The Terminal was inally designed as a train station, and had the space to house dozens of trains simultaneously. Over time, it had been heavily renovated. The brokers had structed dozens of perma stores around the perimeter, where they sold the best merdise. o the shops were a couple rows of small shacks, which housed the most successful of the indeperaders. They weren’t much more than plywood shacks, but to most people around here owning anything was impressive. The rest of the space had been crammed full of row upon row of wood booths. The brokers allowed anyone who wao set up shop here, as long as they got a piece of the a.

  This pce was usually busy twenty-four seven with people wheeling and dealing, seeing pletely devoid of life was… uling to say the least.

  “ we get that door closed?” I asked as I finally stepped ihe massive building.

  Not with the equipment, and catalogs you have now. It looks like the doors are trolled from elsewhere in the building, and since you don’t have any data mining catalogs, I ’t determine where.

  “Shit…” I whispered as I slowly started making my way towards the back of the building. The stalls were just high enough to hide a Three behind, so I took it slow, and checked every aisle as I advanced.

  You did make a fair number of points clearing out all those Model Sevens, you’re back up to Six Huhirty Two points. sidering how big this pce is, I reend you open up the Robotisor modules catalog for fifty points. Then you could deploy another bot with acoustic, eleagic, thermal, arochemical detectors for two hundred. It would speed up the search siderably.

  I let my eyes pass over the cavernous area, trying to estimate how long it would take to search manually. Too long probably.

  “Do it,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “If worse es to worse, and it ’t find a least it hold anun."

  Purchased - Robotisor Modules catalog - 50 points

  Purchased - bat bot + Sensor modifications - 200 points

  Purchased - T-22A Bckpaw assault rifle- 10 Points

  Points remaining - 372

  Two more pstic ed packages materialized o me. I paused to let the robot unpack itself, but kept sing the area until it was done. When I finally gowards the new bot my breath got caught in my throat.

  “I holy thought it couldn’t get worse,” I muttered, staring at the new abomination. “I was wrong."

  The new bot had the same basic skeletal structure as the others, but the head was pletely different. It had a pair of sharp ear triangur antennas stig out the top of its head, there was a thiallic grill in the middle of its fastead of a nose, and instead of having a pair of optical sensor where the eyes should have been, this model had cluster of three on each side of it’s head, giving it an ioid appearance.

  I crouched down in front of the bot, “I o find survivors,” I whispered. “If there any, lead me to them."

  The bot stood straight, swung its head bad forth for a mihen took off towards the back of The Terminal. It was so quick that I o sprint to keep up. Every on a while it would stop, reorient itself, and dart off again. This cycle tinued half a dozen times until it finally stopped before a huge metal door with the words “Fuck Off - Employees only” stencilled on it in red.

  “Cssy," I muttered quietly, before knog on the door.

  There was no response for a while, so I knocked again.

  A deep, male voice echoed out. “You’re not getting in here, you freaks,” he said. I’d never been as gd to hear another human voice before.

  “I hear you,” I replied coolly. “Since I ’t e in, and you’re not ing out, you mind telling me how to shut the doors?"

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Is this a trick? Who is this?” the voice growled.

  I heft my rifle aed the barrel of the on on my shoulder. “Evelyn Cire, your local, newly minted Samurai.”

  There was a muffled shout, followed by a flurry of versation that I could hear even through the heavy metal door. A security camera above the door blio life and zoomed in on me. I casually waved at whomever was oher side, then there was another flurry of versation. Finally, a new voice came from behind the door, female this time.

  “Evelyn?” the familiar voice said. “Yes? I’m still here," I replied. “Is that you Jane? What the fuck were you doing here?”

  “I was ag as a courier for the Brokers, so I could earn enough to feed the kids today. You haven’t been able to salvage anything good in days, and we’ve been running out of supplies,” Jane hissed. “What is this about you being a samurai?”

  “I kind of got into a little scrap with a couple Antithesis while pulling a job with Dante and, well, things happened,” I expined lightly.

  “Doing a job with who?” Jane’s voice echoed through the door. “You promised no gang jobs!”

