I stand nervously in the courtroom, clutching at my brother’s sleeve. I look up at the tall podium at the judge, who stares down at us with contempt. This had all been my fault. I decided to steal the blueprints, and now we all would pay for it.
“Jacob and Evelin Vance, this court has judged you guilty of causing damages to New Hope LLC. The total cost of these damages runs up to 4 billion and 34 million credits. All your assets will be seized to pay off this fine. The remaining amount will be added to your debt and paid off by working in indentured servitude.” The judge's voice announced, booming through the entire room from the speakers.
My brother stiffens and glares up at the judge. “How is that fair? They killed our parents? Where is our compensation?” Jacob shouts at the judge. His face looks weird, angry. I don't think I have ever seen him like that.
“Compensation? They got in the way of justice and had to pay for that, so compensation is unnecessary.” The judge says. “Guards, take them away. I have more cases to worry about.”
“Entering now, Brussel Central Station,” an electronic voice announces.
I jump as I wake up, hitting my head on the widow of the Maglev train. I rub my head trying to calm myself down. I take a look around, but none of the other passengers is paying any attention. I stand up, ready to leave this train. What a dream. I try my best to rember my brother's face, but the details are hard to rember. It has been such a long ti since I saw him.
I scratch the back of my neck, rubbing at the scar from my implant. It took three gruelling years in a disassembling plant, taking apart dangerous Samurai equipnt before people learned about my skills with computers, and I was promoted to cyber security. The price for all my effort was a bomb implanted at the base of my skull, rigged to explode whenever I would betray the company.
I catch the first elevator down to the lower floors of the ga city. Its construction could be seen as beautiful in its own right. Being at the edge of the flood zone ans that people tend to build up in the impressive spiral building structures. If you live at the top, the risk of flooding is smaller, and that is where all the people are, leaving the bottom levels available for cheap storage units. Sadly, this is where I was heading. The R and D departnt wanted to look at so old Samurai gear specs stored on a server here, only to find out they could not connect to it.
It has been seven years, and I am still ssing around with Samurai stuff. Only now, I get to wear a fancy suit while I do it. Once the elevator reaches its destination, I get out, heading to the next one. To my continued annoyance, most people are still unwilling to build an elevator all the way down to ground level. I guess they are afraid the unsavoury types from the underbelly using it to co up. Like hover cars are not a thing. I am brought out of my train of thought by the incessant beeping of an incoming call.
“Hello, Mister Le Mond. How can I help you?” I answer, trying to make it sound like I am actually happy to receive the call.
In the top right of my vision, a little box opens, and my boss in his well-ironed suit appears sitting in an office looking out over the city skyline, which was probably Strasburg or Stuttgart. I really did not know since all the cities in that area had just rged together at so point, making the howl differentiation rather pointless in my mind.
“Evelin, I rember telling you to have the Etro Corp security audit ready this morning, so where is it?” he says in his best I am your boss, and you better have not fucked up voice.
“yeah, right, the Etro Corp job.” A few eye twitches in my augs and I have all the docunts open and ready. “You want to explain it or send it over, sir.”
I see his eyes twitch. “And why are you not giving the report in my office then? Do you think you won't be replaced just because you are good at your job?”
“Oh no, sir, I would never think that. I got sent to Brussels for repairs by headquarters,” I say, doing my best innocent girl impression. “I will co to your office as soon as I finish here, sir.”
“Hmmph, you better hurry it up, I don’t have all day,” he says.
“I will, mister le Mond,” I say, and with that, the call gets disconnected.
Well, that is what this day needed a fucking tir, great. I have to keep myself back from cursing. As I leave the last elevator, I see the small layer of water that has been ford on the street. Water damage is never good. Not only is the equipnt wet and most likely broken, but you also have the added risk of electrocution now. I hasten my step, determined to see how bad the damage is. A loud bang resounds beside , and I jump up in surprise. I look to the side, trying to still my rapidly beating heart. The only thing I see is so kids dumpster diving, and I let out a sigh of relief.
