Chapter Twenty-Eight - Master Of Nun

“God has not forsaken us, though the hour is dark and the days grow long, we have new, shining beacons of hope, raised from the best, the sinless, those who are redeemed! Bow your heads in prayer, sheep of god, and allow the shepherds to guide you to a better tomorrow!

This sermon comes with a 15% discount for the devoted members of our enlightened church!”

--Pope Roboticus the First, New Christian Order, 2037

***

One of the nuns stopped to stare at me. She was a few years older than me, maybe in her mid-twenties, and she didn’t look impressed with the state of me. “Pardon me, miss, but this area should be off-limits,” she said. I don’t think someone could sound more prudish if they tried.

“Is it?” I asked. “I don’t recall there being anything like that.”

“This is the residence of a samurai,” she said. “You don’t want to be caught spying on a saint, do you?”

“Sister Datamaria, is something wrong?” the other nun said. She came to stand next to... Datamaria? That was a new one.

“Just an interloper, Sister Ethergrace,” Datamaria said.

I glanced between the two. They weren’t dressed like on-duty nuns, so no habits or whatever, but there was no mistaking the style they were dressed in. Long skirts, long-sleeved blouses that covered everything, hair done up in severe buns. Datamaria was the taller of the two, with light brown hair and eyes too blue to be real.

Ethergrace was much shorter, and it looked like maybe she was spending more time snacking on the alms than handing them out. She looked my way and smiled though, and I got the impression that she was far nicer than her companion. “Hello dearie,” she said. “I’m sorry, but Sister Datamaria is probably right. We’re helping move things to the floor above. I don’t think we need any help, however.”

“Ah, that’s alright,” I said. “I genuinely don’t mind. I was just taking a break from work. If you want, I can have a drone help you carry stuff.” I pointed past her to the van. It looked like someone had been playing tetris with furniture in there because it was packed to the brim.

Sister Datamaria sniffed. “I said we don’t need the help.”

I was about to pull away. I didn’t feel like getting into an argument, let alone with someone that was probably the friend of a friend. Starting something on the backfoot like this would take a lot of work to fix, and I really didn’t feel like it.

Then Franny came around the van, a small stack of boxes held in her hands. Her chin was resting on the topmost box, keeping it pinned in place. She saw me and the two nuns, then brightened. “Cat! I didn’t think you’d show up,” she said.

“Well, I wasn’t invited or anything, so that’d probably be fair,” I said.

She chuckled, raspy and dark. “I thought you’d be out shooting more politicians or something.”

“I really hope that’s not the only thing I’m remembered for,” I said. “That’s the kind of rep that’ll be hard to work back from.”

“Do you know this girl, Sister Pureheart?” Sister Datamaria asked.

I blinked. “Wait, Franny, your name is--”

“Don’t,” Franny snapped. “It’s...a nun thing. We get names given to us. We don’t pick them.”

“That much is obvious,” I said. “You’d have picked Sister Hellion, or Sister Inthecloset or something.”

Franny’s look was flat and unamused, but the gasp from Sister Ethergrace was worth it. “Honestly, yeah, I probably would have picked something rude and gotten the switch for it. Pureheart is just so... tacky though. Before you ask, Delilah is Sister Holy Firewall.”

“Huh.” Yeah, that tracked.

Sister Datamaria shook her head. “Is this one of your street friends, Franny?” she asked. I saw that the title was dropped there.

Franny sighed. “Sisters, this is Catherine... I can’t remember her family name. Something French?”

“Leblanc,” I offered. It was a name that was too fancy-sounding for me, but I didn’t pick it.

“Right,” Franny said. “You probably know her better as Stray Cat. She’s the owner of the giant cheesy cat-shaped building above.”

“Hey,” I said. “It’s not cheesy. Tacky, kitsch, gaudy maybe, but not cheesy.”

The sisters both gasped, and Ethergrace almost dropped what she was carrying as she slapped a hand over her mouth. “You’re a saintess,” she said. “Sister Daramaria, apologise, quick!”

