Chapter Fifty-Three – Palace

Chapter Fifty-Three – Palace

“Samurai are incredible. But they are not infallible.”

-Two-Slices, June 2023

***

Deus Ex somehow chose not to act like the little laser gremlin that she was, and waited outside for Lucy and I to come and greet her. Maybe it was a courtesy thing. Or maybe samurai didn’t step into each other’s bases without permission because of… common sense or something.

That might make sense, actually.

I opened the front door and held it open behind me for Lucy and the Dumbass that Myalis was currently controlling. Across from me, on the wide surface of the landing area that took up a chunk of our floor, was Deus Ex, the girl sitting on one of her twin laser… hover… things.

“Yo!” I said.

Deus blinked. “Oh, hey,” she said. “New place?”

“Yup, bought it yesterday,” I said.

She nodded. “Nice. I have work for you.”

I crossed my arms. “You know, most people work up to their requests. Maybe a bit of small-talk? Some questions about the family? Polite shit.”

“Do either of us care about that?” she asked.

“Well, no, but it’d be nice to pretend.”

Lucy waved. “Hi Deus Ex!”

“Hello,” Deus Ex said. “Fine, I guess we can do the small talk stuff. I need a bit of a breather. And I guess the work’s not until tonight anyway.”

“What work?” I asked.

Lucy poked me. “You literally just agreed to do small talk first. Come on Deus! We have vending machines left over. We can grab you something to drink. What do you like?”

“Ah, um, anything, I guess?” Deus Ex said.

I eyed the girl for a moment. She wasn’t being as rambunctious as usual. Then again, last time I saw her she didn’t have bags under her eyes either. “Have you been sleeping?” I asked.

“Not since the New Montreal incursion started, no,” she admitted. “I’m running on stims. Or I was, they’re wearing off. I took a cleansing solution to wash them out. I should be fine by tomorrow.”

“You need sleep,” I said.

“I do,” she agreed. “But until the work is all done, I really can’t afford it.”

Shaking my head, I moved over to the door and held it open again for everyone to file back into the museum. Deus Ex paused past the lobby and looked around with obvious confusion. “Is that a scale-model of an Antithesis?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said. “We, uh, don’t know if anyone will be picking that up, actually. I think all the valuable displays are long gone though.”

“So you bought an entire museum. That’s actually a rather unique home for a Vanguard,” Deus Ex said. “I’m sure you could make a lot just charging for tours.”

“Ah, actually, we’re converting it to a normal home. Well, normal-ish. An orphanage,” I said. “You’ve seen some weird homes?”

The girl nodded. “A couple of samurai live in bunkers dug into mountains. One that I met on the west-coast lives in the Pacific. Really deep under water. The Antithesis incursions have landed in the ocean before. Those tend to be nastier than urban fights. Lots of biological stuff for the aliens to eat, and you need to fight in three dimensions a lot more.”

“Nasty,” I said. “I’d rather avoid that, thanks.” I didn’t exactly have a fear of drowning, but I did hold my breath any time a character was underwater in a movie or game. I couldn’t imagine fighting underwater, even if Myalis had… okay, she definitely had something to allow me to breathe water.

“It’s not bad.” She looked around again. “You own the whole building?”

“Just this floor,” I said. “And that bit outside, and some passages that are kinda on this floor, and kinda on the floor below. It’s a little strange, on account of that museum part being lower than the rest.”

“That’s not bad. I’d suggest buying out the lower floors sooner or later. Probably not a priority yet. A whole building must be fairly expensive.”

“You don’t own the place where you live?” I asked.