Chapter 50: Always onward!

  “Where the fuck am I supposed to find alien bullets? Kmart!?”

  –Sergeant in the Monster Squad PMC group after running out of ammunition during an incursion and recovering several samurai weapons, 2045.

  ***

  “So, any idea what you’re gonna buy?” Lila asked me when we finally sat down with some protector food. I’d say we earned it! I had no idea how Altany created a lunchbox with steaming vegetables and plant-steak slices on rice next to crisp fresh peaches and cool raspberries, but I wouldn’t fucking complain! So good…

  The Badgers gave us a spot to relax in the station rooms, away from the still burning hive. Super-napalm did some wonderful work! Even glassing some sections, which meant they were somewhat still safe without the root supports. I’d heard plans to expand into the tunnels –After making sure they were properly purged–.

  Me and three quarters of the enforcers were all taking a break at cafeteria tables and I’d bought food for everyone, which in large batches wasn’t that expensive… It’d help morale! Also, it would be delicious!

  “Not sure, but I’m also not sure if I’ll spend it on me. Could buy a ton of cleanse for addicts in our territory, that sex stuff for the ex-prostitutes that need it, more drones to…” I stopped myself when Lila raised her hand.

  “No.”

  I blinked dumbly at her a couple times. “No?”

  “No.”

  “Care to elaborate?” I asked, an amused smile on my face.

  “Louis… you know I love you, right?” She said with some hesitation. I didn’t blame her, we all had our issues.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know the rest of the enforcers love you too in their own way, right?”

  “Uhuh.”

  “So, please don’t take it badly when we tell you –yes, we had a vote– that you have to get better, so we’re refusing half the points we made.”

  That threw me for a loop! “Wait, that’s…!”

  “You almost died.” The serious look in her eyes got me to shut up. “I know what you’re going to say and I don’t give a shit. That was too close. We need you. All that stuff you talked about? None of it gets done if you die. I know you have things you want to improve, so we’re unanimous when we say ‘improve yourself with those points for fuck’s sake’. Don’t just use ‘our’ points either, take at least half the ones you made for yourself.”

  Silence stretched between us for a few seconds. She had a point, even if I instinctively wanted to fight back against someone telling me what to do. Still, our whole system was community democracy based or something, I should take their votes into account… “Coolsies.”

  She didn’t let me off the hook, glaring bloody murder. “That wasn’t a confirmation Louis!” She said, steel entering her voice.

  “Urgh, fine, fuck it, I’ll spend my points on not dying, you happy?”

  Bitch gave me a fucking smile! “I am. I really am.” Then, I heard her switch to enforcer comms. “Pay up fuckers!”

  A few groans and jeers followed and my mouth went agape. “You bet on… what the hell?”

  “More like extra-motivation to get the job done. Francis and the highest earners also donated to the newbies a bunch, they need the help.” She looked damn proud of herself! I decided to take the… loss? Whatever.

  “So, Altany, with all of that taken into account, how much did I make?”

  Counting the points your enforcers sent back towards you, that makes 7345 points plus a token for your first hive destruction, 4415 of which you must spend on yourself. According to the unofficial contract, this excludes house defenses, to be clear.

  “Oh come on! Wait, there was a contract?”

  Unofficial, I helped Lila draft it. Your enforcers are also covering repairs, which I kept off the count.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine… What should I spend it on?”

  You have many options. Certain elements you have been pushing back are cardio systems and increased strength.

  That got me thinking. “Can I increase my weight?”

  “The fuck would you want that for?” Lila asked, very perplexed.

  “Momentum and grounding. Those fucking model thirteens threw me around like a ragdoll…”

  That can be arranged. Increased weight will require increased strength however. I would recommend hyper-densification of your armor’s current base memory-alloy.

  “Gonna have to explain that one…”

  The base layer, which moves every plate and elements, does not provide very good armoring. Most bullets can penetrate it and it buckles very easily. However, hyper-densification would allow you to quintuple the amount of alloy while thinning your profile.

  One of the issues with powered-armor is that at a certain thickness, you simply cannot retain flexibility. Fingers end up forced apart by the angles, as an example. You cannot bring your knee as close to your chest if there is more armor in the way.

  “Makes sense… Is there a better alloy we could use?”

  Of course, there always is.

  “I mean, there has to be a limit, right? How many alloys could there possibly be?”

  More than atoms in the universe.

  I blinked dumbly at that. “There’s no fucking way.”

  An alloy is a metal mixed with two or more elements. Said additions do not even have to be metals, carbon being the most common example. A difference of 0.1% of a single element is enough to become a different alloy and modify its properties to a small or large degree. The numbers are, quite literally, astronomical.

