Chapter 39: Heady meetings

  “Politics is a difficult thing for new samurais to wrap their head around.

  On one hand, you can threaten powerful people without direct consequences, but most people assume you’re a decent person. That may pose a challenge for some more than others, but it is still a challenge.

  Well, in the end, most will have to make an example.”

  – Laser Jack, Instructional video for new Samurais on the intricacy of politics, 2055.

  ***

  I was mostly recovered from the… interesting night in the morning when we received a visitor! This one only had an assistant and a couple of huge duffle bags filled with… something. The arrival committee was a bit smaller, given that they were not very well armed. Just me and Johnny Law. They had a face scrambler on, which pointed towards criminals of some kind. It wasn’t a negative, per se, but still notable.

  I raised my hand lazily, shotgun on full display, diagonal across my chest. Hell, even my Grave Digger was deployed even though it just looked like a few tubes on my wrists at the moment.

  “Hey there! What’s with the visit? I appreciate the need for a face scrambler, I do, but you look like the type I need to ask about.” Johnny sent me a message.

  ShexySheriff: Strong anti-scan tech, can’t determine the contents.

  Good to know. As they got closer, I noticed their cargo looked a bit misshapen. What the fuck did they stuff into those? “Hi, I’m Rod, this is Pat, we wanted to discuss in private. Somewhere with noise cancellers?”

  My animated eyes narrowed and the bookish guy in a suit apparently called Rod put down his bags and raised his hands above his head. “I’m unarmed, I just want to talk. I’ll stay with the bags at all times so you know there won’t be surprises in them. You’re better armored than me after all.” Pat did the same, but without the speech. He looked chill. I think I liked Pat.

  Pat was taller than Rod, who couldn’t be more than 5’6. His echolocation didn’t find anything, and when Johnny confirmed that Rod’s nice suit and Pat’s punk outfit with leather jacket were clean, I shrugged. “Why the fuck not. It’s been a weird day. Let’s see how weird it can get.”

  We ended up settling for a destroyed Cafe with a still nice booth. I bought a few cheap pastries and cups of coffee with points. It was a waste, sure, but I wanted to. It’d been a long time since I had pastries and good coffee! It was all about being a good host! After all, Rod actually seemed to appreciate it! “Damn that’s good! Better than the shit we steal from execs even!”

  “I know right? Protector food is crazy. Also got a vape catalogue, pisses my AI off to no end.” I said with a chuckle.

  I know you took detoxification suites on multiple occasions. There is no need for you to vape!

  I kept chuckling a bit longer. “Don’t mind if I puff?” Pat asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Go right ahead bud!” We were getting pretty fucking comfortable. Those face scramblers were good quality, but they didn’t hinder the clouds of vapor or eating. They were these hologram projectors that basically generated static with maybe a few symbols for style.

  After a few minutes of chilling and shooting the shit, because I really fucking needed it, I bought a sound isolation tool. “So, I’m guessing you guys are criminals of some kind or other. Doesn’t bother me but Johnny might object. Unless you’re pedophiles or something, I don’t plan on executing two people I don’t know who walked into my territory unarmed.”

  I turned to Johnny. “Is that alright with you sheriff?” I asked, giving him authority over the situation.

  “That should be alright. I deliver justice for this building most of all.” The guys seemed to untense, but not fully.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what we’re here about…” He turned off the hologram.

  That’s Rodrick Caster, leader of the Cobra Kais

  My gun ended up pointed at his face before I even knew I was moving. I didn’t pull the trigger. I always gave people a chance but… That… fuck…

  “Yeah, that’s the reaction I expected… Thank you for not shooting.” The guy seemed resigned, which… fuck me, I wanted to shoot him so fucking bad! I spoke through clenched teeth.

  “No problem, now, would you kindly answer a few fucking questions.” Pat, or apparently Patrick, his political officer, was still chewing on some pastries and puffing on his vape pen, perfectly calm.

  I also noticed Johnny’s gun pointed at the man’s face. “Look, I’m here to try and diffuse the situation. Some info that might help: I wasn’t in charge during your revolution. I told my guys to leave you the fuck alone two years ago, and hopefully you saw a decrease in attacks. You can have the fucking building, I don’t want it.” He said with a nonchalant wave.

