Chapter 8: I don’t think I can fix that

  “You know, some of us really don’t care about our names, our legacy, whatever. At least, not at first. When you just started out, you’re busy, it’s the middle of an incursion, you have people to save, everything’s going fast, you might just accept whatever, you know? Some samurai tells you a name and it seems unimportant when innocent people are in danger.

  Some of us got burned that way…”

  –Streetside interview with Guzzle Dazzle, 2043

  ***

  I only spent a few seconds hugging my kids. I wanted more. I wanted to hide them from this fucking mess. I wanted to hug them until all our worries were over. I wanted to keep them in my arms and endure all of life’s hardships for them, to take any harm on myself, any alien bites, to be their shield against everything. I wanted to…

  But Alice asked me a question. “Papa, can you help aunt Lila?”. I broke out of the hug, eyes wide.

  “Where?” She pointed at a pile of antithesis which apparently had someone under it. The blood made it hard to tell.

  I knew Lila’s body pretty intimately though. It was Lila, and I was pretty sure she was dead. Probably why everyone else hadn’t dug her out.

  Three of them were still biting her, all stabbed to death. She still held a knife planted into one of their heads. “Ma belle, I don’t think I can fix that…”

  I connected to her augmentations, she is breathing and has a pulse.

  “Oh fuck!” again, I jumped into action. Barely a second later, I started throwing little shits away. Altany told me not to remove the one on her thigh and I listened. It took a while to get her in ‘not going to die in the next five minutes’ shape. Then I remembered there were more people.

  After a frantic few minutes of giving orders and handing out expensive protector tech meds like candy, I could finally sit next to Robin, who was waking up.

  “Hey darling” I told him with a smile filled with relief. His eyes fluttered open and he looked at me like he’d just woken up from a nap.

  “Hey pandear…” The most beautiful words I’d heard in my life. “Hey… How come I’m not dead? I… I remember getting killed… Oh fuck, how’s Alice? Rachael? Did the…” I put my hand on his shoulder as Alice and Rachael came around for him to inspect, fret and worry over. It made me smile.

  I just watched the mother hen show and breathed, sitting with my back to the wall. I put Lila’s head on my lap.

  Why does your husband call you ‘panda’? It is not a common form of addressing a loved one in your culture, to my knowledge. While reviewing footage I’ve observed many using variations of this form of address for you, but never a reason.

  The interruption didn’t disturb me much. The origin of that name was… Not private per se, but not something I shared the full story of. The full story was… very private.

  At the same time, Altany was living in my head. Keeping stuff from her wasn’t really an option.

  ‘My mother used to call me that. It’s from a saying that I think she made up.’

  What is the saying? You do not have to share if you do not wish to, but I find that this information may be important in understanding my vanguard.

  I wanted to share if I was being honest with myself. She was an AI living in my head to assist me. If I couldn’t trust her, I was fucked anyway.

  ‘I don’t know if my dad or my mom made it up. It was this little phrase or mnemonic or whatever. They were old school French-Canadians you know, wanted to make sure I spoke French, that I had the proper history lessons, etc…’

  ‘They both signed up shortly after the first incursions, Canadian Army. We have a pretty damn impressive track record. My dad said ‘outmanned, outgunned, undefeated’. He was real proud too.’

  ‘Anyway, the saying was, Canadians are like Pandas. They’re really cute, polite, nice and all that but there’s something people tend to forget; a panda’s a fucking bear, and if you’re a danger to their loved ones it’ll rip your throat out before you can blink.’

  It is a lesson you took to heart, I imagine.

  ‘Yeah, my mom thought that both parts were important. Lots of people in New-Montreal are fucking assholes, but to her being Canadian or French-Canadian was about that quote, that’s how you could tell.’

  ‘The greedy corpos that care only for themselves? She’d have exported them to the US where they belong if she had enough HE ammo . Well, that’s how she said it when she was drunk.’

  ‘Personally, I always tried to veer the association towards red pandas. You know, the worst species at reproduction and survival is not the type of thing I necessarily want as a brand.’

  I see. Thank you for sharing this with me. Did you know that red pandas were named before giant pandas? That is the origin of the name giant pandas.

  ‘Really? That’s a relief. I’m pretty stuck with that name.’

  You could choose a different vanguard name.

  ‘How does that work anyway?’

  Tradition is that a vanguard will name another. It should be done in good faith, and any vanguard can refuse a name that is given.

  ‘Well thank god, I’m pretty sure without the refusal clause they’d… we’d all be called something foul.’

  “Panda?” I shook myself out of my conversation as I heard my nickname, possibly my Samurai name!

  “Yes darling?” I asked, focusing on my husband.

  “You were lost in conversation with your super AI, weren’t you?” He asked with a teasing smile. I could see there was a bit of worry in his eyes, but not much. He knew me, and I knew him.

