Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Sixty-Nine - Nice

“If you’re going to kill a Samurai, you had better do it quick. If you’re not fast about it, then they’ll come right back at you, better armed and a whole lot more pissed off.

It is always easier to play around them than through. They are the queens on the chess board, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take out their pawns.”

--Professor Patterson, Military Historian, June 2029

***

The Model Eleven was, in a few words, one dead motherfucker.

In my pre-Samurai life, all of five hours ago, I had often wished that I could visit some bodily harm to some people and occasionally to some things. I’m pretty sure those were natural urges, the kind that didn’t fit well in a more-or-less civilised society.

But now I had a rocket launcher and every right to blow up the thing pissing me off.

I walked over to the nearest window overlooking the rain-slicked street and looked around for the gigantic alien. My new eye helped by circling the beast in a small but growing red circle. Growing because the bastard was flying right towards me.

I shouldered my new toy, letting the surprisingly comfortable resting pads shift onto my shoulders as I did a bit of mental math.

The alien was coming at me, making a shot fairly easy. There was a glass panel before me that would undoubtedly set off the rocket in my face if I fired into it. And the alien was carrying a car.

That last one had me blinking dumbly even as the Model Eleven swooped upwards with a flick of its just wings. Its claws tore themselves open through the carcass of a heavy-looking car, letting go of it just before the alien itself flew past above.

I said something that would have set Lucy’s ears on fire as I jumped away from the window and tried to sprint away.

The side of the bridge shook as half a ton of hover car rammed into and through it, sending glass and plaster and bits of wire flying all over. The lights in the bridge which had still been on flickered off at last and for a moment as everything shifted underfoot, I was afraid that this bridge would collapse too.

When the emergency lights at either end of the passage came on and bathed everything in a nice ominous red it was enough for me to see the nice big hole left in the side of the bridge, a hole plugged by an unshapely wreck of a car.

“Holy shit,” I said.

Models above the single digits tend to be either particularly dangerous, or hyper-specialized towards completing a single task exceptionally well. I would usually advise against facing one until you were better prepared, but I think you might be able to succeed here, though at fairly great risk.

I swallowed past my nerves and started to look around to see if I could spot the bastard through one of the windows. “Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t expect the car.”

Twin-digit Models tend to be a great deal more intelligent than their single-digit counterparts.

“You don’t say,” I said. The Model Eleven was circling around at the far end of the street, a big black speck against the grey-on-grey of the buildings there.

Indeed. When using the rocket launcher, pull the trigger to the halfway mark until the reticule locks onto the target. At the tone, pull the trigger all the way. The rocket has a gyroscopic turning system and enough maneuvering thrusters that even someone with your aim will hit a marked target.

At least I didn’t need to work hard to find a place from which to fire at the Model Eleven. It had opened up a nice big hole that I could stand in to aim.

I reshouldered the launcher, found the trigger set right where my index wanted to rest naturally, and aimed it as best I could towards the too-big bird.

A few panels opened up at the back of the tube at the same time as an overlay appeared in my vision. It had a large box with the words “Place Target Within” above it.

I shifted just a bit, then pulled the trigger back until I met some resistance. The box flashed, a smaller box appeared over the Model Elevel, then faded as it dipped beneath another passage only to return a moment later.

The resistance in the trigger disappeared and I pulled it all the way back.

The rocket came out of the tube with a dull ‘thwump’ and launched itself forwards all of three meters on a downwards arc.

For just a second I thought I’d messed something up, but then the rocket came to life with a roar and shot across the sky trailing a thick line of smoke.

The Model Eleven, the clever bastard, dipped to the side and behind one of the bridges in its path. I could just barely make out the crunch of it landing hard behind cover.

The rocket angled away from it, then its thruster stopped. The missile spun ninety degrees in mid-air then fired off sideways and into the Model Eleven just as it reappeared in my line of sight on the other side of the bridge.

The explosion--a ball of orange flames that could have swallowed a semi-trailer--was immensely satisfying.

Seeing the blackened and torn corpse of the Model Eleven falling to the ground and crashing atop an abandoned car was enjoyable enough to send shivers down my spine.

Target Eliminated!
Reward... 100 Points

I tossed the tube of the now-spent launcher aside. It would have been neat to carry it around, but it was a bit heavy and unwieldy to bring with me.

“That was the nastiest alien I’ve dealt with so far,” I said.

Model Elevens can be quite the threat. If the incursion lasts long enough they will begin to range farther out while carrying pods of Antithesis hive material. Eliminating this one was a job well done.

“Hmm,” I agreed. Then, because I deserved a break, I leaned against the nearest wall and took a moment to just breath and allow the adrenaline making a mess of my everything to just leak out. “We should go find Gomorrah,” I said.

I can connect to her AI and inform him that you’re still alive.

“Him?” I asked.

It chose to identify as masculine based on Gomorrah’s profile.

I blinked, noted that AIs could do as they pleased, and shoved off my resting place. Moving now that things weren’t exploding, falling, or both, was surprisingly hard. It was like the morning after a day at the gym, or a night spent stretching with Lucy. Everything was sore and some bits just plain hurt.

“I’m going to need some more healing,” I said as I started to make my way towards the door with all the vim and vigor of someone sixty years my senior.

I think at this point it would perhaps be wise to invest in some internal augmentations. There are ways to improve your musculature and to harden your skeleton. Not to mention replacing your organs with far superior versions.

“Going to replace my skull next?” I asked.

Your head is the only part of you that doesn’t need to be any harder than it is.

I chuckled until I realized that chuckling hurt. “I don’t know how keen I am on going full cyborg,” I said. “You got any... Baby’s First Cybernetic Augmentation package? You know, some entry level drugs?”

The augmentations you can purchase are hardly drugs. Merely improvements on your weak, squishy human body.

“We’ll see,” I said. “First I want to get back to Gomorrah, I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed that I didn’t bite it. And then we’ll figure things out from there.”

As you wish.

“Could use something for the soreness though,” I said.

You should consider yourself lucky that your last treatment of Nano Regeneratives is still running its course. It has been healing you as you go, albeit relatively slowly.

“Nice,” I said. “Any way to get some sort of auto-injector of some sort?”

I’m certain something can be worked out. You could also purchase an internal nano-machine factory that turns the food you consume into micro-machines that constantly repair your body. It’s relatively small, meant to sit just below your stomach.

“Sometimes you creep me out, you know,” I said.

Perhaps. Most Vanguard eventually adopt a few methods to prevent themselves from dying too easily. It is, as you may have noticed, a somewhat high-risk position to be in, even with all the advantages you obtain.

I thought about it, actually thought it through, while making my way over the bridge. If I passed away, the kittens would be in a bit of shit. I couldn’t afford to die just yet. “Yeah,” I said. “That might not be the worst idea.”