Chương 386: Book 6 - Chapter 47 - Central Mass

It was reasonably easy to follow the strange root system back to its source. Part of that was because this main tunnel didn't branch much, even when we got closer to the center of the hive complex, and when it did branch, the connections were almost always to other large, open tunnels. It was like we'd wandered into the Antithesis version of a freeway, allowing large numbers of Antithesis to travel long distances in exchange for limited access to the rest of the hive.

The other reason that it was easy to track the roots was that they seemed to be everywhere, and the closer we got to the source, the larger they became. By the time we reached the first intersection, the roots were large enough to make out even under the fungal layer, and by the second, they bulged out quite significantly. Once we got to that point, and we didn't have to rip up the fungus every five feet, our pace increased significantly.

"I think we're approaching the source of these roots," Nora said as we entered one of the side tunnels.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Not only are the roots getting thicker, but the root network is much denser here," she said, pointing at several bulges running along the floor and wall.

"The larger roots are converging on something."

"I hope you're right," I said, "because the Antithesis have finally wisened up and started harassing us from behind."

"Still nothing larger than a Twenty-Eight, though," she replied.

"Trust me, I noticed," I muttered.

"I don't know what game they're playing, but I don't like it."

"Boss, there's a chamber ahead, a massive one," Bandit called from the other side of the tunnel.

"I can hear the echo from here." I glanced back towards Nora and grinned.

"A huge chamber and a converging root system? Something tells me we're getting close to our target. Shall we go take a look?" I asked. She nodded lightly before turning towards the front line.

"Let's." When our little force burst into the cavern, I stopped for a moment and stared at the monumental construction in the middle of the chamber. I'd expected some sort of tree or birthing chamber, but the entire area looked more like the lair, or nest. The roots we'd been following crawled up the walls, where they intertwined with both roots emerging from other tunnels and thicker roots, which seemed to be anchored to the roof.

These root bundles all converged in the middle of the room, where they draped down in a great tangled mass before converging at a great bulbous mass on the floor. Several large tendrils branched off from the mass, stretching out across the room. Each one had several large, nearly transparent fruits growing from it at regular intervals, along with a small number of birthing pods large enough to hold even the largest Antithesis models.

"Not what I was expecting," I said.

"I kind of expected a massive birthing chamber, but this looks more like an underworld hacking hub." Nora glanced over at me in confusion.

"What the heck does that mean?"

"The undercity doesn't exactly have the best networks, so to have sufficient processing power, the tech gangs tend to 'borrow' bandwidth from the surrounding area. They run cables around their districts, stretching them from every possible connection point to a central server farm. It's a real mess," I explained.

"While that's fascinating and all," Deadbeat growled.

"You might want to focus on the situation at hand!" Stolen novel; please report.

"Right," I mumbled. Although I had no idea what this chamber was for, I could only think of one reason that the Antithesis would have driven us in this direction: to force us into the jaws of the creatures that were currently gestating in the pods.

I estimated nearly two dozen of the oversized cocoons, and although I had no doubt we could crush that many titanic Antithesis with the help of Bear Force One, they weren't something I wanted to fight in this enclosed space with only Nora, the Mauler, and a handful of bears for backup.

"I don't know why they haven't emerged yet, but we can't let those things get loose!" I yelled.

"Dusty bust those things open as fast as you…" Midway through my order, the translucent fruit began to glow, bubbling and churning for several seconds before emitting a burst of light. As they did, the metallic roots simultaneously sparked, sending an unbelievably strong ECM pulse throughout the room. All around me, the bears began to collapse; the Kodiaks' hover engines failed, causing them to crash to the ground.

My augs flicked and flashed for a moment, causing intense pain to shoot through my head before finally going dead.

"The fuck was that?" Nora gasped. When I finally managed to blink the black dots out of my vision, I found her a couple of steps away, sprawled out on the ground.

"An ECM, stronger than anything I've ever experienced before," I explained, shuffling over to her.

"You might want to get on your feet; it knocked out the bears, and there are still Antithesis approaching from behind us."

"I'd like to, but they're currently in a restart cycle," she growled. I swivelled towards the tunnel, raising my rifle and unloading at the swarm pushing through. The horde had already pulled down several bears, tearing them to pieces. Although my coil rifle wasn't the fastest-firing weapon in the world, what it lacked in fire rate it more than made up for in penetration.

Each shot ripped through more than half a dozen antithesis, the force of the rounds shoving the aliens back, but even the pure destructive power of my weapon wasn't going to be enough to deal with that many aliens. Just as the Antithesis finally pushed past the line of inactive bears and began rushing between the crippled Kodiaks, Nora came flying across the battlefield, smashing into them like a meteor.

Any Antithesis that got within reach of her legs was sent flying, if not completely splattered by her cybernetic-enhanced kicks.

"We could really use some backup right now," she snarled.

"I'm working on it," I shouted as I ducked behind the nearest Kodiak and started reloading. As I did, a shadow fell over me. I glanced up as something skittered around the mess of roots in the center of the room.

"Shit," I muttered. The thing had to rival the Forty-Three for sheer size, but it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It had six legs, four huge crushing claws, and a heavy armored tail dripping with either acid or toxin. When it leaned back and glanced towards me, I could see that it had dozens of mandibles constantly twitching, sweeping the area in front of it like they were sweeping things into the three sets of massive concentric jaws. I was about to call out to Nora when something else caught my eye.

Skulking around the bottom of the bulb was another creature. This one was about the size of a van, and although it was as bizarre as the creature above, it seemed completely unconcerned with the combat around it. It had a large, bulbous head, like a rubbery grub or a throbbing brain, sitting on an upright humanoid torso with two pairs of elongated, three-fingered, grasping hands, all supported by a long, leaf-shaped thorax.

"Hey! We've got a problem here!" I shouted over my shoulder.

"No shit! I'm up to my neck in Antithesis right now," she shouted back.

"That's not…" I started before receiving a mental nudge. I smiled lightly.

"Never mind, backup's here." A low whine filled the area, just a second before a stream of laser blasts began scything through the side of the horde.

"Heavy, how are you doing?" I asked.

"I have a headache," the gruff polar bear snarled.

"Don't worry, I'll take it out on these fucking weeds!"

"Good man," I replied.

"I thought you said your bears were down?" Nora asked. Now that she had a tiny bit of space to work with, she'd chanced a quick look over her shoulder.

"Down, but not out. Luckily, I actually planned ahead for once and performed some upgrades before we came out here, including upgrading the command network. My squad may be the first to recover, but I've been able to force a full restart on the rest, too. We'll be back in fighting shape in a minute," I replied.

"Which is good because we're about to have serious problems!"

"Don't worry, boss, I got this!" Bob declared, striding towards the scorpion thing.

"Don't you dare engage it alone!" I shouted.

"I'm pretty sure whatever that is was placed here specifically to fight us, and I'm not going to engage it until I'm pretty sure we're on even terms!"

"I hate to tell you this, but I doubt the line troops are going to help against this thing," Bob declared.

"I'm talking about the Mauler!" I shouted back. I glanced back up at the Scorpion thing just as it tensed up, launching itself halfway across the room, landing just short of our former front line. As I raised my rifle, I noticed that just behind it, the smaller Antithesis had stopped fussing with the central mass and was staring back directly at me.

"I hate to tell you this, but I don't think this thing is going to wait!" Bob shouted as the titan charged.

"Yeah," I muttered under my breath as I began unloading into the charging beast.

"What else is new?"