Chapter 53: Crying uncle

  “Shareholders in the modern day have become a class of their own. The difference in wealth between manager and executive is massive, but not anywhere near as massive as the one between executives and shareholders. The amounts are so staggering, but also so varied that a precise definition becomes insanely difficult, but also ultimately meaningless. Between someone with ten times more money than executives and someone with a thousand times more money than executives (both real examples), the difference is mostly just academic.

  In short, people with vast wealth that simply cannot be spent, because what they’ve stolen is too much to spend within human lifespans, no matter how extended by protector technology.”

  –Professor of sociology Helena Vasquez, Neo-Berkley U, 2052.

  ***

  “Hey Panda, could you…” Poor lila. The woman’d tried getting my attention like that a dozen times. My ears picked up every single attempt. Even now it’d been so quiet I might have missed it! Every single time she aborted in the middle.

  We were kind of on vacation as the new mods installed themselves. They already made me feel stronger, aka fucking awesome! I could handle so much construction equipment!

  Choosing slow installation annoyed me but, well, it saved points. Four days in and I still had two to go. Oh well, good to have some downtime, especially with Robin! Lila still experimented with new toys and neither of us had any complaints! Well, except for the one we didn’t talk about, which didn’t exist.

  School had reopened and, thankfully, Robin handled that chaotic hell. We’d hired a few teachers but had trouble finding more, something about working in the worst part of New-Montreal…

  Had to wait to buy the trees since, apparently, soil somehow took a while to get! Quantity might have been a factor since, well, we had four concourses to fill with rich, nutrient filled soil. That was a hell of a lot of literal ground to literally cover.

  The enforcer neighborhood project moved along pretty well. Since I could buy great Mole-Bear alloys in ingots for cheap, we had the printers create parts for the outer shell by rearranging them into armor panels that the drones installed. Add some more super-duper materials and we’d have a secret bunker in no time!

  Of course, Robin made sure the apartments were nice, spacious, had room for families to expand, all that good stuff! Enforcers kept buying more and more hidden turrets, scanners or materials with their own points.

  Also, some kind of black market dealer would come by soon to sell us weapons for cash. I didn’t want to finance corpos and we needed more outer defenses, turrets and whatever. I had a ridiculous amount of creds, might as well use them.

  Portia and Kirk worked on curing all cancers with an amount of dedication that made me glad I’d accepted her application. Over time, she proved a better person than I gave her credit for. Prejudice might have clouded my judgement. Our interactions became less formal by the day.

  Johnny Law had to be the one-man police force which wouldn’t work for long. The project to make deputies to assist was… ongoing. No one here had any love for corpo-sec, so recruiting got… difficult. Hopefully, framing it as ‘deputies’ instead of ‘pieces of shit always fucking up everything in our fucking lives’ would help. He’d had to put the hammer down on some people and, honestly, I didn’t mind given the circumstances. Executing someone on floor thirty-five really fucking helped his popularity! A taste of real justice, a symbol that, no, our other samurai wasn’t corpo-sec, he was one of us. Robin and Portia had some kind of plan for their assets but, honestly, I barely cared, not my area expertise.

  I loved training the newbie enforcers! Seeing them grow, find their niche, giving them the resources they deserved? It felt fucking great. I’d found a samurai online willing to sell me two-thousand points, which all went into them so they’d have the same chances as their peers. Ripley’d found her niche and with those funds I’d been able to outfit her.

  She’d be an insane force multiplier, especially after a few more points! Fucking hell that new catalogue’d been worth it, might use it myself! Couldn’t wait to see her in a fight. Most badass woman I’ve ever known, which really said something given the women in my life! I’d seen her burn predators alive, outnumbered to all hell, with a fucking improvised flamethrower! God she kicked ass. The fact that I could help her kick even more ass just felt amazeballs.

  Still no hunting for new ones… Better wait until the newbies are settled and more funds are available, yeah… Anyway! I still had a small nest-egg, just in case. We’d go hunt aliens soon.

  On a completely and utterly one hundred percent unrelated note I’d seen the therapist AI again, which helped. That thing was programmed well, wouldn’t be surprised if Altany made tweaks for me every now and then.

  I still waited for the Cobra Kais to do something… My instincts told me it would happen, but I didn’t know what, who or when! It grated on my fucking nerves when I thought about it. I had Altany watch them through hacked cameras and augs. When they made a stupid move, I’d be there.

  For now though, Lila needed me. This felt important to her for some reason. “What’s up?” Yeah, she definitely thought she’d gotten away with a failed attempt. Nop! Not letting her off the hook this time! Because I loved her.

