Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 245


"So, here's a bit of shocking news," Lisa said as we sat down in front of our teleconference screen.


BoredomAnnoyance. "We're about to watch the PRT use our supersoldiers to 'liberate' Ellisburg," Taylor sighed. "Now you're going to spring surprises on us?"


"Of course," she grinned. "We have to put on a good show for the Directors. Having something else on your minds will make it easier to fake."


"We're in costume," Emma pointed out. "And the Taylia link disrupts social reading. And my biology is so different from human that even Rapture's tech can't get a real read on me anymore. The only one here vulnerable to being caught faking it is you."


"Be that as it may," Lisa dismissed all those points. "It doesn't hurt to have an extra layer of thoughts. Remember, we're not suppose to know how this all plays out. Speaking of, I asked our Goblin King to toss in an extra surprise or two. The best monsters he could make to give the troops a real workout. They can't win, the PRT has them outnumbered and the M7S and M7K models can recover from almost any amount of damage. but it'll be interesting to see how these men handle something that can actually fight back."


AnnoyanceConcern. "You have a talent for picking the worst possible times to give us important information."


"Have to keep things interesting somehow, right?" Lisa kept on smiling. "You know I wouldn't leave out anything critical. So we don't have a lot of time before the op starts and we have to put on our token showing. Someone managed to grab Clarice's ribbon, so Riley has a boyfriend."


WorryConfusion. "What? Who? How?" I asked. I don't even know what to think about this. "I have to talk to this boy."


"And girl," Lisa added. ShockAnnoyance.


"Seriously, Lisa," Emma interrupted. "Most people just use porn to get off. Do you need help? I can build you a machine that'll help you if that's what you need. Fuck, I'd let you borrow Zach if I wasn't afraid you'd break him. Riley is now together with Missy and Theo. Happened at the end of the first day of school. Missy snagged the scarf, and then they had a talk, and now Theo's dating both of them. It's as adorable as pretty much everything else those two get up to."


ShockConfusion. Oh, good for her. CuriosityConcern. "Riley's had feelings for Theo for a while," I stated, letting Taylor know more than anything. "We've talked about it a few times. She said she'd never do anything about it because she didn't want to hurt Missy. Made me promise not to tell anyone." Sorry Taylor.


AcceptanceNegation. "It's fine," Taylor replied. "Wasn't your secret to tell. So... what do we do about it? Should we talk to Theo?"


"I wouldn't bother with Theo," Lisa replied. "No matter how you look at it, Missy wears the pants in that trio. If you have to worry about anyone taking advantage of anything, she'd be the one to look at."


"Riley's happy with it," Emma offered. "I'm sure you've noticed." I found myself agreeing, she hadn't felt the need to stay in my bed for a few days. I thought it was just because she was excited about school again. And her spending as much time as humanly possible around Missy and Theo was already the norm.


"And now you have something to think about while we pretend to care about Ellisburg," Lisa added. "Cameras on in three, two, one..."


Our viewscreen activated, putting us proverbially face to face with several of the PRT directors, including Costa-Brown of course. Tagg and Armstrong, as the two 'neighbor' Directors to Calvert were also here. As well as a Jackson and Bennett, the Directors of Pittsburg and Philadelphia, respectively. I noted Dragon was here as well. Plus our special guest for the evening, Secretary of Defense Allen Brown.


I was conspicuously aware of how young we were compared to the three women and five men at our virtual table, but Secretary Brown was especially old. Career military since Vietnam, according to the bio I read before the meeting. His hair was white instead of gray, but other than that feature he looked to be in better shape than most people in their forties.


"Greetings ladies and gentlemen, Mister Secretary," the Chief Director opened. I didn't begrudge her singling him out for specific address. He was pretty much her boss. For both of her identities. "Director Calvert sends his apologies for being unable to attend. It appears, based upon Miss Alcott's predictions, that the numbers favor plans where he takes field command of the mission."


Or maybe he hasn't, and he is here at this meeting in his other timeline, I added mentally. I wasn't certain how he was harnessing his power here, but Dinah gave this mission a virtually perfect chance of success no matter the circumstances, so I knew there was no benefit to the mission itself. I put my money on it being a matter of ego. One of those things I'd learned about Coil in the time since we took control over him was his obsession with personal glory. He didn't just need to win, he needed everyone to know it. He wanted to be hailed as a great hero, and would become a monster to do it.


"I was under the impression that the mission was handled entirely by remote control," Secretary Brown spoke.


"Yes, sir, it is," Lisa replied. "The men are all safely several miles away from Ellisburg. I imagine, as one of the survivors of the first Ellisburg mission, Director Calvert will have insights to deploy in the field that improve the results. Or it's possibly a morale issue. Some of the men might need field coaching. It is difficult to say for certain. However, Dinah's numbers don't lie. If her predictions give this plan gives the best results, then we should use it."


The man frowned, but still nodded. I trusted Lisa to handle this situation. I also noted that she didn't say anything about Coil lying about the number Dinah gave.


