The aliens were invading in swarms.
I was assigned to, or fighting against, or fleeing from, some kind of experimental medical center. I might have been doing all those things.
I drove, or had possibly stolen, a red Firebird with gullwing doors. I carried a dagger carved from a the tooth of an ivory dragon.
It was the dwarves, see? The dwarves controlled all the skilled artisan labor, each family holding sway over a type of material-working-- stone, silver, wood, etc.
I needed a belt of armor-piercing dragontooth bullets-- dragontooth being harder than the best ceramic steel composites around.
All of this somehow tied into my job (cover story? alibi?) as a "stock boy" at a massage parlor in a vast futuristic mall.