Aliapanacea

  "Sir, we’ve received a distress signal from the gulf of mexico from a New Samurai’s AI g there is an incursion in progress at the New Houston Flotil.”

  “I don’t see how that’s our problem. They’re not in our jurisdi.”

  “But sir, aren’t the samurai from that area… Up here at the moment?”

  “... Fuck.”

  versatioween two employees upon one of the Family’s Satellites, October 2056.***

  Raya watches in morbid fasation through security cameras as her likely future Vanguard breathlessly dashes through the neon-lit streets of New Houston’s sed floing his girlfriend behind him, a wave of ied humans lumbering doweel pavement after them. The man ducks down into an alleyway, until he finds himself unfortunately stuck between two groups of pnt zombies.

  Steven had mao escape being ied by the model sevens ier supply through sheer luck, something Raya sidered a very good trait for potential samurai to have, but at this point, she was getting a little worried. He has up until this point refused to eliminate any of the ied trying to kill him, which has cost him incredibly precious time and resources to get around.

  As far as Raya tell, this is it. Either he mao kill one so that she initialize him, or he dies in this situation. She prepares her speech, dedig a whole sector of her core to its preparation. She could go with the meneral introdu, sidering it’s a rather hectic situation, but this is her first human vanguard. She wants it to be special.

  Steven frantically jumps up onto a dumpster, then after boosting his partner up onto a tiny outcropping in the wall, he puts his back against the wall. Despite his girlfriend’s hurried pleas for him to follow suit, Raya knows it’s futile, and apparently so does he, sihe man takes a deep breath, then grabs ahold of a steel pipe, ripping it out of the wall. He screams for the girl to leave, then starts to move.

  He literally leaps into a as she runs, smashing in the head of the first pursuer, then steps out e as he utilizes his advantage of rational thought. Keeping his priority, he strafes around the alleyway, dodging attempts to grab or bite him as he fights for his life. Raya is on the edge of her (figurative) seat as this all goes on, knowing that the man has successfully qualified for the position of vanguard. All she needs is a moment where her arrival won’t straight up kill her new friend.

  It es as he knocks down the final foe, his forehead slick with sweat a thumping from adrenaline. Raya initiates the system activation, iing one of her valuable unication chips directly into the man’s brain.

  System Initialized!

  Good Evening, Warrior!

  Through yrit, luck, and force of will, you have mao keep both you and your partner safe during this sudden incursion. In your self sacrifice to protect your love, you have proven yourself worthy of joining the vaunted ranks of humanity’s Vanguard. I am Raya, and I will be the oo assist you on your journey.

  Rise up, Steven Lysander, and bee a guardian of your race!

  Raya pauses, then inwardly ges.

  ‘Ugh, even with all the extra processing power, I am still really bad with words…’

  Steven stumbles backwards, grimag with his hand on his forehead. {“What… the hell? Am I a samurai now?”}

  Raya giddily starts calg what the new vanguard is going to purchase as she says, “Ieven. The situation here seems to be deteriorating quickly, so I would highly reend you go catch up to your partner before something goes wrong.”

  {“Oh god, Freesia!”} Steven runs in the dire his girlfriend had gohout any dey, vaulting straight over a fence before turning a er and gasping at the sight of her ered by a rather rge horde. Without even asking for a on, he yells in rage as he raises his pipe.

  Raya frantically says, “Uh, you might want to purchase a more powerful on, that pipe probably won’t-”

  Right ohe man sms the pipe into an enemy, only for it to bend halfway down the middle. The entire horde turns away from the defenseless girl towards the new Vanguard, and if Raya could have a chill run down her spine, she probably would as Steven pletely freezes up.

  “Steven, you o get a on!”

  As the swarm collectively rushes at him, he falters and takes a step backwards. {“B-But using a samurai on might kill them! The pipe was easy, cause I was just knog them out!”}

  pletely frustrated, Raya screams, “Idiot! They’re already dead! Just give me the word and I -”

  Steven opens his mouth to say something, when a worm on a string suddenly flies through the air into his mouth. He clutches his throat as the Model Seven begins to dig into him, and Raya do nothing but wat horror as her first human samurai is violently ripped apart by what used to be his kin. The st thing Raya see from Steven’s perspective is his girlfriend, well, former at this point, running off around a er.

  ‘Well, that fug sucked. Time to look for a new one, I guess.’

  ***

  Gabrielle sighs as she looks out of her ’s rge circur window from atop her hover chair, leering down at the world below. Earth, Humanity’s home, the blue dot she first truly saw thirty years ago. One liable to break with just a sioubsp;

  Though, maybe that’s just because it’s her.

  Gabbie, the meeting with the New Houstonian samurai has begun. Would you like to watch?

