Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Twenty-Four - Setting the Table

“It is imperative that any agent collecting resources after the passage of a samurai ensures themselves of being up to date with company data regarding that particular samurai.

Samurai that are known for using disposable weaponry might be the most valuable members to follow, but they also frequently use disposable explosives and traps, which can be harmful to those collecting abandoned equipment.”

--Coil Co. Mercenary outfit agent policy, 2034

***

I struck at the window with my elbow, wincing a bit at the loud shattering crunch that came from the glass bursting apart. “That should do it,” I muttered mostly to myself. I swiped my arm across a desk, tossing aside some loose documents and shit so that I had more room, then I backed up half a step. “Drop it,” I said.

A box plopped onto the table, then unfolded into a three-legged turret, with a plasma gun on the top of it which looked like little more than a barrel, some cooling pipes, and a small tank of whatever was used to make plasma.

There was also a cord sticking out of the bottom. I grabbed it, dropped to one knee, and plugged it into a wall socket.

This was the third home I’d broken into to install a turret. They were cheap, with no armour and only the most basic of firing and targeting systems, but as long as the power held out they’d be able to poke holes into passing antithesis, and that’s all I needed at the moment.

Install this next to the turret.

A box appeared next to me, and I caught it out of the air and broke it open. The explosive inside looked pretty simple. A stick of some sort of plastic with a detonator built into the end of it. I opened a drawer and tossed it in. Then the next explosive came, a resonator that I slapped onto the desk next to the turret.

“Time?”

Twelve minutes until the wave’s estimated arrival.

I didn’t have time to sit around and complain that I didn’t have time.

I’d been running around both sides of the highway, ducking under cars to place bombs down, tucking resonators between cement barriers and putting little disks of more traditional explosives across the road with a certain precise distance between them.

An alarm was ringing nonstop across the deserted street. I’d busted through the front of a car dealership across the road, and that had set off the place’s alarms. Myalis had encouraged me to place two fuel-air bombs inside the building, where the explosive gases would be contained by the glass walls.

Every pothole hid a bomb, turrets were placed under piles of trash with overlapping fields of fire, and I had punched some holes into the dry patches of grass on the roadsides and shoved even more explosives in those.

When everything went off, the entire highway would turn into a nightmare for anything plant-like.

“Next?” I asked as I scanned the road.

Garrote grenades, set four metres apart along both sides of the highway. If they’re the first obstacle the wave runs into, they’re likely to funnel in and avoid the edges of the road.

“Got it,” I said. The road was empty from this point on, with nothing but a few lights between the two lanes and a thin cement barrier on the edges. A chill wind slid past, tossing around some bawled-up burger wrappers and paper cups that scraped across the asphalt. It was too damned quiet.

I hopped over the fence on the edge of the road, then knelt down just as a box appeared by my side. I opened it, and placed the grenade down. Then half a dozen more grenades appeared on the ground next to me, with long sticks poking out of their bottoms to make it easier to pin them to the ground.

I grabbed the bunch and ran over to what I guessed was about three metres off and planted the next one.

You’re going to want to go to the other side of the road soon. Nine minutes until the wave arrives.

I cursed as I sprinted across the road, leapt the other barrier, then started planting more grenades while Myalis summoned even more of them for me to place. “Alright,” I said as I stood up. “Next?”

Too late. It seems as though the forward units of the wave have reached your position already.

My head snapped around and I stared down the length of the highway.

A group of model threes were barrelling down the road, claws scrambling for purchase on the asphalt and three-hinged jaws wide open to allow them to suck in more air. They were a good hundred metres away, but they were closing.

I couldn't see the rest of the wave past them, not with the slight curve in the road and a few buildings in the way. “Shit,” I muttered.

It might be time to return anyway. You’re down to only a hundred and thirty-two points.

I nodded, spun on my heel, then started down the highway again. The space I’d mined was maybe two hundred metres long from start to finish, ending right at the intersection where Jolly Monarch and the militia had set themselves up.

“Any bombs to place on the way?” I asked.

A few. I would suggest using pheromone traps. They give off a scent that will attract the antithesis into possible killbox locations. Additional explosives along the road might also distract or immobilise parts of the wave.

“Go for it,” I said.

Myalis summoned some explovies and I tossed them into potholes or into the shadow of abandoned cars I hadn’t already trapped.

I heard a scrambling behind me, getting closer and closer even as I continued to run.

“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered as I spun to the side and slid to a stop. The momentum of the stop tossed my new gun around, so I caught it by the grip and brought it up.

There were six model threes trailing after me in a nice, neat row.

I pumped my gun, then aimed down the barrel at the first before pulling the trigger.

The Bullcat barked, and I felt a satisfying kick back into my shoulder even as the first two antithesis turned into a heap of bloody giblets that splattered past my feet. I aimed at the next, and fired as it jumped.

“Oh, oh yeah,” I muttered as the alien’s trajectory changed in mid-air and it pirouetted into the ground with a hard splat.

The next two shots blew deep holes into the roadway before the third connected with the side of an antithesis.

And then the last two aliens leapt right at me.

I raised my cybernetic arm even as I ducked to the side. One of them sailed past me while the other clamped onto my armour and chomped down for all it was worth.

My back shifted and my twin railguns unfolded from where they were hidden.

Two soft thumps later and the remaining antithesis were dead.

I shook my arm to free it from the corpse still clamped onto me, then eyed the road. The main body of the wave was starting to show up. Contrary to what I was expecting, the horde of aliens weren’t charging right out but were moving at a more cautious pace.

I wasn’t going to wait around for them, though. I shouldered my gun, noticed one of the model threes wasn’t quite dead yet, so I kicked it in the head, then I started running back toward the intersection.

Just in case, I dropped a few more grenades here and there along the way.

You’re effectively out of points now.

“Really?” I asked. “Even after killing those six?”

Yes, really. I wouldn’t worry overly much. You are likely to see a large return in your investment in a few moments.

I grinned as I sprinted a bit harder. A bunch of civilians were poking their heads over the barricade, others were huddled behind stationary guns. Jolly Monarch was the only guy standing up straight and proud as if there was nothing to worry about.

I jumped, planted my foot on the top of one of the cement barriers, then hopped over the edge and landed in a crouch next to Jolly Monarch. “All done,” I said.

“You’ve turned the entire road into a nightmare, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Cost a few points, but I think it’ll be worth it,” I said. I slung my Bullcat off my shoulders and inspected the gun for any scratches. It seemed fine. Once I emptied it into some xeno, I’d ask Myalis about interesting new sorts of ammo. “The lot of them are going to show up soon enough, I think.”

Jolly Monarch nodded. “Do you have the air covered?”

“Not really, no,” I said.

“Then I’ll have my pawns focus on that. Wouldn’t want to lose our help because of some cheap model ones.”

He gestured, and his robots shifted closer to the wall. Their sides unfolded, and a long cannon slid out from the middle of the drones and pointed into the air even as the bottom half of the drones broke apart into large landing-gear-like legs that planted themselves onto the road.

“That should do it. Now we wait for the fun to begin!”

***