Chapter Fifty-Seven – The Okay Before the Oof

Chapter Fifty-Seven – The Okay Before the Oof

“When samurai work together, it’ll either lead to greater success, or a lot more chaos. The personalities of various samurai tend to be quite different, and they also tend to share some commonalities. Those commonalities often include a distrust of others and of authority, and that makes it complicated for them to work together if there’s a direct and clear hierarchy in place.

Not that it hasn’t happened and won’t happen again. We’re just stubborn sometimes.”

–Laserjack, on samurai-samurai relations, 2054

***

Things were going… alright. I was a little tired after running around all over the place putting out fires, but it seemed that, at least for now, the city would hold up.

And just as I was thinking that, I got a call from Gomorrah.

“Hey,” I said as I answered. I was still at the mall, having just finished up a… I supposed it was a presentation, with Lucy. I didn’t have concrete plans on where to go next.

“Hello,” Gomorrah said. “I’m on the lake-side of the city, by the walls. Things are getting a little… uncomfortable over here. I think we could use your help.”

I nodded. “Sure, I’m on my way. Just send me your coords and I’ll be there in ten, faster if you think it’s an emergency.”

“We can afford to wait ten minutes,” Gomorrah said. “Things aren’t that dire yet. But yes, I’d appreciate having you here.”

I nodded, cut the call, then sent a text to Jessica. The sexbot had become Lucy’s secretary of sorts. At least as an android she was quick to reply to texts and such, much faster than a person, even if she lacked some social graces sometimes. She replied instantly to my request and said that a car would be waiting for me outside.

Pretty handy, that.

I checked my gear as I headed out. I had my armour on, and it was reading all green on my HUD. Its batteries were down to 89% but I figured that was a non-issue for now. My railguns were down a few rounds, so I got Myalis to top them up, just in case. Then I checked on my laser pointer. It was currently full of… flechette rounds. Yeah, that would work for now.

I had a couple of grenades on my belt. Resonators, garrots, one of those black hole bombs for a tight situation. My handgun was strapped to my thigh and full of ammo, and I had my coat on top of everything.

I checked that my helmet was on correctly as I walked out of the mall, then found the car that was going to bring me out to the front.

It was one of those econocars, a tiny little electric thing that ran off of a lawnmower engine and that had a top speed that was in the double digits. The inside had room for two if they were willing to get comfy with each other.

I wanted to complain, but then that would waste time, and then I’d need to find another way over and… “Hey, didn’t I order my bike down to here?” I asked.

Some time ago, yes.

“Then where the hell is it?”

It has been hovering around the edge of the city for a few hours. I’ve been using it as aerial surveillance.

I frowned. Then sighed and just climbed into the car. “Get it down here,” I told Myalis before looking at my driver. He was some guy about my age, freckle-faced and sweaty behind the wheel, which he held with a death grip. Yes, I could have waited for the bike. That would be a minute or two of waiting, and this car was already here. “Punch it,” I told him.

He did, and we… more or less accelerated ahead.

I regretted not taking the bike. This little coffin car could barely hit highway minimum speeds, and that was when it had a long time to accelerate up to those speeds. We didn’t have room for that in the stop-and-start Downtown area.

“You know, you can just gun it,” I said.

“That’s against the law, ma’am,” my driver said.

I frowned. Ma’am? I didn’t mind it from the soldier-types since it was just respectful, but come on, he was treating me like I was some geriatric old biddy. “Just punch it,” I said. “Not like anyone’s going to stop you, and traffic’s dead.”