We broke through the last wave of Antithesis and emerged on the surface somewhere in the middle of High River. The Thirty-Seven must have sent a team to dig itself an emergency exit, because I was pretty sure there hadn’t been a twenty meter wide tunnel sitting right in the middle of the town earlier. I probably would have noticed it.

  As my eyes adjusted to the natural light, I glanced around, trying to spot the oversized brain. It had only made it about three blocks away, slowly being carried by its entourage of random Antithesis. Despite throwing wave upon wave of chaff at us underground, the monster appeared almost completely undefended.

  Suspicious.

  “How long until your cannon arrives?” Charlotte asked.

  “Five minutes,” I muttered. “I’m also bringing in a second wave of troops so we can corral the Thirty-Seven, even if the cannon doesn’t kill it.”

  “Good,” Charlotte replied. “Then all we need to do is keep the Thirty-Seven from escaping.”

  We all stared at the oversized tick as it slowly trundled away.

  “This is way too easy, isn’t it?” Amy hissed. “It had more than enough forces to keep us from catching up, and all of a sudden it’s completely exposed? I don’t buy it!”

  “I really dislike fighting these intelligent models, I never know what they’re thinking,” Bern frowned. “This could be an ambush, but the Thirty-Seven could also be trying to bluff us in order to buy time. It is tanky enough to hold out for backup.”

  “Good thing we don’t have to guess,” Charlotte declared. “Angeline, what’s the situation?”

  Angeline didn’t say anything for a minute, she just stood there, goggles down, chewing on some sort of protein bar.

  “There’s movement in the buildings on both sides of the road, but I haven’t been able to find exactly what’s there. I’m catching the occasional noise, but by the time the squirrels manage to converge on the location, whatever's skulking around is long gone,” she reported.

  “Any chance it’s more Nines, or maybe Twenty-Ones?” I asked as I scanned the buildings.

  “I guess it’s possible, but with all the upgrades I’ve packed into the squirrels, I should have caught a glimpse of them by now,” Angeline replied. “They’re sneaky, but not completely invisible when you know their tricks.”

  “So, we’re back to wondering if this is an ambush or a bluff,” Amy grunted. “And while we try to figure it out, the Thirty-Seven gets further away.”

  I focused on the Thirty-Seven as it slowly crawled further away and narrowed my eyes. “It’s not the only one with tricks. Angeline, can you provide me with a live link to your sensor data, or your best guess at which building the sneaky buggers are hiding in?”

  “Sure… Are you going to send the bears to do some heavy reconnaissance?” she asked, opening up the link for me.

  “Nope!” I replied.

  There was a moment of silence, where neither I nor the bears moved.

  I saw Charlotte shoot me a side-eye glance. “So, are you going to use that information, or let us in on this brilliant plan of yours?”

  “You’ll understand in about five seconds,” I smirked. “Just get ready to fight if something jumps out of those buildings.”

  “Are you planning on luring out whatever’s in there?” Amy asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I chirped. “Bandit, I want you and the foxes to watch for any anomalies. Mark them and pass that data onto everyone else so we can use that for targeting.”

  “What are you up to?” Nora grumbled.

  I didn’t bother to answer because I could already catch a faint hum in the distance. One that was swiftly growing louder.

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  Angeline seemed to notice first. Flipping up her goggles, she stared to the east just as the first Kodiak appeared over the horizon. Two of the armored vehicles swung to the north, moving to cut off the fleeing Thirty-Seven, while the other two continued towards us, slowly gaining altitude as they approached.

  “I’d forgotten about your IFVs. Are you planning on shelling the buildings before we advance?” Bern asked.

  “They’re currently armed with solid rounds, so shelling probably wouldn’t be that effective,” I replied. “Even if they were armed with high explosives, they probably wouldn’t be able to clear those buildings very effectively.”

  “If you’re not planning on shelling, then what are you…” Nora muttered quietly to herself before turning sharply and staring at me. “That’s a crazy idea.”

  Everyone else looked at me, a little confused, while I just shrugged at my friend. “Time is of the essence, and it’s the quickest way that I could think of to clear this stalemate.”

  The two closer Kodiaks leveled off, just for a moment, before turning into steep dives. They accelerated, turning so they’d come down in the middle of the street instead of near us.

  Everyone seemed to realize the plan just a couple seconds before the pair slammed into the side of the marked buildings. Despite being solid-looking three-story office buildings, the combination of speed and mass allowed the two IFVs to smash all the way through, exploding out into the street before skidding to a stop.

  I probably would have stood there for several seconds, staring at the destruction I had wrought, if it wasn’t for the other shapes that had been thrown from the buildings.