  “Also, the guy that was in charge during your uprising? I killed him. He was a god damn moron, wasting resources on those attacks on your people.”

  … Okay, yeah, that helped. The guy was unarmed… and he came to talk… I could calm down… I’d just been shooting the shit with him a few seconds ago for fuck’s sake! I could calm down…

  I can confirm the timeline and the intention based on what I found when I hacked his augs. I did so when we found out who he was. He seems to genuinely be afraid of you and wants to stop the massacre of his organization.

  ‘Thanks Altany.’

  I lowered my gun slowly, eventually retracting it without fully dismissing it. My shotgun would be a hindrance this close. Johnny followed my lead. He knew this was personal for me.

  I kept my gauntlet on the table though, pointed at him. “Alright. I know your ‘sabs’ planted devices and viruses. That’s a fucking lot to make up for. I could have saved more people if the net hadn’t been so fucked you know?” The guy had the good grace to wince a bit.

  ‘Sabs’ had become a street name for sabotage specialists a decade ago. Still relevant? Probably not shit…

  “Yeah, that’s fucked up. I had no fucking clue about that deal, only found out yesterday. Plus, the result being a combat samurai with an axe to grind against us? Yeah, I wasn’t fucking pleased. Jesus, spreading xenos in the fucking city? Working with corpos to eliminate street people en-masse? Fucking hell… That seems like some fucker in my ranks wanted to create as many enemies as possible! Powerful enemies!” He rubbed his face and I could see the tiredness and the feeling of ‘so many fucking idiots to handle’. I could somewhat sympathize.

  I confirmed what could be in his statement.

  I took a deep breath, mouth a silent thanks to Altany and refocused. My helmet had snapped in place the moment I saw his face. He could only see my animated eyes. I could do this. “So, you wanted to stop me from going on a rampage and killing everyone involved?”

  Surprisingly, he shook his head! “Hm? Oh, yes and no. I didn’t want the collateral damage mostly. All the people involved are in there.”

  He pointed at the bags and my eyes widened. “Heads?”

  “Heads.” The Kais’ big boss confirmed. Well! That made my job easier! I did want to hunt those fuckers down but if the dude wanted to do it for me well… Ok, I was warming up to the fucker!

  “Yeah, I’ll admit, that’s a good start.” He smiled slightly at me and made a gesture in the air.

  “That’s all the data I could gather on this fucking stupid deal, that way you can know if I missed anyone.” Alright! So far so good!

  “Hum… Thanks. I actually mean it too. Makes my job easier… or, well, Johnny’s job but I was going to do it myself for… personal reasons.”

  He nodded at me. “Yeah, I can understand, with your history and all that. I know parts of how fucked up this place was and I’d go on a rampage too.”

  I was a bit thrown off. “Just… give me a minute, kind of need to process. I’m not going to tell people you’re here, it might cause a murder squad, to be honest.”

  He actually sighed in relief. “Thank you, seriously.” He went back to coffee and pastries and I followed up. I did, in fact, need to process. I didn’t want to tell Lila or Robin because they would genuinely try to kill him. Would that be a bad thing? I sent a text to Johnny, who’d also gone back to eating.

  Pandamonium: Thoughts? What is your crime thingy telling you?

  ShexySheriff: He’s mostly wanted for financial crimes. Seems more an administrator and bookkeeper than a crime boss to me. Probably overthrew the last one and been making people money so he stays in power. Patrick barely has any warrants, and they’re not violent crimes. Mostly charges for theft, not much more than that.

  Pandamonium: You say we hear him out?

  ShexySheriff: Our people are battered. They’d go to war for sure, but it’s neither the time, nor place. We’d win but… why? Vengeance isn’t a great reason to fight you know? It ain’t worth more of our people dying is what I think, even if most of the bastards deserve it. Plus, if he offers to make amends, maybe we can get something out of this. Not sure what though.

  I chewed another bite, then nodded. “Alright, so, you want to make amends? I hope you know the kind of shit your assholes put us through is worth a whole lot more than a few braindead idiot’s heads.”

