Gearing Up Read online

  Blowing a raspberry at him, she did as he asked, continuing to gently stroke his thigh. “You’re just trying to stop me from using my feminine wiles on you.”

  “Guilty,” Alvin snickered.

  Chapter Two

  The drive to the corpse was quiet, and they didn’t find any ravens waiting for them. As they approached the rotting body, the smell was beginning to become pungent. Wrinkling their noses, Alvin and Becky exchanged a glance as the trucks came rumbling to a stop beside them.

  “Well, it’s obviously dead,” Shawn coughed, his face twisted in disgust. “It seems to be missing all its teeth and a number of claws already, too.”

  “We pulled them off the other day,” Alvin replied. “What tools did you bring?”

  Han got out of the other truck, taking a chainsaw from the guy in the back. “We’ve got a few power tools. Figured they would have the best chance to deal with the hide.”

  “Make sure to get the blades between the scales,” Alvin said. “I’m fairly certain that, with the changes, just about any blade we have will break if it hits one of them.”

  “I figured,” Han drawled. “Ivan, Milo, let’s see what we can do.”

  “Lucas, Steve, grab the sledges and let’s see about those other claws,” Shawn called out to the two with him, who already had the hammers in hand. Grinning at Alvin, Shawn chuckled, “What are you two going to do?”

  “Stand guard,” Alvin said. “Seen too many attacks during simple things like moving cars to feel safe out here. Do any of you have the Contracted Power?”

  Heads shook all around before Shawn asked the obvious question. “What does that Power do?”

  Opening his car door, Alvin grinned. “Jarvis, fill Shawn in on the Leader and Contracted Powers.”

  “As you command, sir,” Jarvis replied, immediately launching into the explanation.

  Lucas and Steve shook their heads as they went to the closest foot that still had claws and started working. Han, Ivan, and Milo, each with a chainsaw, discovered in short order that the only place they could make any progress on the hide was the wound the ravens had been using. With that bottlenecking them, Han started first, his chainsaw whining as he got it to start cutting toward the front of the drake.

  Becky and Alvin stood to the side, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of danger. Alvin looked at Shawn as he shut the car door. “You going to grab that Power?”

  “Leader is a must,” Shawn said, rubbing at his chin. “Han and I will probably both pick that up, and we’ll have anyone who’s going to go outside the Settlement pick up Contracted. Just makes sense to have solid parties earning XP in the most efficient way.”

  “Makes sense,” Alvin said.

  A second chainsaw started up and the whine of them cutting echoed across the desert. “Seems like they have it and I’m not needed, either,” Shawn chuckled as he looked at the men busy dismantling the drake.

  “You might want to open the door back up, then,” Alvin smirked. “Jarvis can fill you in on what’s changed, since you’re not busy.”

  Shawn opened his mouth, then shut it and did as suggested. Sliding into the driver’s side with the door open, Shawn asked Jarvis to fill him in.

  Becky giggled softly, “You’re always going to be blunt, aren’t you?”

  “I am who I am,” Alvin shrugged. “I don’t think he minds it much, since he was used to Millhouse and everyone says he was an asshole, too.”

  “Fair enough, Hero.” Becky snickered, “I’m surprised there wasn’t anything out here eating the body.”

  Alvin winced. “Did you have to say it?”

  “Oh, come on,” Becky rolled her eyes, “what do you think is going to happen? There are no shapes in the sky, and we don’t see anything coming toward us.”

  Alvin frowned. “You want a fight, don’t you?”

  Becky blinked and put a hand to her chest. “Me?”

  Alvin had just opened his mouth when a scream from the far side of the drake prompted them both to take off running before they fully realized what they had heard. The chainsaws stopped, and gunshots sounded clearly. Four of the five men came running around the body before Alvin and Becky could go the other way.

  As they started around the tail, Han came stumbling toward them. His right hand was shredded and his 1911 was locked back with no rounds left in the gun. “Ants,” he hissed as he went past them.

  Becky stepped around the drake with her shotgun already up, and as soon as she cleared the obstruction, she fired. She racked the action and fired the next round, repeating until she had to fall back behind Alvin, flicking the safety on to reload. “It’s a fucking nest.”

  Stepping around her, he took his gun off safety. His eyes widened as he spotted at least six dozen ants the size of his chest swarming out of a five-foot hole in the ground just a foot away from the corpse. Bringing the rifle up as one of the ants snapped its mandibles in his direction, Alvin rapid tapped the trigger for a triple burst. The first two rounds hit the exoskeleton, cracking it, then the third shattered it around the head of the ant, which started to back away in a panic. The round dug into the soft flesh underneath the carapace, but failed to kill it. Alvin triple tapped the trigger again and the ant fell dead on the second hit.

  Shifting his aim to the next ant, which was bigger than the first one, Alvin took a deep breath as it rushed at him. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, while keeping the gun on target. It took four rounds to shatter the exoskeleton on its head and another five to kill it. It finally dropped just short of Alvin’s feet.

