7
A good distance away from the forest, we slump onto the ground, exhausted. Alice uses points from the other Combat Agents to order a variety of chemicals from Earth. She appears to be experimenting with the tree we’d grabbed on the way out.
I settle next to Alice and watch her work. “What are you up to this time?”
“Trying out various defoliants. Looks like they work on this planet’s plants, too. If these didn’t work, I was going to have them send me viruses tailored for plant use.”
No biological weapons. Ever.
“Hey, Alice, are you sure these defoliants are safe? They’re not poisonous to humans, are they?”
“We’ve come a long way since Vietnam. Kisaragi Corporation defoliants break down and become harmless after a month. They only use natural ingredients, so they’re even safe to drink.”
That actually sounds pretty shady.
“All right, we’ll dispense it using drones. Make sure you’re somewhere safe, just in case.”
“Hey, you’re sure this stuff is safe, right? What do you mean ‘just in case’? Didn’t you say it was okay to drink?”
Alice ignores my concerns, quickly loading the defoliant onto a drone.
And then—
“Hey! That weird thing just started flying! Boss, what is that?!”
“Wow! It’s flying! Flying!”
Excited by the foreign tech, the two Chimeras watch the drone with rapt attention.
“That’s a drone. It’s an unmanned plane that Alice controls with her remote… Hey! What are you doing?! Don’t try to shoot it down!”
The drone seems to trigger the Chimeras’ predator instincts.
I manage to stop them just as they start grabbing rocks and throwing them at the drone.
“Six, keep those two on a leash, will you? We’ll try dispersing the defoliant with a single drone. If it works, we’ll use a fleet of them and get this taken care of,” Alice says as she sends the drone to hover over the forest.
The drone begins dispersing defoliant…
With a bang , the drone disappears.
“The weird thing’s gone.”
“Whoa! It vanished in a blink of an eye! Drones are awesome!”
It really seems to have stirred up something inside the two as they keep chattering excitedly.
“Drones don’t just vanish! Hey, Alice, something just sniped the drone!”
“Wait, that’s…”
Before Alice can finish speaking, the forest suddenly splits open.
The rock-hard trees give way…
I let out a loud cry.
“It’s a beautiful girl! A beautiful, naked girl just popped out of the ground! This planet’s got trees that grow beautiful girls! Hooray!”
“Hooray for new worlds!”
“Hooray for beautiful girls!”
A beautiful girl, growing out of the bushes, smiles over at us. Her body is wrapped in budding vines.
The vines are covering her most sensitive spots, but the look is actually more erotic than if she were just plain naked.
The green-haired girl points a finger at us as we stand there cheering.
“Get it together, you meatheads; that’s a hostile life-form! It probably has some sort of projectile weapon.” Alice ducks behind me and issues a warning to the Combat Agents.
The green-haired girl pointing her finger toward us lets out a soft chuckle and the tips of the buds suddenly face us—
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Wait, this stuff hurts even through the power armor! It’ll split your head open like a pomegranate if you’re not careful!”
I throw my hands up to guard my face as a bunch of hard objects are thrown in my direction.
Alice yells out again from behind me. “Retreat! Deploy riot shields and retreat!”
“Wait! I can’t order a riot shield with my equipment restrictions! Someone shield me, please!”
I glance around with my arms still guarding my face and only see my coworkers backing away under the cover of their shields.
Snow and Rose were standing near me just a moment ago, but they appear to have made a run for it the moment the forest split open.
“The equipment! Use the equipment for cover! Even that won’t damage a power shovel…”
As I retreat toward the construction equipment, the green-haired girl smiles again.
“Aahhhh! Alice! Aliiiice!”
“Calm down, Six. She’s no different from the mutant Two-Mouthed Woman.”
The top of the girl’s head pops open like a blossom, and then she turns to the equipment.
It looks like she’s preparing to launch another attack like the flower buds from earlier.
The construction equipment rings as though hit by a bullet, then tips over onto its side. There is a huge dent in its frame.
Then the equipment’s gas catches fire, and black smoke begins rising from it.
Staring at it, Alice and I mutter:
““Let’s go home.””
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