Incursion

"Kuiper presence detected. All personnel is to evacuate the premises towards the emergency rooms. A message to the Century Tower will be sent immediately. Please remain calm throughout the evacuation process..." A robotic voice starts speaking as emergency lights turn on.

"Kuiper? How did they got here?" The men panic as they stand up preparing to evacuate the processing factory.

"So close to the Century City? How did they got here without being noticed? How did they got here without being torn to shreds by our anti air defence system? We're not toothless, this position is heavily defended!" There was no time for their questions to be answered as the whole structure was going into lockdown as to limit the Kuiper incursion. One would mistakenly believe the Kuiper could reach any location travelling underground but their presence produces strong tremors causing light earthquakes, thus making them easily individualised. They must have gained some type of cloaking ability or the Oortians must have brought them near but still. There was no time for such questions to be made as the facility had to be evacuated and the humans inside had to gather inside the safe rooms as soon as possible.

"What about the alien technology?"

"They can have it back. It takes 9 months to grow a human and 16 to turn it into a potential soldier, human lives are worth a million times more!"

"Survive. Survive. Survive." This was Simon's main goal now. Living in a fortress city is limiting but it is incredibly safe. The sheer firepower the invaders would have to push through to reach the civilian population is so extensive, it would be impossible for an Oortian attack force to breach it before being blown back into space by either local heroes or one of the 100. The Century City is close, it is so close, a hero has to be on his way and it will deal with the Kuiper immediately. One is as strong as one hundred individuals. If they send even one of the weakest hero then the situation would be under control, it has to be under control.

"This is the doorstep into the Century City damn it! I'd expect an attack while on a train in the middle of the Sea of Grass, not here!" One of the men shouts as they all flee towards the safe rooms. Corridor after corridor with doors closing in around them. Room after room there was nothing. They reached the safe room and barricaded inside without encountering a single Kuiper as well as without encountering a single other human.

"Where is everybody? This room should be filled with people!" One of the men says entering the empty room. There was no sign of any Kuiper inside, it would be obvious. There are no signs of breaking either. The room was safe and no alien life was inside. They close the door, activate the outside cameras, open up the weapon drawers and wait.

"If anyone approaches we will see and through this panel we can activate an automatic defence system. If we're lucky, the Kuiper they've sent after us are either Oracles or Prophets.

"What if they're an element?" A man says with a scared expression.

"Don't be ridiculous. One of those would never fit inside the underground building."

"What if it's not an Element but a Herald, or a proclaimer."

"What if it's one of those terrifying Idolators?"

"Wait, should we be concerned? We have a hero with us don't we?" Everyone says looking at Simon.

"I... I don't know how much of an use I can be. I doubt I can do much more than a regular human."

"What can you do?"

"I can store weapons inside my body and make them come out as I please."

"Great, we have dozens of rifles here. Pick them up and fire them all at once."

"They have to be melee weapons."

"Do... do they become super strong or durable? Can a regular dagger cut through metal if you hold it?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I've never used my powers to fight! Whenever I pick something up that's sharp and pointy I don't even know if it's going to enter my body without any problem or if I'm about to stab myself in the gut. The only weapons I have with me are a couple of sharpened wooden sticks given to me by my friends when I left the orphanage and nothing more. I'm not some kind of super powered warrior, I'm just a very unfortunate individual."

"Then you'll pick a rifle and fight if the need arrives, like everyone else."

"I will." Silence falls inside the room and nobody dares to say another word. Kuiper might be outside the room, listening, they could be underneath, above, adjacent to the room. The noise might attract them, or not, it's not like anyone inside the room is well read on the subject. Curious about the safe room, Simon starts looking around. There were only white walls on a white tiled floor with lights encased into the ceiling. On each side of the door there were two screens, both capable of opening the doors as well as activating the room's automatic guns which were loaded and ready to fire at any moment. Another button opened a vertical slit on the wall which would allow those inside to fire their weapons if need be. The room was packed full with weapons and ammunition and little else. Those situations usually never lasted. Either the assault was strong enough to break through their defences immediately, or the automatic system is capable of keeping them at bay long enough for a hero to arrive and save them. There were emergency medical supplies with simple instructions on how to patch common wounds, how to stop a wound from bleeding, how to secure a broken bone. The room further had reinforced walls just beyond the door and long benches on which to sit in waiting. Nothing else, there was nothing else outside of small ventilation shafts, too small for the Kuiper to pass through. Amazingly, neither the Oortians nor the Kuiper ever used biological weapons against humans, perhaps thanks to the Saviour's intervention.

Half an hour passes and nobody tries approaching the safe room.

"Shot in the dark here, but what are the chances everyone inside the factory picked another room?"

