Chapter Twenty-Nine - Spider Cat ~ Spider Cat

“The rich get richer. That’s kind of just a thing.

The super rich get higher. Not just metaphorically, but literally too.

Life on Earth is generally acknowledged to be rather awful. So why not leave?

With over twenty low-orbit installations, and an entire resort on the Moon and Mars*, Tesla-Travel Corp has you covered!

*as of 2039 all Mars expeditions are cancelled.”

--Ad for Moon Colony Alpha and former Mars Colony Bet, 2039.

***

New Purchase: Tree Cat Grapple System
Points Reduced to... 8003

The system was built like a backpack with some straps that went around the chest. It was fitted for me, which was handy because I couldn’t imagine fitting something so tight on without it bruising my already sensitive chest.

I stared at the two hooks that stuck out from the backpack with some degree of confusion. They were bulbous things, with little glass bits and a bunch of slots on them. “Okay,” I said. “I have no idea how these work.”

They’re multi-function hooks. Pressing them against a stud will launch a drill that will grab on. Leaving them loose will deploy some hooks from within, and the end is a sort of sponge that can fill with a powerful adhesive to cling onto a surface. They’re meant to be usable in any situation.

“Well, that’s neat, but where do I hook them if I don’t want to die?”

Please look at the wire-map of the building, I’ll highlight the location of load-bearing supports. Press the hooks against those walls and they will grab on.

Seeing as how I didn’t feel like falling to my death, I followed Myalis’ instructions, setting up the two hooks to burrow into the walls, then I trailed out the lines, still connected to the pack, all the way over to the window.

It wasn’t the sort of window meant to be opened. No one sane wanted to get a fresh breeze of smog into their air-conditioned office. So I got Whisper out, loaded one of the explosive bolts into it over the sleeping gas bolts, and blew one of the windows off.

“What’s taking you so long?” Gomorrah asked.

“I’m trying to make it so that I don’t turn into so much mulch on hitting the ground,” I said.

“Well hurry up,” Gomorrah said.

I stepped onto the window-sill, the cords from the grapple system trailing out behind me, then, with a step over the edge, I placed my foot down on the wall below and dropped out of the building.

The system gave me just enough slack that I was able to stand ‘straight’ on the side of the building, my front facing the long drop below and my feet, with my awesome boots, planted on the wall.

I had to take a step as a blast of wind shoved me to the side.

The rear of the building was overlooking a street with cars shooting past some dozen meters above. The other buildings nearby turned the area into a sort of tunnel through which constant wind rumbled through.

This wasn’t one of those nice building fronts with fancy decorations. It was pure utility. Vents stuck out of the sides of grey-on-grey buildings and the headlights of the passing cars flashed across mirrored glass. At the bottom were rows of semi-trailers moving along sluggishly.

I was thankful for the mask, it kept the stink of the city away as I got used to basically standing horizontally.

I took a step, and the grapple system gave me just enough rope to make it feel as though I was walking normally. It still felt all sorts of wrong though. “Alright, I’m outside,” I said.

“Good,” was Gomorrah’s reply.

“Testy much,” I muttered as I continued to walk down. There were three windows on this level. One about a foot tall and three wide lead to the armoury, another was rather normal-sized and led into the break room, and the third looked like it was boarded over on the other side, metal rails the only thing I could kinda see behind the glass.

Planting my feet over the armoury window, I flicked over to the display of the camera inside the room. Two guys, both checking out some rifles.

I held Whisper close, then reached into my jacket and pulled out my Trench Maker. Even when using my off-hand to aim, I could still hit a window that was at my feet.

Three booms echoed out and a trio of fist-sized holes appeared more or less grouped together in the glass. The guys in the room jumped out of their skin and looked up at the window.

I tried to bite down on my Trench Maker, bumped my mask, was thankful that no one saw that, then slid it away into its holster to bring Whisper to bear.

One shot later and a bolt was buried into the armory’s floor.

I crab-walked away from the window while keeping an eye on the two mercs in the room. They jumped away from the bolt, one of them grabbing a helmet from a rack and tossing it onto the shaft in the time it would take someone else to blink stupidly.

It only took a few seconds for them to start stumbling around. There wasn’t any audio on the camera, but I could hear them with my new ears.

“Gas? Some sort... of, ah, crap.”

“The door!” One of them staggered over to the door and pressed a button next to it. “Okay, okay,” he said as he wavered. His thumb landed on an intercom button. “This is... uh... gas! Windows. They’re using gas!”

He slid down the wall, flopping to the ground alongside his buddy.

It had taken about ten seconds for both of them to go down. Decently fast.

From the camera feeds I could see those without masks scrambling to put them on, and someone jumped to a screen against one wall and started inputting a bunch of commands.

They’re increasing the speed at which air circulates and are pulling more air from what looks like an internal storage system.

“To negate the gas,” I said. “These guys are pretty impressive.”

They’re decent, for poorly equipped humans.

I moved over to the lounge window. They were clearing out of that room in a hurry. That was fine by me. I took my time loading an explosive bolt into Whisper. Then I aimed for the middle of the window.

The glass burst apart, sending shards flying all over. I leapt ‘up,’ the grapple system loosening enough that I dropped down to above where the window had been, then fell into the room.

I was really not good at three dimensional movement, I realized when I crashed unto the floor on my knees.

Rolling over, I slid up behind a couch, then undid the clasps at the front of my backpack.

“They’re here! In the lounge!”

“Barricade those doors!”

“Did they come from above or below?”

“Cameras are still down.”

I snorted as I left the grapple pack on the ground next to me and stood up. “They’re really panicking, huh?”

It seems so.

“Get the rocket launchers!”

I frowned. “Hmm.” That didn’t sound like something I could tank. “Myalis, I need a gas grenade.”

Certainly. Do you want the gas to be coloured?

“I mean... that would be pretty cool,” I admitted.

New Purchase: Knock-Out Gas Grenade: Pink
Points Reduced to: 7998

I picked up the grenade off the ground before me and primed it. “Thanks.” A jog over to the door later, and I leaned Whisper to the side, pulled out my Trench Maker, and punched a couple of holes into the door before flinging the grenade into the room.

You know, I don’t think you deserve any title related to stealth after all.

“It’s proactive stealth,” I said as a plume of pinkish smoke wafted out of the hole in the door. The one problem with colourful gas was that it made seeing enemy movement on their cameras a real pain.

Seeing them panic and rush away from the gas was kinda funny though, in a cathartic way.

The guys at the gun emplacements rushed back into the main corridor, then stumbled back and away from the spreading pink cloud.

The ventilation system was doing a good job of sucking it away, but a few unlucky idiots had still been caught in the smoke and were dropping here and there. I kicked the door in, then rushed into the corridor. My cybernetic eye did something that turned the world to monochrome but made it easier to see through the smoke.

The mercs had moved to two rooms. An office and a washroom of all things. The washroom had one of those doors with a vent at the bottom. A kick and it bent in, so I fired a bolt into the hole and moved on just as they opened fire on the door.

Moving fast, I rushed over to the office, rammed the door with Whisper’s butt, then fired a bolt into the room while the guys within panicked.

I kept moving, not wanting to stick around when they tried to shoot back.

“Gomorrah,” I said as I moved to the end of the corridor. There were some automated turrets here and there, but they were all conspicuously quiet. “I think the floor’s cleared.”

***