In today's information landscape, it is easier than ever to learn about what happens on the other side of the world, share ideas and art through the Mesh, and bet on anything and everything under the sun. For a number of Corporations, this is a problem for their work force, as it makes them grow hopeless and burn out far faster.

  We offer a solution to that in the form of Meshnode blockers, designed to make sure only the news you desire flows through to your employees feeds.

  -Excerpt from a sales pitch for NoNewsIsGoodNews manipulations programs, 2040.

  Cody

  Sitting on my hover chair overlooking the holo map in The DM Screen, I observed the tower I assigned myself, watching the rioters fight the Ground Badger PMC. It was a good learning experience for me, since I was going to be the head of the logistics division once the employees arrived. Although, seeing how much ammo these guys were wasting compared to how thick their armor was, I grew annoyed. When Black Log mentioned the dispatched PMVs were cowards, I severely underestimated how cowardly a group that named themselves after fucking badgers were.

  Once the Defence Swarms arrived with Geoffry, the Raven I adopted, and they were told how the Shielding would work, they should have crushed this riot, like, an hour ago. Sure, the Red Danger Noodles had grenades and anit-matetial rifles, but the hardlight shields were super strong, and they even allowed the Badgers to fire through it from their side!

  Suddenly, Morrigan shouted. “Oh, come on! She couldn't hold off for a few more days?”

  I jumped at the sudden outburst, while Leman chuckled. “She is a hunter, Morrigan. And while her prey might be difficult, he is very willing. I'll be in the lab in the morning with my pack to get measurements.”

  While Morrigan lamented something, I turned to Outsider. “What just happened?” I asked, under no allusions that I could hide my question from any of these guys.

  “Morrigan made a bet with Leman, Rogal, and Vulkan to see if they could guess when Cari would seduce Victor properly two days ago. Leman's bet was for it to be by end of day tomorrow at the latest, as that is when the damage her venom caused would have fully healed.” She replied.

  A wave of different emotions washed over me. Happiness for Vic, disgust at the thought of my family having sex at all, annoyance that they bet on him without inviting me, finally…

  “What was the prize?” I asked, failing to keep my tone neutral.

  Outsider chuckled softly, covering her mouth like a proper lady type. “For Morrigan, if she won, she would have them test something rather dangerous on the Moon. For the others, they would get first priority on a custom internal frame for them and their minions.”

  Huh. That made sense. Not really a reward or punishment for me in that bet. That did remind me of the fact that Roger, Buddy, Jill and I could ask for Class II upgrades from Victor. I know Jill was working with Morrigan for new limbs, but I didn't want to do more cybernetics. I liked my new, fleshy body. Aug upgrades, however, would be nice. Maybe I could get the neural upgrades Vic has and think faster.

  My attention is brought back to Megatower 21B-127 when Geoffry pings me. I looked at the camera access he gave me and saw an ambush had just occurred on the Ground Badgers, with seven RPGs having been deployed, smashing onto the barrier. Checking the swarm status, I saw that their durability had actually dropped by twelve percent. I scrub the footage and get a good scan of the tubes they used. Broken Arrow Bunker Buster MK 8, produced by Autotechnica Militant, a Texas based company and a supplier of Bestlé's PMCs.

  I smirk smugly as I send the information to our group evidence document. “Found a direct link to Bestlé.” I say. “They changed the casings but the RPGs are the same.”

  Bahamut nods. “Very good. One more nail in the coffin for their legal death.”

  The plan was simple. After we had four super AI go over the declaration of war Bestlé sent and comparing it to the NA Corporate Code of Conduct for Warfare, we saw that there were a few places we could penalize them. Namely, what actions they could not take. Utilizing civilian, non-affiliated combatants in an effort to destabilize the city, using biological agents that could harm corporate assets, and the jackpot we were aiming for, siphoning corporate funds away from those unnamed from the declaration of war.

  For the first, we have some images of different weapons and crates from Autotechnica, which is technically a direct link to Bestlé, once we get ahold of them and track their serial numbers. The second was also a technicality, being the horrible abominations Vic killed, as well as the toxins that were already neutralized. Biological agents were not very well defined, strangely, but Bahamut was confident that if he had to present them as evidence in a court, he could make them count.

  The last one, however, was what Outsider was working on. The declaration of War targeted the Family and the Corporate Council only, and while a number of corporations active in the city were subsidiaries of the council, that only accounted for sixty-ish percent. Outsider was hard at work cracking the accounts of the remaining forty percent to make sure their funds were not being taken. As a side note, we were also checking to make sure those funds were not being embezzled as well as what those corps were funding. For future use, of course. I was looking forward to taking some fucker to task for my own amusement, rather than as a job this time around.

  Refocusing on the tower, I see something that disturbs me. I dive into Geoffry's sensors and move him to a side hallway that has a particular tag on it. A small, square house with a stick figure in it, a local marking for something that should very much so not exist.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Geoffry glides to a stop before a heavily reinforced door with the same tag next to it. Its security is laughable for how illegal this place should be if I'm right. Once the door slides open and Geoffry walks inside, I have him hop up to the unmanned receptionist terminal. Connecting to it, I grow disgusted at what I find.

  “I found a dollhouse.” I announce, drawing everyone's attention to my stream. While joytoys were an accepted fact in red-light districts, those were ‘staffed’ by people who had their faculties and at least understood what they were signing up for. While many of them don't wish to be there, protections for joytoys this far west are severely lacking, seeing as Myriad has no influence in Arizona.

  But Dollhouses are different. They utilize a chip that overrides the host's personality and control of their bodies, implanting a different personality of whoever or whatever their ‘owners’ decide, trapping the host in their own mind as their body was abused and used by whoever paid. The chips were based on Sam tech from a dead Sam in Europe, and in 2051 Samurai Maniac discovered how widespread their usage was. Very shortly thereafter, a massive meeting between hundreds of Samurai from across the world was convened to ban the usage of such tech, to unanimous agreement.