  He nodded in understanding. The guy knew what kind of position he was in. Having a samurai pissed off at you was pretty fucking bad. Having two samurais pissed off at you was a death sentence, without question. Nothing would protect you, especially from combat focused ones.

  “Yeah, I thought not, and I fully get it. The problem is… I’m not sure what you want? Credits don’t feel right for this kind of shit. Other gangs, I could send a ton of drugs, we have stashes for this kind of shit, but you guys don’t really behave like a normal gang. For corps it would be credits but again, don’t feel right for you folks so… I don’t know.” He seemed pretty lost and I couldn’t blame him.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I thought about it for a bit… “Sex slaves.” That took him and Johnny by surprise. Patrick stayed unflappable.

  “You… want slaves?”

  “I want to free them, but, yeah. We already have quite a few from the brothels we emptied. Honestly, I was considering raids to free more. My husband used to be one. I don’t take that shit lightly.” Some steel entered back into my voice at that last part. Rodrick seemed… conflicted? I sucked at reading emotions…

  “I mean, it could work, the problem is… Look, normal gangs are like… pirate vessels.” I raised an eyebrow. “By that, I mean that I rule as long as the people under me don’t want to kill me. If they do, I can’t really stop them. You know what I mean?” I nodded slowly. I understood his predicament, but it wasn’t an answer.

  “I’m definitely not saying no! It’s a damn fine idea, I like it. I don’t like those things either and the revenue is not great, but, you know, I don’t want to die.” Ah, yeah, now it made sense. “Usually, in other gangs, people just find people willing to fuck for money, people that really enjoy it or that get addicted to shiver. A leader of the gang, like, two leaders ago, decided to do this horrible thing and the last two liked having… toys.” He said it with distaste, which helped my murderous pulses of emotions.

  “I’m stuck with it, but at the same time, having a samurai say ‘gimme or die’, well, it certainly helps to make a change… However, I have fucking morons that ‘don’t believe in samurais’ or some other idiotic shit.”

  Patrick chimed in for the first time in the conversation. “I’d say about sixty percent are like that, boss.”

  “Thanks Patrick…” He said with the distraction of someone saying it a lot. He seemed like a good assistant to have. “You wouldn’t happen to have footage of you in action, would you? I know it might sound like I’m trying to gather intel, and I’m sorry if it does, but you’re a ganger by our standards. You’re in a gang and your job title’s enforcer. Not only that, you’re still down here with us when you don’t have to be. That gives a lot more cred than you’d think. With all that, it might feel less like corpo bullshit maybe?”

  Patrick added his two cents again. “Should be mostly effective. Especially footage from the murder spree against those mercs. A ganger fighting corpos and winning is always a good show. Fighting antithesis is cool too, but they don’t have a frame of reference, you know?”

  Without my face even reacting, I sent him the footage of me dealing with the PMCs that killed my people. I also added what happened when I cleared the shelters. He looked at it in pure silence, his eyes widening from time to time until he finished and they were saucers! “Jesus fucking christ, dude…”

  “They killed my people.” I said simply. The implied threat was crystal clear.

  “Yeah, don’t think anyone’s going to question my decision after we circulate that. Anything from you?” He asked Johnny, who promptly sent the video of some of his executions. We also added some of our best clips against aliens, for added gravitas. There were a few beats of silence.

  “God, we’d be so fucking dead…” He muttered, so low he probably didn’t think I could hear. “Alright, sex-slaves delivery coming right up! Got two hundred and seventy three for you! I’ll make sure we only get volunteers of legal age from now on...” He said, grumpily but satisfied at the same time. It was probably weighing on him for a while from what I could tell.

  I looked him straight in the eyes. “That would be wise. Honestly? Our red-light district earns more than yours, even with less available clientele. What can I say, people that aren’t enslaved, raped, tortured constantly, forced to become addicts, and injected with a tracking beacon tend to do a better job.” That got a bigger wince.

  “You know, if there's a change to that policy, tell us. Johnny’s big on delivering justice. Also, if some of them complain because they want younger ones, just message me and I’ll handle ‘em for free.”

