Chapter Ten - Hope

“Hope is a currency that’s hard to define.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t buy some anyway!

Hopebucks! A non-fungible semi-monetary unit that you can buy, keep, store, and place your hope in!”

Typical NFT advert, 2023

***

Myalis had General Wilkinson’s contact information ready for me, of course. It included the locations of all of his troops and their current dispositions.

I was able to confirm that nearly half of the militia was located in River Heights.

“Miss Stray Cat, ma’am,” the General said.

“Hey,” I said. I glanced around myself, taking note of the militia guys leaving the food truck and the owner of said truck packing things up. The guy pointed at me, then the stall, and I shook my head and waved him off. Nice fella. “So, I’m at River Heights. Be honest with me, how overkill are their defences?”

“They are far above standard. As it stands, and assuming normal antithesis progression, the area should be entirely safe for another seventy-two to ninety hours before we would need to increase its defensive potential.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “And Downtown, the defences there?”

“Abysmal, ma’am. Samurai Sprout’s plant-based defences are helping, and Samurai Manic’s frequent excursions are culling some of the alien threat, but the defences are manned by civilians with little to no training. Those who did have training were conscripted into the militia.”

“Right. We’re moving things around then,” I decided. “Find out what the minimum number of militia you need in River Heights is, leave that number behind. I want you to set up a few rapid response teams. I think my fellow samurai and I will be heading out to cull some of the nearest hives. So we won’t be manning the walls.”

“I understand. I can have them transferred over within the hour.”

“We’re not in that big of a hurry. Do it naturally. I’m heading back downtown in a little bit. Also, your report has a section on missing supplies. That’s like things you wished you had but don’t?”

I scrolled through that section. For the most part it was ammunition counts, some additional guns, more armour. Whoever the general had serving as quartermaster was pretty good at keeping track of what they needed.

“We’ve opened our storage caches, where our ammunition and additional weapons were stored, and discovered that a number of them were either mismanaged, robbed, or simply had unmaintained equipment. As it is, with our current rate of consumption, we’ll be running out of certain kinds of ammunition within the next two days. We’ll have to switch off certain weapons platforms for others, which means using that ammo faster.”

“Right,” I said. I... might be able to help with that. “We’ll see about that problem later. If you guys are actually getting close to running out, make it a priority to annoy me about it.”

“Yes ma’am. Will you be handling the fallout with the River Heights leadership?”

I frowned. “What fallout? I’m telling them what to do, if they’re not happy they can go live in a city that’s someone else’s responsibility.”

I cut off the comms with the general after a few more pleasantries, then I sighed, stretched my back out until it popped, and started walking back the way I’d come. Johnny was waiting for me nearby, the absent twitching of his fingers suggesting he was scrolling through something.

“Doomscrolling?” I asked .

“Hm? Oh no, I’m looking at my matches. I never had trouble with the ladies before, but since getting these arm rockets.” He paused to strike a pose. “My DMs have been on fire!”

“Uh-huh,” I said. Guy must have been attracting every gold digger within ten hour’s flight. “Well, you can flirt with folk once I’m done with you.”

“Oh my,” he said.

“Not that way,” I sighed. “I mean I want to start clearing the area around Downtown and River Heights of antithesis. That’ll mean taking out hives and blowing up plenty of aliens.”

Johnny grinned. “Hey, think we can get someone to film us at work? I need some new pics for my dating sites.”

“I’m sure we can find someone with nothing better to do,” I said. “But first, let’s find a way back to Downtown.”

As it turned out, Miss Baker wasn’t too far from where I’d left her. She rushed over to us, or at least, walked over as quickly as she could in her little high-heels and pencil skirt. “Ah, you found our local guardian,” she said with a plastic grin.

“Yup,” I said. “I’m taking Johnny here out.”

“And you’ll be staying to replace him?”

“No,” I said. “We’re going to start a counter-offensive. The sooner we begin, the easier it will be. We don’t want to let the hives grow too big. Also, do you happen to have a list of the shelters across the city?”

“I... yes, we have one.”

“Good, I’ll need that. We’ll cross-reference it with the public shelters. I think we can start by saving those we can.”

She reached out and grabbed my bicep. “Miss Leblanc,” she said, all serious now.

“Yes?” I asked. It was a little unnerving to be called by my proper name while acting the part of the samurai.

“Are you planning to abandon River Heights?” she asked.

“Do you think I’d do that?” I asked.

She nodded. “We aren’t clueless, Miss Leblanc. Not all of us working here were raised with silver spoons. Some of us understand there’s... enmity towards the kinds of people who live in places like these. But abandoning them now would be a mistake.”

I touched her hand. “I might be a bit of a bitch, but my job’s to keep people alive. All the people, alright? Now, if your precious River Heights people give me trouble, that’d be another story, but if they mind their own and help where they can, then this will all be so much easier. We’ll do our part, get some weeding done, then be out of their hair. You can go back to playing house or whatever.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll hold you to that. And I’ll explain things to the community leaders as well. I think seeing you in action protecting the city will reassure them that we can allow a certain amount of... leeway in our defences.”

I nodded along, then gently pulled her hand off. “On that note. Mind if we borrow your ride back to Downtown? We need to get planning.”

“Certainly,” she said.

The ride back was... cramped. Johnny took up a lot of space. I wasn’t one to complain about manspreading, but this guy took it to a whole other level. The only thing that saved me was the distraction of trying to arrange everyone to meet up at one central place. Sprout agreed right away, as did Gomorrah, but the other samurai, Manic, was quiet.

“She doesn’t talk much, does she?” I asked.

“Manic? Nah, she’s the quiet and deadly sort of babe. When I gave her the ol’ one-two kapow she almost ripped my head off.”

“The what?” I asked.

He then mimed pointing to someone, then pointing back to himself and thrusting his hips out.

This man was samurai material?

The Protectors were probably laughing their alien guts out from whichever hole they lived in. “Yeah, uh, I can’t actually see that working on a woman. Ever.”

“Ah, it works on the right kind of babe,” he said with a wink.

“Did it ever work for you?” I asked. It was morbid curiosity, really.

He looked away. “One day, it will.”

“I mean, there’s a billion eligible girls out there. You keep trying my dude,” I said.

The driver brought the car around and landed us in front of the mall. It seemed like the shopping centre really was the headquarters for the entire Downtown area.

It was disheartening to step out of the car and see Downtown. The place was a mess compared to the otherwise impeccable River Heights. It wasn’t just the architecture and the cramped, too-populous nature of it all, or even all the trash left on the roadside and in overflowing bins, it was the people. They walked as if expecting the shadows to jump out at them at any time.

Then I saw the way they looked at us. Johnny did his whole flirting and flexing thing, looking like a fool the entire time, but that still worked. There was a light in their eyes on seeing us. Augs flashed on and I knew we were being filmed from a dozen different angles. People were less worried with us around.

That was kind of a nice feeling. I just hoped I could live up to it. Giving people hope and taking it away wasn’t something I wanted practice with.

***