Chapter Thirty-One - Warm Up

"The booby-tubey coefficient is the mathematical principle by which the size of a personality's breast can be used to determine the success and popularity of that character. Interestingly, the coefficient is charted on a bell curve.

Some users have dubbed this curve the breast curve, but this institution does not abide by this linguistic use of the term."

Report: Audience Fixations and Micro-Celebrity, 2048

***

Introducing, from the forges of the Copper Heads, the Mark II AFAP Everglow.

There was a heavy ker-clunk as a fresh shell was loaded into the gun above. I blinked, then glanced at the price and blinked a second time. "Myalis, that thing was a hundred and ninety points!" I complained. "And what the fuck is a copperhead? Isn't that a snake?"

It's the nearest English translation of the name of another species. The Copper Heads, two words, are a race of cold-blooded quadrupedal beings from this arm of the galaxy. They are a more peaceful race than the average human, though they were slow to join the Protectorate even so.

"Okay," I said. The lesson in some random alien species wasn't expected. Myalis didn't usually explain where the stuff I ordered came from. It was still interesting. "And they made this... AFAP Everglow?"

Yes. The AFAP--Artillery Fired Atomic Projectile--was their solution to lower-model Antithesis incursions. The Everglow designation is a title given to the grounds for their predisposition to create areas that glow for a long time.

"I feel like there's a lot about that whole thing that's concerning," I said. "Glowy things and atomic things go together in a way that usually means bad things."

Very verbose. I'm impressed by your ability to reuse the same non-descriptive word so many times in such a non-descriptive way. The Copper Heads are interesting, though I have personally never had contact with them. Atyacus has, and he suggested this munition since you found the previous one lacked potency.

"Okay," I said with a shrug as I checked the aim.

Higher.

"Aim higher?" I asked. "More of an arc? Is this another air-burst shell?"

It is not. I would just advise that you aim higher to no longer be in the area of effect.

"Ah," I said.

I adjusted the aim up about a dozen degrees, then prepared to have the MEOW step back a bit after firing. The hill might serve as a decent bit of cover. Probably.

"Should we warn the wall that we're about to fire?" I asked.

One moment.

A siren started to wail in the distance, warbling and high-pitched noise that carried and felt loud, even though I was pretty sure the nearest speaker was a couple of kilometres away. "Is that a nuke siren?" I asked.

It wasn't being used.

"Yeah, okay," I said before shaking my head. I checked on my augs, then connected to the livestream, voice-only. "Sorry everyone in Quebec. I'm about to launch a nuke. A small one. Maybe... I don't know, close your eyes? Firing in three."

I shut the mic, then pulled the trigger.

The mech shifted back, then I took four long steps away from the edge of the hill and crouched so that only the top half of the mech was over the edge. If this turned out to be a pitiful little burp of an explosion, then I'd be real embarass--

The day turned impossibly bright, as though a second sun was born. It hung there, only visible because all of the sensors on the MEOW immediately flashed into a darker mode. There wasn't an explosion, not a big one. Instead, there was a roiling ball of pure-white energy floating a few metres off the ground way off in the distance.

The air around it shifted, sucked into the burning furnace. The wind started to shift, subtly at first, then faster and faster. That helped, actually, so much dust kicked up and was ripped from the ground that it formed a shifting wall against the oppressively bright ball of energy.

"Holy shit," I said.

I caught sight of a few antithesis being sucked into the sphere. Those that managed to cling to the ground didn't do so well.

The MEOW had decent heat sensors. Their data was flooding into me, just like the rest of the information the mech picked up. Right now, it was telling me that the exterior of the mech had gone from a nice, cool twenty-odd degrees celsius to a balmy seventy-three and rising, and I was a good kilometre away from that ball.

"How long is that going to last?" I asked. It was starting to feel very long after the first twenty seconds or so.

Seventeen more seconds.

I licked my lips, then crouched just a bit lower. I wasn't getting heat warnings yet--and I probably wouldn't, the MEOW could take a beating and the lower, partially covered half wasn't baking yet--but I still felt like it was getting warm. Which was stupid, I could check the interior-cabin readings and tell that it was just as cool in here as before, but... yeah, something about staring into that made me want to retreat, maybe jump into a snow bank.

The Everglow stopped burning quite suddenly. It shrank, then burst with an explosion that wasn't much more impressive than a normal HE shell.

"Nice," I said after a while.

The foliage had cooked for a good while, and the solar field nearby was... not looking so good. A few little maintenance buildings were on fire, the flames growing now that there was oxygen to space once more.

I think the amount of hot air pushing upwards might be a problem as well. That would definitely be throwing off some weather prediction stuff.

The aliens within a few hundred metres of the epicenter were cooked, though I was impressed to see a few of the bigger models shake it off and start limping forwards again. Poor fucks were probably real thirsty, but that didn't seem like enough to stop them from trudging forwards.

"Alright, yeah, that worked," I said. "Still doesn't feel that efficient though. Did we make back what I paid there?"

You did. Though the return wasn't as great than it would have likely been with a less-expensive, less impressive round.

I wasn't the kind of woman that worried too much about cost-effectiveness, but it was still something to keep in mind.

I flinched as a call came in. It was over the samurai-only line, so I picked up. "Yo, Cat here, what's up?"

"Samurai Stray Cat," Libre said. "I couldn't help but notice your nuclear display. Could I ask you to refrain from using such... obvious weapons in the future?"

"What, afraid of the lightshow?" I asked.

Now I was tempted to fire off a dozen more of the same shell, just to piss him off.

"No, it seemed effective enough. My issue is two-fold. First, the radiation the explosion emitted was... not extreme, exactly, but it was enough to set off a few alarms. Once we have more units on the field, we'll want to avoid exposure if at all possible."

"Ah, yeah, okay, fair." Oops?

Don't worry. It wasn't that bad. Well within tolerable levels for a single exposure even. No more than a dozen medical X-rays worth for those at the wall.

Still a lot, but alright, if I launched a dozen more, that might add up quick.

"The other, perhaps more pressing issue, is the fact that the attack being so visibly devastating to the Antithesis will alert the more communicative models that there is greater resistance here, the sort that lower-tier models cannot overcome, even in greater numbers, and we can't have that."

"Why not?" I snapped.

He sighed. "Because, given the choice, I'd rather the Antithesis produce a thousand model threes than ten model twenty-threes. Biomass is biomass, but what they turn it into depends a lot on what the Antithesis expect to face. Given a choice, they go for the most optimal option, which is usually small, light, easily-recyclable and mass-efficient models on the lower end of the spectrum. If we press them, then they'll make more dangerous foes for us."

I worked my jaw, then grunted an affirmative. "Fine. No more nukes."

"Thank you," Libre said. "You're... doing good work. Thank you."

He disconnected at that, and I found myself shaking my head. Annoying asshole, that one, but that didn't mean that he was entirely wrong. Probably? "Myalis, was he full of shit there?"

No, not necessarily. It's a little more complex than how he put it, but the full complexity cannot be explained in just a short conversation. Given the time he had, the explanation is complete enough.

"Hmm," I muttered. "Okay. So, how's the livestream going?" I asked that while checking in on it, but other than seeing the chat flying past so quickly that it was an unreadable blur, there wasn't much to glean from a glance.

Clips of the explosion have been shared upwards of three million times already. More people are tuning in to see it live. Congratulations, you are moderately more entertaining than the average semi-nude streamer.

"Neat," I said. "Let's wrap this up, I don't imagine people will want to watch this all day, and I did promise to patrol the wall, for morale and shit."

***