Maniac’s Mayhem: A guide to being a corporate slave

"Why do you feel the need always to have such big guns? Isn't it a bit impractical?"

"you are right. It is impractical. But shall I tell you why I keep investing hundreds of points into these thousand-ton death machines? Every species has a catalogue. Every alien race the Protectors have ever met has its own list of unique items that no other species has a direct equivalent of. And i quite like the idee of our list to filt with items that are stupidly impracitcal and overcompensating. It would describe humanity perfectly."

"why could I not team up with a reasonable samurai like Maniac or something."

--A talk between Dimitri "Tarakan" and Speed Demon. provided by the purple truth,2052

 

After some more scrimmages, we have a little break where we discuss our next course of action. It turns out that on the satellite imaging, you can see that an entire 10.000 square meter area has collapsed. This could mean that there were just earthquakes or some other natural disaster, but that is unlikely. No, this is most likely an indication of the antithesis burrowing in the area.

It also turns out that the reason Glowstick has not done anything yet is that she wants the two of us to have some more experience, and she will only jump in when necessary, which is nice. A safety net is always good. Especially when fighting plants hopped up on potassium. What she can do, no clue; she just keeps telling me to watch her streams if I want to know; well, I sadly have something better to do than watch a thousand hours of her tattling on about the virtues of being a samurai. I guess I should be lucky that she is not using our current excursion as a reason to film. if I had to worry about the perfect camera angle on top of everything else, I might actually get distracted for once.

After making sure everyone has loaded up their equipment, including some bubble solution for my new sword, we head out. I don’t know how practical this sword is yet, but it is still something, and it is really heavy as well. So, if nothing else, it will leave whoever is unlucky enough to get hit by it with a concussion.

It only takes us an hour and some more plants turned into modern decorations to get to the area. It's not hard to miss; the entire area has sunken some 8 meters into the ground with rocks jutting out at rough and uneven angles, making it hard to look far into the newly formed gorge. It is a mess, but I guess so is everything here, so it's like more of a mess… messier… messiest. Well, I won’t figure this one out soon. Anyway, now comes the dangerous part. We have to enter, but since the terrain is already unstable, we have to make sure we don’t cause it to crumble and disappear under our feet.

“Who wants to go first?” I say when we have still not decided anything after 5 minutes of just standing around.

“Well, you are melee, so might as well throw you in first.” Glowstick says offhandedly,

“You know what? That is not a bad idea.” I say.

“Wait, really?” Bubbles asks in surprise.

“I mean, we can wait until they are ready to come out, or we go in ourselves and destroy these bastards at the root.” I say while wondering if a group of rocks really moved or if I am just going crazy.

“I see, but how do we get down?” Bubbles says.

‘Lyssa, is there anything in that search and rescue catalogue of mine?’

There are rope ladders, pulley systems as well as small cranes, what would you prefer?

‘honestly, a pulley system sounds like a lot of fun. But can we put some kind of engine on it so it can pull us up quickly?

 

New Purchase: Rapid Deployment Automated Pulley System

Points reduced to... 532

 

A big box arrives. The size of a box appears, fuck no, the size of a big lazy chair. As I open it, I find some pyramid like metal construction with hooks and pins to anchor it to the ground. There are some ropes that come with it, as well as something that I assume are handlebars. With a lot of help from Lyssa, I managed to set it up. It has an emergency rapid rewind function for a quick extraction, which is super neat. But I am kind of curious how fast rapid actually is.

I put my feet in one of the bottom loops of the rope and slowly descent into the crevice. As I touch the ground, I do a quick look around for any problems, but it is strangely quiet. You would at least expect some movement or a plant to jump out of the shadows, but nothing. I do a somewhat wider look across the perimeter just to be sure, and then I trip on something as I am getting up, trying my best to ignore Bubbles giggling coming from above. I notice a string or, more accurately, a thread of something.

“What the fuck is this then?” I say, while trying to pull on the thread.

That would be the silk of a model 17. Lyssa would recommend not pulling on it too hard unless you want the entire hive to descend on you.

I instead let go of the string. "Well, I think it might be a bit late for that."

“Too late for what?” Glowstick asks when she comes up behind me.

“Model 17. I might have tripped their trap.” I say while pointing out the wire.

“Wait, 17, everyone get into cover quickly now!” Glowstick shouts out.

For some reason, I don’t feel like asking why. And jumping behind an outcropping of rock, we all find a place to hide. And absolutely nothing happens. I am about to stand up and ask what that was about when an impact shakes the ground. Then I hear a bunch of rattling sounds as well as a bunch of tiny impacts.

Once the noise settles down, I look up to see about a hundred barbed spines embedded in all of the different surfaces or broken on the ground. Well, that could have ended badly. I don’t think I am Swiss enough to have survived that. I slowly crawl out of my hiding place and make my way to the others, paying special attention to not fall over one of the threads again.

