The Terminal was originally designed as a train station, and had the space to house dozens of trains simultaneously. Over time, it had been heavily renovated. The brokers had constructed dozens of permanent stores around the perimeter, where they sold the best merchandise. Next to the shops were a couple rows of small shacks, which housed the most successful of the independent traders. They weren’t much more than plywood shacks, but to most people around here owning anything was impressive. The rest of the space had been crammed full of row upon row of wood booths. The brokers allowed anyone who wanted to set up shop here, as long as they got a piece of the action.

  This place was usually busy twenty-four seven with people wheeling and dealing, seeing completely devoid of life was… unsettling to say the least.

  “Can we get that door closed?” I asked as I finally stepped inside the massive building.

  Not with the equipment, and catalogs you have now. It looks like the doors are controlled from elsewhere in the building, and since you don’t have any data mining catalogs, I can’t determine where.

  “Shit…” I whispered as I slowly started making my way towards the back of the building. The stalls were just high enough to hide a Three behind, so I took it slow, and checked every aisle as I advanced.

  You did make a fair number of points clearing out all those Model Sevens, you’re back up to Six Hundred Thirty Two points. Considering how big this place is, I recommend you open up the Robotic Sensor modules catalog for fifty points. Then you could deploy another bot with acoustic, electromagnetic, thermal, and electrochemical detectors for two hundred. It would speed up the search considerably.

  I let my eyes pass over the cavernous area, trying to estimate how long it would take to search manually. Too long probably.

  “Do it,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “If worse comes to worse, and it can’t find anyone, at least it can hold another gun."

  Purchased - Robotic Sensor Modules catalog - 50 points

  Purchased - Combat bot + Sensor modifications - 200 points

  Purchased - T-22A Blackpaw assault rifle- 10 Points

  Points remaining - 372

  Two more plastic wrapped packages materialized next to me. I paused to let the robot unpack itself, but kept scanning the area until it was done. When I finally glanced towards the new bot my breath got caught in my throat.

  “I honestly thought it couldn’t get worse,” I muttered, staring at the new abomination. “I was wrong."

  The new bot had the same basic skeletal structure as the others, but the head was completely different. It had a pair of sharp ear triangular antennas sticking out the top of its head, there was a thin metallic grill in the middle of its face instead of a nose, and instead of having a pair of optical sensor where the eyes should have been, this model had cluster of three on each side of it’s head, giving it an insectoid appearance.

  I crouched down in front of the bot, “I need to find survivors,” I whispered. “If there any, lead me to them."

  The bot stood straight, swung its head back and forth for a minute, then took off towards the back of The Terminal. It was so quick that I needed to sprint to keep up. Every once in a while it would stop, reorient itself, and dart off again. This cycle continued half a dozen times until it finally stopped before a huge metal door with the words “Fuck Off - Employees only” stencilled on it in red.

  “Classy," I muttered quietly, before knocking on the door.

  There was no response for a while, so I knocked again.

  A deep, male voice echoed out. “You’re not getting in here, you freaks,” he said. I’d never been as glad to hear another human voice before.

  “I hear you,” I replied coolly. “Since I can’t come in, and you’re not coming out, you mind telling me how to shut the doors?"

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Is this a trick? Who is this?” the voice growled.

  I heft my rifle and rested the barrel of the weapon on my shoulder. “Evelyn Claire, your local, newly minted Samurai.”

  There was a muffled shout, followed by a flurry of conversation that I could hear even through the heavy metal door. A security camera above the door blinked to life and zoomed in on me. I casually waved at whomever was on the other side, then there was another flurry of conversation. Finally, a new voice came from behind the door, female this time.

  “Evelyn?” the familiar voice said.

  “Yes? I’m still here," I replied. “Is that you Jane? What the fuck were you doing here?”

  “I was acting as a courier for the Brokers, so I could earn enough to feed the kids today. You haven’t been able to salvage anything good in days, and we’ve been running out of supplies,” Jane hissed. “What is this about you becoming a samurai?”

  “I kind of got into a little scrap with a couple Antithesis while pulling a job with Dante and, well, things happened,” I explained lightly.

