There’s something all tourists and bright-eyed newcomers to Oxford Core are demoralized by, and this goes for the rest of the rest of the Independent British Territories too:

  All of the historical buildings and architectural masterpieces are either buried under the millions of tons of concrete and steel that hold up the actual city, they’ve long ago been taken over by the undercity dwellers that make their homes in the shells of history, or protected and managed by the odd corporation that gives a shit about maintaining them as museums, usually for exorbitant entry prices.

  Oxford Core stretches almost to the London Megacity these days. Who knows how much history we lost getting here?

  -XY post by user @ox_history_buff29, 2055

  All of Seamus’ confidence left him after Manny was taken care of, so Ellie only got the basics about this Nightingale person.

  Ellie was actually kind of sad. This woman Seamus spoke of certainly didn’t exist back home. She of all people would’ve known about someone like that.

  Anna recovered and she gently led her back to one of the benches along the walls. With her dad out of the danger zone, she seemed ready to nap in the dingy shelter. Yuki pulled Ellie a few steps away.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” the older woman said with a grave expression. She was grateful, but her face betrayed another twist of emotion Ellie couldn’t place. “Ellie, I really can’t. You went through too much for it,” she mutters.

  Ellie is put very off-balance by the teary shine in Yuki’s eyes.

  “You really don’t– I mean you shouldn’t anyway. It happened, it’s–” Ellie flailed, not actually meaning to say her double amputation was nothing, but. It was the Vilanovas. What else would she have done?

  “Maybe when… well if you have sprogs of your own one day you’ll understand how gutted I am, Ellie,” Yuki says with a tiny smirk.

  Ellie feels her heart grow warm at Yuki’s motherly implication and then a little nauseous at the idea of kids.

  “I… I guess so.”

  I’m sorry to interrupt, Ilya says, but the hive situation should be addressed sooner rather than later. The shelter is also at risk of being breached the longer the incursion goes on.

  “Shit, you’re right.”

  “I am?” Yuki blinks.

  “No, sorry, it’s– the AI in my brain,” Ellie sheepishly explains.

  “Ah, right, that.” The older woman's expression twists in a funny way.

  “There’s no uh, easy way to say this,” Ellie says. She looks around at the people sitting or standing around in the shelter that are discreetly staring at her out of the corner of their eyes, who hurry to look away. She leans in to whisper in Yuki’s ear. “Don’t panic, ok? There’s a… there’s a hive in the basement,” Ellie says as inaudibly as she can.

  Yuki suffers a full-body twitch but doesn’t make a peep. She pins Ellie with an intense, troubled look.

  “Fucking hell,” she sighs. “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re asking me?” Ellie asks, jaw slack. “Also, we?”

  “Well, I’m coming with you to deal with it, obviously, but you’re the Samurai with the alien guns, and–”

  “Absolutely not,” Ellie denies.

  “Absolutely not what?” Yuki asks casually, too casually.

  “You’re not leaving the shelter.”

  “Guess again, missy–"

  “I didn’t do all that so you’d go out there and get eaten!” Ellie hisses under her breath like an angry cat. Yuki’s face scrunches up with frustrated outrage.

  “And you’re just a kid. You need backup, Ellie, and I’m pretty sure I have the only other gun in this building.”

  Ellie opens her mouth to convince the woman she could help her by staying safe here when Ilya interrupts.

  Please decide on a plan of action soon. Taking another civilian with you is something I wouldn’t advise. Plus, you have options to give protection to the shelter even if you leave.

  Ellie pauses to consider, and Yuki almost smiles, thinking she’s convinced her. That wouldn’t do.

  “I could just seal you in with alien super glue or something,” Ellie blusters, making Yuki’s eyes widen in alarm. “Or–, listen to me, leave you some guns so you stay put.”

  The young woman can see she’s almost got Yuki. She’s considering it, but Yuki’s motherly instinct is working against Ellie here. Baring her heart is the only way to make Yuki see sense, despite how much it pains her.

  “I can’t lose you. You’re– You are all I have in this world, Miss Yuki,” she says shakily, looking at her feet as she regresses into that formal way of speaking she landed in this city with. “Everything has been so confusing since you found me and I can’t have you, or Anna or Mister Manny get hurt when I can avoid it completely. Please.” Ellie angrily sniffs the tears and snot away before they make an appearance.

