Something about this place smells fishy, Bucky.”

  “That’d be because we are currently in a shipyard, Chief. Please stop glaring at everyone, we’re going to get a complaint.”

  “Shut it, I’m thinking.”

  - The hit mystery series Smoke Lines, Season 4 Episode 8 “High Tide” (currently unavailable on streaming platforms).

  “Cal, can you tell me what’s wrong with this?”

  We had moved back to the hive room and started dispatching the remaining Antithesis and pods. The hive seemed only able to spit out Model Threes and Fours at this point, so it was easy pickings for the both of us between those and the sparse Model Tens that hadn’t been taken care of yet.

  Rudy had indeed used all three hundred of the points provided to him. He had slipped into some sort of knee-length heavy coat, charcoal black in color. Cal identified it as something called a ‘frock coat’, which made me roll my eyes at both how odd of a name that was and how simply pretentious that sounded. Taking from my own Protective Clothing Catalog meant that he didn’t have to spend the fifty for unlocking his own, which let him be a bit more liberal on his weapon choice.

  What he had decided to go with was a pair of disc launchers, adorned directly to each wrist. They operated on principles similar to rail guns, and the discs themselves shattered upon impact with its target like a demented buckshot, or at least that’s what I had been told. Apparently this was more of a stopgap weapon until Rudy could actually buy what he wanted, but the weapon worked well enough in the meantime with how violently it was putting down every Antithesis that dared to get close.

  My AI replied right to my question as I was killing another pair of Model Threes.

  While I can detect at least eighteen thousand differences compared to other hives based on their shape, structure, and assimilated flora, I assume that your question revolves around the volume of Antithesis spawned from the hive directly.

  “Yeah, that’s my sticking point here. Aside from the Thirteens, what the hive has actually produced hasn’t really been that hard to deal with. Maybe Targ has just thrown off my frame of reference, but I was more expecting to be knee deep in Antithesis after a few minutes in the tunnel instead of the steady ebb and flow that we’ve had so far. Flesh Melters, please.”

  Purchased: Class I Flesh Melter x2 - 6 Points

  Point Total: 1734

  A grenade fell into each hand. Flicking both pins out with my thumbs, I placed the first near the newly deceased corpses of the Threes, then threw the other back behind me towards where I had killed some other Antithesis previously. I’d need to check on Rudy’s supply here in a moment; he was probably getting low.

  I concur. There is inevitably a level of variance between the reproduction rates of individual hives, dependent on various contextual circumstances. This hive falls significantly below most common hives on Earth, even if given a generous margin of error.

  “Do you have any theories?”

  Several relevant ones, yes, especially after collaborating with Rudy’s AI. However, I’d like you to continue talking about what feels ‘wrong’ with this hive.

  That was my main grievance, but after a second of digging through my immediate memory another gnat that had been boring into my skull came to light. “The ramp-up. Something about how the Antithesis had been sending increasingly larger forces, instead of just brute forcing their way through the tunnel before anything could resist struck me as odd. Like they were testing the defenses or something.”

  An astute observation, Max. And based on other recorded behavior of Antithesis employing these tactics, I would say that is also a correct one.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  With that affirmed to be true, I finally ended up saying the unfortunate possibility that I had considered but hoped wasn’t true. “...This isn’t the only hive is it?”

  Most likely, yes. While far from a common tactic and only explicitly recorded on Earth a few times, this specific formation would fall into what is colloquially called a “dummy” hive, where a hive in a set of at least two is made intentionally weaker to disarm any would be attackers, making them easier to dispatch via ambush while allowing the remaining hives to increase their forces. The placement of the Model Nines were indicative of this strategy, actually, serving as an important relay for any would-be entrants to the dummy hive.

  Something about that made my brows furrow. “That sounds much more complex than their usual strategy of ‘trample over everything with a living cell in their bodies’.”

