“Why… won’t… you… fucking… die?!?!?!?!” I shouted as I kicked the massive worm.

  “Relax, Evelyn,” Nora sighed. “I know it’s taking a while to take care of this thing, but the fight’s already over. Even if the Thirty-Two wanted to fight back, I’m not sure it could at this point.”

  “I know that!” I snapped. “We’ve burned off most of its limbs, filled it with toxins and nanites, and blown massive holes in it, yet the stupid thing refuses to die!”

  “You could bring out those new bots of yours and have them burn it again,” Charlotte chuckled from where she was sitting, a couple of feet away. “That was somewhat effective.”

  “And entertaining,” Amy added.

  “Sure, sure, laugh it up. I deserve it,” I grumbled. “I knew that the plasma projectors could melt if they were overused. I didn’t know they could explode like that.”

  I glanced back towards my remaining forces, who were slowly chopping the colossal beast into pieces with their entrenching tools. My eyes swept over the entire force before stopping on the partially melted badger with one arm.

  “I’m not going to repair that pair until I put some sort of limiter on them. They really have no sense of self-preservation or self-control. They just run straight into battle and go full tilt from the get-go.”

  “I’m sure there’s a time and place for that, even in your forces. Still, it was funny watching them go berserk on a nearly inanimate creature and doing more damage to themselves than to the enemy,” Nora said.

  “They’re idiots, just like Bob,” I mumbled, before turning back towards my friends. “Since you’re all here, I assume the situation outside is relatively stable. I’ve been able to send messages out, but I haven’t been able to receive anything from my forces.”

  “You’d know what the situation was if you bothered to answer any of your messages,” Charlotte said, shooting me a disappointed look.

  “I was busy! There were dragons burning down the town, and the harpoon fern, and this oversized plant factory!” I explained petulantly, kicking the Thirty-Two again.

  “Yes, I’m sure you were,” Charlotte sighed. “There weren’t any other major issues when we received your message, but a couple hives started acting up while we were organizing a response.”

  “Acting up how?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Flooding the area with Antithesis and moving towards the surrounding towns. You know, typical Antithesis aggression,” Nora explained.

  “Shouldn’t someone have stayed behind to deal with that…” I grumbled.

  Charlotte gave me an exasperated look. “Do you really think so little of the other samurai in the city? Or do you truly not know how many of us there are?”

  I just stared blankly at her for a couple of seconds. “The second one.”

  “There are around two dozen samurai based in Calgary and the surrounding towns. There are a couple, like Zetta, that specialize in non-combat or cleanup roles, but that still leaves well over a dozen active combatants. Minor issues, like the hives flaring up, provide a good chance for some of our less experienced brethren to both gain some combat experience and easy points,” Charlotte explained. “I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised at how ignorant you are with the local community, since you refuse to come into the headquarters unless there’s an emergency, but you really should come in occasionally to meet people.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I’ll think about it,” I grumbled.

  Behind me the Thirty-Two reared back, thrashing and seizing for the first time since the Seventeen buried in it had died. I took a couple of steps back, raising my rifle suspiciously.

  I really didn’t need to be that suspicious. The Thirty-Two had been in bad shape for quite awhile, I was more surprised that the thing could still move than anything else. After a handful of convulsions, the monster slowly curled up into a tight ball before finally lying still.

  With the creature dead, all my network and communication channels flared back to life. The sudden flood of information was dizzying and sent me stumbling to my knees.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” Amy asked.

  “I’m fine… I’m just a bit disorientated, all my data links came back online,” I explained, waving the girl away. After a couple deep breaths to refocus myself I eyed up the Thirty-Two. “Why did this stupid thing die now? We weren’t really doing much damage compared to before.”

  “Honestly? I’m surprised it survived as long as it did,” Nora grunted. “The only reason it didn’t die of trauma earlier, was the fact that it lacked pain receptors. It’s been leaking fluids all over the area for hours… it probably just finally bled out.”