  The kids were in school and Robin was taking a nap with Jack in his arms. We had time. “Want a sound dampener, just to make sure we don’t wake Jack?” I asked, proving I could do hidden messages and shit!

  She smiled at the mediocre effort and nodded. A moment later, we sat in a bubble of silence. “Alright, what have you been trying to bring up this whole week?” I’d exhausted my subtlety for the day.

  She blinked a few times before a chuckle escaped her dower lips. “That obvious?” I gave her a flat look and tapped my cyber-ears in answer. She pursed her lips.

  “Yeah, should’ve thought of that…”

  “So, what is it?”

  “So… there’s something I haven’t told you.” I nodded, unsurprised. Most enforcers were the same. “My… genetic donors were rich, execs for some corp. As a hot daughter, they could make a profit by… selling me.” I felt like killing the fuckers but my face didn’t twitch. I had to listen.

  “It’s dubiously legal but my marriage was a condition in a big contract or merger or whatever. I was sold, against my will. As long as I stayed with the bastard and if I provided children, the contract floated their company to the top. Me? Well, I didn’t say yes, but I was sold at sixteen with my parent’s permission. Legally speaking, we married in some little African nation to make the more fucked up parts legal.” Lila kept staring at the table, gathering her strength.

  “Kevin Richard. He’s a shareholder, quite a few steps above execs, insanely rich. The piece of shit is hyper-possessive. I mean, like, if he found me there would be millions upon millions on the line to take me back, and that’s not an option.” I nodded. We agreed on that at least. I kept feeling like the rough part was yet to come.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “He has insane, as in better than ours, security, and the same was true for me. I was constantly surrounded, no matter what. The only method of escape I found… I went to the dangerous parts of the city as much as possible. Eventually, it paid off… kinda. I mean, I got picked up by the Kais, and you know how that ended.” I nodded at that. It couldn’t have been her dream of escape. She looked me in the eyes.

  “I can’t express how thankful I am. I will always owe you. No matter what, even if you brush it off. I know you call me family but with how shitty mine was… It was hard for me to accept.” I kept my kind smile in place.

  She didn’t have to feel the same way as I did, she’d still be family, but I could tell she felt it.

  ***

  Lila took a few deep breaths. She could do this, she could do this! Louis accepted her as family, and in Lila’s heart, even if she had trouble saying it out loud, Louis, Robin, the kids, they were family. That meant…

  “Look, I… this is a dangerous, dangerous man, I don’t want to get you or the Bear-Yakuza in trouble. I can handle it on my own thanks to all you did for me.” She put as much gratitude as she could in her voice.

  Louis had helped her fight free of the Kais, created a place she’d be safe in, let her carry a child and trusted her to take care of the most precious things in his world. That wasn’t even touching on the insane gear!

  His tail was swaying behind him. The guy finally had an emotional tail. A tiny laugh escaped her. His face stayed rock-like in its support, looking like the most supportive rock in the world.

  “Lila, come on, just tell me. You know me, I don’t judge and I don’t lie. You don’t need to hide stuff from me. You don’t have to say anything, at all. If you want I can pretend this discussion didn’t happen, I don’t care if you want to keep stuff to yourself, but it looks like you need to say something.” How the fuck did such a socially incompetent guy like Louis manage to be so supportive and nice!?

  It made no fucking sense, but it worked. Lila’s eyes filled with tears as she finally let it out. “I… I wasn’t… Didn’t get away from him with…” Another few breaths, she could do this. “I have a son… He’s still there…” The admission felt like the greatest burden of her life finally lifting a bit.

  “I need to go get him… Now, I got a chance, and I’ll get as far away from the fallout as I can after, don’t worry, but I need to help him. I won’t have failure hurt the people of this building. You know how I feel, I know you do. If I get recaptured, he won’t let me leave or file for divorce. He’s probably going to torture me. I’ll feed him bullshit, don’t worry.” Lila’s eyes were leaking like mad, her whole prepared speech devolving into ramblings.

  When she finally turned her blurry eyes back to Louis, he looked pensive. That was the moment, the moment the rules of life and the street reasserted themselves. Rodrick was a dangerous and rich fucker. However…

  “So, Altany, how many armies do I have put down to see my nephew?” Lila was dumbstruck for a couple seconds before interrupting him.

  “No no no, you don’t get it, you’ll have a billion dollar price tag on your head! They’ll come here to…” He didn’t let her finish.

  “Don’t care. Altany, solutions?”

