Chapter Sixty-Two - Arena

“The best thing you can do when there are aliens about is keep low, and keep your head on straight. It’s the best way to stay alive.”

--Deus Ex, 2054

***

As soon as one of my cat mechs joined the civilians, I ditched.

Felt a little bad just leaving them behind, but they had a walking weapons platform watching over them now, and they were only a block away from the headquarters.

A glance at the map to make sure I was heading in the right direction, and I continued on towards the arena. From what Myalis was able to pull up in a hurry, the old arena looked fairly secure. It was a pre-incursion building, but like, way before the incursions started. It had a cold-war era fallout shelter in the basement. Nothing up to modern code, I bet, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing.

No cameras on or around the building, which was annoying, but Myalis said that she could triangulate a lot of phone signals in the area that hadn't been there a few hours before. People really were gathering there.

I’d be using that phone tracking trick again. There were still a few pockets of people around Black Bear. If we did our job right, they’d be safe if they had somewhere to lay low for a while, I figured. Still didn’t want to risk it too much. Having everyone in one place made it easier to defend them all. Plus, more guns manning the figurative walls.

It would suck if one of them had a cold and spread it around, but I’d take that over aliens eating everyone any day of the week.

I was just past the back of the headquarters when my augs told me I had an incoming call. Gomorrah.

“Yo,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied. “I reached out to Deus Ex, to get some news about that orbital strike. I think she was sleeping, but her AI wasn’t. It directed me to speak with someone from the Family.”

“Alright,” I said. Made sense so far. Pipsqueak needed her naptime.

“Long and short of it is that they’ll be bombing the area in about five minutes.”

“Five minutes!” I shouted. That was real fucking soon. I glanced at the sky but all I saw was a thick layer of grey, but that didn’t mean they had to bomb the place now.

“The Vanguard I spoke to said the area of effect would only barely touch Black Bear. Though... Cat, I didn’t have all that much confidence in the man from my one conversation with him. He sounded a bit stupid.”

I paused. Was it wise to head out to the arena now? The headquarters looked a lot tougher and was closer to the centre of the city to boot. More buildings around it to serve as cover. But that would mean abandoning however many people were at the arena. “Fuck. Look, I’m going to join up with some folk, then try to get them all into cover. What are you doing?”

I started to run ahead. Still looking around for Model Nines, but prioritizing getting my ass out of the blast radius more.

“I’m landing Fury now. I want it safe from the blast. I’ll be in the headquarters. I’ll see what needs doing after that.”

“Right, did he tell you anything about what kind of bombardment we’ll be dealing with here? Deus Ex said orbital, but that just means the bombs are coming from on high.”

“He said rods of god and some thermobaric explosives.”

“Fuel-air?” I asked.

“You’re familiar?’ Gomorrah asked.

I could still vividly recall nearly cooking my eyebrows off a couple of days ago. “Yeah. Bombs are my thing. Shit, are they sure it won’t hit the town?”

“He mentioned skirting the edge of the town. Starting here, then working over to the actual hive to make any Antithesis move away from Black Bear. Or something like that, I’m not sure I understood entirely.”

“Skirting? Skirting is close,” I said.

“Get to cover. We’ll have to trust that our fellow samurai know what they’re doing.”

“I don’t like trusting people I don’t know,” I said. “Myalis, you got anything on this?”

I’m afraid not.

I grumbled. “Fine, I’ll get to cover with the civilians. Stay safe too, alright?”

“If you die I’ll burn the one responsible, then scatter the ashes.”

That... was morbid as hell, but also somehow really nice. “Thanks,” I said, genuinely meaning it.

I found the arena off to one side of the town. A squat building, much longer than it was wide, with a tin roof painted some ugly green, and cement sides that rose up three meters off the ground. It looked a bit on the rustier side, and its age showed. Definitely something from the seventies.

Plenty of cars parked around the lot, a few of them pressed up against the front to serve as barriers around the entrance. An entrance that was slightly ajar with no one guarding it.

I looked around again, searching for a Model Nine, or maybe... anything that stood out as wrong. There wasn’t anything. The cars were all older, maybe second hand, lots of repairs, the air didn’t smell like gunpowder or anything like that. There was nothing wrong, yet I felt a shiver running down my spine.

I flicked on my shoulder-mounted guns, tucked Icarus away, and pulled out my trusty Trench Maker. It was down a few rounds; had to keep that in mind.

Moving forward, I paused by the door and strained my ears. Voices? No, screams, but distant, more than one person crying, one sounded like a baby. Something mechanical being racked, air conditioning units rumbling, people shouting confused orders back and forth.

“Shit,” I muttered as I stepped in. I swept my gun around, looking through the lobby as quickly as I could.

Two bodies on the floor, looking like they’d been torn into. Bite marks, mostly. Not a Model Nine then? I swallowed past the lump in my throat and moved on. Most of the noise was coming from deeper in.

I had to wonder why. The forest nearby had to have plenty of critters in it. Rabbits and birds and squirrels and... were there wolves here? Deer. Definitely deer, I was pretty sure those weren’t extinct.

Point was, there had to be plenty of things to eat. And they were supposed to be able to eat plants and trees and the like.

Why go after the people here?

I got that they’d spread around and eventually butt up against humanity, and I was fine with murdering them to the last. I just didn’t get why they acted the way they did. Coming after a town like this when there was plenty to be had around it with less risk.

Maybe I was overthinking it. Aliens had alien ways of thinking, big surprise.

I licked my lips as I pushed into the next room over. It was a small space, a corridor with windows lining one side, looking into a hockey rink. No ice. Too warm for that, and the stands looked a bit dusty. No aliens that I could see.

The corridor moved off a ways, and there were a few steps leading down at the end.

I followed the noises, moving slowly, keeping quiet.

Someone shot at something. First one shot, then two or three more.

“Shit,” I muttered before sprinting ahead.

I bounced off the wall around the corner and found myself in another passageway. Locker rooms to one side, storage on the other, and a shit barricade at the end.

Three Model Threes, running down the centre of the corridor. Another jumped out of one of the room’s to the side.

I cursed and ran forward.

The plasma rifle on my shoulder opened fire, filling the air between us with flashing darts that pelted into the alien’s backs and sides, burning pinky-wide holes into the aliens. I didn’t bother firing at them with my Trench Maker. I’d just miss.

The aliens went down, and I slid to a stop before the door they’d been coming out of.

I came face to face with a Model Three climbing in through a broken window.

It stared at me for just a moment before baring its teeth.

My railgun painted a line in the air, dust kicked aside in a tunnel that passed through the alien’s skull.

“Sound bomb,” I said.

Myalis provided a resonator dropping before me so that I could catch it out of the air. I turned it on with a flick of my thumb and stepped into the room. An office. Dust to one side, old drawers to the other, ancient cathode-ray screen rotting in the corner.

I underhanded the grenade outside and ran back into the corridor.

At least I was finally getting some action, I reasoned as I ran to the end.

Now I just had to try and keep folks alive too.

***