  “ we maybe discuss that part ter? I did just fight all the way over here to che you, you’re wele by the way, only to find everyone locked in a basement or something. Are you ok in there?”

  There was a momentary pause. “I’m not going to lie, things aren’t too good in here. We’re packed like rats, and I think the ventition stopped, we’re not getting any air,” Jaed.

  “Probably for the best, probably prevehe Sevens from crawling in,” I muttered.

  “What was that?” Jane asked.

  “Never mind,” I said, raising my voice again to be heard. “Is there anyone ihat tell me how to close the outer doors? If I do that, you may be able to get out of there.”

  More shuffling, I could hear Jane yelling angrily at someone, but it was the man that spoke . “Listen kid,” he started, “My name’s Jessup, and I’m the head of the Brokers. Do you really think you get this pce locked up again?” he asked.

  “As long as I someone gives me dires, and I don’t have to rewire the entire fug building to get it w, then yeah,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

  The man sighed. “Alright, look up. You see that booth in the middle of the building, among the catwalks?” I looked up and gnced around. After a couple seds I finally found a small yellow room, deep in the shadows, hanging from the ceiling. “That’s our trol room”, Jessup tinued, “and all the external security is routed through there. When this shit kicked off I sent half a dozen of my boys up there to lock everything down, but something got them before they could. Still think you do it?”

  I carefully traced the maze of catwalks back, until they intersected the wall. There appeared to be a dder leading up to them somewhere on the sed floor.

  “No problem,” I said, with a smile. I threw a thumbs up at the camera before jogging away.

  Once I was out of the range of the camera I slowed, letting my shoulders slump and my smile melt away.

  You were fident.

  “Yeah, well, my former foster parents oold me it’s better to seem fident, and give them hope, than it is to share to appear down, and spread despair,” I told Nyx.They sound very wise. Too bad you didn’t i more of their wits.

  “I’d smack you if you were more than a voi my head," I growled.

  As soon as I found a set of stairs leading upstairs I waved my bots over. “Spooky, take the two bat bots and cover the door. If there’s anything you ’t deal with, retreat a me know,” I said. The bots immediately dashed off, disappearing into the market, leaving me aloh the newer model. “You, e with me.”

  I caught the occasional glimpse of the other bots making their way through the stalls as I asded the stairs, but they’d all but disappeared from view by the time I reached the top. The sed level of the Terminal osh, well at least for this area. , plush chairs and sofas, a bar, and a couple dozen small rooms with frosted windows. Private rooms maybe? I’d heard the VIPs got individual service, everything was brought directly to them, that robably done up here.

  Looking up I carefully followed the catwalk again until I finally located the dder again. It had been hidden from the ers by a long curtain, and seemed to be accessed through the employees area behind the bad.

  I padded over to the bar and quickly searched for an easy way in. There wasn’t one. Rather than wasting a bunch of time I jumped up onto one of the chairs, and prepared to vault the bar. Before I could, the bot swivelled in pce, log both its eyes and rifle on the far side of the bar. I held my breath, and sed the area it was watg. I couldn’t see, or hear anything, but the bot had locked on to something. I watched as the bot’s head turned excruciatingly slow, trag something through the wall.

  It took several seds for the thing to reach a nearby open door, allowio get a look at it. It was some sort of small feather worm. I only had enough time tister how stra was before the bot shot it, blowing the small creatures to pieces.

  That’s the true form of the model sevens, there must be some loose ones around here. You’ll have to make sure to supply the survivors with anti-seven pills before we let them out.

  A shiver went down the bay neck. “Those are a thing?” I shouted angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I killed all those people?"Calm yourself, the pills are only effective at preventing people from being ied. The model seven be removed, in some cases, if the iee is found early enough. Like I said before, ohe iiresses far enough nothing be done for the host.

  “If you say so," I grumbled, gng at the worm. I couldn’t believe that so much loss could be caused by such a little thing. “Let's get this done,” I muttered.

