Chapter Twenty-Three - Cat Themed Tower Defence

“The changes happened slowly. So slow that even though all the scientists were screaming about it for years, we still failed to notice them. A winter without snow, a complete lack of any insects outside, a few days where the weather was so wild that we barely recognized it?

It all paled next to the distractions we could afford ourselves.”

--Excerpt from, On the Big Change, 2026

***

“No, really,” I asked. “Why’d you come over?”

“Gomorrah explained to Franny what you were up to, and she explained it to me,” Lucy said as she reluctantly stepped out of our hug. “So I thought I should come over and discuss the ecological and environmental impacts of unleashing a bunch of nanomachines to mulch aliens stuck underneath the city.”

I stared. “You’re messing with me, right?”

She grinned. “Maybe?”

I hugged her again. “You’re such an idiot,” I said.

“And yet I still managed to catch you with my evil ways,” she murmured. Lucy placed another peck on my cheek.

“Who’s watching over the kittens?”

“Daniel is,” she said. “Not the best of choices, but hey, they have everything they need and most of them are plugged into one feed or another. They don’t cause too much trouble when they’ve got their bread and circuses. Need help with anything here?”

“Around here?” I asked. Did I need Lucy’s help with anything? What could Lucy help with in the first place? She was great with the kittens, but I wasn’t sure if babysitting skills would really... actually, no, those skills would absolutely come in handy. “Hey, how would you like to be put in charge of an army?” I asked.

“That sounds fun!” She said, “Do I get a cool title? Admiral Lucy?”

“It’s an army, I think that would make you a general,” I pointed out.

“As long as I get one of those nice uniforms with all the medals on my chest. I want to look like a third-world dictator’s right hand woman.”

I laughed, then nodded to Franny who was coming over. “Right, let me give the two of you the rundown. It’s not super complicated yet, but it’s about to be. Also, hi Franny.”

“Hello, Cat,” Franny said with a nod. It struck me just how much like Gomorrah she was sometimes. Sure, she was a hot redhead with authority issues as opposed to a hot blonde with pyromania issues, but a lot of their mannerisms were the same. Maybe it was a byproduct of being raised close to each other?

But then Lucy and I were plenty different and we were raised in the same shithole.

“So, what’s the situation? Delilah is keeping me up to date a little, but I don’t exactly have a full picture,” Franny said.

“Things are just about to get interesting,” I said. “We’ve launched an attack against the hives, but most of the hives... or just the one big hive I guess, is underground. They’ve dug out these long tunnels across the entire city. They’re full of water right now, which isn’t a problem for the aliens.”

“It wouldn’t be, the xenos are from space, being underwater is probably a lot more hospitable than vacuum,” Franny said.

I nodded along as if I knew what she meant. “Yeah. So, we sent down nanomachines to start eating away at them. They’ll all start at the same time, which means that the hive will get a nasty wake-up call. And we’re expecting it to react like anyone would when you wake up to a million little things trying to eat you all at once.”

“Oh, like when we had that bedbug infestation,” Lucy said.

I nodded. Of all the insects not to go extinct, bedbugs just had to stay on the list. Mosquitos too, of course. “Exactly like that. We’re about to wake the fuckers up in the shittiest way possible and I bet they won’t be happy about it. That’s why we’re working on arming the civvies and getting defences up, including the turrets you brought.”

“And how’s that going?” Franny asked.

“Terribly,” I said. “The locals have actually been helpful. Got a bunch of volunteers geared up for a fight, but against anything in big enough numbers or any really strong models we’re basically screwed.”

Lucy frowned, and if it wasn’t so cute it might have been intimidating. “And what are we doing about that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what to do about it. In New Montreal we had the army and a bunch of strong samurai to back us up.”

“And now you’re the big strong samurai,” she said.

I nodded. “That’s right. I don’t exactly have everything I need to keep the entire Downtown area safe. None of my catalogues are geared towards strong defensive things and I don’t know where to start when it comes to that kind of thing anyway.”

Then I laid out the rest. At some point it became a bit of a rant but Lucy was used to my ranting and Franny took it well enough.

Mostly, my problem was that the Downtown area wasn’t ready to destroy the wider hive. The local samurai weren’t equipped for it, and I couldn’t be all over the place at the same time. Even if I bought a bunch of cat drones (which I was going to) it wouldn’t do anything but stop the tide.

Then, after listening for a while, Franny asked a question. “Do you intend to fix all of this by tonight? Because that doesn’t seem as realistic as treating this as a long-term project.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“This is a siege, isn’t it? You have walls, the enemy needs to get over or under them, but as long as you can repel them then... then it’s just a siege. Not an actual prolonged battle like you fought in New Montreal a few days ago.”

I ran that through my head a few more times.

It made a lot of sense, and reframed things a little.

If we treated this as a battle to keep the antithesis out as opposed as one to just kill them all, then our priorities when it came to defences changed a lot.

And it would have to be a siege, because no matter what, there would always be more of the hive that we hadn’t found spewing out more human-hungry aliens.

“You’re smart,” I said to Franny who smiled demurely. “I can see what Gomorrah sees in you.” And at that she blushed scarlet, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose standing out in sharp contrast.

I didn’t have time to tease her much more than that since the militia finally showed up in a pair of vans.

“Right. Lucy, Franny, want to follow me? We’re going to meet the General. Lucy, I’m putting you in command of the civilian side of things.”

“Really?” Lucy asked. “No one’s handling that?”

“Oh, someone is, and they’re doing a decent job of it, but I don’t know who and I don’t have time to figure it all out. Can you spend a bit of time figuring it all out and then keep me apprised? I’ll give you a cat drone or something to keep you safe.”

She was wearing my first samurai-bought jacket, the one with the holes and the burns and the cuts all across it, and I knew she had a gun stuffed away on her, but still, I’d be happier if she had something more capable to play bodyguard.

And watching over the civilians would let her help without being anywhere near the frontlines.

“That sounds fun,” Lucy said.

“Cool!” I tilted my head left and right, then gestured for Lucy to give me a minute before I walked over and found the militiaman in charge. As it turned out, they had orders to bring the turrets to ground level around some of the more important buildings in Downtown. I countermanded that with my own order, to place them on every available rooftop to snipe out any flying aliens that might be trying to swoop in.

When I returned, Lucy was grinning. “I like it when you take charge,” she said. Her tone set Franny off to blushing again.

“If you like it so much, why do I never get to be the one taking charge, huh?”

“I always let you look like you’re the one in charge, what are you talking about?” she asked.

I laughed. “Alright. Save that energy for later. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Come on, I’ll take the two of you to the mall?”

“Actually, I think I’m going to fly back to New Montreal first,” Franny said. “There are more turrets to bring over, and by the sounds of it you’ll need every one you can grab. Say hi to Delilah for me.”

“Will do,” Lucy said.

And with that, I had to get back to work. A small shift in my plans was in order, then we could get the show started.

***