I woke up early the day, snuck out to the garage before everyone else was awake, and pounded on Sharron’s door. When she finally showed up a few mier she looked pletely disheveled, and very unamused. “Teddy. What the hell are you doing? Do you know what time it is?”

  “Time to work, Squiddy!” I said, putting on my sweetest smile. The aly seemed to infuriate her further.

  “What work? You’re taking time off.”

  “Not from this,” I replied, letting my fake smile drop, and pushing past her into her living room. She followed me, dressed in her pajamas and bunny slippers, and probably the most annoyed I’d ever seen her. “The squirrels just reached a new area, and alerted me of a possible issue. Nyx, show her.”

  A sed ter the TV burst to life, showing a sickly model four dragging something into a draiunnel. Sharron’s attitude immediately ged, and she went into full samurai mode. “Where was this taken?”

  “Ior thirty-two, just off one of the als,” I replied. She shot me a fused look, so I crified. “You know those huge drainage als? Well there’s a lot of them. Ten running north-south, and ten runni-west. The areas between them are numbered, number one is in the north-east, we’re in eleven.” I could see her eyes gze over slightly, so I just jumped to the point. “They’re to the south-west, not that far away.”

  “How did they survive the sweeps, and why haven’t they beeed yet?”

  I shrugged, “They were outside the inal up area, several neighborhoods away. As for why they weren’t reported? People disappear down here all the time. There would have to be a major exodus for ao actually iigate.”

  “Right, uy things, I keep fetting.” She stood up and stretched, before heading towards the back of the RV. “How big is that drainage area?”

  “Probably arou feet on average. Your css II suit might have trouble maneuvering, but the Css I should be fine.”

  “Fine. I’ll get suited up, you pull your forces together,” Sharron said as she disappeared into the back. I owards her retreating back, then stepped outside. A samurai’s work is never done.

  It didn’t take too long to prepare, all I had to do was send out some ands and the bears pretty much ahemselves. Since I retty much printing out a new squad of Css II bears per day, I had troops to spare. Rather than preparing the IFVs, I just stuffed them all in the bay truck. It’s not like I could fit those armored vehicles into the tunnels.

  By the time Sharron walked up, I pretty much had everything packed away, she just walked her suit into the back of the trud stowed it away. As I pulled the truck out of the garage, I just had to double-cheething. “Nyx, what’s the weather like up top?”

  There is a ook happening, but the sky is clear otherwise.

  “Straime to be worried about the weather,” Sharron remarked from the passenger seat.

  “Not really, remember the first time you were here? A little rain topside means the sewers and als fill up with sludge. I really don’t want to be stu a draiunnel if that happens. You and the bears might be able to ha, but I’m not sure if I would be.”

  “Right… the corrosive goop,” she shuddered. I’d never seen anyone fall into the als, but she had a really close look at an Antithesis dissolving st time. It’s somethiher of us wanted a repeat of.

  I parked the truck at the top of the al, right above where the model four was st spotted. As soon as it came to a stop the two moose immediately jumped down, and started trying to rip the rusty metal bars off the entrao the draiunnel. As the rest of the bears piled out, and ahemselves, I stared down at the tuhe top of the grating had been ripped away, which was how the model fot in, but otherwise the area was quiet. Too quiet.

  “What’s on your mind?” Sharron asked, after she donned her armor.

  “Why isn’t this pce crawling right now? The st incursion was weeks ago, and it should have only taken hours for a hive to start pumping out reinforts, days at the most. Why the fuck are they only being active now?”

  “Maybe a stealth hive? Like Coe?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, “but if that’s true it seems strao send out model fours to hunt.”

  She shrugged, which looked odd in her super heavy suit. “In the end it doesn’t matter, we’ll kill them either way.” Without another word she stepped onto the side of the al and slid down. I sighed, sent my forces down, then followed her.

  When I arrived at the grate I found the moose still struggling to open the way, so I sent Bob forward. The big bear took three quick swipes at the metal barrier, and the entire c fell away. With the entrance cleared, Heavy and the moose stepped through, followed closely by Sharron and myself.

  The draiunnel was about eight feet wide, and teall. Easy to traverse, and hard for anything to set up an ambush on us. I still sed on my night vision, a my rifle ready, just in case. We mao get about a hundred feet dowunnel before we entered aa just wasn’t what I expected.

  The antithesis that intercepted us looked sickly. They had bed skin, and moved a little slower than usual, but were as aggressive as the rest of their kin. The wave of threes and fours smashed into the front of our lines, and stopped dead against the heavies. As the charge broke, our ter-attack began. Sharron stepped forward, sers vaporizing whole lines of antithesis, followed by the rest of my bears, pig off whatever she missed. The attack was, frankly, weaker than I expected. The threes were slow, the fours seemed to have a shorter rahan usual, and even the fives weren’t firing their quills.

  After the front line advanced I leaned dooked one of the dead spes; as soon as I did, the darkened skin burst, leaking out a foul yellow-green fluid.

  Iing

  “No, Nyx, disgusting. What the hell is wrong with it?” I asked. As I checked the antithesis, I could see long open sores, leaking a simir liquid.

  They’re obviously sick, but without some sort of ser I ’t tell you why.

  “Wonderful,” I replied, before standing up and rushing after the front line.

  The further we cut into antithesis lihe sicker they were. The st few practically fell apart before we even reached them.

  “Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?” Sharron asked. Her suit was pletely spttered in gore, from the st few antithesis exploding uhe bears’ gunfire.

  “I don’t know, but don’t release your enviroal prote until we know why. We’ll s the remnants whe out of here, burn it off if we o.”

  She nodded, slightly unsure, but tinued dowunnel anyways. About a hundred meters on we found what we’d e for, a hole in the side of the tunnel with roots emerging from it. Just like the rest of the antithesis, the roots were withered, and sickly, but it was obviously a hive.

  Beyond the hole was a det-sized room, burrowed out of the rock. Most of the room was flooded, with the hive hanging precariously from the ceiling. As soon as we saw the room, Sharron just ughed. “There’s why we haven’t heard of an iion, the pnts fucked themselves. I bet something mao crawl over here, and took root, and then got stu here the ime the ooze flowed through. I bet those models out there were all messed up because this stupid hive’s spent the eime trying to get something that’ll survive long enough to get out.”

  I would agree, that does seem to be likely, but I still suggest getting sed prior to crag your enviroal prote.

  “Yeah, no shit,” I mumbled. “You want to take care of this, or shall I?” I asked Sharron. She only stared at the mess of roots for a moment, before turning bae.

  “The bears do it. If I had my psma it’d be a snap, but with my sers I’d just be cauterizing everything. Better to just have the bears stuff melters everywhere.”

  I nodded, and she shuffled bato the tuo make room. “Nyx, box of flesh-melters please.” As soon as the grenades appeared I started tossing them to the heavies, which were the only ones I was sure were fully protected against the ooze, and they started shoving them into every possible opening. I spent about twenty minutes making sure that every trace of the hive was destroyed, before ing back out to join Sharron again.

  “I think we’re finished up here, we should order up a ser before… the hell?” Just as I exited the room I realized that Sharron wasn’t alone. Just dowunnel, at the bend, there was a small group of people.

  "They just showed up a sed ago, not sure who they are, but they're lucky they ran into us instead of the antithesis," Sharron said, wthout taking her eyes off the group.

  As I sed the raggedy group, my eyes were drawn to the i pasted on the leader's pel. “Of fug course,” I said with a sigh, “I’ve been looking for you Guiding Light assholes. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’ve got a few questions for you.”