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***
I leave my dolly in the entryway, nod through the big plate glass windows to Dirk and his assistants where they’ve set up a bonfire in the center of the courtyard, then climb up to meet Willy’s boys on the roof.
Tony, Derek, and DeShawn are the only ones there when I get there, all three of them squatting down to avoid being seen from the street. I kinda do the same, although my running feet mean I have to balance rather than sit on my heels like they’re doing.
“Hey Tony, Derek. You guys look better.”
“I’m feeling better. Still a little shaky. Think I’m hungry?”
I laugh. “I’ll get you something when we’re done here.”
“What about me?” whines Derek.
“You feeling hungry? Or just whining about Tony getting something when you’re not?”
He grins at me calling him out and says, “Maybe a little hungry.”
I snort. “Okay. When we’re done here both of you come with me. But right now we’re waiting for…”
“Sorry we’re late,” calls Willy as he and the other five climb up onto the roof and scuttle over to join us. In the distance, over their shoulders, I see a small flock of birds flying. I hope they’re birds.
They’re probably not. That makes the next thing I need to do just a little more urgent. “Okay, guys. What have we got in the way of guns?” They all look at me kind of weird, except for Marcus, who lays his old one shot holdout and his new Foxteeth semiautomatic pistol on the roof in the middle of our little circle. While they look at him with more than a little surprise, I explain. “Chyrl tells me that the incursion has woken the Antithesis in hiding. Kinda like the ones who’d dug in under the tree.” I nod to the park across the street, where we can still see some of the bigger branches sticking up, bare like it’s winter.
Willy nods, but asks, “so why aren’t we tryna get everybody to shelter?”
I nod to acknowledge his point, but say, “the nine of us might be able to fight our way to one of the shelters. Maybe some of the older, steadier kids. But Dirk? Any of the moms with babies?”
Derek interjects with, “you ain’t never seen somebody fight like a mom with a kid on the line.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I get that, but the Antithesis will just keep coming until they overwhelm them. Or worse, snatch the kid away and run. You wanna tell Jazz that we can’t risk going after Ernesto, because they killed him the moment they snagged him, because they’re not after money or drugs or even a kid to sell, but something to eat?”
With every word, Derek winces. “Yeah. No. I get you.”
I nod. “Okay then. This building’s old, but it’s solid. They’ve rebuilt parts of it a couple times, and the new buildings,” I nod to the three southern additions beyond the breezeways, “aren’t nearly as tough. So we’re gonna block off the breezeways…”
“Done,” says Willy.
“Blocked off hard, or just temporary like?”
He frowns. “Isn’t your stuff over there?”
I purse my lips. “Just a couple sentimental things, but the plants won’t eat those. Nothing useful… wait, maybe get the big drums of sunscreen before you close them off permanently.”
Derek makes a face. “Isn’t that shit toxic?”
“Language. And yeah, if you mix it together and fling it at a Model four, it turns into some kind of caustic sludge that kills them. Slow, but dead is dead.”
It also appears to ameliorate the pheromones they emit to induce paranoia.
I nod to let her know I heard while Derek says, “huh. Maybe we could get some water balloons and fling them at the fours like grenades or something?”
I smile at him. “Nice! See if Miss Williams or Miss Feliciano have any balloons in their classrooms. If not, scour the rest of the rooms for them and anything else that might be useful. But that’s for later.”
“So what now?” Asks Willy, pre-empting Derek.
“For now, I want to see what kind of guns you guys are working with, and we’re gonna start setting up some automated guns on the roof here. Chyrl? Can you show me where?”
Of course, Jackie. A moment later my augs project an image of the school from above, like a satellite photo. A couple dozen dots in half a dozen colors superimpose themselves on corners. The red dots are the highest priority; with those four all the approaches to the school will technically be covered.
“Not the cafeteria?” The guys look at me, and I realize they can’t see what I’m seeing, or hear Chyrl. “Can you show them? And, like, fill them in via their augs?”
Their augs are… suboptimal. I’ll do what I can, but they won’t be getting anything like the definition you’ve got.
“Well. You can get them your audio at least?”
