A shrill high pitched whine echoed through my head, causio roll off the back seat of my trud fil for whatever arm was going off. It took me a few seds to realize the sound was actually inside my head, not from some external device.

  “Nyx, what the hell are you doing? Turn it off!” I yelled.

  Time to get up. The team is almost done ing up and will be heading back your way soon.

  “How long have I been out?"

  Just over an hour.

  “They made goress,” I said, stumbling out the door. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the low light. “How are the defenses?”

  They’re only killing a few Antithesis a minute right now. The numbers have been dropping with every hive, and now we’re only getting the dregs.

  “Great. How muy gear we realistically recover?”

  The grids and gas traps. If you had more time, and several rge trucks, you could break down the walls and move them.

  “Naw, fuck that. I’m not going to sit around and wait for an engineering crew, I’m still tired and it’s not worth the effort,” I grumbled. “How far out is the rest of the team?”

  About ten minutes.

  “Fine.” I sent out a quiand to some of the bears to retrieve my defenses, leaving just a handful to defend the walls, and all across the fortress the bears burst into motion. Some opened up the sewer accesses to retrieve the gas traps, others opehe gates and took off dowreets to retrieve the grids.

  While the bears were busy I just found a quiet er to sit down. “Since we still have a couple minutes, please get me something to eat.”

  That’s how the rest of the team found me several mier, eating quietly in the ter of my fortress while an army of bears ran to and fro.

  Whisperer was the first through the gates, riding on top of her huge dog creature. “Hey kid, nice digs. Did you have any trouble while we were gone?”

  I gnced over at the other woman, fork still in my mouth, and shot her a copy of the picture of the dead shrimp. There was a moment of silehen Whisperer smirked, “hanks for c us out there, you made things a lot smoother.”

  “No problem,” I replied. “How about you, run into any problems out there?”

  “A handful of Twenty Ones ambushed us at one point, but we ha.” Atntica’s voice echoed out from behind Whisperer’s wolf, so I had to leao the side to see the rest of the team. Both Atntid Humboldt waved as soon as they came into view, while Celestia was busy iing the massive UHR.

  “We fou hives within a couple hundred meters of each other,” Atntica tinued. “Which must be some sort of record. We’re lucky the tanks were reinforced to prevent flooding, it prevehe Antithesis from eg everything up into a single hive work, and that would have been much harder to dislodge.”

  The woman leaned her oversized on against one of the walls and stretched out, “It took a little bit of time, but we got there in the end. I figure we’re due a break, right sis?”

  Celestia straightened up and nodded slightly, “We’ve been out for quite awhile now. I think we should head back to the camp, get a few hours rest. Ohe round of evacuations are finished we’ll evaluate how everything is going, and figure out the steps.”

  “Good with me,” Humboldt said, crag open her suit and stretg out for the first time in hours. “I could use a break.”

  Whisperer hen jumped down from her mount, pressed something against the wolf’s side, and watched as the beast dissolved. I raised an eyebrow as the slurry slowly drained into the sewer, “Isn’t that pretty cold, just destroying your pets like that.”

  “Naw, that’s just Milo’s physical form. I’d have a hell of a time moving them around at full strength, and I’d hate myself if they permaly died in bat, so those bodies are just vessels. This is where his brain, his essence, resides.”

  Reag behind her back Whisperer pulled out a rge metallic orb. “It tains a full AI simution for them to exist in, and when the bodies mahey ect to trol them. I’ll rebuild their bodies once I get bae.”

  “Wait, so those things are just biological drones?”

  “Kind of, I still love them like family, even if they’re not a ‘Traditional’ type of pet.”

  I shrugged, “I ’t judge, I’ve bee attached to giant killer teddy bears.”

  While the two of us were talkiia walked over to the South gate, and after waiting for the versation to end, called back to the group. “Time to get moving, the longer we wait the less time we’ll have to recover back at camp.” After a few moments the others all wandered over, heading out to their cars, but Celestia hesitated. “Hey Teddy, sorry about the attitude earlier, good work today.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate… she’s already gone” I shook my head, Celestia was an enigma to me, yelling one minute and apologizing the . At least she didn’t seem to be mad about me firing the UHR a sed time.

  “Alright, time to pack up,” I yelled. “Everyoo the truck.”

  “Yeah… about that.” Sharron started, iing the inside of the vehicle. “There’s not enough space.”

  I gnced back at my vehicle in surprise. “Beg pardon?”

  “It was a tight fit on the way over here, but since we arrived you’ve apparently added another device to the inside, a couple dozen gadgets and ons, and another dozen bears. Even if I get my own vehicle, which I’m going to have to do sooner or ter, I still don’t think there’s enough space for all your stuff.”

  I stared at the bay truck, full of the various devices I'd bought over the st few hours, then at the huge crowd of bears standing outside. “Fuck.”

  It sounds like we o discuss ransportation options, where would you like to start?