Aliapanacea

  "You blew up the dam?"

  "I didn't have a choice! The antithesis were going to overwhelm us. I saved us all!"

  "You IDIOT! All you did was slow them down! The antithesis survive uer! In a day or two they'll emerge ier numbers, and I'm NOT going down there in a wetsuit to stop them."

  Bckbox and Argon discussing the Bckrocursion***

  Doing my best to ignore Emmelyn’s giggling, I hug the little orca droo my chest as I swim towards the part of my pn. I turn a er then gasp as I barely mao climb out of the way before a Model Three-A swims right where I had just been. ‘Um, is it going to cause problems if I kill things while ih?’

  You’ll be fine as long as you don’t do it in vision of other Antithesis.

  I nod, then after peeking arouo check for enemies, stick out the harpoon, pierg a beam straight through the shark. Not wanting to be around when they find the corpse, I then rush down a different alleyway, a bit of anticipation beginning to rise in my chest. If they fi isn’t going to be pretty; I really o be careful.

  [“So what exactly is the pn?] Emmelyn asks, her voice full of curiosity. [“You never actually answered me.”]

  “U-Um, to be ho,” I mutter as I spot an ining Model Five-T. “This euatioed much quicker than anticipated, probably because of the Model Twelve I killed. I was going to bloe alleyways off to fuhem in, but at this point it might be more effit to do something else.”

  Nyvi hums in thought as I swifty stab the lionfish in the head, tossing the corpse aside afterwards. “We don’t have too many things we do at this point anymore, because even with your stealth, we don’t have long before this area is overrun enough that it will bee dangerous to stay in.”

  I ’t help but gulp as the line goes quiet, the implications of that being clear to all of us. After a moment, Emmelyn is the oo break the silence, but her words are not at all f.

  [“We’ve been dang around the issue, but I think it’s better I just e out and say it here at this point. There is no way we save the majority of the people on the Eleventh Floor, is there?”]

  [“Most likely not, Emme,”] her AI immediately responds, [“Even the few that have mao get through to the tenth aren’t going to have an easy time surviviher, it’s just a symptom of the way the corporations desighem with sucredibly trolled exits.”]

  “W-What if we fought until we got enough points to get a submersible rge enough for everyone?” I blurt, then rapidly add, “Or disect the floor, add a flotation devid motor strong enough to get it to the surface?”

  Achys sighs at my words, then says, [“I mean no offense, but that’s a tad naive, Prism. You two simply don’t have the time nor points for either of those, without possibly putting yourselves ireme danger first.”]

  I bite my lip just as Nyvi chimes in with, “Don’t get Achys wrong honey, she doesn’t mean to put you down. We try to save as many as we , if you wish. It would be extremely, extremely dangerous.”

  I shake my head as I swim inte pza, giving a wide berth to what I think is an aquatic Model-Six rushing towards where I came from, whiewhat resembles a hippo if it was made out of coral. “N-No, I uand, it just feels wrong. Is our best option to just… leave them to die?”

  “No hohe likely best option is far, far worse.” Nyvi wiggles around in my arms, then puts her fin onto my chest. “I’m not sure if it’s worth the mental trauma it might impose onto you.”

  “W-wait, are you suggesting…” I squeeze the animal in my arms as I hesitate to say the words, disfort swimming in my stomach. “T-That we… end their suffering?”

  [“You’d separate the eleventh floor from the rest of the reef, dropping it onto the horde below,”] Achys btantly firms, [“You’d get a rge k of points from that, enough to hopefully keep both of you alive through this whole disaster.”]

  [“Achys, that’s holy less important thaentially thousands of people that will nearly immediately die from that,”] Emmelyn adds in, before she loudly sighs.

  I personally take a deep breath, ruminating a bit on the nausea I feel as I climb upwards to swim over a trio of stock standard model-threes. As I start to swim past though, I freeze as I gnce behind me. “Uh, how the heck did those eve in here?”

  Achys chirps a little chuckle as she states, [“It’s likely they have structed a makeshift bridge of some sort. It could be a good target for slowing the Antithesis down.”]

