“How do you ‘lose’ bears? Aren’t they ected to some sort of work?” Sharron asked, fused.

  “They are ected to a work,” I replied, with a little more snark than I intended. I took a sed to calm down, “They should be able to report in, even under ECM, I added some EM hardening early on to prevent them from getting shut down by the Twelves, but the only one replying is the fox.”

  Sharron sighed, “Hardening would prevent them from being shut down, but it wouldn’t prevent their radio signals from being scrambled. Although… I would have expected your newer models to have better radios.”

  “Ohhh… is that so… so if the squad I sent out was one made of almost entirely Css I’s…”

  “Then you only have yourself to bme,” Sharron shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Even css I bots don’t go down easy, and if there’s something out there blog the signal we should iigate.”

  I nodded, “You think it’s a Twelve?” I asked.

  “Donno,” she replied, “but it’s probably Antithesis. I doubt sgers would be lugging around some sort of signal disruptor. Let’s iigate.” She pulled the massive rifle off her shoulder and racked a round with a meaty cha-k.

  “So… yoing to stick to the lightly armored suit? No tanky today.”

  “Naw, I want to move my muscles, and the extra armor isn’t as necessary with your boys around.” I nodded again, pulling my own, less impressive rifle off my back, and pihe fox. It was currently holed up in a small residence a couple of streets over.

  “It’s that way. I’ll have Bandit lead, just in case.”

  Even though the streets were quiet, Bandit was twitchy. He kept on pig up noises from shifting debris, creaking wood, and other miseous sounds. Something that was normal in a run-down town like this, but could still be indications of something moving around. Even though our advance was slow, we did make it to the location of the lost squad. The fox waved at us from a windoair of basic bears c the area from behind it.

  “I thought your bears didn’t have personalities,” Sharron said, staring at the animated little critter.

  “The basies don’t, but as they grow more advanced, and have more important roles, the more their personalities develop. I’m actually dreading the day when Spooky hits Css III… I already tell he’s going to be a real smart-ass.”

  While Sharron ughed, I sent a query to the fox about what happened. What came back boiled down to ‘they were fine, something came, then they were ft,’ which wasn’t very helpful. Sensing my irritatiotle fox jumped out of its hidey hole and sprinted dowreet, gesturing for us to follow.

  “Eic little thing isn’t it?” Sharron remarked.

  I didn’t reply. Even though the fox couldn’t get all the information across, I did get the sehat whatever happened was important. With a thought I sent Heavy barreling dowreet, and the rest of the squad into full alert mode.

  Sharron stopped ughing when she saw the entire squad snap to attention. “What? What happened?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but that fox saw… something it couldn’t fully expin, and it thought it was important that we saw it ASAP. I’m beginning to think that there’s something much worse than a Twelve out here. I’m suspending the resource colle and calling in reinforts until we get to the bottom of it.”

  “That’s sensible. What do you think is out here?” She asked.

  I shrugged as the two IFVs arrived, disg the squad of Css II bears along with its fox and moose. “Let's find out.”

  While Heavy was doing his best to keep the fox in sight, everyone else advanced more cautiously. We were half the street by the time the fox stopped, and poio the interior of a former supermarket. Through Heavy’s eyes I could see what it was trying to tell me, the bears weren’t just damaged, they were pletely devastated. One was literally embedded in the floor, chassis mangled beyond recovery. The other’s head had been torn into several pieces, which were left scattered around the area.

  There was no sign of the offender.

  “Fuck…” I mumbled.

  “What? You see what we’re dealing with?” Sharron asked, without looking at me. She was busy sing the area, being professional.

  “No, and that’s what scares me. Something ripped those bears limb from limb, literally. In that supermarket ahead.”

  We were about fifty feet away, staring at the entrance, when both Bandit and the fox sent out a warning, just as something smashed into the side of Heavy. The big bear skidded a foot or so to the left, then immediately made a grab for what was there. He tched onto… something while abs blows to the head and body.

  In the moment everything, including the IFVs, opened up, their rounds boung off both Heavy and his oppo. It was only with this sustained fire that Bandit could actually extrapote what we were fighting.

  “Fug Twenty-One, and WAY bigger than the ones I’ve seen before! Must have had time to fully mature!” I yelled over the mass of gunfire.