  We hadn’t only been fucking like jackrabbits in heat since the marriage. We’d processed a lot of trauma together, shared the darkest parts of ourselves, our greatest regrets.

  Yet, we were both still here and didn’t love each other any less. I smiled at him “Yeah actually, meet Altany… Hey you know what give me a sec…”

  ‘Altany can…’

  You have a projection capable drone in your Mole-Bear catalogue. Would you like to buy one?

  I chuckled, that might have been predictable. “Yes, please.” A box appeared next to me and I stared at it. There was a red panda on it. A chibi red panda.

  “Are… are you doing branding Altany?” Suddenly, the box cracked open and a small flying drone came out. This time the answer came out of it… as well as the image of a cyborg red panda.

  I had no clue how I knew what a ‘tasteful amount of fur’ was, but I was pretty certain I didn’t want to know. However… Yeah, that fucking cyber panda had a tasteful amount of fur. Like a robot that looked just the right amount of cute and cool.

  This time, when Altany answered, I heard her with my ears, which felt… odd, but whatever. “Someone should think about it since you won’t.”

  Alright, the sass came through loud and clear! “Greetings Alice, Rachael, Robin and little Jacob, I am Altany, vanguard Louis’s personal AI assistant!” The little fucking anime cyborg even bowed!

  “I like her!” Robin declared immediately.

  “You just met her! I’m not even sure I like her!” I protested, resulting in a little frown from the avatar. Bitch was being cute.

  ”Well if you don’t we’re all fucked so who cares?” Robin answered without missing a beat. It was a very fair and valid point.

  “Sorry to interrupt your adorable banter, but the turrets are currently being overrun by model fours.” Just as she started her announcement, Altany’s ‘eyes’ had grown big and dark with little green lines of code going down here and there. Had to admit, it was a cute way to warn people.

  “Gotta go darling!” I said with a cheeky wink and a kiss. “Coming with you!” Claimed Lila while… Well, getting up was a generous way of putting it. I didn’t even realize she was awake. She got off my lap with quite a lot of difficulty.

  Taking a bit of pity on her, I hauled her up by the armpit. “Are you sure you can keep up?” The murderous look in her eyes warmed my heart!

  “My legs are fine…” They probably weren’t but seeing an occasion, I had to take it.

  “Yes, yes they are.” That earned me a light backhanded smack to the chest but got a few laughs. I wasn’t a social genius but I thought joking and having fun in this mess would help morale a lot. Showing we weren’t afraid, that they had a samurai on their side ready to fuck shit up!

  She faked it well enough until we were out of the room with the door closed. A stumble later, she got back up and saw me holding more meds. “Traite-moi pas comme si j’était juste du monde, yeah? Don’t treat me like I’m just people, yeah?”

  I said it in a tone no one could interpret properly. The look in her eyes was complicated. It hurt a bit that I’d talk french in close proximity to ‘people’.

  The apartment was full of random civilians who didn’t necessarily know she understood the language. However, plenty of people spoke French.

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  Lila was extremely private about her past. Often, that spoke of hidden regrets or someone who might try to find and capture. I never pushed. It looked like a door that opened to a lot of pain for her.

  There was also some hurt at the implied weakness of needing help, but she’d been chewed almost to death. I think she understood that.

  Also, a bit of guilt at acting tough in a situation that could get the family killed. It was a bad reflex when she got hurt. I understood it, but I couldn’t tolerate it at the moment. Enemies were on the way, I needed her at full strength. She took the meds in the end.

  Is Lila someone you consider family?

  ‘Yes. She carried me and Robin’s child, she came from the same place he did and she’s an enforcer. I trust her implicitly.’

  In this case, I feel I should mention I have found some bounties for her in accessible archives, going by facial recognition. Would you like for me to hinder attempts at finding her?

  I believe with your cyberwarfare suite I could alter facial recognition files, destroy certain bounties and install various malware to help. Buying her some better eye augmentations could also help tremendously if someone actively looks. It wouldn’t cost that many points.

  ‘Offer it to her, it’s not up to me.’

  Wisely, Altany waited until we were around the closest corner, maybe for her to recover more, before she made the offer. I knew she did because Lila’s spine went rigid and her head snapped to me.

  I could see her hand going to her pistol unconsciously. I didn’t react, just kept walking. “Je sais pas pis j’ai pas besoin d’savoir./ I don’t know and I don’t need to know.”

  I didn’t check behind me. Lila could have shot me if she wanted and I’d given her that opportunity, but she was family. “T’es un osti d’innocent Louis…/You’re a fucking moron Louis…” Her voice was filled with pain. It’d been a while since I heard her that rough.

  “T’es d’la famille./You’re family.” I answered simply. To me, it was all that needed to be said.

  I’d known her after whatever the fuck was in her past, and I was fine knowing her just from that. She was a kind woman, a good friend, a great aunt and someone I was glad to have watching my back.

