“Even though your new lungs should provide limited resistao the Terras, I reend using your helmet to pletely elimihe effects. Also, you should avoid firing your on while out there. Your ribs have not pletely fused and the kickback may weaken them and prolong your recovery,” Nyx reported through Spooky. I’d always assumed that Nyx was using Spooky’s voice when using him to talk, but now that the bear had his own personality, it was obvious that wasn’t the case. I guess Nyx had their own, unique voice they liked to project through the bears.

  A sed ter, Spooky slumped slightly and started smag himself lightly in the side of the head. “rade Nyx, I must protest you using me as a voice box. There are plenty of other bears to use as a voice box, and being suppressed while you do it is highly uling,” Spooky pined.

  “He’s got a point, Nyx. Maybe we should get you a robot parrot to speak out of or something,” I said as I slipped my helmet on.

  “Or maybe you could learn to subvocalize like the rest of us,” Sharron grumbled.

  I turo her and sidered for a moment, “Naw, fuck that,” I said as I struck the door trol. It stuck for a moment but finally went down after I pou a couple more times. Both Kodiaks were messed up oside, armor dented or ripped off, and one of them was even missing the turret. I guess it was a good thing the frame was so tough; they still made det shelters.

  As I stepped into the gloom, I could already tell the situation was much better than earlier. The antithesis were still pushing in, but their numbers had been severely depleted. The horde that had onpletely filled the cavern had beeed so severely that the survivors were slowly getting pushed bato a single er.

  On one fnk, Arae’s spider drones, which were a lot bigger and scarier than I remembered, were doing a pretty good impression of the Forty-Four and dissolving the front lih stant, pressurized streams of acid. Beside her Psmanx was strategically targeting the rger models and firing his on at a fairly impressive rate.

  Oher side, Hoppy was busy boung between the rger models, nding long enough to crush a head or limb before catapulting herself to another part of the battle.

  “The newbies seem to be doing well,” I muttered.

  “They should be, sidering hooints and tokens they pulled in during this shit,” Sharron replied. “Most samurai o work for years to earn that much.”

  “But they DID earn it. Even surviving the shit we put up with today was an aplishment,” I muttered.

  I watched the ongoing melee with detached i. After dealing with the Forty-Four, the others were absolutely sweeping through the lower models. Wanderer’s giant fire-breathing elephant was back, burning rge swaths of the antithesis, Grey was smashing down indiscriminately, and even Bright-Eyes’ squirrels were biting their way through the lines. I had no idea exactly grade she gave them, but it was frightening how fast they brought things down.

  “Where are Dreamer and Magpie?” I asked, when I finally realized they were missing.

  “ander! Magpie has andeered the other Kodiak in order to perform medical aid on Dreamer,” Spooky reported.

  “She had to lure Dreamer away from the lines with the promise of euphoria-indug dy,” Sharron added.

  “What happeo her?” I asked, slightly ed.

  “Cut off her own arm to protect herself from the bacteria, then refused to leave the front lio have it looked at,” Sharron said, with a slight frown. “She also cut off Whisperer’s leg, but Whisperer received treatment and headed back out while you were out.”

  “How long was I out anyway?” I finally asked. “The situation seems a lot better pared to before.”

  “It’s beely one hour, thirty-six miwenty-seven seds ay-six…” Spooky started rep.

  “About an hour and a half,” Sharron said, cutting him off. “The Forty-Four crushed, or melted, a hell of a lot of antithesis with its indiscrimiacks, and a lot more antithesis died rushing the bear guhere hasn’t been any more funny business either, so most of the Seventeens probably died in the crossfire somewhere.”

  “Good, fuck ‘em. This whole situation wouldn’t have spiraled out of trol without their guidance, I hope they died screaming,” I muttered.

  “The antithesis don’t have vocal cords or lungs, ander,” Spooky tributed.

  I g him out of the er of my eye. “Are you going to be this serious from now on?” I asked.

