Chương 37: Chapter 35 - Like a Moth Lit Aflame

When I arrived home in the evening I was exhausted. Although most of the materials were easy to get, the sensors required rarer materials usually only found in electronics, so I really had to scavenge my ass off to find enough. It was worth it though, by the time I got back I had two more bots, a red fox with a mop of hair that covered its eyes, and a white fox with a blue scarf, and there were two more queued up to be finished by morning.

I didn't want the bots protecting the kids to be noticeably armed, so I nearly bankrupted myself to invest in some hidden integrated weapons. It was crazy to think I'd been hunting Antitheses yesterday and I was already out of points. Things were quiet when I walked in, Alan appeared to be teaching Eddie to read, Jane was in the back with Jennifer, and Issi was dressing up Deadbeat with whatever spare clothing she could find. The quiet lasted approximately three seconds before Issi's cry of "Foxies!"

lit up the room, and I became the center of attention.

"Ummm… surprise?" I muttered.

"I'm leaving these two with you, there will be two more in the morning." I gestured for the foxes to head over to Isabelle, who was thrilled. I sent Deadbeat out with a simple command while she was distracted, I just had to snatch a pair of pants off his head before he left. Jane waved me over to the back, where Jennifer was sleeping.

"How's she doing?" I asked. Jane shrugged.

"Better than yesterday. She woke up briefly, told me that Marcus pushed her into the back of the van when the attack started, then the car collapsed when the Antithesis tried to get in. She doesn't know what happened to Marcus." She turned to me, "You think he's still alive?" I tried to keep the grimace off my face, based upon her expression I didn't succeed.

"Do you want me to give you my honest answer?"

"No." I reached up and patted her on the shoulder.

"Just remember that he saved Jeniffer's life, that stupid heroic bastard." Fuck. Marcus had been the eldest, and had been looking after most of us for years. Of course he'd sacrifice his life for one of the kids, that's how he was. I fought the sting building up in my eyes.

"Nyx, dinner for everyone." I passed two dinners to Jane before heading up front. Alan gave me a strange look, I wasn't sure if Jane had already told him or not. I decided to leave it up to her either way, she was better at the touchy feely stuff. I was quiet the rest of the night, killing aliens was easy, dealing with my feelings not so much. — With four bots to leave behind, the dark gray and light blue foxes finished during the night, I felt relatively safe taking care of some unfinished business.

The Hell Moths. Any gang willing to come halfway across the undercity and risk retaliation from the locals was a threat worth taking seriously. I knew approximately where their territory was, but I wasn't going to go around antagonising all the gangs in that area. Jane was right, I might have been a little too impulsive sending out that message to the locals.

"Nyx, is there any chance you can locate the Hell Moths' base of operations?" I asked. Easily. They don't exactly keep a low profile. They're based in an abandoned manufacturing center in the South East. Strangely, they don't seem to want to expand, despite having significantly better equipment than their rivals.

"Significantly better as in?" Low PMC I whistled, "So that's why they had that EMP device. They won't have anything that could actually take out one of my bears, will they?" No, they have SMGs, assault rifles, some body armor, and some light munitions. The bears will be able to shrug off anything less than focused anti-tank fire, eventually.

"Good to know," I looked at the bears guarding the area.

"Dusty stays here, everyone else… in the truck?" Why is that a question?

"I'm not sure everyone will fit," I snapped. It has an extended cab, all five bears would fit in the back, as long as Bob is in one of the front seats"Also good to know." The bears piled into my truck, they smushed themselves together in the back seat. Adorable. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. For someone that lived on the street taking a vehicle anywhere was quite the novelty, for the first two minutes.

Looking out the window at the mess of mass fabricated apartments, canals, and corporate factories, just drove home how ugly the undercity was. A mess of nondescript brown and gray; It was depressing. Thankfully the trip to the Hell Moth's base didn't take more than ten minutes, so I didn't have the time to really think about it. As soon as we arrived I surveyed the area.

"It doesn't look like much," I said, staring down at the complex below. I had to get Nyx to point out the location because it didn't look different than any of the other unlit, run down buildings in the area. I hated abandoned industrial areas. Since there wasn't much value to controlling the buildings gangs typically used this type of area to hold proxy wars, in order to minimize the damage done to their own territories. Only the most desperate people lived around here, it was a good way to catch a bullet.

