Bob met me just outside the shelter, and with the rest of my squad at our backs, we waowards the building that Nyx had indicated. I wasn’t in any rush. If the Corpos saw me waiting, they’d probably hightail it back topside before we could ‘talk,’ so I took the time to check out the area.

  Ohe beavers had pleted my tower, they’d slowly spiraled outwards, dug repairs on the nearby buildings. Nothing excessive, just repairing and reinf the exterior of the buildings so they’d be structurally sound and fairly secure against antithesis attacks. They also installed shelters in the newly dug basement, fifth, ah floors.

  This required a ton of materials, so I had to create another couple of destru crews to help. Although most of them went out to the nearby abaowns, I assigned a couple to destruct the deg sky streets on the fifth ah levels.

  I’m sure there was some grand pn for these roadways in the past, but after decades of hey were nothing more than a hazard to the unity. Not only were they cracked and unstable, meaning one wrong step would send you tumbling five stories down to the level, but every few months a piece would break off and crash into the street below. It had been a couple of years sinyone had been killed by the debris, but enough was enough.

  Those streets provided a lot of the raw materials required to reinforce the surrounding buildings, and when the beavers performed the upgrades, they also created balies and fes between the buildings at those levels. Although most people still didn’t trust the upper paths, they were getting a lot more use now than they were before.

  The downside of the upgrades was that most of the buildings lost a lot of their character. The fws that had been building up for years were covered up by a thin yer of Samurai-grade crete. It was starting to make the streets look like a row of uniform monoliths.

  Most people didn’t give a shit; they were just happy they didn’t have to worry about gangs or looters being able te into their pce whehey wanted.

  Thankfully, some of the locals had started adding color back to the enviro, either tagging or straight-up painting the eriors. I think a lot of people were worried the bears might stop them if they tried no ohered to ask, but ohey realized I didn’t care, people jumped at the ce to pretty things up.

  Despite their numbers and the fact they’d been w for months nonstop, the beavers weren’t even close to finishing the sector-wide upgrades. By my estimation, they were about half dohat meant that if I ever decided to expand my operation outside of Sector Eleven, it would probably take around a hundred and twenty years to fix up the uy.

  Yeah… I’d probably o either scale up my operations ure out a way to optimize things a little bit.

  As I strolled around the er, finally approag my destination, I immediately spotted Tri-Active’s people. They werely being subtle.

  There were two hover vehicles, a huge bck luxury sedan that ore than the bined ine of every person in the uy, and a massive bck SUV. Standio the vehicle were two men in bck suits, handguns sitting out on dispy and cyberic eyes glowing behind their tinted gsses. Like I said, ly subtle.

  A small crowd had gathered ireet, staring distrustfully at the corporate goons, but they parted as soon as they saw me ing. The guards immediately stood up straight.

  “Howdy boys, what brings you to my little er of the uy?” I asked, putting on my frie smile.

  “Freence security, ma’am, hired by Tri-Active Incorporated. We don’t want any trouble,” the closest man replied nervously.

  “Really? Because I’ve heard rumors that Tri-Active has been wandering around my neighborhood handing out evi notices. In my book, that’s the opposite of asking for trouble.” Behind me Bob cracked his knuckles, which created a horrific metal g noise.

  “Fuck this, I told you they weren’t telling us everything,” the man in the back muttered. He squinted for just a moment before slowly raising his hands. “We weren’t aware of the situation, ma’am. We were just hired today to protect the Tri-Active team and their vehicle. Apparently their car was trashed the st time they were down here, and they wanted extra security.”

  “How unfortunate for them,” I mumbled sarcastically.

  “Where are you going? We paid your pany for a week of prote, up front. You ’t just abandon us down here!” I heard a terse female voice yell as two more security people exited the building.

  “And our pany makes it extremely clear within our tracts. We reserve the right to back out of any tract where the t lies about the extent of the expected threat,” the man at the back of the SUV yelled.

  “We didn’t lie! You’re here to protect us against uy thugs, that’s it! What did we leave out?” The woman growled as she finally stepped out onto the nding. Dirty blond, about five foot nine, and in a spotless grey business suit and huge sungsses. She stood out even more than her fug car. Behind her came two more people, one a goril in a cheap suit, and the other a woman carrying a briefcase and tablet, probably an assistant.