  She’s enveloped in a fierce hug. Yuki’s irritation leaves her as she exhales in exasperation.

  “Alright. Fuck, this is a terrible idea, but alright.” Yuki steps back and cradles Ellie’s face gently in her hands. “You know I can’t lose you too, Ellie. Got it?”

  Ellie nods gratefully and smiles widely for the first time today.

  “How do you want to do this?” Yuki asks.

  What follows is a short logistical conversation with the two guards. Ellie’s anger flares at the corp’s expense once more. She’s sure the upper floors have fully equipped platoons of security, and the people at the bottom got the dregs. No offense.

  In her mind, Edgar’s mother scoffs at her bleeding heart for the masses and she ignores the phantom noise.

  The two women, older and younger, explain the situation quietly to Milton and Robert, as it turns out the level-headed guard is called. He looks fit to shit bricks once he learns of the hive. Milton’s frown turns thunderous. Robert recovers resolutely however, and also raises a good point once the safety of the shelter is brought into question.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “If that’s the case, lass, then no one can stay here. Best option is to evacuate to the edge of the incursion site and meet up with whoever is running the perimeter.”

  A few more words back and forth, and Ellie has a plan. Surprisingly, Milton provides the intel of a garage in the mess of hallways down in the basement that connects to the highway between the upper plate and the undercity. From there, cargo arrives from the ground and is brought up to the city proper, and products exit back and through the enormous gates to the downtown area.

  Considering the Antithesis have no reason to make the lengthy climb from the undercity through the vehicle-only road and probably shouldn’t have destroyed the gates leading to safety, Ellie has a good chance to clear the hive, commandeer a an auto-truck or three, and stuff them full of people.

  However, the massive doors that separate the factory basement from the upper plate and automatically seal themselves when an incursion is detected are a headache future Ellie will have to figure out.

  Ellie purchases a few Automaton pistols that even a kid could kill Antithesis with thanks to the stabilizing feature Ilya advertised. Milton finally expresses an emotion other than disapproval and actually kind of smiles at the high-tech weapon he’s presented with. The other guns are passed to Robert and Yuki, who hands her own pistol to a wide-eyed Seamus to guard Manny and the Cybersurgeon.

  It’s a decent idea. Yuki’s general wariness of people is something Ellie still hasn’t picked up, but whatever keeps the Vilanova patriarch safe is something she can support.

  The newbie Samurai also slips Yuki a snack for Manny for when he wakes up, because the man honestly deserves it. Ellie scowls at the name of the thing when the summary of her purchases appear in her vision.

  Anna and Yuki meet her at the door. They look nail-bitingly anxious and grim-faced respectively.

  “Hoof it back here as soon as things look like they’re going wrong,” Yuki orders.

  “There’s no signal in here, so… please try and give Leo a call whenever you can?” Anna asks, brows scrunched in frustration.

  Ellie blinks and then feels like slapping herself. She’s completely forgotten her augs, again, despite having her points constantly in view. Ellie has usen the call function very sparsely in these past few months since getting them. It always felt so unnatural, and now she’s paying for her inexpertise. She could’ve checked on Anna’s brother way earlier.

  “I’ll try. Got a bit occupied making my way here,” she mumbles.

  “It’s… it’s ok, Ellie,” Yuki sighs deeply. The cracks in the woman’s composure finally seem at their limit as she stares into space. “I don’t really expect– well.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine!” Anna smiles. “He’s got uh–” her sudden perkiness dies a quick death as she fumbles for her words. “He’s got some friends. And a… a safe place.”

  Ellie tilts her head as Anna now looks… shifty and guilty. Yuki notices too and eyes her daughter oddly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing?” Anna squeaks. “I think he’ll be fine?”

  Ellie decides caution is the better part of valor as she remembers Yuki’s words earlier today about Leo and gangs. That feels like days ago instead of a few hours. She takes a few steps back towards Milton and Robert and makes her retreat.

  “I’ll be back before you know it!”

  And then the two guards close the door behind her.