I had my truck stop directly above the building.

"I wish I'd put more cameras on this thing, I'll have to install more later. Any ideas on how to approach this?" You can just send Bob, like you threatened for all those other gangs.

"Really?" I glanced at the big bear in the driver's seat, "Can he really take it?" I think you may be underestimating how powerful Bob is, he could easily shrug off a shot from the Railgun. Would you like to see it?

"Yeah, sure how do you expect…" Bob opened the door and jumped out, from a hundred feet up. I half crawled across to the driver's seat to look down, but before I got there I heard a massive crash. I stuck my head out the open door to see a massive hole in the roof of the factory.

"Nyx, what the fuck?" Bob is fine, this is what he was designed for after all.

"Jumping from trucks?" It's called aerial insertion. He's also excellent in close quarters, like now. You should take a look. I pulled up Bob's feed, he did appear to be in one piece, unlike the Hell Moths he'd nearly landed on. The gangers had put together an impromptu firing line, automatic fire sprayed down the narrow hallway. One of the backline pulled up a grenade launcher and just coated the hallway in explosives. As they started going off Bob continued on, uncaring.

The Moths panicked, escaping down to the far end of the hallway, a massive metal security door closed behind them.

"That's not going to stop Bob, is it?" Not even remotely. I watched as Bob stuck one of his superheated claws into the door and slowly melted his way through.

"Let's get down there, I don't want Bob to do all the work." — It was all over by the time I arrived on scene. Bob cornered the majority of the gang while I was making my way through the building. Thankfully it wasn't hard to find the way since Bob left a trail of half crushed bodies and melted security doors in his wake. At the end of the carnage was a panic room, with about fifteen people sitting around with their hands up. A lot of them tensed up, or went pale, when I walked in. I put on my nicest smile, "Howdy!

Based upon some of your reactions you already know who I am." I hefted my CAR and slowly looked across the entire room, "which begs the question, why you'd be stupid enough to attack my family." A woman near the center of the room stood up, my eyes were instantly drawn to her face sporting an extensive tribal looking tattoo partially covered by her brown hair.

"My boys didn't attack your family, that was never our intention." I raised an eyebrow, "Then, praytell, what were you doing?" She flinched, "Stealing one of your bears." My brain froze for a second.

"Why…?"

"There's a market for Samurai tech, and right after the Incursion someone posted a bounty on one of your bots, one million for an operational bot, five hundred thousand for a broken one. We figured it was worth the risk."

"To piss off a Samurai, I find that hard to believe."

"My boys screwed up a contract, and we needed cash fast. You think we wanted to piss off a Samurai? We didn't have much of a choice." I felt a headache coming on.

"And how did you find my location?" She paused, just for a moment, "It was posted on the site.

'The Obsidian Eye' is a dark web site which acts as a brokerage house for illegal jobs. We've been using it to make money."

"Nyx?" It's true, a request for some of your tech, and your location was posted twenty three hours after the Incursion started.

"Fuck." I looked around the room, "You idiots need to think harder about your options, you might end up dead next time. Where's that EMP thing you had?" One of the Hell Moths pointed to a corner, the harpoon was sitting there so I had Bob step on it.

"I don't want to hear from you again, got it?"

"You're letting us go?" asked the woman.

"I honestly don't give a shit about you, I thought you were attacking me indirectly. Now you've seen how easily I could walk in here and end you, I doubt we'll have any further issues. After all, if you try anything like this again my friend won't stop at destroying your doors, got it?" Everyone in the room nodded. I just turned and walked away.

"Nyx, any chance you can track who set up that contract? That shits got to go." No, it looks like the client used a disposable endpoint, there's only a drop point in the contract.

"Fuck. Could you do anything to that page? I want my information off there." Easily, you want a warning, or the nuclear option?

"Just get my information off there, and make sure they know what'll happen if they mess with me again." Done. It'll take them a couple weeks to get running again, and they got your warning. I even left a present behind so if they post anything about you again the site will tank permanently.

"Thanks," I sighed, less than a day after awakening and someone targeted me. What a joke.

"Let's get out of here"