  The lead security guard silently pointed in my dire befrowling, “We’re leaving.” The rest of the team quickly piled into the SUV, and were gohin seds.

  Left without her backup, the woman smiled awkwardly at me. “You must be the famous Teddy.”

  “I am. Which makes you the Tri-Active suits that are trying to cause trouble in my neighborhood,” I grumbled, letting my smile drop.

  “We have no i in making trouble here let me expin. My name is Miriam Hawthorne, head of property development at Tri-Active Incorporated. We specialize iifying and developing areas within samurai-protected areas. Typically heir residences or pce of work,” Miriam expined.

  “Right… So you thought you could e down here, snatch up the deeds for a couple buildings around me, evict the residents, and I wouldn’t care?” I felt my eyebrows raise a couple timeters with each additional statement. “Did you bother to do any research about me prior to starting this insane scheme of yours?”

  “I don’t see any issues with what we’re doing,” Miriam said coolly. “We purchased the buildings legally, and by renovating these pces we re-invigorate the area.”

  “You’re driving out all the locals, who already have enough fug problems as it is. I’m not making improvements so some yuppies move in, but so the people around here have a ake a living. If I wao live by a bunch of fug upper city assholes, I would have moved!” I snarled. “St to evict these people a out of my neighborhood!”

  “I ’t do that,” Miriam decred. “Tri-Active has already ied heavily in this project, and we already have ers lined up to purchase property down here.”

  I stared at the woman for several seds, actually fused. I didn’t know if she was crazy or actually that fident she could get away with her little pn. “Have you ever dealt with a samurai before? Do you know what we’re capable of when you piss us off?”

  “Of course. I frequently work with Charlotte DeBois and the Family setting up samurai-protected housing areas,” the woman expined. She raised her slightly so she was literally looking down her me.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not like Charlotte. I don’t give a shit about corporate bullshit, just the people around here,” I growled, befetting an idea.

  “You know, normally I’d just threaten you. Have Bob crumple your car into a tiny ball, then expin that my bears wouldn’t be proteg any property you buy. In fact, they’d even spread the hat those buildings are unprotected; I’m sure your ts would love to have the local gangs stopping by on a daily basis,” I said casually walking bad forth o the luxury vehicle, a small smile on my face.

  Miriam looked signifitly less haughty at that suggestion.

  “But you know what? How about we go over the costs of your little projestead? Nyx, what are the fines for failing to maintain property?”

  Dusty stepped forward and began stroking his with a paw.

  “There aren’t any at this time. If there were, most corporations would have gotten rid of their uy property,” Nyx expined. For a sed, Miriam looked hopefully, but then my AI tinued. “However, if the gover has to step in and perform repairs on a building, the owning corporation will be charged the full cost of the repairs, plus a thirty pert penalty.”

  I turowards the bear in mock surprise. “You don’t say! I just happen to be helping run the gover for the st month or so. How much do you think the repairs on all of Tri-Active’s buildings cost at the current going rate?”

  “Stabilizing the buildings, adding shelters, and reinf them with full Css II materials? Hundreds of billions, if not trillions,” Nyx replied, pying along.

  “You ’t be serious,” Miriam squeaked. “That’s more thaing a bunega-buildings from scratch. It would bankrupt the pany.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” I replied sarcastically. “But if you really wao avoid the penalties, I could take those deeds off you. Before you pin about the costs, I know you probably paid jack shit for them. No one cares about uy property.”

  Miriam stared at me in a bination of disgust and despair. “This is bckmail. I’ll inform the Family about this.”

  “And when you do, they’ll probably ugh at you f to fuck with me. I kind of have a reputation.” I pivoted on my heel and looked the woman in the face. “ime, do some fug research.”

  With that I turned and started heading bae.

  “I’ll give you until the end of the week to trahose deeds over. Maybe let your friends know not to fuck with my neighborhood too!” I yelled over my shoulder. I’d nearly arrived at the er when I remembered something important. I gri Bob, “Miriam’s car isn’t round enough for me. Fix that before she gets in it, will you?”