Sister Datamaria did just that, bowing twice before she spoke. “Forgive me, saintess. I allowed my poor judgement to overcome my good sense. I will accept any punishment you see fit to hand out for my poor conduct.”

“Uh,” I said.

Franny rolled her eyes, and I got a text message from her a moment later. I supposed she didn’t want to say what she was thinking aloud. “This is why Delilah’s moving.”

I could imagine. “It’s all good,” I said. “And my offer to help was legit. Is Gomorrah here too?”

“She’s back home, dealing with some stuff,” Franny said. “Uh, the church home, not here, I mean.”

“She let you take the Fury?” I asked. There was no doubt about it, Delilah was in capital-L Love with Franny if she was letting the redhead take her car out.

“She was worried that someone might try to rob the van,” Franny said.

I blinked. The van looked like it was twice my age. Not too much rust or anything, so it had been maintained, but still, not exactly a prize worth stealing. “Why would anyone take that old thing?”

“It’s filled with the possessions of a saintess,” Sister Ethergrace said. Her eyes were practically shining.

“It’s Delilah’s crap,” Franny added. “Some of its alien tech. In a rickety old van, that’s a juicy target.”

That was probably fair. I supposed that I’d kind of grown used to having protectorate stuff at my fingertips, so it didn’t feel so special anymore, but some of the gear I tossed aside was probably worth enough to change someone’s life if they got ahold of it.

A van full of stuff? Yeah, that’d be worth a fortune. The sisters were carrying the equivalent of a few gold bricks around, it made sense to want to defend it.

Also, I’d be annoyed if someone stole my shit. I’d have to track it down and kill people which would cut into my vacation time. Having the Fury flying around would discourage anyone from trying anything.

“Well, it should be safe here,” I said. “Or around the building. We’ve got some turrets mounted on the outside, and there’s some cats roaming around.”

“Cats?” Franny asked.

I nodded, then turned back towards the parking garage. I was pretty sure there was one in here. It took me a moment to find the right app in my augs to call it over. There was a muffled click-click, then the air warped as the invisibility dropped around one of my cat mechs. It was just one of those I’d bought to guard the house, a mechanical cat drone with a few guns.

It was scarier because of its ability to go unnoticed than anything else. “One of these,” I said. “I’ll probably buy or fabricate a few more, if Gom doesn’t mind. If we’re gonna have this whole building be a samurai place, then it makes sense to keep up the security.”

“Cool,” Franny said.

“So, need help?”

Franny shrugged, then shifted her hold on the boxes. “Yeah, sure. We’re taking up the two floors below this one.”

That’d leave a floor between the museum and the parking garage. Actually, that was decent. It gave me some room to expand downwards if I needed it. “Nice,” I said. “Is Gom planning on taking over some of the garage too?”

“I think so. Just a corner of it. She wants a lift to park the Fury in the house. Which I think is a bit silly, but whatever.”

Yeah, she would park her car in the living room. I went to the back of the van, aware of the two nuns staring at me and reached for one of the boxes. I don’t think Sister Datamaria meant for me to hear her whispering to Franny, but I picked it up anyways.

“Sister Pureheart, you can’t ask a saintess to do menial labour for you!”

“She offered,” Franny said.

“Out of the grace and kindness of her heart, but you should have refused.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a knot, it’s Cat. She’s alright.”

I had to hold back the urge to puff out in pride. Damn right I was alright. Instead, I picked up a box then almost dropped it when Myalis spoke up and surprised me. She could go hours without saying anything sometimes.

Lift with your knees.

“Really?” I asked.

It’ll save you points later. Unless you want to replace your spine now? If you don’t, then proper posture will save you from future pain.

I rolled my eyes as I shifted my grip on the box. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Alright, Franny, where are we dumping all of this?”

“Follow me,” Franny said. “I’ll show you the place while we’re at it.”

***