The last shelter we were scheduled to check was a massive concrete structure, which would have blended into the surrounding buildings if it didn’t have a large fenced off area on one side. At first I thought the area was a construction site, considering it had a number of temporary buildings setup, but I have no idea why they would have covered the entire area in astroturf. In the end, I gave up guessing. It didn’t really matter anyways.

  This time the antithesis started showing up before we even had a chance to set up our defenses. They crashed against the chain link fence, bending the posts in some areas, before we managed to cut down the front line.

  Rather than taking a single defensive position, I decided to walk the perimeter this time. Shooting the occasional higher model that showed up, and allowing Nyx to top up the bear’s ammo bags when I strayed close. After I finished my first circuit Hel stopped me. She looked a little uncomfortable.

  “I’d like your help evacuating this shelter, if you don’t mind. I think things will go smoother if it’s you and your team down there, rather than me and some soldiers,” she said.

  I stared at her, blankly. “Why…”

  “Because I’m not great with kids.” She shuddered for a moment, then looked over at me when it was obvious that I still didn’t get it. “You do know where we are right?”

  I shook my head.

  “This is an elementary school, some of the surrounding civilians have also taken shelter here, but it’s mostly kids.”

  “Ahhhh…. Okay then.” I honestly didn’t know what to say, it looked like every other building as far as I could tell, how was I supposed to know?

  She continued to stare at me for a few more seconds, until I decided it was easier to just handle things than ask more questions. I headed for the entrance with my bears in tow. “Nyx, where is this shelter, and how does one evacuate it?”

  It’s in the basement, and usually you just have to open up the door then direct everyone towards the buses. I expect it’ll be harder since you’re dealing with kids.

  “Right…” As I entered the building I found myself in a reception area, there was a tidy desk on my right, along with a few hallways leading further into the building, and on my right were a set of stairs. Down I went.

  The stairs went much deeper than I expected, several stories at least. They ended at a small unadorned room with two massive metal doors embedded in the far wall. It looked like there was a set of hydraulic pistons embedded in the wall on each side, forcing the doors shut. I didn’t see a console or anything, just the door.

  “So… do I just ask you to crack this thing or what?” I asked after several seconds.

  Whenever you’re ready.

  I quickly checked my bears, then sent a command for them to engage the safety on their rifles, before putting them away. I made a mental note to ask Nyx about installing biometrics to prevent small hands from getting their hands on anything dangerous in the future.

  Once that was done, I gave the order. “Open it.”

  The hydraulics whined, struggling to move the massive foot thick metal doors, but slowly the shelter opened. As soon as the door had opened wide enough a pair of guards stepped out, half terrified, waving tiny pistols in my direction.

  “Identify yourself!” the slim one ordered, stepping closer to me. His partner was glancing around furiously, I guess they expected an ambush or something.

  I stepped forward, faster than either one could react, grabbed the first guard's pistol and ripped it out of his grip. The second guard turned towards me, but I just reached out and disarmed him the same way. My new muscles were awesome.

  “I’m a samurai.” They both flinched and backed away, which just caused me to sigh. I walked over to the open door and peered inside, several people were huddled inside, staring back at me. “What’s the situation inside?”

  “We came down as soon as the alarms went off, and held the door open as long as possible. There are no major injuries, but as you can see the vault mainly contains children from the school upstairs.” I looked at the guard, who was surprisingly helpful, then checked that the pistol’s safeties were on before flipping the guns around and handing them back to the guards.

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  “You aim that at anything other than an Antithesis I’m going to do more than disarm you both, got it?”

  They both nodded.

  The vault was absolutely full of kids, I’d have to make sure they were organized before moving on or someone would get lost, or hurt.

  “Alright, listen up.” I raised my voice, so everyone could hear me. “The evacuation is here but I want some organization, who are the caretakers for the kids?”

  One of the women closest to me stood up, “You mean the teachers, right?”

  I stared blankly at her for a minute. “Yes…?”

