Chương 148: Book 2 - Chapter 66 - Undergrowth

"So, once we clear up the remaining antithesis here we move into cleanup mode?" I asked as I struggled to lift Bob's replacement arm into place. It was a good thing that I'd received a share of the Forty-Four's bounty, because his arm cost me as much as the Kodiaks. It was five grand to replace the two limbs, and another fifty points to clear the remaining bacteria off his frame.

"Pretty much. We did discover there's a lower level, where the digestion pools and nutrient delivery systems are located. Bright-Eyes sent her squirrels through it earlier, and only found Tens down there, but we need to clear it properly."

"Right…" I felt the arm click into place, and the nanites started fusing the new arm to his frame, so I leaned back.

"Try to hold onto your limbs going forward," I said as I watched the bear test his new fingers.

"I can't afford to replace them on a regular basis."

"No problem," Bob replied, throwing an awkward thumbs-up my way.

"Since the others have things under control up here, shall we check out the lower level?" I asked Sharron as I stood up.

"That sounds fun! Mind if we follow you?" a familiar voice asked from behind me. I spun around, only to find Magpie and Dreamer standing a couple feet away, near the back of the Kodiak.

"Why is everyone sneaking up on me today?" I muttered quietly, before glancing at Shannon. She just shrugged, so I raised my voice.

"Sure… I don't know what to expect down there, so the more the merrier, I guess," I replied.

"Just let me run it by the others." I flipped over to the team discussion, and tried to ignore the fact that the participant list was significantly shorter than before. [Teddy: Yo! If you all have the situation under control, Humboldt, Dreamer, Magpie, and I are going to start sweeping the lower level. That's okay?] [Whisperer: You're up? Ummm… I think we have everything under control here.] [GreyGoo: As long as you leave most of your bears in place, we'll be fine.] [Teddy: I managed to get Bob up again, so we should be fine without the backup. I'll let you know if we find anything.] I closed the chat, only to realize everyone was looking at me.

"Do any of you need time to prepare, or are we ready to go?" I asked.

"I have two arms again, so I'm good!" Dreamer declared as she waved her hands wildly.

"And I have everything I need in my bag," Magpie added as she reached towards her side. When she failed to find what she was looking for she flailed about for a second, until she found what she was looking for on her other side.

"Right here," she said happily. If I hadn't seen those two fighting previously, I might have been a little concerned with their antics, but as it was, I just sighed. I pulled my LCARS off my back and checked that it was loaded before turning to Sharron.

"How do we get to the lower levels?" I asked.

"Easiest way is to jump through the remains of one of the satellite hives. They all fed from that lower level, and left gaps in the floor after collapsing," Sharron replied.

"Time for some exploration!" Magpie declared as she twirled around, pulled a pith helmet out of her bag, and immediately started marching towards the nearest hive remains. Dreamer just casually skipped a couple steps behind her, leaving Sharron, Bob and I rushing to catch up.

"Did you have that in your bag the entire time?" Sharron asked as Magpie placed the pith helmet overtop of her existing helmet.

"Of course! You never know when you'll need to go on an expedition," Magpie answered. I expected her to stop at the edge of the hive, so we could evaluate the situation, but she only paused for a second before jumping down. I rushed up to the edge, half expecting to see her in a huge melee, but she and Dreamer were just standing at the bottom, waving up. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I think we chose the wrong exploration partners," I whispered to Sharron once she caught up.

"It's too late to regret it now," she whispered back before jumping down after them. Unlike the others I was a lot more careful in my descent, grabbing the edge of the crumbling hive and hanging down before dropping down. I probably could have easily taken the full drop with my muscle improvements, but I wanted to be cautious. As soon as I hit the ground, Bob plummeted into the hole, landing just a foot or two away from me, and smashing the floor.

"Perfect landing!" he declared. Normally I would have berated him for his antics, but I'd already been heavily distracted by the surrounding area. It was like a mixture of jungle, and an undercity power distribution center. Thick tree-like roots filled the area, they covered the ground in a rough carpet, with offshoots that grew up to roof level every couple feet.

They were so uniform they actually reminded me more of supports than trees, which was apt because all over the roof there were hundreds of vines, and living tubes pumping strange fluids. It looked like the entire mess had originally been set up to support the hives on the upper level, but without anything to connect to they were just dumping their slurry-like contents onto the floor.

"Fascinating!" Magpie said, inspecting one of the organic pipes.

"This must be how they distribute biomass to a distributed root network. Most complexes tend to grow out of a single massive central structure."

"That's great… Can we kill it?" I asked as I stalked further into the undercroft, careful to avoid stepping in anything.

"Easily. We just need to drop a few flesh melters into the central digestion pool, and the system will do the rest," Magpie replied. I noticed she was bottling some of the ooze, but decided not to say anything, she probably knew what she was doing.

"It's pretty! Like springtime!" Dreamer declared as she pranced through the area.

"Right, pretty," I heard Sharron grunt behind me.

"It reminds me more of a digestive system."

"I REALLY didn't need that mental picture, thanks," I grumbled as I followed one of the nutrition tubes back towards its source. I was a little surprised by the lack of antithesis in this part of the complex. We did catch glimpses of Model Tens trying to tend to, or repair some of the network, but very few combat models.

"Was this completely cut off from the upper level?" I asked as we explored.

"Looks like it. Considering that we didn't find this section until we broke through the hives, the entrances must have been hidden quite well," Magpie explained.

"But it would have to be a high traffic area in order to receive biomass deliveries," Sharron pointed out.

"Indeed! It's quite a mystery," Magpie replied.

"It's not a mystery to me. Based on everything I experienced down here I can tell you that Model Seventeens are both smart, and assholes. They probably had the entrances completely closed off, and hidden once we got close enough. Why search for a hidden tunnel when a constant stream of antithesis was leading us elsewhere?" I said. Dreamer paused, cocked her head, then nodded.

"Makes sense! We thought we were playing follow the leader, while they were playing hide and seek," she said.

"Yeah… just like that," I said hesitantly. We continued to wander for a few minutes more when Bob, who was 'scouting', shouted back to us.

"Hey Boss, look what I found!" It wasn't hard to find him. He left a path of destruction where he smashed through the supports, instead of stepping around them. What he found was impressive. It was a deep pit, about half the size of a football field. It was sunk about ten feet into the floor, and had a number of tunnels and shallow ramps leading up to the edge of it, and there were a number of organic growths slowly stirring the acidic slurry.

The area around the digestion pool was covered in some sort of ore gravel, and there appeared to be metallic particles within the slurry, this seemed to be where they dumped everything.

"That's one huge digestion pool," Sharron said as we got close. Bob was standing on the ramp, slowly rolling a dead Model Fourteen down towards it.

"Don't do that!" I yelled.

"That's what they want!"

"I thought we were going to destroy it anyways?" he called back.

"He's got you there," Magpie laughed as she poked the leathery bark of the structure.

"I don't think a single melter is going to handle this," Sharron said as she crouched down before the pool.

"Ideas?"

"So many! I have a lot of devices that I could try tossing into the pool," Magpie replied, digging into her bag.

"Any ideas that have a high probability of working?" I asked.

"No!" she replied, as she chucked a cylinder into the sludge. It made a small splash, but failed to do anything else.

"Great," I grumbled.

"Guess I found something to spend those tokens on already."