  “Doing a job with who?” Jane’s voice echoed through the door. “You promised no gang jobs!”

  “Can we maybe discuss that part later? I did just fight all the way over here to check on you, you’re welcome by the way, only to find everyone locked in a basement or something. Are you ok in there?”

  There was a momentary pause. “I’m not going to lie, things aren’t too good in here. We’re packed like rats, and I think the ventilation stopped, we’re not getting any air,” Jane reported.

  “Probably for the best, probably prevented the Sevens from crawling in,” I muttered.

  “What was that?” Jane asked.

  “Never mind,” I said, raising my voice again to be heard. “Is there anyone in there that can tell me how to close the outer doors? If I do that, you may be able to get out of there.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  More shuffling, I could hear Jane yelling angrily at someone, but it was the man that spoke next. “Listen kid,” he started, “My name’s Jessup, and I’m the head of the Brokers. Do you really think you can get this place locked up again?” he asked.

  “As long as someone gives me directions, and I don’t have to rewire the entire fucking building to get it working, then yeah,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

  The man sighed. “Alright, look up. You see that booth in the middle of the building, among the catwalks?” I looked up and glanced around. After a couple seconds I finally found a small yellow room, deep in the shadows, hanging from the ceiling. “That’s our control room”, Jessup continued, “and all the external security is routed through there. When this shit kicked off I sent half a dozen of my boys up there to lock everything down, but something got them before they could. Still think you can do it?”

  I carefully traced the maze of catwalks back, until they intersected the wall. There appeared to be a ladder leading up to them somewhere on the second floor.

  “No problem,” I said, with a smile. I threw a thumbs up at the camera before jogging away.

  Once I was out of the range of the camera I slowed, letting my shoulders slump and my smile melt away.

  You were confident.

  “Yeah, well, my former foster parents once told me it’s better to seem confident, and give them hope, than it is to share to appear down, and spread despair,” I told Nyx.

  They sound very wise. Too bad you didn’t inherit more of their wits.

  “I’d smack you if you were more than a voice in my head," I growled.

  As soon as I found a set of stairs leading upstairs I waved my bots over. “Spooky, take the two combat bots and cover the door. If there’s anything you can’t deal with, retreat and let me know,” I said. The bots immediately dashed off, disappearing into the market, leaving me alone with the newer model. “You, come with me.”

  I caught the occasional glimpse of the other bots making their way through the stalls as I ascended the stairs, but they’d all but disappeared from view by the time I reached the top. The second level of the Terminal was posh, well at least for this area. Clean, plush chairs and sofas, a bar, and a couple dozen small rooms with frosted windows. Private rooms maybe? I’d heard the VIPs got individual service, everything was brought directly to them, that was probably done up here.

  Looking up I carefully followed the catwalk again until I finally located the ladder again. It had been hidden from the customers by a long curtain, and seemed to be accessed through the employees area behind the bad.

  I padded over to the bar and quickly searched for an easy way in. There wasn’t one. Rather than wasting a bunch of time I jumped up onto one of the chairs, and prepared to vault the bar. Before I could, the bot swivelled in place, locking both its eyes and rifle on the far side of the bar. I held my breath, and scanned the area it was watching. I couldn’t see, or hear anything, but the bot had locked on to something. I watched as the bot’s head turned excruciatingly slow, tracking something through the wall.

  It took several seconds for the thing to reach a nearby open door, allowing me to get a look at it. It was some sort of small feather worm. I only had enough time to register how strange it was before the bot shot it, blowing the small creatures to pieces.

  That’s the true form of the model sevens, there must be some loose ones around here. You’ll have to make sure to supply the survivors with anti-seven pills before we let them out.

  A shiver went down the back of my neck. “Those are a thing?” I shouted angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I killed all those people?"

  Calm yourself, the pills are only effective at preventing people from being infected. The model seven can be removed, in some cases, if the infectee is found early enough. Like I said before, once the infection progresses far enough nothing can be done for the host.

  “If you say so," I grumbled, glancing at the worm. I couldn’t believe that so much loss could be caused by such a little thing. “Let's get this done,” I muttered.