  The other ants seemed to be heading for the drake, crawling into the corpse unconcerned by the gunfire, but another of the big ones came out of the hole and turned to face Alvin. “Fucking soldier ants,” Alvin hissed, firing twelve rounds into the new one as it tried to dodge the shots. Stepping back, he pulled the magazine to reload, allowing Becky to go around him. “Soldiers are tougher,” he warned her as he slapped the magazine back into the rifle.

  Becky grunted as she went around him, her shotgun ready to fire again. She fired off her five rounds quickly, then backed up. “Dropped one, one coming, wounded.”

  Alvin stepped around her and fired two shots into the unarmored head of the ant that had charged after Becky. Looking past the recently deceased ant, he watched the workers pulling chunks of rotting meat out of the corpse and carting them back to their nest. He didn’t get long to take it in as three soldier ants came out, one after the other. “Fuck me,” Alvin snarled as he aimed at the closest of the trio and began to fire. One of them dropped and the second was wounded before Alvin had to backpedal to buy time. “Gothy, wait for it.” The second one died and Alvin fired the last few rounds, damaging the exoskeleton of the last before he ran dry. “Now!”

  The ant passed the edge of the drake and came into her field of fire. Three slugs pounded into it, killing it. Putting the gun back on safety, she looked at Alvin, who had just gotten the magazine reseated in his rifle. “Any more?”

  “Workers, but give it a moment,” Alvin said. “Maybe this is a new nest, and we won’t have that many to deal with. We can wipe them out and…” Alvin trailed off as he watched a worker that was chewing at the drake’s hide, to no apparent effect. “They have problems with it, too,” Alvin snorted. “Check on Han. I’ll keep an eye here.”

  “His hand is fucked,” Shawn said, voice grim, as he joined them. Ivan and Milo were close behind him. “He’s going to need whatever kind of healing this game has.”

  Becky pulled out one of the medkits and handed it to Milo. “Have him put that directly on the wound.”

  Milo took it and hurried off. As he left, Shawn let out a deep breath, “Thank you. I’ll pay you back once we’re home. Now, what do we do about these ants?”

  “Hang on,” Alvin said, shouldering his rifle as he went around the drake’s flank. Almost emptying the magazine, he was able to kill two more soldiers before he had to duck back around and reload. “We’re picking off the
soldiers first. Then we can see about the workers, and maybe that will prompt the queen to come up to us.”

  “Do we want that?” Shawn asked with a frown. “Because this kind of feels like a ‘spawn the mini-boss’ encounter right now.”

  Alvin’s mouth opened, then closed, before he began nodding. “You know what… you’re right. This does feel like that.” Looking at Becky, he raised an eyebrow. “Gothy, feel like killing a mini-boss?”

  Taking the safety off the shotgun, she gave him a manic smile. “Fuck yes!”

  “Looks like we’re good to go,” Alvin said, turning his attention back to Shawn. “You’re not in a group with me, so maybe you guys should hang out by the trucks while we do this.”

  Shawn’s frown deepened. “I’ll be right back.”

  Alvin watched him stalk off and shrugged. “I thought it made sense.”

  “Wanna bet he’s going to buy the Contracted or Leadership Power?” Becky asked.

  “No bet,” Alvin said as he agreed with her. “I hope he picks up Contracted. Jarvis, give him a pad and let him buy what he wants; same for the others here with us.”

  “You abuse the system,” Becky snickered as she looked around the drake. “Two more soldiers, you good to kill them?”

  “With you beside me? Fuck yes,” Alvin said, motioning with his chin. “You first.”

  Stepping out around the drake, Becky frowned. “Hero, I don’t see any more soldier ants.”

  Joining her, Alvin noticed that the bodies of ants they’d killed near the nest were gone. “Fuckers are taking our loot down as food.” Bringing the gun up, he took aim at the workers nearest the drake and began to fire. By the time the magazine ran dry, he had killed five of them. Becky joined in, claiming two more herself. As they reloaded, some of the other workers nudged the dead and began carrying them back toward the nest.

  “Okay, how do we do this?” Shawn asked from behind the couple.

  “Jarvis told you the words, right?” Alvin said, not taking his eyes from the nest.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know your name,” Shawn grumbled.

  “Alvin Leon Lambert,” Alvin said tightly, really disliking his full name and wondering if there was a way to change it in the store.

  “Fine, let’s get this done,” Shawn said. “I, Shawn Botham, offer this Binding Pledge to you, Alvin Leon Lambert. I pledge to be a unit in your party until we finish killing these fucking ants and finish scavenging the drake’s body. I require an equal share of all loot for my services, and the services of my friends.”

  “I accept,” Alvin said simply, feeling a small tug at his wrist. A black line of energy shot between the two men’s wrists.

  Shawn looked at the small, simple black band, with the initials ALL centered on the back of his wrist. “So that’s what he was talking about,” Shawn muttered before focusing on Alvin. “What’s the plan?”

  “Is your gun upgraded for infinite ammo?” Alvin asked.

  “Yes,” Shawn said as he pushed the safety off the M14, then patted the .44 on his hip. “Both of them.”

