Book 2 - Chapter 37 - Overwatch

Not a hundred percent happy with this one... got it where I wanted in the end, but I don't feel like it flows like my normal stuff. May come back and work on it again later.

I knew the swarm outside the city was colossal, I’d see the satellite data and I could see the edge of the horde on the horizon, but I didn’t fully comprehend the full scale of the antithesis outside the city until Skyler and I reviewed the drone footage. Most of scout drones had been picked off by the flocks of Model Ones patrolling over the area, but enough snuck through to give us a view of the situation.

“How long have the drones been flying?” I asked quietly.

“More than ten minutes. In a straight line,” Skyler replied.

“And they haven’t reached the far side of the horde?” I whispered in awe. “How can they afford to just idle there? Don’t they need to eat?”

{Arty: Some of them do. Some, like the Model Ones and Model Threes, can't eat and just starve to death over a couple days.}

“Wait Model Threes can’t eat at all? How does that make sense?” Skyler asked.

{Athy: Since they’re designed to be disposable shock units, Model Threes don’t have digestive systems. It’s far more efficient for the Model Three to be born with enough internal energy stores to survive three days, then return to a hive and be recycled into something stronger, than it is to give them a digestive system. It not only cuts down on their required bulk, but ensures that new hives have a ready source of material to produce stronger models.}

“Then how are there still Model Threes in that ocean of antithesis out there,” Skyler grumbled. “That swarm has been building for almost a week now, they should have died off already.”

{Arty: The first wave has died off, unfortunately the antithesis seem to have deployed a large number of Model Twenty-Threes to keep their numbers up.}

“Keep their numbers up? How?” I asked. As soon as I asked, a section of the surveillance footage was flagged, and highlighted in my augs. When I pulled up the feed I found a small herd of huge, mishappen antithesis waddling through the swarm. They looked like massive bulbous grubs, the size of buses, waddling around on tiny legs. Their backs were a patchwork of blister-like contusions, that writhed and pulsed as they watched. The massive beasts were busy consuming a small pile of dead antithesis, stuffing their disturbingly human faces. After a couple seconds I saw one of the blisters explode, and a brand new Model Three slid out of the pus within.

{Athy: As you can see, the Model Twenty-Three isn’t a combat model, it’s a sort of mobile hive. It cannot produce very advanced models, the largest thing they can birth is a Model Six, but they can still produce enough to keep the swarm going for quite awhile.}

“There’s no way they can keep this up indefinitely though, right?” I asked.

{Arty: No, the antithesis still need energy to survive, so the larger models need to consume the smaller ones occasionally to survive, and the rebirthing process is not one to one, but the antithesis are quite efficient creatures and they can keep it up for quite awhile.}

Skyler frowned. “Then why don’t they attack? The swarm is slowly being whittled down by hit and run attacks from the military, the samurai, and even hunger, what’s holding them back?”

{Athy: The antithesis are extremely aggressive organisms, as you know, and the only reason they’d hold back on an all out frontal assault is if they had another, more efficient angle to attack from.}

“If they had a more efficient method to attack the city, why haven’t they used it yet?” I asked.

{Arty: We’re still running simulations, but unfortunately we still do not know.}

“Wonderful,” I grumbled. I pulled up the drone feed again. It was frustrating not having a clue exactly what sort of antithesis we were looking for, so I just tried to mark any models I couldn’t identify at a glance. 

After about half an hour of scouring the footage Skyler sat up straight, eyes wide. “Athyna can you pull up the satellite tracking data for the horde, and compare it to the current readings?” 

{Athy: Of course. Is there anything specific you want us to look for?}

“Is the horde moving? Or shrinking? I swear, the drone I’m monitoring crossed this area on its previous pass, and the area was full of antithesis.”

I frowned. “Are you sure it’s the same area?” 

Skyler nodded. “There’s an abandoned gas station, which makes a pretty good landmark. I swear it was absolutely crawling, now the antithesis are over fifty feet away.”

{Athy: We’ve compared the data, and you’re correct. The swarm’s circumference has shrunk five percent in the last hour.}

“Five percent? That must represent thousands of antithesis. They cannot be dying off that fast, can they?” I asked. 

{Arty: No, the antithesis’ are losing less than a percent of their forces a day.}

“Then where the fuck are they going?” I hissed.

“Can you analyse the swarms' movement patterns? Figure out where they’re all going?” Skyler asked.

{Arty: Done. It looks like most of the swarm is slowly migrating towards a location slightly north of the swarm’s center. Marking it on your map.}

“I’m going to redirect the closest drones, take a look at what they’re doing,” Skyler announced. 

As the drones zipped across the horde I took a closer look at the churning mass. When we were observing them earlier I’d written the antithesis’ movement as random wandering, but now that I was aware they were moving I could see them subtly shifting in one direction. The Model Ones were swarming around the central area, and they intercepted most of Skyler’s drones, but she managed to sneak a couple through.

Sitting at the center of the antithesis migration, was a crater. A large circular ridge of earth several hundred meters wide, and at the center the antithesis were pouring into a tunnel.

“What the fuck is this?” I hissed. “How’d they manage to dig a tunnel without anyone noticing?”

{Arty: It looks like they’ve been subtly moving earth away from this area for quite awhile. They’ve been dumping the excess in a wide area, which was nearly undetectable due to the sheer mass of the swarm.}

“Shouldn’t we have been able to see this from the satellite?” Skyler whispered.

{Athy: The scan is accurate enough to track individual models, but it doesn’t appear that anyone has been observing this area that closely.}

“It doesn’t matter how we missed it, what matters is figuring out where they’re going and putting a stop to them,” I growled. “We need to report this to Cascadian Command and The Family ASAP. Artymis, can you forward them this feed, along with the coordinates?”

{Arty: Already done!}

Skyler scowled. “But how do we track them? Who knows where that tunnel leads.”

“It looks like it leads towards the city, but they couldn’t have penetrated the walls, could they? There are seismic sensors built into the wall to detect this sort of shit?” 

“I don’t…”

[Warning: Antithesis have been detected in the subterranean canal systems. All citizens immediately report to the nearest shelter. All security personnel move to emergency positions. This is not a drill.]

“Shit! What the fuck?” I yelled as I sprinted for the truck. Despite my enhanced reflexes, Skyler was even faster than I was, and was already buckling her seatbelt when I jumped in.

“So much for those sensors,” she muttered. 

“Do you know how to get to the canal system? I’ve never been down there?” 

“I know the basics, we need to take an access lift to the utility levels. Most megacities have some sort of industrial, or slum area under their plates, but the cost of constantly pumping the seawater out of the lower levels was too high, so the government just let them flood. They use boats to do maintenance, hence the name,” Skyler explained. “Shit… my drones.”

“Leave them, we’ve already packed Howie and the others, we’ll replace the scouts later,” I said. “We really need to get back.”

Skyler grit her teeth and threw the truck into gear. “I’ll head to the nearest canal access point, hopefully we can get there fast enough to help contain the problem before the antithesis spread throughout the city.”

“Let’s hope,” I replied quietly.