  The man shivered. Good boy.

  ***

  There is an incoming vanguard.

  “God damn it…” I said while sighing. The meeting with Rodrick had been weighing on my mind. I’d have to talk to the council about it, very soon, but I had no idea how to bring it up. I hadn’t even talked to Robin about it yet! Hell, we were still rebuilding the fucking council!

  Now? I was having lunch with my family! School was out since it got a bit… obliterated. Rachael looked at me. She’d caught that eh? “What’s wrong?” I shrugged.

  “Not really wrong, it’s just that I should go.” I didn’t move and took another bite of my burger. We had the creds, why not use them?

  “Are you going to?” She asked, amused.

  “Nop!” I answered with a big smile. “I’m staying with my family. I’m not going unless I really have to go.”

  The incoming vanguard is Deus Ex, she has the ability to vaporize this building.

  “Fuck!” Not swearing around the kids in these parts was sort of useless. I kept my more… intense stuff away though. Lila turned to me, worried.

  “You alright? Need me?” She asked, Jack in her arms. She was breastfeeding and I didn’t want to interrupt.

  “No, no, stay there. I’m just going to take Johnny with me. It’s samurai stuff, just a visitor.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “Bounty hunters don’t announce themselves.” That seemed to calm her some. I kissed Robin and hugged the kids before heading out in my armor.

  I’d taken to wearing a very paired down section even when I relaxed. At minimum always a layer of nano-grain alloy on my back and covering my spine.

  The tail always stayed… It was just the stupid mental integration! It felt weird not having it now, like missing a limb! “This is all your fault…” I muttered.

  The mental integration only did so much. You like the tail and you should admit it to yourself.

  “Nop!” I said as I kept on walking. I’d sent a text to Johnny but he’d been alerted too. I took the elevators which were the first thing to get repaired. No elevators in a mega-building caused sheer insanity and chaos! Even when only one bank went offline, it created a massive fucking mess!

  “Any info?” I asked Altany, reforming my shotgun. I may not have been… that worried but I wasn’t stupid. Plus, roofs were great spots to get sniped.

  She is a prominent member of The Family. Her profile suggests she is exceedingly unlikely to attack you. Also, I feel a need to mention you do not have the necessary capabilities to harm her, even if you were to use all your points.

  That made me grumble but I got it. The world wasn’t fair and there was always a bigger shark, especially when it came to samurais. Had to know your place…

  On the other hand fuck that, I didn’t get this far by knowing my fucking place now, did I?

  I arrived on the roof at the same time as Johnny and we walked to the spot designated as the meeting point. “Any idea what this is about?” I asked Johnny.

  He looked a bit worried, but not too much. “Ain’t got a clue…”

  I picked up a sound and looked up. Something… fell from orbit? “Holy shit…” The closer it got, –and it was getting damn close damn fast!– the clearer I could see around the fire. That… was a shuttle. A samurai shuttle. “Yeah, okay Altany, I’m not going to get myself killed trying something stupid…” Johnny snorted.

  It landed a lot more gently than I thought it would! It slowed quickly enough to seriously mess up any vanilla human. When it opened… a girl smaller than Rachael came out, decked out in what appeared to be very advanced samurai armor.

  “Hey.” She said with a wave.

  “Fuck off.” I answered. Johnny put his head in his hand. I thought it was decent as far as first words upon meeting went.

  She grabbed a clear sort of plastic sports bag and threw it between us. It had heads in it. “Peace offering.” I stared for a second then looked back at her. A few were… unidentifiable.

  “Who’s that precisely?”

  “The ones you didn’t catch in time.” She said, looking at Johnny.

  I looked back at the heads. “Huh… Thanks! Well, welcome to Peach Trees! What the fuck brought this on?”

  She nodded, seeming satisfied. “To remove a bounty, you need two high ranking samurai members of The Family. There’s a bunch of safeties in place so no samurai who gets issued a bounty can remove it themselves. I need to meet you and confirm that the bounty was issued improperly. AIs make sure, sorry. So, heard you killed a lot of people?”

  I nodded. “Yup. They really fucking deserved it.”

