Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seventy-Eight - You Are Being Hunted

"Stay safe out there, okay?"

Cavalier's wife, 2057

***

Cavalier's last known location was just ahead. There was a sort of... I think it might have been a resort? There was definitely a restaurant to one side, with a large patio that was partially covered, as well as a dining room within. To the side of that was a parking lot and then a fancy store that looked like it exclusively sold skiing gear. Both were connected at the rear to a long, low building with a covered walkway on the exterior.

From the look of the cars left in the lot, this was the kind of place that was a little expensive for my blood.

The entire area felt crooked. Probably because it was on the side of a pretty steep hill, and the ground was pretty sharply angled.

The group of soldiers I was tailing slowed down, one of them in the group ahead raised a fist and they came to a halt. I did the same, taking the moment to scan the area.

It didn't take long to see what caught their attention.

There was a mechanical horse in the parking lot. Left on its side, bits and pieces of its mechanical innards flung around and its armour-plated side ripped apart.

It wasn't the only sign of a fight. Several cars here were dented and crushed. Windows shattered, tires punctured. It looked like something big had crashed onto them, but whatever that was, it was gone now.

"Samurai Stray Cat," One said. His voice coming out of nowhere made me jump a little in my seat.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Our tech operator noticed some light scrambling over our secured comms. Can you confirm?"

I frowned. Scrambling? As in someone trying to fuck with our communications system? I had a thing for that. Buried somewhere in my augs was an app thing that would let me check for signal strength and whatnot. "Gimme a moment," I said.

He's not incorrect. There is a faint amount of interference. Look.

Myalis popped open a screen, and on it was what looked like the wave...thing of the conversation I'd just had with One. She highlighted some bits, little parts that looked slightly off.

"I don't have the degrees to figure that out," I admitted.

It's very light. Faint, even. From experience, I believe that you're in an area with a physical signal jammer in the air, but the quantity has decreased enough to make it negligible. I'm impressed that anyone even noticed.

I nodded. That could have been something one of the samurai here used, maybe? I could see a few reasons to want to jam signals. "Looks like your tech guy was right," I said to One. "There's some sort of signal jammer thing. Myalis, my AI, says it's a physical jammer."

"Understood. Switch to AP."

The soldiers took turns, two by two, to pull out their magazines and replace them with another. AP? That had to be armour penetrating, but why?

We continued our approach, but this time at a slow walk. The soldiers spread out a little until there was nearly a metre between each of them and they formed up into a sort of grid. I stayed in the centre. Moving so slowly was actually kind of awkward in my mech, but it was doable, still.

"Approaching, one contact, friendly," One said.

There was a whistle and I looked upwards in time to see a black speck in the distance grow much closer. As it did, it also grew louder until the form resolved itself into a man. A man covered in an entire fuckload of armour.

He had two large turbines stuck to his back on a pair of metal wings. They shifted and twisted, blasting air out in different directions to stabilise his flight. It threw up dust and leaves until he kicked the flight system off some five metres above ground and came crashing down.

His knees barely bent.

"Invincible! Here to bring the pain!" he said.

Invincible was wearing as much armour as one of Tankette's tanks, but it was enveloping him in the form of a thick suit. His head was encased in a steel half-dome with slits on the front, and his arms and legs were almost as thick around as my mechs. The suit made him eight feet tall, so I imagined that the actual Invincible was probably buried deep in there.

"Yo," I said through my external speakers. "We, uh, were trying to be discreet."

I don't know how, exactly, but with just a few subtle shifts, Invincible managed to look a little embarrassed. "Oh," he said.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Samurai Invincible," One said. I

still

didn't know which soldier he was in the bunch and at this point it would have been humiliating to ask. "Adding you to our comms channel. We recently lost a unit in this location while they were investigating the loss of Samurai Cavalier."

Invincible half-turned, then he spotted the wrecked mecha-horse thing. "I see," he said before stomping closer.

I moved up, just a little more. Not so much that I broke formation, though. I hadn't noticed because of the angle we came in at, but that horse had a rider. Most of the rider was still there.

I wasn't easily disgusted, but I still felt a little queasy at what I saw there. The lower half of some guy in plate armour was stuck in the saddle. The body left off about halfway up the waist. "Fuck," I whispered. That had to be Cavalier. Or their lower half, at least. No sign of the rest of them.

Two of the soldiers moved up, one of them sweeping the area while the other knelt down next to the body. They inspected it, calmly and professionally, then raised their head up and said something that I couldn't hear.

"Understood," One replied. "No signs of modern weaponry use. They died from a bite."

"

A

bite?" I asked.

What hell could bite a person clean in half like that? Through plate armour and all? "I'm calling the choppers in closer. We might need close air support."

"I'm picking something up," Invincible said. He stomped towards the building, heedless of the rest of us behind him. "I've got some pretty good scanning tech. There's something warm in there."

"Form up!" One snapped.

The soldiers ran ahead, some of them moving to place themselves behind cars, others taking a knee at the rear. I moved up as well, skirting around Cavalier's body as I followed Invincible forwards.

I was just about to ask if Invincible was certain when the man froze up for a moment. Then his arms opened up, revealing small barrels that aimed out below his forearm. "Bug!" he shouted.

I looked ahead just in time to see a set of four large eyes opening

within

that big ski shop. Then the front of the store exploded outwards. There was a split second, just a fraction of a fraction, shorter than a blink, where I had time to process what I was seeing.

I'd once fought a Model Twenty-Three, back in Burlington. That thing had been a T-rex on steroids. Big fucking head, lots of muscle, fuckloads of mass to throw around, and it had been

mean.

Mean but kinda stupid.

What I was looking at now was a little larger, but also a lot more sinuous. The little monkey part of my brain that got spooked with it saw anything snake-like was shitting itself. And then I made out the fact that this thing had eight legs behind it, long spidery ones that blended in almost too well with the background.

I didn't like it.

I liked it even less as it rushed out of the storefront.

The soldiers opened up on it, as did Invincible.

The nightmare fuel monster's neck snapped out like a striking cobra and it clamped its teeth around the man and

squeezed.

I heard the whine of metal bending even as Invincible screamed, barely audible over the constant roar of gunfire.

I shook myself into action, leapt forwards, and swiped at the thing's neck. Somehow, the soldiers shifted all of their aim in time to miss me while still punching rounds into the thing. My claws struck nothing but air as the massive spider-monster scuttled back into the shop and tore through the back wall.

The gun fire stopped.

"Reload," One ordered. "Charlie Four is down."

I glanced to the side. One of the soldiers looked like his chest had been punched through by something big. He was just slumped there. When had that even happened?

"What the fuck was that?" I asked to anyone who'd be willing to answer as I scanned around me. There was no sign of the fucker, just one dead and Invincible crunched up a little.

That was a model Thirty-Three. It is a hunter. You are being hunted.

***