One of the bigger kids walks up to “What are you looking at, suit? Get lost.” as he pulls out so kind of rusty knife out of his pocket.
I pause for a second before I shrug and keep going. Everyone needs to do their own thing to survive, and at this mont, I do not have the ti or money to care for others. As I keep walking to the warehouse, a feeling of dread starts to form. The water level has risen to my ankles. Guess I am not keeping my suit dry and cleaning it is going to be expensive. Can this day get worse.
When I make it to the warehouse, I need to ping the lock a few tis before it registers and opens up. I make it through the front door only to be hit with the sll of damp mould and the coppery stench of rust. Well, that says more than any error asure ever could. I start exploring the different sections. It looks like water has been seeping through a crack in the wall and wreaking havoc on anything that could touch it. This is going to take forever.
I slowly make my way through everything, repairing what I can and boxing up everything that is broken. Most of the data on a broken hard drive can still be recovered. It just takes a while. So my ti is better spent turning on all the parts that still work and sending the data to a different server. I also wrote a strong email suggesting that we abandon this site.
Bang! The crashing of tal can be heard in the distance. I frowned. Vermin? are not particularly uncommon, but if there were any here, you would expect that there would be more chewed-through cables. Then I rember the kids. Did I close the door behind ? I was not sure; I was in such a hurry dealing with everything that I might have forgotten. I stand up, walking in the direction of the noise. It is coming from one of the other rooms. I quickly unlock the door.
“Okay, kids, listen up, put down the stuff you took, and we can all pretend nothing happened. Trust , you don’t need a Corp on your back!” I shout into the room as I open the door.
Unfortunately for , what I find in the room is not thieving children but a group of plant aliens, triple hinge jaws and small legs, which ans green muscles spread over their entire dog-sized bodies. Model 3’s a small voice in my head informs . All four of the monsters instantly snap their gaze at . I slam the door shut, telling the lock to re-engage. Almost instantly, dents started to form, and I decided to run. If I wanted to survive, I needed to get out of there and into a shelter as quickly as possible. Then a warning pops in my vision
Incursion Detected!
“For fuck sake, you are late!” I shout at the stupid warning ssage.
I start to run away heading for the open door. Hey, would you look at that? I did forget to close it after all. As soon as I got outside, I ran into a little girl. We both tumble to the ground, and I look around in surprise. The kids, this is where they were. I look back at the door, no antithesis yet. I quickly stand up and pick up the small girl. The other kids looked at with wide eyes.
“RUN! ANTITHESIS!” I shout.
This seems to put them back into gear as they start running again as I follow behind them. A few eye twitches later, I have a map of the city displayed on my augs. I overlay the locations of all the known shelters on it to find which one is the closest to us. I find one only one block away, and we are already heading in the correct direction. Guess good things can happen to after all.
Then I hear it, the sound, splashing of feet hitting the water behind us. I look behind only to see that the floral quintuplets have made it out of the building. And that they are gaining on us fast. I do a quick scan of the map again, only to co to one conclusion.
“Into the alley!” I shout. “Third door on your left, follow the lights!”
I hack into the building's security systems, unlocking the door and turning off all the lights except for a small path that will exit the building on the other side and onto the shelter. It only takes a couple of seconds to set it all up.
Luckily, these are street kids, which ans that they are smart. The front one rushes into the alleyway. They open the door and hold it open for the rest to co in. I am the last one to make it inside, and I slam the door behind as I put down the girl. I quickly re-engage the lock and drag one of the heavy cabinets in front of it. Then I turn back to the hall to see the last of the kids disappear in the distance. Good, they will be fine now.
I decided to follow their example and run after them. I hear glass shattering in the distance. I quickly try to pull up the security footage but I am blind. Only a few of the caras in this building are still working. I release a string of curses as I try to get the cara footage from the street to at least have a guess at what is in here. Then I hear a loud boom and the crackling of stones falling down.
