“I wish I had more bears,” I mumbled as I sat on top of the Kodiak, scanning the surrounding building for movement. “It’ll take forever to sweep each of these buildings floor by floor when this is done.”

  “It won’t be that bad,” Nora replied as she checked her gun. “There are several samurai that specialize in clearing an area post-outbreak, I’m sure with their help it’ll be done in no time.”

  Nora had just managed to catch up to me as I was leaving the staging area, literally falling out of the sky and busting up the pavement where she landed. Even with her cybernetic legs, which appeared different from the ones I was familiar with, that should have been quite a shock to her body. Once she landed, she just casually bounced thirty feet from the street to the top of the Kodiak to join me.

  “Have you been upgrading over the last six months? Your gear’s different from what I remember,” I asked suspiciously.

  “A little,” she admitted with a shrug. “The main difference is I’ve swapped to interchangeable legs, so I can go from civilian models and still teach kickboxing, to combat ones. Now I don’t have to constantly worry about accidentally hurting someone. I thought you knew that,” she said.

  “I knew you changed legs, but I thought you just went to a newer, low-profile model, not that you were able to swap them out,” I explained. “Your armor looks new too.”

  “It’s light power armor,” she explained proudly. “Since I’m so close to the action, I wanted something that would stand up to a bit of punishment. It seamlessly integrates with my legs, so my movement isn’t restricted.”

  Honestly, at a glance her armor didn’t look that different from the old suit. When you got close, though, the differences became apparent. Instead of a lightweight composite, this was some sort of metal or ceramic segmented plate armor. It still had the same pink and white detailing that made it look like some futuristic running suit and swept-back bunny ears on the helmet, but something told me this was on an entirely new level compared to her previous suit.

  “So why the upgrade?”

  “Because when we were in the caves, I didn’t really have time to make good choices; I just grabbed whatever I needed in order to survive. Once we finally got out of there, I finally had a chance to sit down with my AI, have a couple long discussions, and figure out exactly the route I wanted to go in the future. Mapped everything out,” she explained.

  “Sounds like too much work,” I snorted. “I either buy what I need at the moment, or Nyx bothers me about a specific upgrade until I give in. It’s a different process, but it works for me.”

  “Trust me, I’m familiar with your ‘process’,” Nora chuckled.

  Once she was finished checking her gear, she bounced to her feet and started slowly pacing back and forth on the top of the Kodiak. The infantry fighting vehicle wasn’t that large, and her pacing was quickly making me nervous.

  “What’s with you?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t we have encountered the antithesis yet? We’ve been driving for like five minutes, and we haven’t seen a single one!” Nora asked anxiously.

  “That’s because I decided early on that if the bears had to quarantine an area, they’d establish a wide perimeter to ensure there was more than enough time for the defenses to get set up before the antithesis arrived,” I explained. “I admit, I may have overestimated how long it would take to get set up, but there’s no way the antithesis are going to get through my lines.”

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  I quickly called up a city map and checked our position against the locations that Charlotte had been calling in.

  “We are closing in on the nearest drop site, so we should start seeing antithesis any time now.”

  Nora nodded and bounced in place, her eyes carefully scanning our surroundings. In the end it wasn’t Nora or me that saw the first antithesis; it was Dusty. I nearly jumped right off the Kodiak when the vehicle-mounted coil gun went off right behind my head.

  The round went straight through two plate glass windows on the corner of a building a couple blocks down and gutted a Model Twelve that I couldn’t even see. I thought of berating the bear, but before I could, a wave of antithesis exploded around the corner and stampeded down the street.

  “Everyone out!” I barked. “Nora I know you want to jump in there, but please wait until they get closer so we can thin them out first!”

  “I might have been anxious for battle, but I’m not going to just jump into the first pack I see,” Nora hissed. She dropped to one knee next to me and aimed down the top of her rifle. I didn’t recognize the model, but that thing packed a punch, penetrating multiple antithesis with each shot.

  It only took ten seconds for Deadbeat and the two extra bears I’d picked up to fill in for Spooky and Bandit to disembark and slowly begin picking apart the approaching horde. They used their rifles like precision instruments, picking off antithesis after antithesis with headshots as the swarm approached. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t hold the horde back.

  It was only after Heavy trudged out and brought his ‘lightshow’ rotary laser cannon to bear that the antithesis began to die in droves. The five-foot tall polar bear in blast armor wasn’t the swiftest, but he was always effective. As he raked the antithesis’ front line, their charge began to stall. The Model Threes and Fours died faster than they could advance, creating an ever-growing ridge of corpses across the road.

  As the charge stalled out, the larger antithesis started filling the road. Through the scope of my rifle, I watched a pair of Fourteens erupt around the corner. The smaller antithesis that didn’t manage to get out of the way in time were trampled underneath the semi truck-sized, centipedal antithesis. Even though the Kodiak could have taken the monstrous antithesis out in a single shot, I signaled Dusty to hold fire and turned to Nora.

  “Do you feel like a warm-up?” I asked, grinning slightly.

  “Absolutely,” she replied softly.

  She gently placed her rifle down on the top of the Kodiak and stood up, carefully examining the horde. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for, but after a couple seconds, she coiled up and launched herself straight into the middle of the oncoming swarm, causing the Kodiak to rock on its springs.

  She landed about ten feet short of the closest Fourteen, crushing a couple of smaller models upon landing. The nearest models attempted to adjust and attack her, but they were far too slow.

  As the Fourteen barreled down upon her, Nora unleashed a roundhouse kick that eviscerated the surrounding antithesis before landing straight on the side of the Fourteen’s head. Even from a hundred feet away, through the noise of gunfire and charging antithesis, I could still hear the carapace crack under the impact.

  The Fourteen attempted to readjust, trying to go around, but Nora quickly followed up with a snapkick that shattered the monster’s head and sent the body tumbling down around her.

  The second Fourteen continued to charge forward undeterred. Although it tried to ignore Nora and the carnage that she was causing, my friend wasn’t having any of it. She leapt out of the vicera, landing squarely on the Fourteen, knelt down, and started going to work on its back.

  Her fists were like pistons, slowly and methodically breaking through the antithesis’ armor. Once she created a large enough hole, she unclipped something from her belt, dropped it in, and hopped off.

  The Fourteen made it five more steps before it straight-up exploded, raining gore upon the surrounding area.

  By this time the number of smaller models was beginning to drop. The relentless press of bodies charging around the corner had slowed to a slow trickle. Heavy even had to trudge forward and climb the pile of bodies he created to get a good shot at the remaining antithesis.

  With her job done, Nora bounced out of the horde, practically skipping her way back to the Kodiak. “Thanks, I needed that. Had to burn off some energy, felt good,” she said cheerfully.

  “No problem… Just, no hugs until you either wash off or that shit dries,” I grumbled.

  Nora just glanced down at her armor, absolutely dripping with Fourteen innards, and grinned. “No promises.”

  She must have sensed the dread rolling off me because she chuckled and skipped back towards the horde. “You were right, that was a good warm-up, but what’s next?”

  “First, we clean this shit up so the half-dead antithesis don’t get a chance to slink away and take root, then I think we’ll follow that street back towards the seed pod, which Charlotte marked a couple blocks away. Should be plenty more antithesis to kill, plus I’ve been curious to see what exactly these seed pods look like. I think it’s time to actually take a look.”

  Nora smiled. “Sounds like fun.”

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