by Marcus Sloss
“You seeing this Cap?” Mills said.
“Indeed, time for a talk I guess,” I said.
The video showed a robotic walker at least twenty feet tall exit the northern end of the Xgate. There was a clunky walk as it trudged forward on two long legs. My guess was the operator was struggling with the controls. A few steps placed it toward the south end where Dutch would be exiting.
The walking battle machine failed to get set in time. Dutch glided out of the Xgate in a ten foot tall boxy tank. Oh shit, not good. But we would still be able to kill it. Hopefully.
Thank the lord it was carbon powered when the brown shielding flickered under the white beams of the walker.
The two machines went to war as if we did not exist. The battle for Reno’s morality being dueled again, this time on a more level field.
Both devices were cumbersome in their motions. Flaring white orbs crashed into a brown shield. The brown firepower ponged rippling effects off the walker’s weakening shields.
“Focus fire on the boxy tanks generators, if you fail to down it, fall back to us or hide,” I said knowing there were only a few scouts at the gate.
The boxy tank had enough of the fight, it charged the walker slamming into the device with enough force to topple the machine. The shields flickered and snapped from the impact. The fire from Mills and his team lanced into the generator.
A white static washed over the screen which was enough to tell me exactly what happened. A mushrooming cloud of white and brown energy careened into the sky. My forearm shot over my eyes to shield myself from the explosions flaring light.
“Six this is Household Six,” Perci said over the radio and I ignored her.
My ass came off the rubble while I ran for cover. The shattering of glass joined the explosive wave of energy. The fragments tinged, pinged, and banged as they crashed into our surroundings. The rubble shook, my body vibrated and then the madness passed me by.
I unlocked my jaw to pop my ears.
“Anyone hurt?” I asked over the net.
I waited and watched Gpad statistics return to normal. There was only one yellow sign. Elifer’s second in command. Sergeant Ruxford. The vitals were stable but weak.
“This is Elifer, we were in between Mills and Cap. Ruxford has a chunk of glass in her guts, she will be fine,” Elifer said confidently.
If it wasn’t for the virum I wouldn’t have believed her. Taking a deep breath I checked over the refugees heading to bathe. They had mostly been behind cover. The wail of a woman and the shriek of a man seeing actual protruding bone told me they would be fine. In pain, miserable, but they would live. The virum would see them healed soon enough.
“Perci this is Eric, ETA?” I asked.
“We’re at the river, these people smell the worst. I take it you defeated the bad guy?” Perci asked.
I opened and closed my mouth. “We accidently got them to fight each other. I think. You know, it went about how most battles should go, crazily. There was a walker versus a tank… You know what. There is no dispute on my contract claims so it's over,” I said, noticing I had added another fifty souls to my list. I was allowed a blowjob a day. I chuckled at that. I would need to have a talk with Everly and see about getting something in her contract. With a remorseful sigh I baselined all the contract to standard food, water, and shelter. The work hours stayed the same for now. “So the other bases. Tell them they’re moving in with us nicely. Those who resist will be left behind.”
“Oh, we already have a semi deal going. They needed you to take out some Dutch guy first because he was a really bad guy deep down,” Perci said and I smirked waiting for her to continue. “I take your silence as a victory then. We have AH2 enroute to get them here soon. They are getting ready now.”
“Well then, will you do me the honor and whisk me into our new stronghold on your valiant steed my lady?” I said with a teasing chuckle.
“Of course, my love. And the rally points are set for AH2. In a few hours we will add another thousand humans and some aliens to our home,” Perci said proudly.
“That wraps up Reno!” I said with a winning hootin holler.
CHAPTER 4
Flying home with a hangar filled full of nasty people was probably close to what the original owners were used to. Scrubbing in a river bath was not enough and even the advanced alien sealed door was unable to keep the stench in the bay. My frustration at being unable to plug my nose was nothing compared to my disappointment in America.
The mimic trees that were Gtowers continued to go down in a widening net. Suddenly survivors anywhere near a Gpad, Isquare, Gtelevision, and old cell phones were connected again. A full month had gone by and three full portal rotations. Information came pouring in as New Mexico, Arizona, and northern California returned to a new version of online access to the Gnet.
As we flew for home I was able to see so many new survivors with their forgotten devices betraying them. Those sluggeros were better than Gcorp at listening in on conversations or hacking cameras to find movement and displaying the videos for us to process. Not that we always need the Gnet to find people. They were illuminating the night brightly while working during the golden portals.
When you think of all the police officers, firefighters, military members, and other heroic do-gooders you start to realize they were in a minority. That doesn’t mean a lawyer was inherently bad, just he or she was never courageously good. There is nothing wrong with being a desk jockey. Hell, I had planned to be one too. The problem is or was, the great ones died first if they weren’t prepared. They rushed to danger to save the day and odds were not always in their favor.
The middle of the road survivor was cunning. Their moral guidelines were fallible. Dutch was a great example. The friendly, awesome guy you had in your house to fix your desperately needed AC was a staple of our society before the fall. That man was loved and respected.
