Anti-antithesis

Oho! What's this? My cat girl senses are tingling! Am I about to get a new fren? Gasp! Am I getting a new band member!

-Samurai Nya waking from a nap, 2057

Roger

My car had to park a few buildings away due to the still ongoing search, though we expected that to end soon. As we ate and traveled, I was once more reminded of how much easier this was. Not four months ago, we did basically the same thing to a much less secure office, yet that one took us four days to scout out an entrance, another two to make the disguises, and took us a little more than forty hours to get the information and then extract quietly.

Not to mention how much easier it was to go up and down stairs constantly. Sands, my legs were fine after twenty flights! Cody wasn't even complaining about his lungs! That reminded me, I should pay Chief Traunt a visit. Bastard said some nasty shit about Auntie Bo and I have the power to exact petty revenge. Well, the reasons are petty, at least.

Arriving at the garage, I saw my car and smiled. It was a heavily armored black limo, indistinct from every other luxury limo cruising the world, externally, at least. Cody groaned as we approached it. “Seriously, Roger? This is what you chose?”

I chuckled as I climbed into the front seat, shifting my clothes into a black valet uniform. “And why not? Raché is a great vehicle!”

Jill raised her eyebrow at me from the rear cabin. “Raché?” She mouthed. She quickly abandoned her skepticism as she laid down on the seat.

The rear of the limo was expanded significantly, going from enough room for eight to sit kind of close to room for six to stand while another eight could lounge comfortably. There was a holo projector for planning, a mini fridge for refueling between locations, and a bed mode for long haul missions. Not to mention the new exterior defenses and sensors that Morrigan was very insistent in adding, which I was not going to fight her on. The blue brat was terrifying when she wanted to be.

I chuckled as I remembered the nights I spent teaching her some tips and tricks, at first using Mesh sims to help her fine tune some things, then on live subjects once we got them. The screams of the Bestlé executives Doma gave us a while ago as I practiced my medical techniques, showing her the optimal angle for inflicting the most pain while removing as much skin as possible. How to determine how much the target could take, how to understand if what they said was true or not, and how best to make them beg for death.

Morrigan dove into her studies with aplomb, with Outsider joining us for a few lessons after her hunt the other day. It had been too long since I smelled the fear and anguish from those left under my care, and those nights were magical. Having two assistants who were eager to learn made it so much more enjoyable.

I shook myself from those memories as we left the garage, following traffic towards the outskirts of the city. Once we got closer, we would have Outsider's Ravens act as a decoy to keep the surveillance systems occupied, projecting both a hologram of Raché as well as her designation codes, while the actual Rache all but vanished from existence. When dealing with Black Sites, the more precautions we took, the better, so as not to spook them, not to mention plausible deniability.

Setting the route and seeing it would take us about three hours to get there, as we had to take the civilian routes, and about ten minutes for the Raven to arrive with our grenades, I spun my seat around and leaned back. “Alright, where were we?”

Cody waved me off. “We were discussing our own upgrades since Vic has the bio-shifter now. Apparently it has three chambers, so one of us could also use it when he and Cari went in.”

“Huh,” I grunted, rolling my jaw in thought, “is that so? I'm shocked, are you guys contemplating becoming something other than human?”

“Pfsh,” Jill exhaled, “Nah. At least, not me. I really like my cybernetics.” She flexed her fingers and rotated her arms at the elbows three sixty as if to show off. She smiled softly. “Morrigan is actually helping me set up a body conversion.” Now that got our attention. “Vickie got that body double catalog yesterday, and with it, Morrigan is confident in creating a fully modular war machine for me to inhabit. Still humanoid, with plenty of my organics that can allow me to have kids or what-not later down the line, but designed to be deadly and quiet, a perfect infiltration unit that can become a mobile dreadnought.”

Cody placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is this going to be a brain case thing, or a digital upload situation?”

She shrugged. "Neither, simply adding things to my torso and neck. I still want my abs. It's going to be a major surgery, but I find it worth it.”

“Will this affect your ability to interact with us?” Buddy asked, concern barely concealed in his voice.

She smirked and shook her head, slugging him softly. “No way. It's going to rely on dimensional shunting tech, apparently. My main form will still look like this,” She motioned over herself, “but I will have the option to hulk out in moments. We're still going over preferences and designs, but that's my plan." She turned to me, "Cody here just wants brain upgrades, which is boring, but has to be bought with points as Morrigan is still experimenting with brain matter. We were just about to talk about Buddy.”

I could tell she was done talking about this, so I nodded and shifted my attention to Buddy. “And what about you, big guy? What are you thinking about?”