  Robin had told me stories of her protecting the other joytoys, including him, back when they were in the hell Cobra Kais called a brothel. She was injured because, for all intents and purposes, she had died to protect our family.

  It took a moment or two, but she caught up. She was pretty quiet for a bit, recentering by losing herself in the process of installing her new augs. My turrets were two turns ahead, and I needed Lila ready for a fight.

  Didn’t mean I couldn’t fuck with her a bit. “Hey, Altany?”

  Suddenly, the little drone appeared. “Yes?” The cyber-panda asked.

  “Could you find me an SMG from my current catalogues? Something with good recoil control for Lila?” That earned me a strong slug in the arm and broke the tension.

  “That is easy to arrange, it’ll be a bit expensive though.” I swear I could see a tiny grin on the avatar.

  “I can handle a fucking rifle, asshole!”

  “May I propose the Growler for ninety points? It should have manageable enough recoil for poor Lila to handle.” She took an angry swipe at the little drone who dodged flawlessly.

  “I’ll take it!” I said before Lila could protest. I started to all out laugh at that point.

  A bullpup suddenly appeared in Lila’s arms and she glared daggers at me. Through clenched teeth, while carefully cradling the most expensive gun she’d ever held, Lila asked: “What the fuck does it fire?” I got the feeling she was thinking of shooting me after all!

  “A caseless equivalent of .50 caliber, or 12.7mm, with highly deforming anti-personnel rounds fired at slightly sub-rifle velocity. It is capable of semi, burst and fully automatic fire, with the recoil control systems to make such a use-case workable. Ammunition is, of course, highly customizable.” The drone answered.

  That wiped the glare from her face. The little anime panda acted innocent, licking its paw, which was kind of fucking weird on a cyborg. “What the fuck kind of catalogues do you have?” She asked, a bit impressed. She was holding that SMG a lot tighter now!

  “Large Bore Kinetic Weapon Systems” I answered with some pride.

  “Yeah, should’ve figured.” Lila commented with a snort.

  “Actually, this is in large part from your Mole-Bear catalogue.” Now it was my turn to take a swipe at the drone!

  ***

  Laser Jack surveyed the current situation with that micro-incursion. There were a lot of people to manage. The media was in a frenzy, criticizing the mayor, which was expected, but also the local samurai.

  He didn’t like taking the mayor’s side, but needs-must and all that. The PMCs had reacted quickly, barricading and, according to them, directly securing the building. The civilians should be in the shelters at this point. Those PMCs had been oddly fast to react…

  Better a quick reaction than a slow one. The timing was kind of terrible, really. All the higher tier samurais were away. An operation had been planned for a while. All of them could arrive in three to four hours, but it wasn’t necessary. Incursions this small were a good opportunity for sewer divers and low tier samurais anyway.

  This was a very small incursion in the grand scheme of things, just an off-shoot from the last one getting out of the sewers. Every volunteer samurai was sent to the sewers since the PMCs wanted to handle the building on their own. With how few antithesis there were, it wasn’t worth fighting them on it.

  Building security forces had done the original barricading, which hadn’t been enough since mall-cops never beat antithesis in any scenario. At the moment, he was watching twelve screens at the same time. He loved his multitasking brain augmentations.

  His AI helped mask the fact that he was speaking to more than one ‘important’ person at once.

  I believe we may have a new vanguard in need.

  Laser Jack ended a few conversations, claiming an emergency and closed a lot of screens.

  ‘What do you have?’

  On floor 11 of this building, there is a survivor who should be dead, wielding several vanguard grade weapons. Data acquisition was difficult. The building’s net connection is offline and I have only been able to receive a few still images and some short corrupted clips from hardwired cameras.

  Several screens switched to a few short clips and still images. Some were pre-initialization, clearly. Some kind of ganger. It wasn’t new, but it was uncommon. He was fighting side by side with several normies. Laser Jack witnessed a few sacrifices. Brave sorts. An earlier clip showed an evacuation and… ah.

  ‘Distracting the antithesis to protect civilians? Not common in gangers. What kind of gang am I looking at?’

  They are a small community called the ‘Bear-Yakuza’.

  Laser Jack snorted. Terrible name. It was odd though… There shouldn’t be this many antithesis on that floor. Were they going after something specific? He did lure them, apparently.

  They are a collective of denizens that expelled the last gang in control of their territory. Since the area was rather low earning, the Cobra-Kais did not feel a need to respond in force. Louis Larose appears to have played a vital role in starting and fighting in said revolt.

  Parents Francis and Sophie Larose. Francis died of cancer when he was twelve years old. Sophie committed suicide for reasons unknown. Profile suggests it was to protect her son in some way. The revolt took place approximately a year later.