  The ladder was metal, and well maintained. A nice change from the tetanus inducing options I’d encountered in the stacks earlier. Once I reached the top I sent the bot ahead of me, to make sure everything was stable. Thankfully it seemed like the Brokers took their maintenance seriously, and the catwalk didn’t even twitch as the bot crossed it. When I saw that, I quickly followed behind.

  We managed to get about halfway to the control room when the gunfire started. My eyes snapped towards the sound, just barely able to pick out the tiny shape of my bears at the far side of the facility. “Nyx, what’s happening?” I asked.

  The Model Twelve is back, and it brought a load of Threes with it. Your bots can deal with the Threes easily enough, the Twelve on the other hand…

  “Get them to pull back and get to cover,” I snapped. “There’s no point having them fight a battle they can’t win.” As the bears scattered I saw a massive shadow step through the door. I glanced at the control room, “If I send the bot into the control room can you help it close the door?”

  Probably.

  “Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it’ll have to do,” I replied. “You!” I said pointing at the bot, “Clear that control room then get those outer shutters closed!” I yelled as I started sprinting back down the catwalk. I scurred down the ladder as fast as I could, jumped the last couple feet, then rushed to the nearest landing. It was there that I got my first good look at the model Twelve.

  The bastard was massive, as tall as a bus, and nearly one and a half times as wide. Its heavy form was covered with a series of thick overlapping armor plates. It had six stout legs, and a short squat head that vaguely reminded me of a bulldozer. A very angry bulldozer.

  I’m losing contact with the bots, the Model Twelve has a built in ECM and it’s interfering with communications. It’ll probably shut down the bots completely if it gets too close.

  “You could have mentioned that earlier,” I growled. “If they can’t then get them out of here.”

  I brought the CAR up, and began unloading it at the massive Antithesis. For the first time today, it failed me. I unloaded fifteen rounds, directly into the Twelve’s center mass, which considering the armor, was a probably a bad choice. The missiles barely managed to crack its armor.

  The three eyes on one side of the Twelves head focused on me, and narrowed. The beast snorted, turned and charged. The bastard barrelled through every stall and shack between us before smashing into the store below me. Thankfully the Brokers hadn’t cut any corners while building their stuff, and the roof remained stable. I still decided it probably was better to move before it hit any supports.

  “Nyx, you know that catalog we were discussing before? The weapon emplacement one? It wouldn’t happen to have any anti-tank guns would it?”

  It would! The XR-42 Heavy Railgun with bipod mount is 100 points. Shall I order one?

  “Not yet,” I grunted, as I sprinted across the concourse. “Wait until I’m in position.” Since it would have been impossible to get a good shot at the Twelve from above, and the other side of the Terminal was too far away, the only place I could think of getting a good shot was a bridge which passed over the center complex, and connected the two sides. Once I was about twenty feet down the bridge I turned, and tried to spot the Twelve. The beast was still stomping around the store, which I could now see was named ‘Low Fashion’. Part of me was glad to be firing an anti-tank gun in that direction, that was a terrible fucking pun to make in the undercity.

  “Drop it! And don’t bother with the fucking box” I barked as I dropped to my knees, quickly sliding to a stop. The gun materialized, sitting on a bipod, four feet long, the front two feet consisted of two long, thick, parallel rails. Along the top were three pairs of massive capacitors, set in a V, and each one practically glowed with power. This gun was a monster.

  I leaned forward, putting my shoulder against the stock and my eye up to the sight. I wasn’t much of a shot, but with a target as big as the Twelve, even I was going to have trouble missing. All it took was a minor adjustment to put the Twelve dead center. As it turned to look at me, realizing I was no longer above it for the first time, I pulled the trigger. There was a momentary pause, then the coils flared, there was a deep thump sound.

  The force of the shot pushed the Railgun back a good six inches, I felt like my shoulder had been dislocated. As bad as I felt, it was obvious that the twelve fared much worse. The round had hit the Antithesis just above the back leg, cut all the way through the beast, before exiting through the neck and burrowing a few inches in the floor.

  I slumped in relief, I got the bastard. As if to acknowledge my victory I heard the massive gates let out a massive metallic screech, then finally close.

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