“You seem to be trating really hard, whatcha thinking about?” Angeline asked. Sharron had been assigo shore clearing duty, along with some more veteran Samurai, so it was just Angeline and I, at least at the moment. The two of us were waiting for the rest of the team to show up, but as soon as they got me to my truck, I zoned out.

  “We’ve been assigo check the uy perimeter wall, and I’m trying to figure out how to do that, while also having the time to search for Antithesis.”

  That caused Angelio raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just destroy pretty much every siithesis that came out of the farms when they were dealing with the hives? That’s what the brief said.”

  “Yeah,” I grumbled, “but to do that I had to put down a massive device to attract all the Antithesis in the area.”

  “So… it’s too big to mount in your truck?” Angeline asked. As soon as she did, I flihen slowly turo look at her. “You didn’t think about putting it in a vehicle before?”

  “In my defense, I haven’t had a vehicle for that long, and it reviously stuffed full of bears.”

  Angeline couldn’t help but giggle at my frustrated face. “Well then, just mount it in the back of your trud we’ll be ready to go.”

  “Yeah yea… no, wait,” I cried, “I have a better idea. Nyx!”

  “Evelyn!” The bear turo face the pair, a spark of intelligen its previously empty eyes.

  “You know the Grizzly, could we ge the design so it doesn’t look so doofy, and mount a lure in the back?” Angeline s the question, but I just ighe other woman.

  “Well, the Grizzly does have the lift capacity to support a lure and still support a squad, but you’ll have to expin what you mean by ‘Doofy’ before I start reending things to you.”

  “Well, the color is ugly first of all, ft olive green c sucks. I hate the look of all that miseous ste space bolted to the side, and the extra ptes welded on the side look ky,” I said, slowly ting off all the problems on my fingers.

  “The color and ste spaces aren’t a big deal, but removing the armor will make the vehicle somewhat vulnerable ter Antithesis models. You could offset that by purchasing an armor pting catalog for it though.”

  “Nice. you show me the updated model before I buy ohen?”

  Almost instantly I received a file which tained a 3D model of the updated transport. It allowed me to ize the vehicle and ge the paint job, in order to see an example of the final model.

  “I put a gun ohings?” I asked in surprise. “How e I didn’t know that before?”

  “If my memory serves, and it always does, you were tired and pissed off at the time. In order to evacuate all your bears you required the additional space that the APC version provided. By the way, if you do pn the model you could use the Advanced and Thermal Munitions Catalogs you opened earlier to add more of a punch.”

  “Good to know…” I quickly flipped through my avaible options until I found something iing. “What the hell is this?”

  “Do you like it? I spent a few seds designing those in order to provide you with several different options.” Nyx asked, sounding slightly smug.

  One of the ization options that Nyx included was decals, and there were hundreds of ueddy reted is. They were fasating, but there was one specifie that caught my attention. “Nyx, gimme one of these!”

  Purchased

  Css I Vehicle Armor Catalog - 100 points

  Grizzly IFV (Light on + Reactive Armor) - 1750 points

  Points Remaining - 103,869

  The vehicle that appeared was simir to the Grizzly APC I purchased earlier, but much sleeker. It ainted a dark urban camoufge color; a bck base with various jagged gray stripes. Most importantly, at least to me, on the side of the chassis was a new emblem. It was the head of a gray bear, like Spooky, but it was wearing a green hood with the ears poking through. The hood ulled low, casting a shadow over the majority of the bear’s face, but it had glowing red eyes peering out from the shadows. It somehow made the hooded teddy bear look sinister, and I loved it.

  “What the hell is that?” Angeline asked, pointing at the crest. She’d pulled a chocote bar and bottle of juice out of somewhere while waiting, and was busy chowing down.

  “That’s my new symbol, like it?” I asked.

  “It’s something, that’s for sure. So… what’s with the tank?”

  “I have a shit ton of bears now, it’s almost too many for me to keep track of. I alo split them into squads, now seems like the right time,” I expined.

  Angeline hmmm’d, but didn’t say anything; she was too busy chewing.

  “If I get each squad to be a little more self-suffit, I could give them ea IFV, throw a lure in there, and greatly expand the area we cover in our sweep.”

  Angeline swallowed. “And you think that’ll work?”

  “Maybe, probably, that’s a Nyx question. Nyx?”

  “Yes, it’s possible, but there is one issue. You’ll need better Augs to trol things at a strategic level, something out of a Css II catalog, so you’ll o spend one of your remaining four tokens.”

  “Well, it’s probably something I’ll have to do in the long run anyways. Might as well do it now, so I get used to the ges.”

  Angeline raised an eyebrow, “I usually have to think about how to spend my tokens. It must be o have enough spares to splurge like that, moneybags.”

  “Hey, I’m usually very careful with my purchases, you just caught me on a day where I have a surplus.” I frowned, despite myself.

  “I believe you,” Angeline replied with a grin, “but you’re fun to tease and cute when yrumpy, so I ’t help myself sometimes.” I felt my face get flushed with embarrassment, whily caused Angelio grin wider. “Sooo cute.”

  I turned away and tried to trate on my upgrades, not the woman grinning like a maniac behind me. “So Nyx, what are my Aug options?”

  “There are two different paths you could follow. The first is the Css II Strategiand upgrade. It allows you to perform more plicated maneuvers and directly trol more units. This requires more tration and is better if you pn to fight from a tral and post. The sed, the Css II Distributed and upgrade, pushes more responsibility onto the squad leaders. This would require more advanced AI, and would probably result in higher point losses since you’re not anding directly. It’s a plicated choice…”

  “I’ll take the Distributed and one,” I interrupted. “Fuck sitting in a tent and pnning. I’m shit at that.”

  “Fine, in that case I reend the Css I bat AI catalog, and applying the Squad Leader AI package to whichever bears you want to use as leaders.”

  “What’s the price for each?” I asked.

  “The Aug catalog will cost you six hundred points and a token. The upgrade will set you back fourteen huhe Css I Adaptive AI Catalog is one hundred points, and each upgrade is an additional two hundred and fifty.”

  Angeline whistled at the numbers, I just frowned. “Sounds expensive, but still manageable sidering my totals. Since I’m splurging, let's add an upgrade for all the foxes, I don’t want ao get ambushed by a Nine or Twenty-One while we’re out there, and five more IFVs equipped with lures.”

  Angeline slowly turned and looked at me, who just shrugged in response. “I have a ton of points, it happens when you pull all the models out of multiple hives. I may not be able to recover all the points I speoday when we up, but I’ll get some of them. Plus, the process will go MUCH quicker if I spread out my forces.”

  Angeline nodded, “Makes sense. Hey, the ime you decide to farm a bunch of hives let me know, I could definitely use a point surplus like that.”

  I grinned in response. “Deal. Nyx, start getting everything ready, starting with the Augs. I’d like to get everything ready before our new friends show up.”

  Nyx didn’t reply, instead a massive pile of boxes appeared at my feet, way more than expected. I frowned, “This might take lohan I previously expected.”