“... and then they didn’t even attack my position, so now I’m going in after them,” I finished. I might have been ranting a little bit, but I’m pretty sure I mao inform Whisperer about the cavern and location of possible surfaination during it all. Probably.

  “Teddy, I appreciate your heads-up about the surface breach, but my focus is on animals, not pnt life,” Whisperer replied. I could hear her annoyance ooze through the e. “I don’t know what promised pnts would look like, so I’ll just pass that information to the Family. Sed of all, you’re not the only samurai assigo Hinton. There’s supposed to be a pair of fairly new samurai ing up from Edmonton, and we’re supposed to show them the ropes.”

  “You and I?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m going to be based in Hinton for the foreseeable future. I already finished my preliminary survey, and I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, so I’m moving to back you up. This was all included in the information package that you were sent.You did read it, right?”

  “Nyx did,” I replied.

  “Just… don’t do anything until I arrive there,” Whisperer said sternly. “There’s no reason to rush in.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. “I guess I wait a little while. I’ve already ordered reinforts from Calgary ahem to arrive before I set off anyways.”

  “Thank you. And if the newbies arrive before me, please don’t try to vihem to join you. Just keep them safe until I arrive.”

  “No suicidal expeditions, got it,” I replied ftly, “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “Later,” she said as she hung up.

  I looked over to the cave entrance, where I had my bears setting up to sortie, ahem ba patrol. I did promise I’d wait, so there was no point in having them sit around. Just as they started reinf the ser grids, I heard a otion from beyond the gate. I pulled up the feed from one of the bears back at my truck. There was a rickety old van making its the road, rog bad forth as it struggled over the uneven surface.

  I took direct trol of one of the heavy bots, stepped directly into the road, and called out. “This is a samurai trolled area, no access to unauthorized people.”

  The van almost immediately slowed to a stop, and a girl, even youhan me and dressed all in bck, jumped out of the passenger’s seat. She was dressed all in bck. Bck shirt, bck jeans, bck makeup… she must have been roasting. “I told you we were going in the right dire! If you’d asked your AI, they would have backed me up, but you just had tue!” she yelled at the driver.

  “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I just thought there might be a safer here,” the driver replied as he climbed out. The man had to be close to seveall and mostly muscle. Despite that, he seemed to flinch every time the girl yelled at him.

  “Ummm… I wasn’t joking, no access! I’ll send one of my bears to escort you back to town if I have to!” I yelled, raising my voice so I’d be heard over their bickering.

  “We’re supposed to be here!” the girl yelled back. She opehe back door of the van, and a dozen meical spiders, each the size of a small cat, shambled out. The man pulled a rifle out of the back seat and raised it so I could see it.

  “Ffffffff… e on in, park over by my truck,” I said before diseg from the bot. “When I was told reinforts were ing, I didn’t expect them to roll up in a junk heap,” I mumbled.

  Both Tina Reed and Jesse Paro were selected during the st Edmonton incursion, which was about six months ago. Although they survived, her one was he epiter of the attack, so her of them mao get much experience.

  “And they volunteered for this?” I asked as the pair struggled through the gate, dragging various bags behind them.

  That attack was six months ago, and they were deemed too inexperieo help with the Seattle situation, so they’ve been looking for a ce to earn some more points.

  “Right…” I noticed the girl waviedly, so I waved bad waited for them to get closer.

  “You’re Teddy right?” Tina asked. “I’m Tina, and I'm a huge fan of yours!”

  “You are?” I asked, surprised. “Why?”

  “I’ve seen the recs of you fighting ile. They’re all over the samurai fan sites!” she gushed.

  “The what now?” I asked dumbly.

  “Ignore her. She’s a samurai fangirl,” Jesse said as he walked up. He dropped the massive pile of luggage on the ground, before stig out his hand. “Jesse Paro.”

  “Evelyn Cire, aka Teddy. You wao call you by your civilian names, or your samurai ones?” I asked.

  “We don’t have samurai names,” Tina pouted. “Haven’t earned enough points to establish a style is what Aegis told me.” She crouched down and ran her hand along the top of one of her bots. “Didn’t listen when I told him I was going to be using spiders.”

  I stared down at the girl for a few seds, trying to figure out what to say. “At least you have a goal,” I finally mao say. “How about you, Jesse? Do you have a pn or anything?”

  “Not really,” the big man said sheepishly. “I mao make do with a rifle during the incursion, but I’ve been fairly indecisive ever since. I don’t want to waste my points.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied with a shrug. “I’d take you into the mio earn points, but I’ve been forbidden from doing that, so you’ll both have to just hang out for now. You could probably set up your… stuff just outside the gates. The bears will watch it for you,” I said looking down at the huge pile of things Jesse was lugging around. “What the hell did y anyways?”

  “Just the essentials, like food, tents, and stuff,” Tina replied, standing up straight. “We didn’t want to e unprepared!”

  “You know you buy a det meal for a point, right?” I asked the pair, as they gathered their things.

  “Maybe, but I don’t want to waste the points,” Jesse replied. “Every point ts when you rely upon the daily stipend.”

  “Alright… just don’t expect me to help you carry that shit if you pn t it into the mine,” I said, reag out and helping Tina right herself as she teetered uhe weight of her pack. “Food is important, but so is being able to move in a fight.”

  “We’ll make do,” Jesse said as he headed back towards the gate. Tina handed her pack to her spiders, before following him out, waving pretty much the entire way.

  “We’ll make pns once Whisperer gets here!” I yelled at the retreating duo. “Just watch for the flying pickup.” I could see a fsh of fusion, but decided not to eborate. They’d see soon enough.

  Ohey stepped out of sight, I turned back towards the mineshaft, and checked oatus of the squirrels. They’d made progress, finally mapping the width of the work, and now they were moving deeper. Thankfully, there were only two or three locations that approached the surface, even if they didn’t fully breach. I made sure to mark their location in case the Antithesis surged so I could set up defenses.

  Other than that, progress was slow. The tunnel work, beside being expansive, was filled with twisting corridors that spiderwebbed deeper into the mountain. The squirrels were doing their best to map it, but they could only do so much. They had stumbled upon another half-dozen chambers, much like the root-filled one I’d found earlier, but these were all empty. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if they’d been ed out or if they were just meant to be juns of the various tunnels. The most annoying thing was that I hadn’t seen a single sign of the Antithesis ever sihey ambushed my squirrel. It was like they just vanished into the tunnels.

  I severed the e, frustrated with the ck ress. My reinforts were still an hour or so away, so there wasn’t mue to do at the moment. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long until I saw a familiar red truck fly by, heading for the main gate. Now that Whisperer was joining us, maybe I could ehe mine and make some actual progress.