  “Not upgraded for Armor Buster though, right?” Becky asked.

  “The rifle is, but the handgun is Bloody. I figured it would be worth it, since we had to burn all the XP we had,” Shawn said. “The others would help out, but none of them have the XP to buy the Contracted Power at the moment.”

  “You used Settlement XP?” Alvin asked.

  “Yes, because if we do this, it will more than make up for it,” Shawn said.

  “Works. So, the plan is to kill them until they stop coming, and if nothing happens, we’ll check the nest,” Alvin told them. “Anything either of you want to add?”

  “I have some explosives in the truck if we need them,” Shawn added. “I’d rather not use them, but if need be, we can.”

  “If we have to go into the hole, let me lead,” Becky said seriously. “It costs less for my extra lives.”

  Alvin locked eyes with her. “You think I’ll use you as a bullet shield?”

  “No, but it makes sense from a practical standpoint,” Becky said, not backing down.

  “You have a point, but it doesn’t make me like it or more inclined to agree,” Alvin said, stepping closer so they were inches apart. “If you’re going to lead, we will be changing weapons, understand?”

  “Yes, Hero,” Becky agreed, her eyes sparkling happily. “Shall we take out the trash mobs first?”

  Shawn frowned as he watched them. “I’m ready to go, if you two are done flirting.”

  Lips twisting into a smirk, Alvin grabbed Becky and kissed her hungrily before turning her loose. “I’m good now,” he said, shouldering his rifle. “Reload as needed, but keep going as long as there’s a target.”

  “Roger,” Shawn said as he shouldered his M14, “going hot.”

  “I always am,” Becky said, then fired the first shot.

  Shawn’s face went red and he stared after her for a full second before he shook off the surprise and added his firepower to theirs. They mowed down worker ants by the dozen, and close to a hundred ants finally lay dead before they stopped coming.

  Waiting for a couple of minutes, they glanced around at each other when no more ants came forth. “Shall we?” Shawn asked.

  “Yeah, we can go take a peek,” Alvin said, making sure his gun was fully reloaded.

  “Just remember: if we go in, I get to deflower it,” Becky said as she started walking toward the nest.

  “Is she always making sexual comments?” Shawn asked, just loud enough to carry over the ringing in his ears from the recent gunfire.

  “Yeah. Isn’t she great?” Alvin replied as he followed her.

  Silently shaking his head, Shawn followed, wondering if this was the best idea. Becky was the first to the hole, peering in and letting out a soft whistle as she waited for them to catch up.

  Looking in, Alvin saw a roughly round hole that might have been four feet in diameter that dropped at a steep, but climbable, angle. “Industrious little fuckers, ain’t they?” Alvin said as he tried to gauge the depth.

  “We going in? It looks a little small for us,” Shawn said.

  “Ducking or knee walking,” Becky said. “Or do we just leave them be now?”

  “A nest this close to Beatty, with ants that size? Imagine if they really took off,” Alvin said.

  Shawn blanched. “So we’re going in to find the queen and end her?”

  “That’s what it sounds like he wants to do,” Becky said, holding her shotgun out to Alvin and motioning with her other hand. “Give me that big, beautiful weapon of yours, Hero,” her smile was wicked as she all but purred her request.

  “You can have the rifle, for now,” Alvin said, not giving her a line she could twist even more. His face went serious as he accepted her shotgun in exchange. “I’ll be aiming to your left, so if you have to fall back, fall to your right.”

  Smile fading away, Becky nodded. “Got it.” Her eyes flicked to Shawn. “What about him?”

  Shawn raised an eyebrow. “I’m going in behind Alvin. If you both run dry, go flat and I’ll cover while you reload.”

  “Okay, that’s the plan,” Alvin said as he looked down the hole again. “Gothy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t take chances. Even though you have an extra life, we don’t know what that really means.”

  “As you command, Hero,” Becky said with a soft smile before she stepped into the hole, dropping to her butt and sliding down the slope.

  “Damn it,” Alvin hissed as he dropped in after her.

  “Maybe this isn’t my best idea ever,” Shawn muttered, then followed them.

  Chapter Three

  The bottom of the decline was littered with dead ants. Becky took a knee, scanning past the corpses down the sights of Alvin’s rifle. Alvin slid to a stop behind her, adopting the same pose, and crept forward enough so that Shawn had room behind him.

  “If they haven’t taken these bodies yet, then the Queen might be
the only one left. Or, they’ve pulled back and might be getting ready to cut this passage off from the rest of the nest,” Becky said softly. “I’m going to move as quickly as I can until we make contact with anything.”

  Shawn looked at the tunnel walls. “I’m glad this valley is full of caliche.” He touched the wall to his right, running his hand across the hard earth. “If this was soft ground, I wouldn’t want to be down here at all.”

  “Let’s hope it’s a new nest, and not that extensive yet,” Alvin said as Becky started to move forward.

  They traveled for at least a hundred yards, Becky using a pencil flashlight to give them light, before she came to a stop. “The tunnel continues, but also drops down six feet or so. Do we cross or go down?”