  She nodded. “Cool, we’re done. I’m sorry for what happened by the way. Have a nice day!” The pipsqueak said before getting back in her ship.

  Just like that, she left. “Hum… Altany?” I wasn’t sure what the question was or what I wanted to know but… Yeah, I just wanted an answer.

  The bounty has been removed.

  “Huh…” Johnny said.

  I had to say I agreed. “Welp, back to lunch, I guess.”

  ***

  Laser Jack is approaching the building.

  This time, when I received the message I was ready to go meet him. “Prepare to buy and fire some hyper-sonic grapeshot.” I said while getting in the elevator. Wouldn’t buy it unless I needed to, that shit was expensive!

  Ready.

  The ride didn’t take long, and just like that, I arrived on the same floor as the skywalk. He was getting somewhat close. When in sight of the doorway, I set up just out of Laser Jack’s field of view with enough space for the shell to accelerate. I also pointed my shotgun, because why not? The moment he saw me, Laser Jack threw his hands up.

  “Anna! George! Donna!” He kept listing names. All my enforcers. I let him. He then started listing the kids. All of them. He pronounced every name I asked him to remember..

  His AI confirms he has viewed every file in the data dump we sent.

  “You believe them?” I asked, suspicious.

  Yes. Before you ask, they’ve shown me evidence.

  I lowered my gun and let my railgun power down. It was still pointed at him but not nearly as… aggressively. “Here.” He said before tossing a sports bag my way. Given the shape and size, more severed heads…

  “What the fuck am I going to do with all these fucking heads?” I muttered with my mic off. Well, I sure as fuck wasn’t making them fucking heads…

  …Ok, that was extremely disturbing, even for me.

  I suggest incinerating them. They are mostly a gesture or a show of proof. There is no need to keep them.

  “Good point.” I said as I looked back at Laser Jack. His eyes were red and a bit puffy. He’d been crying.

  “I’m sorry. I’m truly, deeply sorry. May I give you some things?” He asked, clearly still careful around me. I nodded. He hadn’t heard a word come out of my helmet. I hadn’t shown my animated eyes either.

  A few massive crates came down the skywalk on anti-grav palettes. There were eight of them. Three big ones and five smaller ones. “Hum, Jackal helped a lot, I lacked the points, sorry. That’s antithesis detection equipment. You’ll need it. If you miss even a small amount you’ll end up with a hive growing in your building. It’s for your militia and enforcers. Those are hum… monument projectors. I know you have a central concourse in each sector, it’s for there… if you want. You can program them and change what they display and stuff. Your AI can tell you more…”

  They are already encoded with all enforcers. This includes those who died in the purge and after, as well as how they died. The 3D models are very detailed. All came with a small history.

  The same is true for every militia member and civilian who died during the incursion, including detailed 3D models and biography. Eighty-six point four percent include voice clips for the families and friends to listen to. I can add in more later. I suspect a high amount of points were spent for this information alone.

  I looked at the boxes. They’d help some people a lot. Grieving was a bitch and for some, those monuments would make things worse… Fucking hell we needed a therapy AI so fucking bad…

  I looked at Laser Jack. He’d been a piece of shit, but… a lot of that was corpo-corruption… Probably. He… seemed to care. Maybe… I could give him a second chance…

  A lot of shit was his fault, but he hadn’t started anything. He’d just acted the way corpo-drones were trained to. He needed a reality check, but at the same time… wasn’t this a reality check? It shouldn’t have cost so many lives to teach him not to be a monster…

  I extended my hand. “Thank you.” My voice was harder than I intended but… Fuck off, I was trying!

  He seemed to understand that I wasn’t forgiving him or letting him off the hook, just… giving him a shot. I gave everyone a shot. He’d been selected as samurai, that was probably a sign he wasn’t hopeless.

  Jack looked at my hand, fully encased in metal, then shook it. We weren’t good. He didn’t seem happier, just a bit relieved. “Thank you…”

  He knew. I was sure he knew. No idea how, but I knew he understood I was giving one shot. Only one…

  a lot but I have a lot of ideas for the intervening time! Going to be interesting! :D