Then he gets power, additional power, and starts slipping on the slope of good vs evil. If there are no police to stop him as his reign is supreme, why not add some pleasure servants and who cares if the weak sleep in filth. I was no saint, I knew that. I just wished we would stumble upon a church group huddling the weak or a police station barricaded with the sick in need of help.
We never did. It was normally either the group achieved alien levels of tech, or they were hardened assholes exploiting the apocalypse for their gain.
The reality was, I wanted to snatch people to boost our numbers. Everyone up here on the surface would die given time; or flee to areas without portals and hunker down. Our global warming problem was fixed pretty much overnight so unfreezing the artic would take a long time and a lot of alien technology. Which meant there was no safe place on the surface if enough time passed. The thirty people in the woods with tents and rifles were not outlasting this apocalypse.
My sigh was long and painful. The amount of work moving forward was monumental. I had yet to even chat with Daxstar about this Owlvini Alliance thing. There was only one way to go and that was forward. I shoved my disgruntled attitude down to find Perci. She was letting an unknown fairy fly us home.
Perci was watching the dark landscape shoot under us. I walked to join her side at the view screen. In the far distance, an Xgate shone its golden rays brightly into the night. I chose to ignore the view and placed an arm over my lovely little lady.
“So Perci, penny for your thoughts,” I said, seeing her frown.
She nudged into me, focused on the view outside. “The shockwave from the Reno explosion startled me. We were flying in and boom, I thought nothing of it, even teased you on the radio. Then the concussive force rocked the aircraft to the point I thought we might crash,” Perci said with a timid sigh and a frightened smile.
I pulled her in tighter and said, “I understand. Is that why this guy is flying?”
“That is Ordana, he is the fairy you freed from Koor. And yes, I found myself wanting to knit in a taver rocking chair suddenly. After thinking I m
ight die I wanted nothing more than go home. Knitting is for old farts, Eric. Yet,” she paused to huff a deep exhale. “I want to grow old with my children. The fact of Longoria’s age and history frightens me just as much. I grow conflicted. I liked helping and then I disliked near death that wasn’t even that near.”
“Then why not take a break and think about it. We’re rich Perci, and we have powerful friends. Speaking of which have the Teton Fortress people -”
“Paid in full. They haven’t realized we’re snagging the resources around the country that haven’t been looted yet,” she said with a slight chuckle. “But it is good to see them pay their debts. We even gave them some zinc in trade. You would be surprised how much zinc the virum consume when they occupy a million bodies.”
“Well, we have no shortage of zinc on this planet. Is that the entrance?” I asked, seeing a halo on the horizon.
A dome the size of a sporting arena soared into the night skyline. Even from the edge of my sight, I could immediately tell it was simply monstrous in size. The thousand foot tall walls that arced into a cleared dome point were unreal. How? My jaw literally dropped as I gaped at the marvel.
“Watch this” Perci said tapping a button on her Gpad.
Lights flashing red flared to life illuminating the ground we soared over. There were thousands of these defensive tower emplacements blinking their warning message on repeat. I furled my brows. They were built with rockcrete? It sure appeared that way. I saw no weapons platforms atop these defenses.
“Did we broadcast a friendly code or something?” I asked.
“In the works. Those are not live, merely structures awaiting their pew pew parts,” Perci said with a smirk. “This has been their plan. While you were fighting or adventuring this is what the sluggeros, fairies, and our labor force were up to. And no, hands did not build a thousand foot walls in ten days. Our purchases from Koor were worth every bit of resources we overpaid for. Machines capable of feats I never dreamed possible constructed all this and more. You will see them inside Bastion where they are hard at work.”
I gazed across the landscape. Off in the far distance was Mount Moran. The brightly lit night barely let me see its moonlight surface. We were so far from our projected home. The purpose of this dome started to make sense. You brought the war to the field of battle you wanted, not the one your enemies did. This was our ‘Hey come look at me location. Fight us over here’.
“Ah, when our Aspen division of tanks left I was wondering where they went,” I said as AH1 cruised over the defensive towers. Our movement slowed as we approached the wall.
Two massive gates instantly peeled open to allow the aircraft beyond the threshold.
Perci snickered when I grinned proudly.
I saw AC1 and the rest of my tanks arrayed ready for battle. The interior of the dome was rows upon rows of defenses sprinkled with machines of war. In the very center a horizontal ground covering opened up revealing there was more below.
The aircraft shifted over the defenses and down into the bright pit. Calling it a pit wasn’t right. More like a massive parking garage. There were vehicles from old earth inside here, being saved for a rainy day I guessed. Rows of truck trailers were also stacked against a side wall, some even had Gmart etched on the side of the long containers. This was a mix of storage with a large space for an armory. I counted about half our vats of acrium stored inside a large alcove.
“The display answered your question, what do you think?” Perci asked.
I closed my gaping jaw and nodded happily. “This is a fantastic base of operations. The nearest Xgate is twenty minutes away. I am guessing that Xgate’s roaming pattern is between this and our new home?”
“Who is to say this is not our new home?” Perci said with a smile. “Alas you’re right. This is Fortress Dome, home of our quick reaction force and most of our military.”
