Flex Tape! Still working the same way it did 50 years ago!

  Closing line for an extremely successful ad for Flex Tape

  Sara was starting to feel light headed.

  No no no, I can’t have you dying on your first day on the job! Come on, let’s buy you something to fix you right up!

  “How?”

  Oh silly me, got myself panicked and forgot to say. You have 100 points to start with as a bonus, plus another 20 for those two Model Threes you just unalived. For 50 points you can unlock the Css I Medical Utilities Catalog and for 5 points you can buy a Css I Wound Patch. That’ll be enough to stop the bleeding. After that, for another 5 points, you can buy a Hemo Restore –

  “I don’t think I have time for expnations.”

  You do actually, but fair enough. Coming right up!

  Css I Medical Utilities unlocked!Points reduced to… 70New Purchase: Css I Wound PatchPoints reduced to… 65New Purchase: Css I Hemo RestorePoints reduced to… 60

  Two boxes thumped on the wet ground beside her unceremoniously, one rectangur and ftt-ish, the other a bit bulkier, the top cylindrical. She didn’t know why she was paying so much attention to these details.

  Alright: open the box on the left.

  She did as asked, untching the box, which opened with a gentle hiss revealing what looked like a band aid.

  “That it?”

  Indeed. Now take it and press the part below against what is left of your leg. Simple as that.

  She did as instructed, her movements sluggish, her vision beginning to fade at the edges as she spped the band aid on the stump of her leg. Immediately she felt… something. A sensation of sudden freshness, followed by a spike of pain that caused her to scream. Luckily the pain stopped a moment ter, a sigh escaping her lips as she slumped onto the wet ground.

  Good, this way you’ve stopped the bleeding.

  “How’d that even work?” she asked, taking deep breaths to steady her heartbeat.

  The Css I Wound Patch is a medical adhesive device infused with nanites which help close up any and all damaged blood vessels in a specific area. You won’t be bleeding out, that is for sure, but it is a temporary solution, so I suggest you start killing Antithesis fast so that you’ll be able to buy yourself better healing items.

  “So… I practically flex taped my leg shut.”

  You could say that, yes. Now, as for the Hemo Restore: open the box please.

  She did and, inside, she found something that looked like a tube of toothpaste, only it was transparent and contained a red liquid. On one side it had a head, which was being pointed at by a yellow arrow on the side.

  Good, now press it anywhere with some skin and you’ll officially not be dying anymore!

  Again, she did as instructed, lifting a sleeve and pressing the tube’s head onto the skin of her arm. She watched in fascination as the liquid inside drained into her.

  Great! The Hemo Restore will help your body replenish its blood supply, but I suggest you eat more to help the process along.

  “I don’t have the money for that,” she said instinctively. But that was the thing: she was a samurai now! Money would never be a problem again! That is, if she survived: for now she was still a very squishy human.

  Don’t you worry your little head over such trifles! Money, fame, comfort and food, all things that you can think about, all things that you could ever desire and then more, they’re all within your grasp now! All at a cost, sure, but it’s all certainly fairer than the market prices for everything your world is producing.

  “So, now that I’m not dying… what do I do?”

  Why of course, you just go and kill some Antithesis.

  “With what? A rusty pipe?” she realized how stupid that question was the moment it left her mouth. Again, she was a goddamn samurai! She could just… get a weapon. Fuck, this was so surreal, and not just because she was still light headed.

  I’ll act like I didn’t hear that st sentence.

  “Sorry, sorry,” still, the contrarian in her had to voice another compint, although it seemed pretty important for her current situation.

  “Although, I’m not sure how I’ll be fighting aliens while missing a leg.”

  Oh, don’t worry about that: you’ll be able to comfortably fight them from your current location! They’ll come to you, after all.

  “What? How?”

  They’re Model Threes, they always move in groups. Big or small. And you weren’t exactly being silent down here. I’ve in fact confirmed thanks to the local security system that a group of five is currently moving towards our location!

  She had read online, on a samurai forum, that the Protector AIs like the one she now had stuck in her head all had different personalities, created to be the perfect fit for their human warrants. She wondered, in that moment, if the Protectors could make mistakes, because she didn’t feel like a sassy, bubbly and enthusiastic AI was fitting for her.