  I’d expected the half dozen Twenty-Ones that fell battered and broken into the street thanks to the Kodiak on the left. I hadn’t expected the much larger shape, which had been driven from the right.

  Even after being struck by the Kodiak and shoved through multiple walls, its stealth hadn’t dropped. The only reason I could even see it was it disrupted the dust and other debris in the middle of the street.

  It was big. At least as large as a Twenty-Three, and based upon how easily it shoved the damaged Kodiak away, it was relatively unharmed.

  I sent out a single command to my troops as a powerful ECM covered the area. Bring it down.

  “I don’t know what that is, but don’t let it get off the street!” Charlotte screamed. “Who knows if we’ll be able to track it if it disappears!”

  “Bob! I need you to…” Before I could even finish my sentence, a black blur barreled through our lines and launched itself at the void.

  I don’t know what Bob managed to latch on to; the creature’s stealth was perfect and didn’t even waver under the concentrated barrage that it was being subjected to. All I saw was the bear stop midair and start pounding.

  Charlotte was the first one to deliver a serious blow to the monster. While Amy, Angeline, the bears, and I fired wildly down the street, she took her time evaluating the situation before taking her shot.

  Even with the suppressor, the crack from her rifle firing was deafening, louder than any of the heavy coilguns. The round smashed into the monster, causing a massive fleshy rift to appear in the middle of the air and spraying blood and shards of carapace onto the surrounding street.

  Once its perfect disguise was disrupted, the creature decided to reveal itself. The camo fell away in a wave, starting at the head and swiftly moving backwards until the entire creature was visible.

  The first thing I noticed was that it was covered in a layer of large milky white-green plates. Even though they weren’t especially glossy, they still reflected the surrounding area. It had a vaguely lizard-shaped head but insectoid mandibles and two sets of compound eyes. Even though it had a lizard-like body, it had eight sets of legs keeping it low to the ground.

  Bob had somehow managed to latch onto one of the legs right where it connected to the body. Despite the fact that the monster was kicking him with both of its adjacent legs, trying to dislodge him, he didn’t move an inch. He probably had engaged his spatial anchor to keep the monster in place.

  Nora took advantage of the monster’s appearance to strike, but even her strongest strikes only managed to shatter the armor plates, not pierce them.

  The monster rotated its head until it was nearly sideways, and its eyes swiveled independently as it inspected our force. Suddenly its mouth snapped open, and it extended a thick tongue all the way down the street before smacking into a moose. The bot barely had time to struggle before being yanked back only to be swiftly bisected by the massive mandibles. Dropping the remains of the moose, the monster struck out again and again.

  In less than a minute it had picked apart most of my heavy weapons bots.

  “I’m open to suggestions!” I shouted over the gunfire. “At this rate it won’t be long until that thing moves on to squishier targets!”

  “I’ve got one… but it’s kind of messy!” Angeline yelled back.

  “This is no time to hold back. Do it,” Charlotte snapped.

  Angeline nodded, pulling down her goggles again. I saw her mutter something to herself, her fingers twitching like she was typing on a keyboard as she worked. A second later a foot-tall flying squirrel in a bomber jacket and wearing a jetpack launched itself off one of the nearby buildings. It was followed by another, and another, until the entire area was filled with squirrels.

  They glided just long enough to line themselves up with the Antithesis, then dropped the glide and rocketed forward.

  The first one used its wing membranes to brake at the very last second, slowing down just enough to stop right next to the wound Charlotte had inflicted earlier. It extended a short set of claws and fangs and started digging.

  At first the Antithesis didn’t show any reaction, ignoring the tiny bots, but as more and more appeared, and they dug further and further, it started swatting at the pests.

  But it was too little too late. More than a dozen of the tiny things had already ripped their way into the creature’s armor, where they continued to shred everything within reach.

  The creature was shuddering within a minute and thrashing wildly within two. Not long after that, one of the rodents pushed its way out of the monster’s eyesockets, covered in gore. The lizard-spider was, unsurprisingly, not moving anymore.

  “Remind me to never piss you off,” I said as I watched the squirrels slowly evacuate the corpse.

  “Let me remind you, the squirrels were originally your idea. I just took them and improved the design,” Angeline declared.

  “I’m not sure I’d call THAT an improvement,” I muttered.

  “Children, please, this isn’t the time for this,” Charlotte declared. I noticed she was looking directly at me when she said it but chose not to comment. “I’d like to remind you, we’re still in pursuit of the Thirty-Seven, and this little distraction delayed us far longer than I would have liked. How far away is the weapon?”

  I pinged the network the ECM interference had apparently died with the creature. The reply brought a smile to my face. “Thirty seconds, and the other two Kodiaks have managed to pin down the Thirty-Seven just a couple blocks up. Who feels like killing a monster?”

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