With a little lag and static, but yes.
“Please do. Okay, guys. Chyrl has noted where we’re gonna put the automated guns. But I can’t afford them all at once, and until I get the points to get them, some of you guys are gonna need to fill in, and I don’t want you out here with some awful old rusty pop gun that jams half the time. Also, if one of you’s got something really crazy good, no offense, but I’d kinda like to put that in the turret to start with.”
Willy looks me in the eye, almost like he’s trying to stare me down. I dunno why, but some combination of having seen him puke up lunch from eating it too fast when he was little and me needing to get this done to keep my kids and my cafeteria safe keeps me calmly meeting his gaze until it drops. “Okay, guys. Do what the Samurai says.”
I snort. “C’mon. I’m just the lunch lady.”
WIlly puts his own gun on the ground toward the middle of our little circle. It’s an old one, military surplus. Also not nine millimeters, unless the chunky barrel is making itself look bigger or something. He also pulls out one of those one shot jobbers like Marcus has lying in front of him. All the others do the same, each one pulling out one sort of normal, if old, handgun, followed by a single or double shot holdout. The only exceptions are Tony, who only drops a holdout pistol, and Derek, who puts two pistols more awful than the rest down in front of him, but no holdout.
Tony looks up at me, “sorry, Miss Jackie. I don’t know what happened to my pistols.”
I snort. “I do. You loaned them to me, and I broke them killing that Model four. Still, that got me the whole Samurai gig, so…”
“Derek…” Willy’s just staring at Derek, frowning.
Derek looks like a kid who doesn’t want to open his mouth, because the candy he shoved in it will fall out. After a second he says, “c’mon! It’s mine!”
I reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, I get that. All these are you guys’ guns. I’m not tryna take ‘em away. I’m tryna make sure we all live through this.”
He pouts. “Fine.” Then he reaches up behind his back and something like tape peeling off skin sounds, then he gingerly lays a shiny black pistol on the ground in front of him.
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“What is that?”
Willy gives Derek a look, and Derek says, “Beretta Ninety-Two FS. Saw it in a classic vampire flick. Got the original guns from the movie for a steal in an online auction!”
Tony snorts. “You mean you got robbed by somebody who claimed those were originals. Those are way newer.”
“Nah, they’re just well maintained.”
Whether this is in fact an original movie prop or not, it’s a fully functional fully automatic pistol, and would be perfect for use with the turrets, especially before we have defense in depth.
“Right. Okay, Derek, your little vampire killer is gonna go in our first turret, at least for a little bit. We’ll need somebody to keep it topped off, I guess. Do you have spare clips?”
“Magazines. It’s a magazine, not a clip. I got one, but it doesn’t match. And it’s empty.”
I nod. “When we’re done here, there’s a whole box full of nine millimeter ammunition in the old ROTC room. Load it up, take some extra to refill it as needed.” I look around at the rest. “Same goes for the rest of you. Make sure before you go on guard you’ve got your pistols full, and take at least a pocket full of rounds with you as well.”
“But,” DeJuan interrupts.
“But nothin’. I don’t want you guys hoarding it, but it does nothin’ sitting in the classroom.” I look around until they all nod, then look down at the loose pile of guns. Six semiautomatic pistols, one revolver, and the Foxteeth. All but Willy’s military surplus and Robert’s target pistol are nine millimeters. I think the old military pistol is ten millimeter, and the target pistol’s barrel is really skinny. Like a twenty two or something. Then there are seven ‘hold out’ pistols. Basically just barrels cobbled together around bullets. I doubt they’d even reload properly, but that gives me a bit of an idea.
First I pull the two odd caliber pistols out of the pile. “We don’t have reloads for these. You guys have any spare ammunition?” They both look a little mulish, and I shake my head. “Guys. Survival time. Not tryna rob you. I promise you, if I get enough points, I’ll buy you nice guns, but right now we gotta do what we do best; survive until then. Ammunition on the roof, guys.”
With that they all pony up, emptying pockets and secret stashes. Willy and Robert both put their specialty ammo with their oddball guns. Not counting whatever’s in them, we’ve got a dozen rounds for the big gun and two dozen for the little one.