“Okay, what was that?” I say, after confirming that both of them are still alive.

“Model 15, they are an artillery unit of antithesis. When a model 17 is involved, they will use the wires as guides to aim.”

“So this entire area is a fucked up reversed minefield.” I say. “So how do we traverse it.”

“Very carefully.” Magenta says, “Preferably, we let Bubbles hose the area with acid so they can’t see us coming.”

“Bubbles! What, you too?” Bubbles says to Magenta while looking at her in shock.

“You know that your name is too long, so a shorthand is great for when we are in combat.” Glowstick explains.

Bubbles turns to me for, I guess, support, but I have already thrown my arms in the air in celebration. Then she just turns back to Magenta. “Then, from now on, you will be Glowstick.” She huffs out rather cutely.

I guess it's Glowstick's turn to look offended while I am doing a second celebration. But she schools her expression quickly. “Can you use an acid that is strong enough to just dissolve the string without alerting them? “

“Ooh yeah, easy.” Bubbles says, while adjusting some dials on her backpack and gun.

“So we do want to continue going through here?” I say, looking back at the rope with which we came down here.

“What? Is the big scary Maniac afraid of some spiders?” Glowstick says in a mocking tone.

“When they are the size of your ego and have a taste for human flesh, yeah, at that point, they freak me out a bit,” I say, in a deadpan.

“Can the two of you be quiet? We don’t want to attract more attention until we know where they are,” Bubbles says, when she gets her settings right and starts making a path forward.

‘Lyssa, how likely am I to survive an encounter with the cactus throwers?’

Lyssa estimated your chances of survival to be low. Would you like Lyssa to recommend some options that might help you not die?

‘Just get me something that does not impede my movement. There is no need for a recommendation. I trust your judgement. I am sure you can find me something nice that can do that.’

Can Lyssa buy a new catalogue for these purchases?

‘yeah, spend as much as you want. We're about to get some more points anyway.

Understood. Reach out your left hand

Class I Hextec Projector Shields unlocked!

Points reduced to... 432

New Purchase: Class I Handtastic Farcasting Shielding Glove

Points reduced to... 132

This should keep you safe for a while.

A small black glove appears in my left hand. It has some purple wiring on it and a bunch of hard plastic-like parts, but it does not look all that weird otherwise. I put it on and notice another icon appear in my virtual hud. I opened the app to set up the glove. It is relatively basic. You can set up different shapes for the barrier. That can be activated with both gestures or voice commands. I put in some basic ones, like a complete dome around me, a smaller buckler shield, and some options for putting down a shield at range. Well, let's hope I don’t need it that much, I guess.

We make it further into the gorge, and any lone model we see is taken out by Glowstick. And fuck, someone should have told me she shoots crystals, fuck; how does that even work? Yeah, and I know I could have looked at what she could do, but there are millions of hours of streaming vids and ain’t nobody got time to look through it all. Also something something privacy.

At some point, we spot a deeper valley with a lot more plant life than what I am comfortable with. There are the usual suspects of models 3 and 4, even some model 6s and what I think are 5s. But those are not even the strangest ones of the bunch. No, that honour goes to semitruck-sized grasshoppers. Their head is all kinds of fucked, too many sharp angles, and a mouth that looks….. well, that is something that I will leave for less polite company. And then there are those small ones crawling around everywhere. They have this glistening shell, and I think that they have eight eyes as well. They're going around to the other groups of antithesis and planting eggs on them. Fuck, I am beginning to like this less and less.

“So, what is the plan?” I whisper to my companions.

“I could flood the area with a strong acid, but that will probably get shot down by the models 5 and 15 before I can properly saturate the area.” Bubbles says while fiddling with her soap blaster.

“I see, so I have to go and take those down while you do your thing.” I say, while observing the overgrown acai trees. “But what are we going to do about Charlotte and friends?”

“They're not a high threat. They mostly control the antithesis, so as long as you take some anti-7 pills, you should be fine.”

“Aren’t I already immune against those?” I ask.

You are, the vaccine you took should immunise you for about 120 years unless the model 7s undergoes a mutation or until you switch out your immune system for a better one.

“Okay, so we have a plan then. I go in there and take care of the bark throwers, while you fill the area with doom bubbles. Anything to add?” I say.

“No, that sounds good, but how do you plan to get down there.”

‘Lyssa, what is the amount of weight that my new shields can carry?’

If you asking if they can carry your weight, then they can; moving them when you are on them is a different story. They would be too slow to be viable.

‘Well, I guess it's time to put my parkour skills to the test then.’ i subvocalize a smile already creeping on my face

“I have a way down. Are you ready?” I say, looking at the bubbles.

“I am, are you?”

“As ready as I will ever be,” I say, then I look at Magenta. “You take care of her if anything goes wrong, okay?”

And with that, I turn around and place the first shield in the Crevasse and jump on it.

Party time.