All the while, I could hear Lulu continuing to chant just outside. She was shouting with the beat of the bass drum. “Come on, motherfuckers, come on! Come on, motherfuckers, come on!”
“Roger, do we have any stats yet on people watching our three streams?”
“Your sister removed the paywall for her Real-Friends account, but it’s still considered an adult site and doesn’t have as big of a user base as LoftBase. It appears she has approximately five thousand watchers. Your Tuneage account with the misspelled Rhythim Mafia has zero watchers, and the Pig Plus Some Chickens account has twenty-five watchers. I am currently sending out invites to every streamer who has ever voiced anti–Operation Bounce Housesentiment, and an account with five million followers just posted the linkto the Pig Plus Some Chickens account, so I will update you in a few minutes.”
I sent another message, trying to get more people in the local chat to talk, but nobody answered. Outside, it was just smoke. Sadie the serial killer was still online, despite Roger’s best efforts to get her mom into the room. From the sound of it, her mom was too scared to do anything.
Landing in 3, 2, 1.
There was a heavy jolt.
Welcome, Citizen Soldier. Welcome toOperation Bounce House.
Chapter 45
Istepped out of the drop ship and into chaos. I was now in full control of my mech. I had a right joystick that controlled how I walked. I could control my speed based on how hard I pushed it. I could use the left joystick to cycle and aim and fire my weapons. That seemed counterintuitive to me, and I clicked a button and switched sides.
There were about a dozen dials and gauges along with multiple types of radars.
I turned, and I noted the drop unit we’d come from remained on the ground. Three of the spots still had active mechs in them, including the four-armed humanoid one, but none had moved to leave. I spun in a circle, taking in the area.
I knew this place. We were east of the main road, not too far from Rosita’s ranch. These fields had once been part of her property before she’d sold them off. This particular field was in an offseason, but it’d already been prepared by Mr.Xalos. He’d probably be doing some sort of root vegetables soon. Maybe onions.
But now the fields were flattened, covered with oil and all sorts of other chemicals. This land, like most of the peninsula, was now ruined—ruined for years and years. I sighed.
Serial Killer Sadie strolled out of her spot and came to stand next to me. Out loud, she said, “I killed a whole house of them yesterday. If you look in the mirrors, it doesn’t filter out the blood or their bodies. And if you mess up the bodies enough, the filter doesn’t know how to compensate. How many have you killed?”
I clicked the button. “I’ve only really killed one. I plan on getting more today.”
“What sort of accent is that?” But then she lumbered off, not waiting for an answer. She launched her drones as she walked, and they buzzed around her head like a swarm of flies.
All around us, more drop ships were landing and off-loading mechs. Most were the same Attenuators and Cheetahs and Drop Dragoons we were used to, but there was a smattering of new, completely bizarre war machines. One, built on the body of a Sniper, had four legs and a dragon head that breathed fire. But it was currently stuck between two trees, and the driver was shouting out, “Guys, seriously, can someone help me? Guys, guys!”
Another home-design mech was a tripod thing, and it had immediately toppled over on its side. An Attenuator stood next to it. “I told you it wasn’t going to work, dumbass!”
Yet another was simply a round mechanical ball about three meters in diameter. On either side were large pulse rifles. It was painted to look like an eight ball from that game I saw sometimes on the net where people would hit the balls with a long stick. I’d seen smaller versions of that mech design in movies but never in real life, and I’d never seen anything nearly that big. The eight ball tore off into the distance, moving incredibly fast. It was moving toward the road, as it likely would have a difficult time moving through the trees and mud.
All around us, I caught multiple snippets of conversation.
“They’re already pushing through the soldiers in the woods. We need to hurry!” someone said.
“The ones in the woods are all bots anyway.”
“Fuck off. That’s bullshit,” yet another responded.
“No, no, they’re bots all right. But they’re RMI bots. The terrorists make them and they’re planning on invading Earth with them. That’s why we’re doing this.”
“Did you guys hear? They’ve set up some weird stage thing, and it’s like they’re getting ready to play a concert or something.”
“Imma hit that shit with the mortar.”
“Snipers gonna get ’em first.”
“Dude, someone is saying the head terrorist is really Farm Girl Gigi, the streamer woman.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The text chat, too, was awash with a constant scroll of remarks. Roger was making occasional comments about this person or that.
