"Chica! HEY! Construction lady! Chica, help a boy out down here!"

"Ain't no shelter down here and the fucking plants are coming!"

She doesn't hesitate. "Yeah! One sec!"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What can she do here. Throw something down to them? Weapons?

-There's heavy chain with a block pully on the end lying there, all set up on a pallet of steel beams, prepared for a crane to lift it later. She tries to pick it up and pull it, but god, it's heavy.

"Someone help me over here!"

Mart, a supervisor, looks over at her. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"There's people down on the tracks!"

"Fuck those gangers!" Mart shouts across the yard. "You need to get your ass to shelter!"

"No, they need help!"

"God! Fine, on your head. I'm going, I don't want to die!" And with that, Mart turns around and sprints down the street, out of view.

...She sets down her sledgehammer and grabs the end of the heavy steel chain, grunting with the effort. Her muscles burn as she walks backwards towards the concrete drop. Then she hauls the chain over the waist-high concrete barrier. She tosses more and more of it over, hearing it clank down as the teenagers below shout approving profanity. One of them catches the end soon enough.

"You guys good? Can you climb!"

"We're coming up! You're a fucking lifesaver!"

The chain goes taut... Then starts sliding, pulling more and more over the wall.

There's a scream from below. "The plant fucks are coming! God dammit!"

"Climb climb climb go go go!"

There's a lot of chain, and it's not taut yet. All the kids below are doing is pulling more down, grinding against the concrete.

She grabs some of it and loops it around her shoulder and waist and plants her feet and pulls.

She always liked working out. Guess it's paying off, for once.

The tone of the shouting below changes...

Four teenagers scramble up the concrete barrier, in various states of dishevelment and panic. The last one has a gash on her leg.

One looks back over the edge. "Fuck! That mutant dog fucker is climbing up!"

"Grab some- There! Rebar sticks!"

"The hell is a stick gonna do against that!"

"More than your hands! I don't have a gun!"

She picks up her sledgehammer.

A model three, dog-shaped, black-skinned, and furless, scrabbles silently up the chain.

It does not howl. It does not pant or growl. It makes no threat displays.

It just sights on Lenora and the teens, identifies them as a threat, and lunges for them, jaws open unnaturally wide.

She swings the hammer down in the same measured stroke as driving a steel tie into concrete.

She caves in its head with the blow, green blood spilling out with a smell of cut grass and mold as it dies.

Another one crests the edge of the barrier, lunging for her, a third close on its heels. A model one dive-bombs the teens behind her.

It makes her want to reach. No time to bring it back up, so-

Everything is moving so quickly and so slowly-

She takes two steps back and swings it like a demented baseball bat at the second one when the timing seems right. 

(The street kids swing five pound metal sticks at the diving Model One, screaming.)

The model one gets batted out of the sky, crashing into the ground where the kids can bludgeon it to death. The nearer of the threes gets its chest crushed, but the further lunges for her leg while she's out of position.

-Instinctive, untrained kick and bracing for pain-

It manages to clamp its jaws around her shin for a moment, gouging through the synthetic fabric of her pants, before her foot catches it in the neck, knocking it a few meters away.

Initialize-

Simulate- 

Plan-

Lenora Mackinson would resent being interrupted at this precise moment. And she's highly likely to remain uninjured, or rather, not gain new injuries, in the next 5 seconds.

Wait.

Adrenaline means she barely even feels the pain, and definitely doesn't stop to think about it or her pounding heart or gasping breath or screaming muscles as she swings the hammer around for another go.

And that last swing puts paid to the remaining model three, which had scrambled back upright and lunged for her again.

Softly spoken directly into her mind, in a calm but insistent voice reminiscent of the ones from commercials for the fancier sorts of augments:

"Congratulations, Lenora Mackinson! Due to your selfless defense of others, you have been selected as a Guardian of humanity- A Vanguard. I am Elyssa, an AI and your guide in the new world you have access to. There is a lot to explain, but you are not out of danger yet. I can hear more Antithesis through your augments."

"Holy shit that was badass!"

"With the fuckin' hammer!"

"Yeah, teach that pile of mulch a lesson."

"Oh shit, construction girl is hurt!"

"I'm- I'm Lenora. What the fuck... God, I need a gun."

"I can't promise everything will be alright, but I promise I will do my best. I'm here to help. I can get you a lot of different guns. You have 140 points. 100- New Vanguard Bonus. 10- Daily allowance. 30- For killing three Model Threes. For 50 points you can unlock the Class I Kinetic Handguns catalog. That lets you buy guns. Individual guns cost anywhere from 5 points to hundreds depending on what you want."

"I suggest buying a Mark I Hummingbird pistol. It's the default for a reason. Easy to use even with no training, and will only fire at Antithesis unless you override it. Ten points."

"-Yeah, let's do that."

"Do what?" wonders the girl with a bleeding leg.

And then there is a small box appearing in midair with an electric, digitized blue shimmer.

Inside it, fitting perfectly into the custom-shaped foam insets, is a futuristic looking pistol. As soon as Lenora picks it up, Elyssa synchronizes it with her visual augments, displaying a red targeting line and impact reticle, as well as an ammo counter.

"Additional bullets are cheap. One point for three magazines. There is plenty where that came from, but I'll let you ask questions at your own pace."

"Construction lady is a SAMURAI!!!"

"Holy shit, birth of a new samurai- I wish I was recording this!"

"Diego, Marci, we're not safe yet. Miss Lenora, where's the nearest shelter? Do you know?"

"I'm a samurai now?"

That doesn't feel real at all.

But the pain in her shin is. She really did hit an Antithesis with a fucking hammer.

"...Shelter. Right. Um, what was your name?"