Buddy scratched his chin. “Well, I have been talking with Synaptic, and as much as a new combat form sounds nice, I would prefer something more defensive. We were thinking something along the lines of extra robotic arms, like the spider-man villain. It would make cooking more interesting, as well as allow me to install hard-light projectors or shield generators for more versatile defenses. Morrigan is confident in making the arms, but would prefer it if we bought the neural chip from Synaptic.”

Cody looked at me inquisitively. “And that leaves you, Roger. Put any thought into a new form?”

I chuckled nervously while I scratched the side of my head. “Uh, yeah. I kinda…” I exhaled sharply. “Fine, yes. I have. Fuck it, band aid off. I want to be a cat boy.”

Everyone stared at me, yet before they could react, I kept going. “Have you seen Samurai Nya from Japan? How graceful she walks, how expressive her ears are? And a tail! Hot Sands, it's been a dream of mine since we saw those old videos about that MMORPG with the cat boy playing it. Final… something! The ears, the tail, hidden claws!”

I only realized I was pacing only when Jill had a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention to her. “Alright, Roger. You want to be a cat boy. That's fine.” I could see a tiny quiver in the corner of her lips. “I could have seen that one coming; you have always been a little catty.”

I slugged her in the shoulder, hurting my fist on her thicker metal arm. “Bite me!” I shouted as they all doubled over laughing. I stomped back to the driver's seat and crossed my arms, pouting. At that moment, the Raven arrived, so I rolled down a window and held it tight. Fuck, why are its feathers so soft?

************************************

The decoy worked well, with me engaging the stealth features of Raché as the Raven peeled off. We circled the motel, taking new scans of the area as well as the motel proper.

Cody clicked his tongue. “We need to make sure Morrigan never sells anything to do with the Void Watchers. These scans are too good and I don't want others to start shielding against them.”

We could only agree. We had a very comprehensive view of the bunker's shape, areas of high heat, and movement from within. While the shielding they did have prevented us from getting an accurate headcount, we at least knew that there were people inside.

“Entrance is in the sewers.” Buddy said. “The one in the motel is mined.” He explained it for Eye Spy rather than us, as he was watching through a feed from our augs.

“The whole thing is mined, Buddy.” Jill muttered, and she was correct. The entire motel was rigged to explode, meaning that they expected to be found at some point, but not the actual bunker, considering how the sewer entrance was not rigged.

“The computer where the email was sent appears to be in the office.” Cody remarked, zooming into a simple office. He highlighted a tube-like speaker with a wire leading into a wall socket. “This appears to be a transforming drone. An interesting method for air-gapping, and it's hardwired, so I can't hack it.”

“Alright. Another rather straightforward operation.” I said. “Infiltrate through the sewers, cut in through this wall here,” I highlighted a section ten feet away from the actual entrance, in where we expected the security station would be located, “Cody hooks in if we are right, and grabs the data while Buddy covers him. Jill and I will work on clearing the rest of the bunker while moving towards this room here.” The room in question was not too far from the entrance, but it was giving off quite a bit of heat, not to mention that it was quite large, at fifty by thirty feet. There was no generator here as they had spliced into the surrounding grid, so this room was very concerning.

Jill tapped her fingers rhythmically. “Hey, Synaptic. What are the odds that that room is full of antithesis?”

Decently high, Jill. There are very few things humanity has that isn't power generation that can give off that much heat consistently. As far as I can tell, there are no hive tendrils in the surrounding area, however.

Both extremely confusing and concerning, that piece of news was. Eye Spy took that opportunity to speak up. “If there are no hive tendrils, then you kids should be good to deal with what's in there. I will still watch your feed, just in case.”

I nodded as we shifted to combat mode. I had Raché drop us off not too far from the motel, with Buddy out first, placing a breaching charge on the ground directly over the pipe. He jumped back in, then detonated it, creating a five-foot wide, fifteen-foot-deep hole, which he jumped back down. We followed and rapidly moved towards the bunker door, knowing that if they had even half a brain, they should have been able to detect the charge.

Buddy placed another charge on the marked wall, then deployed his shield as Cody ready his new laz-rifle and I pulled out my baby. A heavy assault rifle using twenty millimeter variable load out mags with underslung ten gauge, red dot and variable zoom sights, as well as my favorite feature on any gun ever.

The charge ripped a massive hole in the wall as we charged in and, thankfully, they didn't change the layout of the bunker at all, as the security station was indeed right next to the sewer entrance.