  The dder was metal, and well maintained. A nice ge from the tetanus indug options I’d entered iacks earlier. Once I reached the I sent the bot ahead of me, to make sure everything was stable. Thankfully it seemed like the Brokers took their maintenance seriously, and the catwalk didn’t even twitch as the bot crossed it. When I saw that, I quickly followed behind.

  We mao get about halfway to the trol room when the guarted. My eyes sowards the sound, just barely able to pick out the tiny shape of my bears at the far side of the facility. “Nyx, what’s happening?” I asked.

  The Model Twelve is back, and it brought a load of Threes with it. Your bots deal with the Threes easily enough, the Twelve oher hand…

  “Get them to pull bad get to cover,” I snapped. “There’s no point having them fight a battle they ’t win.” As the bears scattered I saw a massive shadow step through the door. I g the trol room, “If I send the bot into the trol room you help it close the door?”

  Probably.

  “ly what I wao hear, but it’ll have to do,” I replied. “You!” I said pointing at the bot, “Clear that trol room thehose outer shutters closed!” I yelled as I started sprinting back dowwalk. I scurred down the dder as fast as I could, jumped the st couple feet, then rushed to the nding. It was there that I got my first good look at the model Twelve.

  The bastard was massive, as tall as a bus, and nearly one and a half times as wide. Its heavy form was covered with a series of thick overpping armor ptes. It had six stout legs, and a short squat head that vaguely reminded me of a bulldozer. A very angry bulldozer.

  I’m losing tact with the bots, the Model Twelve has a built in Ed it’s interfering with unications. It’ll probably shut dows pletely if it gets too close.

  “You could have mentiohat earlier,” I growled. “If they ’t thehem out of here.”

  I brought the CAR up, and began unloading it at the massive Antithesis. For the first time today, it failed me. I unloaded fifteen rounds, directly into the Twelve’s ter mass, which sidering the armor, was a bad probably choice. The missiles barely mao crack its armor.

  The three eyes on one side of the Twelves head focused on me, and narrowed. The beast surned and charged. The bastard barrelled through every stall and shack between us before smashing into the store below me. Thankfully the Brokers hadn’t cut any ers while building their stuff, and the roof remaiable. I still decided it probably was better to move before it hit any supports.

  “Nyx, you know that catalog we were discussing before? The on empt o wouldn’t happen to have any anti-tank guns would it?”It would! The XR-42 Heavy Railgun with bipod mount is 100 points. Shall I order one?

  “Not yet,” I grunted, as I sprinted across the course. “Wait until I’m in position.” Si would have been impossible to get a good shot at the Twelve from above, and the other side of the Terminal was too far away, the only pce I could think of getting a good shot was a bridge which passed over the ter plex, and ected the two sides. Once I was about twenty feet down the bridge I turned, and tried to spot the Twelve. The beast was still stomping around the store, which I could now see was named ‘Low Fashion’. Part of me was gd to be firing an anti-tank gun in that dire, that was a terrible fug pun to make in the uy.

  “Drop it! And don’t bother with the fug box” I barked as I dropped to my knees, quickly sliding to a stop. The gun materialized, sitting on a bipod, four feet long, the front two feet sisted of two long, thick, parallel rails. Along the top were three pairs of massive capacitors, set in a V, and eae practically glowed with power. This gun was a monster.

  I leaned forward, putting my shoulder against the stod my eye up to the sight. I wasn’t much of a shot, but with a target as big as the Twelve, even I was going to have trouble missing. All it took was a minor adjustment to put the Twelve dead ter. As it turo look at me, realizing I was no longer above it for the first time, I pulled the trigger. There was a momentary pause, then the coils fred, there was a deep thump sound.

  The force of the shot pushed the Railgun back a good six inches, I felt like my shoulder had been dislocated. As bad as I felt, it was obvious that the twelve fared much worse. The round had hit the Antithesis just above the back leg, cut all the way through the beast, before exiting through the ned burrowing a few inches in the floor.

  I slumped in relief, I got the bastard. As if to aowledge my victory I heard the massive gates let out a massive metallic screech, then finally close.