Chapter Fifty-Seven - Greedy Bits

“Sometimes, the greediest thing you can do, is to give unto others.”

--Riches to Rags, a guide on Corporate Living

***

“Minion Captain,” I began. “Why is this taking so long?”

Initially, things had moved pretty quickly. People had started to rush about, the cops barking orders that were repeated by others. There seemed to be a local fire-brigade out and about, some twenty volunteers who were helping to organize things, and some others were assisting them too.

I supposed that moments like these were make-or-break for a lot of people.

I had stepped out, and with Myalis’ help, bought three cat mecha.

They were useful, mobile, and able to attack and defend fairly well as far as I could tell. That, and we could use them to corral people. They could even ‘speak’ in that they had speakers built in that I could shout at people with.

I had considered turrets, but turrets could have been made by just about any corp out there. They didn’t serve to remind people that there was a samurai on the scene, it just said ‘hey, the cops have even more guns than usual,’ and that was the opposite of reassuring. They also weren’t mobile, and while they had more firepower-per-point, I figured being able to move was more important.

New Purchase: P.U.S.S. Model Y - Security Mechs - Combat Models - Three

Points reduced to... 35

We’d just need to stay mum about the name.

So, things had started off well. The cat-bots were suitably impressive, there weren’t any aliens coming around to chow on the civvies, and things were moving.

“Well?” I asked my newly appointed minion.

The police woman hesitated. “We’re nearly done. We were going to just move everyone as one big group, but, ah, we ran into issues?”

“Issues?” I repeated.

She shrugged. “People want to arrive at the headquarters in order of seniority. Others want to make sure the children are safest. There’s some fighting upstairs.”

I wanted to pinch my brow. “Everyone knows that if we don’t get moving soon, everyone here will become alien chow, right?”

She took a moment before nodding.

“Right,” I muttered. I stepped past her and into the lobby. “Myalis, can you connect me to the intercom?”

Certainly.

I cleared my throat, and the sound of it carried across the entire lobby. I could even hear it on the floors above. “Okay everyone. Form a line right here in the lobby, three people thick. Keep your children close, and try to help those you can, we’re leaving. Not in ten minutes, not in five. Right now. If I have to come back to pick your sorry ass up later, I will be making you regret it.”

It took a second or two for people to snap to it, but soon enough we had a line forming up with minimal shoving and pushing.

“Alright! Let’s move,” I said.

I took the lead, and noticed the cops running ahead a bit and forming something of a cordon. One of them had already moved some of the cars that would be in our way.

The cat-bots paced along the sides, glowing mechanical eyes glaring out at the town and back-mounted guns shifting around.

“Minion Captain, take the lead,” I called out to the police woman before stepping to the side when we reached the field behind the school.

The line stretched back a ways. It wasn’t exactly inconspicuous to have that many people walking along, and there was plenty of coughing and a murmur of nervous conversation, but no one was screaming or shouting.

I wasn’t going to jinx myself by saying that it was going well, but so far, I could see the plan working.

A hum from above had me looking up to see Gomorrah’s Fury hover near the school’s roof. I waved her way, but doubted she’d noticed.

If anything came up, she could tell me about it. Or just bomb it from the air. Either-or would be helpful.

I felt something like a fist in my chest, twisting just under my ribs. Stress, maybe? I’d heard all about that before. The corps hated it when some rando employee got too stressed and showed up at work with a 3D printed assault rifle, so there was tons of shitty ads about dealing with that kind of thing.

I eyed the people moving in, then started following after the head of the group. So far, no aliens. I could live with that.

“Captain minion,” I said as I caught up with the police girl. “When everyone is in the headquarters, we’ll need to keep them all calm, think your force will be able to handle that?”

“NeoPinkerton subjugation officers all have to take pre-emptive deescalation classes,” she said. “We should be able to handle a few rowdy people.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied. “Just settle people down, reassure them that there are samurai around who are eager to kill some xenos, then share whatever food and water you have. Maybe Myalis can set up a livestream from Gomorrah’s Fury. Seeing the aliens get turned to giblets might calm people down.”

“I... don’t know if everyone would be calmed down by that kind of thing,” she said.

I shrugged. “It would work on me.”

Being at the front of the crowd meant that we were the first to arrive at the headquarters.

The building was one of those places designed to look good on a pamphlet. The front had this big cement pillar, curved in at an angle and with a skeletal framework wrapped around it. All of that covered in mirrored glass. I could only-just make out the fountain in the middle of the space beneath, some modern-art statue that looked like nothing and that probably had a descriptive plaque welded to it with text written by some wordy English Major.

It was an entirely meaningless shape, surrounded by architecture that was just as useless.

The rest of the building was good old brutalist. Square and plain. I much preferred that kind of look. You could always trust a square.

The fence around the building was decorated to look a bit less like a fence, with curvy bits of metal on the outside and spiked bars above instead of barbed wire. The gate though, was just a massive slab of steel, one that was slowly opening as we approached.

There were weapon emplacements all along the fenceline. Mostly sonic-weapons. There were more conventional kinetic weapons within.

A glance inside revealed quaint little statuettes at even intervals along the inside. They had benches next to them, and little water fountains for drinking. I’d bet a couple of credits that those were to hide the guns they’d use on anyone dumb enough to riot.

A man ran out of the compound in full gear. Armoured chestpiece and hard-plastic plates over his arms and thighs. He even had a half-visored helmet on. “Hello,” he said as he came closer. “Are you the samurai?”

“I’m one of them,” I said. “There should be three of us here. Gomorrah’s in the muscle car. No clue where the third one is.”

“And you want to bring all of these employees into the headquarters?” he asked. His jaw set.

I sighed. There was the trouble I was expecting. “Yeah. Looks a whole hell of a lot safer in here.”

The corpo cop paused. “Very well. We have authority from the higher-ups to allow any citizen of Black Bear into the headquarters. As long as they stay out of certain areas and remain calm, there shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Stay out of what areas?” I asked.

“Research and Development, on floor three, the server rooms in the basement, and the NeoPinkerton armoury on the first floor. We’re collapsing cubicles on most of the office floors to make more room already.”

“Oh,” I said. That sounded... reasonable. “Well, okay then. I’ll be leaving three of my mecha cats with you guys. They should help if any aliens break past the walls, which they might.”

The man nodded. “Thank you. We could use more AA support. The best we have are a few anti-drone countermeasures on the roof, but that’s the best we’ve got against flying targets.”

“Uh, I’ll talk to Gomorrah, then.”

You seem confused.

I nodded to the cops, then tapped the side of my head in the universal ‘I’m on a call’ sign before backing away. The civvies were already filing in, escorted by a few more guards in armour who ran out to funnel them into the headquarters.

“I was expecting... corpo fuckery,” I said.

Humans can be vindictive, needlessly cruel and can lack empathy at the worst times. But they are generally quite good when it comes to doing what they think is in their best interest. Sometimes that math works out to meaning that the best thing to do in any given moment, is to help those they can as best they can. In this case, some of the administrators of this company judged that assisting their workers would mean that those same workers would be able to return to work sooner, and with less ill-will against the corporation as a whole.

“Thanks,” I said. “It really helps when you point out where the greedy bits are in all of this.”

You’re welcome!