Buddy shield bashed two guards as Jill vaulted over his shoulder, her legs having shifted into two huge cassowary-like claws. She landed on their heads, popping them like watermelons. I moved past Buddy, firing into the next room and two tapping each person, one chest, one head. The current load in the mag was a hot shot white phosphorus round, followed by an explosive hollow point, which easily folded each target hit. Jill moved forward rapidly, launching herself into the thick of things to clear a path to the door.

I moved forward, targeting those just out of her reach, the stench of cooking humans filled the air, which I relished. I reached the door and shot its hinges off with the underslung shotgun, then kicked it down. A wave of heat and humidity washed over me as I heard Jill start firing with her right arm, but I felt a slight panic response as I looked into the room.

It was filled with blood red and toxic green plant pillars, with red leaves covering every surface. Hanging from the leaves are fruit of eyes and teeth and bulbous skin, with a chandelier made from bones and veins, the glowing lights being fingers. In the center of the room was a desk made of slightly pulsating flesh, and behind it sat a man in a suit made of black silk, wearing a pure white mask.

He did not react to the sounds of the fighting outside, but he did stand slowly, keeping his eyes on me. “Hello there.” He said.

His voice was off, with a slight warbling undertone that was putting me on edge. An alert popped up on my hud, indicating audio anomalies, but I would need more samples to know what they meant.

“You're in charge here?” I said, my gun still trained on him.

He nodded. “In a manner of speaking. You are the ones who dealt with the under?” His voice started to smooth out, but the audio analysis is progressing.

I shook my head slowly. “Not us, no. Are you going to come with us quietly?”

He shook his head slowly. “That is not possible. Would you be willing to leave?” The analysis finishes, indicating that the man in front of me is using specific frequencies to try and hypnotize me.

I got a proximity alarm on my back as my suit detected something dropped on it. I put a phosphorus round into his chest as I slammed my back into the wall, feeling something pop. I moved around the desk and saw that the man was convulsing and something was moving beneath his skin on his head. I also saw a number of thick, white wires digging out from the ground into his legs.

I ripped off the mask and saw a twisted human face. The mouth is too low, with four eyes and a hole where the nose should be. I stepped on his neck as I controlled my armor to hack into its augs, if it has any. I saw a connection form and Cody's ripper program copied everything over as the room came to life.

The chair lashed out with a huge axe on a whip that caught me off guard and threw me to the side. “Nines!” I shouted, causing Jill to stop shooting and storm in. I fired wildly into the chair, the desk, and the walls as Jill scooped me up and rushed out. I saw a swarm of Seven-like worms on the ceiling, flowing out of the pillars and chandelier, causing me to blanch slightly.

“Do we need anything from in there?” Jill yelled.

“Fuck no!” I shouted back, activating my gun's special function. The entire front of the gun shifted into a huge barrel as a large bullet moved from my armor into it. I fired the fifty-millimeter grenade into the room as Jill moved behind Buddy's shield, which expanded into a bubble around us.

The grenade detonated and the room glowed briefly, blindingly so, as the ambient temperature of the bunker shot up several hundred degrees before the light disappeared. All life in the bunker was vaporized, and the ceiling was long gone, having been flash melted. Buddy's shield was cracked in numerous places, and I saw dripping concrete fall on it from above.

“Hey! Roger! What the fuck was that!” Eye Spy shouted over the comms.

I just smiled, unable to stand as my legs gave out from shock. “That was supposed to simply open a portal to space for a second. But it seems like it opened a portal closer to the sun, maybe?”

“What the fuck do you mean maybe?” He responded, no longer yelling, but still very stern.

“I don't know, go ask Morrigan. She set these things up, so she should know where it opened up.” My voice was calm, yet I felt that I may have pissed myself. “Now, if you excuse us, we are going to go home now. Cody, send him everything we have, including what I ripped from that… thing. Jill, please carry me out, as I cannot walk.” She looked down at me. “No, this is not a bit. I cannot feel my legs, and my armor says it's an acute stress reaction.”

She readjusted me in her arms. “Fine. The car can drive us back.”

"Raché." I scolded playfully.

We left the ruins of the bunker with Buddy's shield still up, as while the temperature was lowering, it was a very slow process. I set Raché to return home silently, allowing it to circle the Motel once more from above as we saw it fully collapse into itself.

I got a message from Morrigan, apologizing for the mistake as a solar flare had passed through her mark. She will need to fix my munitions before I can use them again to account for that. I just sighed and sent her a response.

[BlindingCHA: Maybe work on strengthening Buddy's shield as well. We got lucky, but his readout indicated that if the portal was open for any longer, it would have shattered.]

[ScienceGremlin: :ThumbsUpPenguin:]

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