“What’s with you?” Nora asked once I stomped back around to the front of the Kodiak. It looked like the attack was already starting to die down. Most of the antithesis had already been cut down by Heavy and Amy as they stormed out of the buildings, and only a few dregs were left.

  “I hate birds,” I grumbled. “They suck no matter what size they are.”

  Nora raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?”

  “Nothing important,” I replied with a sigh. “I just had to deal with a minor annoyance around back. How are things going up here?”

  “I think I’ve convinced Amy to rein in her enthusiasm a little,” she said, glancing back at the younger girl. Amy was standing next to Heavy, firing her akimbo SMGs into the remaining antithesis, laughing maniacally. “Well, okay, maybe not rein in her enthusiasm, but convince her not to throw herself directly into harm. She really seems to want to throw herself into the middle of combat, instead of taking things slow.”

  “I don’t think she’ll learn that while we’re backing her up,” I admitted. “She seems like the sort of person that’ll need to get in over her head to learn where her limits ar, before she’ll learn some restraint. Hopefully she’ll earn enough points to keep her alive when that time comes.”

  “We could ask some of the others to keep an eye on her,” Nora suggested.

  “We could, but she doesn’t seem like the sort of person that’ll like someone constantly hovering over her shoulder,” I said thoughtfully. “Besides, even though she’s new, she is a samurai. She needs to find her own way; we just need to trust she can get there without getting killed.”

  “What are you two talking about back there?” Amy chirped as she bounced back towards us. I hadn’t noticed, but while Nora and I had been talking, Amy had cleared up the remaining antithesis. There were probably a couple of antithesis still in the buildings, but we’d have to move the lure closer before they’d come out.

  “You,” I replied honestly. “And how you’re doing.”

  “So don’t leave me in suspense, what do you think?” she asked excitedly.

  “Honestly? Not that bad. You still have to develop your own identity, but it’s pretty early for that,” Nora admitted. “You’re a little more gung-ho than Teddy and I are comfortable with, but as Teddy pointed out, that’s just part of your style. You’re going to have to figure out when you need to rein it in or cut loose on your own.”

  Amy nodded enthusiastically. “I admit, I can get a little caught up in things. I’ll work on that!”

  “Good, I’d hate to see your career come to an early end because you got in over your head,” I said before stepping back towards the remains of the former seed pod. “Now, we really should get to the cleanup operations. We may be slowly regaining control over the situation, but there’s plenty left to do!”

  “Cleanup? What sort of cleanup?” Amy asked.

  “The protectors have a ton of different techs designed specifically for eliminating dead antithesis flesh. Some samurai are willing to leave the dead in the street, and I don’t mind leaving small fights alone, but with this many antithesis, I try to clean up the area afterwards. The last thing we want is to overlook an injured but still alive antithesis, to crawl away and take root somewhere because we didn’t sweep the area.”

  “It’s not the most exciting job, but when you put it that way, I see why you do it,” Amy replied, nodding.

  “Nyx!” I yelled back at the Kodiak, where my AI’s avatar was taking cover. “Give me a case of flesh melters!”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  As the massive box of grenades appeared at my feet, the surrounding bears ran forward to collect a few each, then dispersed towards the largest concentration of bodies.

  “These release a swarm of nanites that are coded to exclusively break down antithesis,” I explained, grabbing one up and tossing it towards Amy. The girl missed her initial catch, fumbled with it for a second, but managed to grab it before it hit the ground. She came up smiling. “It’s easy to use, pull the pin, then throw. The grenade, not the pin. Even though it's keyed to antithesis, I’d recommend being cautious with them. Since they’re similar to conventional grenades, you can give them a try and see if that’s something you might want to incorporate into your gear later, without having to perform live fire tests.”

  “I might just do that!” Amy declared, snatching up a handful more of the nanite dispersal devices before sprinting off down the street.

  I watched her go for several seconds before leaning closer to Nora. “I’m going to get a quick update from Bob about the hive situation. I’ll be right back.”

  “Right. I'll head over and dispose of what’s left of that pod core. If anything was going to take root, I’d expect it to be that crap,” she replied quietly. “Call me if you need me.”