I make a snap decision. Not enough ti has passed for the kids to make it out of here yet, and sothing big has definitely made its way inside, and I can’t have it finding the children. I start activating random alarms, sprinklers, and another security subsystem on the outskirts of the building to lure whatever monster is inside of here away from us.
It sounds like it works sowhat. The noise of destruction is getting farther away from . At the sa ti, I feel my legs heat up as I push them further. The amount of noise is disconcerting. More than ever, I wish that HR would allow to carry a gun or a knife, not that it would do much good, but it would help calm down my rapidly beating heart, at least.
Then I spot it on one of the street caras. The children have made it out safely. I smile. That is good; I am still only halfway. I really should exercise more, but at least the kids are safe and just in ti, too. There is a loud collision, shaking the building slightly. And all the noise in the building stops. I guess the Xeno has hit sothing vital and turned off all the equipnt. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway, but I really had hoped I would have made it out by then.
I have a new problem now, not only has the noise of the alarms stoped but so has all the other noise. No more walls collapsing or the shattering of glass in the distance. The only sound is my own breathing. This unsettles more than I would have thought. It is a similar feeling to when it was discovered that I stole a whole bunch of company secrets as a kid. I just had the feeling of waiting for the proverbial axe to drop, but instead of being dragged to a courtroom, I would get my face eaten off this ti. And it is only Monday, so I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week is like.
Maybe it is ti to slow down. If the creatures are not making any noise, I should not start making noise either; I don’t want to attract them after all. It's like this that I discovered a giant hole in the wall, and all that is left of soone, or the carpet has always been red in that particular spot. Who knows? The hole is concerning. it is big, like a van drove straight through the building.
Just as I am about to walk away from the hole, there is a loud sound, and I see a cloud of dust coming out of the corridor behind . I wish that I had paid more attention to the antithesis research channel because, at this mont, I would really love to know how good their sense of sll is.
I vote for good and start to sprint away. I make it a good part of the distance before the ground starts shaking. I take a look back and see a large dark green shadow rapidly approaching. I make a quick decision, opening the door to a random room, and head further inside. Running between racks of stored equipnt, trying to create space and make it lose in the ss of dust and boxes.
As I run between shelves filled with car tyres, I fire off a quick prayer. I am not particularly pious, but I could do with a Samurai now and could care less about how they got here. Then the door behind explodes as the big plant cos through. Its big tree trunk limbs, carrying it forward. A Model 6, I think, but it could also be a 5. I should have really been paying more attention.
I take a quick look around to check if there is anything I can put between and the overgrown plant. Sadly, the only thing around is car tyres, and I don’t think a couple of centitres of rubber will save . . I am exhausted from all the running. I know it is over, but that does not an I want to give up. Too bad for that the oversized spruce sees the concept of stamina more as a suggestion than a rule.
As the rumbling cos closer, I jump behind the last thing that can give even a bit of cover, a big pillar about the size of a small car. As I slide into cover, all I hear is a massive explosion as small bits of rock pelt . I look up only to realise that I have probably used up all my remaining years of luck as the creature has jumped past without taking my head off.
I lay there for a second, stunned, and then I heard the groan of tal as the building started to vibrate slightly. I looked up to the roiled-up confer. It had gotten up, but it did not make that noise. Of course not what am I thinking these fuckers never make any noise. Then I hear it again: the creaking of a building as I see the ceiling sink a couple of centitres. Then the proverbial LED in my head turns on.
“I ran the bull into the load-bearing pillar,” I whisper to myself.
In the next mont, the room explodes into motion. The antithesis tries to run at only to be speared by a falling girder. Then, more things start to fall. A part of the ceiling cos down and hits the floor plate I am sitting on, launching up into the air and slamming into sothing as I lose conciseness.
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