Chapter Thirty-Seven - A Genius Idea

“There are several curated, quick, and even inexpensive services willing to teach a budding or even experienced samurai how to handle public-facing tasks.

We strongly encourage any samurai that wants to have any amount of time in the spotlight to take one or more of these classes. The lessons might seem like common sense for the most part, but they are nonetheless invaluable.

You don’t want to have the public turn on you because of mismanaged PR.”

--Family Head of PR John J.J. Johnson, 2051

***

I could have very easily spent the rest of the afternoon trailing after Lucy and scaring people into doing what she said. In fact, I’d done that before and it was always very enjoyable.

I don’t know what it said about me as a person, but something about seeing Lucy go full girlboss on people, unleashing her barbed tongue then snapping around to being the sweetest, most angelic person in the world faster than anyone could blink really did it for me.

Unfortunately, all good things had to come to a crashing explosion of an end.

My comms spat on and I jumped as a voice blared into my ears. “Cat, where the fuck are you?”

That was Gomorrah, nice, proper-Christian-girl Gomorrah who didn’t usually swear. Which meant that things were probably not going so well.

“I’m here, what’s up?” I asked.

“I’ve been running around lighting aliens on fire for the last hour and every time I turn around there’s more of them. I don’t know if I’m going to get swarmed here, but if I don’t start getting help soon, I’m going to lose it.”

“Okay, right, I’m on my way. Can you hang on for ten minutes?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “I can hold on for ten minutes. I swear, if you spent the last hour goofing around I’m going to rethink all the nice thoughts I had about you.”

“Right, right, I’m coming. And I wasn’t goofing around, I was arming the people and getting things set up back here.”

“Uh-huh.” The line went dead, and I sighed.

Lucy waved the people she was talking to off, and they took the hint, leaving before Lucy had to really ask. She turned towards me, and her head tilted to the side a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah, need to run though,” I said.

“Oh, that’s alright,” she said. “I think I’ve got things handled here. The extra suits and gear will come in handy. I’ll try to stay on top of things, so if you can keep the aliens off our asses, then we’ll probably be fine.”

I nodded, then slid my helmet off, wrapped an arm around Lucy’s waist, and pulled her in close.

Myalis brought up a handy countdown showing me that I had under five minutes left to get to Gomorrah while keeping my word, so I reluctantly broke the kiss. “Okay,” I said once I caught my breath. “We’ll continue that later?”

“Oh, you can bet on it,” Lucy purred.

I grinned, then pecked her on the cheek before backing up and tugging my helmet back on. “Stay safe, alright?”

“I’m supposed to say that to you,” she said. “Go on, go save the day. I’ll be back here making sure there’s people to appreciate the saving once you’re done.” She winked at me, and I ran off with a bit of pep in my step.

Surprisingly, the militia technical was still waiting for me by the front of the mall. It seemed as if the driver had decided that chauffeur duties were either more fun or safer than whatever his actual job was meant to be. “Hey, get me to... uh...” I checked our map, spotted Gomorrah’s tag, then rattled off the name of the nearest intersection before leaping up onto the back of the pickup.

The world outside of our walls was on fire.

The technical slowed to a stop, mostly because a row of firefighting trucks was stationed on the edge of the street, hoses rolled way out towards the wall where guys in heavy flame-retardant gear and exo suits were spraying the inner side of the wall with water.

That seemed enough, for now, to stop the flames from crawling over the barricades and towards the people on our side. As I watched an alien--a model three--made it over the wall and tumbled down the other side, skin peeling and fur aflame. One of the firefighters turned their hose onto the alien, dousing them before a militiaman put a round into its head.

I tapped my comms back on as I jumped down from the back of the truck. “Gomorrah, why is everything on fire?”

“Because the aliens haven’t figured out how to flameproof themselves yet, and until they do, this is the most effective way of keeping them away.”

“Yes, but humans are also not fire-proof,” I pointed out.

“There’s people keeping the fire contained. I fail to see how that’s my issue.”

I had never really liked alcohol, or rather, I could never afford it enough to grow a liking for it, but at that moment I was really tempted to pick up a bad habit.

She was a little terse, maybe she really did need a break. “Okay, Gom, come back on this side of the wall. Get something to eat, go take a shit or whatever, take twenty, yeah?”

Gomorrah chuckled. “Crude, aren’t you?”

“Always,” I said. “I’ll take care of the wall for now. Once you’re done with your break, mind heading over to River Heights?”

I saw someone climb over the wall, then drop down on our side. Gomorrah, in her all-black outfits. Steam wafted off of her and drew little swirls in the air as she started to walk over. The folks guarding the wall gave her a wide berth.

I walked over to meet her, then stopped when I was a metre off. My suit was fireproof, obviously, because I worked with Gomorrah enough that not having that would be stupid, but the fancy little sensors in my suit still let me feel the warmth coming off of my favourite nun.

“You’re extra hot today, huh? Don’t let Franny see you that way.”

“Are you going to say something about how she’ll become so wet she’ll douse my fire?” she asked, voice flat.

“Well... no, I hadn’t thought of that, actually.” I laughed. “And you said I was crude?”

“Shut up, Cat,” she said. “So, River Heights. Are you evacuating that spot?”

“I ordered it. But I bet some of them aren’t going to listen. Ever want to torch a McMansion before?”

“... now that you mention it, yes, I do want to do that.”

I clapped. “Fantastic! Now’s your chance.”

She patted me on the shoulder then walked on past. “I’m going to take my me-mandated break.”

“Oh! While you’re at it, the folks at the mall need mini-flamethrowers to take care of the zombie problem.”

Gomorrah paused, then shrugged. “Alright. I can do that.”

I watched her head out, then worked my shoulders loose. Without Gomorrah to feed the flames, literally, I imagined that our firewall wasn’t going to last forever. I opened up our map of Burlington. “Myalis, where are the other samurai at?”

Sprout is patrolling the eastern cordon. I suspect he's trying to gain points where the action is lightest. Arm-a-Geddon is still in River Heights. Manic is to your north, outside the walls perimeter.

I nodded along.

The Family has sent you a message. You have reinforcements en-route.

“Oh, thank fuck,” I said before searching for the message in question and opening it.

>>>Stray Cat

We appreciate the reports. Your request for undersea specialist samurai has been added to the queue. Expect arrival of an expert within the next three days.

Your reinforcement request has been expedited. A battalion of Tier-2 prepped PMCs are on their way to Burlington. ETA, 2 days, 16 hours.

-Thank you.

I blinked. “Two days.”

How in the hells was I supposed to hold this place together for two days? And how many people was a battalion anyway?

I bet it wasn’t nearly as many people as I’d need.

The specialist only arriving in three days surprised me a little less. I bet there weren’t many of those. What kind of idiot would want a job where they had to get submerged?

I shook my head, picked up my gun from its sling, then watched the wall. I supposed I wouldn’t have a choice now. If we had to hold, then we had to hold. We could set up rotations, get more of Lucy’s people on the front line, maybe install more mortars and better defences and just hang on tight.

... I didn’t like relying on people that weren’t here yet, but what choice did I have? It wasn’t like I could charge out to the nearest nest and fuck it up.

My eyes narrowed.

Wait... I could literally just do that.

***