admired the simple elegance in its control.

I've taken the liberty to correct that command. The javelin would have activated the bomb, waited five seconds to drop it, and then attempted to return as it blew up.

I cursed.

Of course. Fucking algorithm logic.

Should've known better considering my job and all.

The bomb's countdown hit zero just as the Antithesis entered the room. The screen went white and my point counter went up 150 points. The front of that room blew out onto the street, and after the dust settled a bit, I could see that every wall in there had suffered damage. Bits of Antithesis plant matter everywhere.

It rather made me smile.

"Next group?"

Here.

Other side of the street, in another house.

"People?"

None.

"I don't really want to be busy debugging commands in the middle of fighting. Can I trust you to take care of that?"

Of course, I'd love to.

"That's good, thanks."

You're welcome. I'll get to train my prediction algorithms.

"Sounds fun? I guess? Anyways, I basically just want the same again. Toss it up, maneuver one room over, drop the bomb with a timer, escape, murder a bunch of aliens."

Very concise. Will do.

I chucked the javelin, almost as badly, and watched it go. Just as before, the javelin poked itself through a window and hovered there. Unlike before it didn't immediately drop the bomb. It wasn't until they saw the javelin that it went through its sequence and escaped. The model Four reached for the bomb with a tentacle and drew it in. That's when it went boom.

I laughed. "Nice. Loved the, uh, statement. Thanks, Tynea."

I'm pleased to help.

Smiling, I thought about my next steps. I had my guns, but I also had bombs and a fun little delivery system.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't be using high-explosives inside houses?

***