The conversation died after that, and we waited the few minutes in functional silence. There wasn't any pressing business to take care of, after all. Or at least none that could be done in this kind of mixed company.


"The mission is starting," Dragon announced. The viewscreen changed into a complex three dimensional map relying upon Dragon's mapping technology fed through the two hundred M7S and another hundred M7K soldiers. We could change views manually if we liked, but Dragon's software was tracking everything with the promise to give us the best view of the action as it occurred.


It was broad daylight when they dropped in, using their stealth features. The M7K held back, waiting for orders. Their Khonsu forcefields gave them boosted energy production, but cost them a lot of other options. Amongst others things, they didn't have cloaking features, advanced scanners, or built in energy weapons. The Simurgh models were, essentially, the scouts. Scouts that could solo a small army, but still scouts.


Calvert's voice came over the view, giving commands and instructing his men on where to go. He's in one of the scout units, I realized. But he's still giving commands to his men in real time. That's how he's using his power, to give himself a semblance of Taylor's multitasking. Pure showboating, of course. Coil showing his skills off to his colleagues and superiors.


The scouts did their thing, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and harnessing a number of exotic senses. "Perimeter established. Sir, we're not finding anything alive," one of them reported. "There's nothing here."


"It just means Nilbog's creations don't register to the tech," Calvert responded. "This equipment is sensitive enough to detect a sparrow from a hundred meters away. The lack of normal animal life proves there's something here, if only because it's killing everything else. Release the bait animals."


"Understood, sir," the man replied. We watched them get into position and open the cages. A number of birds and rodents were let loose, taking flight or scurrying for cover. Quickly followed by screeching and crunching picked up by the hypersensitive hearing features. One of the soldiers got a good look at one of the nightmarish creatures left behind. It had blended itself into one of the larger trees, naturally camouflaged for the snow. Several vicious looking barbed tendrils snapped out, killing the birds immediately.


"Don't attack them," Calvert commanded. "Follow the dead animals, they'll lead us to Nilbog."


"How does he know that?" one of the Directors asked.


"He must have seen it when he was in Ellisburg the first time," Costa-Brown supplied.


HorrorDisgustShame. I couldn't tell which emotions were mine, and which were Taylors. We recruited the monster that did all this. He turned thousands of human beings into raw material, and we gave him his own country.


They were led further in, to the central chamber. "That's it," Calvert replied. "That's where you'll find him. Team twelve, find a way in from above. Eleven, ground level. One through ten, establish defensive points at all entrances. Everyone else, watch for enemy activity outside the secure zone."


The invading teams entered, working their way to Nilbog's inner chamber. The bloated man-thing was there, engaging in... I looked away. It was like the worst of the creepy smut people wrote about me. The goblin creatures barely look more than six or seven years old.


"Christ almighty," the Secretary of Defense muttered. "I know you don't need me to give the order, but kill that son of a bitch."


"Happily, Sir," Calvert responded. "Team eleven, open fire. Every available attack type. All other units, prepare to engage hostiles. Leave nothing alive."


The stone building exploded as the various energy weapons punched holes through the walls.


The ground shuddered as monsters cried, screached, and roared at the 'death' of their maker, and the land came alive. The tree-spear monsters attacked several of the constructs, and I watched the display panels showing the unit conditions blinked. We had dumbed down versions compared to what existed for the pilots, but it was good enough for our purposes. More than half of them shifted from blue, undamaged. To green, very light damage.


One of the bigger monsters burst from the ground. It was more or less humanoid, though it hunched and its arms were long enough to reach the ground. More like a reptilian version of a gorilla than anything. It was larger than Leviathan, perhaps even Behemoth. It was also fast, and violated all logic of the square cube law and how it limited living things. It gripped a pair of the M7s by the heads, and threw them. One managed to auto correct with its flight system. The other didn't have time, colliding with the side of a bank hard enough to crack the sone. Our first yellow icon appeared.


"They had to fight things like that?" Tagg muttered. "No wonder we lost Ellisburg the first time."


The giant found two more targets, and had taken to punching them into the road. They had switched to yellow as well.


Then the M7Ks started to attack. Their extra durability and weight, plus not having stealth or range features to drain their resources, meant they were pure flying bricks. Four of them landed on the monster's back using their improved gravity flight systems. It was crushed into the earth hard enough to splinter the road around it. The four attackers then had to put their effots into digging their way out of the corpse they found themselves trapped in.


The battle itself lasted another two hours, as Nilbogs monsters, with their massive numerical advantage, threw themselves suicidally at the soldiers, who had the advantage of tactics, weapons, and superior bodies on their side. They won, but it wasn't close to a fast victory. I glanced at the clock. It was almost time for the kids to get back from school.


"That concludes the first true field test of the Model 7s," Minerva responded. "I believe I speak for all of us when I call this an unqualified success."


AgreementPrideConfidence. She was right. During the conflict, only one of them had even blinked orange, and that was after being swallowed whole by one of the creatures and then hit with a bombardment of our own weapons.


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A/N- Shoutout to all you pervs writing creepy creepy Panacea smut. You know who you are.