  “Why didn’t your foxes detect it?” Sharron shouted back, as she was busy sing mags on her on.

  “Experience? More evolved camo? Who the fuows. I figure it out ter, we really o trate on killing it.”

  Sharron didn’t answer, she just popped up from behind her cover, aimed the oversized rifle and pulled the trigger. There was a hiss of air as the oversized rou her gun, followed by a MASSIVE explosion. Heavy and the fox were knocked prone by the bst, but they fared much better thawenty-One, which lost a rge se of its left side.

  The creature looked our way, unbothered by the small arms and on fire, then slunk bato the market. It had barely left ht when a wave of Antithesis burst from the back of the store. The mix of Threes, Fours, and something that looked like a living pincushion poured out of the bas, like a tide. The assault was headed by a siwelve, bulldozing its way out of the building.

  “The FUCK is going on?” I cried over the gunfire. “And if you could do that much damage to the Twenty-One, what took you so long?!”

  “It’s a ister rifle, and I had it loaded with flechette rounds befreat against small stuff, but terrible against bigger things. Now I have to s back to deal with these bastards.”

  I poked my head out from behind the broken-down car I’d taken cover behind. The Twelve had taken a couple of on rounds to the head and gone down, so the rest of the Antithesis were running directly into the gunfire and dying. It was exactly how I normally expected them to react, uhat ambush tactic the Twenty-Oempted. “Don’t, the bears have this. We might need your heavier round if something bigger es out.”

  Sharron paused for a moment, sidering what I said, then nodded.

  The flood sted for several long minutes, before the numbers finally petered out. I stepped out from behind my cover to survey the age. There were hundreds of dead Antithesis. They’d fttened whatever shelving had survived until n to get out, only to be cut down in seds. I poked one of the spikey models, cheg to make sure it was dead. Bandit was doing the same, but instead of poking bodies he seemed to be running around the interior crushing ti signatures.

  “The hell is all this? Why were they all hiding?”

  You want my ho opinion? Probably a stealth hive. Sometimes, instead of rapidly expanding, the Antithesis establish a hive, then go dark. Waiting for some sort of signal or sedary incursion befoing active. That Twenty-One robably trying to take care of any threats before they could discover the hive.

  “Wonderful… and what exactly are you doing?” I asked, turning to Bandit. The little fox paused, then leaned doicked up something off the floor. Even from a distance I could make out the familiar feathered worm form of a model Seven. “Great.”

  “We have worms in here,” I called over my shoulder, “We might need some…” I turned, only to find Sharrht behind me, holding out a box of anti-Seveowards me.

  “I saw. Aeonys said this might be a stealth hive, which I didn’t know was a thing.”

  “Me her,” I popped one of the pills into my mouth and dry-swallowed, “Plus, they had these things…” I added, kig the spiky Antithesis.

  “That’s just a Model Five. I’d be careful, those spines have a poteoxin on them. We’re lucky your bears were already firing when they emerged, they fire them over quite a distance.”

  I stepped back a few feet, being a little more careful where I put my feet. “Noted. What do you say we check out this hive?” She nodded, chambering another round intun.

  We left the fox, and what remained of the two squads, to up the remaining Sevens. I wahe ereet swept, just in case. Heavy led the way into the back, half because he took the blows from the Twenty-Ohout fling, half because he was absolutely coated in Antithesis parts and juices. Just ihe door, some stairs led down into the basement. It would have been a good pce to hide, if the Twenty-One hadn’t left a long trail of gore and juices right there. It made trag pretty easy.

  The basement was retively rge, it looked like a former warehouse space, and at the far end was a hive. The Twenty-One apparently died right at the base of the root structure, trying to deliver its preass back to the source. There weren’t any bat antithesis left, just the headless monkey- like hive tenders, the Tens.

  “What is this?” I asked, to which Sharron just shrugged. The structure was… stra wasn’t as root-like as the other hives I’d seen, it was more like a tral mound with tendrils growing out of it.

  As we got closer I started to make out details, the bark was irregur and when I squinted… I swear I could make out… faces. Hundreds of faces. Suddenly I realized what I was looking at might have been Antithesis, but it had the general shape of a pile of bodies melted together.

  Looks like the Model Sevens were busy down here, Nyx remarked.

  I just turo the side aied my stoma the wall.