I briefly locked eyes with Hel as I stepped into the Family’s briefing room. The st time I was here was right before heading to Seattle, ah knew I really wasn’t thrilled to be back.

  I gnced around the room, and reized about half a dozen people within the crowd like Mirage aa, so most of the ust have been samurai. Most of the people I didn’t reize, which I guess spoke volumes about how little I socialized with the wider samurai unity. Thankfully one of the people I reized was Angeline, who was sitting on the far side of the room, so I made my way around the outside of the room and slipped into a seat beside her. Bob followed oep behiil I took my seat, theepped over and put his back against the wall, sing the area. I told him he didn’t have to stantly be on guard here, but the big guy took his job as my bodyguard seriously.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  Angeline g me with blurry eyes. “Tired,” she muttered. “These assholes won’t stop fighting.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I replied quietly. “Do you know what this is about? All I know is that Hel is fug panig, and wants all hands on deck.”

  “Donno,” Angeline replied. “I’ve been busy trying to monitor what Helmar a are doing, and telling Mirage to fuck off. He still doesn’t seem to have grasped the idea that I’m not joining his little crusade.”

  “I heard about the cil shitshow, I’ve already repositiohe rest of my bears to pehe best I , but I don't have enough,” I told her.

  Angeline’s half lidded eyes opened wide as she looked over at me. “You okay? The st time you moved that many bears didn’t turn out well,” she hissed.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve had an upgrade,” I replied, tapping my brow lightly.

  Angeline looked at me fused for a moment, then nodded. “Good.”

  As the two of us made small talk several other samurai slipped into the room, until the room was almost pletely full, and only then did Hel stand. “If I have everyone’s attention please!” she said loudly.

  It took a few seds for the background versations to die out, and all eyes to fall on Hel.

  “Thank you,” Hel decred. Her voice was much quieter, but still echoed across the room. She stepped up to a le, and looked across the room. “The reason I called you all here is to discuss an issue which affects the ey.” She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath before tinuing. “Today, just a few minutes before noon, a pany called Applied System Dynamics sent a decration of war to the current city cil members. They io perform a hostile takeover in order to gain trol of the city’s industrial capabilities.”

  The room was silent for a long moment, then exploded as dozens of people started yelling at the same time. The most promi was Mirage, who was yelling something like ‘I k’, but I couldn’t make out anything clearly through the noise.

  Hel smmed her fist down on the le, causing the wood to splinter. Half the room flinched, and the other half at least quieted down. “Now, I’m an outsider here, and I oio try ale the internal strife here, but this is something that threatens the safety and stability of the city, so I thought we should discuss it. In a civil manner,” she practically growled the st few words. I’m not sure if she discreetly used some of her tech, or it was just the tone of her voice, but it felt like the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.

  “Now… if you want to read the full decration, it’s avaible o. I know some of you want to get directly involved in the flict, I would reend against it, but I ot stop you. I WILL intervene if you attempt to coerce others into helping.” She slowly swept her gaze across the room, pausing momentarily as she looked at certain people, Mirage included.

  “Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, any questions?” she asked quietly.

  The room erupted into noise again, but Hel just poi a fairly skinny kid who held up his hand. “Silent, go ahead.”

  “Is this actually going to be a full blown war? Like I’ve heard of hostile corporate takeovers esg, but I’ve never experienced a corporate war,” the boy said.

  “It’s exceptionally rare, but they do happen. Most cities aren’t stupid enough to weaken their antithesis defenses in order to attempt to strike somewhere else, but if the corporations involved see a weakhey take advantage of or are in desperate need of a particur resource, it happen. Applied System Dynamics, and their allies, will be sending armed forces to storm the city and try and force the local corporations to capitute by force,” Hel expined. “Acc to the decration they’ll be attempting to keep colteral damage to a minimum.”

  “And we just believe them?” I blurted out, earning a dirty look from Hel. “They want to take over, colteral damage would be detrimental to their long term pns. That being said, they’ll almost certainly bring heavy armor, so we expee. No more than an average incursion.”

  Angeli up her hand and was immediately selected by Hel. “What those of us that don’t want to participate do to minimize damage?” she asked. I noticed she was wide awake now, guess that annou gave her quite the shot of adrenaline.

  Hel signed. “I’m not an expert, I didn’t e her expeg a fug war, but I’d say you either stay away from the flict, or try and evacuate the civilians from around corporate properties.”

  “Should we expect other samurai to show up?” someone asked quietly from the back of the room.

  “I don’t know,” Hel admitted. “But sidering that we have a couple people willing to support the flict, ASD probably does too.” She gnced over at Mirage, “So keep that in mind. Anything else?”

  “For those that want to participate…” Mirage started, but Hel quickly cut him off.

  “ tact you directly,” Hel snapped. “I’d prefer if this didn’t devolve into a strategy session for just a small subset of roup. Discuss it after. Anyone else?”

  “Do we know when they’ll arrive?” Nora asked. She was sitting at the back with Sharron, and I hadn’t seewo arrive.

  “No idea,” Hel admitted. “Satellite ce hasn’t shown any activity, so I’ve asked Zetta to double check the feed. I’m guessing they wouldn’t have sent the decration before they were ready, so I doubt it’ll be long now.”

  A heavy silence fell over the room. I expected more questions, but I guess a lot of people were still trying to absorb the information.

  “Sihere are no other questions, you’re all dismissed. Those of you that don’t want to be involved just go about your days for now,” Hel decred. All around us people gathered into little groups, discussing the situation. Whoever was behind me kicked my chair so hard I almost fell out of it before Bob leaned forward to grab me.

  “What a fug gong show,” I hissed. “Why do these fug idiots have to fight? We have enough problems as it is.”

  “They must either think they do it without promising their own defenses, or pn to fight through before the cil react,” Angeline mumbled.

  “They’re fug stupid to try. As much as I hope that the cil fights outside the walls, I know they’d hate to give up the defensive positions ihis is going to turn into a total gongshow,” I growled.

  I gnced over at Mirage, who was in a deep discussion with a couple of other samurai. It was only a small group, but sidering they were all samurai the group still represented some signifit firepower. Mirage must have sensed me looking, because he gnced over and shot me an angry look befoing back to his versation.

  “Hope that idiot knows what he’s doing,” I muttered. “I don’t particurly like the guy, but I doly want him getting run over by a fug tank.”

  “This euation is fug insane,” Angeline moaned. She slowly struggled to her feet then gnced in my dire. “I need some air, let's get out of here.”

  I nodded, “Let's go.”