  In the vast majority of cases this is not their preferred strategy, instead one made as an adaptation in specific scenarios, usually directed by Model Seventeens. The Antithesis may seem like mindless brutes in most incursions, but the trait that makes them so dangerous aside from their unrelenting persistence is their ability to adapt and adjust. This is one such adjustment.

  Seventeens. I rolled the number on my tongue. That name did at least ring a bell; the image of a big worm with strings came to mind, like a Model Seven but larger…and with more eyes I think. Had I ever encountered one before, or did it come up in conversation at some point? I couldn’t remember.

  “So how did a new hive completely sneak under everyone’s noses?” I asked, putting my hand to my chin. “Unless…it isn’t a new hive, but the second wind of the old one?”

  Even just one stray Antithesis can rebuild a hive.

  Easy words to blow off in most cases, less so when you are standing in the exact proof of such a statement. A part of me wanted to admonish that Samurai who had been charged with taking care of this hive previously–BBOB, was it?--but it’d be unfair to place the blame on him when these damn plants were notoriously impossible to eradicate completely. Me and Kevin spent two odd weeks playing clean up in Targ post-incursion, and there was no doubt in my mind he was still spending most of his time out in the field picking off the stragglers.

  “Max! One-o-clock!”

  Rudy’s holler tore me from my thoughts, just in time for me to see the wriggling mass of tentacles called the Model Four slowly creeping up to me. I slapped away the tentacles and gave the thing a karate chop right down the middle, turning it into the worst plate of calamari you had ever seen.

  Defeated: Model Four x1 - 15 Points

  Point Total: 1749

  “Sorry, got distracted for a second.” I turned back to Rudy, who had just tossed a new Flesh Melter towards a group of now-dead Antithesis. “You good?”

  “Just finishing up. Do need to reload real quick.” He popped out the ammo clip from each wrist launcher and just as quickly slid in the new one that appeared in his hand.

  Just as the empty clips fell to the ground, I was able to make out the small decal printed in gold on top of each one. They looked like a lowercase ‘d’ with flags on the top of them, but I was able to pull the name of the actual symbol from the deep recesses of my mind using those few years of school I was able to partake in. “Are those music notes?”

  “Eighth notes specifically,” he replied. “Lycia thought it was cute. She even made the ammo into that shape.” That somehow made two for three in the category of ‘AIs who also are prone to leaning into an aesthetic theme’. Apparently Kevin’s AI was less enthusiastic about that, but Kevin himself pushed for the whole bird motif with his kit, which just makes too much sense with how he is.

  Still, the smile that was threatening to push up the edges of Rudy’s mouth when he was talking about the notes didn’t go unnoticed.

  “So from what I’ve heard, there’s another hive?” he asked.

  I gave a nod. “Most likely, yeah. I assume your AI has been keeping you in the loop then?”

  “Partially that, but also you blurting it all out aloud while killing everything kind of clued me in.”

  Whoops. Glad I was wearing the mask at the moment; I felt my face become a bit flush at that. “A-ah, yeah that would do it.”

  Before I could continue, Rudy pulled out something I didn’t expect: his tablet. “Actually, there’s something that’s been bugging me about this room’s layout, but I can’t put my finger on it. Give me a minute.”

  For the next few minutes Rudy paced across the hive, glancing between the tablet in his hand and the tunnels embedded in the walls before moving onto the next. Soon he stopped in front of one particular tunnel, almost perfectly opposing the one we entered from aside from starting a few feet higher, and after several long glares at the tablet he pointed directly towards it. “That shouldn’t be there. None of the map data I have shows a tunnel like this.

  “That must have been their way back in, digging a new tunnel to the old hive rather than losing biomass to one of the turrets BBOB set up. I’d bet credits that following it will lead us to the real hive.”

  I gave a nod, then rolled my shoulder in anticipation. “If those Nines were doing their jobs, they must have let the other hive know by now that this hive had been breached. Gear up, ‘cause no shot the xenos are gonna hold back a second time.”