  I nod, then swoop down to pierce my on through an isoted Model-Four’s body, which causes a visible violet smoke to emit from its fallen form. I rush away quickly, then slowly and deliberately say.

  “I’ll go check it out, maybe it’s like one of those tentacles they use in the big spacial incursions. I bet they’re worth a metri of points.”

  Emmelyn chimes in, [“Ah! I think I saw a clip of that once! Some Fox-dy used a meteor to blow it up!”]

  I ’t help but snort in respoo that. “Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”

  Emmelyn huffs, her toaining a teeny bit of poorly strained vitriol. [“Holy, no. You do know how trolled things like that are in the reef, right?”]

  “I do, and it is annoying,” I respond, then mutter, “But I, uh, sorta had a different source for that kind of information.”

  [“Oh rincess, does yrandfather tell you about the wide variety of vixens that tempt him during his job?”]

  “Oh, you have no idea Emmelyn,” I mutter, then add, “All the maalks about is samurai stuff, and half of it is pining about the more liberal tendencies of his new colleagues.”

  The line goes dead again and I wonder what I said, until it hits me just as Emmelyn whispers:

  [“I holy ’t believe it. You actually are a Montero.” ]

  My mind immediately goes bnk as my eyes shoot down at the Or shock, about a thousand different feelings appearing and disappearing in a single moment.

  Told you.

  I gawk as I try to sort through the rampaging storm of emotions, but one main point bees exceptionally clear. I was only a little bit less unfortable about being called a Montero as I was about being referred to as a boy. At least I put a o that feeling now.

  Disgust.

  “No,” I slowly decre after a moment of preparation, “Not anymore.”

  [“Sorry, I couldn’t help it, curiosity got the better of me. Was that too much? I don’t wanna make you unfortable, Prism.”]

  I morosely chuckle as I mutter, “It’s fine, I just…”

  Looking up just in time to dodge a sign, I see the exit of the floor in the far distance. “I think that was something I o make clear, f-for both of us. I’m not one of them-”

  I sigh, that st supper running through my mind. “In hindsight, maybe I never was.”

  her of us say anything, at least until Emme starts to giggle. [“It’s kinda ridiculous how relieving it is to me that you said that. I had this little cursed mental image bugging me, of you l over the reef from on high like the rest of your family. I holy don’t know what I would have done if that were true.”]

  My heart burns as I take a shuddering breath and start, “Emmelyn I-”

  [“Emme. Just Emme, Prism. I owe it to you after that little trick I pulled on you there.”]

  “E-Emme… R-Right, got it.” I pause, then open my mouth, spouting out a variable torrent of words. “I-I’ve never been a willing partit iupid corporation game they py. My… the Monteros have their glomerate split into four parts. Richard Montero trols the stru sector, Felicity Wis- er, Montero basically miahe research sector, Tristan Montero is the heir to the pany and manages most general services, and finally, Desmond ‘Steel Hound’ Montero runs the upper parts of New Houston and the various Samurai based businesses.”

  I take a moment to collect my thoughts, then tinue:

  “I was… an afterthought. The sed child, the ohat everyone used for things they didn’t want to do… Or things they wao fail, I guess. I’ve never been able to focus on doing things I don’t have an i in, and well, I guess it showed. Heh. I suppose I’ve always just been that useless…”

  Less than a moment passes before Emme blurts, [“Oh, e off it princess. You’re a samurai now, that means something.”]

  Emme chuckles as I gawk, then proudly decres:

  [“Samurai are the cept of freedom through forceful opposition personified. We broke the s the world put on us ourselves, deg that nothing, nobody hold us back, choose our lives for us. Revel in that, for you have done something magnifit; You’ve takehreads of fate into your own hands, begun to weave your owaking tapestry for all to see. You have a pen against a bnk page, the only question you o answer being what you want to write. Will you create an inspiring heroic epic? A tragedy that stabs a dagger into the heart? A roma enough to burn?”]