“Damn, Rob, why you got so much? It’s not like it’s even an automatic,” Derek taunts.
Robert’s deep voice is an odd mismatch with his self-deprecating grin. “Eh, they’re little. Don’t hit as hard, and they’re light, so I can carry more.”
Before a fight can start, I say, “Chyrl, seven more Foxteeth for my boys here.”
New Purchase: Foxteeth Model D x7
Points reduced to... 70
The boxes show up right in front of the guys, and while they’re opening them I pull their old guns into a pile in front of me. None of them so much as notice.
Tony even blinks back what might be tears. “Is this new?” I nod. “You’ll be wanting it back?” I shake my head. “Damn. Thanks, Miss Jackie.”
“Still not as nice as Selene’s gun,” grumbles Derek.
“Yeah, but if you wear this one out I can get you another one.” I look around, realizing that each of the guys is bigger than me, even scrawny Derek. “You all got something if they get up close?”
All but Tony and Derek nod. Tony looks a little sheepish when he says, “sorry, Miss Jackie. Pretty much lost all my stuff against that four.”
“No worries, Tony. We walked away, it didn’t. Chyrl, you got any knives?”
A wide variety, even limiting yourself to Class Zero and Lab Jack It’s Catalogs. Were you looking for something special, or…?
“Like the Foxteeth.”
At that Derek perks up. “This is a Foxteeth? I’ve read about these, but never seen one. Nice! Samurai gun!”
I can get you simple Bowie knives for one point each. Nothing fancy, but your young men and young woman seem to know how to use them.
At that I scan through the group and realize that only remaining guy I hadn’t recognized is a girl I remember graduating a couple years before. Mikalah’s always been boyish, and she’s definitely leaned into that. “Okay, eight Bowie knives please.”
New Purchase: Classic Mark 0 Bowie Knife x8
Points reduced to... 62
“But, I got my crowbars,” stutters Willy.
I shrug. “Yeah, I know, but I don’t know where you got them or whether whoever you got them from paid for good steel or they’re gonna break the first time a Model four tries to bend them. Makes me feel better to know you’ve got at least one backup that won’t run out of ammo and won’t break any time soon.” He nods at the awful backup guns. “Yeah, I got a plan for those. In a bit.”
While they all find a place to put their new knives, I quietly say, “okay, Chyrl. Give me one turret and one of those silencers of Lab Jack It’s.”
This will put you back down below most Vanguard’s safety limits.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you get ‘I told you so’ rights next time.”
New Purchase: Mark 1 Omni-Auto-Turret
Points reduced to... 12
New Purchase: Mark 1 Cone of Silence
Points reduced to... 11
Two more boxes appear, both of them pretty bulky. I open the first to find a folded up little tripod with what look like peel and stick tabs on the bottom of its feet and a kind of boxy thing at the top.
The feet will chemically adhere to whatever surface they’re placed on. I’d still recommend sweeping any debris away first.
“Got it.” I open the second box to find what looks like a weird transparent umbrella. The ‘underside or ‘inside’’ is covered in what looks like transparent fur, and the handle is a set of really thin metal sticks.
Just attach the Cone to the barrel of the gun after you put it on the turret.
I pick up Derek’s movie gun and the turret, hold the gun up to the box at the top of the turret, and as I’m looking for some way to attach it the box splits open, dozens of little arms reaching out and taking the gun gently from my hands, wrapping themselves around the grip, the trigger, and even a couple sliding the magazine in and out. Then a couple more reach out to the side, and I grab the extra magazine and hold it out for them.
“That is the coolest shit I have ever seen. Dibs on reloading for Selene.”
I sigh. “Naming my turrets already? You know it’s just an auto-turret, right?”
“Selene doesn’t care if you believe in her or not.”
I shake my head and slip the ‘handle’ end of the Cone around the end of the barrel. It slides on smoothly, then grips down and won’t come off. “Is this permanent?”
“Better not be. That’s not nearly as cool looking.”
It requires a combination of pressure, torsion, and strength. Not unlike a childproof cap.