AH1 glided over to a landing area with a ground manager guiding our landing. There was only the slightest of bumps telling me we were down and on the deck.
“Aircraft is safe to exit,” Ordana said from the pilot station.
I thanked him for the flight and proceeded through the crammed hangar bay to exit the aircraft. Perci was close on my back as we snaked beyond the smelly rescues.
Mitchell was yelling to them that there was a shower spot by the acrium pits. Perci and I deviated from the mass of new arrivals to jog directly to remove our armor. I saw Jacky handling the new arrivals with a welcoming in processing.
It had been a while since I had seen Willow’s mom. She was so darn close to Willow it caused me to stutter my trot. Perci chuckled pushing me forward. Jacky waved and I moved on.
“Yeah, moms that look like daughters, need to dye their hair. If Willow didn’t go jet black I would mix them up,” Perci said and I was about to opine about her and her mother when she headed me off. “I get it, I am dying mine white the moment after you see our new home.”
The trip to the armory alcove did not take long. We set our weapons and shielding in a deposit area that armored mounamine and pandarin managed. We dipped into separate acrium pools, the little creatures cascading off my body to return to their green goop. This is where I normally received feedback from the acrium.
“We value our new homes!” The millions of voices said at once. “We thank you for adopting us, our kind spotted an owlvini, and this also brings gladness.”
“Why would they be helpful to acrium?” I asked, my words bubbling in the submerged vat.
“Upgrades, the owlvini are an original species. You have much to learn, Eric.” The voices said as one.
“Well, I am glad you are happy and I hope to visit the owlvini myself right after this,” I said to the commune of tiny creatures.
“Good luck, and congratulations.”
I was not sure what they meant but I viewed Perci’s tight ass walking briskly for the showers. I noticed she was rushing to rinse off before the mass of Reno folks could clog the water. Eek. I raced out of the vat leaping over the side in haste. That lovely lady of mine was onto something.
A quick shower later resulted in Perci handing me a matching robe to hers. Trinelan Inn and Refinement was on the chest over the heart with an image of a castle. Neat.
“Hurry before the stench arrives,” Perci said, grabbing my silicone hand and tugging me forward.
I would have laughed if I was not on the same page. We bounded out of the armory as Mitchell led in the Reno refugees. You could see elation on their faces of being rescued.
Perci led me to an elevator lift from the top to this floor. A clear tube carried down a set of soldiers and when they shot past our floor I realized we could go down.
My inspection of the roof revealed a steel layer of plating guarding this floor against threats from above. I bet the sluggero siblings had done the same thing for each floor. I was starting to get a sense of the defensive nature of the structure. Fight, fallback, and repeat; or skip a floor and fallback further with the defenses adding time to your next fight.
A clear elevator arrived in front of Perci and I, the door swooshed open revealing a space for ten or so to cram into. Luckily it was only us.
“Lady’s first,” I said and she gestured.
“You’re a smart man, Eric. So I won’t womansplain the uniqueness of this facility. So far, I feel showing you the marvels of Fortress Dome instead of telling you about it, has worked well here,” Perci said, the door hissing closed with a careful snap.
We descended down to a wide open desert biome. I was amazed to see a training floor as vast as the interior of the dome. There were crixxi fighting hand to hand in a sectioned off arena. Dedric was training them on the ways of human combat. In the background, tanks drilled in formations and citizens were on a firing range off to our left.
The transition to the next floor was too fast for me to study more, my groan of disappointment evident. Drilling soldiers in the ways of combat was actually something I enjoyed.
When
the next floor was revealed I saw corridors of barracks with troops flowing about their daily lives. There was no hustle or drilling. This was a leisure place for living. The buildings were large apartments of a sort and the area seemed vacant and overbuilt.
We passed to the next floor and there was a dining area with a nice park beside a lake combo. Soldiers ate while chatting or enjoying their time. There was a theme here that everything was militaristic in its simplicity. Also, it felt so... empty. The space was designed for hundreds of thousands and yet only a few hundred gathered. Probably because we were working hard with the majority of our forces cramming gates for shopping and this was built for expansion.
The how had me pondering if there was some magic wand the sluggeros and fairies had invented. There were no buildings being erected or cranes helping construction crews. Everything was done, and I had no idea how besides Perci saying they used machines.
The next floor was probably the end of our journey because we slowed. That and I could see a dozen modified underways. This was the bottom of the dome. A circle inspection showed exterior emergency shoots dropping down to the caverns floor.
When we exited it was only us in the large bright space. Signs over destinations told us which hideout we could journey to. The main underway had a sign for Bastion.
“So… That was amazing,” I said and Perci bobbed her head in agreement.
We walked hand and hand for the options of underways. “You do plan on showing me how all this was done so quickly?”
Perci shrugged, her robe bouncing off her shoulders.
“Woman,” I said in a teasingly stern tone.
“Man,” she playfully retorted.
I lunged to snatch her in an embrace. The crafty little minx swirled out of my grasp and right into an underway container for Bastion.
“You will see here in a few minutes,” Perci said, waving me into the large booth with a single finger.