  Emme takes a shallow breath, then adds, [“That question, that all important choice, is what being a samurai means to me. I mean, sure, we were given our role by an all powerful alien ratent on defending the universe from destru, but samurai don’t o fight after they bee one. I think that by itself says a lot, that we aren’t forced to tihe crusade afterwards. We might not be able to trol the past or the present, but the future is ours to grasp.”]

  I wordlessly slither through the streets for a moment, pting her words before I eventually quietly ask, “But… does that give us the right to choose the death of so many people?”

  She doesn’t eveate before she answers, ["Perhaps not in most cases, but this is a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situatioe my reservations about leaving those people behind, I’m fairly certain we are in the right to not just mindlessly rush into the fray to defend them. If things are as bad as we think, it’d probably just be a futile sacrifice.”]

  I bite my lower lip, but nod in agreement. Nobody says anything after that, so I just fooving carefully. The density of Antithesis rapidly increases the clet to the breach, to the point that it’s now no longer safe to kill anything. I am forced to clumsily weave myself around groups of aquatiemies, hoping that I don’t actually tap them with my tail.

  As I finally break out into open waters, I ’t help but sigh at the rather ugly method the Antithesis were using to get into the Eleventh floor. To be specific, they had linked a bunodel-Eights together, the long worms biting each other’s tails to lock themselves into pce. I ch my fist, take a breath, then carefully say, “Nyvi, I think I’m going to need some more direal diodes.”

  The little whale in my arms nuzzles into my chest inquisitively. “Honey, is this truly the pn you wish to go with?”

  “Yeah, it is. I wish that I was strong enough to safely fight the hordes, but we both know that I’m not. We really don’t have long until they break through, you send the droo make sure that people are still evacuating?”

  “…Uood. If you truly wish to do this, yoing to need six more depth charges, four for the pilrs and two for the flotation devices.”

  I nod as the remora pops off the orca’s side, before I start off towards the closest target, a rather rge thick pstic bulge strapped to the top of the floor pte. As I do, I gnce down at the Orca as Achys chirps:

  [“May I propose a course of a for both of you that might reduce the potential stress of the decision you both seem to have e to?”]

  I raise an eyebrow, irely seeing where she was going with this. “I guess?”

  [“If you’re doing this, you both should activate the charges.”]

  I frown as I stutter, “W-Why? I-I’m willing to do it myself, so Emme shouldn’t have to-”

  [“Prism, I’ve already basically killed everyohat was owelfth floor, doing it again isn’t going to ge anything.”]

  [“Emme, we both know that’s pushing it, but still, that’s besides my point. To make it simple, Nyvi and I would rig the explosives to go off on a timer after one of the two detonators triggers. However, the ohat actually does the deed would be randomly chosen and none of us would know whie actually caused it, so you’d have a bit of an illusion of innoce to keep.”]

  I sider it, then state, “N-No,not this time. E-Emme obviously bmes herself for the Twelfth, and I, um…”

  I sigh then murmur, “I-I’d rather be equal to her then have a veneer of unatability.”

  After a moment of nobody saying anything, the sound of flesh smming into metal echoes through the chat. [“AGH! Fug fuck. This situation sucks so goddamn bad. I hate New Houston so, so much.”]

  As I get close to the floatation pillow, I take out the first direal charge a so that it would pierce a lot of the thick fabribsp;

  “Ditto, holy. Much rather be anywhere else.”

  [“Oh? Having basically been your maid for two months, I sorta assumed you’d like it here, sidering how fug shiny they make the workers keep your house.”]

  “Pfft, yeah right. I had no trol over the help, and for the two months you worked there, I was in New New York. If anything, you were my mother’s maid.”

  [“Ew, no thank you, I’ll stick to being a private tractor from now on- Though, maybe… Would the pretty mermaid princess perhaps be looking for a… panion?”]

  My brain shorts out for a sed as my face begins to heat up, until I realize what she was actually saying. I shake myself out of the daze, then shoot off towards the pilr as I mutter, “G-God, you almost got me with that one. M-Maybe, I guess, I don’t really have any idea what I want to do after all this. A-Also, why do you keep calling me, p-princess?

