When I started off again I did so at a more cautious pace. I still had a little ways to go, and I didn’t want another Antithesis grabbing hold of me.

  Back when it was still used as a train station, the terminal must have been an impressive sight. Time had not been kind to the building. Graffiti covered the majority of the outside walls, the rails had long been pulled up and scrapped, and most importantly, at least for my purposes, a shanty torung up beside it.

  Space wasly limited in the uy, but a pce where you didn’t have to pay taxes to a ndlord, ang? That was at a premium. There was inally a huge railyard on the south side of the terminal. The area was unmanaged, unsupervised, ay, perfect for squatting. Over the years the entire space was filled to the brim with maze-like streets and makeshift housing. Worse yet, when they ran out of spa the ground, they built up, leaving a rickety mess of catwalks, dead ends, and squalor.

  The locals called it The Stacks.

  Normally I’d never set foot in the pce, even if it meant that I had to sleep oreet. Even the gangs wanted nothing to do with the pce, it was a wless zone. Any reasonable person would go around The Stacks, and approach the Terminal from a different dire. It wasn’t worth the risk. And that was before the Antithesis started crawling about.

  Special emphasis on crawling. Because from where I was standing, just outside The Stacks, I could see han three model fours, and another half dozen model threes stalking around the various levels.

  This does not seem wise.

  “No shit,” I grumbled. “I don’t want to go in there, but I’m not sure I want to waste time going around.”

  So, what’s the pn?

  “First, I need a different rifle,” I decred. “I have a feeling that if I take one bad shot with the CAR I may colpse half the district. Give me the same one as Spooky, the…”

  The T-22A Bckpaw.

  “Right,” I said, nodding to myself. “Then we’ll try and travel the higher paths to avoid getting ered.”

  We o work on your pnning skills when this is all over.

  “Shut up and gimme a Bckpaw,” I snapped. “We o move.”

  This time the rifle appeared right in my hands, and for the first time I was aware of how much everything weighed. My legs trembled, back bowed.

  Do you need a hand? I could hear the ridicule in Nyx’s voice.

  “I’m not too proud to admit it. If you wanted a beefcake for a vanguard you should have picked someone else,” I replied flippantly. I pulled the y shoulder and held it out to Spooky. “Carry this please.” The bot reached out with a single arm, grabbed the rifle and slung it on its baot wavering in the slightest.

  “I’m beginning to believe I may be the one slowing this group down,” I muttered.

  Just get going.

  The hovel had a dder to the higher levels. Just not one I would trust would hold even my minuscule weight. Splintered ws nailed directly into the plywood wall behind it, shoddy even for these streets. Instead of taking the dder I found a stack of crates that had been roughly stacked together as makeshift stairs. That was a safer option, even if one of the boxes was pletely rotten.

  The sed level was a mess of cated steel roughly yered to create roofing for the buildings below, and scrap whly ogether to make makeshift railings and ptforms. Ohat would likely splinter and break if aumbled into them.

  “Lovely,” I muttered dryly. As I was looking around I spotted something skulking around oher side of the street. When I squinted, looking into the shadows, I was just able to make out the silhouette of Model Four there. I brought the Bckpaw up a a quick burst in its dire, which missed, followed by three more. It was the fourth that finally found its mark, dropping the monster, and causing the structure to shudder.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  With the four dispatched I quickly turned and started moving towards the Terminal. I quickly regretted my decision to travel by the upper levels, every step was nerve wrag. Broaned under my slight weight, debris shifted and fell from above and, on more than one occasion, a fight with the Antithesis went sideways.

  I was barely a couple hundred meters in, when a model three attempted to jump across the alley to attack me. It didn’t eve a ce. As soon as the creature’s front paws touched the walkway on my side, the front of the building colpsed, dropping the Three in deep below. The crippled beast could barely move, making it su easy target that even I could kill in a single burst.

  As I tinued onward I began to be aware of a plete ck of people. The Antithesis worked fast, but fast enough to pletely clear out ahis size? I couldn’t even see any blood.

  “Where the fuck is everyone?” I muttered to myself as much as Nyx. “The bodies? Do the Antithesis normally up this fast?”

  No, this euation is odd. The Antithesis are advang far quicker than usual, and in a more coordinated manner.

  “Lovely, my first incursion and the killer aliens are ag smarter than usual,” I groaned. “Thanks for the boost of fidence.”

  I progressed forward slowly and steadily, dispatg the occasional three or four as I advanced. Everything rogressing smoothly, right up to the point where it went to shit.

  The first indication that something was wrong was a shift in the air, a breeze that wasn’t there before, along with a faint whooshing noise; Both of which were abnormal for the uy. A moment passed, nothing ged, then a whistling noise from above. I moved out of instinct, rolling to the side and ing to a stop on some cated steel a few feet aressed to the ground by a burst of wind. A massive talon snapped closed on my previous position, a huge avian figure held aloft by four massive wings swept by, pulling up out of a failed dive. I mao scramble to my feet just as it recovered and started to e around for another pass.

  “Spooky, ow!” I snapped, jumping to my feet and holding my hands out to catch the rifle.

  The bot unslung my rifle and, with one hand, threw it at my chest. With my small stature the blow was enough to throw me off my feet, knog back to the ground. It also saved my life.

  A sed flier ripped through the sed level where we were standing, bsting debris everywhere, and throwing Spooky down to the street below. This time I didn’t bother to rise, I just brought up the CAR a loose with a full barrage. The first few shots hit the sed flier in the back, causing it to shudder, a slight adjustment caused the few to hammer into the left wing, causing it to start falling, the st shot caught it right in the head.

  The body smmed into a building a few streets over, I didn’t have a ce to che it, the first had e around for another pass. Even at a distance I could see its very un-bird-like face looking in my dire, its four eyes locked onto my position. It dove again, this time a barrage of missiles rose to meet it. I wasn’t sure if it died immediately, but it began to spiral down.

  Straight towards where I was standing.

  I scrambled to get out of the way. After oep I could hear a heavy ch as it impacted the roof across the street. After two I could see the debris being thrown away as it slid forwards off the roof. Ohird step the entire building shook. There was no fourth, everything came down.

  The nding was rough, my back smmed roughly into the ground and the world fell aroueel ptes, splintered wood, and pipes fell all around, some smaller pieces smmed into my body partially burying my body, then after a few seds, everythiled.

  “That fug sucked,” I snarled, as I shoved a board off my face. Once I could see again I begaling with the rger pieces of debris that had pinned my legs, and torso.

  You’re lucky, those were model elevens. They’re airborne bat units that also carry biomass rge distances.

  The st, and rgest pte was being stubborn. My inability to move it had nothing to do with my size, absolutely not. “I thought you said the airborne units were stuck above?” I snapped as I struggled with the pte. “They don’t look stue.”

  That’s not what you should be worried about. We shouldn’t be seeing Antithesis in the double digits this early into an incursion, it’s a bad sign.

  “No shit,” I replied.

  The rubble behind me shifted, a wolf-like head pushed up. It was heavily mauled, two eyes were missing, flesh was ripped away, but still alive. It reared back for an attack, then took a burst of guo the face. The creature twisted, trying to get away, Spooky didn’t give it a ce. Slowly advang the bot fired burst after burst directly into the head until it was still.

  The bot was a little worse for wear, one of the visual sensors was shattered and its head was dented, but it was active. I sagged in relief.

  The good news is model elevens are worth 100 points a piece, so you’ve hit that threshold you set earlier. You want another bot?“Yes, but first…” I pushed the pte o time, putting my entire body into it. It didn’t move an inch. Defeated, I id back down. “ someone please get this metal off of me?”