  Not only that, but we are speaking of traditional alloys, not the more interesting high-entropy alloys which combine in mostly equal measure five or more elements, sometimes more than ten, creating properties outside of humanity’s grasp. They are extremely difficult to manufacture in many cases, one of the reasons your species has not made use of them to a high degree yet.

  There are also neutron-enriched metals, stabilized super-massive elements used as components, selective hyper-densification and I’m already losing you.

  The Mole-Bears perfected the alloying of metals, including exploring billions of combinations, which is only counting the ones constructed, not those they modeled digitally.

  There is always a better alloy, and most often, they discovered it. Your catalogue is only tier two and you haven’t approached its high-end. Hence, trust me when I say that, yes, there is always a better alloy as far as you are concerned.

  I took a minute to wrap my mind around that before returning to earth. “Okay, let’s hum… table that for now. So, alloys, should we get a better one for my muscles?”

  Yes.

  “Just… yes?”

  Yes.

  “No other option or something?”

  No. Some solutions are obvious, Louis.

  Welp, fuck it! “Alright, so better alloy for my muscles. Something stronger and faster, I don’t need it more solid since that’s what my armor’s for.”

  Agreed. However, I would recommend an addition to your list of augmentations. The alloys that make up your musculoskeletal system are meant to be inoffensive to your biology. If you were to add a management organ for your immune system, in part to help with toxins and venoms, it would open more doors for augmentations.

  A question popped in my head immediately. “Could we have it prevent model five venom from hurting like a dead goat fucker?” Fucking hell that venom hurt! Every fucking time my nerves went into overdrive sending as much pain as possible!

  Of course, but it will make the organ more expensive. There are other measures we could take, but since your mass and strength need to rise at the same time, this limits you to upgrading them simultaneously.

  As it is, the management organ, muscle upgrade and weight increase will cost most of your points. Do not forget, these upgrades will mean a severe increase in survivability and effectiveness.

  “Yeah, sure as fuck doesn’t sound cheap… How much are we talking?”

  To quadruple strength and triple overall mass as well as manage your immune responses? 2350 points for the muscles, 265 points for the immune system management organ and 545 points for hyper-densification.

  Your speed should not increase significantly however, unless you opt for more neural modifications. The muscles will be capable of more speed, but I would not recommend testing their limits without the cognition enhancements to control them. It could cause overheating issues as well if you are not careful. I will manage the inputs to prevent you from killing yourself by accident.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The hyper-densification is relatively inexpensive, but the immune manager is quite costly. It is worth the price. Even now you are saving a significant number of points for the power.

  I gritted my teeth, but nodded. “Ok, I can get that. I’m surprised it’s not more, honestly. The last upgrades I bought were not cheap.” I said, remembering the old massive prices.

  You paid for emergency, extremely accelerated installations. This required vast amounts of complex nanites and advanced biological management systems. Also, since the alloy would no longer be constrained to your immune system’s response, this reduces the cost and increases the effectiveness of your available muscle augmentations. Your preexisting augmentations helped in that regard as well.

  I have to mention, they will require more calories and potentially deplete your natural reserves. To remedy this, I will add bio-batteries. They are not required, but will store energy to prevent nutrient depletion in combat. When they empty, you will not notice the difference, simply lose some of your stored fats. My apologies, but I will have to adjust your sense of hunger to link it to your new reserves slightly.

  “Alright, I don’t mind eating more. Is the… hyper-densification dangerous?” I asked with apprehension.

  Of course not, why would it be?

  “Well, I do remember all the hyper-dense munition always explosively decompressing and shit like that….

  Ah! I understand the issue. Let me remind you, the ‘Rods of God’ slugs had a hyper-dense core and have yet to decompress in any way.

  You are conflating hyper-compressed and hyper-dense. One is accomplished by bringing atoms closer together, whereas hyper-dense is accomplished by locally modifying Planck's constant in the alloy and I’m losing you again.

  In short, solid matter is little more than void with delusions.

  Boy, that made me shiver…

  Forcibly bringing the atoms closer is what compression does, like an air-tank, but wildly more effective in my case. Making the atoms stay closer by nature is hyper-densification.

  Truthfully, unless you encounter real Mole-Bears that know exactly how to cause such an issue with your specific alloy and wish to harm you in an unnecessary, over the top, lengthy and comical way, you should be safe. Also, since there will be more of it, the metal will be more… dexterous might be the term you could understand. It should help with fine and complex manipulation.

  I stared into nothing for a few seconds at the lesson but gave up making complete sense of it. “Alrighty! You said quadruple the strength? What exactly does that mean? Like, give me an easy number. I mean, it’s quadruple a value that’s already been doubled and on and on, argh!”