  “No, Altany, wait! This isn’t the fuckers trained to kill innocent people that you took care of, this is a guy who put down damn samurais before! These are extremely well equipped forces trained to fight people like you! Even more insane tech than our militia and fuck, some enforcers even!” No, no, she couldn’t lose him!

  He looked her straight in the eyes. “You don’t get it, do you?” He sat up upright and pinned her to the ground with that intense, unwavering stare he got sometimes!

  “Lila. You are family. I know you. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you after you fought like a maniac a whole pack of model threes with nothing but a knife. You didn’t retreat, run, cover or whatever. You fought like family, Lila. You died for this family. Then, there's thousands of hours we’ve spent together. There’s also being in active combat together, you thought I didn’t notice you protecting me from the back with those shots when you should have taken cover? You think I didn’t remember those bullets you took for me? What about the ones I took for you? You’re helping raise my children for fuck’s sake! You carried my child!”

  Suddenly, the sweetest man in the world shifted both their chairs to face each other, his tail dragging hers forward. “Lila, I don’t say it because it makes sex stuff creepy as hell, but you’re my sister.” That got a wet snort. “You’re not just some cunt come the same cunt, you’re my sister by so much more than that. You are not my sister-in-law or half-sister or whatever. You’re more. You’re my sister by choice.”

  He grabbed the back of her head and put their foreheads together gently. His eyes closed and she did the same. “A true sister that I thank anything possibly holy in this world I found. I don’t know how to live without your support, without your help, and I don’t want to find out. I’ll kill entire gangs, destroy corporations or murder oceans of antithesis to keep my family safe, which means you, like the kids, like Robin. You’re my sister, and I love you. I know you love me too, even if you can’t say it yet. You don’t have to…”

  Lila interrupted him, her voice wobbly and a bit wet. “You’re right. I was lost a bit until I heard that. I love you too, brother-by-choice. I’d do the same. You’re my brother, and I love you. Also, yes, it makes sex stuff creepy as fuck.”

  After a few chuckles, their eyes met. After a moment of smiling mutual appreciation, Louis continued. “I know you, and I know how you feel about your son. It’s how I feel about mine. I can tell. Since you’re my sister, your kid’s my nephew, and I’ll fight just as hard for him as you fought for mine. You fought to the death with nothing but a knife against a horde of xenos, what the fuck else do you expect me to do? He is family, and I am getting him back. If I need to kill an army or two, it fucking is what it fucking is.”

  Lila nodded, crying and voice thick with emotion, she accepted “Okay... Okay. Thank you.”

  What the hell had she done to deserve this life, those clothes, the food, the apartment? Her brother knew what she was thinking. “You were a kind, caring, loving person. You fought for what was right and the good of people around you. You put it all on the line when innocents needed you. That’s what you did. So yes, you deserve this. You deserved it long ago and your son does too. Let’s get him back, sis.”

  They nodded together. In their eyes shone unwavering determination, shared by two people willing to destroy all they needed to get to their family.

  ***

  I smiled at Lila. We’d be alright. “Altany, what kind of massacre am I looking at?”

  There doesn’t necessarily need to be a massacre, but I believe it is likely one will occur. I have sent many smart daemons to find footage of Kevin Richard. Through facial recognition, gate analysis and a few more methods, I collected a vast database. Sifting through the hundreds of thousands of hours took some ‘overtime’, but not much. The main office’s intranet is properly airgapped from what I can tell. No wireless devices are accessible.

  However, I was able to take control of many employees’ augs. This sadly did not grant me full access, but the few systems I have found are concerning. From footage I have perused, he seems to be an abusive father. My apologies, Lila.

  She shrugged, but it was forced. “I knew he’d be that kind of asshole. My personal experience was quite similar.”

  I thought it polite to ask before retrieving a copy of your prenuptial agreement.

  “Sure.”

  This is interesting. The agreement is demeaning and clearly ensures you get nothing from him, but since it was signed using a small African nation as an origin, it says nothing about custody. Their laws are quite strict concerning this. Custody must be decided by or in front of a judge, no matter what.

  I blinked. “So… we just file for divorce, go to court, bribe the judge appropriately and show he’s a bad father and we’re done?”

  Oh, no, I imagine he’ll refuse to hand over the child, then comes the legal massacre.

  “Aaaahhh, okay, makes sense. If we have him legally, it’ll save us a fuckton of trouble and help both your futures. Do we need to go in person? She’ll be extremely exposed!”

  Yes, it’s part of the agreement. Probably for this exact reason. You should prepare for a fight.