  You will need a weapon to fend for yourself and, afterwards, we’ll get you what you need to get out of this frankly horrific location. No, seriously, do you live here?

  The conversation was starting to feel more and more surreal, so much so that she instinctively answered: “No, no I don’t. I live in a hole in the wall above.”

  Well now, that won’t do at all: my Vanguard deserves only the best of the best. What do you think, does a mansion sound good enough?

  “Titania, I don’t –”

  No no, you’re absolutely right, mansions are for posh people who want to show off but have nothing to really live for. Maybe a cozy little cottage in the middle of the woods? You do still have some of those around. I’m sure we’ll be able to buy you a plot of nd for you to settle down comfortably.

  “Titania, the aliens are coming, or so you said, and I don’t have anything to fight them nor can I run.”

  Oh, yes, that. Don’t you worry. For 50 points you can unlock a weapons catalogue, and with what remains I can find something perfect for you!

  “Do that, please.”

  Css I Kinetic Handguns unlocked!New Purchase: Octagen Mark I HandgunPoints reduced to… 0

  Sara did not like seeing that number.

  For reasons other than the fact that now she had no way to purchase items to help her become stronger, those reasons being that basically all her life she’d been a zero. She’d had nothing, owned nothing, been nothing, probably she hadn’t even been worth the effort of being counted in some kind of general popution statistics.

  Absolute nothingness. A zero.

  She was wrenched out of her thoughts by a third box appearing by her side, near her right hand, stacked neatly on top of the ft Wound Patch box.

  With no need to be prompted she opened it, a satisfying smell of ‘new’ hitting her as she glimpsed at the weapon below. It looked like an old, western movie style, six shooter, the main difference being that the barrel held eight projectiles instead of, well, six. Her hand grasped at the stock, touching the smooth surface and wondering what in hell this material could be.

  It was wood, of course, but she’d never even seen wood in her entire life: at best it had been some thrice recycled plywood that looked and felt like pstic. She stared at it in wonder for a moment, marveling at the sensation.

  Hey there! I know this may look good but trust me, there’s better weapons in the other catalogues.

  That snapped her out of her touch caused synesthesia and she gripped the weapon firmly.

  You’re too rigid. Now, put your finger on the trigger and your left hand over the right: these weapons don’t have much of a recoil to speak of, but the extra support will be helpful for someone with a body as weak as yours. Afterwards, well, pointy end towards the local Antithesis and press the trigger! Here, let me help you!

  As Sara did as instructed, pcing her left hand over the right, her eye impnts pinged her, a circle appearing in her vision. She frowned at it for a moment, batting her eyelids as if an eyesh had fallen on her eye – too many 'eyes' – and she could remove it, before noticing that the circle followed the movements of her gun.

  There! It most certainly won’t fix your probably horrible aim, but every little thing helps. We’ll get you a brain impnt to train you up to standard in no time!

  “Wait, brain impnt? I didn’t agree to any shit like that!”

  Yet, said the ever cheerful AI.

  Don’t worry, I won’t force you or anything like that, but I highly suggest you get a good impnt sooner rather than ter: there are some pretty great Learning Modules you can buy that’ll teach you anything, from cooking with rocks and dirt to driving a spaceship with your eyes closed. Also, it would be best to upgrade your current impnts… with new ones. Yours are ten years old and are barely functional, although in surprisingly good conditions: I’d been expecting to find them infested with viruses, instead there were only some bit-mining malwares and the occasional trojan feeding off your personal data.

  Well, those were some heartening news: she’d put a lot of effort, back in the orphanage, to learn anything and everything she could about computers. Not that it had done her any good.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said in the end, levelling her gun towards the stairs and waiting for the antithesis to show their ugly little mugs.

  That’s the spirit! Oh, and by the way, I didn’t tell you how the gun works! The Mark I Octagen is a simplistic weapon that works in a simir manner to your world’s ‘six shooter’, as your media calls them. The main difference lies in the payload found inside the bullets, which is an irradiated, unstable isotope which decays in a matter of seconds once it comes in contact with the air. It will merely give mild radiation poisoning to a human if you were inclined to shoot them, but will rot the antithesis from the inside and cause them unimaginable agony! Well, I like to think the st part, we’re entirely certain the antithesis do not have the capacity to feel pain.