  Understandable. You should be able to deadlift at least two metric tons, or 4400 pounds. Essentially, an entire car with all four wheels off the ground.

  Lila whistled in appreciation. Had to admit, yeah, that sounded fucking awesome!

  There are several additional augmentations I would recommend, but I believe you have reached your comfort limit on spending towards yourself for now. I imagine you will wish to spend on your building?

  “You know it! There’s a lot of shit to do, and there are only so many points. How much was the ‘not for me’ budget?”

  2930 points.

  That… okay, not as much as I’d like and way below what I needed. I had to consider what I could solve with credits too… “My infrastructure catalogue… does it have plants in it?”

  As in landscaping? Yes. To improve the central concourses?

  “Yeah, I’d like to add some real, fruiting peach trees… I mean, it’s a potential export, would raise morale a ton, give a visual show that shit’s getting better, you know? Actually, can I have a gened variant that always makes fruits and flowers or shit like that?”

  Yes, but since the flowers become fruits, I recommend having them separated into four groups with different fruiting and flowering times to accomplish your idea. These trees are within humanity’s capacity to create, in truth, so the price should be low. I suspect you’d like them to be already grown and somewhat large? Maybe large enough for children to climb them.

  Had to admit, I loved the image. A megabuilding’s architecture had a way of making you feel… imprisoned? That was the idea behind the central hole, to give some sense of space. I didn’t remember ever not living in one, so it was hard to really compare the feeling to anything. Having a little corner of paradise in the center for people to enjoy? The idea felt good.

  “Yeah, that’d be great. We’ll have to buy maintenance equipment and better soil for them I think? Most of that can be handled with credits though. I’m sure you have some environmental help for this stuff in that catalogue, right?”

  Of course I do. The trees, already mature and fruiting, would cost 12 points each. You may wish to wait for the first section to be repaired and install less of them in the fifth since it seems less necessary. That would make 240 points for twenty per section, 720 points for three of them. You have space for many more, but this could be a good start. Adding eight for the top floor results in 816 points. Would you like a management system to help them thrive?

  “Depending on how much it is…” I said, apprehensive. This shit would be expensive. I could buy a ton of Cleanse with that!

  However… This would help people in a less direct, but maybe just as important way. It’d help bring beauty in their lives, maybe even optimism! Beauty was important! Humans had an instinctive response to it for a reason. Central concourses were pretty massive. They’d bring people to the center, make them mingle, build those nice community feelings, have a place for children to play and just be happy!

  Also, it might help the nagging fifth section people drum up business for themselves if we have more visitors. And hey, the residents might spend more on the businesses around the edge! I’d been paying them plenty enough to enjoy the nice things in life.

  Also… Yeah, the memorials would be at the center. It could really help some people to mourn in a nice environment. I’d yet to install them due to how fucked up the whole place was…

  20 points per section.

  I nodded. Not too bad. “Alright, fair.”

  Lila had a wistful expression, which I’d rarely seen on her. “Yeah, I mean, we could buy other things that could help a ton of people but… Having a nice place for the children to play, for people to grieve? I’d say that’s worth it. Not like that list Laser Jack gave you is short.”

  “Agreed. The rest… I’ll keep a thousand points as emergency funds and buy second chance cures with what’s left?”

  To treat the entire under 18 population would cost you 4160 points. This includes your new territory.

  I swore. No way I could afford that. Dispensing that kind of stuff and skipping over people might cause a damn riot from the parents of those who didn’t get one…

  Even if I skipped the entire tree planting project it wouldn’t be enough. Well, there were more hives on the list! They’d survive until I found more plants to kill.

  A couple minutes of eating and thinking later, Jackal entered the room. She looked at the many tables filled with enforcers and clearly felt pretty uncomfortable. Instead of letting her waffle about, I waved at her.

  Taking the lifeline, she came and sat down next to Lila, but not too close, before removing her mask. It was my first time seeing her face in fact! She looked cute, clearly in her twenties, darker skin and pitch black hair surrounded a face roughed up by the streets. She had a few scars and signs of a broken nose at one point.

  It was also the first time Lila and her had seen each other’s faces. Was there a bit of blushing? Nah, just my imagination probably. “Hey Jackal! Quick question, you got a tribe?”

  She glared murder at me. “Does it matter?”

  I shrugged. “Not really, I just know my husband hates being called Native-American and prefers ‘Mohawk’. He says it’s like calling a Canadian ‘American’ ‘cause he lives in one of the Americas. I tend to ask first to avoid offending. I run into that with people from Asia and Africa most often, but I think it’s just polite to ask, you know?”

