It took a minute for me to e to full sciousness. It was still dark out, and Nyx hadn’t rung an arm directly within my head, so I was slightly fused about the situation.

  “Nyx, did I miss the meeting or…” I asked groggily.

  One of the ns was heavily deyed, so they pushed back the meeting to give everyoime to rex.

  “Deyed by the Antithesis?”

  No, by faulty shelter designs. They actually heavy maery to open one facility. The door was just a six inch sb of steel which dropped into pce, but the tractor never bothered to install proper hydraulics to open it again.

  “Figures, ziness and greed are universal. It could have been worse, I’m sure there’s more than one Shelter that failed to seal, or wasn’t properly fortified against the Antithesis.” I shook my head, “So, when IS the meeting supposed to occur?”

  About forty five minutes from now, in the tral pnni. I would reend arriving much earlier though.

  “Why? Did the Twio talk to me about something?”

  No, but if you don’t get a spot he front you’re never going to be able to see anything.

  I frowned. Nyx wasly wrong about that, but it hurt to have it just pointed out like that. “I’m going to s into my clothes, even though this armor is fairly fortable I regret sleeping in it.” As I stretched something in my back popped, “I should ask Sharron if I use her bathroom to up after the meeting. I’m used to being a little grubby, but being stu an outfit that doesn’t breathe for half a day is gross.”

  By the time I finished ging Sharron had left her RV. She was lounging outside her new home in jeans and a casual sweater, a smile crossed her face as soon as she saw me leave my truck. “Good m sleepiy, gd to see you made it before the meeting started.”

  “I’m a growing girl, and I need my sleep sometimes,” I huffed. “Besides, Nyx already informed me that the meeting was deyed.” I pulled the hoodie up over my head, blog out the open skies above.

  “That it was. It’s a little early, but do you want to head over there?”

  I nodded, and the two of us started casually strolling towards the ter of the camp. There were a ton of other Samurai out and about, most dressed in strange or exotic armor, and no two were alike. We were about halfway to the mai when we saw Bright-Eyes, still dressed in her armor but without the helmet, chewing on a chi leg. She waltzed over and fell into step beside us. “I heard you two helped clear up the hives, it really helped us out there. As soon as you left we saw a signifit drop in the number of Antithesis attag the voys.”

  Sharron smiled, aly spped me on the back. “Don’t thahank Evie here. She kept all the Antithesis off us while the rest of the team dealt with the hives.”

  “You took on all those Antithesis by yourself? Why?” Angeline raised an eyebrow.

  “It wasn’t iional, at least at the start,” I told her. “We entered some… issues along the way,”

  “Yeah, a thirty foot tall shrimp with a massive right hook,” Sharron cut in.

  “Beg pardon?” Angeliumbled for a moment.

  “Apparently it was based on something they found here oh.” I shrugged, “Doesn’t matter, it’s dead now.”

  “Right…” Angeline just took another bite of her chi. “As long as we don’t run into another o’s no big deal.”

  The three of us tinued walking in silence for a few minutes, until we came to the tral tent. The pnning table had been removed. Ihere was a small raised podium at the rear of the tent, and the rest of the space was filled with row upon row of cheap folding chairs. It looked like the setup for a press ference, rather than a meeting of dozens of Samurai in a warzohere were a couple of Samurai already seated around the tent, having quiet discussions in small isoted groups. Since I didn’t reize anyone I ighem all and headed up to the front row and grabbed a seat there.

  “Premium seats, you didn’t want to sit further back?” Angeline asked.

  “I wouldn’t be able to see anything, even if I was standing back there. I suspect you already khat,” I replied.

  The two womeo me smirked, although Angeline hid hers behind the chi leg. I pulled my hoodie down further, blog out my friends' faces, and just slumped into my chair. I ighe chuckles, and polite versation that followed, pulled my legs up to my chest, and decided to wait for the briefing in silence.

  As the minutes passed the tent slowly filled up with Samurai. Finally the Twins, Hel and Brutale stepped up to the podium, and the te quiet.

  “Thank you all for ing,” Brutale started, “We’re here to update you on our progress over the st twenty four hours.”

  One of Celestia’s orbs flew forward and started projeg a hologram of the city. A few points were highlighted, including the kelp farms and a few ses of the outer city. “A few ho a strike team mao locate, aroy a cluster of hives which was flooding the lower city with Antithesis.”

  As he gestured at the farms highlighted in red, it turned green, “Which helped accelerate our rescue efforts. Unfortunately, even with these gains we’ve only mao clear about ten pert of the shelters iy. At this rate some of the Shelters may run out of food, water or air before we get to them. If they're lucky the failsafes will ki and release the doors and give those people a ce to survive. If not, people are going to die stu those shelters."

  The room erupted into a cacophony of noise, as some people started versations with their neighbors, while others decided to shout questions, or just swear quietly.

  Hel stepped forward, holding up her arms, signaling for silence. “We don’t like the situation any more than you do. The pn is to send in additional voys, but with minimal Samurai cover. Instead, we’re going to start clearing the streets as quickly as possible. If we elimihe Antithesis ahead of the voys we won’t only reduce the pressure on the military, but accelerate how quickly we get people bato the city.”

  There was another wave of mumbling, quieter this time. “I’m sure some of you believe we should have pushed the Antithesis earlier, but this would have left the voys vulnerable. Now that the hives have beeroyed we feel more fident that a street level operation will be successful. Questions?”

  Someoood behind me, I couldn’t see whh my hoodie, but the voice was very mase. “Do you expect us to do a door to door sweep? The Antithesis have had time to crawl into every crevice by now, if we leave pockets behind they’ll just form more hives by the time the civilians move ba.”

  It was Celestia that spoke up and answered his question, “We already have a few Samurai here, like myself, that are specialized iher post Incursion up, or re. We’ll ahe up crews around these people. Any other questions?”

  Another wave of grumbling, but no questions this time. “We’ll send your AIs a full update for those that want to review it, along with your groups and assigs.” Hel said from her p the stage, “We’d like to get started within the hour, so make whatever preparations you need, and find Brutale if you have any further questions. Dismissed!”

  Almost immediately people started to fill the aisles and filter out of the tent. “I kind of expected a longer meeting,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, well, we hadn’t finished making pns until an ho. It was better to keep the meeting, no matter how brief, g it would have just irritated a bunch of other Samurai,” Atntica replied, from the stage. I didn't expeyoo hear me, so my eyes snapped iher woman’s dire.

  “When you’re in the presence of other Samurai you should always expect that someone will overhear you, a lot of us have improved senses.” Atntica tapped one of her ears to emphasise her words.

  She stood up, walked over, and pced a hand on my shoulder, “Don’t worry about it for now, you have a long day ahead of you and a lot of people will be relying on you.”

  “Whehey not?” I replied.