  Thankfully the woman didn’t seem to be phased by my answer. “There are a couple of us, most are at the back watching the kids.”

  I nodded. “Then can you organize the kids into groups, and make sure everyone is accounted for.”

  “Sure, we’ll collect everyone into their classes,” she replied.

  I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like they already had a plan, so I just decided to go with it. “Sounds great,” I said.

  As she ran off Nyx spoke up. Your lack of educational knowledge is staggering, you might want to correct that when we have more time.

  “Quiet you.”

  As the kids were getting organised, a couple men came running up to the front. “If the evacuation is here, we can go right?”

  I looked him up and down, “You could, but I’d like the adults to space themselves in between groups of kids, so we can keep track of them”

  He scoffed, “I’m no baby sitter, I’m out of here.” He pushed past me, and it looked like his friends were going to follow, but seconds later the rude man was thrown back into the shelter. Bob stepped next to me and extended his claws on one side. Everyone froze.

  I once again raised my voice, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “In case you couldn’t tell by the armor, or small squad of robotic kill bears behind me, I AM a samurai, and I’m attempting to get everyone out of here alive. To do that, I need order. I’d like the adults not associated with the school to split into small groups and travel between the children, so no one gets lost or left behind, got it?”

  I pointed at the children, which were now organised into rough lines. The teachers were running back and forth taking tallies.

  “Although, it looks like the kids are well behaved and organised, unlike some people. I wonder if I should worry about them, or someone else?” I glanced at the men, who slunk away.

  “Assholes,” I muttered.

  After a few minutes the teacher I was talking to before came up to me. “Everyone is accounted for and ready to go.”

  I nodded and sent Hel a message to let her know everything was ready. After a few moments I got an acknowledgement. As soon as I did I sent my bears to each stair landing to monitor things.

  “Alright, I want two or three adults at the front, then a group of kids, then a couple more adults, so on and so forth. Walk calmly up the stairs, and out the main doors. Ready?”

  I saw hundreds of little heads nod. The adults, not so much. “Alright, move out.”

  The long column started moving past me. The occasional kid would gawk at me, but I would just wave, then give them a gentle tap on the back to urge them to follow the line. When one of the adults shot me a dirty look, I just lifted my LCARS a little higher and encouraged them to keep moving forward. In the end everything went rather smoothly.

  Once everyone was on their way up the stairs I did one last sweep of the Shelter. It was a mess, there was garbage on the floor and blankets laid out everywhere. It wasn’t super surprising, they’d been packed in so tightly it was hard to move. Survival over comfort.

  I was about to leave, but at the last minute I stopped and grabbed a few bags of the leftover rations, then I sprinted up the stairs, collecting my bears as I went. When I got to the top of the stairs the last few people were already boarding the buses.

  Before stepping outside I grabbed the nearest soldier and shoved the bags into his arms, which he almost immediately dropped due to the weight. He looked at me in confusion.

  “Put one of those on each bus containing kids, that’ll keep them content until we get back to camp. If there are any extras just pass them to the other buses.”

  He saluted, “Yes ma’am,” and trudged off.

  With my work finally done, I wandered off to find Hel. She wasn’t too far off, spraying the Antithesis with something that looked like a flamethrower, but was freezing them instead of burning. I saw her raise an eye when I approached.

  “Done already?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes, “Of course, I’m not sure why you thought that’d be difficult. Kids are easy to deal with.”

  “So there were no issues?”

  “I didn’t say that, there were adults down there too.”

  She gave me a strange look, then shook her head. “I got a message while you were down there, the twins want you and Humboldt to give them a hand. We shouldn’t need six Samurai to escort the column out of the city, not unless the Antithesis surge like earlier. Reinforcements from California have also arrived in camp, so we’ll get some replacements when we get back. Just call the twins and figure out what’s up.”

  As she left I just scratched my head. I didn’t know what was going on, but it sounded like I was in for a long night.

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