Chapter Forty-One – Big ol’ Mecha Cats

Chapter Forty-One – Big ol’ Mecha Cats

“On every governmental document, there is a tiny checkbox, entirely hidden in the document’s code.

Once checked, the document is considered ‘complete’ regardless of how much or how little was filled on it. An analyst will check to determine if the providence truly does belong to a samurai, and will then file the document accordingly.”

–IRS ‘Blue book’ instructional manual.

***

To be entirely honest, I really didn’t feel like working, and yes, contrary to what Lucy believed, shopping for stuff totally counted as working.

Mister Tentacles was over in the corner, doing nothing, and both Lucy and I had a lot of free time all of a sudden. There were at least a dozen very fun things we could have been doing instead.

But no, I had responsibilities and stuff to take care of first.

I sighed. “Okay, from the top then,” I said.

“Wonderful!” Myalis said. “If you wish to follow the list Gomorrah outlined for you, then the first purchase you should look into is a method by which to secure your place of residence.”

Lucy leaned back, still hugging the dumbass close. “That might be tricky,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We don’t exactly have a place of residence.”

I blinked, then gestured around the lavish room. “What’s this then?”

“A hotel room? It’s really nice, and I’m sure with your crazy samurai money you could keep us here for a while, but it’s not permanent,” she said. “What’ll happen if you get hurt? Will we get kicked out? What if we want more kittens? They’re already two or three to a room, which is fine since we have big beds here, but that’s a temporary solution.”

I leaned back into the very comfortable bed. “Damn. Alright, so we need a house. Like, a proper place to stay in. Myalis, can you give me an idea of what a place would cost?”

“The range of prices for a home is rather huge, you are aware. Perhaps a few additional factors to narrow it down? I’m assuming you want to stay within the same hemisphere?”

“Uh, right, that’s true. Same city? Maybe… a place with enough room for all the kittens, and then a few more.” I sat up then pulled my legs in and started to pull my boots off. My feet were… completely fine. It felt as though they should have been achey, but my alien boots were too good for that apparently. “Maybe we can buy a place and renovate it?”

“The good news in that case is that quite a few buildings were recently evacuated and are being dealt with by local insurance companies. Some small businesses have also surrendered their leases.”

“Oh,” Lucy said. “That’s great! We could buy like, an entire penthouse floor.”

“I can’t imagine the top floor of a building being cheap,” I said.

“There is only one for sale right now. It happens to be one you’re familiar with.”

It took a moment for that to click. “No way,” I said. Then again, the damage had been fairly extensive, and I couldn’t imagine the folks that had been there with us not suing the ever loving shit out of the idiots who ran the place. And I recalled Longbow being a bit miffed too, what with some of his gear being messed with.

“It’s current going rate is Two-hundred ninety-eight million credits.”

I worked my jaw. “Uh. That’s a bit more than what I have. Is that to buy the building?”

“It’s to buy the topmost floor. Not including yearly utilities. As a samurai, you wouldn’t need to pay taxes, of course.”

“That’s a bit much,” Lucy said. “Like, a big bit much.”

“Yeah,” I replied. But I was still thinking about it. It was a nice enough building. And I bet we could add some decent security. Longbow would probably be fixing that roof-mounted gun of his, which was a nice bonus. And there was parking on the roof and out front. “I’m really tempted,” I said.

“You can’t be serious,” Lucy said. “That place was huge.”

“Exactly. Plenty of space to build rooms for the kittens. It might be really neat. And it needs renovations anyway, so we could armour it up or whatever.” I nodded, liking the idea. “It’ll make for a really cool place to live.”

“You did catch on to the fact that the price tag has nine figures, right?” Lucy asked.