The closer we got to the lift, the more chaotic it was. The area looked like a bomb went off, or a riot happened, or a natural disaster had just occurred. I guess, in a way, the Antithesis are all three.

  It’s strange, I’d only been a Samurai for about six hours, but I was already fairly de-sensitized to the age around me. As arent by the versation Sharron and I were currently having.

  “You know what yoing to call your new panion already?”

  “Yup,” I patted the giant bear on the back. Well, the upper leg, he was tall ok? “I’m going to call him Bob, it’s short f Old Bear.”

  Sharron stopped, then turo face me. Fa serious mode. “ I ask you something? You seem so mature most of the time, but every on a while you show this cutesy childish side. I know I kinda egged you on to start, but what gives?”

  “Oh, that’s something that I, and the group of people I live with, believe in. No matter how bad things get, you should always try and find something that brings you joy. For me, that’s cute things, for my friend Ja’s fashion, Allen really likes crystals. It’s different for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be anything big. Life down here is rough, you need something to hold on to. Is it weird?”

  She shook her head, “No, when you put it that way it makes sense.”

  “Good” I smiled, “Cause I’m not going to stop anytime soon.”

  I gnced down the cross-street, there were several packs of Antithesis pulling miseous items out of stores, mostly food, but the occasional syic good and pnt were dropped on the piles they were creating. The Antithesis were thi this area, easy points but slow going.

  With a single mental and I sent my bears forward, swarming towards the carrion ireets. I found it much easier now, the bears acted more like aension of my will than simple bat droids. I roud of my fluffy murder maes.

  After that st pack was cleared, we finally got a clear look at our destination. The main lift towered over the entire district, built alongside one of the support pilrs it was a monolithic cage like structure that ected the uy to the megacity above. You’d never realize the scale until you were right on top of it.

  The lift itself was massive, two hundred feet across, and about fifty feet deep. It opped moving, at least normally. Today, the lift shaft was coated in some sort anic substance, which gummed up the entire system. It was disgusting, I could only assume that was the remains of the pod the Antithesis arrived in. There was a mess of fluids at the bottom of the shaft, which I could only guess was the remains of the Antithesis that died on impact, and were almost immediately recycled.

  Arms crossed, I stared. Despite all the age there weren’t many Antithesis in the area.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “If I was a smart ass pnt, where would I hide? It’s obvious the fug thing isn’t here, so it must be hiding somewhere”

  Spooky stepped forward, “Somepspicuous, away from the initial location the farther the better.”

  “If that’s the case, we may have gotten lucky.”

  Sharron turo me, “Why?”

  I poiraight up, “The rain. You’ve seen what it do, it restricts their movements. The Antithesis would either have to cut uhe als, which takes time, or the Twenty Six would have to risk getting spotted crossing a bridge. Doubt that’s something a ‘smart’ Antithesis would do.”

  Sharron and Spooky both nodded. “If that’s the case, where would it hide? Time is short, scouts would identify a handful of locations.”

  “I calcute that there’s a hree pert ce it would have chosen the junkyard just east of here”, a deep male voice echoed out of Sharron’s armor, I could only assume it was Aeonys’s voice. “There are other locations, but that’s the only one close enough, and with enough cover to give them time to dig out.”

  Nyx paused for a moment. “Agreed. There are several other locations that would be ideal for long term habitation, but not hiding.”

  I g Sharroh nodded, “Then that’s where we’re going. If there’s no twenty six we always e bad look for a ventional hive afterwards.”

  I sent all my bears, sans Bob, out ahead, clearing that way to the junkyard. We were finally closing in on our quarry, I could feel it.

  —

  The titanic pile of trash, or the Scrapyard, as it was known in the district, was used by the corps as a dumping pce for anything they couldn’t make a profit on recyg themselves. If Dante hadn’t called me for a job, I’d probably have been here, looking for tidbits to salvage and sell.

  Being at the ter of an Antithesis attack… at least it would have been a quick death.

  Unfortunately, the Scrapyard was also huge, miles in diameter, a veritable sea of rusted metal and outdated tech.

  “This might take awhile”, I muttered. “This pce crawls, so I ’t use Bandit to just tratithesis activity back to the source.”

  “Not ued, we khis was the best pce for them to hide” Sharron replied. “Ideas?”

  “I’ll take the left side you take the…” She raised one hand to bop me, so I shied away, grinning. “Well, if you don’t like that idea, we start on the south side.”

  Her hand slowly lowered. “Why?”

  “The Scapyard runs right up to the al on that side, if they wao dig out that would be the pce to start.”

  The offending arm retracted, giving me a ce to rub my head. “Not a bad idea.”

  “And I use Bandit to search for vibrations.”

  She lifted the on and started walking, “Ok, let's do that.”

  “When you get out of that suit I’m going to get Bob to bop you and we’ll see how much you like it.”

  She gnced back at me and grinned, “Okay Tiny.”

  Traveling through the Scrapyard was slow going, not only did we have to deal with the Antithesis, but also shifting loose metal, stacks of wrecked cars blog our path and dozens of other annoyances. After running around all day my energy was starting to fail. Sharron must have noticed, because after about twenty minutes she stopped her relentless mard turo face me.

  “You ok back there?”

  I stumbled a little, steadied myself, then looked at her. I tried to keep the exhaustion off my face, pretty sure I failed based upon the look of . “Maybe slow down, I only have little legs.”

  I gave her a bright smile, which was a mistake because I stopped paying full attention to my footing. My step was on a loose pieetal, my feet went out from under me, and I rolled down the pile of metal we were traversing. Thankfully the ground was mercifully free of jagged metal spikes when I hat would have been an embarrassing way to die.

  Sharron half walked, half slid, down the pile behind me, with a lot mrace than I managed, before reag out. “Are you ok?”

  “Don’t worry, the ground broke my fall” I ughed, then immediately regretted it. “I think I bruised my everything.”

  “You’re lucky you nded on something so ft.” she looked down, “Although, I’m not sure why. The metal seems like it’s been pressed into the ground.”

  Spooky pulled at my arm, slowly helpio my feet. “I’ll give you a hint, this area is around six feet wide, and it looks like something has pushed wreckage around to make a path.”

  I looked at the bear and willed my eyes to say ‘I’m too tired for quizzes you son of a bitch’. He apparently got the message.

  “This path is the right size for a model twelve to travel, it may be how they’ve beeing biomass into the new hive.” The bear patted me on the arm “Before we chase this lead down, I think you oughta get a tetanus shot.”

  I just moaned in response.