  Emme giggles, then cheerfully replies, [“Holy, it sorta popped out when I oking you for info, and now it’s stuck to you in my mind. I mean, it fits almost too well, an ostracised princess breaking free from her assigned role to lead her own personal rebellion, findirue self along the way? It’s a plot that writes itself.”]

  “I-I think that’s pushing my situation a bit far…”

  [“Maybe, but it’s fun, so who cares? I certainly think you’d look great in a ballgown, or, ooh! Maybe a mermaid dress! Actually, that might be too on the nose. Achys, Nyvi, what do you think she’d look best in?”]

  “Don’t push her too much, Emmelyn, she’s still figuring out what she likes herself,” Nyvi strictly reprimands, until she embarrassingly tinues with, “Though, I seem to remember you agree with my opinion that she looks good in pastel yellow.”

  I bite my tongue as my face restarts its heating process, stopping in front of the first pilr aing the charge as Achys fidently procims, [“I think she’d look best in a elegant dark piece that atuates her figure, to match her samurai name.”]

  “Bah, that’s just yical girl fangirl speaking, all you want is-”

  As our AI’s begin to bicker about what would fit me the best, I willingly tuhem out as I foy swimming. This entire gehing is a bit overwhelming, to say the least, and I very much do not have time to sort through the sheer amount of feelings that my new friends arguing about what extremely feminine dress would fit me best force up into my chest. Holy, I do appreciate the distra from what I am about to do, but… I’m pretty sure I o take all this in baby steps.

  My mind quiets as I hone in on the movement of my muscles, and I end up putting dow six explosives before asding so I am directly above the ter of the eleventh floor. I hang there for a moment, staring down at the iably soon to be destroyed se of the Reef, a pce I only describe as a symbol of the oppression that my family had submerged New Houston within.

  I wonder, will doing this make me a terrible person?

  Samurai are supposed to be forces of good, yet here I am seriously sidering blowing up what might be hundreds of thousands of people to save hundreds of thousands more. At oint does mercy killing bee excessive, bel me as someone who doesn’t deserve to be sidered a savior of humanity?

  Ten? A hundred? A thousand?

  Those are obviously too small, but that goes to show how ridiculous this situation really is, how ludicrously rge the numbers I am being forced to sider really are. In the end, rather then if I’m a terrible person, It’s probably better to ask:

  What does it mean to be a samurai?

  Sure, like Emme said, we broke through our restraints to gain freedom to choose, and the AI supposedly only choose people that fit the role perfectly.

  But I worry, I make a wrong choice? Is it even possible for us to overstep in our work to save people? If I , what happens if I do?

  I’m not sure it’s possible to know the ao those questions, at least, in a general sense. Sure, individually you e up with an answer, but I highly doubt there is a direct perfect solution to every situation. That’s just not how the world works, things are more plicated than that.

  In the end, I ask myself again: What does it mean to be a samurai?

  The only answer I give?

  I don’t know.

  And that scares me.

  Prism?

  I drop out of my thoughts at Nyvi’s voice, as she looks up at me with her little whale eyes.

  ‘I uh… Sorry, what was that?’

  You’ve been quiet for a while, and the Antithesis are about to break through into the poputed area. Are you sure that you want to do this yourself? We use the method that Achys reended.

  I look down at my left hand, opening my palm to reveal the perfect, unmarred skin I was left with after the bionites. I run my fingers over it, shivering at the lingering feeling of my touch. I wonder, will this feel the same in a few seds?

  I take a deep breath, then raise my thumb as I say:

  ‘Just tell me when they are a si from breaking through.’

  An excruciating few moments pass before I hear it.

  Now.

  I press down, and the bright explosions of rainbow light that e are barely a blip in the dark sea. All at ohe city above me lurches a bit, the sudden drop i causing everything to shift. The eleventh pte below me begins to slowly fall, until it impacts the twelfth, where it unceremoniously folds in upon itself after a loud bang.

  I cautiously run my fingers over my palm again, finding that nothing has really ged.

  It’s almost disappointing.

  Aliapanacea