"Low, too low."

"Should we go out ourselves?"

"And get killed? Once the Kuiper incursion is eliminated the system will warn us automatically."

"How lethal are the Kuiper? Are they capable of killing a man on sight?"

"The small ones are as dangerous as any man with a gun. They aren't very good at aiming and sometimes their attacks will set your clothes on fire. It stings like hell to be hit by one of their beams but usually it takes several shots to put a man down."

"They fire lasers?"

"Something like that. My brother fought against them. He has a wound on his lower abdomen, looks like a tribal tattoo of the sun. The wounds they create don't bleed, they are immediately cauterised and on the long run it causes more problems than it solves."

"How do you kill them?"

"The small ones, he told me to shoot them towards the centre of mass or to break them, either way works."

"And what if it's one of the bigger ones? What if we're not dealing with Oracles but Proselytisers or worse."

"Those are too big to get inside the facility. Besides, our systems would have noticed them from miles away."

"Hey! Quiet! The systems picked something approaching." They all turned towards the screes to watch whatever was coming their way. A few seconds after, a panicked human arrives from around the corner. It was human, it was guaranteed to be human, neither Kuiper nor Oortian can imitate humans.

"You have to get out of there now! We have to run, we have to leave this place immediately!" The shocked man says hitting the doors of the safe room. Those inside open and let him in.

"It's safe here, come inside."

"No, it is not. There's a Kuiper inside the factory."

"A single Kuiper? We can take care of it."

"No, we cannot. I don't know how it got inside. I've seen it kill everyone it encountered through the security feed while hiding in the guards' room. It is an Idolator!"

"Come now, those things are four metres and taller, there is no way it can pass through these tunnels, not even sideways."

"That's were you're wrong. It's not like the others. This one is made out of segments unified through energy! This one is different, this one is very strong!"

While not understood as fully sentient, the Kuiper are a very unusual life form if they can be defined as such. They are mineral in nature and their bodies are rarely flexible enough as to allow them to move, besides the most simple forms of locomotion, such as floating. The weakest of the Kuiper are endless in number and surprisingly can vary in shape with the most common entities being known as Oracles. They are mostly round in shape and some vary from being as big as dogs up to one metre in circumference. They usually display decorations such as spikes, incomplete layers over their central mass, sensors which can be described as eyes and so forth. Some are more esoteric in nature, being wavy patterns reminiscent of cult statues and abstract depictions of spheres. Frankly they look like they are melting, like a cone of half melted ice-cream. The more advanced oracles have additional pieces floating around their bodies with wings of sorts, wires, spheres, tubes and sometimes even shapes floating in the same constant position, giving them the illusion of limbs. But a Kuiper made out of segments? There are the enormous Harbingers which can be as large as planes and there are the unique entities which host their brethren inside, being enormous mobile bases.

"I'm telling you, this one is different! We've got to leave now!" The man says looking behind frenetically. Without wasting another second trying to convince them, he flees,

"Should we follow him?"

"There's no way such a large Kuiper could have entered the building. I'm sure he is just scared out of his mind."

"Is it wise then to leave him outside the safe room, alone with Kuiper around?" Simon says concerned.

"Do you want to go looking for him while there might be Kuiper around?" Pausing for a second Simon looks at the ground then gives a resolute answer.

"Yes. I'll look for him." He says picking up a rifle realising just how ridiculous he looks. He never held a gun before.

"Do you even know your way around the factory?"

"No, but I'll find my way."

"I'll come with you then." And at those words Simon's heart grew a little lighter, happy to have someone by his side but at the same time he was concerned with putting others in danger. He was about to insist on going alone but the man pushed both of them through the door and exited the room before he could say another word. Both armed with rifles and hopefully enough ammunition to escape a cluster of Kuiper, they start looking for the running man. Following his footsteps they continue through well lit corridors, still in pristine conditions. Nothing was destroyed, the emergency generators weren't even active, the whole grid was intact. Yet there was no sign of humans inside the factory.

"Where should we start searching for him?" Simon asks and his companion has a single location in mind. The elevators which lead to the surface. If someone is convinced there are Kuiper inside that must be the first place they would go to. Thus the two follow the path towards the elevator, leading towards the final checkpoint before reaching it.

"We have to go through here to enter the elevator but the system will automatically stop if it detects alien technology inside."

"Wouldn't that render it useless as an escape route in case of an alien attack?"

"Indeed. The way to survive an alien attack would be waiting inside one of the safe rooms while a hero comes over to eliminate whatever threat dares to approach the facility." There was no sign that the elevator was used so the two decide to investigate the laboratory nearby. As they enter inside they notice the tables were all turned upside down and most of the Oortian technology was spread on the ground in a circle.

