Chapter Seventy-One - She Without Sin Drops The First Shoe

Chapter Seventy-One - She Without Sin Drops The First Shoe

"Whenever you think you have a clear and precise idea of what the Antithesis are capable of, a new model shows up that breaks that preconception.

It''s very much possible that these creatures are not beholden to the same physical limitations that make like on Earth possible. Or perhaps it would be safer to say that they have found ways to circumvent,through blind chance or guided evolution, the laws that make for the foundations of our biological sciences."

--Doctor Evelyn "Dagger" Hargrove, 2034

***

"Myalis, what in the fuck is that?" I asked.

My mech''s targeting software had no issues locking onto the big flyer above, probably because it was the size of a literal barn with nothing between us and it except for zipping tracer fire. I watched as lines of light machine gun fire stitched themselves across the alien''s underside.

That is a Model Thirty-One. It''s a space-capable flying model that can serve as a light transport and which can rapidly birth new hives. It can also produce its own sub-model type.

"It can make whats?" I asked.

The fat fuck above seemed to contract in on itself, then it shifted around, its wings sort of gorging outwards until they became larger. It looked a little like one of those manta-rays, but with a mouth at the front large enough to swallow a sedan.

Then more mouths opened up all along its sides. They had disturbingly human lips, and from the look of them, they were covering a hole large enough for someone to crawl into. The model swelled some more, then there was a loud spitting sound.

Large gobs of mucus shout out of the mouths all along its sides, each one flung in a different direction.

"What in the fuck," I muttered even as my mech''s targetting locked onto the spit balls. They... turned in midair? I let the mech start shooting at them with its Gatling guns, but I marked the nearest to be left alone.

It swung around, the snot stuck to it peeling off as it flew. I squinted at it, then recoiled when it kind of stretched out.

It was an alien, not some lump of mucus or just a projectile. A small, cross-shaped bird thing with horizontal and vertical wings. Four long, thin tentacles trailed after it like streamers, and as they twisted and flicked, the little flying alien spun in the air and changed directions.

It came crashing down sharply just a dozen metres away, and I shifted my mech to have a better view of it.

The models ''wings'' ripped off its back, turning into four long, multi-jointed arm things that it started to use to scamper about. Its tentacles were snapped out towards a nearby soldier who screamed and jumped away.

I walked over and stomped it flat with my mech''s forepaw. "What the fuck was that?" I asked Myalis.

"It is good, yes," Gomorrah said. "Except that we now have an issue, and that''s a worse-case scenario kind of issue."

"Ah. You know, the moment you called I figured you were waiting with a shoew to drop on my head," I said.

"I''m surprised you even know that expression," Gomorrah said.

"When you''re from a place like where I was raised, you get to learn all of the expressions that have to do with shit getting worse," I deadpanned. "What''s the stich?"

"We had a suspicion that the Antithesis would be dropping signal pheromones across the atmosphere," Gomorrah said. "It was one of the Family''s bigger fears."

"Why? We''re already in the middle of a global incursion."

"Because with prevailing winds, there''s a very real chance that those signal pheromones will stay up there for weeks or months. It means trouble over a much greater timeframe."

I... had a hard time caring when the current issue we were dealing with was right in our face, not weeks or months away. "Who cares?" I asked.

"All the people who don''t want to die in a week?" Gomorrah asked.

I rolled my eyes, then paused and did it again. Did... did my mech roll its eyes too? Why was that even programmed in? "We can take care of that later. Unless there''s anything we can do about it now?"

"There might be some weather control systems that would pull the pheromones down. It won''t be worth doing until we''ve finished clearing out the swarm, however. A reduction in visibility now would be ill-conceived. In the meantime, expect all nearby hives to awaken and converge. We know what they''ll be producing."

"We do?" I asked.

Gomorrah sent over a package. I opened it, then stared. It was a scientific report. A Field Analysis of the Pheromones over the North American Hemisphere and Their Indicators and Possible Meanings.

The rest of the document was page after page of text, with a few graphs to break it up. It didn''t even have the common courtesy to be in dark mode. "What''s this?" I asked.

"The Pheromones will be summoning flying-type antithesis from any available hives. We can expect a surge in Model Ones in the next day, extending out to... whenever we get around to eliminating the hives that received the message."

"Well, that''ll be something," I said.

Could be worse, could be better. We''d handle it. In the meantime, I wanted to see if I couldn''t snipe more of those bigger fucks with my railgun.

***