  Lila rubbed her eyes for some reason. “Sorry about him, he’s shit at… people.”

  Her glare softened and she shrugged. “‘Closest reservation to where I was found in the garbage was Abenaki I think? But unless you can’t fucking tell from the fucking intro, I really don’t give a singular fucking shit about whatever cunt pushed me out.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Cool. So, thinking of upgrades?”

  That threw her off for some reason and it looked like Lila wanted to bang her head on the table. Really, the fuck got her so annoyed? “I uh… I guess? Haven’t spent much points since the Peach-Trees incursion.”

  “Thanks for the supplies by the way! They really helped a ton.” She winced at that.

  “It’s the least I could do…”

  “I disagree but, honestly, even if that was true, it didn’t mean you had to.” I answered with a smile. “So, what do you have in mind?”

  LilAR: I will fucking murder you if you don’t stop…

  Pandagger: Stop what?

  I kept the surprise from my face, but what the fuck did I do? Whatever, better start off by sharing, right? “Personally, I just made plans to install new muscles. I’m gonna be able to deadlift a fucking car! Not just the front wheels or whatever, no, fully of the ground! Also, going to triple my weight. Let’s see a model six try to embed me into a wall again!” I shared excitedly with a manic smile. No more getting thrown around by overgrown squids when I was done!

  “Again? That sounds like a story.” Jackal said, relaxing.

  Lila chimed in with a smile, probably wanting to prevent some kind of social faux-pas that I missed. “Got footage, look at his expression when it happens.” She made a gesture into the air and a few seconds later, Jackal started laughing.

  After the video played out, she ‘hmmm’d. “You know, that’s an interesting question… Personally, I make sure not to get fucking hit, not sure why you don’t avoid shots.”

  I shrugged. “A hit I tank is one that’s not going for my friends. Even if a bullet deflects off my armor, it’ll lose most of its energy.”

  The more experienced samurai looked at me appraisingly, clearly reevaluating something. “Close-quarters… Essentially, you’re trying to be the Pointman, right?”

  I nodded. The ‘Pointman’ was the first person in for breachers. It was part of PMC training, and idiotic or asshole PMCs would send the newbie first since it was, by far, the most dangerous role. For PMCs operating in cities (almost all of them essentially), the entire company would be trained for it, to the point of creating every fireteam specifically with that role in mind.

  Modern tactics had evolved to give Pointmen more protection, especially with cyberware reducing the effectiveness of shock tactics like flashbangs. They usually had a shield these days. They’d become tanks, ready to take hits for the team.

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “You should modify your shield so you can fire through it.” That… Huh…

  “You think so?” I asked as Lila nodded.

  She chimed in, eyes distant and considering. “Right… That would make you less vulnerable. I mean, most of the time during high-mobility fights, you’re not going to use it, but if you could use your Tunneler through it…”

  I then remembered exactly why that model six got so close! I couldn’t fire my Tunneler around my shield, which had to stay up because of the model fives taking potshots at me. Ended up having to rely on the Grave-Digger, which couldn’t do enough damage to stop that thing.

  “Damn… Jesus, thank you Jackal, that’s a dog dicking great idea!” The other samurai smiled in pride at that, and she deserved it! “Altany, got options?”

  Always. We could modify it to become emplaced cover after detachment. Also, there are several ways to have your main weapon attached so that you may fire through while moving. By adding some materials, it could modify itself into a bow gun, similar to those present on world war two Sherman tanks.

  Altany gave me an image and, yeah, that looked great! I could move the shield or my shotgun in any direction without issue! “Alright, how much for that and… improving my shield sounds like a good idea if I’m going to use it more, right? How about a nano-grain alloy layer?”

  While that would be a good idea, the price would be higher than I predict you would be comfortable with. The shield is made to wrap around your forearm and deploy rapidly, where as your armor ‘cards’ are meant to stay separate or bind with each other at the edges. You would need a nano-grain memory alloy, which are very expensive.

  In this case, using a vibrationally diffusing one would provide a much better cost to quality ratio. It could self-modify back to its original shape without issue. Projectiles hitting solid protection turn part of that energy into vibration, but a dedicated metal for this purpose will act similarly to a spring and turn more of the incoming force into it.

  In combat, with many hits, this may result in ‘humming’, but will reduce penetration power severely. This layer will be added atop the old one, creating thicker and heavier protection.

  We can also add a recoil-mitigation system on your turret to help you control it better one-handed while the shield is attached to you. Overall, the modification and addition should only be four hundred points.

  “Alright, I’m in!” I said with a smile. “Thanks again, Jackal! Know what you want for yourself?”

  LilAR: You’re still short.

  God damnit, I’d have to spend more points too apparently…