  “Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad to have my comms back. I didn’t realize how blind I felt without them,” I mumbled.

  With a single, quick query, I pulled up the status of every bot in my network. The bears within Okotoks had followed my orders, with mixed results. The defensive teams had succeeded in securing the shelters, repelling all the Antithesis that had wandered close, but the assault teams weren’t so lucky.

  Without any oversight, the disorganized squads had wandered randomly, engaging whatever Antithesis they encountered. They fared fine against the lower models, but those that ran into the Twenty-Threes and Twenty-Eights were quickly overwhelmed.

  And it looked like a lot of squads had run into the Twenties. The oversized Antithesis even managed to wreck, or at least disable, a couple Kodiaks. While fighting with just their basic combat protocols, the bears were simple: aim and fire. They couldn’t plan or coordinate and without overwhelming firepower to fall back on, they were overwhelmed by feral cunning.

  “It’s going to take hours for me to clean up this mess,” I moaned.

  “What’s the matter? Are the other towns under attack?” Charlotte asked, jumping to her feet.

  “Huh? No! Sorry, I mean the mess in Okotoks. My forces took heavy losses while being cut off from the network. I haven’t even started to process the situation elsewhere,” I explained.

  “How bad could your losses really be?” Amy asked. “You have thousands of bears!”

  “A full third of the forces stationed in town. Seventy bears,” I sulked.

  “Pfffttt… That’s nothing; it’ll take you… what? A week to replace those forces?” Nora chuckled.

  “It still hurts!” I pouted. “I’m going to have to reorganize my entire force to fill in the gaps in the line.”

  “You can afford it,” Charlotte snorted. “Can you detect any issues elsewhere?”

  “It seems like everything is quiet around my garrisons. You might want to contact Angeline and Saber. Isn’t that why you sent him back, to get a status update?” I asked.

  “That’s certainly what I told him,” she grunted. “The truth is, he’s exceptionally competent in combat, but he always needs to be doing something. I really didn’t want to deal with all his groaning and complaining due to boredom.”

  Charlotte glanced towards me.

  “I get enough of that from you,” she muttered.

  “I don’t know if you’re joking or serious,” I admitted, returning her gaze.

  “How funny, neither do I,” Charlotte exclaimed, with a small smirk.

  While the two of us bantered, Nora suddenly stood up, eyes wide.

  “Although I’m glad we’ve finally taken care of the Thirty-Two, and the situation elsewhere is stable, I just realized we’ve overlooked something important,” Nora declared.

  “Oh, and what’s that?” I asked curiously.

  “This ugly worm and that ‘fern,’ as you call it, had to come from somewhere,” Nora explained. “Since no one has reported running into a Thirty anywhere else, we have to assume that the Antithesis have been trying to keep those Models, and the hive they came from hidden until this point. Now that we know these things are running around, we really need to find that hive before it starts pumping out more of these things… or evolves to birth something worse.”

  “There’s something worse than that?” Amy asked, pointing at the worm.

  “That thing is nothing,” I muttered. “Forties? They’re city enders.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Amy smiled nervously.

  “The last one I saw killed half of a multi-city Samurai strike force sent against it,” I told her. “They’re no joke.”

  Nora nodded. “This needs to be our top priority, finding and eliminating that hive.”

  “I’ll contact the headquarters and get the other samurai on this right away,” Charlotte exclaimed. “We can’t sit on this.”

  “Right, I’ll pull whatever forces I can to start sweeping the hives to the east and west of Okotoks. Since we don’t know where the thing entered, we’ll have to just check them all,” I grumbled.

  “Let me know if you find anything,” Charlotte said, her eyes unfocusing as she started making calls.

  “It’s going to be a long day,” I muttered.

  Discord!

  Check out my Stories:

  Support me!

  Finally: Big thanks to all those people that review my draft, the chapters would be a lot rougher without your feedback!