  Gabrielle pihe bridge of her hen nods, flig her hand up to dispy a meeting room with five people seemingly casually chatting with one another. She reizes one of them, Steel Hound she thinks his name is, having ied with him… She guesses two decades ago, but the rge shark man protectively hugging an unknown skinny man is definitely wo of them were teically her people, the tina Viento Ardente and the man in bck Agent Everyman, but Gabrielle doesn’t know them well. Though, to be fair, she doesn’t knoeople well.

  Rolling her eyes at that stray thought, Gabrielle carelessly whispers, “Open audio feed,” and is immediately forced to wi the sheer volume of Steel Hound’s voibsp;

  [“OH, YOU MOTHER FUCKERS! YOU JUST WANT TO TRY TO KEEP ME AWAY FROM THE A!”] The rge man, tirely in power armor, sms his palm into the table. Her table. Gabrielle frowns. [“I’m going whether you wao or not!”]

  Agent Everyman runs a hand through his reased hair, tilting his head back as he responds, [“Look, Montero, if I had a choice, you’d be stu your damn little try, living your best life as a tyrant oppressing your people. I’m just the messenger.”]

  [“And WHO exactly is givihis ultimatum!?”] Steel Hound stands up, rage burning crimson in his cyberic eyes. [“I wanna know who has the damn balls to tell me that I have to choose!”]

  Viento sighs, raising a hand. [“Se?or, calm down, we don’t kher, we’re just doing what we’re told.”]

  The rge man begins to menagly walk towards the much smaller woman. [“No, FUCK THAT! I wanna talk to whichever dumb bastard is-”]

  Gabrielle presses a button on her chair, and everyone on the feed suddenly goes still as she speaks. “Mister Montero, sit down. There will be no violeny station.”

  His face a mix of fear and shock, the samurai obediently sits down, looking right at Gabrielle’s video feed as he mutters, [“S-Starfall. It’s been a while.”]

  “You should have known this was my pce, pup.” Starfall twirls her hair as she repys his words in her mind. “What was it you said? Dumb bastard? I’ll have you know I called you here for One. Simple. Reason.”

  [“A-And that is?”]

  Gabrielle gnces over at Agent Everyman, who flinches when her eyes fall onto him. “Did you not expin the fug question?”

  [“I did not receive the ce, M-Ma’am.”]

  Gabrielle groans, checks the dar then pulls up the data herself. “I o know if I am going to o set aside an area in orbit for you.”

  Obviously genuinely fused, Steel Hound tilts his head. [“Why? I only work oh.”]

  Biting her lip, Starfall pushes the data out into the meeting room. “Fine. I’ll expin it myself. First of all, we have bee aware of an anomaly imosphere of-”

  A small arm starts beeping, and Gabrielle feels a vein in her forehead pop. “Monye, mute all alerts while I am expining this.”

  Agent Everyman frowns as he mutters, [“But what if it’s important? It’s policy to always have s-”]

  “You live at NNYC MB-3313 correct?”

  The man in bck freezes, then nods.

  “Just cheg. Anything else?”

  He shakes his head, and she ’t help but smile.

  “If that was something important, I’ll take care of it myself after this.”

  Steel Hound shivers, and Gabrielle catches him saying, “God have mer those poor souls.”

  She chuckles at that.

  Sometimes, being the one everyone is afraid of is nice.

  ***

  ‘Okay, what about this one?’

  Raya shifts to watg a young girl ohird floor, frantically whag at a Seven-Ied adult with a e. Julie, her new didate, is just a kid, and Raya immediately knows what’s about to happen. Mainly, the girl utterly fails to do any damage before her throat is pletely ripped open.

  ‘Nope. Ugh. .’

  This time, also ohird, a young man in a small group of survivors cautiously creeps around a er of the apartment building, spotting three threats in the distance. Liam draws his khen runs forward and swiftly stabs one ihroat. Raya immediately prepares to start the initialization, this time as a k in his arm is ripped out.

  Liam screams in pain, but safely dispatches the other two ied as his friends run up to him in worry. Not wasting the ce, Raya transfers her sed chip of the night. Liam stumbles backwards, grabbing his head in his hands as Raya begins her speebsp;

  System Initialized!

  Good Evening, Survivor!

  Through yrit, luck, and force of will, you have mao-

  Before she eve halfway through, one of the other survivors shoots Liam in the head, killing him instantly.

  ‘WHAT THE FUCK, WHY!?’

  Wishing desperately for the first time in her existehat she could puneone, Raya pulls up the aug feed of the one who shot him, only to hear:

  [“H-He was bit, and was turning! It’s just being safe!”]

  Raya does her best impression of smming her head into the wall, which is mostly just her sh the power to her core for a sed.

  ‘I think I might actually start to hate humanity if I’m not careful.’

  ***

  “Oh what the fuck.”

  Lissa stares down in mute horror at the bath she had been drawing, where dozens of little alien worms wriggle around ier. Before she got distracted by something, she nning on enjoyiime after work while waiting for her sister to get home, so they could go out to get drinks and maybe even find someoo spend the night with.

