Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Flesh Melter

“Are you a true blue American?

Are you a red-blooded patriot?

Do you want to see those roach bastards take over this fine country, steal your children and enslave humanity?

If you want to help real Americans, then buy Samurai Bonds today! A certain percentage of every bond purchased will go directly into the pockets of America’s heroes!”

--Propaganda from the United States of Kentucky, Texas and Oklahoma, Late 2035

***

I pulled out my Trench Maker, just in case.

It wasn’t needed in the end.

The two guns hovering close to my head both twitched, each picking out a target at the far end of the flock of black-green birds. Two flechettes flew out of the guns with shots that sounded more like a pneumatic hose being disconnected than an actual gunshot.

The birds exploded in a mess of feathers and gore.

Just as the Model Ones started to react, the guns twitched, picked out new targets and fired again. There was nearly half a second between picking out a new target and firing. It wasn’t a big enough delay for the Model Ones to do anything.

I watched the pile of black bodies on the ground, some of the smoking where the explosive flechettes had burned fist-sized holes into their little bodies.

“Damn,” I said.

I trust the display is satisfactory enough?

“Best hundred-odd points I’ve ever spent,” I said. And it was. If that was the kind of firepower I could get for just shy of a hundred points, I couldn’t imagine what kind of stuff old Samurai got to play with after a year or two.

Targets Eliminated!

Reward... 14 Points!

I shrugged. It was something. I wouldn’t refuse them. “Myalis, I need something to burn those bodies with,” I said.

It’s a fairly common practice with higher-tier Vanguard to attempt to starve out a fledgling hive. There are a few items in your Esoteric Single-Use Explosive Devices catalogue that would do the job. I would suggest a Mark I Flesh Melter. They cost three points. Very slow-acting, and more of a utility than a proper weapon.

“Sure, why not.”

New Purchase: Mark I Flesh Melter

Points reduced to... 103

The Flesh Melter Mark I looked like a soda can. It had a pop tab at the top and the name and model number on the side in etched numbers. I popped the top and tossed it into the room, then ducked to the side where a wall would cover me.

A lot of nothing happened.

“Um?”

The Flesh Melter Mark I releases short-lived nanites that find any organic materials and break them apart. I would advise not stepping within ten meters of the deployment range of the grenade.

I shuddered and thanked the stars that I had ducked to the side I had to walk down and not the other, otherwise I would have had to cross the opening. “Myalis?”

Yes, Catherine?

“Next time you give me something so stupidly dangerous, please tell me.”

The majority of your purchases so far have been exceedingly lethal to anyone with a standard human physiology.

“Yeah, but they’re not flesh eating nanites,” I said. I shivered again and moved away from the vault.

The museum had turned into something of a mess in the hour or two since I’d left. Just thinking that it had only been a little bit since I’d been pinned under a pole in this room left me with a queasy feeling in my gut.

I shook my head and set that aside too. The room’s glass-lined ceiling was cracked and defaced in a few more spots. Water was dripping down from a dozen rents in the glass, and a deluge was pouring in from the hole where the pod had crashed at the far end.

The constant hum of rain pelting onto the roof warred with the jingles and announcements from three dozen interactive displays that had probably been looping this entire time.

I licked my lips and stayed near the entrance, eye panning this way and that while the guns at my sides scanned across the room. “So, big old AA gun on the roof,” I said. “Which means we need to get to the roof.”

I would advise finding the interior access. While climbing to the roof from the exterior is possible, you would present a rather obvious, and tantalizing, target to any flying Antithesis. While Model One A’s are easy to ward off, the larger specimen of the Model One can be a much larger threat.

“Right,” I said. “So if I were a roof-access... thing, where would I hide?”

I started to cross the room, aiming for the entrance where I could vaguely recall there being a room behind the greeter android.

Something shifted to the side.

I turned to look, a hand reaching up for my gun in the same moment that something big and black burst out from a display showing off a long black trench coat draped over a mannequin.

A Model Three, one of its rear legs crushed and crippled, its eyes locked onto me, its mouth opening wide.

I fumbled to grab my gun properly and find the trigger.

And then the guns hanging off my back opened fire, one from just behind me, the other from atop my head where it had stretched out to get a better angle.

The Model Three shook and trembled as a dozen projectiles burrowed into it. Then it burst apart and the alien slumped to the ground while bits of its flesh and blood rained down around me.

“Fuck.”

Are you well?

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” I said. “Just, nearly pissed myself is all.”

Please don’t do that, it would be embarrassing.

“Shut up,” I said with no energy behind it.

Target Eliminated

Rewards... 10 Points

Now Total: 113 Points

Well, at least there was that. I swallowed and continued making my way ahead, though this time at a much slower, more even pace. Every twitch and moving object in my periphery had me jumping until I took a moment to settle down.

The android at the front, the one that had pissed me off so much, wasn’t in the best shape. Something had plucked out its eyes and nipped at its plastic-y skin until it peeled off to reveal the hard-plastic shell beneath.

I scrunched up my nose and vaulted over the counter, and with a final glance over my shoulder, moved into the bowels of the museum.

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