Chapter Thirty-Five - When Business Takes Care of Itself

“Tube-births are becoming more popular and an ever increasing number of higher-income families insist on having children both without natural birth (which might harm the would-be mother and prevent her from working for a period) and with pre-checked and modded genes (which ensure that the child will be born without defects and in perfect health).

This has the predictable side-effect of creating an as-of-yet small generation of so-called ‘perfect’ babies who are growing up to be perfect children.

Unfortunately, no one has discovered an anti-elitism gene yet.”

--Crispy Babies Done Well, First edition, 2051

***

The shit and the fan were on a collision course by the time I arrived in the outer part of Downtown where our defences were set up.

I knew that long before we arrived though, because even while riding on the back of the pickup I could feel the ground trembling. Intel-chan popped up with an update.

“So,” the avatar said. “Bit of a kerfuffle.”

“Go on,” I said.

“A couple of buildings have just collapsed near the front. None of them are right next to our defensive line, but some aren’t too far off from that.”

Frowning, I brought up Myalis’ map of the city and took note of where those buildings had collapsed. That was about a block away from the outer edges of our defences, three buildings all very close to each other. Notably though, when I opened the overlay with the location of the hive, none of the three were over it.

Catherine, I suspect that these buildings collapsed because of movement underground. Seeing as how the hive tunnels we’ve explored don’t travel beneath them, it’s entirely possible that we’re dealing with either a separate hive, or an entire section that our cursory explorations failed to discover.

“Fantastic,” I said. This day couldn’t be over soon enough.

The pickup screeched to a stop as we turned onto a busy street. There were militia people all over the place and... lots of folks in the suits I’d bought running around and setting things up in a hurry. New barricades were being set up, large cement blockades were being pulled off the back of trucks by people with forklifts and construction exo-suits. Tents were being set up and the old defences looked like they were moving back.

For a moment I wondered why they were going through all that trouble when we had a sort of wall already, but then I figured it out. They were creating a killbox. A hole was being dug out in the wall, and any aliens that poured through that tight little space would be gunned down by concentrated fire.

Smart, I supposed. It felt like the kind of thing that should have been set up several days ago instead of the half-measure walls we had.

I wondered where they got the cement half-walls until I saw ‘Property of...’ stencilled on the side of one of them. They were from a nearby parking garage.

I walked along the edge, largely ignored except for a few glances my way and the occasional nod. What struck me as the strangest in all of this was the way people moved.

They were pushing themselves, sweating and hurried, but also methodical and quiet. No one was complaining, no one was joking or being funny, no one was moving at contractor speeds. It was all quick, cold efficiency, which I might have expected to see in a soldier or maybe the best the militia had, but these were the volunteers that I’d left with Lucy.

Or... maybe that explained it.

“Is this the closest part of the front to where we expect them to come?” I asked.

It is. If they come, they’ll probably pass right through here.

“What’s the status of our nanobots?” I asked. “They making a difference at all?”

They are. The main hive we’ve discovered is essentially falling apart. It is no longer able to produce new models and the nanomachines have started to dissolve large parts of the main hive structure. All in all, the plan was mostly a success. Though the hives will have to be cleared more thoroughly. The nanomachines won’t function forever, and once they run out of power it’s possible that parts of the hive that were cut off and that lay dormant will reawaken and spread once more.

“Right, and then the tunnels will be dug already, so we’ll be in even more of a mess,” I said.

It was nice to hear that at least part of the plan was working. But still, there remained a big question, one that came to light as people on the wall started screaming and running back towards the new second line of defence.

I brought my gun up and was ready to charge in to help, but I stayed back for the moment and watched as the militia and Lucy’s little army quickly got ready and then opened fire almost at the same time.

Criss-crossing lines of fire ripped apart the dozen or so model threes leading the charge, then they focused on the next aliens to come through the gap. The initial surge of gunfire died down as what I presumed were sergeants told their men to hold off. They didn’t need to hit every alien fifty times to take them out.

“Huh,” I said.

What’s wrong?

“Well, I kind of expected to have to jump in and save the day there, but it looks like they’ve mostly got things handled.”

Oh, don’t worry. Plenty of things are going wrong. I’m sure there’s room for you to be a hero.

And just after she said that, I got a call from Lucy.

“Hey,” I said as I answered. I was keeping an eye on that little passage the aliens were squeezing through, but so far things looked alright.

“Hi!” Lucy said, upbeat and chipper and a little stressed. Even with that hint of stress though, I found my shoulders loosening at hearing her voice. “So, you know those zombie aliens you sent a warning about?”

“Yes?” I asked.

“Bit of a problem with those,” she continued. “We’ve got, ah, a horde?”

“A horde?”

“Of zombies.”

“A zombie horde,” I repeated.

She sighed. “Yes, Cat, a zombie horde. They’re like, crawling out of this parking garage place. I sent Tabby Squad down there to steal some of those barrier things for the front, and it turns out that a lot of people have died recently and the morgues are all outside of downtown, or something. I guess those that are closer are full-up? Whatever, the point is, they started storing corpses in this place and sealed it off, but now they’re zombies.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where is it, I can pop over and...”

“No no,” she said, and I could imagine her head shaking. “The kittens will take care of it. I just need better gear for them. Can we get like, biological protection stuff? Maybe flame throwers?”

“Uh,” I said. “You want more gear?”

“Look, the gear you got’s cute and all, but it’s kind of generalist, and we don’t have enough to outfit even a tenth of the people we have.”

I blinked. “Not even a tenth?” I asked.

“I’ve been recruiting,” she said.

“How? Where?”

“I got on the radio, and on tv,” she said, the smugness unmistakable. “Do you have any idea how many people are bored out of their minds and also worried that they’ll die at any moment? That’s a lot of pent up energy to harness, Cat. It’s like when the kittens at home saw someone get adopted and then they all got a little manic. But instead of adoption it’s death by aliens and... actually, that doesn’t make sense, nevermind.”

“You’re running ads?” I asked.

She giggled. “Yeah! Turns out some of the people who volunteered first and who were doing the more administrative stuff know people who know people. It’s nothing special. Just me talking to someone filming from their aug.”

“Still,” I said. Though, to be fair, if Lucy asked me to join an army I’d have a hard time saying no... “Okay, well where are you, I’ll stop over and drop off those suits you want.”

“You could give them to someone where you are and I’ll have them driven back.”

“Yeah, no, it’s fine, I’ll do it myself,” I said.

I bet Lucy was surrounded by able-bodied young men and women and I didn’t need any of them having ideas. Not that I’d ever put the security of an entire city at risk just to kiss my girlfriend and ward off anyone eyeing her up. That would be petty and stupid.

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll be with you,” I said.

“Alright. I’m still at the mall. We took over a few shops since no one was using them. Do you think you could get us more normal gear too? We need better communication stuff, the Milita’s being a bit of a pain about letting us know what’s going on.”

“They’re being unhelpful?”

“Eh, not quite, they’re busy and I think informing us of what’s going on is like ten steps down on their list of priorities. I’m not getting the sense that they’re being pricks on purpose.”

“Ah, okay,” I said. “Well, maybe you’d like to meet my new friend. They’re cringey as hell, but helpful enough...”

***