LucyKitsune

  There are a lot of proverbs among first responders and especially paramedics, but one of them stands out: "Adrenaline is one hell of a drug!"

  Now you hear this and you go "Well alright fair enough, I guess" but you won't really understand until you hit someone with an epi-pen and they start crushing your hand.

  THEN you realize: "Holy shit. Adrenaline IS one hell of a drug!"

  On EMT and Paramedic proverbs

  I cursed and ducked behind cover. I could hear some needles whistling on their way past. I guessed that meant they were pretty close. I rejected the call, whatever it was, figuring out how to survive was more important.

  There was no way I could get into stabbing-range without turning into a needle-cushion. My aim was also very bad, so throwing stuff wasn’t the best option either. Unless Lyona had some stuff that could aim itself after being thrown?

  “Lyona, any suggestions? I feel like some ranged options would be good but I can’t aim to literally save my life.”

  The Weaponized Throwing Implements catalogue has a set of explosive Javelins that ishould cover enough area to make aiming properly mostly unnecessary. Beyond that, I would also recommend the Medical Utilities catalogue, as it is generally just a good thing to have on hand. In combination with your Nanomechanized Warfare catalogue, I can also get you a dose of nanites that could for a limited amount of time act as performance enhancers and regenerate any damage you sustain while they’re active. All in all that should come down to about 160 points?

  “Sure sounds good. Just make it fast!”

  She did make it fast. I quickly opened the two boxes that had appeared next to me, one of them featuring a syringe and the other holding five metal cubes that I assumed would fold out into javelins.

  It is probably best if you inject the nanites into your upper arm, then wait for a few seconds before the effect kicks in. The javelins will fold out once the magnet has been released. It has been modeled to fit onto your current gear.

  Right. Nanites first, then strap on the javelins. Five of them, four of the shooty antithesis, no more points. I hoped these things were good because I wasn’t going to get a second chance if this didn’t work.

  I took a breath.

  Then the world slowed down.

  I could now actually see the needles flying past me. I grabbed one of the javelins from the belt and got ready to throw it.

  My movements felt slow and almost sluggish.

  I estimate you are wondering why your movements feel awkward right about now: That would be because while the stimunts can speed up your neurons, they can’t do too much for your muscles and bones. That will require further upgrades that are impractically expensive to install in the field. However, perceiving the world faster and being able to think faster is ultimately still an advantage. Aim for where the needles come from, the explosion will do the rest.

  I did as she advised, jumping out from my cover and tossing the javelin as hard as I could in the general direction of whichever model 5 was unlucky enough to be hit first.

  The result astonished me.

  Not only did the weapon go cleanly through one of them, it exploded into what seemed like millions of fragments, that somehow mowed down the Antithesis, whilst barely doing any damage to the street or houses.

  If I hadn’t had the stimunts, I would have been dumbfounded for a lot longer than I was, but eventually I managed to snap out of my stupor and grab another Javelin, except that was hardly needed anymore. All of the shooting aliens were gone. A few dogs remained, but they were hardly a threat.

  Fighting in melee while everything including myself was in slow-motion felt weird. I could react to attacks better but there were some that I could see coming slowly, but I was too slow to move out of the way.

  By the end, I was standing next to about 10-ish dead model 3s and 5 dead model 5s.

  “Lyona what the fuck was tha?” I asked, as time sped back up to normal.

  Well I figured you wouldn’t want to needlessly tear up infrastructure, so I combined the Throwable Implements and Nanomechanized Warfare catalogue, to make a javelin that would explode and send a payload of nanites out in all directions. The Nanites will then not do anything if they encounter inorganic matter or aggressively eat any organic matter they encounter.

  I took a bit to process what my AI assistant just told me. I guessed nanites that indiscriminately devour any and all organic matter was going to be a theme.

  “So how many points does that put me at?”

  Purchases:

  Css 1 Medical Utilities Catalogue x1: 50 points

  Css 1 Weaponized Throwing Implements catalogue x1: 50 points

  Nanomachine stimunts x1: 30 points

  Flesh-Dissolver Javelin x5: 30 points

  Kills:

  Model 5 x 5: 100 points

  Model 3 x 15: 150 points

  New point total: 253 points

  That…

  Was more than before.

  “Lyona, I think we can afford that Snow Pouncers Technologies catalogue now. Also do you have any ranged options, that don’t involve explosions?”

