“If I had a hundred credits for every time that an incursion happened at the most inconvenient time, I’d be a very, VERY rich woman.”
- Geryon-Alpha, 2054
I quickly swam up to the surface and even more swiftly realized that I had drifted out to sea a little further than I thought. This presented many problems. Firstly, I was far away from shore and the dock I left from. Secondly, I had to deal with swimming quickly with all this gear on for an extended period of time if I wanted to get back to the shore in time.
“[Macy! Swim! Now! I see you far out there and… dive to the side!]”
And thirdly…
I dove to the side as a strike missile with teeth and fins rushed past me at the water where I was. I felt like I barely dodged. What the hell was that!?
Yup. I was a sitting duck. No, I was less than a sitting duck; I didn’t even have wings to fly away. As I righted myself, I did a double check on what I had available to me. My waterproof flare gun was there, as well as a small combat knife I normally could use for debris. Those…were probably the only things that would be useful, besides the blunt force applications of the backup mini oxygen tank. Taking out the flare gun quickly, I turned the safety off and fired it into the air, a red dazzling burst breaking into the skies above the inlet. Either that would let others know that I was out here to save, or I just doomed myself. At least I was alive to make that fifty-fifty.
I turned back to the location I was before, my eyes widening as I pushed back again just as the finned menace turned around and charged back, trying to get me on the backswing. Tricky fuck. If nothing else, I had a little more time to survey my situation while kiting this zealous assailant. I poked my head back under the water for a moment, and realized that my pursuer was some sort of fucked up shark-like creature. Was that an uncatalogued Antithesis? That wasn’t anything I had learned about before! I brought my head back above the water to get back into swimming for my life. Anything closer than the shore?
Yes…though the chances of needing to pay my way safe that way were extremely high. A superyacht submarine, trawling through the water, with chaos notably sounding from its deck. Still, probably a more defensible position than stuck in the middle of the water with a hundred pounds of equipment hanging off you while you fight for your life. I began to swim in earnest towards the ship, moving in exhausting serpentine patterns to deter my fervent pursuer.
God-damned eldritch plant shark abomination. Give a Mako a break. She needs enrichment but not that much enrichment.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
C’mon…c’moooon…, I pantingly pleaded in my thoughts as I swam for my life, and reached out to grab onto the side of the boat. Unfortunately, my handhold was short-lived as the boat began to move away, someone having started up the boat’s engines.
“Shit, shit, shit!” My yelling was muffled by my rebreather. My screaming and scrambling form searched for a place where I could latch onto in those last few seconds before salvation was ripped away. Luckily, my flailing didn’t go unrewarded for long, as my arm clasped around the rung of a ladder built into the side of the ship, meant for unruly corpo spawn who wanted to swan dive into water from a height that would most certainly injure them on hitting the water. They usually don’t have the right form for diving anyways.
I clambered fast up the rungs, hearing a thunk from below as I saw the shark-like Antithesis bump into the ship below me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled myself over the top onto the yacht’s deck, before two things occurred. Firstly, I pulled my exhausted body up to see that chaos was in fact occurring on the deck, due to a couple Models rushing around and terrorizing the occupants. Lovely. Secondly, I got a ping on my augs.
“Welcome to the SeaWorld Virtual Tour Yacht! An Augmented Reality Experience to show sea life as it was before the Antithesis Incursions. Admission is 75000 credits. Please insert your payment credentials.”
Greaaaat. Either I was going to have a felony on my hands after the whole debacle or I was going to be in debt to a fucking corp. Juuuust peachy.
“Help!” A person shouted from off to the side. I turned my head to see an ascot-wearing, fear-ridden silver spoon running toward my direction. “Please! Someone!”
Not now, I grumbled in my thoughts. I’m kinda running myself and can’t let other people be my problem.
And then I heard something. Something that made me wheel around and grab my knife from my belt as I did so, looking towards the ladder where I came from.
No... It couldn’t…
…Could it?
In a quick flash of movement, I saw my pursuer, what was apparently an Antithesis sharkhound, put itself up and leap onto the deck of the ship in front of me, snarling before rushing at me and bashing me with its much more bulky form. The privileged man squealed in fear and fell backwards in terror.
Was this a fucking mutated Model Three? I heard that the aliens could evolve in various ways, but this is messed up. I thought in the very few moments I had as I was sailing backwards.
I crashed back into the wall behind me, feeling my ribs get crunched by both the impact from the front and from the back, leaving me coughing up blood. The Model Three’s teeth were buried in my shoulder, and I could feel it begin to ready itself to pull back for more. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t call for help, as my help was a shivering mess that was as able to save themself as a sea anemone could think. That was it. I was going to die.
But if that was the case, I wouldn’t be going alone. I’d at least be saving someone from this one.
Before the sharkhound decided to pull off of me to go for the more free prey off trembling, I pulled my weak arm up with my knife and put all my remaining strength into a singular strike, plunging the knife deep into the alien’s body. It fell limp, and at the same time, so did I.
System Initialized.
Macy Adams, while I would normally go through the whole initialization speech now, I do believe that if you do not get medical attention in the next five minutes, you will die. I am Kyos, and I will not allow this to happen so easily, especially to a candidate like you.
So much for not being a Samurai, I thought, as I fought somewhat in vain to keep myself conscious.