"Get down you fools! It's out there, looking for us, the Kuiper monster!" The man from before says grabbing them to the floor.

"Why haven't you escaped?"

"It is inside the elevator shaft. I saw it kill three men by just touching them!"

"There are no signs of a struggle."

"I told you, it's made out of energy, it vaporizes you on touch!" The man calms down then continues speaking:

"It is quite intelligent, it understood the elevators are used to reach the surface, it doesn't mean to let us do that. It will kill everyone inside then finish his work. The technology we've gathered this far, it was trapped. They left it behind on purpose as to create a beacon. They teleported that thing in here, that's why we haven't detected it before it was too late."

"The Oortians sent it here? I thought it was Kuiper."

"It is." The man says scared while grasping a piece of alien technology. If all the pieces are not there, then the teleporter might take a while before being completed. Suddenly the elevator shaft started making a weird noise, like a man screaming in the wind. A slightly bent cylinder, shaped like an elongated pill reaches from above the elevator shaft then a second 'arm' descends opening the doors to the elevator. Once opened the cylinders spread out letting a steady flow of electricity pour forth creating joints. It was like something never seen before!

"'Emergency transmitters. We've got to get one of these out of the building. They're somehow blocking the emergency signal from within but with these we can call for help!" The man says holding in his other hand a small black box with a simple switch on it. Once you pull on the switch it will start sending a distress signal to the Century tower and the rotating display will show if the signal is reaching the tower or not. At the moment it wasn't fulfilling its duty.

"I've got many of these." The man keeps whispering. Take one, take two with you and try to get to the surface. I'll be doing the same. We need to spread out, try picking another piece of Oortian technology while getting away if you can, the harder we make it for that thing to complete the portal the better. Good luck!" The man says starting to crawl on the floor towards the exit.

"Listen. Our best and fastest way to reach the top is through that elevator!"

"The Kuiper went inside, it must have destroyed it completely!"

"That's the neat part. It has a double back which can be accessed only when a human presses his hands on it. There's a giant pad on the wall, no matter where you put your hand, just slap it and the doors will open, make sure all your five fingers touch the pad! I'll draw that thing away..."

"No. I have powers, I have the best chances of surviving that thing. I'll distract it. How long does it take for the elevator to reach the surface?"

"The emergency elevator is a one way bullet. It will launch into the air at maximum speed, fly through the ceiling then deploy a parachute."

"Then I have a chance! Good luck!" Simon says crawling away from his ally and towards the opposite door on the far end of the room, trying to draw the Kuiper away from the elevator. Simon takes a piece of lab equipment and throws it through the door to see what reaction the Kuiper will have. As soon as the, scanner or whatever that thing was, flies through the air the Kuiper fires a beam of energy at it but with poor accuracy. As soon as it fired, it retracted its arms, unable to bend them any longer. Simon takes the opportunity and runs back the way he got there, knowing there are many curves and hallways he can take to limit the line of sight of the Kuiper. The alien starts following him with an electric sound echoing through the corridors.

"If that's energy, if that's anywhere close to electricity then I might just have one defensive ability which could save my life." Simon thinks pulling out one of the wooden spears his friends made before leaving for the city. He waits for the Kuiper to open up its arms again and when it was about to fire, Simon throws the spear, aiming at the alien's eye. The beam is fired and tries to hit the spear in mid air but Simon's tactic was far more effective that he could have anticipated. The energy beam hit the spear but not frontally which made it overload and explode. Splinters overflowing with energy from the spear flew into the air and damaged to sensitive optic device the creature used to take aim. For an instant Simon took heart and even considered turning around and attacking the monster but it spread out its arms and started destroying the walls of the corridor through which they were running. He didn't had to take it down, he just had to run for long enough so that someone else could get to the surface and call for help. It was taking a long time though, far too long and Simon ran out of hallways he knew. If he continued forward he would lead the Kuiper straight to the other workers.

"Damn it all, why did I leave the rifle behind at the laboratory?" He didn't considered bringing the rifle along, when he picked up the device he used as a distraction he left the rifle on the ground when he started running, keeping only the emergency signaller with him.

Wrong turn! He took a wrong turn and ended up in front of a locked door which he didn't know how to open. The Kuiper charges at him. Simon tries to duck but the Kuiper catches him with one arm by the wrist. The Kuiper shoves him into the wall but Simon fights back trying to shove one other of his spears into the alien's damaged optics. The attack is successful and the Kuiper's eye completely blows out, leaving it blind. Without a second to spare, Simon releases spears from his wrist, creating a gap for him to slide his arm away from the Kuiper's grasp. With one swift motion he rolls away and starts running into the opposite direction.