Chapter Fifty-Three – Egg Shells

Chapter Fifty-Three – Egg Shells

“Media literacy is only necessary when you can’t trust the media you consume.”

-Very True Social, Failed Slogan, 2038

***

I was just about done with breakfast when I decided to pop open the group chat for the Big Gun. Someone had added a new channel to the chat, which caught my eye right away. It was otherwise pretty calm, at least compared to the last couple of days where we were rushing to get everything ready.

Hedgehog had been updating the main chat all night long with a rather formal list. He’d spell out what kind of shell was loaded into the Big Gun and when, then a few minutes later the shell’s impact on Phobos in terms of points he’d earned.

Hedgehog: 23:14 High Impact Explosive Shell
Hedgehog: 24:10 Points gained: 1045
Hedgehog: 24:15 PyroChemical MIRV
Hedgehog: 01:08 Points gained: 820

The list went all through the night, more or less once an hour. The time between the shots and their impact on Phobos was very slowly decreasing by about one or two minutes after every shot, which was interesting to note. The points earned were all over the place. It seemed, at a glance, like anything that was more penetrative was worth a bit more.

There was some additional commentary by Hedgehog about certain rounds. Mostly noting their effectiveness or lack thereof. One shell meant to blow up over the moon’s surface had barely made any points and he’d taken a lot of notes about why it was ineffective. Another MIRV shell had tagged a flight of smaller models as they were flying out to intercept some of the Keiretsu’s drones and Hedgehog noted that we’d earned a lot more points than we would have otherwise.

Anyway, that chat was interesting to look over. If I had more of an analytical mind, I might be able to come to some smart conclusion from looking at it, but I figured I’d leave that to the others.

I left a note mentioning how I bought a third-tier catalogue to give us access to more oomph, and Grasshopper immediately replied with a… gif of a chibi version of herself pressing a gold star onto a cartoon cat’s forehead?

Did she have a ‘silly gifs’ catalogue or was her AI just as childish as she was?

Actually, I didn’t want to know.

The new chat, once I clicked it open, had me sitting up straighter. “Fuck,” I muttered.

Lucy’s head whipped around. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did I leave some eggshell in? I was sure I picked all the bits out.”

“Wait… was that the crunchy bit? I thought it was pepper?”

“Oh… never you mind then,” Lucy said. “What’s the fuck about?”

I frowned, but decided not to pursue. Eggshell couldn’t be all bad, right? Probably had protein or something. “There’s a new group chat going on, for the samurai in the Big Gun project. Looks like the media has shown up.”

“Weren’t you guys being all subtle?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m pissed,” I said. I stood up, then sighed. “Gros Baton is taking care of them, apparently. They’re not at the site, at least, so we have that much going for us.”

“If they’re not at the site, then where are they?” Lucy asked.

“Saint-Jérome,” I said. “But they’re asking pointed questions and Gros Baton said that he can only play the ‘I don’t speak English’ card for so long. I don’t think he’s gotten used to being a samurai enough to tell the media to fuck off.”

“Aww, he needs big sister Cat to save him!” Lucy said.

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t going to save him. I was going to make sure he didn’t make a mess of things. If that happened to keep him out of trouble, that was entirely a happy side-effect. “Whatever,” I said before walked over to Lucy. I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her smiling face closer. “Gimme a kiss for the road?”

I ended up with enough kisses for the road there and back.