  My profile of Louis is incomplete due to a lack of data, privacy rules between vanguards and difficulty with body language analysis. Father of three, he married a sex-worker. The relationship appears to be strong from body language in the archived footage I’ve found.

  He seems to genuinely care for his community and base a lot of his emotional identity around his family. This includes a woman I’ve seen referred to as ‘aunt Lila’.

  ‘You can’t identify her?’

  No, I cannot. Vanguard grade malware appears to have destroyed all accessible files that identify her. It is what tipped me off. Those that were not destroyed were altered enough to make linking both extremely difficult. Footage including her was scrubbed to make facial recognition impossible.

  All files destroyed were hidden with the elimination of many similar bounties and listings to obscure the main target. Hence, I cannot identify her. This vanguard appears to have purchased an anti-corporation focused cyber-warfare suite according to my analysis of the malware.

  ‘Very interesting, thank you. However, no time for that. We need to send in reinforcements. Do we have a newbie that can assist him? Someone who can grow from the opportunity?’

  This was barely an incursion, a few of them coming out of the sewers. That was why he didn’t mind the corporations in charge demanding to handle it themselves. There was a bit of political capital to be earned from that too.

  However, his intel didn’t match the footage he saw. That was concerning. No matter what, a samurai was in need. It was the family’s duty to help newbies, plain and simple.

  Several. Would you like a list?

  Suddenly, Laser Jack remembered something, and he smiled. It was a dangerous smile. Most would call it sadistic, really.

  I know what you are thinking. This may not be the optimal vanguard for this duty.

  It probably wasn’t. However, chances were he’d make it and grow from the opportunity. Also, it would be so fucking funny!

  ***

  Robin looked over his children with the paranoia of any parent, in his opinion. It was fair to check and recheck that they were ok, even if they’d been healed by protector tech!

  He was terrified of having hurt little Jack, given how much of a deathgrip Robin had on his baby. Lila fought like a maniac, even tackling and stabbing a ton of them! However, enough of them had piled to overwhelm her. Then?

  Then, Robin had… been useless. Just a useless fucking speed bump. He pushed the girls away before turtling around Jack. The only thought in his mind, through the pain, blood and fear, had been ‘don’t crush Jack’.

  After that, the first coherent memory was waking up to his love. Said love had bought those super nanites for the whole family, even if they weren’t injured. Good papa bear. That deserved a future reward!

  Saving everyone deserved a lot more than just that. The man would get one hell of a nice night after this! If they survived, of course.

  Would you like a medical inspection tool?

  The weird AI had continued introductions after Louis left. So far, they got along well! Both of them wanted to protect Louis and the children. It made for good initial common ground!

  ‘Can I do that? Buy stuff for the children, I mean?’

  My duty is to assist my vanguard. He places an extremely high priority on you and your children’s safety, beyond even his own life. I must ask him before any purchase but I assume he’ll give you access to his points instantly.

  He snorted. Louis was a great dad. He hated the bear references but the man really was like a big papa bear, but hot! Robin didn’t know what happened, but he could guess.

  His husband wouldn’t come back without the other enforcers, which meant they died. The big dummy probably did something heroic and the nice aliens rewarded him. It made sense, or at least it did to Robin.

  ‘He’ll need those to survive right? The kids will be fine, I’m just overly cautious. They’ve been through a lot worse.’

  There was always a bit of suspicion around Louis, because people weren’t used to someone being nice in these parts, or at least not that nice. Robin had been here for a long time though.

  He knew that most people were decent. People protect what they love and with the world being a shitty place, that often conflicted with someone else doing the same.

  There were bad people, for sure, a lot of them, but that didn’t mean everyone was an asshole. You easily forgot when the shitty parts of life fucked you over so hard.

  He also knew Louis, and why his mom had killed herself. It was ingrained in the man’s head. It drove a lot of his decisions. Louis was never a ganger, not a real one. Robin had been abused, beaten, raped, and almost killed by a lot of gangers.

  He’d also simply fucked a lot of ‘em. Robin knew gangers, and knew Louis. Louis wasn’t a ganger. Without his involvement, the Bear-Yakuza would’ve probably ended up better, but still just another gang.

  His husband had built a community. A caring, sharing, tight knit, sugar and spice and everything nice community! Down here, people called that a miracle, which broke Robin’s heart.

  ‘Can I do anything to help him?’

  I believe taking care of your children is the most helpful thing you can do. I’m sorry. If it helps, your children should be in better health than before this incursion.

  The nano-regenerative suites were somewhat extraneous, but took care of any cancers, heavy metals, microplastics, and toxins in their bodies.

  Robin smiled. AI or not, Altany was nice. It- no, she - would fit well with Louis.

  ‘Please make sure to bring him back alive. He’s the type for heroic sacrifices. Should’ve gotten him killed already. If not for you, I’m guessing he’d be dead, so thanks for that.’

  Of course, I will do my best.