  Of course! For ranged options, I would recommend you wait until you have some more points to afford the Css I Subsonic Rail Catalogue, a smart rail-pistol as well as a catalogue for AR-Impnts to be able to fully use the pistol. I also recommend you set some points aside to give you some flexibility when dealing with emergencies.

  New purchase:

  Tier 1 Snow Pouncers Technologies catalogue x1: 150 points

  New point total: 103 points

  That made sense. I was a bit below it, but I figured 100 points were as good as any amount to put towards that.

  After deciding on that, I purchased another flesh-eater, which immediately put me below those 100 points, before poking around the dog-park, this fight had ironically enough happened in

  Once I was sure I got all the aliens, I piled whatever was left of them up on the street and threw the flesh eater grenade onto them.

  While I was doing that, my phone rang AGAIN, but this time it didn’t almost get me killed.

  I picked up and barked the most annoyed “Yes?” into the speaker I could manage.

  “Ah, Dr. Doppler, is this a bad time? I, err, I’m calling because of the rocket. We’ll be making contact anytime now. If, uhh… If you want to be there, when it happens, err, you should head to the control-room as soon as you can?” A very timid and frightened response, as per usual when talking to her.

  I had completely forgotten about the rocket with all the other bullshit that was happening. Would I get points for that? I’d have to ask Lyona ter.

  “I don’t think I can be there Maddie, considering I’m stuck in Vienna, in the middle of an alien invasion.”

  I could get annoyed at my b-assistant for almost getting me killed, but considering she didn’t have any way of knowing calling me could get me killed, that felt unfair. I would just take out my frustrations on the next alien I saw.

  “You’ll just have to do it without me. I will be back as soon as I finish dealing with this situation here though.”

  “D-Doctor? What do you mean ‘alien invasion’? What do you mean ‘dealing with this’?” Maddie panicked.

  “Meh, you know how it is. You kill some fucked up dogs, suddenly there’s a voice in your head that can make stuff appear next to you out of thin air and you’re turning into an alien murdering machine. Heads up by the way: There is a chance I might be a foxgirl the next time we meet.”

  Rather than answer any of the million questions she would be asking me as soon as she processed what I’d just said, I hung up the phone, and made sure to turn it to silent this time.

  “Lyona, random question: If I were to hypothetically strap an experimental explosive to a rocket and shoot it at some antithesis in space three months and 4 days ago, would I get points for those kills?”

  You would. Less than if you were to kill them in person, because there is a degree of separation and because you were not the only person to work on that rocket, but your contributions are significant enough that a percentage of the points would be accredited to you.

  I nodded and walked forward towards a little pza between a bakery and two cafés. It felt rather jarring to find the pce, usually filled with children, pying after school and Kindergarten and their parents, grabbing a coffee and something sweet while picking them up, now filled with Antithesis and dead bodies. I knelt down on the ground and closed the eyes of what once was a little girl, putting the teddy, ying next to her, into her arms.

  I couldn’t even pretend like she was sleeping, her entire lower body was missing. It didn’t look like she died quickly either. Poor girl probably suffered lots of pain in her st moments.

  “Lyona? These fucks won't run away, right?”

  I shouldn’t have needed reasons for killing them, the fact that they were hell-bent on wiping out humanity should have been enough, and if that wasn’t enough, there were still the points I’d get.

  But it felt more personal now. It didn’t make sense, I hadn’t known this girl or anything about her, but some combination of the time, the pce, and just the things I saw, made me feel a special kind of rage against these aliens.

  Antithesis are not known to have fear-reactions or flee active combat, correct.

  “Good.”

  Activating your stimunts now.

  To my shock, the world seemed to slow down again, just like earlier.

  I could have questioned the hows and whys of it, I had been sure this was a one use thing, but at the moment, I didn’t care.

  I didn’t have guns, so running in guns bzing wasn’t an option, but I sure did whatever the spear and exploding javelins equivalent of it was.

  When Lyona deactivated my stimunts again, I was drenched in pnt-goop and surrounded by dead aliens.

  I dismissed Lyona’s summary of this combat, not really caring about how many points I had or didn’t have for the moment and started making my way further north. I decided to ask Lyona for either a new suit of armour or an upgrade, considering it was dirty now, and I definitely could afford something better.