  Sara’s eyes widened as she looked with renewed respect at the weapon, a bit of fear trickling inside her as she asked: “Wait, will this kill me?”

  Not unless you shoot yourself multiple times, no, and even then, healing radiation damage and poisoning is exceedingly cheap. Of course, if you so wished, you could also upgrade your skin to an insuted yer that will make you completely resistant to any form of radiation. It wouldn’t even cost you that much, and it comes in a lot of interesting color palettes!

  A moment ter an image of what looked to be a skintight tex suit appeared in her eye. It was matte bck but, as it rotated, she saw that, on its back, it had a blood red hourgss.

  Customization of anything you buy is done free of charge! added the AI.

  “Wait, how did you –”

  Know that you’d like that design? I took the liberty of giving your search history a look and found out that you really like spiders and anything reted to them. By the way, yes, giant spider plushies are something you can absolutely buy, there’s a whole Catalogue for plushies out there! Anyways, that’s also what led me to getting you the Octagen Mark I: it felt exceedingly fitting for you.

  “I don’t think that’s an important criteria, Titania,” said Sara.

  On the contrary! Investigation by the Protectors have found out that using weapons perceived as ‘fitting one’s character’ increased the efficiency of Vanguards by a whooping 10%. Those are some pretty big numbers for merely putting some paint on stuff, that’s why they invested a lot of effort into customization!

  The AI’s rant was interrupted by a Model Three appearing on top of the stairs.

  Without thinking, Sara pulled the trigger.

  The gun fired, making surprisingly little noise, her hands moving backwards slightly as she adjusted her sights and fired again and again, a slight panic overtaking her as she forgot to make her shots count.

  She watched in amazement as the first Model Three slumped forwards and tumbled down the stairs, writhing all the way down, until it crashed in front of her, completely still. She didn’t get to enjoy the sensation though as two more ‘Doggo Aliens’ poked their ugly little mugs into the stairway and began scrambling down. She fired and fired, until her gun clicked ineffectively, only for another shot to ring out of it a moment ter as she kept shooting, putting down the two aliens.

  Another one literally jumped down towards her and a scream escaped her mouth as she unloaded the entire barrel into the motherfucking thing, panic overtaking her again as she clicked empty, followed a moment ter by relief as she shot another time, accidentally hitting the fifth antithesis right between two of its many beady eyes.

  It slumped onto the ground a moment ter.

  And then… blessed silence.

  Well, I’d like to say that I’ve seen worse, but technically speaking I’ve existed for only a few minutes so that would be a lie. Still, congratutions for killing your first few antithesis!

  A little victory tune pyed in the back of her mind.

  Then:

  Targets Eliminated!Reward… 48 points!

  I took the liberty of reloading your weapon while you were killing those antithesis. A reload for the Octagen Mark I costs exactly 1 Point, for your information.

  “Ah, thank you,” she said, still reeling from what she’d just accomplished.

  My pleasure. Now, using nineteen bullets to kill five antithesis isn’t exactly the most point-effective strategy, but you’re still new and the margin for improvement is as great as the horizon, so you can be proud of yourself!

  She blushed, both for the unwarranted – or so she thought – compliment and the fact she had wasted so much ammo to get rid of only five Model Threes. Still, what was done was done, and she decided nothing else mattered.

  Now, how about doing something about that missing leg of yours? With your Css I Medical Utilities Catalogue you could buy a basic prosthesis to help you walk. It wouldn’t be anything particurly fancy, not by Protector standards, but it’d certainly be better than anything you could obtain on Earth. I would also suggest taking a Css I Nano-Regenerative Suite to heal up the concussions and fractures you’ve obtained so far, plus completely healing up your leg. In the future you’ll be able to afford a Css II Suite, which will be able to regrow your leg if you so wished.

  “Sounds good to me, but can we afford it?”

  Certainly! The suite would cost you 20 points, same for the prosthesis.

  “Alright then. Do it.”

  New Purchase: Css I Nano-Regenerative SuiteNew Purchase: Css I Prosthetic Limb – LegPoints reduced to… 8

  Two more boxes appeared by her side.

  “Good. Well then, tell me everything I need to know, Titania, and let’s go kill some fottuti aliens!”

  That’s the spirit!

  Zodiac36Gold