Chapter Twenty-One - Eternal Optimism and Petty Spite

“As climate change continues to grow in scale and scope, the world will continue to become less hospitable to humankind. We should have addressed this fifty years ago, and it’s too damned late to do anything about it now, but that doesn’t mean that we will just keel over and die without putting up a fight.

It’s why we seeded clouds across the entire planet. It’s why we live in more and more cities with enclosed environments. The world might kill us, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll go out so easily. No, our death will be slow and painful.”

--Professor U. Shuda Listened, Climate I-Told-You-So Expert, 2025

***

“A lot of my plans hinge on the fabricator,” I said as I slowly flew up and through New Montreal’s skyline.

That’s understandable. It’s one of your largest purchases, and one that’s primarily designed to allow a Vanguard to outfit themselves and produce an abundance of resources. It would be strange not to place it at the centre of your plans.

“Does every samurai get something like that?” I asked.

One in eight Vanguard will branch out into some sort of production system. Most of these focus on making tools and consumables that they commonly use. As they progress, most Vanguard will also turn these production systems towards larger goals.

“So, like what I’m doing?”

Your actions have precedents. It’s only logical that a Vanguard capable of producing goods should produce goods, and seeing as how Vanguard are chosen from among people that wish to help the world, it again only makes sense that they would use their abilities to provide goods and equipment to the wider world.

I continued to think as I flew towards home. As I rose over the top of the majority of the towers around me, I was able to make out my place out in the distance. The weather was nice out, for once, a bit of sun coming out from between grey clouds. “So, if there’s a bunch of samurai making shit, why’s the world still a shithole?” I asked.

Are they things you’re planning to make enough to improve the world as a whole, or are they just enough to help those you want to help right now? As a Vanguard grows in abilities, points, and power, the scope of the help they can provide grows as well, though this growth is more linear than you might expect. The world is a better place for them, it’s likely that you just take a lot of the growth they provided for granted.

Was that it? It made some sense, I supposed. Different samurai would care about different stuff. If I gave Gomorrah unlimited creation abilities, I bet she’d invest in giving everyone a flamethrower, or she might invest in helping the nuns or whatever that she was used to working with. That probably would help the world in a small way.

Someone like Grasshopper would probably invest a lot of time and effort into making educational stuff better, which would also help, in its own way. Hell, I was pretty sure she was already investing a lot of time and effort into doing that. I think she had a whole set of interactive children’s books or whatever being made.

“Well, whatever,” I decided. I’d use mine to make the shit I cared about better. For now, with just the one, it wasn’t like I could change the entire damned world. I’d start with what I could do on the scale I was used to working on, and if things didn’t go to shit, I’d see about expanding.

The printer at home probably had one hell of a backlog already, so we’d have to see about improving it, or getting a second one.

Could I use the first one to make more of them, or was that cheating?

I flew around the museum, then came to a nice, gentle landing out front. It was mostly gentle because I let the autopilot do all of the work; landing was hard.

Stepping off the bike, I stretched my back out until it popped, then removed my helmet and shook my hair out. The air was damp and humid, but it wasn’t raining for once. The parking space was still wet though, and I couldn’t imagine the rain not picking up again before the evening was up.

I barely made it to the front door before it opened and Lucy came strolling out. She collided with me in a hug. “Hi!”

“Hi!” I said as I returned the hug. “You’re in a good mood.”

“When am I not? My eternal optimism is my third best feature.”

“Third best?” I asked. “What are the other two?”

“My hair comes second, obviously,” she said.

Her hair was nice, a big poofy ball of tightly knit curls that was fantastically bouncy. At least when the humidity didn’t get to it. “And the first best feature?” I asked.

“Boobs,” she said.

I thought about it, then nodded. “Boobs.”

“So, did you shoot any other politicians today, or was it a normal day at the office?”

I snorted, then leaned down, chin resting on her head. “It was a normal day at the office,” I said. “Peter’s still too good to be true. Met this cool chick with three cyborg eyes who does prosthetics stuff, and Peter set up a shop to get things done in. We’ll start getting orders tomorrow. Ah, we’ll have to convince one of the Kittens to help, or hire someone, but I’d rather have one of the kittens do it. Peter said they could take care of transportation, have a van fly over once a day or something.”

“That sounds good,” Lucy said. “And what will you do now? More tinkering?”

The mech was just sitting there. “Ah, maybe later,” I said. “Hey, what are you wearing?”

“PJs?” Lucy said. She was in flannel pants and a big t-shirt with... I leaned back to read what was written on it, because I’d been distracted by the boobs underneath earlier. There was a picture of a chibified kitten on the front, with a sword in its mouth. “Katana Kitten?” I asked.

“It’s alliterative,” Lucy said.

I shook my head. At least she had a nice, mostly harmless creative outlet other than her cooking. “Want to go shopping for a bit?” I asked. “I think I’ve been complaining to myself about not having enough clothes for a while, and it looks like you could use some stuff too.”

“Oh, is this a shopping date, or just normal boring shopping?” Lucy asked.

I grinned. “It’s whatever you want to make of it,” I said.

Lucy bounced up to the tips of her feet and gave my cheek a peck. “I’ll get changed,” she said before running back in.

I walked back over to the bike, then leaned up against it. “I’m gonna need a helmet for Lucy,” I said.

Perhaps I should have encouraged you to purchase a fully-enclosed vehicle. In any case, an inexpensive enclosed helmet should only come up to a few points.

When Lucy walked out--now wearing a skirt and an old blouse and my old jacket--I tossed her a brand new helmet. It was just a plain dark thing with a glass front... and a pair of protrusions on the top that looked suspiciously ear-like.

“Thanks!” Lucy said before fitting the helmet on. “So, where are we going?”

“I don’t know, where do you want to go?” I asked.

“Nowhere fancy,” she said. “Maybe one of those cool markets, where people make their own shit?”

I nodded along, then slid a leg over the seat of my bike. I scooted forward, giving Lucy some space to squeeze in before me while I locked in our destination. Myalis quietly helped me find a spot. It wasn't exactly close, but being able to fly over the city made the commute easy. Plus I got to enjoy Lucy pressing herself into my back the entire time.

We kicked off and took to the air, then I received a call from Lucy. “You know, you could just shout,” I said as I answered it.

“And ruin my voice so early in the day?” she asked. “I want to save all the screaming for later.”

I grinned and shook my head. Lucy was being very... Lucy today. She started chatting while we continued to move across the city, talking about the progress some of the kittens had been doing and some of the long-distance work she’d taken on.

It mostly had to do with the kittens association we’d left in Burlington. They were still reaching out to Lucy for help, and she was spending an hour or so a day just organising things and writing nasty emails to people she found incompetent.

I enjoyed just listening to her rant about whatever came to mind. Lucy’s eternal optimism was balanced by a deep and powerful level of spite and pettiness that she was always willing to use on the things that annoyed her.

It was a nice way to cool down after a long day’s work.

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