  “and is a serious profession, ander!” he replied.

  “Wonderful,” I grumbled. “Well, I don’t need you this instant. How about you go monitor the front lines?”

  “I do that from here, ander,” he said. “But I visually ihe troops and provide you with updates, if you would prefer.”

  “I do!” I said, “Go! I!”

  Spooky saluted before jogging off towards the battle. “That’s going to take some getting used to,” I grumbled.

  “It’s cute! It’s pretty much exactly what he did before, he’s just more vocal about it now,” Sharron said with a giggle. “And, to be ho, he did an excellent job of managing your bears while you were unscious. I’d even say they were even more ahan before.”

  “That shouldn't be a total surprise, though. I just threw my bears inth lines and poihem at the enemy. He has some sort of and AI,” I said defensively. “I’d actually be disappointed if he couldn’t use basic tactics.” As Spooky ied the line, I noticed minute ges in the bears; their fire became slightly more accurate, and the damage they caused increased. “Remio repay Hoppy ter,” I said. “If I ever mao make those points back.”

  “You may be closer than you think,” Nyx’s voice said, eg out from behind me. I jumped, spinning on the spot, only to find Dusty standing there.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I hissed at Nyx. Normally it would have taken me a few seds for my heart rate to e down after a scare like that, but apparently the new heart was a lot more effit. I barely even noticed the jump. “What do you mean, ‘It may be closer than you think’?”

  “Defeating a Forty-Four is no mea; it’s worth one-hundred and twenty thousand points. Split nine ways, and fact in the bonus, that’s fourteen thousand points,” Nyx reported. “You’ve also earned an additional sevehousand and ge during the up.”

  “Fuck me…” I mumbled. “Was it really worth that much?”

  “Indeed. I also decided to reward you with a bonus token for its death. The other AI rewarded their charges with two or three, but since you performed support and did not face it directly, I could not rank your participation as highly as the others,” Nyx tinued. “That gives you six total.”

  “I don’t fug care,” I replied. “I don’t have a fug clue what to spend them on anyway.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Sharron said, cutting in. “Get more Bobs. I think we would have lost a lot more people if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Bob’s a special boy,” I replied. “And although I may i in a couple more assault models, none of them will be close to as good as he is.” I gnced back at the battle at the mention of my oversized, walking aass destru, and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t rampaging through the antithesis lines. “Where is Bob anyway?” I asked.

  “There was an i,” Sharron admitted. “He’s mostly fine, I think, he’s just… in pieces.”

  I raised my eyebrow at that. “Who? Bob?” I was fbbergasted at the very idea. “Hoieces?” I immediately pinged Bob’s location, which was somewhere over behind the Kodiaks. When I made my way over, I found him sitting behind the sed vehicle, left leg and right arm missing, and his facade caught in aernal loop of being repaired by nahen dissolved by the bacteria.

  “Hey Boss!” the big bear greeted me cheerfully.

  “Fuck me, you look bad,” I said quietly.

  “You should see the uy!” he said. “It’s not a big deal, I just need a new arm and leg and I’ll be right as rain again.”

  “Did you just make a joke about this?” I asked in horror. “I didn’t think anything could break you.”

  “Well, I’d never been bitten by a Forty-Four before,” he replied. “Turns out, one of those is capable of chewing through my armor, and with five heads, they’re extremely bitey! One of the ugly heads mao reach me while I was holding the thing down. I’m lucky they just got my limbs and not my core.”

  “Fuck… I don’t have a clue how to start fixing yht now,” I admitted, croug down to survey the damage. “It’s probably going to be expensive.”

  “I wait! Not like I go anywhere!” he replied cheerfully.

  “Right. Just… rex, for now,” I said awkwardly as I stood up again.

  “Anything else I should know about?” I asked Sharron, who had followed me. “Perhaps another antithesis superon, or a sed hive plex?”

  “Actually, now that you mention it,” she started, “there is something.”

  I grabbed the front of my helmet. “Of course there is.”