Chapter Sixty-Eight - Getting Home

“Samurai are horny bastards, I swear. I think it’s all the action. It gets their blood pumping like nothing else.”

-Madam Acrais, high-class brothel owner, 2045

***

I ended up figuring out my own way home. I wanted to ride along with Gomorrah, but there was no way my armour would fit in the Fury unless I hung off the side again and... no, I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of thing.

I did want to be close to Gomorrah. She was twitchy and a little worried, even after I tried to reassure her that everything would be fine.

Some things a girl just had to tackle on her own though, that included confronting a possible romantic interest. I told Gomorrah that we had extra rooms over at my new place, and that she was always welcome to come over and spend the night, or even just call to rant if that’s what she needed.

I didn’t want to be a poor friend, so I was going to support Gomorrah however I could. I just didn’t want to overstep either. Franny seemed like a good match for Gomorrah, so maybe things would work out. At least, I hoped they would. Gomorrah deserved a good time, or maybe her own version of Lucy. Someone to ground her and for her to return home to.

Speaking of which. I sighed as my bike came around and landed with a thump onto the top of the wall. I was a bit bulkier in my armour, so it was tricky to sit atop it, but I still managed to fit. I couldn’t get my foot on the pedals without spreading my knees way out though, so I left the flying to the autopilot and Myalis.

“So,” I asked as we took to the air and headed towards New Montreal proper. A new shadow was cast against the suburbs from the massive new wall. “What was all of that worth?”

In terms of experienced gained, or in terms of something more quantifiable, like your point total?

I chuckled. “In terms of points, I think,” I said as we flew around a skyscraper. I noted that there wasn’t quite as much traffic as usual. More cop cars hovering around too, but they dutifully ignored me as I flew by.

Current Point Total:

98,845

I stared at the number for a while, then shook my head. “Are you serious? Like, twelve hundred away from six-figures?”

Had you expended less ammunition firing at the spaces between enemies you would have just enough points to reach one hundred thousand.

My grip on the handles tightened. “Yeah, fine. I'll practice my aim. Maybe... maybe get one of those brain implants to learn how to aim. You’ll need to work to convince me though.”

Noted. If you want more points, you could turn around and fly back out of the city. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a small pocket of antithesis to wipe out.

“Nah. Laserjack was right, I need a break.” I could feel the weariness in my bones. So much adrenaline, for such a long period. I was burnt out. What I needed was a warm meal and about twelve hours of sleep. What I wanted was a cool room with Lucy’s warm body and twelve hours in bed, most of which weren’t spent sleeping.

That’s the kind of happy, buzzing thought I was entertaining as we flew around a skyscraper and came into view of home.

I’d kind of forgotten that my home was now a giant metal sphinx atop a stubbier skyscraper. The floor just below the sphinx was lined with turrets fixed to about a metre apart. Raccoon had been hard at work, it seemed.

I flew around the building, then came down for a gentle landing between the building’s forepaws. I swung off the back of the bike and straightened up. The city was plunging into night, but it wasn’t much darker than midday. Neon ads were a sun of their own, splashing their RGB brightness across the city.

I took it all in for a moment. This was, in a way, what I’d worked to save.

It didn’t count nearly as much as what was in my home. With a bit of a pep to my step, I walked home.

There was a shout as one of the kittens--Nose-- spotted me in the doorway. “She’s back! And she’s not dead!”

“Hey! There’s my favourite bunch of assholes,” I cheered. “One of you needs to toss something in the microwave for me, I’m starving.” My armour made it hard to be bowled over, but the kittens gave it a good try anyway. It was mostly the youngest ones. Junior and Katallina were old enough that that kind of display was not going to happen.

“Glad to see you didn’t die,” Junior said.

“Thanks, I worked hard not to,” I shot back. “What have you been up to?”

“Eh, we’ve been watching you and the others fighting. There’s a livestream. But it got boring so we started watching AI-generated Spongebob episodes instead,” Junior said.

I laughed. “Yes, I can see why that would be more interesting than seeing the person paying your rent, fight not to die.”

She shrugged, clearly showing what she thought of that.

“Where’s Lucy at?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s in the back,” one of the Twins said. “With the big machine.”

Lucy was playing with the creation machine? I suppose that giving that woman unlimited creative power was one way to keep her busy for a few minutes. “Alrighty then,” I said.

I gave some heads a few pats, then stood off to the side and started to undo my armour while fielding questions from the kittens. Mostly it was about new gear, celebrities I’d met, and I got to sneak in a few surprisingly un-exaggerated stories of killing aliens that I thought sounded pretty badass.

“Okay, don’t touch the armour, it’s still a little hot. And it’s also kind of screwed up. I give it even odds that if one of you climbs into it, it’ll lock up and we won’t be able to get you out of there without a saw.” That wasn’t entirely or even partially true, except for the part where the armour was in a rough state. A few scratches were more than paint-deep, and it looked like some of the padding on the inside had melted outright.

I might have to toss the whole thing into the printer’s deconstruction bin. I bet there were plenty of exotic materials in the armour that might be useful for other crap later.

Tossing my coat onto one of the couches, I walked up to the back of our home and to the vault where the printer was. Lucy was there, sitting on a stack of neatly-piled material blocks with a tablet sitting on her knee.

“Hey,” I said from the doorway.

She jumped and looked up to me, and in that instant I saw unfamiliar stress lines fading from the corners of her eyes. “Cat!” she shouted before darting across the room.

I laughed and met her halfway with a tight hug. “I missed you,” I said.

She hugged me tighter, then pulled back. Her eyes darted across my features, taking me in. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Tired,” I admitted. It wouldn’t do to lie to Lucy, she’d just find out and be disappointed. “I really did miss you. It was a long day.”

“No injuries?” she asked. Then her hands roamed, but not in a pleasant way, she was just checking to see if I was all there. “Wait, this isn’t the same arm.”

“Oh, right, this is new,” I said with a grin. I raised my new cybernetic hand, then turned on one of its primary features. The room filled with a low buzz. “It vibrates.”

Lucy shook her head. I could tell she was amused, but she pushed past that anyway. “What happened to your other one?”

“Well... my old armour wasn’t up to snuff. I got newer, better armour, but the arm was damaged so... yeah.”

The whole story would come out, but I wasn’t ready for that.

Lucy, being Lucy--which just meant that she was perfect--caught on. “We’ll have to put the new arm through its paces then. Technically, you’re... one sixth virgin now, you know?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I said with a laugh. “What have you been up to? Making stuff?”

Lucy nodded, then skipped back away from me. That almost ended when she tripped over nothing and had to swing her arms for balance. She, of course, pretended that didn’t happen, then struck a pose. “What do you think?” she asked.

She was in a t-shirt with a very low hem, almost a nightgown, really. The front said ‘Cat’s Got My Tongue’ with a stylized cat head behind it. She was also wearing thick white thigh-highs that stopped a handspan above her knee, right at the thickest part of her thigh. There was a very delicious thigh squish at the top.

“I made both of these,” she said with a bit of a wiggle added.

“That’s really nice,” I said, honestly.

She bounced over, then pulled me down a little so that she could whisper in my ear. “I was going to make lingerie, but you’re here already, so these two things are all I made... and all I’m wearing too.”

“Oh,” I said. God, I loved Lucy.

***