Chapter Sixty-Two - Honour and Flames

“Samurai meet in the field all the time. It’s a common enough occurrence.

Sometimes it’s not the friendliest of events. When high-yield everything is flying about, aliens are attacking, and the area is filled with dead and dying civilians, the tensions can run fairly high.

Still, there is a sort of code of honour among Samurai, and even those that belong to opposing factions will generally put the lives of civilians before any grudges. If their explosive attacks happen to accidentally overlap with the area a rival is in, well, that’s just a bit of friendly ribbing.”

--Cynthia Eastwood, head psychologist, New Burkely U. 2051

***

Being on fire was, in a word, unfun.

To be completely fair, I hadn’t actually lit up. The wave of flames wasn’t directed at me. I just got caught in the AOE.

I wanted to scream, but the air around me was boiling and a tiny gasp was enough for me to clamp down and roll up into a ball while flames licked at my jacket.

A very uncomfortable few seconds later, the flames abated and I opened my eyes only to have my organic eye spiked with pain. There was a lot of nasty smoke in the air. My nifty robotic eye was just fine. “Air.” I croaked.

A box appeared before me.

I fumbled it open, saw the facemask within, and slapped it on without a second thought. It didn’t have any straps, which didn’t seem to matter as its rubber lining adjusted itself to my face and stuck on fast.

Taking in a deep gasp was like stepping out of a room filled with smokers for the first time in hours. It was heaven.

“Thanks,” I said.

I can’t serve you if your lungs fail. Though you should consider replacing them with something more efficient. I suspect the fire was caused by a person, not an Antithesis.

Some fuck-o had tried to light me up?

Growling, I rolled out from under the truck, spung Whisper off my shoulder and brought it around to aim at the first thing that moved.

I found myself staring down the scope of my crossbow at a nun.

A nun with a backpack and two arms pointing my way. Arms with little nozzles under them.

We stared at each other for a very uncomfortable few seconds as I twisted so that I was kneeling. The ground was hot to the touch and kind of painful on my legs, but my shoes had good insulation.

I swore to myself that if she’d wrecked my two hundred point shoes I was going to put a very big hole in her. Nun or otherwise.

Hold. That’s a Vanguard.

We both paused. The nun lowered her hands and I, reluctantly, lowered Whisper.

“What the fuck?” I asked though my new mask

The nun was wearing a full-face mask under her habit. It looked like a featureless woman’s visage, like one of those disappointed statues of Mary. “Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t know you were there.”

I growled, the noise made deeper by the mask. My organic eye was still acting up. Worse, there was nothing I could do about it while the ground around us still smoked and smouldered. “Yeah well, that’s no excuse for--”

I cut off as noise came from off to the side.

Turning, I took in the subway’s entrance which had half a dozen extra-crispy aliens flopped around it. Obviously, those within the tunnels didn’t get the memo. With a now-practiced gesture, I slid Whisper over my back, pulled three ordinary grenades from my pockets, the last of those I’d acquired from the PMC armoury.

Three pins clinked onto the floor around me. I flung them underhand into the tunnel.

“That won’t keep them,” the nun said.

“Are all nun-type people such weirdos?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“You’re not pardoned,” I said. “Myalis, glue-and-goo.”

The adhesive grenade burst apart over the entrance just as the first Model Three barged out. It took two steps before flopping forwards as its momentum and unmoving feet tag-teamed each other and smashed its face into the sticky ground.

The Resonator stuck fast to the white-ish foam rising on the ground and started to wail.

The nun flinched back and I imagined that she was wincing under that mask of hers. “That’s loud,” she said.

“Maybe if you hadn’t crisped me I’d feel sorry,” I said.

She harrumphed and shifted her white-on-black dress. It allowed me a better view of her weapons, a pair of what were obviously flamethrowers with handles that had metal hand-protectors over them. It didn’t take a genius to figure that they were connected to her backpack somehow.

Her dress had a strange sheen to it, and I guessed that it was probably nice and cool under there, because of course the nun only lit others on fire.

“What were you doing here?” I asked.

“Bringing retribution upon the aliens,” she said.

Her voice sounded... off. Like someone reciting something instead of speaking normally. “Uh-huh. You plan on lighting everything on fire?”

That reminded me. If she was going around burninating things, then why hadn’t I seen signs of it? A look down the road didn’t reveal anything burning, and the aliens hadn’t looked too excited. There was a heavy column of smoke rising above the skyline from one street over. Had she snuck through an alleyway?

“I’m... still new,” the nun admitted. She looked away, still towards the aliens stuck by the entrance, but away from me.

Did she think I wasn’t new too? That was... kind of hilarious.

“First incursion?” I asked.

“Second.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, I’m Cat. Folks call me Stray Cat, I guess. I’m pretty new too.” I was glad the mask made my voice sound deeper, there was no way she wouldn’t notice the hilarity in my tone otherwise.

“Oh, that’s... I am sorry about lighting you on fire, I didn’t see you.”

I sighed. Really, I couldn’t be too mad at her. Now that I wasn’t actively on fire and I wasn’t smoking anymore, I was feeling a whole lot more generous. Also, my propensity for flinging bombs all over meant that I might be in her Mark I Nun shoes one day.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Got a name?”

“A Samurai name?” the nun asked. “I wasn’t given one, not yet.”

“What? Is there a reason you can’t give yourself one?” I asked.

“Tradition?” she asked more than said.

It has become something of a tradition for Vanguard to name each other, with some competing to be the first to name another. Though there are no rules, and any Vanguard is free to disregard a name that is given to them. Usually the names are given in good faith.

Like the name I’d gotten from Longbow? That explained why he was so excited about it.I watched the nun while Myalis info-dumped. She looked to the side, her head cocked as if listening to something. Her own AI, I guessed.

“Right, how do you like Sister Hellfire?” I asked.

She turned back to me. “How would you like me to finish cooking you?”

“That doesn’t sound very Christ-like,” I said.

“I’m part of a denomination that worships Samurai,” she said. “We’re pretty okay with violence.”

I snorted. “Does that mean you worship yourself? That’s either really weird, or really kinky.” She didn’t seem to appreciate that, so I raised my hands in surrender. “How about, uh, something a bit more serious. What’s the name of that one city that got burnt up in the Bible?”

“Gomorrah?” she asked.

“There. That sounds good enough.”

“You want me to name myself after a city of sinners?” she asked incredulously.

I shrugged. “It sounds badass.”

She paused. “It kind of does, doesn’t it?”

The Resonator shut off with a screech and I saw the newly christened Gomorrah relax her shoulders at the lack of ear-piercing noise. There was still a ring, but it sounded distant.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “My traps have gone off.”

She turned back to me. “Traps?”

“To protect a group of civilians I was helping evacuate. Uh, want to help? I’m not entirely sure how credit is divided, but there’s like a thousand civilians and eight soldiers to guard them a block and a bit over. I set traps all over.”

“I... yes, I’ll come.”

I grinned. “Cool. Just try not to fry the civilians.”

I had the impression she was glaring. “I’ll be careful with them,” she said. The emphasis there suggested that she’d be less careful with me.

“Myalis, I need something to cave that entrance in.”

A few Hyper Compression bombs should do it. I don’t place much stock in the strength of human-made structures.

“Your faith in humanity is astounding,” I deadpanned.

Two flung bombs later and I was walking away from the area, an irate fire nun at my back.