  With a breath of relief Ellie dives back into the hostile world of misshapen alien monsters. She’d kill hundreds of Antithesis for the VIlanovas, but being spectator to a familial interrogation is still out of the picture, no matter how much she loves them.

  Ellie absently fiddles with her optics and the internal agent that allows her to make calls as she makes her way back to the hive. Some more Threes meet her on the way to the stairs and she cuts through them distractedly. Ellie eventually huffs as the third call in a row fails to connect.

  ‘Ilya, do you have something to fix this calling issue?’

  Coincidentally, Ilya says, some purchases in the Cyberwarfare catalog would let you break your way into the local networks and the wider Mesh, circumventing the issue. But that would leave you unprepared for your upcoming delve.

  ‘Shoot, you’re right. Do you think I need something more powerful? How exactly does a hive work, anyway?’ Ellie says as she takes careful steps down the stairs, Rivet Caster pointing forward.

  They establish a central birthing room managed by weak, utility-focused models. The vines you saw carry biomass slurry, gathered by the rest of the horde, from the outer area to the center. As a surplus of mass is established, more production spaces are carved out or occupied and the cycle continues.

  Ellie feels green at the gills as she reaches the darkened hallways of the basement. She remembers to scan the signs she can read and tries to memorize the direction the ‘Loading Dock & Truck Bay’ is pointing her. Ellie takes the opposite hallway towards the hive.

  So, you will have to fight in close quarters. Your sword helps in the wider areas of the factory, but inside a smaller stealth hive like this one space is at a premium. Something with stopping power and spread like the AWS Termite Shotgun is easy to operate and powerful.

  You could do that, and get some backup.

  Ellie pauses, blocking a Model Four tentacle with the Hermit Crab arm and cutting it diagonally in half. “What do you mean?” Surely Ilya doesn’t mean going back to the shelter.

  Be honest for a moment, Ellie. Do you like your cybernetic replacement?

  Ellie is thrown off-balance by the non-sequitur, and stares at her new arm.

  It’s been in the background, but there’s been an ache that’s been building in the background since she started fighting earlier today.

  The arm is powerful, but her shoulder is being pulled awkwardly by that same strength and the weight makes her lean to the right just a bit. Nameless discomfort below the surface has made itself known across her chest, spine and hips. It’s like it’s almost perfect, but not, which is worse. Not to mention the much simpler prosthetic replacing her right foot.

  So…

  “I do like it,” Ellie says slowly. “It’s… strong. I’d almost wish it had been the whole thing,” she says honestly, surprised that the sentence feels true.

  So you would prefer to replace more of your body?

  “...Yes. I can fight them with this arm. I’m imagining all kinds of things to make myself safer, more dangerous, and… and to protect people better. It’s fascinating how a thing like this talks with the human body. And… It does feel good. Really good.”

  The fact that Manny needed a new kidney to survive earlier today was a major factor too. A very big factor that called to a spark in Ellie’s soul like nothing else, a spark that was fascinated by the story of that woman, Nightingale.

  Knowing this is important. Either to make oneself a bigger threat against the enemy, to protect oneself, or for peace of mind, a Samurai has options. But for now, time and costs are an issue.

  In the long run, you’ll be a more powerful Samurai after cyberization. No offense, but as an amateur with only bladed combat training and simple knowledge of firearms, you’re at risk. So, backup. I recommend acquiring mechanized assistants that could aid you in many ways, just not fighting. They are even included in the Automaton Collective catalog.

  Ellie mulls that over. Someone– well, something –watching her back does sound appealing. She thinks as she walks to the hive entrance. For one, they wouldn’t be an actual person who could get hurt if they were fighting alongside her. And an assistant that could ‘aid her in many ways’? Ellie’s mind wanders to the trucks they’ll have to use and how many people she could reasonably keep safe by herself.

  Someone will also have to destroy all the plant-matter left behind by the Antithesis. A single errant cell could kickstart an entire hive, you know, Ilya says.

  Ellie groans at the teasing lilt in the AI’s voice, and she knows Ilya is right. She’s definitely not making her way through this factory a third time if she can help it.

  “Alright, I agree. A bot with a gun and– I don’t know, whatever it needs to clean up. How much will that run me?”

  It was time to get a few more metal hands on this mess.