Chapter Seventy-Seven - Deeper

“The Cleaners are a group of samurai that show up after the main thrust of an incursion is done, and after the hive is declared dead. Some of them are somewhat popular, but never as much as the more famous ‘main-line’ samurai.

Their work is out of the limelight, cleaning up after the bigger, louder samurai, and ensuring that an incursion is well and truly dead.”

--Excerpt from, The Cleaners, a documentary, 2037

***

Gomorrah continued to clear the way, even though the fires were finally starting to die down. I think the lack of stuff to burn was finally calming things down.

It was still swelteringly hot though, and I could feel myself sweating like mad in my suit. I kinda hoped that it was going to cool off soon, but the patches of ground that were still glowing-hot after the fire finally went out hinted that it wouldn’t cool down that quickly.

“I think we’re nearly there,” Gomorrah said.

I looked around and vaguely recognized the area. It wasn’t like there were road signs to follow, but I did have a minimap of sorts and the passages seemed familiar. We were at an intersection away from the hive. “How do you figure?” I asked.

“I was looking at your progress on the map earlier; this is about where you stopped. In the next section, I mean,” she said.

Made sense. “Aww, were you watching out for me?”

“More points if you leave to join the Lord.”

I laughed. “Nice. Yeah, the next spot is where the hive was.”

“Was? You sure it’s entirely gone?”

“I hope it is,” I said.

The room had been pretty large, and I wasn’t sure if I’d put enough canister bombs to fully cover it. On our trek down, I could spot the places where the bombs’ range didn’t overlap—there wasn’t usually much damage in those spots. A few Antithesis had tried to hide in there, but it looked like they’d been cooked anyway.

We reached the hive, and I cursed and brought my Icarus up.

Some of the trees remained, burning merrily and tossing up brackish smoke to the ceiling. Roots still covered the ground, oozing puss and whatever passed for blood in an Antithesis hive. The outer layer of the roots had been burned off, but the fire hadn’t turned the whole place to ash.

The wrecked remains of one of my cat mecha was laying nearby, crushed and broken into so much scrap.

“Nothing moving,” Gomorrah said as she swept her gaze around. “This place is big though.”

“Not as cooked as I’d like,” I said.

“I can fix that,” she said. “Give me ten minutes or so.”

“Yeah, actually, that’s not a terrible idea.” I pointed across the room. “That tunnel’s the one I didn’t explore. Some Model Thirteen spotted me when I was going down it. I tossed a bomb in, but I don’t think it’ll have burned too deep into it.”

“Maybe we can head over that way, then burn the hive behind us,” Gomorrah said.

I started to nod, then swore and jumped onto Gomorrah.

She gasped as I collided into her and sent both of us sprawling.

Then a Model Thirteen, or a third of one, crashed into the ground where we’d been standing. Its tentacles, mostly cut short and burned to nubs, whipped around and crashed into my back. Shields appeared and burst apart under the impact, and I was shoved down harder onto Gomorrah.

Then my cats opened fire, all three of them shooting at the Model Thirteen from three directions and gouging out the Antithesis’ flesh.

I rolled off Gomorrah and scrambled for my gun, but it was already done, the alien slumped down, properly dead.

“Christ,” Gomorrah said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I climbed to my feet, then stepped over to the Model Thirteen. It was riddled with holes, some of them bleeding quite a bit. It looked a little charred on the edges, but I guess it had slipped to somewhere safe... ish.

I kicked it with the tip of my boot, just to make sure.

“Where did that come from?” Gomorrah asked.

I looked up. “They can cling to ceilings, and there’s smoke,” I said. “Spooky fuckers.”

Gomorrah grunted as she got to her feet. Her back-mounted flamethrowers deployed and started scanning the ceiling. “Good way of knowing that the hive isn’t entirely dead. I don’t envy the samurai that do clean-up work.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I asked.

“Not quite. There are some that come in only once the hive is confirmed to be dead, just to root out pockets of Antithesis, and burn any remains so they don’t start growing again. It’s not a job that pays very well, point-wise, but it’s lower-risk and someone needs to do it.”

“Let’s make their jobs easier then,” I said. “Myalis, resonators, I need... eh, about six of them?”

The sound-based bombs acted pretty slowly, but they lasted a while. I tossed the first one across the room, then saw Gomorrah shaking her head.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Those things are noisy.”

I paused, five more grenades tucked into the crook of my arm. “Want me to put these aside?

She shook her head. “Go ahead. I’m burning this place down either way.”

I shrugged and tossed the last grenades around. They made the roots shiver, and I liked seeing all the trees start melting on the edges, turning into so much slush. Hopefully it would slush any still-living Antithesis, though it didn’t seem to work as well on the trees and thicker roots.

“Let’s keep moving,” Gomorrah said.

I pointed to one of my cats, then ahead of us, letting it leap forward to take the lead.

“You bought cats here?” Gomorrah asked as she looked at the wreck of a cat mech.

“Distraction,” I said. “I made it out alive, so I guess it worked.”

“I guess so. I’m starting to realize that we are woefully undertrained for this.”

“Did you get any training at all?”

“No.”

I nodded. “So we’re not undertrained, are we?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Gomorrah and I crossed the hive, being careful as we stepped over roots and the charred husks of dead Antithesis. I had one scare when a Model Ten flopped out of a tree, looking halfway melted, but mostly unburned.

When we reached the entrance to that one tunnel I hadn’t explored, Gomorrah turned and brought her flamethrower up. She fiddled with the controls, doing something with them for a moment before aiming up and at the far end of the room.

A stream of burning liquid came pouring out of the flamethrower, the spray widening and splashing the floor and bits of hive with whatever fire-juice Gomorrah was using.

The nun started moving her gun left and right, coating the far end of the room before she started to lower her aim to spread the joy around a little more. Like buttering a piece of toast, but not.

“Nice work,” I said.

She nodded. “That’ll do.”

The room was a burning inferno, flames taller than I was hissing and spitting even as the remaining trees crumbled apart and the roots and plants clinging to the ceiling crashed down, sending waves of embers into the air.

Gomorrah’s flamethrower used some weird shit to burn stuff. I wasn’t going to poke at it, it was her area of expertise, and it certainly seemed to be working just fine.

I patted her on the shoulder and nodded deeper into the tunnel. “Let’s go?”

“Certainly. Let’s just hope this isn’t a dead-end.”

“Uh,” I said. “I didn’t think of that.”

“You’re a bit of an idiot, you know?”

“I’ve been told as much, yeah,” I said.

The nun sighed. “The maps say that this tunnel links back up to another, we should be able to loop back around closer to the entrance. That’s if the mine didn’t collapse anywhere.”

We started down the shaft. After a dozen metres or so, the signs of there being a massive fire died down, the floor only streaked by fire here and there. A few bodies were left slumped on the ground—Antithesis that had tried to run?

I almost felt bad for them. It was a hell of a way to go.

The first sign that the hive might not be entirely dead were some small roots, with the start of those sacs that the models grew out of sprouting all along their length. I traced the root down into the depths of the shaft and around a corner. “Fresh, or was that there before the hive went up?” I asked.

“Either way, it’s trouble.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re around.”

“Because we can do our job?”

I grinned. “Nah, because I figure we’re good at making trouble, especially to things that are already troublesome.”

Gomorrah chuckled. “I don’t think that’s how any of that works, but sure. Let’s finish all of this; I want a bath.”

***