Epilogue

  "Merde!"

  She ducked her head out from around the battlements. She didn't need any of those alien fucks to see her and maybe try to snipe at her position. Next to her, maybe some three metres back, was the bottom half of a volunteer who'd spent too long staring.

  The model Fifteen-Aquas were out in force. They were sprinkled throughout the antithesis sieging the city and sticking out too much, or god-forbid, shooting at the aliens, would set them all off.

  Her comms chirped in her ears and she reached up, touching the side of the army-issue helmet she had on. "Yeah, this is Crisis Mode," she said.

  "CM, this is Libre," a man's voice said over the line. She almost swore again. Yeah, she knew who it was, dammit. "The Forty-Second Recon Company needs help. Sending you their coordinates now."

  "Yeah, alright."

  "That's 'yes sir,'" Libre corrected before the line went dead.

  She wanted to punch him in his stupid face. The man might have been a Samurai, sure, but so was she, and dammit if things weren't screwed enough already without his attitude.

  She received a message over her augs, the location of the 42nd Recon, squad disposition, the name of the leader, casualties... there were a lot of that last one.

  Getting up, she started to head towards the nearest staircase, circling wide around a team of volunteer medics who were quickly grabbing the remains of that guy who'd looked for too long and moving it away.

  A couple of days ago, seeing someone laid out like that would have her puking.

  A couple of days ago, she'd been an intern at a mid-level corp in the city, on the edge of finishing her two-year stint as an unpaid office rat and excited to finally make enough to move out of the corporate dorms and into her own apartment.

  Then the world went to shit. She wasn't even sure if the company would survive... nah, it'd probably be fine. It wasn't her concern anymore anyway.

  You seem stressed.

  "Yeah," she muttered. "Come on, Crylin, this isn't exactly vacation time, is it?"

  She couldn't resist one last look past the barricades mounted to the wall. Just a peak, fast enough that nothing on the other side would have time to snipe her.

  The wall was built across the St Lawrence river, across an island that had been called Orleans, but which was now just one of the spots where the Quebec Mega city plate was fixed. This was the 'new city' part, and it wasn't pretty to look at.

  The horde below wasn't pretty either.

  The aliens were mostly coming in from the north. A living tide of them. The forests and shrublands and suburbs that way had been razed to the ground in the last week or so, pounded down to nothing by non-stop artillery. Now the only green were the aliens, moving in packs, dipping into trenches that they'd sacrificed millions of little alien lives to dig.

  It looked like the entire countryside had been turned into one of those fancy glass-sided antfarms, and that was just what was visible on the surface.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The St Lawrance itself was no better.

  Huge islands of interconnected weeds formed platforms on the surface of the water, somehow keeping the waves to a minimum. Floating along atop the water, or something just visible beneath, were thousands, tens of thousands, more antithesis. Ocean-borne ones, attracted along the bay by the promise of a city-full of tasty humans.

  She moved. There was no point in staring. That would only depress her more. How many damned aliens were there?

  The question didn't seem to matter, because the number would change by the hour. She'd made the mistake of asking how long it took for the Antithesis to birth a new model. The answer was in hours. Even if they killed every last one, it would only be a day or two of respite if they couldn't wipe the hives.

  More or less. The reality was more complex than that. Biomass and such had to be factored in. The enemy was marching hungry.

  She started down a staircase, moving to the side to let some troops go by. Those in the lead were in fatigues, with plate carriers and assault rifles on their backs, but after them were two dozen normal people. Most of them were on the younger end, but otherwise, there were all sorts. Fit and unfit, men and women. They had whatever guns they could grab, and weren't moving with anything like coordination.

  That was the last line of defence. It was also, in some spots, their only line of defence.

  Quebec was standing on a precipice.

  And then she came to a section of the wall where a long, low window cut across the room.

  This exterior wall was meant to be pretty, at least on the inside. It towered above part of the city, a sort of constant reminder that those within would be safe and protected. And to be fair, it had stood this far.

  The city was... a mixed bag.

  The old city was gorgeous. Beautiful centuries-old buildings, ringed by taller, slimmer constructions. Not mega buildings. Other than the wall, they didn't have those here. Still, they were large, and formed the beating heart of the old city.

  The new city was built on a mage-city plate that surrounded the old city. It was dozens of square-kilometres of factories and warehouses and automated transport lines and towering smokestacks that ran all the way up to the edge of the wall.

  If the wall fell, that's where they'd be fighting next, in the industrial parks and factory fields.

  The city looked calm. Peaceful. A few days ago she'd been over there, almost unaware of the flood of enemies just past the barrier wall.

  Cecilia? Are you well?

  She jumped. "Y-yeah, sorry. Just... I think I need a nap. Do we know when reinforcements are going to arrive?"

  Not yet. Local leadership hasn't made the call for them yet.

  "Fuck," she said. "Can... can you do it? Slip something out? I... I think we need it more than Libre and the others want to admit."

  I'll see what I can do... there might be an old friend who could help. But it may require some sacrifices.

  "Sacrifices?"

  How willing are you to wear cat ears?

  ***

  - The End -

  Gonna start Vol 9 in... December? Can I get away with 1 month of not posting? Nah.. maybe mid-November instead!