Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Speared

"People forget that Samurai are human.

In fact, they forget that they're usually young. The average age someone becomes a Vanguard is seventeen. That's... that's very young. I was thirteen.

Too young to drink in most places, and given the ability to buy near anything from an uncontrollable source. Governments stop taxing you, but also expect you to work for them. Corporations weasel their way closer, ready to try and lock you into a contract.

And the worse part of it all. You're only worth as much as you can kill.

Killing xenos is easy. It's clean even. They're just monsters. It becomes a sort of game. It's fun.

It's the humans you need to deal with that make things hard."

--Neon Girl Happy-Chan, Live interview on the Colby-Colbert Show, Jun 2029

***

I don't know what gave it away. Maybe it was my exclamation, or the way I moved to bring my gun up to point it towards the ceiling. Maybe they'd noticed me noticing them.

It didn't really matter.

One moment the group of office drones were climbing up the stairs, grumbling between pants.

The next a foot-long boney spike was through the head of two of those in the middle of the pack and a dozen more tentacles were dropping from above to grab necks and arms.

Lights were dropped, others were raised towards the ceiling to reveal the two... no, three Model Fours tucked up near the top of the stairs. Screams followed.

I saw Jeff raising his pistol to the air and emptying the magazine into one of the Model Fours. Storm started firing a moment later.

The noise was unbelievable in the tight confines of the stairwell, with nothing but maddened screaming to accompany it.

One of the aliens fell from above, crashing into those below it.

The stairs here followed along the walls, with little platforms at every corner. That's more or less where the Model Fours were hiding. Two of them couldn't even reach anyone at first, not until they dropped down with heavy bangs and started whipping out their many limbs at everyone.

I raised my gun, aiming it towards the nearest monster. The reticule paused over its writhing form when someone pushed into my and my aim was thrown off.

The back of my shoe slipped off the step I was on, and I cartwheeled to stay up. When another idiot bumped into my I tripped backwards, my gun flying off as I grabbed onto the nearest railing for support.

Someone stepped on me, another fell down the stairs and rolled over my back before crashing down below.

I couldn't find my gun, not in the near-total darkness with only lights that were waving around wildly to illuminate things. "Gun!" I said.

Do you need anything in particular or..?

I rolled onto my back and looked up as a dark form lumbed down the stairs towards me. One of the Model Fours, with one of the women I'd seen in the bathroom in its grasp. It was smashing her head into the walls as it stumbled down the stairs on all fours.

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"Gun!" I screamed.

Something heavy and cold filled my hand. I raised it, saw a large circle of light before me, coming from just below a thick barrel. I squeezed my finger over the trigger again and again while hoping there wasn't a damned safety on the thing.

The gun roared.

I winced as it was almost wrenched out of my hand while a spray of bullets leapt forwards and stitched a line of holes into the Model Four.

It flopped forwards, twitching tentacles pressing me down onto the steps before I shoved it off as hard as I could. The woman, or rather, her body, fell next to me. I recoiled from it, but I didn't have time for freaking out. There were more of the monsters in the room. Storm was holding onto a blade-tipped tentacle in each hand while kicking out with one foot.

Another of the Model Fours was in the middle of flinging someone down the middle of the stairwell.

I aimed at that one first, grip tight over the new gun. It screamed as dozens of rounds were spat out of it.

My aim was a little off, and only half the rounds splattered into the alien's centre of mass. More than enough that it died.

I turned to the next and pulled the trigger. Two, maybe three rounds shot out, and the gun clicked empty.

Drop it!

I did, the gun's light spinning around until it crashed to the floor below.

A moment later a new gun, smaller, was in my hand and a new reticule was flashing red as it locked onto the last Model Four.

Two bursts of four micro missiles raced across the space between me and the monster.

I heard eight satisfying pops and saw the beast tremble. It slid off to the side, dead.

Storm stumbled back. He was breathing hard, sweat plastering his hair to his head. He flung the tentacles he was still holding onto to the side with disgust. "Fuck."

That summed it up.

I moved past him, past the bodies of four or five of the people we'd been with, and then up the stairs. The door at the top was opened into a corridor. This one was complete, at least, but the lights along the ceiling were all broken. There was light coming in from the window in the door at the far end of the corridor.

I looked up, then along the ceiling and floors and peered into every shadow.

It seemed clear.

I didn't take any chances and shut the door.

"Jeff! Jeff you stupid stupid-- get up, come on bro."

I clenched my jaw and kept staring at the closed door.

"Please Jeff."

I swallowed and turned around. A glance at Jeff was enough to know he was dead. A spike through the skull would do that.

The others though...

"Myalis, I need medical shit, just give me whatever, fuck the points,"

I understand. The sooner we begin, the more lives we are likely to save.

"Yeah, yeah."

I stumbled over to the first, got on my knees, ignored the way my everything ached, and got to work.

I wasn't equipped for this shit, but there was no one else around, was there?