  This is one of the few pieces of international news we were allowed to learn about, as we received bonus food and points for each dollhouse we discovered and reported. It was also one of the few tasks we relished the chance to act upon, as the bonus was bigger if we could also discover the client list.

  “There are thirty dolls still inside, and no security. I have access to their servers and am forwarding the client list to the ‘Future Targets’ list. Rogal, could I ask you to take a shuttle and do a rescue mission?” I ask.

  Rogal nods his head as he begins walking to the dispatch elevator. “On my way. Permission to engage the rioters once the rescue is complete?” he asked Bahamut.

  The dragonborn nods his head, his expression unreadable, mostly because his face was a fucking dragon. “If they fire upon you first, especially if they do so while you are transporting the victims. Focus on non-lethal takedowns, however, as that would look the best for us.”

  As Rogal left, I nod at Bahamut. “Good thinking. I'll have a few Ravens record the interaction for publicity.” Not only will this show that Monster Box is compassionate, swooping in to rescue Dollhouse victims the moment we discover them, but it will also show that we are more competent than the Ground Badger PMC, giving us more leverage to either push them out or absorb them later."

  Outsider speaks up. “We should have Rogal move to subdue the remaining riots as well. It would look poorly upon us if we only subdue one tower and not the rest. It would simply be inviting the question of ‘If you could have done this the whole time, why only subdue one and not the others?’. And while I dislike the logical fallacy in the omniscient and omnipotent argument, I have grown tired of reading the numerous complaints levels at other Samurai. If we could prevent those articles from being leveled at us, I would be very greatful.”

  Bahamut nodded as I thought about what Outsider was talking about. The Omniscience and Omnipotent fallacy, asking that if God is both, why do they allow for so many terrible things to happen in life. And considering how many people worship Samurai as Saints sent by God to save humanity, such arguments actually hold weight nowadays.

  So many Samurai have the ability to fix society’s problems, yet they don’t fix everything. Looking at Samurai like Starfall, the Matriarch of The Family, and a verified Class V Samurai, living up in her space station high above the clouds, so many people question why she doesn't do more. Then there are Samurai like Shoggoth who, while it is assumed they have the ability to do a lot considering their... everything, no one dares to ask them to do anything because they are sooner to eat the questioner as to answer them. To be fair, the questioner survived, but they lost all their hair and the ability to grow any more.

  I lean back and look at the ceiling. Victor is going to get bothered by that question no matter what once he makes a more public appearance and his abilities are made public. I get why he won't feel the need to do anything more, however. Hell, the only reason the rest of us plan to go after corporations is to spite those who used us, not to make New Phoenix better or anything. We have no illusions that we hold a duty to fix things, to fix humanity. While I don't know how the rest of the world is fairing, I know North America is a hellscape of-

  That's a good point, actually. “Hey, Outsider. You can penetrate the corporate blocks on international news and stuff, right?” She nods, looking confused. “Cool, could you give me access to some stuff from the European Corporation and its surroundings? I'm curious on how what the corpos here didn't want us to know.”

  “I would like to point out that such a block only existed with your previous augs, and that once you received your new ones, you have had free access to the rest of the world at any time.” She says, sending me a link.

  The link is to a news site called the Purple Truth, run by a corporation called PsyCo in Germany. Using that as a jumping off point, I start digging quickly into the entire history of the rest of the world since the incursions started, and I am shocked and amazed at what I find.

  We all knew that there was a fox themed Samurai called Foxfire, but we did not know just how much power she had over the rest of the world. Vienna sounds like an actual paradise under her guidance. And apparently, England has been ruled by a racoon girl for decades now and her army of raccoons. While not as good as Vienna, London still sounds far better than most of North America.

  Then I start digging into who the hell PsyCo is and am once more blown away! Three generations of Samurai, a huge PMC, an actually unbiased news source, and so much more.

  They seem to be what Morrigan was trying to base us off of, so I sent her a message.

  [Heya, Cody. What's up?] She asks.

  [Did you know about PsyCo? Is that why you were pushing so hard for this PMC?]

  [Hmm huh hmm. Yes and no. I knew about the Samurai backed corporation PsyCo, but only a few days ago, after I reached Gunny's satellites and copied his database info. As for why I pushed this PMC so hard? Because it was the best way to protect Victor and the rest of us, since he didn't seem to have any interest in leaving New Phoenix.]

  [So you didn't know what was going on in the rest of the world before you entered Gunny’s satellite]

  [I had no interest in the rest of the world once I learned of what happened to New Houston, no. Is it interesting to know that China is now three Samurai run countries? Sure. Is it awe inspiring to learn that a socialist paradise like Vienna actually exists and has functioned for decades with no sign of collapse? Obviously. But how does that help Victor now, when he has no interest in anything beyond his family? It doesn't. When I learned of Elise and her nursery of raccoons having successfully become the literal Queen of England, I had some hope for Victor to do the same here, but that will be far into the future, and very much so with the help and permission of The Family. And from what I have learned of The Family leadership, that suggests that anything close to Vienna will not be possible until he reaches peak Class IV, if not Class V himself. And that will take either years, or a trip to Mars, where I predict he will die or break. Any other questions?]

  Foxfire, and her children , , , and are just some of the truly wonderful fictions that make up as well as chat with the numerous authors who frequent its channels. Please give them a read, as while they are not required reading for Anti-antithesis, this story takes place in the same Extended Universe as all of those wonderful stories.

  patreon! It is 10 chapters ahead of public release and I will do my best to keep it that way.