Chapter Forty-Four - Jam and Drains

"...About her tone, Samurai Stray Cat was exceptionally dismissive of protocols. I do not know if she was unaware or uncaring about them. Samurai Stray Cat assumed that the troops on site would act in the best, most professional manner, while herself carrying out whatever plan she had in place prior. Information sharing was not complete.

Samurai Gomorrah seemed more careful and precise before the arrival of Samurai Stray Cat. It might be worth noting that Samurai Gomorrah seems willing to work with Family personnel initially, but her real feelings are hidden by a layer of polite obfuscation which Samurai Stray Cat lacks..."

--Excerpt from field-investigation report of Officer Kennedy, 2057

***

I woke up early the next morning.

Then I promptly started to snuggle with Lucy, which turned into more than cuddling, which turned into a pillow fight, which then turned into a more physical, less dressed version of 'more than cuddling', and then that ended with me falling right back asleep.

So really, my day only really started the crack of eleven-thirty.

"What's on the docket for today?" I asked as I lifted a shirt from the floor and gave it an experimental sniff. Eh, good enough.

You have a few things to address. First, your point count has been slowly dropping, even with your daily allocations. Some points have come in from Burlington overnight, from the equipment you left there.

"Not bad," I said. "How many points?"

Seventy-two.

I shrugged. Well, it was something. "Enough to buy a dozen or so Foxteeth and send them over to be used. I can see that generating some point-income over time.

The price of Foxteeth-type handguns had been revised.

I paused, pants halfway up. "What?" I asked. "Wait, what do you mean by that?" Foxteeth were like, the cheapest shitty handgun I could remember buying. They were a whole five points, and just enough to take out the lower-tiered antithesis. They were an alright civilian-grade gun otherwise.

They were worth five points. As far as I was aware, they'd always been worth five points.

The point value was reduced to four per unit. You seem confused about the change in price?

"Yeah, no shit," I said as I tugged my pants on fully and started with the button. "I didn't know things could change prices. Since when?"

It's always been the case. Though the market for Vanguard equipment is far more stable than any other market on Earth, mostly because it's fed and influenced by outside sources. The value of an item is calculated from several factors. Its potency and level of danger, its material cost, the cost of transporting it, its technological level, and its perceived value. The Foxteeth's technological edge was reduced by several recent initiatives pumping the civilian market with similar quality human-made guns. Therefore, the value was lowered.

"And that's normal?"

If you had been alive in 2030 and were a Vanguard at the time, for example, the Foxteeth would be worth twice as much as it was when you first purchased one.

My mind was a little blown at the moment. I didn't know that things could change that way at all. But I supposed that in hindsight it kind of made sense. What would happen in a hundred years when there was a new samurai and the only things they could afford were handguns that were a century out of date?

"Okay... well, alright. That'll be something to wrap my head around later. So, uh, where were we? And where's my belt?"

Under the bed. And we were discussing today's agenda.

I got on all fours, then gestured for Myalis to continue while I searched.

There are three matters you wished to look into today. The state of your mech was the first. You also wanted to get into contact with See-Three over the matter of your prosthetics clinic. Finally, you wanted to observe the state of the repairs on the sewage system.

"Ah, that," I said. "Alright, so... any idea of what I should do first?" I couldn't find the belt, at least until Mister Tentacles slithered it over to me, the belt held at the end of a long tentacle. "Thanks."

I would suggest looking into the matter of the sewer systems first. That is the project with the greatest impact and likelihood of causing lasting harm.

I fit my belt on, then nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Let me grab breakfast before anything else. Or lunch? Whatever. Can you ping the Family, let Eric know that I'll be driving over this afternoon?"

Message sent.

"Thank you," I said as I slipped out of the bedroom with just one final glance back. We... needed a cleaning person. Lucy was picking up as we went, and the place was brand-new, so it wasn't like there had been much time for grime and messiness to build up, but still, things were getting a little dirty. Heck, I wouldn't trust the water in the pool in the corner.

I found Lucy in the kitchen, leaning over the counter with a plate with toast in front of her and a pair of steaming mugs next to that. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," I replied before swiping a piece of toast and making my way to the fridge. I opened it and stared at all the food within. I was probably fine with just one piece of toast, but it was nice seeing a full fridge anyway. "You okay?" I asked.

"Sore," she said.

I grinned smugly. Yeah, she would be. "You'll be alright?"

"Mhm," she said. "Better if someone stopped stealing my toast."

"Who did that? I'll catch the fiend and dangle them upside down by the toes off the side of the building," I declared while waving my toast around.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "What are you doing today, toast-thief?"

"I need to check up on the sewer thing. So that means visiting the Family first thing, then maybe checking up on things myself right after, to make sure they're not fucking with me."

Lucy nodded. "Anything I can help with?"

"Hmm, I don't think so? But if you want, could you check up on Burlington? I don't know if there's much we can do from here, but I think they murdered a few aliens overnight, so either they're clearing things out, or things have gone wrong."

"I'll see what I can do," Lucy said. "I was supposed to call some of my contacts over there this morning, but someone kept me from them."

"I'll hang them next to the person stealing your toast," I promised.

I gave Lucy's cheek a quick peck, then swiped her other piece of toast.

She screamed, so out of the great mercy in my heart, I only took a huge bite from it before putting it back on her plate. "Gotta go!" I said past a full mouth.

Lucy laughed and I slipped out of the kitchen and started through the house. It was surprisingly busy considering it wasn't even noon yet. Some of the kittens were gathered together in the living room, sitting around a low table. "Hey Cat," Junior said as she looked up from a tablet. "You're heading out?"

"Yeah," I said. "What are you all doing?"

"Grasshopper's homework," she said. Then she frowned. "Did you do yours?"

"Uh... I'm too busy for that," I said.

"She's going to be disappointed," Junior said. It was accusatory.

"Come on, it's not a big deal," I said.

"She'll be disappointed in you," she said before dropping it entirely. She sounded almost like she was pitying me.

I slipped out before I could let that get to me. The homework was all stuff like math anyway. As if I'd ever need help with that. I had more than just a calculator jammed into my head. I found my coat by the entrance, and my helmet which I slipped on.

I won't help you with the homework.

Grumbling to myself, I found my way over to my bike, then sighed at the bench, which was covered in a drizzling of water from the constant rain. I swept it off with my sleeve as best I could, then hopped onto the bike.

Before taking off, I sent a quick text to Gomorrah, just letting her know that I was heading out to meet with the Family.

It wasn't that I didn't trust the Family, it was that I trusted them a lot more if a fire-nun came in to avenge me if they did something fucky. Gomorrah was probably well-versed in the biblical sort of vengeance that I figured would keep even corpos in line.

I got a thumbs-up emote back just as I was taking off.

The trip over to the Family HQ wasn't all that far, though it was raining hard enough you could drink your fill just by craning your neck back. It was a decent amount of time to look into things, specifically what Myalis could gather about the whole sewer situation.

It seems like repairs started in earnest yesterday morning, though most of those repairs meant cutting off the water supply of areas adjoining the worst-hit parts of the city.

"That'll leave lots of pissed off people behind," I said.

It's necessary.

Maybe so, but unless people were convinced that things were getting better fast, it might just be a way to piss off the average New Montrealler even more than they already were.

"Let's just get on top of things," I said. It was time to put on a brave face and do some politicking.

***