“Yeah, we’re leaving it on for now. It’s supposed to be a silencer.”
“Supposed to be?”
I shrug. “Supposed to be. A Samurai designed it.”
That has the desired effect. “Cool.”
I look at the rest of the guys. “Okay. We’ve only got the one turret for now. There are four spots we need guarded to keep the Antithesis away from the school. I don’t want anybody out here completely alone, so that means if you’re not babysitting a turret, you work in pairs. Can you see the map Chyrl sent?” They all nod. “Can you see the red dots?” Most of them are a lot more iffy about that, but they all seem to have some idea what I’m talking about. “Okay. I need two guys each on the eastern dots.” They look at me blankly, so I point. “That one and that one.”
Willy and Tony look at each other, and after a few seconds each of them turn to a pair of the others and make some gestures and really pointed looks. DeShawn and Robert head off to the front corner I pointed to, while DeJuan and Marcus head for the corner overlooking the gym breezeway.
“Remember to stop by the ROTC room and get more ammunition!” I call out to them, and they all nod and angle to the nearest way down. Then I turn to Willy. “Can you guys get Teachbot up here?”
Jackie, what are you thinking?
“Just a second, guys.” I step just far enough I can mutter without them hearing. “You took over Teachbot earlier. Can you do that again?”
She sighs. I really shouldn’t. I definitely shouldn’t just to turn your teaching drone into a makeshift turret.
“Look, all this stuff is makeshift. This whole town is half reused stuff, half makeshift stuff that we make work. The corps stopped caring a long time ago, and we’ve made do since then.” I hate myself for doing it, but think of my kids and caf and say, “please?”
There will be significant point loss, as I doubt you’ll be the one reloading.
My eyes narrow. “You think I care about that?”
I’m not sure how, but Chyrl’s voice carries the tone of a warm smile. Of course not, beyond more points being better food for your students. Which is exactly why I will. But it wouldn’t be fair to do so without telling you, since the point loss will be much lower once you replace Teachbot with a proper turret.
I sigh. “Thanks, Chyrl.”
When I get back to the four still kneeling there, I say, “Okay, We’re gonna give Chyrl those oddball caliber guns and all the holdouts, plus the best two of the old pistols. Mikalah, can you reload the oddballs for her until we’re out of ammunition, then use up all this here?”
She shrugs. “Sure. Why?”
“I don’t know if any of that ammo is gonna work right. The Protector stuff at least isn’t made by the lowest bidder, y’know?”
So you’re placing Teachbot in danger?
I sigh. “Teachbot can be repaired a lot easier than anybody else. She’s a super low-grade AI drone, barely even AI. So long as they don’t smash her drive and the backups, she can’t really ‘die’. So yeah, I’m gonna give her the old cheap guns along with the oddballs. Hopefully before anything bad happens I’ll have all the turrets in place.”
It’s okay, Jackie. I understand and agree.
“Okay, guys. Get Teachbot to that corner,” I nod to the corner right near the breezeway to the additions, “and give her the guns. Start with the odd calibers, then the old nine mils, just use some duct tape or something to stick the holdouts to her in case she needs them.”
Tony looks doubtful. “You sure Teachbot will shoot? You sure she can shoot?”
“Chyrl will temporarily be taking over for Teachbot while she’s keeping us safe.”
Derek looks up at me, betrayal on his face. “What? Mikalah gets to work with the Samurai AI?”
I shake my head, roll my eyes, and hand him the turret.
“C’mon. Let’s get ‘Selene’ in place.”
Catalogs unlocked:
Class I Medical Utilities
Class I Minor Cooking Implements
Gear:
Class 0 Racing Prosthetics
Mark I Omni-Protective Bodysuit
Mark I Experimental Scientific Augmentation Package
Mark I Experimental Medical Scanner
Propane (and propane accessory)
Chyrl’s Cookbook Collection
Class 0 bungee cords, varying sizes
9x19mm Parabellum Rounds x936
Foxteeth Model D x9
Classic Mark 0 Bowie Knife x8
Mark 1 Omni-Auto-Turret
Mark 1 Cone of Silence
Points: 11