| slowly waved my ser over another one of the devices Maggie had left, waiting for the results to e in. The pile tained a wild assortment of things, from retively useless things, like a colpsible eleic cat eai system, to the frightening, like the sonic grerong enough to powderize crete in a teer radius.

  up was slow because I o buy a ser to identify everything. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, the problem was Maggie hadn’t stuck to just mualogs. Instead she had ied in some really esoteric catalogs, including those of multiple other races, which meant the ser had to slowly identify each device's source, before it could identify the purpose. The repetitive process was slowly drivis.

  Thankfully Sharron called, which was a wele distra. [Hey Sharron, what’s up?]

  [Just cheg in, we just received a visitor. Atntid Celestia wao talk to her in private for a minute.]

  I sighed, [Let me guess, Magpie. We’ve met, I’m still rec from the experience.]

  [She’s pretty intense, isn’t she?] Sharron’s ugh echoed across the Aug e. [How are you doing out there? We noticed a siderable decrease in the number of Antithesis in the area after your stunt earlier.]

  [First of all, it wasn’t a stunt, and sed I’m fine. I put down a lure after fsh frying that hive earlier, and the Antithesis are just throwing themselves into my defenses.]

  There ause, [And… you’re safe where you are?]

  [Retively. It turns out my catalogs are exceptionally well suited for a stationary defehere were a few close calls, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m pretty much just farming points now.] The ser beeped, the device I was currently iigating was desigo deted map utilities throughout a building. Why would Maggie even have that?

  [Well good. I’d hate to hear you died while pulling aggro away from roup.]

  [Don’t worry about me, how is your search going?]

  [Good,] Sharron replied happily. [We’ve elimihree so far, aia has identified two more. sidering we’re finding oo two per tower there’s probably four or five more after that.]

  [Well, hurry it up then,] I grumbled. [Once we up things here we start clearing up the dregs around the city aing more people out of the shelters.]

  [ do!] The li quiet for a moment, [Sounds like we’re moving to the site, and Magpie is ing with. Stay safe out there Evie.]

  [You too.] I had been so distracted by the devices in front of me that it took a few seds after the call ended for my brain to catch up. “Evie?”

  —

  Disposing of everything took aen miurns out there wasn’t anything too dangerous, it was mostly junk which all went into the creation ehe only things that I held on to were the sonic grenade, and a recycler charge, which broke down items in the local area into their po elements. Helpful fathering material for the creation engine, devastating if it randomly went off on one of my walls.

  Finally freed from the job of cheg random junk, I immediately went around to chey defehe area was still clear, for the most part. There was the corpse of a model twelve on the north side; it had waddled through the first two barriers before catg an XR railgun round to the face. It was a little discerting that the monster walked right through two barriers without any serious damage, but it wasn’t that surprisiher. The grids were only desigo take care of the smaller models.

  While I was watg, one of the APS grenade unchers fired, nding a flesh melter right into the middle of the mass of dead Antithesis. Within moments the street was clear again, ready for more aliens to push through.

  “Everything seems to be running smoothly, have there been any issues?”

  Nothing out of the ordinary. There’s only been a single double digit model, the Twelve, which isn’t that surprising because most of the hives are up in the farm towers, which makes it hard fer models to get around. It does make me wonder where all the variants went. You’ve entered a few already, but none of them are around the hives.

  “Except for shrimpy,” I said, correg my AI.

  Yes, the shrimp.

  I looked toward the point that was marked in my Augs. The shrimp was over he farms again. It was hard to tell what it was doing without vision, so I quickly sent one of my remaining drones over to take a look.

  I found the Antithesis ing out of a massive culvert right at the base of the tower. The creature was looking a little worse for wear. It lost one its first e with the team, and its armor was heavily pitted by the acid after trudging through the sewers. Despite all the damage it didn’t seem to have any difficulty moving around.

  After a minute or so of observation the Shrimp finally caught sight of the drone, and both eyes swivelled to watch it. I pulled the drone back slightly, and the massive Antithesis followed, eyes never leaving the drone. I tried pulling the drone back farther, and the creature still followed, which gave me an idea.

  I felt a smile y face, “Nyx, I’m not sure why the shrimp hasn’t tried to get back here after esg the sewer, but I think I lure it back here with one of the drones. We just o set up a proper wele for it.”

  You probably destroyed its sense of smell with the acid, which is why it’s running around aimlessly. It’s a lot tougher than I expected, the fact that it still see after being bathed in acid speaks to its fortitude. I suggest you over prepare for this e.

  “That I do.” I eyed my defehere was still a horde trying to push in through the north, and bringing the shrimp through there would cause issues, so the East or West would be better choices. The defenses on those sides weren’t bad, but they weren’t in any shape to take on that Behemoth. A few obstacles here, a couple glue mihere, and a VERY big gun just out of reach, and I’d finally be rid of that oversized pest.

  I ghrough the drone’s sensors o time, a grin growing ay face as I saw the Antithesis still following it around. “See you soon, you oversized son of a bitch.”