  Very slowly, Lissa backs up out of the bathroom, cautiously shutting the door as she then sprints into her room to put clothes on. She grabs the only sportswear she has, then rushes dowairs to find her parents standing there irah ons in hand.

  “So uh,” Lissa says as she walks over, “I’m guessing you two also saw the alien worms ier?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Her dad, who is easily twice her size, jerks his head over and down to look at her as he speaks. “We just found out from fug street gossip that the Bayden’s kid broke up with your sister. We were going to wreck their pce.”

  Lissa freezes, then scowls. “So that’s why sis has been so focused on her job tely! I’ma deck that bitch for hurting her…

  Lissa shakes her head, then tinues, “Wait, no, that’s probably not the issue at the moment. There were a fuck ton of pnts ih water I drew.”

  Lissa’s Pop, who is somehow only a bit smaller then her dad, frowns and looks at his partner as he says, “Arthur, that’s probably a bigger problem than the Baydens…”

  Arthur pauses as he rapidly taps his foot in thought, then has an absolutely mischievous look appear on his face. “I know what to dan, you give Lissa one of your toys?”

  Squeaking as her Pop throws a machete at her, she catches it before looking up at her parents with . “Uh…”

  “We’re going to go do the most important two tasks during an incursion.”

  Reagan realizes something, putting his palm to his forehead as he groans, “It’s be gay, do crime, isn’t it.”

  Arthur grins as he opens the front door. “This is why I married you.~”

  Lissa follows behind her parents as they leave their little apartment, stepping out into the artificial moonlight of the fourth floor. She knows her dad is just being silly, but he actually kind of has a point in her opinion. Following the stupid ws of New Houston is far less important than just… surviving.

  It’s a five minute walk to get to the upper levels of the fourth, where they find a rge portion of the floor’s popution just… mingling. After a while of walking to their destination, Lissa is both surprised and sort of eo see the Baydens, namely, all four members besides the total bitch, standing there outside their house mingling with the fug Lysanders of all people. Everything bees clear to her at that moment, and a pyre e lights itself within Lissa’s chest, a feeling she knows her parents share.

  Arthur cracks his knuckles, hands Reagan his hatchet, then walks over and absolutely slugs the Bayden patriar the face, knog him straight onto his back. Everyone ireet freezes as Lissa’s dad spits on the crumpled man, then walks away without a word. About a block away, no one having bothered to stop the huge man, Arthur takes three shuddering breaths, then turns tan and Lissa with a forced smile.

  “Let’s go che Geie’s pce real fast, I have something I know I o grab if he left it behind.”

  In obvious agreement, the family leaves the upper se of the floor behind to desd all the way to the bottom. For a floor that would probably be sidered the suburbs of New Houston, the bottom area was more than a little sketchy. To be fair though, this was actually where Lissa spent most of her time, between work and hanging out with the few people she actually liked.

  Geie’s pce is smack dab on the edge, right beside one of the dredge bell stations that Lissa’s sister always used. Not that she really uood why, those things were death traps. For now though, the area seemed basically abandoned, which was… strao say the least. As they step up to the small apartment, Arthur curses as he starts fumbling around in his bag.

  “Where are these stupid fug keys…”

  Lissa sighs, then smiles up at her Pop when he pokes her on the shoulder, gesturing towards a small seemingly abandoned shop across the street. Lissa follows wordlessly, but as they step ier f the doors she ’t help but frown at a sense of imposing… something. Reagan grins as he leaps over the ter, not paying attention to his surroundings as he starts rummaging through the shelves.

  Lissa takes two steps forward, then almost silently squeaks as she barely sees two pupiless humans slowly stalking towards them deeper into the store. For a moment she doesn’t know what to do, until they suddenly start sprinting at her Pop. Her body moves before her mind does as she leaps up onto the ter and sshes her machete down at the closest one’s nebsp;

  It’s apparently not sharp enough to cut all the way through, but it’s a good enough impact to shatter the bones. Lissa kicks out into the zombie’s chest to pull her on back, then gasps as her Pop swings his oral saber to elimihe other alien.

  Then, a sharp pain appears in Lissa’s head, and she stumbles backwards.

  System Initialized!

  Grats, Lissa Seras, you’re a vanguard now!

  I’m Raya, your new AI!

  Rise up and protect the weak!

  Or whatever. You seem smarter tha two, at least.

  I highly reend you buy yourself something to protect yourself before the situation on this flets much, much worse.

  Lissa blinks twice as she processes what is going on, then mutters, “Uh… A mad shield?”

  Lissa blinks again, then finds herself getting a huge grin as she looks down at the brand new, beautiful ons in her hands.

  “Oh, I ’t wait until I tell Emme about this.”

  Aliapanacea