  I nodded before retreating back towards my Command vehicle. Nyx’s avatar was just standing there, motionless in the back, while Bob was pacing back and forth.

  “Bob, please tell me the situation outside the city has calmed down. I’d kind of like to bring more troops in so we can sweep the area,” I said as I stepped inside.

  The big bear stopped his relentless movement and turned towards me with a sad smile on his face. “Wish I could, boss, but the situation outside is… complicated.”

  “How complicated could it be? You’re using a small army of bears to defend the towns in the area, while several other samurai systematically go around and destroy the hives. Slow, I expect, difficult maybe, but complicated isn’t exactly an adjective I expected when talking about this situation,” I huffed. “What’s the problem?”

  “A couple samurai have entered the area, but I’ve already lost track of them, and the antithesis are still pouring out of those hives,” Bob reported.

  “How many are a couple?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Three. Silent Saber, Twilight Trencher, and Psychosis were all keeping the locals apprised of their progress until recently, but they’ve gone radio silent.”

  “... I really need to make an effort to meet all the local samurai,” I muttered. “I have no idea who Twilight Trencher or Psychosis are, but I’ve met Saber a couple times. He seemed like a pretty competent guy. How long have they been radio silent?”

  “Ever since we hit the first pod,” Bob replied nervously. “I thought maybe they just stopped reporting since I’m technically filling in for the militia, or they were underground, but the hives they approached still appear to be churning out antithesis.”

  “Wonderful,” I muttered. “Nyx, is there any chance you have a way to communicate directly with their AI and see what’s going on? I don’t have the contact information for any of them.”

  “I do, but it’s for Protector- relevant discussion only. I cannot use it to help you. If you want a special way to contact someone, you’ll need to spend the points and open the relevant catalog; you should know that by now,” my AI replied flatly. “Saber was a member of the Family, so they may have a better way to contact him. At the very least, they’ll have his contact info.”

  Sighing, I slumped down on one of the benches that ran down the inside of the cab and pulled up Charlotte’s contact information in my augs. The call went through surprisingly fast, considering that Charlotte was still in the heart of the incursion zone, just like we were. Maybe she was between battles.

  “Teddy? I don’t have a lot of time to talk right now. We’re kind of experiencing a crisis right now,” Charlotte announced tersely.

  “Are you talking about the Incursion, or the fact that some of the samurai that went outside the wall seem to have gone dark?” I asked.

  There was a pause. “So you’ve heard?”

  “Bob just informed me that he lost contact with some of the samurai outside the city. Based upon your reaction, he’s not the only one,” I muttered.

  “Seven samurai went beyond the walls before the Incursion was called, four traveling in a group, three solo. We’ve lost track of the solo operators. I’d go investigate myself, but there are so many antithesis in the area I’m not confident I can get through,” Charlotte reported.

  “Fuck… How is the incursion looking from your side?” I asked quietly.

  “The situation is under control, for now. From what I can tell, we’ve sanitized about a third of the drop sites, a job that was made a little easier by the fact that we seem to have a half dozen newly initialized samurai running around, attracting the antithesis’ attention,” Charlotte explained.

  “Yeah, Nora and I had a run-in with one of them ourselves,” I grumbled. “Do you think you can handle the situation inside the city if Nora and I head outside to investigate? I’ll leave the perimeter in place and instruct Bandit to redirect any extra units to help with the cleanup. But I’ll admit, I’m a little concerned about the situation outside. I expected more than seven samurai to respond, and if three are missing… the situation out there might be a lot worse than we previously thought.”

  “Agreed. We should have more than enough samurai to deal with what’s left of the incursion. What we need now is solid intel on what’s happening outside. Please send me regular updates about the situation, and be careful. The last thing we need is for you two to go missing too,” Charlotte warned.

  “I’ll do my best!” I promised. “Talk to you soon.”

  “Take care,” came Charlotte’s quick reply before the line went dead.

  I closed down my augs and leaned back against the wall, letting out a long breath. “Why can’t the antithesis ever make things easy for me?” I muttered.

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