Chapter Fourteen - Curiosity

    Chapter Fourteen - Curiosity

    The biggest problem with the Antithesis.... No, okay, not the biggest, the biggest is that they wont bloody well leave us alone. The biggest problem with fighting them is that the damned things cant stick to one form. One day youre fighting a horde of quick-moving but weak Model Threes. The next day youre getting swamped by Model Sixs that shrug off small arms fire as if your bullets are little more than flies.

    I hate being deployed against aliens. Let me mow down a crowd of crying protestors any day.

    -- Paul Rod Roberick. First Lieutenant, The Rubbernecks, a North American PMC, late 2051

    ***

    I edged closer to the doorway, then pulled it open with the tip of my foot. My hand was still firmly wrapped around my gun, barrel pointing down, but ready to snap up at a moments notice.

    The body wasnt fresh. At least, I didnt think it was from the one glance I gave it before focusing elsewhere. The man might have been with the other group of students and kids, or he might have been some poor schmuck that was minding his own business with something decided to eat his face.

    I wasnt gonna poke around and try to find out.

    The short passage just beyond the door led into a concourse, shops lined up one next to each other on the side I was on, and huge glass panes overlooking the city on the other. At least, they might have overlooked the city once, now they just gave a nice view of the dull off-grey building across the street.Re?Ad lateSt chapters at novelhall.com Only

    Gonna get lost around here, I said.

    I can guide you, though only with middling accuracy. Id suggest a neural augmentation to assist you with pathfinding, but you are far too poor for that.

    Story of my life, I muttered as I carefully stepped over the body.

    Turn right ahead, then right again into the next junction like the one you are in now. That should lead you to the next stairwell down.

    The rattle of machine guns sounded out in the distance, a counterpoint to the eerie silence of so many monsters that didnt so much as growl. The AA guns had gone silent. A look up showed one of them sticking out of a cache in the ceiling of a smaller building. It was half melted, a large flying model perched atop it.

    Those are lesser models. They will scour the region for biological materials to bring back to any forming hive, scouting through buildings and marking them with pheromones to warn other models of the threat within.

    These all came in those ships?

    Calling them ships is perhaps something of a misnomer. But essentially yes. Soon these relatively harmless models will range out towards the unconquered parts of the city. Your time is running out.

    A rumble from further down the corridor had me pausing. The concourse turned as it reached the corner of the building, the last shop in the line some Aug-gear store with more floor space than items for sale.

    I eyed the passage to the stairwell, then the end of the corridor.

    If we were going to pass here with the kids, it was best to find out sooner than later.

    Your curiosity is, pardon the pun, rather curious.

    Whys that? I whispered.

    You initially seemed dead-set on accomplishing your goal, but now youre going off track because you heard an interesting sound. Im curious, is my Vanguard easily distracted?

    Dont you have a profile on me? I asked. I was pretty sure half the companies out there had one. It was pretty common to walk into a store and only have the kind of stuff youd want shoved into your face. Or at least, what some algorithm suspected you wanted.

    Profiles do not tell the full picture.

    I wasnt going to argue with that. Especially now when, after crouching down to make myself harder to spot, I looked around the corner and saw a pair of model threes standing next to a black and green snake-thing the size of a bus.